Alpha Bear Detective: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (6 page)

Detective Hale frowned. “If you don’t want to be alone, I can stick around until then.”

Please.

But she couldn’t keep a police detective hanging around because she was scared of an empty house.

So she made herself smile. “Oh, no—I don’t want to get in the way of your job! I’ll just start a game on my phone or something and I’ll probably be asleep in five minutes.”

He checked his watch. “I’m off-shift in twenty minutes. It wouldn’t make any sense for me to drive all the way back to the station just to leave again, so I might as well stay here. And ensuring the safety of an important witness is part of my job.” His mouth quirked.

“Well—” She hesitated. “All right.” She hadn’t been looking forward to the empty rooms around her after he left.

Except now she was standing alone with him in a bedroom, and that was putting
altogether
the wrong idea into her mind about what they could do as a distraction…the bed suddenly seemed enormous, looming in her vision.

“How about we go sit on the couch?” she offered weakly.

“Of course,” he said, somehow making it not-awkward, and gestured:
after you
.

They settled themselves on the living room couch, and Maria resigned herself to awkwardness again. “I don’t think I’ve said thank you yet, Detective,” she started. “You arrived just in time for Laura and me.”

“I would’ve preferred a few minutes earlier, myself.” He shook his head ruefully. “And we’re not at the station anymore—you can call me Levi if you want.”

“Levi,” she repeated. She wasn’t sure she should give up the artificial formality of
Detective
—it was a good way to remind herself that this man was doing his job and was not for hitting on.

But who was she kidding—she wasn’t going to keep calling him by his title now. Who knew, maybe after this insane Humans Against Shifters thing was over, she and Levi could—

No.
She wasn’t dating right now—
focus on your job, Maria!

And like a gift, Levi said, “So how did you start working for Senator Davis?”

*              *              *

Levi was grateful to Maria for getting them back out of the bedroom and onto the relatively neutral territory of the couch. Standing with her in the small room with the bed right there had been putting the wrong type of thoughts into his head.

So he asked her about her job, hoping to keep the conversation also on neutral territory. Granted, he didn't do it until after he’d asked her to use his first name, but
Detective
just sounded so…formal from her.

And the way
Levi
had sounded when she said it back…he liked the sound of his name in her mouth.

But he reined himself in after that. Not that he wasn’t interested in her work—that was the problem. Everything about her was interesting.

“I started out volunteering with the campaign,” Maria said. “Laura was in Chicago for an event—that’s where I’m from.”

“You left Chicago for Springfield?” Levi couldn’t imagine.

“I—this is going to sound terrible, but I wanted some space from my family.” She blushed—it was hard to see on her light-brown skin, but he could tell. “They can be a little…smothering.”

“I know the feeling,” he admitted.

She flashed a quick smile. “I wanted to get involved, make a difference. I really believe in Laura’s work, and she’s doing an amazing job of paving the way for shifters.”

He couldn’t help but ask, “That’s important to you?”

She nodded. “Oh, yes. It’s horrible, how some people don’t believe they’re anything more than animals. They don’t understand, and so they’re afraid—and when people are afraid, they can do some terrible things.” She smiled sadly. “Like tonight, I guess.”

“Just like tonight.” He leaned in. “But why shifters in particular? Was there a reason?”

“Not really. Or—” she hesitated. “Well, I guess there is kind of a reason.”

“Yes?” he prompted when she didn’t go on. “If it’s private—”

“No, no, it’s just a story from when I was a kid.” She took a breath. “So once, my family and I went camping up in Wisconsin. We were out in the woods, and one night I got up to go to the bathroom—I was about eight—and I saw a bear.

“I froze in place—I was so scared, I thought I was going to be eaten. I couldn’t even scream. And then the bear transformed into a man. He told me not to be afraid, he was just a person like me, and then he turned back into a bear and ran off into the forest again.”

She made a frustrated gesture. “And now whenever people talk about dangerous shifters, I just—I think of that man. They’re just people like us. They’re not any more or less scary than another person. One man with a gun can do a lot more damage than one shifter.”

She looked sidelong at him, suddenly a little shy. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to get all political on you—”

“No, it’s all right. In fact—I have a confession to make.” He shouldn’t be doing this, probably; he hardly ever told people what he was. But if there was anyone who would understand—

She looked curious, the shyness disappearing. “A confession?”

It was going to sound like a line after her story about the bear in the woods. He stood up. “Maybe it’s better to show you than tell you.” The living room had enough room, he judged.

“Show me wh—oh my God!”

Levi shifted smoothly, feeling himself grow until he had to fall down to all fours to keep his head from touching the ceiling, until he was a full-sized brown bear filling all the available free space in the room.

And all of a sudden, he could sense Maria with his full capabilities—see her, smell her, taste her in the air. It was intoxicating.

Maria’s mouth was open, her eyes wide. “You’re—I had no idea.” She reached out a hand, then immediately snatched it back. “I apologize, I didn’t mean—”

He leaned forward, carefully so as to avoid crowding her backward, and nosed at her hand. She smiled and lifted it again, petting his nose.

He was surrounded by her scent, and he would’ve been happy to just breathe her in, and then lie down on the floor in front of the couch and guard her against armed crazies for as long as she wanted. Instead, he reluctantly pulled away after a minute and shifted back.

“There,” he said once he was human again. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

“Didn’t—of course you didn’t have to tell me earlier!” She looked indignant. “You didn’t even have to tell me now. I’m grateful that you did, though. You’re—very impressive.”

