Bear Me Away (Alpha Werebear Paranormal Romance) (A Jamesburg Shifter Romance) (10 page)

She didn’t want to read the next words.

“Some kind of plant killer. Some kind of... fungus? I don’t know. Something is killing Jamesburg’s carrots. All of them.”

Elena slid the phone into her pocket and balanced on one foot, then hopped off the timber and trotted to the Buick. Shaking her head, she turned the ignition and sped away, but not in the direction of the address Ralph gave her.

She needed a partner, but with Paul nursing a hangover, there was only one other person she trusted.

She only hoped he felt the same way.

––––––––

W
hat the hell am I doing? Getting a boyfriend isn’t enough, now I need to turn him into another detective?

Elena steered her boat down the road, around a corner, and checked the map. Normally she was a GPS devotee but out here in the Jamesburg boondocks, a lot of places didn’t pick up signal, or were under such heavy tree cover that there wasn’t any point to trying. Anyway, she liked the idea of not having to rely on technology she couldn’t explain to a six year old for survival.

Paul always rode her about that. He’d warble at her for being a Luddite, and she’d snap back and ask what he’d do when the power grid went out. They went back and forth like that all the time, and before West strode into her life with his vegetarian, cowboy swagger, she never felt as comfortable with anyone as she did with Paul and their verbal jousts.

She took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh.

The forest was getting denser, which meant she was on the right path. Only problem is, she couldn’t remember where the turnoff was. As soon as the forest broke and she was driving through fields, Elena pulled to the shoulder and hopped out the window, then on top of the car.

Shielding her face from the sun, she peered around, over top of corn plants, trying to see the road.

What she saw was about a thousand times better than a road. West had his shirt off, and was already somehow glistening with sweat even though he hadn’t left her ten minutes before she took off after him. His huge, sloped shoulders stooped as he entered the house.

In one fluid motion, she was back in the car, the engine was roaring, and she was turning. Left, then left again, and finally a right, she pulled up to the front of his little house.

She approached the door and heard the sound of something falling into a bowl, and then a can cracking. After what they’d just done, knocking seemed a little ridiculous, and after all, he
had
stalked her, so she figured it was turnabout being fair play.

A cop
? She thought, as she crept inside and saw a picture – an old one – of West standing beside someone.
That must be ten years ago, maybe more
. They were standing in front of a long-closed Pizza Inn that she remembered used to be in the middle of the Jamesburg town square.
Is this your secret? But why hide being a cop?

She filed it away in her considerable memory banks, and continued her unintentionally silent approach to the kitchen where she heard some crunching, and a sigh of refreshment. Sure enough, in a little shadowbox sitting in a recess in the wall, was an old badge, the sort the Jamesburg cops keep, even though they’re not supposed to keep them.

That’s why he didn’t call the cops. Something stopped him. I knew that line about reading our reviews on Yelp was a load of shit.
She narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing the badge for a second.
Does he have some connection to Ralph? He seems way too interested in this case for just a random cop who wants to make a point.

And then her detective eyes caught something else, something much more disturbing.

Boxed Star Wars figures?
She shook her head.
I guess everyone’s got a skeleton in their closet
.

Slowly, she approached the open concept kitchen that would have made any number of HGTV hosts very proud. Slate gray granite countertops, smartly designed natural wood cabinets with European style hinges, and an understated, but fancy enough to stare at, breakfast table rounded out the look.

Of course, at said table, sat a very large, shirtless bear, who had a bowl that seemed to hold about three quarts of stuff, eating Grape-nuts and drinking beer?

“Talk about mixed nutrition signals,” Elena said.

“Shit!” West swore, jumping about four inches out of his seat. His knees hit the underside of the table. Grape-nuts sloshed, spilling over onto the perfectly distressed wood of his table, and one of the three beers he had sitting beside the bowl took a quick trip to the ground. Somehow, he saved the beer on its way down. He didn’t seem so concerned about the cereal, which pooled on the table, then ran off the side.

“When did you get here?” he said, laughing at the massive wet spot on his leg.

