Bear Shifters: Hunt Collection #2 (23 page)

Chapter Two

Alexander had just landed yet another big client. With contracts pouring in, his company had never been more fiscally sound. He had come a long way from living paycheck to paycheck in the back woods of Callier Bay. While he normally didn't go out unless he had to, tonight was one of those rare occurrences when he felt a small need to hit somewhere in the public eye.

Driving his candy-red Ferrari around the bend to the Big Dipper restaurant surely made an impression as he parked near battered Chevrolet pickup trucks and non-descript vans. While he may have had the money to fly to Paris for a quick bite to eat, he still preferred the homemade beer-battered fish and chips at the Big Dipper. Money may buy a lot of things, but sometimes you just want what you want.

He had just finished up the last big portion of trout when he heard commotion in the back of the restaurant. Someone was being loud and belligerent and the staff was trying to somehow get him out of the back exit without disturbing too many more customers. Alexander was paying when the man and his stunning date exited the back. As soon as he opened the front door and started into the night air, he could hear the yelling again, coming from the back alley. Alexander, typically one to avoid conflict, walked to the back to check on them.

It was then that he heard the woman pleading with the man that towered over her to stop, to listen, to do anything but what he was about to do. He came around the corner just in time to see the man strike the woman and speed off in his car. Running to her, he knelt beside her, stroking her hair as she tried to stay conscious, a slow blood trickle coming from the corner of her mouth.

She was a broken, but beautiful sight. Her hair was spun around her like a halo, her eyes searching for meaning. A single teardrop fell from her eye, trailing down her face and tumbling onto the pavement. Her eye was already starting to blacken and her jaw was swollen. She looked like she was trying to do something. Talk? Swallow? Something, but her mouth was only making clicking sounds as it tried to adjust to the pain.

Something in Alexander awoke that he'd kept dormant for so long. His heart seized and his breathing quickened. This was to be his partner, this was the one he was destined to meet, lying there on the ground, battered and bruised. After all the lonely years and the mismatched dinner dates, he had met his mate. He kissed her lightly on the forehead, whispering in her ear, "There, there, moonlight. I'll find you again, but I've business to deal with now."

Alexander laid her gently back down, called 911 to report her situation, and then started into the night to find the man.

Chapter Three

Each step Alexander took was faster than the last one. His body morphed in and out between bear and human, stripping off his suit in tattered rows of fabric, as fur protruded where there was once skin. Long, sharp claws extended from where his fingertips were, and his teeth elongated. By the time he was a mile out, Alexander the man was a full-on bear that chased the batterer on all fours. He stopped only every so often to get a better sense of where the man had been moments before.

After two hours covering miles of terrain both paved and wooded, Alexander found him holed up in a local dive motel, sleeping off his evening. Outside the window of Room 104, Alexander watched, waited, and slipped back into human form. He tucked into an adjacent room just long enough to find a towel to wrap around himself. He never really got over the initial embarrassment of morphing back into nakedness.

He casually knocked on the door. After a few hard raps, Alexander was greeted by the man, "Who are you and what do you want?"

"Hello, I'd like to talk to you. Can we step inside?" Alexander asked him as he flashed just enough of his inner bear to make the man stammer his response.

"Sssurre."

"I'm sorry, where are my manners, I'm Alexander and you are?"

"Ian. Now, tell me what you want with me."

"Ian, it's like this. I saw your little performance back at the restaurant and would like certain assurances from you that it isn't going to happen again," Alexander said, watching Ian avert his eyes. While Ian was a strong man, a tall man, Alexander towered over him as if he was a child.

"No problem, fella. Won't happen again," Ian laughed as he tested the empty beer cans to see if there was any liquid left in them. He fidgeted and twitched and Alexander was unsure if it was from the effects of the alcohol or from his presence there.

"No, see, I don't believe you. I do know, however, that after tonight, you won't be anywhere near her again."

"Brooke? This is about Brooke?" Ian asked as he erupted in laughter.

"Partly. She's much too good for you or for any man that beats her," Alexander said as he drew near Ian.
Brooke
, he thought to himself,
her name is Brooke. How beautiful.

Alexander walked toward the man, making as little sound as possible. He got within inches of him and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes, the wildness was taking over and Ian saw the bear start to push to the surface.

"You need to learn how to respect women, how to respect people," Alexander growled as he swatted his large paw down onto the man. His left paw speared Ian's thigh enough to pick him up and slam him down onto the floor. Blood poured from the open wounds. Fear gripped Ian as he saw Alexander flash in and out of bear form.

"Goddamn man, don't kill me! I'll leave. I'll pack my shit tonight and leave. I swear," Ian pleaded with the man-bear.

"I promise you Ian, if I hear of you here, if I see you around, if you even say 'hello' to her again, I'll eat you alive," Alexander growled, hoping Ian would be true to his word and would leave Brooke be.

"I swear, dude. She's not all that. She's not keeping me here. I'm gone tonight, I promise," Ian pleaded again as pain coursed through his body.
The fat bitch isn't worth this shit
, he thought to himself.

"Oh Ian?" Alexander spoke inches from his face, his breath hot and ragged. "That fat bitch? Not only is she worth this and so much more, she's the one I've sought for years, so kindly refrain from commenting on her further or I won't be so nice to you. Understand?"

He heard that?
Ian thought again without having spoken.

"Yeah, I heard that," Alexander said as he walked out the door and into the fresh night air.

