Target: BillionBear: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (10 page)

As Jameson passed Madison, she looked up at him, then cut her gaze to Kesley and rounded her lips in a soundless whistle.

“You don’t have to stay,” Kesley said to her sister.

“Oh, yes I do,” McKenzi sang out with ferocious cheer, and if she had been in her cat form, her tail would have gone straight up, the tip waving.

Kesley sighed to herself as Madison introduced them to Noah, a tall dark-skinned guy with his dreads neatly bound back. He wore a lab coat, and beckoned them to the long workbench holding an impressive array of chemistry equipment. “Okay, those pills you sent over showed traces of sodium azide, a preserving compound often found in hospitals. As soon as it hits water, it turns into a gas. If you’d taken a higher dose  . . .” He drew her finger across his neck.

“Turns into a gas inside the body?” McKenzi asked, making an
ew
face.

“Correct.” Madison nodded. “This is a tiny trace, which could be an accident, or there could be more of it, meant to build up.”

“And poison him?” McKenzi asked, putting into words what was already painfully clear.

Maddy gave her a Look that was the equivalent of a spray bottle spritz on a misbehaving cat, as Noah turned to Jameson. “I’d like to test the rest of what you have, to find out how much is in there, and whether the substance was contained in the pills, or added after they had been dispensed.”

“Does it matter?” McKenzi lifted her hands when Maddy scowled at her. “I mean, it’s clear someone tried to poison him!”

“Yes,” Noah said, and Maddy nodded firmly.

Jameson added in his deep, rough voice, “Either the pharmacist tried to poison me, or the drug was added afterward.”

Noah glanced his way. “That’s right. If there’s someone in the field out there poisoning people, we’d better get on that right now.”

Maddy’s smile vanished as Kesley handed over the bottles.

“I really appreciate this,” Jameson said. “Shall we wait?”

“It’s going to take a while,” Maddy said, exchanging looks with Noah. “And as you can see, we’re not really set up for visitors hanging out. Why don’t you go get some coffee at Dad’s, and I’ll know where to find you?”

“Great idea,” McKenzi said—as usual, speaking for everyone.

Kesley could see that her sister was highly entertained by the situation. She turned Jameson’s way, to catch an amused smile from him.

They got into the VW and ten minutes later sat at the back booth at Ralph’s. McKenzi kept looking between them with her cat-got-the-cream smile, which Kesley hoped Jameson couldn’t read, and once they got their coffee, she leaned toward Jameson. “So where do you come from originally?”

“East coast,” he said as he poured honey into his coffee.

“Did you
shift
to California recently?” McKenzi heaped sugar into her coffee, then dumped in a load of cream.

Kesley groaned inwardly, but Jameson didn’t seem to hear the emphasis on the word ‘shift.’

“I was recently in an accident,” he said. “I’m in California for recovery.”

He seemed absorbed in stirring honey into his coffee, and Kesley knew he was not going to say more. She cast her sister a Meaningful Look. “How about we talk about something else?”

McKenzi smiled, plopped her elbows on the table, and turned her attention to Jameson. “Sure. What exactly is your Ms. Evans looking for?”

He lifted his shoulders slightly. “What she calls meta humans. She seems to think there’s some mysterious link between people and animals.”

He paused at this point, staring down into his coffee as he rubbed his forehead, and Kesley was surprised by the intensity of her wish to take his head in her hands and kiss away that faint line between his brows, and smooth the taut skin of his forehead.

“Maybe that would make more sense if I didn’t have a damned hole in my memory,” he admitted, and gave them a half-smile as he lifted one strong shoulder.

McKenzi’s lips parted. “The accident made you lose your memory?” she asked in such sinister tones Kesley wanted to slap her forehead. She glared at her sister. “Ah-h-h-h,” McKenzi said, nodding like a dashboard doll. “That explains
much!”

“Kenzi . . .” Kesley said forebodingly.

McKenzi turned innocent cat eyes toward her. “Why, I was just wondering why Jameson seems to have a headache.”

“Having a giant fight with a bunch of crazy skinheads might possibly explain it,” Kesley said.

Jameson laughed. “I feel fine.” He shot a look brimming with secret laughter at Kesley, and she knew he was thinking about why he felt fine.

“Good,” McKenzi said. “But if the headache comes back, there are some who say that it can
transform
your mood. Oh, wait, is it the other way around?
Transforming
is the important part.” She dashboard-doll bobbed, and Kesley almost wished they were ten and twelve again so she could smack her sister and push her out the door.