“That looks familiar,” Elena said, with a grin.

“Yeah well, the other one was about a thousand times better. This one just feels like... whatever Grape-nuts are made out of, stuck to my leg with milk.”

Elena grabbed a towel off the stainless steel double-oven and threw it to him. “Little early for beer, isn’t it?” she asked.

“I guess I could eat a bunch of pine nuts, but, well... Anyway, it’s got some protein in it. That’s good, right?” He flashed that smile that she couldn’t deny, and stood, grabbing her tight and pulling her against his soaking pants. “I’m glad you came,” he said, “but I’m not sure
why
you did. I thought you had to work. Unless you want to spend the day lounging around, and—”

He kissed her neck, and pushed her hair back so he could suck behind her ear. Elena moaned softly, laughed under her breath, and pushed him away. “What I
want
doesn’t matter much. Not right now.”

“Then—”

“I got a call. Actually I got eight of them while we were, uh, indisposed.”

“Is this about my garden?”

Cocking a grin, Elena shook her head. “You ever thought of being a private eye?”

Surprisingly, West looked a little more stunned than she expected for such an obviously dumb joke. “Why?” he finally asked, with a slightly defensive tone.

Elena looked at him, confused. “I was just asking, I saw the cop stuff in the front and—”

Something fierce flashed in his eyes, and then a split second later, vanished. He looked down at the table, and pushed the Grape-nut soup around with the toe of his boot. “Long time ago,” he said. “Too long. That was a different life that I want to leave where it is.”

Not wanting to deal with anything remotely serious, not right then, Elena turned the tables with smoothness that surprised her. “You don’t have a Boba Fett,” she said.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up. “Oh yeah I do, what are you talking about? I’ve got a Slave-One in the box and three different Boba Fetts from the first run of Empire Strikes Back toys, and,” he finally took a breath. “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?” he asked as Elena cracked a grin.

“Maybe a little?”

“I’ll have you know,” he lectured, “those are not dolls or toys. They’re articulated figurines. That set is worth over ten grand. Ten grand! And each of those statues is—”

“I’m sorry,” she giggled. “Did you just call a Luke Skywalker action figure a statue?”

He continued, blatantly ignoring her heresy. “Each of those statues was lovingly crafted and made to exact specifications. They are perfect examples, every single one of them. Look at this.”

West, still shirtless, still beautiful, but also slightly dorky – which made him even
more
incredible to Elena, crossed the living room, a glimmer in his eye. Knowing he wasn’t some perfect, flawless, marble cut-out of a calendar hunk made him seem more real, and that’s what she needed.

He grabbed a Darth Vader. “Look at the detailing,” he said. “His legs, with the exact replication of the texture from the movie. And look at this one!”

After showing her approximately half the cast of the movies, most of whom she’d never heard of before – she was absolutely amazed that he even knew the name of the Cantina band, although slightly concerned for his sanity – West exhaled heavily, like he’d just... well, like he was coming down from a climax.

She grabbed at his crotch, making him jump again.

“Hey! What was that for?”

Elena grinned. “Just making sure you didn’t actually get a hard-on for those toys. I was getting worried for a second.”

He stammered for a second, and then actually
blushed
.

“There’s something I never thought I’d see, as long as I lived. A blushing bear,” Elena said, letting him grab her again. “But I guess I’ll take it. I’m just happy you get that excited about something, even if it is, you know, dolls.”

Laughing, he whipped her off the ground, spinning her around in a long embrace punctuated by the sort of kiss that only happens when someone first falls in love. Tasting love, tasting the joy and the ecstasy, neither wanted the moment to end. Both of them held on, both of them clinging to a love they never thought they’d find, and even though they weren’t ready to admit it, both of them had longed for as long as they could remember.

“So that’s it?” Elena asked. “One long, wonderful kiss, and a long, curious lecture about Star Wars toys?”

“I spilled that cereal, too,” West said, unable to contain his smile. “Saved the beer though.”

“Thank God for the small victories, huh?”

