Bearly Hanging On (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance) (The Jamesburg Shifters Book 6) (7 page)

A hushed silence descended over the room, everyone looking back and forth, searching for something to say.

"Good," he said. "Now, what do you have there? Ledgers?"

Izzy handed the ancient looking tomes over. "Just budget ledgers. Going back to the 70s. I don't know how much use they'll be, but—"

"I'll decide that," Branson said, taking the leather bound books with a grin so smug it could rival Erik's. "Although I'm afraid I might catch some kind of spore-borne plague if I open this."

At that, Jamie blew a puff of air across the cover. The resultant dust cloud blew straight into the grim-looking Agent Branson’s face. He just smiled, seeming not to react at all, and said a quiet thank you. "And now, I'm going to need a place to stay," he said. "I'm going to be here a while, I think. If all your records are this annoying, it's going to take at least a year."

"Don't say things you don't mean," Izzy said.

For some reason, Jamie didn't feel as prickly about the new guy in town as everyone else. It might've been that he was able to successfully joust with her verbally, or it might've been that he really didn't seem that threatening, or being realistic, it could very well have been that Jamie's dry spell was bordering on legendary, and she hadn't seen Ryan since she dropped him... well, yeah, dropped him.

"Shit!" she said, out of nowhere, remembering that her erstwhile bear not-boyfriend had apparently left West and Elena's care the night before. "I forgot something. Are we done here? Or do you all need something else?"

She promised not to let him go without checking on him, because - yeah - she'd never actually bit a bear before. She didn't know what kind of effect either the bite, or the antiseptic saliva would have. Sometimes it didn't do anything at all, but like with the cows, it may act as a pretty high-schedule narcotic.

Branson was staring at her, brow furrowed. "I had some questions, but—"

But, she was already out the door. "I'll call you later, see if you need anything, all right Erik?"

He didn't have time to answer either.

"I guess it can wait," the dark suited man with the slicked back hair and the very reasonable tie-tack said. "Is she always like that?"

Erik chuffed a laugh, but said nothing. Izzy, on the other hand, wasn't anywhere as irritated by, or threatened by the presence of, authority. "No," she said. "In fact, I've never seen her act like that. She's normally so calm and collected and cool headed. Usually by the time she gets upset, something's already gotten so bad it takes a miracle - or a little hoodoo to fix."

Erik shot a glare in her direction. "Er," she corrected. "I meant that figuratively."

The look on Agent Branson's face was at once confused, and at the same time, not at all. Which was a little concerning to those in the room paying attention. Which, for once, was Erik and Norman. Erik took silent notice, and watched with a raised eyebrow as Branson collected his things, thanked everyone for their help in a tone that dripped just a little bit of sarcasm, and took his leave.

"Well," Erik said with a smile that was somehow dashing, "that got out of hand quickly. Didn't it?"

Izzy looked from Norman to her mate and then back again. "Give me that bucket," she said. "And yes, it did."

––––––––

I
can't believe I was out for three days. What the hell did she drug me with? I know they said it was just... whatever, vampire magic serum or whatever, but three days?

Ryan paced back and forth down the long, thick rug running along the hall outside of his study.

And how did I let her get the jump on me? I must be slipping. I can't let that happen again. I can't let my guard down, not even if I'm in—

He cut off his own thoughts with a loud snap of his fingers. Ryan Drake didn't fall for people. He brought them to their knees. He called the shots, not the other way around. Ryan shook his head and frowned deeply, pressing his fingertips into his temples.

Need to think. Need to think.

But when he did, all he could think about was her. Those slate gray eyes, that long, flowing hair so black it looked blue in the moonlight. He still felt the way her lips tingled on his neck, still felt the trill of excitement as she sunk in her teeth, and still hummed with anticipation that he'd never forget.

The way her legs locked around his waist, and how she'd held him so helplessly, as though he were nothing at all, nothing but a child, playing at being a man. He wandered into the study and collapsed into one of the thick, heavily-padded chairs. Ryan let out a soft, ironic laugh, and slid two fingers through the handle of his twenty-ounce coffee mug. He turned the hefty vessel around in his hands, letting the steaming Earl Grey warm his palms as he read the words Let Me Sew, Let Me Sew, Let Me Sew. Snowflakes and a Santa Claus on a sled rounded out the mug's decorations.

