Free A Mate for The Werebear (A Billionaire Bear Shifter Menage Romance) (One Night Stand Book 3) by Sherry Wasson Page A

hook.
    He could wait one more night. He’d make sure she was alive in the morning, and then he’d move on.
    Anthony opened the door to his car and settled into the driver seat to wait. He turned on the AC and tried to block out the scent of garbage. Maybe her pain was simply from living in this hell hole of a building, but her human senses wouldn’t feel as abused as his werebear ones.
    It was strange to think of her as human. The only other woman he’d felt this attached to had been a werehawk. Humans usually seemed like such shallow, fleeting things to him.
    He shouldn’t care about the woman in the window. And yet he waited.

Chapter Two
     
    She was running late for work again. She barely slept at night, but she always lost track of time when she was lying in bed staring at the ceiling.
    Emily cinched the straps of her shoes and headed out the door in her business casual slacks and white blouse. Before she’d lost her family and moved to Seattle to escape the memories, she’d been a fashion designer. She used to care about what she wore. What she wore to the DMV hardly seemed to matter. Everyone was going to wait a long time in line and then hate her. Accessories weren’t going to change that.
    Funny. At her old job she would have claimed accessories were capable of making or breaking your day. She knew better now. The only thing capable of unmaking a person was tragedy, and accessories couldn’t fix that. Grief was like a vicious little creature yanking on the loose threads of your mind until you were an unwound heap on the floor.
    Emily hurried down the stairs and burst out the metal front door of the apartment. Her beaten up old sedan was parked exactly where she’d left it. A man was standing beside it. Emily slowed her steps.
    He looked like he was made for shadows. His hair was wavy and dark and his eyes were gray and piercing. Danger radiated off of him from his work boots to the muscles of his forearms.
    She could turn around and bolt back into the apartment building, but she’d never make it to work in anything that could remotely pass as on time. Emily clutched her keys hard in her hands.
    He was loitering beside the driver side door. His eyes tracked her as she moved toward him.
    Emily gave him a nod and a small smile. “Hello.” She unlocked her car and grabbed the door handle.
    “Nice morning, isn’t it?” the man said.
    It was early spring. Every morning was nice, except for when it was raining, which the clouds overhead were threatening to do. “Sure,” Emily said nervously. She didn’t want to meet his eyes. She yanked open her car door and slid in.
    “Have a good day at work,” the man called before she could close the door.
    Emily slammed the door and relocked it, then her hands were shaking so bad it took her two tries to get her key into the ignition.
    She slammed on the gas and dared a peek over her shoulder. The man was gone.
    #
    Anthony watched her drive away. It had taken all his nerve to make this first contact. Ridiculous. He usually found it effortless to approach a target. He didn’t know why this one had him twisted into knots.
    He should walk away now and leave her alone. It was no business of his why she was in agony. He still had time to go to a bar and find an easy one night stand.
    Anthony climbed into his car and turned on the ignition. He wouldn’t follow her to work, but he knew where she got her morning coffee at. He could casually run into her again while she was waiting in line.
    It was a relief to escape the parking lot. The smell of garbage was replaced by asphalt and the heaviness of air just before it rains.
    Anthony made a deal with himself that he’d see her this one last time, than go find a woman and forget about her. He needed to get back to his tribe.
    The coffeehouse was a cheerily inviting yellow building with red shutters and open windows that sent the smell of coffee to the sidewalk to lure in passersby.
    Anthony liked the smell of coffee. It was