Target: BillionBear: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (15 page)

Kesley made a small noise. She knew it would be a long time before that memory ceased to make her shiver.

He went on, “The last thing I remember before I lost consciousness in the crash was thinking over and over that
I had to hide the bear
. I guess that’s what took down my memory, more than anything else. Because basically I lost every memory after my first shift, except for random glimpses of my life with no shifting. Because my dad and my brother are both shifters as well.”

“Wow,” she breathed. “Somehow I never thought that losing your memory could be a self-protection thing.”

“Unfortunately, it played right into Beth’s hands. Because she has to be the Boston rich bitch.”

“Your stepmother?”

“Let’s just call her the lying, gold-digging jerk who ruined the end of my father’s life. Though I suspect she wouldn’t have gotten away with it if the stroke hadn’t left him pretty wiped out.”

Kesley’s heart hurt for all these people she didn’t know, as Jameson went on. “So I woke up in the hospital with no idea who I was, and even when basic stuff trickled back, the shifter side stayed hidden. The bear was just a voice inside me—one I thought was some kind of weird psychosis as a result of my injuries. But the instinct was super strong to keep it secret, even when the bear roused enough to warn me, like not taking those damn pills that I am increasingly sure Beth poisoned. When I think back, I distinctly remember her using my bathroom. That was right before the dose that made me puke.” His voice went husky, all smoke and whiskey. “Kesley, I want to tell you everything. I need to. But may I use your phone first?”

“Sure. In my shirt pocket.” Somehow she managed to keep her voice steady, but every muscle quivered with reaction, and her eyes stung. Poison—accident—Kesley had never been the violent type, but she wanted to drive until she found that Beth and toss her into a volcano.

Warmth radiated through her as Jameson caressed her shoulder, then slid his fingers into her pocket, brushing against her breast. The warmth promptly became heat, and she cast him a quick smile, to see him smiling back. Horrible as the day had been—and despite the fact that they were both filthy and blood-spattered and full of questions—that smile held promise.

She was still scared, and confused, but she was with her mate.
We’re going to be all right, because we are together.

He pressed numbers slowly—who memorized phone numbers anymore? But a few seconds later he said, “Charlie? It’s me. Thanks for backing me up, bro.”

Chapter Twelve

The thing that made Jameson angriest about all Beth’s lies was the wedge she’d driven between him and Charlie. The brothers had been best friends all their lives—even when they squabbled, it was never serious.

She’d managed to twist everything. No wonder he kept feeling like nothing fit. This was why the sight of his brother had disturbed him more than anything else he couldn’t remember.

He tried to keep his report short. “I’m pretty sure that she not only hired those thugs, but was trying to poison me as well. I’ve got the evidence in town here. What I don’t know is why.”

“Because I’ve been one step behind her, and she panicked, Jay.” Charlie’s familiar voice was firm at the other end with residual anger. “It started with the plane crash. She thought the FAA would rush it through and find pilot or mechanical error, but I was able to get the local DA to throw a cordon around the wreckage, and the authorities and I are near to sorting out who does the forensics.”

“Oh, I think you’ll find sabotage,” Jameson said grimly.

“No surprise there, or she wouldn’t have gone bat-shit over it, and done her best to first get you to sign over everything to her. But while I couldn’t get in to see you at the hospital—”

“Sorry about that. She’d given me this bull about how you were trying to kill me.”

“I figured that out later. The thing is, I managed to get through to your doctor, and he believed me enough to refuse to let any lawyers in to force papers on you while your memory was gone. Then I blew it trying to get there to see if the sight of me would do anything for you, and next thing I knew she had you bundled off to California under a false name.”

“Shit.”

“And she fired the decent doctor. She found some shady guy who’s been under investigation in a couple of states. I feel pretty sure his medical license will soon be toasted. Anyway, I am so glad your head is back in the game. It’s the best news I’ve heard since—well, since before Dad’s first stroke. Can I call Mom, or do you want to do that yourself?”

“How about we call her when this is wrapped up? I don’t want to add any more shit to the pile Beth has already buried her in.”

“Right. Speaking of which, I have guys poised back east—but I can talk to you about that later. Listen, Jay, I’m going to hole up and make a bunch of serious phone calls so I can get her and her buddies locked down tight before they desert the sinking ship. Because we have to assume one of those idiots she hired to snuff you called her, if only to jack up the price, since it looks like you were more difficult to take out than they thought.” Charlie chuckled grimly.

Jameson laughed at how piratical his buttoned-down lawyer brother sounded.

