Free Bear Me Away (Alpha Werebear Paranormal Romance) (A Jamesburg Shifter Romance) by Lynn Red Page B

Lewis. She works at the Cannery, though no one seems to remembering hiring her, and she hasn’t gotten a paycheck in... well, ever, actually. Anyway, when we were called, they had her in a back room, and had found her with a sack of little notes that she was sticking in the diced carrots.”
    “That,” Elena said, screwing up her face and scratching her chin with the pen, “is possibly the strangest thing I’ve ever heard.”
    He snickered. “It’s about to get weirder.”
    “How?” She asked.
    “One of the notes? It said “I’ll show her. I’ll show her for forcing the carrots down my throat. I’ll show her.”
    “That’s a little intense,” Elena said. “But it’s a connection.”
    “Intense is an understatement. But that’s what you’re dealing with. I don’t envy you, although I am morbidly curious exactly what she’s doing, and why she hates carrots so damn much.”
    “There’s more to it than that,” she said. She was chewing her pen cap, grinding her pointed teeth into the blue plastic. “There’s something going on here that’s got very little to do with carrots, and a lot more to do with,” she trailed off, losing her train of thought.
    “With what?” Ralph asked.
    Elena shook her head. “If I knew, I’d tell you. But something about this doesn’t check out.”
    Her phone beeped in her ear, and she glanced briefly. West.
    “There’s something going on under the covers here,” she said, her mind a million miles away.
    “Covers? What covers?” Ralph asked.
    There’s a Freudian slip I coulda lived without making.
    “Buh, nothing,” she said, faking a laugh. “I’m doing laundry and I just put the sheets in, and – oh God! Gotta go, someone’s calling. Thanks Ralph!” She clicked off and immediately frowned at how enormous an idiot she’d made of herself, and all she’d seen was his number.
    “He – hello?” Elena gulped, answering the call on the last ring before it went to voice mail. In a way she wished she waited, listened to his voice on the recording to steel her nerves. But who was she kidding? She wanted to hear West’s voice so bad it hurt like the hole after a splinter was pulled.
    “Good to hear that voice,” he said. She could hear the smile behind his words. He had a way of speaking, his drawl deepened, his voice got more lackadaisical, when he grinned. “Tell me something I want to hear.”
    Elena took a deep breath and considered laying a whopper on him. Uh, how about I can’t stop thinking about you and last night instead of lying awake all night, I thought about you and had an orgasm so strong it put me to sleep? She giggled under her breath, and then fought to regain composure by clearing her throat. “Well, we do have an appointment this morning. Are you calling to reschedule?”
    She had no idea why that was her default question. It sounded like a dentist’s office. Next, she thought, she should tell him she’d have to charge twenty-five bucks if he missed a meeting with less than twenty-four hour notice.
    “Can I be real honest with you?” he asked.
    “You’re actually a serial killer and you’re going to turn me into a lampshade?”
    He laughed, and loudly. “Well after that, what I have to say is gonna seem about a thousand times less creepy. I hope, anyway.”
    West trailed off, and made the sort of noise someone does when they push their hat back on their head and whistle in exasperation. Elena felt a squiggle of excitement crawl down her stomach. She didn’t – couldn’t – speak.
    “I couldn’t wait,” he said. “I got to thinking about you last night, and nothing else went through my head for hours. I tried planting things, I tried watching TV. I even tried whittling something.”
    “Whittling?” Elena asked. “I think the bus to Mayberry left a half hour ago.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” he said with a laugh. “But I couldn’t. The only thing in my mind is you, Elena. Unless I see you, I’ll never get anything done. I