A corner of his mouth curled into a smile. This mug, like so much else around him, was a fading memory of a long-gone life.

His study was sparsely decorated. A couple of pictures of his aunt and uncle, a handful of knick-knacks, and some Jungian self-help books were about all there was to see, aside from the massive mahogany desk that stood in the center of the room, standing sentinel over absolutely nothing of any importance.

Opening the desk, Ryan slid free a leather ledger book, bound with a string around something that looked like a family crest. In reality, it was just a decorated circle of leather, but the idea of a family crest had always entertained him in a bleak, hopeless, darkly humorous way.

He unwound the cord and in one smooth motion, slid on a pair of absurd reading glasses that were obviously intended for a school librarian - they were covered in images of apples, books, and for some reason, tape measures. He'd never figured that one out. Balanced on the end of his nose though, they gave him the perfect vision he needed to read his tiny handwriting.

The muscles running down the side of his neck where Jamie had bit ached slightly. Each time he moved that arm, he felt a twinge, and then of course, he was back inside his own head, remembering the way she felt against him, the urgent heat of her body, the way she'd sucked, and how it made his head feel like it was floating.

More of the memories were coming back as time went on. He remembered her pushing the hair out of his face after he'd fallen and her talking to him gently, slowly, like a doctor helping a scared kid go into surgery. Jamie had cradled him for a time, but then his memory just went black. He assumed whatever it was that knocked him out took hold, because nothing he could do brought back any more.

Touching the mug to his lips, he sipped gently at the tea, then took a longer, deeper swallow. The warmth spreading through his belly relaxed the tension, but did nothing to banish the thoughts of her.

And when Ryan was planning a heist, the last thing he needed in the entire world was to be pining over a woman. He shook his head, disappointed at himself yet again, for falling out of touch with himself.
Get it together. I haven't slipped this badly since that last job. Then again, I guess that's why it was the last job.

Grocery stores, cattle rustling, he could have done that sort of stuff with his eyes closed, one foot cut off and one hand super glued to the side of his head. Okay, to be fair, the cattle rustling incident didn't go how he'd planned, but he had meant to let himself get caught. Or at least seen.

Then again, he'd also intended on actually stealing that cow and not being paratrooper-dropped by an airborne bat. A gorgeous, curvy, lithe, airborne bat.

He sighed at himself and pushed the memories of Jamie aside again, with a great deal of conscious effort. "Okay," he said aloud, which he hoped would help steel his nerves. "Okay, down to business."

Ryan's dark brown eyes scanned the ledger intently, hoping to see numbers he knew he wouldn't. He'd planned every last, minute detail of this winter flawlessly. Each of the fifteen families and twelve individuals who were under his care had specific needs, and he had planned for all of them.

The panda couple was going to need approximately four hundred pounds of bamboo each to get through the season, but that was already on order; supposed to be coming from a place in Georgia within the week. And then the koalas down the road, Cora and Marmite, were spry enough to grow most of what they needed, although Ryan intended to have some extra stock just in case.

Terry, the crotchety old raccoon, he was no problem since he and the family of mountain goats who lived beside him would eat just about anything.

But that's where it all stopped being so easy. The thing about dietary planning for shifters is that unlike humans, most of them have fairly serious issues with digesting things they aren't supposed to digest. Ryan had heard about a meat-eating rabbit a few months back, but that certainly wasn't the norm. Digestive distress aside, without the right things to eat, shifters, especially ones this old and this frail, weren't going to last.

The rabbits need the vegetables, so do the turtles.
He tapped his pen on the ledger's paper.
And Lora's not eating right anyway, so she'll probably need yogurt and all other sorts of stuff if she's going to make it. And they'll need some protein.
He shook his head.
And the possums, where the hell am I even going to buy that many freeze dried bugs? I'd clean out every PetSmart within a hundred miles.