“I’ll call you when I’m done dealing with the shit back at home. Will this number still be good?”

“Yes. The phone belongs to Kesley. My mate.”

“The pretty one with the brown hair I saw trying to get in there to save you? I gotta meet her. But later.”

“Later, bro.”

They hung up, then he took Kesley’s hand again. Once more she gave him that smile like the first rays of a new sun, and he felt measurably better in spite of the shocky cold nerves from the rib wound. But he knew how to handle that.

He blew his breath out. He
knew
how to handle that. Oh, how precious was memory!

“Can you tell me more?” Kesley’s voice was small, worried.

Another surge of warmth flooded him.
She’s the one
, his bear said contentedly.
You were right
, Jameson thought, and the bear sank below the surface, preserving what little remained of his strength: he was going to have to get through what would probably be a long day.

First, and most important, getting everything square with his mate.

“Here’s the basics,” Jameson said. “A few years ago my father suffered a stroke. He went into a private rehab. The nurse in charge was Beth Cannon. We couldn’t prove anything, but we were pretty sure she lied, hiding his real status from us—with his connivance only in the sense that he badly wanted to be better. The short version is, she gaslighted him into divorcing mom and marrying her.”

“Wait, aren’t there laws against that?” Kesley asked as she drove down Pacific Coast Highway toward Upson Downs.

“Doesn’t matter. Mom wouldn’t contest. She didn’t want to put my dad through it. So Beth took everything—the houses, the yacht—basically Mom, Charlie, and I lost our home.”

“That’s awful.”

“It gets worse. Of course she’d soaked him for every penny she could get, but she had her eye on the really big ticket, the building in New York City, which includes the law firm. She tried to get him to sign a new will. But Charlie was able to do an end run—he made partner last year.”

“Are you a lawyer, too?”

“No, I stayed in the service until Dad’s stroke. Then I took over his charities, the biggest being international rescue after natural or political disasters.”

“So what happened to cause the accident?”

“I was overseas, helping with Syrian evacuation—this was right before everything started going to hell.” He saw her eyes widen, and shook his head. “I guess I’m telling it backwards. It’s long family tradition to serve in the U.S. Army Rangers. Our father was one. Charlie served two years before going into law school.”

“And that’s where you were in a plane crash?”

“No,” he said. “It was when I came back, right after hearing about Dad’s passing. Our private jet came to pick me up. I remember it going down . . .” He shook his head, wincing as the old, familiar pain throbbed.  Only this time, with it crowded the memories of the pilot’s voice escalating from disbelief to rage to fear, and the sight of the cabin with all the red blinking lights.

Sabotage?
Oh yes. And Charlie was right on top of it.

“Oh, here we are,” she said. “Uh oh, it looks like there’s a welcome committee. I’m sorry.” Her voice was contrite. “We, um, tend to know each other’s business.”

The impulse to take her in his arms nearly overwhelmed him, followed by a dizzying kind of hilarity that he hadn’t felt since childhood when he looked around at his family, loving them all. In less than a week he had come to love Kesley Enkel with a deeper ferocity, because it was his choice. Childhood love is unquestioned, but this love was one he’d chosen, made by mind, body, and spirit.

And because he loved her, he could sense that he might come to love this quirky little town and its quirky people, healing the roots that had been ripped away when Beth Cannon broke his family and stole his home. Even if they got the Boston house back, he knew he could never live there again. It was too filled with memories. Charlie might feel differently—which was okay. He could have it.

What Jameson wanted was right here.

It looked like half the town had gathered at the Hotel Primrose, spilling out along the sidewalk.

“It’s okay, Kesley. Those people came out to help me, without knowing who I was, or any reason why they should. And without any training whatsoever. If they want to line up and grill me, I think they’ve more than earned the right.”

His reward was the brightening of her expression as she pulled up and parked.

Glaziers were busy putting new windows in the hotel front as he eased himself out of the car. Pain shot through him from cuts and aches he hadn’t noticed; splotches of dark red added to the general stains on the ratty jeans.

“A bear? You’re a
bear!
” Chick was the first one to greet him, his voice breaking like a kid’s. “That’s so
awesome!
”

“And you?” Jameson asked.

Chick’s gaze sidled away. “What do you think?”

Jameson remembered ‘Thunder-Chicken,’ and said, “Hey. A rooster would make a damn good spy if there are any more bad guys hanging around.” And he watched Chick’s whole demeanor brighten.

‘Yeah,” Chick said. “Hear that, Dad? I could be a spy . . .”

“What happened at Dottie’s?” Leather Apron was there.

