Free Bearly Healed: Pacific Northwest Bears: (Shifter Romance) by Moxie North Page A

the fatigue hit.
    “Fucking wimp,” she ground out. This was not acceptable. Being weak from a shower was not who Cassie Hackett was. Cassie was a kickass, ball busting, rocker chick.
    Luckily, she was rescued by a tapping on the door. “Sweetie? Do you need any help?” It was Connie. She’d been waiting for the sound of the shower to turn off.
    “Yeah, please,” Cass called out.
    The door opened, and Connie slipped in. “I was waiting for you to call me, but then I heard the shower start. I hope you don’t mind, but I kind of hovered around the door in case you needed me. Or I heard some terrible crash or swearing,” she finished.
    “Thank you. I got this far alone, but now I’m wiped,” she explained.
    “Of course, but we’ll get you strong again. Now how can I help?” Connie said grabbing an extra towel to dab at her hair.
    “Well, I need to dry off and get dressed before I can get my braces back on. I forgot clothes, though, so I’m not sure what I would have done on crutches trying to hold up a towel,” Cassie said ruefully.
    “Probably given my poor husband a shock, that’s for sure,” Connie tittered.
    Cassie laughed. She could imagine the look on Edward’s face if she flashed him a little ass.
    Connie helped Cassie dry off. She ran into her room and got her some stretch pants and a faded Ramones t-shirt. It was one of Cassie’s small shirts, but she didn’t feel like fighting with one of the baggy ones she’d stolen from Dax.
    Connie also brought in a chair for Cass to sit on. She let Connie dry her hair. As the brush pulled through her short hair, she let her eyes drift shut. Cass couldn’t remember the last time someone dried and combed her hair. There were no childhood memories of it. She did remember the school sending notes home about her hair being dirty and unkempt. Her mother’s way of fixing it was to cut all her hair off. She had shown up to school with uneven, ragged hair all over her head. Her teacher took pity on her and kept her after recess to even out the mess as best she could.
    Cassie had never let her hair get long after that. She was afraid to. Even as an adult, she was very aware of how she looked. Better to be outlandish than for anyone to think that the way you look is because you can’t keep clean.
    “How about some mousse?” Connie asked quietly.
    Cass dragged her eyes open and saw her hair was shiny blonde and resting softly against her head. Without her normal crazy dye and hair pomade, her hair was almost cut in a boy style.
    “No, not now. It feels good like this,” she said sleepily.
    “Okay then, how about instead of breakfast in bed, we have breakfast on the couch?” Connie suggested.
    “I think I can handle that today. Sorry I’ve been such a recluse,” she said, reaching for her crutches.
    “You were just settling in, dear. But what was the big change from yesterday?”
    “Cash,” Cassie said.
    Connie looked at her in surprise, her eyes meeting hers in the mirror. “Cash?”
    Cassie didn’t see any reason to not tell her, so she did. “Yeah, he snuck outside last night and brought me cookies to my window,” Cassie said this with a smile as she remembered touching his big warm hands when she took the preferred cookies.
    “Why that naughty little…” Connie said with no anger in her voice.
    “Yeah, he was nice. Talked to me. Promised to bring me fast food burritos if I reentered the world,” she said mockingly.
    “Well, if that was all it was going to take, we would have had Taco Tuesday the first night you got here!” Connie exclaimed.
    Cassie gave a small laugh. “Well, having someone knock at your window in the dark takes you off guard. I don’t know; he has a way of talking that made me forget for a while.”
    “Forget what, dear?” Connie asked gently, placing a soft hand on her shoulder.
    Meeting her eyes in the mirror again, she answered, “Everything.”
    Connie’s heart broke a little at that. “Well, I can’t lie,