But Jameson seemed completely unaware of the stream of unsubtle hints clumping by as McKenzi then asked Jameson if he’d ever seen the
Transformers
movies.

“I don’t remember,” he said.

McKenzi gleefully described them, using the words
shift, transform, change
, and
alteration
about a billion times, each with significant pauses and glances.

Jameson just sat politely, sipping his coffee, while Kesley writhed with impatience and embarrassment. In desperation she cut in with a dire glare at McKenzi. “Evil giant robots aren’t the most annoying things in the world.”

McKenzi gave her a smug, aloof glance that only a cat could manage. Fingertips pressed to her collarbones, she said, “Things? You mean, beasts?” And Kesley nearly groaned out loud when McKenzi said, “You wouldn’t be calling your dear sister a
beast
?”

Jameson didn’t speak, but Kesley felt uneasy, as if something subtle had changed, and she sensed it had nothing to do with her sister’s antics. When she glanced his way, she saw that tense line between his brows.

He rose and said, “Excuse me. Where’s the restroom?”

“At the back,” both sisters said together, and as he walked away with his characteristic alert, silent tread, Kesley leaned toward McKenzi and whispered fiercely, “What are you trying to do? Scare him away by sounding like an idiot? He has
no
idea what you’re talking about!”

“I can see that,” McKenzi said smugly. “But I was hoping to trigger a memory, or get him to feel his beast, whatever that may be.”

“We don’t know for sure that he’s a shifter. That was just my guess.”

“Oh, but we do. Aunt Julia said he’s one.”

Kesley stared as her sister smirked.

“Surprise!” McKenzi said. “She told me when I came into the Primrose to get you.”

Not all shifters could sense other shifters. Kesley certainly couldn’t, as raccoon or human. But Kesley had grown up knowing that Aunt Julia’s pig could smell a shifter with some sense denied to her human form.

“And how fast did that spread around?” Kesley asked with a sigh.

McKenzi took out her cell and began scrolling through messages. “The betting seems to be leaning toward a dog shifter of some kind, with a few guessing porcupine, ant-eater, koala, and . . . Harrison just posted the latest: Lionel Pendergast has thrown twenty into the pot. He thinks your Jameson has to be a rat shifter, because he fights so well. But Abe insists he’s ex-military, so his animal could be anything.”

Kesley shoved aside her cup and banged her forehead gently on the table.

Chapter Nine

Jameson leaned against the sink in the little restroom, gazing into his own bloodshot eyes. What
was
that inside him?

Beast
. Something about that word disturbed him—made him feel as if someone had yanked out his heart and replaced it with bullets and broken glass.
Don’t let the beast out . . . don’t let the beast out . . . don’t let the beast out . . .

That whisper—desperately urgent—matched with the fire and pain and explosive roar after which everything had shut down: body, mind, spirit.

‘Beast’. It wasn’t quite the right word, and yet it was, because underneath the whisper stirred something primal, non-human. Had he done despicable things before the accident that had landed him broken and nearly brainless in the hospital? The vaguest sense of red-hot anger, of brutal exertion, pulsed down very deep.

As he blinked into the tiny mirror over the ancient, cracked porcelain sink, he grimly faced the thought that maybe he did not want to remember because he had seen things,
done
things, that . . . yeah, made him a beast.

He did his calming breathing until the throbbing pain subsided, and the engine of his heart downshifted from red-line overdrive. This couldn’t be good, either. One of those bottles of pills had been for his blood pressure, which he’d been told spiked when his head hurt the worst, or when he’d struggled hardest against the restraints binding his memory. He believed that—he could feel it. Being with Kesley had made him feel relaxed, good.
Healed
.

But that had gone away as soon as Noah started talking about poison.

It was as if something vital inside him clawed to get free, forcing his heart-rate to soar. He exerted every muscle to control himself. Gradually the thick nausea subsided, and he watched his eyes lose the red madness. A final breath, and he loosened his grip on the sink. Maybe he had been a beastly human being, but he would never be one again, that much he could swear to himself, not if he could have Kesley by his side.

Barely two days, and he knew his life was forever changed. In the endless desert of his existence he had found an oasis—no, a tree. She was the water and the word, the strong bark and sheltering leaves, the sustaining roots, the flower and the fruit. Every time he doubted, he had only to meet her wide dark brown gaze—same color as her hair—and there he wanted to be everything that could shelter and sustain her generous nature, her entrancing heat, her wonder and  . . . trust.

It all seemed to come back to trust. He’d found a miracle woman, one he could trust, and he would willingly spend his life being the man she could trust.

