Bearly Hanging On (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance) (The Jamesburg Shifters Book 6) (13 page)

The look on his face was so tender and gentle that she couldn't believe this was the same man who was willing to steal cows, break into grocery stores, and apparently, do pretty much anything else.

"I just don't know," she said. "I can't... you're a criminal, Ryan. I was coming here to warn you, to tell you to stop what you're doing, because you're going to be arrested and then where are these people - where are Cora and Marmite going to be when you're in jail for grand theft?"

His eyes narrowed, boring holes into Jamie's skull. "Where will they be if I don't?"

She was shaking her head, cascade of blue-black hair following the back and forth motion. A gentle breeze, a chill one that reminded her of the coming cold, swept through the little clearing. She tried to pull her gaze from Ryan's, but he lifted his hand, catching her chin between thumb and forefinger, and turned her back. "Tell me something," he said, in that gravelly whisper that made her stomach twist.

She waited for him to continue, breathing deeply through her nose.

"Where did you come from? What's your story? No one knows. I asked West and Elena, both of them said you never talked about it. You want through my walls? You want me to let you in?"

Jamie nodded, averting her eyes from the truth she knew he had. "Fair's fair," she said.

"Uh-huh. Fair's fair."

"Thing is though," she said, pulling her head back, snapping it away from Ryan's grip, "I don't actually know anything about you. I've met some of the people you care for, and I know what I've read in the police reports, but as far as you? I don't know the first damn thing."

He reached for her, but she turned her shoulder, shrugging him off. "We can talk without cuddling." She felt herself getting colder, disconnected, the way she always had when it was time to protect her feelings. She didn't know why, but it seemed like as good a time as any to shore up those defenses.

Ryan lifted one eyebrow and half-nodded. "What do you want to know?"

"For starters, where did you get the money for that house?" she tilted her head to indicate the rather large Victorian two-story behind her. "Doesn't make sense. And you don't seem like some sort of organized crime boss, so what gives?"

He took a deep breath through his nose, exhaling slowly. "Well..."

"Don't play any games. You're no mafia don. I've tried to find out about you, but there's nothing. You don't have a past as far as the - admittedly meager - records of the Jamesburg tax office have it."

He let his shoulders slump. When he did, the huge trapezius muscles running up his neck slouched too, and for a second, he looked almost like he had a normal person's musculature. "There's a reason for that," he finally said. "There are things in my past that I'm... well, I won't say I regret, but I won't say that I'm proud of them, either."

"Yeah, so? We all do. Once I stole a roll of film from the pharmacy. I got home, realized I did it, and was too lazy to go back and pay. Or then there was the time I rear-ended someone in a parking lot." She was scraping to try and figure out other terrible things she'd done in her life, but none of them sounded all that fierce when they came out.

"Anyway, what could you possibly have done? You chop wood for old people, Ryan, you're not some dangerous ex-Mafioso in witness protection..." she trailed off, a sickening lump rising up in her chest. "Which would explain the secrecy."

"If that were the case, the federal government would have put me here. And as I recall, those guys don't really have a clue about this place."

"Yeah," Jamie said. "Although some weird crew was poking around the courthouse today. I don't think Jamesburg's seen that many suits since... hell, I don't know, a suit truck went through town."

"FBI?" Ryan wrinkled his nose.

"Why?"

"Curiosity. You said they were here, and I'm asking about them. It's called making conversation. I'm doing it because I'm feeling trapped and don't want to give up all my secrets at once. For instance, the secret that when I'm nervous, I talk about unrelated topics."

Jamie cracked a smile. "So you're not being hunted by some Tony Soprano wannabe?"

"Not so far as I know," he said. "Although, it would make for a pretty great mini-series."

Jamie thought for a second about interrupting his digression, but there wasn't any reason to make him feel like he had his leg in a bear trap. If nothing else, she was patient. He'd come around. And besides, the longer he was babbling about having an HBO chronicle of his life, she didn't have to spill any beans either.

He reached for her again, and this time, she allowed his hand to catch hers. It was a simple gesture, but one of obvious need. "So not FBI?" he asked again.