With that thought, his hand froze.

He needed money. Lots of it, and fast. There was no other way to buy what he - what they needed. If he had an entire year to plan, he might've been able to grow more, preserve more, but now? Aside from money, what he needed was time. If he could go back three months and start planning sooner, start buying sooner, he'd still be pressed for time, but it would be easier.

"But that son of a bitch Danniken," Ryan balled his fists, digging his nails into his palms. "He's not going to give these people anything. And even if he decides to, it'll be too late. The muskrats are already starting to dig in and shore up. I need to do this, and I need to do it now."

He'd held off for as long as he could, more out of a sense of self-preservation than anything else. He meant to raise alarms with the half-assed grocery store burglary, if nothing else, so that he could have some kind of platform, even if it was a small one, on a public access news channel that no one ever watched.

If he could tell anyone about all these forgotten shifters, then maybe, just maybe, he could win some hearts. And, hell, if he didn't get caught, he could steal a whole shit-ton of food.

But I screwed around too long. Got too distracted by Jamie. Lost three days I didn't have. Now I'm running out of time. Politics isn't going to work, asking for help isn't going to work. I guess I've got to get back in the game, just one last time. If I can squeeze by this year, I can start earlier on the next. I can grow enough to get by without—

Ryan's fingers had started to unconsciously spin the pen back and forth across the knuckles without him even noticing what he was doing. "Sleight of hand," he said with a grin. "Second nature."

He spread the fingers of his hand out wide, and before his very eyes, the pen vanished, only to reappear in his pocket. A second later, with the flick of his left wrist, it was back on his knuckles, and he was spinning it like nothing had happened.

"Parlor tricks ain't gonna feed this family," his uncle, who had silently entered the room seconds before, said, breaking Ryan's focus. "Unless you're Criss Angel, anyway."

The big bear snickered, but his uncle's face was tight and drawn. "It's bad out there," he said. "Real bad. Lottie and Sam, they don't have food - hell, they don't have oil for their furnace." He pronounced oil in a way that it rhymed with earl. "We can chop wood all day long, but without a pipe line and a refinery, I'm not sure how you're going to get oil for 'em to use."

Sam and Lottie were a pair of mongoose, close in age to Boston and his wife, but in far worse health. He needed oxygen, but refused, instead wearing some sort of odd contraption he'd made himself, to "keep his nose open," as he put it. Lottie was just frail with age, nothing more or less.

"You're right," Ryan said.

"Well, I know, else I wouldn'a said nothin'," Boston said, sliding into the chair facing Ryan's desk. "Just a question of what we're gunna do about it."

Ryan shook his head, staring straight at his uncle. "You're not doing anything," he said. "Not this time." His voice was stern and solid. "I mean it."

Boston winced like he'd been shot in the pecker with a really hard spit wad.

"I know you're the young one with all the pride and what-have-you, but I've been around this world more'n a few times, sprout."

Ryan hated when his uncle called him sprout, mostly since it usually came with a patronizing pat on the head. Luckily, it was hard to do that from six feet away and separated by a desk. But Ryan just kept staring. His jaws were clenched, the way he always did when he was deep in thought.

"Where the hell were you, anyway?" Boston asked, breaking the short-lived silence. "Moo-maw was worried after you. I guess maybe I was too, a little."

"It was nothing," Ryan said, looking down at the desk, pretending to go over the ledger. "I just had something to do." To further remove the possibility of expanding on his answer, Ryan lifted his mug to his lips, for a long drink.

His uncle let a long, slow, whistling sound escape between his teeth. "Makin' it with some fine young thing?"

Ryan's long sip of tea was cut short by a sputter, a cough, and a fine mist of Bigelow's Earl Gray filling the air. The best part was that most of it hit his uncle, who licked his lips and smiled. "Oh, don't get all upset. I'll leave your business to you, I was just joshin' you a little." He licked his lips again. "Pretty good tea."

"Want some?" Ryan reached for the Keurig he kept plugged in on his desk, and a handful of tea bags. Bears like their tea strong.