He let himself out—to find the gray-haired cook waiting, arms crossed.

“Sorry,” he said, aware he’d been in there for an appreciable time.

But when he tried to step past her, she shifted her step to block him, her wide-set Asian eyes narrowed to slits. “First,” she said, “I don’t want to blame the victim here, but did you bring trouble with you? I mean besides Nosy Parker from NPR?”

“No,” he said. “At least, not that I’m aware of. This was supposed to be therapeutic—I’m recovering from a private plane crash. And to be fair, I don’t think Marlo means trouble. She just wants a story.”

“Wants a story bad enough to be peering through windows behind the hair dresser’s?”

Jameson grimaced. “Really? I thought she was just interviewing people.”

“Oh, she’s been doing that. But she started off the morning by her window peeping, and just now was seen poking around behind a friend’s house.”

He shook his head. “I haven’t been helping her, if that’s what you’re asking, except for trying to master her camera the first day we came. I gave that up.”

“So her poking around has nothing to do with the sudden biker invasion?”

“I don’t know what the hell is going on with those guys, except that their target seems to be me. But I mean to find out.”

She gave a curt nod. “Second thing. Kesley Enkel,” she said in a low voice, “is real popular in this town. Though she would be the last to know it. There isn’t hardly a house in our hills that doesn’t have some of her art, and never a penny will she take from any of us. She only charges the tourists that go to that art fair over the hill in Overton, and even then, she’ll give it away if someone gives her a hard luck story.”

“I can believe that,” Jameson said, wondering what he’d done to cause this woman to confront him.

“She can be taken for a ride, is what I’m saying.” The woman scowled up at him, but he could see more perplexity than anger in her expression. “We all kept our mouths shut when she dated that man-ho from Santa Cruz, last winter. And sure enough, he hurt her bad.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jameson said, trying to control the surge of fury that burned in his gut at the idea of some ass clown dicking around with Kesley’s heart.

He could have sworn he’d masked that unreasoning rage—because he knew he had no right to resentment on her behalf—but the woman seemed to see past his mask, because her eyes widened briefly, and meeting his gaze, something . . . predatory gazed out of her eyes at him. He got this weird, almost dizzying sense that he did not look at a woman at all, but a small creature like a weasel. Then her eyelids shuttered as she turned away.

She turned back, and said in that low voice, “She wants a mate, is what I’m sayin’. You seem like a good guy—Ralph likes you, and he doesn’t like everybody—but if you want to play around and run off, well, find someone else, okay?”

She didn’t wait for an answer but walked away, leaving him standing there as breath caught.
Mate
. A simple word, but resonating inside him like a distant drum beat.
Mate. Mate. Mate
.

He walked through the kitchen, passed Ralph, who gave him a short nod, and approached the table, where Kesley was thumping her forehead on the table as her sister sat back, arms crossed, chortling.

“Dare I ask?” he said as he slid into his chair.

“Do you always tiptoe around like that?” McKenzi asked, with mock affront.

Jameson barely gave her a glance. All his attention was on Kesley, who turned to him in wordless question. He could feel the unasked words,
Are you all right?
and wondered what she saw in his face. He tried to reassure her with a smile.

She smiled back, but it was a small smile before she turned to her sister and said, “Isn’t it time for your shift?”

McKenzi rolled her eyes and sighed. “I suppose. I hoped something would give me an excuse to call in sick.”

Kesley turned to Jameson. “Kenz works at the Crockery, across the street and around the corner.”

Jameson reflected on how alike the sisters looked, with their thick, glossy hair and their round faces and curvy bodies, but how differently they wore their bodies! McKenzi amused him, even if her conversation made little sense, but otherwise she left him unmoved. But he couldn’t get enough of Kesley—her magical hands, so graceful and strong and neat in their movements, the shadowed curve of her neck within the curtain of her hair, the tantalizing hint of her breasts beneath the shroud of her shirt. The extravagant curve from waist out toward her hips—the thought of those hips sparked another spurt of heat within him. He was going to spend an entire night exploring her hips, her beautiful breasts, every entrancing part of her, he promised himself. The fact that he could sense her desire, just as strong as his, heated him up even more.

But he shut that away for now, and sat down as McKenzi reluctantly rose to leave. “Call me if
anything
happens,” she said in a dire voice to Kesley.

“I will,” Kesley said.

At last they were alone. “Do you want to wait here for Maddy and Noah?” Kesley asked, leaning toward him.

“I don’t want to wait at all,” he said—then sat back, lips a thin line, as Abe Rosen entered, looking official in his uniform and badge.