"No," she said, distracted by something flitting past her shoulder. "No, the main one, an Agent Branson - hey have you seen Twin Peaks?"

Ryan cocked an eyebrow again. When he did that, he looked a little comical, but it also made the dimple on his chin stand out more prominently somehow. Jamie sorta hated him for always being able to distract her with that damn dimple.

"Sure," he said with a shrug. "Who hasn't? I shotgunned it on Netflix one weekend, a couple years ago, after feeling like I was the only person on earth who hadn't seen it. Now, I leave it on in the background sometimes."

"That's... an odd thing to leave on in the background."

"I like how they talk," he explained. "You know how some people listen to TV evangelists, or the preachers on the radio, just for the sound of their voice, if not to hear the words? Same thing. I don't know why, but the cadence is just perfect. The first episode where Dale goes to the red room? God, that's classic, it—"

"Okay," Jamie said. "I get it, you're a fan. Anyway, the point was that this Craig Branson guy, he looks exactly like Kyle McLachlan. Straight suit, slicked back hair, the whole bit."

"Does he get weirdly orgasmic when you give him coffee?"

Jamie snorted, "I dunno, I'll have to try next time he's around. And," she drew out the word. "Circling back around to square one, he's not FBI, or at least didn't say so. He said he as with the TVA."

"Wait, the thing that FDR set up? You know, he did that as part of a larger-scale make-work program, except the TVA did a tremendous amount for bringing electricity into extreme rural areas."

"Someone watched PBS last weekend," Jamie said, twisting her mouth into a smile. "Ken Burns puts me to sleep."

"When I sleep, I dream of you," Ryan said. That hung in the air like a floating stalactite between the two of them. "I don't think of anything else."

Jamie felt herself blush furiously.
That's one hell of a way to get me to quit asking about his background
. "I, er, well thanks, but that's not really what I meant."

He shook his huge head. "I've never seen anyone like you, never known—"

"You mean the wings?" she flitted them as a demonstration. "Yeah, I get that a lot."

"No," he said plainly. "Your eyes. The way you look at me, and say a thousand things that never come out of your mouth. The way when I kissed you just now, I felt your tongue curl around mine and I wanted you more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. And the way it makes me hate you a little bit for being so able to distract me from everything that needs to be done."

"From dreaming about me to hating me," she said with a smirk. "That's quite a leap."

Ryan shook his head. His determination was easy to see on his hardened, gorgeous, heart-wrenching face. "So close I can hardly tell the difference," he whispered.

The two of them watched one another's face for a moment that felt like an hour. She was waiting for him to make a move, studying his face for a sign that never came that he was about to kiss her again. Finally, she couldn't help it, couldn't keep herself from tasting those lips, feeling his whiskers rasp against her.

Jamie leaned in, letting her soft, red lips run a line along his bristled jaw. She felt the muscles in his shoulders hum with tension, just as her nerves flared to life. With a deep breath, she whispered, "I can't believe I'm doing this," in Ryan's ear.

"Sleeping with the enemy?"

"We haven't slept together," she said with a mischievous grin. "Yet."

"Is that an invitation, Miss Ampton?"

"I'm a traditional girl," she said. "In some ways more than others."

"Give me a for instance?" Ryan's hands rested on the small of Jamie's back, fingers curling against her skin. Each time he did, he brought little goose bumps to the surface and made her breathe just a little harder. "Because from where I'm standing, it sure as hell don't look like it."

"For instance, I only have sex indoors." She paused to nibble Ryan's neck, a little above where she sunk her fangs in three days before. "Unless it's dark."

Another chill, autumn wind whipped through the clearing as the door to the overly ample house swung open and clattered to again. The sound of metal on wood preceded a shuffling of feet.

"Oh for the love of... he finally got a woman, Moo-maw. And he's about to strip her down in front of God and everybody."

Ryan tried his best to keep his face tight and serious, but his raving uncle got to him. He closed his eyes tightly and smiled. "That is my uncle, Boston."

