Free Bearly Hanging On (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance) (The Jamesburg Shifters Book 6) by Lynn Red Page A

Nothing he did banished the thoughts of those long, black tendrils of hair, or those calm, cool, gray eyes.
    He pushed himself to his feet using his shoulders against the wall for leverage. "But," he said out loud, since no one - not even the little camera that could - was listening. "But that has to wait. She'll come or she won't. She wants me or she doesn't. I can't control her. Hell, I don't want to control her. All I can control is this, right here. Come on, Ryan, do what you do."
    Just like he figured, any place with a security camera that old didn't have the most secure windows in the world. The iron grating, rusted and rough on his palms, had simply come out of the window frame with a little pressure, and the window itself hadn't even been locked. It made sense, in a Mayberry sort of way.
    If things are locked, people want to get at them. If they're just open, if they just invite you in, then there's no thrill, no sport to it. At least, that's how he'd thought way back when. He lived for the challenge and the danger. The wealth was nice, but shedding a massive fortune didn't bother Ryan Drake as much as it would most anyone else.
    Things had never been what he cared about.
    He hoisted himself up and through the window into what he assumed was the manager's office. The safe was open, but empty; though he wasn't interested in that anyway. He would have left it if there was anything to take. There were, however, keys.
    Lifting the key ring off the hook, Ryan went through them, slowly. Some were obviously locker keys, judging by their size and relative flimsiness. The loading bay key - or rather, the key to the huge padlock chained onto the door - was equally obvious.
    With keys in hand, he silently pushed open the office door and descended a short half-flight of stairs that took him down into the warehouse. "Look at that," he said in a soft, but happy voice. "I couldn't have come up with a better plan myself."
    The Fresh Land delivery van, in all its gaudy glory, was parked facing the bay door. It was a large, yellow and red panel van with the store's logo, the name in big, block font, along with a bunch of different vegetables arranged underneath. Alongside that were a number of very happy looking cartoon animals, including a jumping cow with a smile on her face, and a pig doing a somersault.
    "Not quite what I'd drive if given the choice, but... what the hell. Oh, what's this?"
    The door, he noticed, had been left ajar. The interior light was on, but fading fast. I'm gonna do some good deeds after all. If I hadn't come by tonight, this van would be dead in the morning. Call it karmic balancing.
    He shut the door, but not before trying the headlights to make sure there was enough juice left to get the old tank running. Then, he grabbed a hand-drawn pallet jack, the big heavy type, and Ryan went shopping.
    Whistling as he browsed, the naked bear found the desolate, empty grocery store a lot creepier than he ever thought blood diamond vaults had been. Vaults were supposed to be empty, but stores? They were always teeming with life, and noise, and Michael Bolton coming through the loudspeakers. In the dead of night, with no one around, it was a very strange experience.
    His goal was anything with a long shelf life. The meat at this place wasn't exactly top notch, so he would try the other place - Earth Market or whatever it was called - for that.
    That turned out fine - this store was filled to the brim with all sorts of canned vegetables, fruits, and of all the strange things, a whole lot of Mexican foods. So, with a cart loaded full of tamales, tortillas, and enough hot sauce and packaged enchilada dinners to last an entire frat house a semester, Ryan made his way back to the warehouse and unloaded his goods into the van.
    Just the feeling of doing what he'd always done put a spring in his step, even if there was more than a little guilt attached. Stealing from diamond dealers and art thieves never bothered him. Not one