He came directly to their table, gave them a polite nod, then said to Kesley, “Maybe you don’t want to be here for this?”

To Jameson’s surprise, she stretched out her hand deliberately, and closed it over his. “Anything you say to him, I want to hear. As long as it’s okay with him.”

She turned to Jameson, whose heart gave that warm stutter that only occurred when Kesley was near.

“She stays if she wants,” Jameson said.

Abe nodded. “Okay if I sit down?”

Both nodded, and he pulled out a chair, then leaned toward Jameson. “Sheriff Odom has those lowlifes locked in the barn, and a sawed-off across his knee. So I’m here with a few questions. Beginning with, these guys arrived soon after you did. Any idea why?”

“None,” Jameson said, slowly shaking his head. “But I’ve got no memory past waking up in the hospital last month. So if I know them, well, I’m thinking that I need to cruise up and down your main street. If they’re looking for me, they’ll find me—without collateral damage to civilians.”

Abe’s lips moved on the word
civilians
, and Kesley’s eyes widened.

“You’re military, then?” Abe asked.

Frustrated to the max, Jameson spread his hands. “No idea. But I seem to have the moves, so with your permission, I’d like to get back out there. See what comes at me.”

“Seems like they roam in packs,” Abe said.

Jameson shrugged. “From what I saw of those douchenozzles earlier, they have no idea how to fight in teams. They kept getting in each other’s way as much as they got in mine. So if it’s a few, I can probably handle them, but what I need to do is find out what they’re after from me.”

Abe gave a short nod. “Okay. That seems fair. We don’t have much backup, and would rather not call the county guys, or the hotshots in Overton, if we don’t have to. So the sheriff suggested I request people to shut down for the afternoon.”

“That sounds good to me,” Jameson said.

Abe Rosen left, and Kesley turned to him. “I’m going with you.”

He couldn’t talk for a few seconds. Her trust, her generosity, her courage overwhelmed him. God, she was wonderful.
But.

“Only,” he said, taking both her hands, “if you promise to run if things get hot. Snapping wet towels isn’t going to help as much as finding backup. And I can’t do this at all if I feel you’re in danger.”

“I feel the same,” she said, her voice uneven.

“Okay. I’m going out there to let them see me—and as soon as Marlo gets back from poking her nose in other people’s windows, she and I are going to have a little talk.”

Kesley gave a small nod.

“So if things get hot, you’ll run when I say?”

“And get help,” she said firmly.

He leaned over to kiss her. She kissed him back—no quick peck, but open-mouthed, sticky, passionate kisses, that expressed all the worry and longing and love that neither of them were saying. Then they had to breathe.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

Kesley gazed at Jameson, her entire body alive. She had been attracted to him from the beginning, but each day—each hour—he seemed to reveal more amazing variations in expression, mood, intent. Right now he somehow looked taller and bigger than ever, his changeable eyes flecked with the shade of honey beneath the green, and his smile was downright wicked.

They got up from the table, Kesley reveling in the rightness of being by his side, whatever was going to happen. The rational part of her mind still grappled with the idea that they had only known each other a couple of days, but her raccoon was steel-sure.
This is our mate
, said the little voice inside.
We will do what he needs, because he would do the same for us
.

She didn’t say it out loud because she sensed that it was not the time. First she had to help him find his inner animal, whatever it might be. Then
he
would know they were mates, and what it meant.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out, as Jameson’s smile faded, and that intent focus returned to his gaze. “Maddy,” Kesley said, glancing at the caller ID.

Maddy said, “Bandit, is your guy there?”

“Yes. We’re just about to leave.”

“Okay, listen, here’s what I know so far. That poison was dumped on top of the pain killers. And Noah says, the other stuff was legit, except that he thinks it weird that the pain killers and anti-anxiety meds seem to be for a guy the size of a horse. Of course he is not a prescribing doctor, and yadda, yadda, but he thinks someone wanted your friend sedated.
Really
sedated. It’s up to you to decide how much to tell him, given that we aren’t professionals, blah blah.”

“Thanks, Maddy. I really appreciate it.”

Kesley put the phone back in her pocket, and faced Jameson. She watched his expression tighten to a grim bleakness as she related everything Madison had said.

At the end, he asked her to thank Maddy and Noah, adding, “That’s pretty much what I figured out about the pain killers. Looks like that prescribing doctor and I need to have a conversation, but first is Marlo, as soon as she gets back from whatever the hell she’s up to.” He rose, and dropped some bills on the table for the coffee.