"You have an absolutely fascinating life, don't you?" Jamie reached around her huge bear and grabbed a handful of ass-cheek, squeezing hard enough to make him jump.

"Ha!" Boston squealed. "I like this one. Moo-maw, come look! She squeezed his butt and now he's blushing!"

"I better get going," Jamie said with a sad tinge in her voice. "It's getting late enough that I better check in at the courthouse or someone will wonder where I am, or...”

"Let them wonder," he said, taking hold of her again, possessing Jamie with a gaze and then a kiss. "You have a phone."

This is going places, and quick.

"I want to, trust me, I really want to. But the problem is, you," she punctuated her words with a jab of her finger in his chest. "Are, in fact, suspected of several counts of burglary. And I," she took his hand, kissing the palm, then sucking on the end of his finger just briefly. "Am a civil servant working for the town where you are currently suspected of said burglary."

He took a deep breath. Jamie watched the rise and fall of his chest, feeling the familiar twist of pleasure between her legs and wanting oh so badly to do something about it. "Give me time? Let me see what I can do?"

"I can't," Ryan said. "I've got to—"

She hushed him with a finger on the lips. "You said you dreamed about me? You said you wanted me worse than anything?"

He nodded.

"Then you have to trust me, too. Let me see what I can do, Ryan. Let me try to help. If I screw up, you can go right back to thieving and scheming. All right?"

"Deal," he said.

With a smile, Jamie turned and unfurled her wings, but before she took off, she returned to face him. "And don't think I didn't realize that you never told me about yourself. You won't get away so easy next time."

As her feet left terra firma, Jamie heard Ryan say, "Neither will you."

She closed her eyes, not willing to look back at him for fear of not being able to force herself to leave if she did. Instead, she took a deep breath as the nerves and muscles all over her body twitched, pulled, and flared.

"God," she whispered. "I hope not."

––––––––

J
amie took the scenic route back to the center of town. She needed time to think, time to figure out what she was going to tell Erik, and time to figure out what the hell was going on in her own heart.

That last one? That was the real trick.

It had been six months since Dominic - the dashing, wealthy, prick of a vampire - had left her cold. Or rather, six months since he told her she needed to start doing more for him so that he felt appreciated and heavily implied that she needed to quit her joke of a job and start being his full-time maidservant.

She didn't take too nicely to that, and one explosive fight later, she was back on her own, very glad she never found anyone to rent her little house. She'd never been happier than she was that night to sink back into her own bed for once, alone and with no one touching her.

It took all six months between then and meeting Ryan for Jamie to come to grips with the fact that she needed to be happy on her own terms, not anyone else’s. She didn't need anyone to make her happy.

She threw herself into work, tirelessly rising to every task, every challenge, that anyone put in front of her. Then Izzy got pregnant, Erik got distracted, and she realized just how lonely it was when everyone has a life except you.

Slowly, she circled the courthouse, relishing the high-altitude warmth on the skin between her wings. All those thoughts, those pinpricks of light in the sea of existential angst swirled over her as she swooped in long, lazy circuits.

If I didn't have these wings, I don't know what the hell I'd do to relax,
she thought with a little smile.
Probably take up knitting.

All the languid circling didn't get Jamie any closer to a solution, but it did give her enough exercise that she was able to relax a little bit. When Jenga and the two zombie bears shuffled out - Atlas was wearing a safety guard uniform which was just about the most adorable thing ever - she decided it was probably time to face the music.

Or the wolf.

Whichever.

Her circling brought her slowly down, down, until her stilettoed feet crunched lightly on the rocky gravel of the sidewalk. Erik didn't waste any time.

"Where were you?" he rushed out of the building, in a very obvious huff.

"Were you sitting at the window waiting for me? A longing stare on your face, a single tear on your cheek?" A smirk crossed Jamie's lips.
Harassing Erik. I must be feeling better about life if I'm picking on the big bad wolf.
"Isn't that a little 1980s music video of you?"

"Shut up," he said. "I wasn't waiting by the... okay, maybe I was. But it wasn't because I was pining over you or anything. Where the hell did you go?"