Inches apart, Elena could feel the heat radiating off of West. She wanted him so badly it hurt. The place where he’d been only minutes before ached for him, yearned to have him back, but she knew that at that moment, there
was
something more important – or at least more pressing.

“We need to break into someone’s house,” she said, flatly. “Wait, that’s not exactly what I meant.”

“So we
aren’t
breaking into someone’s house?” He still hadn’t mentioned the cop thing, but at this point she was starting to wonder why. “Or we are. Because last I checked that isn’t really legal.”

“Yeah, half the shit I do to catch sleazeballs cheating on their mates isn’t really legal either, but there you go. Listen, my partner has a friend on the force, and—”

“Is it Ralph?”

Cocking her head to the side, Elena stared with disbelief. “How’d you know?”

West cocked his head to the left, indicating one of the pictures. “That’s him, ten years back. He had a thing for going against the chain of command then, too.”

“I don’t understand. Is that why...?”

“Why I quit?” he asked. “No. That’s not it at all. There were a lot of reasons, actually, but the biggest one had to do with my heart.”

Elena stood back and watched his face, remaining silent. She didn’t want to interrupt whatever he was thinking, but at the same time, the clock
was
ticking.

“It was me, really, is what I mean. I don’t have a heart condition, if that’s what you’re wondering.” He smiled briefly. “I had too much of a bad thing. I was angry, and instead of being able to calm down, I was just getting worse. I’d catch myself seconds away from doing something I’d regret. I always stopped myself from hurting anyone, except,” he trailed off, his mind obviously far away.

West’s eyes moved back and forth like he was watching a video that reminded him of the world before. Absentmindedly, he curled Elena’s frosted copper hair around a finger and then let the coil spring off.

“Except what?” she asked, urging him to continue.

“Except one time I
didn’t
stop myself. It was this,” he swallowed. Elena brushed his face. “I’m okay. There was a guy who was coming home from the Tavern, late at night on a Thursday. December... something. I forget exactly, but I remember the snow. It was falling in slow, patient waves, but falling hard. The roads were frozen, mostly, and the blanket of snow on top gave cars just enough traction to make the people driving them think they had more control than they did.”

Elena watched his face and frowned slightly. She had a feeling where this was going.

“You don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want.”

He shook his big head and then turned his eyes back to Elena. “No, you... you give me this kind of comfort,” he whispered. “You make me calm like nothing I’ve ever felt. I came out here to get away from the things that gave me rage. It worked. I’m calm now. But every so often, I still feel it bubble up. Around you, though?” he shook his head again. “All I feel is peace.”

She swallowed and slid her hand along his jawline, to the back of his head, massaging his neck softly.

“Anyway, there was, this wolf, one of Danniken’s – the town alpha? His pack back before he was alpha. Anyway, this wolf was driving a delivery truck, and stopped off at The Tavern. Apparently delivering toilet paper to grocery stores didn’t carry much excitement, so this guy had a few, as wolves tend to do. He wasn’t stumbling around, wasn’t a walking mess, but he’d had a few. He plowed into a car, and killed the people in it. Almost all of them. Only good part is the little kid in the back made it.”

“Jesus,” Elena said. “That must’ve been horrible.” The fact that the guy came from the cannery stuck in her mind, but somehow she managed to not say anything. Keeping her mouth shut wasn’t one of Elena’s strong suits, but the pain on West’s face made it easy to support him instead of blabbering.

“The car wrecks were the worst. Worse than gunshots, worse than stabbings. Worse than anything. But that wasn’t it. With this,” he caught himself. “That job, you learn to turn off your emotions until shit is taken care of, then you can cry later, you know?”

She nodded.

“Anyway, what did it wasn’t the wreck, or the bodies, it was that the guy didn’t give a
fuck
what he did. He was standing there, pissed off at the world, and he couldn’t have possibly cared less.”

“What happened?” Elena stroked his cheek.

“I almost killed him. I don’t remember it, not at all. I remember taking the first swing at his smug face, and then... yeah, nothing. Ralph stopped me. It took a lot of Tasers and a lot of rubber bullets, but after that? I couldn’t go back. So, I came out here.”