He coughed. “Thank you.” That was always nice to hear from a beautiful woman.

“And here I’ve been talking all about shifter rights—I hope I haven’t offended you.”

“No! Not at all. I’m very glad you’re doing the work that you do. It’s good to know that not everyone’s afraid.”

“Not everyone’s afraid,” she said firmly. “And I think that you’re an excellent example of why they shouldn’t be—you’re a police detective. You help people for a living.”

“Thanks, although most of the shifters I know don’t do anything like this.”

“Oh?” She was clearly curious, leaning forward, her eyes sparkling, but she equally clearly didn’t want to ask anything too personal.

But he didn’t mind telling—he was sure she would understand. “Most of my family lives in rural southern Illinois. They don’t want to live in the bigger cities—they say they don’t like humans, but I think that’s just because they’re afraid of what people might think of them.”

Maria bit her lip. “It’s too bad. I know people can say and do some awful things—”

“But that’s not going to solve the problem. And we’ve been given this amazing gift.” He waved a hand, having a hard time expressing what he was thinking. “This truly fantastic ability. We can do things that other people can’t. And I don’t want to just hide away in the middle of nowhere, shifting and running in the woods with my family. I want to
use
it. I want to help people.”

“Wow,” said Maria. “That’s really—most people wouldn’t do something like that.”

“You would,” he pointed out. “You’re doing it now. I can tell how smart you are, and you kept cool in a crisis like almost no one can, and you’re using your skills to help people. To help shifters like me.”

She was really blushing now. “I didn’t—”

“You did,” he insisted. “Trust me, I see a lot of crises and a lot of people who can’t handle them. You can handle things going wrong, and that’s an incredible skill. And you’ve chosen to use it like this.”

“I do get paid.” She was still blushing.

He tried not to find it cute. He wasn’t sure a capable woman like Maria would appreciate it. “Well, so do I.”

She laughed a little. It was nice to see her smiling and laughing, after how she’d looked when they arrived. “All right, all right, point taken. I’m still impressed, though.”

“I’m not going to argue you out of
that
.”

She laughed again. “What’s your hometown like? Is it all shifters?” And then she immediately backpedaled—“I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that if it’s too personal—”

“Not at all.” He was beginning to think that Maria had been working for a politician for too long. She kept second-guessing herself about all of the possible implications of what she said. “Yes, it’s pretty much all shifters. Very insular. I’m the only one in my family who left—everyone else just found their mates as soon as possible and settled down.”

“You’re the rebel.” She was smiling a little now, her blush forgotten. Her eyes sparkled.

Levi wanted to make her smile more. A lot more. “That’s me. I also didn’t find my mate at seventeen like most of my siblings.”

“Is it really just like a bolt from the blue?” She bit her lip. “That probably is too personal.”

“Well, it hasn’t happened to me yet, so I can’t say from experience.” Levi shrugged. “But people say different things—some people knew instantly, the second they met, that they were destined for each other, and some other people just felt a really strong attraction that deepened as they got to know each other. So I guess it depends. My siblings mostly ended up mated to locals, people they’d known in school.”

“But that wasn’t for you, huh?”

He shook his head. “I want a woman who’s out there in the world, getting things done, not staying home with the shifter clan. It doesn’t even matter to me whether she’s a shifter or not.” He’d never mentioned that to his parents—his father would probably have a heart attack.

“Can that happen?” she asked.

He nodded. “It’s not common, but it happens. It’s probably good for us not to be marrying each other all the time, anyway.”

“Makes sense.” She turned a bit on the couch, facing more toward him, and their thighs almost brushed. He realized that they were much closer than they’d been when they sat down—they must have been inching toward each other while they talked. He could feel the warmth of her thigh, almost close enough to touch.

To distract himself from how close she was, he said, “Any other questions about shifter life? You must know a lot already, working for the senator.”

“Not about the big predators.” Maria’s mouth quirked. “They tend to be very—insular, like you said. I completely understand, because they’re the ones people are most likely to decide are dangerous, but it means that we hardly ever meet any of them. And Laura didn’t grow up knowing any large predators—apparently sparrows and bears don’t socialize much.”

“Not much,” Levi agreed. “That’s another thing that’s too bad—shifter types tend to keep to themselves. We’re pretty much all bears, back home. It makes running in the woods together really fun, but it keeps us isolated.”

“Do you all have—instincts? Enhanced senses? Is it hard, living on top of each other all together?”

“Sometimes. That’s why we’re way out in the middle of nowhere—I say, ‘my hometown,’ but what I really mean is a bunch of loosely connected clans out in the woods. You’re right—alpha instincts are a pain when you have too many of them in one room. You should see my brothers fight sometime.”

Maria shook her head. “No, thank you.”

“It’s a sight.”

That was another part of why he’d left home—he had never wanted his alpha instincts to overrun him with his family. With non-shifters, or even just with non-predators, he was much more likely to feel protective than combative.

Most humans, anyway. If he found that shooter, for example…

Time to change the subject. “The enhanced senses aren’t really a problem, though—family smells good.”

“Oh.” Maria blushed a little. “I’m always worried around shifters—I know most of them have very good senses of smell and I don’t want to smell bad.”

“You smell great.” Oh. He probably should have thought before he spoke—that was suggestive. “I mean, your—perfume, or whatever it is. It’s very nice.” Was that better, or worse?

“Thanks.” She was blushing more now. “I would’ve thought that after a night of running away from bullets, it would’ve worn off.”

“You don’t smell scared anymore,” he said. “You just smell—like you. It’s nice.”