“
I
can fill you in,” Chick turned to him. “I was the guy giving the signals  . . .”

“Quiet, Chick,” four different people said.

His dad added dryly, “Let the man speak.”

“Was that your first shift? Did you know you were a bear?” Julia Bashir asked.

Jameson shook his head. “I lost my memory in a plane crash. Also lost my shifter self.”

Then he was surprised by his quiet, dreamy, but sensible Kesley speaking up. “How about first letting him get patched up, and into his own clothes?”

McKenzi popped up from the perimeter. “Bandit’s right. Not to mention, if everyone in town is standing around here, won’t it look suspicious if the state police come roaring up Main Street and see this gigantic crowd?”

“Very true,” Julia Bashir said, making shooing motions with her hands. “All of you had better go home. When there’s any word, we’ll pass it the usual ways.”

David grinned, hefting his cell phone as he slipped outside.

People began milling toward the door, murmuring, then stopped as little Grandma Zhao walked up to Jameson. “You have our gratitude for what you did today,” she said. “But I think many of us are wondering what you will tell the police when it is your turn to be questioned?”

He looked down into her patient gaze, and knew what she was really asking. “Nothing about shifters,” he said. “In fact, I don’t plan to mention any of you people, though you and I know who saved my ass. I’m going to claim I was there alone, and got lucky when some local wildlife ran through, drawn by the noise.”

Grandma Zhao nodded with dignity, and as she turned away, everyone else began to fade.

Except for Chick, who halted, his glasses flashing. “But they saw you shift into your bear.” He looked anxious.

“Listen, Chick, if  those boozed-up ass clowns talk about bears, I’m going to point out the crap I saw lying on the kitchen counter, which from the stink in that place, they’d been smoking for days.”

Chick let out a crack of laughter and walked away, his thumbs working as he texted.

Julia Bashir saw the rest of the crowd out of the lobby, glanced at Jameson and Kesley, then smiled and withdrew to the inner office, leaving the two alone. One minute later they reached his room.

He began kicking his way out of the disgusting biker jeans, which, from the smell and feel, had avoided the laundry for at least a decade. They were going into a hazmat container, he promised himself. “Hot water, as hot as I can stand it,” he said, grinning at Kesley. “Join me?”

“Yes. But first we wash out those cuts,” she said.

At the thought of her magical touch, he nearly lost it and grabbed her right then and there.

Five minutes later they were both in the shower, hot water pouring on them as Kesley gently soaped and searched each wound to make sure there was nothing nasty in them. The water ran red, then pink, as she worked. His reward for standing still under her ministrations then began: her fingers gently kneaded every knotted, aching muscle, and euphoria began to replace the tension and bone-deep ache muscle by muscle, limb by limb.

Blissful and weary, he half-lifted his hand in order to shut the water off—but his fingers collided with her shoulder, and though he hadn’t meant to, he could not resist sliding them down to cup her generous breast. She turned into his hand, tipped her face up, and their lips met. And while warm water rained down all around them he kissed her and kissed her again.

Fevered, hungry kisses, her teeth grazing his bottom lip. He groaned, every battered nerve now alive with urgency and fire.

When she broke away to gasp for air, he kissed along her jaw and down her throat, pausing to lick the sweet hollow between her collarbones.

“Bed,” she muttered. “When you do that my knees turn to jelly.”

He slammed his fist against the water to shut it off, and they stumbled out of the shower together. “I’ll lick you dry,” he growled.

She laughed softly. “Towel is faster,” she said provocatively. “And we won’t have a soggy bed.”

They both made a few swipes to get rid of the worst of the water. Then, admiring the droplets still glistening on her curves, he laced his fingers into hers and guided her back toward the bed. He leaned over her as she stretched out, and he began licking the drops from behind her ear. Her shoulder. The curve of her rib under her breast. The hollow inside her hip. The soft fold of her belly. The top of her thigh. The delicate outline of her ear—but when she turned her head and her eyelashes brushed his cheek, the vital pulse of heat ignited in him, and all his resolve vanished in smoke.

He locked her fingers in his and pressed them into the pillow as he took possession of her soft, open mouth. She made those little moaning noises as he kissed his way demandingly down her throat before he went on to ravish her breasts. Her moans became hisses as he took her tightened nipple between his teeth, teasing it with his tongue as she arched her back, and then he closed his mouth around it and sucked hard.

Her breath hissed in and her fingers curled up, as he laved and teased and sucked until her fingers dug into the backs of his hands and her head twisted from side to side. He kissed his way down to her belly, pausing to plunge his tongue into her navel.