Chapter Four

A few days had passed and Alexander was running a bit early for a client meeting. He walked a while and stopped at a local coffee shop to kill time with a bagel and a soy caramel macchiato. He wasn't paying much attention to the crowd come and go, nor was he fixated on anything except the meeting coming up. It was important for his company, and while he had never failed at anything in his life before, he was worried; an emotion that he rarely had.

About ten minutes after he arrived, he heard the bell on the door ding for a new customer entering. His ears immediately perked and his neck snapped around toward the doorway.
Her
, he thought to himself,
it is her again. Brooke.

She looked bruised, tired and unhappy. He hoped she wasn't in too much pain from the other evening when he had found her lying on the cold, hard parking deck. She had her arm bandaged, but didn't appear to have any other injuries other than her swollen lip and bruised eye. Every fiber in him wanted to rush up to her and protect her from the world, but he knew humans didn't understand the instant bond that can form when a werebear found its mate.

Alexander walked up beside her as she got to the counter and said to the barista, "This order is on me, Jessica. Anything the lady wants."

"Why, thank you," Brooke replied, "I really needed a pick-me-up today."

Brooke had ordered a biscotti and a cafe au-lait and walked back to a booth far in the corner of the room. Alexander followed, sitting down beside her.

"I'm Alexander. I just wanted to do something nice for you since you seemed so....unhappy," he said, trying to offer support, while realizing he was still a complete stranger to her. There was no way she could have remembered him while she was barely conscious.

"Thank you, Alexander. I'm Brooke. Just been a really bad week. My boyfriend took off, and while that's probably good for the relationship it really threw finances for a loop and I'm struggling. There's so much and I..... Goodness, I'm rattling on and there's no way you want to hear all this," she said, even cracking a laugh at the end of it. It did Alexander good to hear her laugh. He wanted to hear that more often. She looked healthier than she did scattered on the pavement days earlier. While you could tell the damage that had been dealt to her, you could already see her body coping, adjusting and healing. He wanted nothing more than to stay here with her, learn everything there is to know about her, if only life wasn't getting in the way.

"I'd love to get to know you, at your own pace. I'm already late for a meeting so, if you don't mind, I'm going to leave you my card and hope to hear from you. Please enjoy your biscotti and have a better day, Brooke," he said, getting up from the booth. He gave her a broad smile and a silly phone gesture to signal her to call him; something very unlike Alexander to do.

Chapter Five

The meeting ran late and Alexander had his cell phone off for much of the day. As he loosened his tie and slipped behind the wheel of a lemon yellow split-window Corvette, his first reaction was to get his phone fired up and see if Brooke had contacted him. While he knew the chances of her calling this early were slim, he didn't want to miss it. After a few moments of the phone's initial start-up, his phone stayed silent without an alert to any missed calls.

"Ah well, I'll see her again somewhere and try again," Alexander lamented.

As the car weaved in and out of traffic, he thought back to that second meeting. She had looked like a radiant angel, with a few broken feathers on her wings. He had wanted to take her home so badly, hold her, and keep her from harm's way. At least Ian had stayed true to his word and left. He hadn't thought far enough ahead to think of the ways that his leaving might have negatively affected Brooke, but at least she wasn't being abused any longer.
The money issue can be worked on
, he thought to himself,
perhaps I could hire her for some consulting work or something.

It was about midnight when Alexander's phone started to vibrate off the table. He was channel-surfing on the couch and had given up on calls for the evening. He rose up off the fine leather, grabbed the phone, and saw a text come in.

Tomorrow, 3pm, Coffee house. I'll be there. You? -Brooke.

Without a moment's hesitation or checking his business calendar to make sure nothing else was planned, Alexander texted back:

I'm there. Wild horses and all that. -Alexander.

For the rest of the evening before he lay down to rest, there wasn't anything Alexander could think of other than her smile, the curve of her ample hips, or the way her eyes danced in the light.

Upon waking the next morning, Alexander spent a little more time than usual picking out what to wear. He knew he'd be leaving work early to be able to go to the coffee house by her designated time.

The morning seemed to fly by with Alexander having a much brighter mood than normal. He had spent so much time in solitude that meeting Brooke opened up a new world for him; one where he might be able to share his life with someone.

When 2:30 ticked on the clock, Alexander started to make his excuses at work and shuffled down to the parking deck. Choosing the green Jaguar today, he hopped in and tried to make it to the coffee shop in time. With traffic, red lights and one good growl at someone that cut him off, Alexander arrived at 3:03 and got in line. He saw her in the same corner, waved, and after receiving an iced coffee, made his way over to her.

She stood to greet him and he kissed her lightly on the cheek while saying hello. "I was so glad you contacted me," he said to her.

"I'll be honest, I tried to text or call a few dozen times before I actually hit send. I just didn't know if I was ready to meet someone, you know?" Brooke looked conflicted and still in pain from the events of that evening. It broke Alexander's heart.

"Well I'm very glad you did, I wanted to get to know you better and had to run the other day."

They spent the next hour and a half learning about each other. There were small laughs, casual sighs, everything that signaled to both of them that there would be another date. Eventually, they both needed to be somewhere, and rose to leave.

"I'll call you, okay?" she told Alexander.

"Better yet, let's go ahead and agree to dinner this Friday. Cafe Stevens. 8pm?" Alexander offered, dangling a very expensive and tempting carrot in front of Brooke's social calendar.

"Deal. I'll see you there." She smiled, leaned over to kiss him gently on the cheek, and walked out of the coffee shop.

That woman is going to be trouble for me. I'd do anything for her
, Alexander thought to himself.