Bear Me Away (Alpha Werebear Paranormal Romance) (A Jamesburg Shifter Romance) Page 3

  Paul snorted a laugh. “Never worse,” he said. “Never, ever worse.”

  *

  Distracted as she was, Elena wasn’t going to let the burning, aching need for the giant farmer bear ruin her instincts. Back at the office, it didn’t take long for her to refocus, to re-center her thoughts.

  This is how she did it, how she got her mind off all the terrible things that she ran from for most of her life. Even though Elena and Paul spent most of their time together verbally jousting, she appreciated every second of the time they were together.

  Mostly because the rest of the time, she was alone.

  Paul took off at half past seven. Elena said goodbye, promising to go home soon after, but both of them knew that was a lie.

  Without work? There wasn’t a whole lot going on.

  As soon as the door shut, and she heard the deadbolt slide into the lock, she stripped down to her bra. The old, 1980s style fan above her head shook with every spin. It was loud, but it was home – or at least as close as Elena had.

  She pulled the pens out of her frosted copper hair, letting it fall around her shoulders in an orange waterfall, and then pulled it back into a ponytail to get it off her shoulders. Lifting her hair, she bent her head forward, letting the air from the whop-whop-whopping fan cool her neck. A deep breath filled her lungs, and a sigh relaxed her, although in the back of Elena’s mind, all she could think was West.

  Ripping off the first page of her notebook, she took the slip of paper and put it on the top left corner of her desk. One after another, she laid the pages in a checkerboard of notes and diagrams. “Didn’t realize I made so many notes,” she told herself before taking a look around her informational treasure trove. “Where’s that carrot?”

  It was, of course, where all vegetable related evidence should be – in the office fridge. Somehow, the carrot fell behind a half-empty twelve pack of Budweiser that Paul insisted on keeping around “just in case.” Elena snagged the carrot, and turned to head back to her desk before deciding that “just in case” meant “right now” and grabbed a beer.

  Back at the desk, Elena produced a barely-used fingerprint kit and dusted the carrot in what she knew was a vain effort.

  She turned the carrot around in her hands, studying the curvature, the bumps, the little bit of trace dirt still sticking to it, in the florescent lamp dangling from the ceiling.

  “What’s this?” she touched her fingertip to a slightly discolored part, something that seemed like... a bite? Beside the first was a second. Two broad, square holes marked one side of the carrot. “How did I miss this?”

  She got a Q-tip from her desk, swabbed the rim of the oxidized carrot. She stuck what she hoped was a useful saliva sample, in another of her marked Ziplocs. Putting that away, Elena hunted around for her fingerprinting kit, but it was nowhere to be seen.

  For a lack of anything else to use, Elena took the ink pad she used for fingerprinting on the endless child ID cards she made to pay the bills. She squished the carrot against it, and then rolled the root onto her notepad. A second later, she was on the phone with Paul.

  “You’ve got a what?” he asked.

  “A bite,” she answered. “I’ve got tooth prints, bite marks.”

  “Huh, well good work. Although I’m not sure exactly what this means. So someone bit that carrot, then stuck it in the ground?”

  “Looks that way,” she said. “It’s weird, I know, but there you go. I didn’t notice until they started getting a little brown around the edges.”

  “What is it?” he asked. “Can you tell?”

  “Not exactly. They’re square, that’s for sure. Maybe an inch wide.”

  Paul made a clicking sound with his tongue against his teeth. “This is going to sound crazy,” he said, “but what eats carrots?”

  “No way,” Elena said. “You think this is some kind of calling card? That’s,” she paused. “I was going to say that’s insane, but then again I’m the one who found bite marks on a purposely planted carrot in the middle of a violently exploded garden.”

  Paul snorted a laugh. “You need me to go back up there?”

  “No, I’m just going to make a few more prints, maybe take a cast before this thing rots, and then I’ll get out of here.”

  “Get yourself a drink, get yourself some ice cream, okay?” Paul asked. “You need to take time to think.”

  “No,” Elena protested. “I’ve got to—”

  “Do we need to do this again? Really? We always have this fight and you always lose. You did good work, now rest so you can do it again tomorrow without going nuts.”

  She clenched her jaws. “Fine,” she finally said. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Go home and dream of big bears, my friend,” Paul said with a wry laugh. “You deserve it.”

  Elena laughed before she remembered to be irritated. “You deserve a mouthful of rotten kibble. Goodnight.”

  The phone line clicked, and Elena pushed back in her chair, staring at the ceiling, smiling in spite of herself.

  -3-

  “Rare? Rare isn’t rare enough for me!”

  Petunia Lewis

  Sitting back from her table, Petunia sighed with pleasure, swallowed, and then removed the dentures she had to use every time she ate.

  Clicking her buckteeth together, and then picking out a piece of sinew from her deliciously rare steak, the unlikely carnivore set her meat-eating dentures on the tabletop. Her nose twitched. She wished it would stop – always had wished for it to stop – but she had other things to worry about right then.

  Her eyes drank in the darkness. Pale blue because of a lack of pigment, Petunia Lewis’s irises sparkled as she waddled toward her bay windows and looked out at the green vines and rickety cages that lay in every direction from her house.

  Thirty glorious feet, ringing her small cottage, with nothing planted except tomatoes. No grass, no flowers, no trees in sight – just a field of tomatoes of all sorts. Heirloom, Roma, a patch of cherry tomatoes, a patch of plum and grape tomatoes.

  “Not a single carrot,” she said, with grim satisfaction. “Not a single damn one.”

  The UPS man parked in front of her house, hopped out and walked around to the back of his truck. Her beady eyes trained on the cute little butt coming out of those khaki shorts, Petunia briefly entertained the notion of kidnapping him and holding him hostage. It’d be just like Misery, but without the leg breaking, and I’m way, way hotter than... whatever her name was.

  She ground her teeth together unconsciously, watching as he approached the house. Navigating the wired-up gate took him a good bit of effort, but as soon as he was inside, he deftly avoided the cherry tomato cluster, and approached.

  He knocked, and set the box on the porch, obviously wanting to get away as quickly as possible, but Petunia had her hand on the door. She opened it immediately and stared the delivery guy down.

  “Hi,” she finally said, clasping her hands behind her back. “Howa’ ya?”

  He wrinkled his brow, and then remembered he was supposed to smile at customers. “I’m doing fine, ma’am.”

  The guy was about two feet taller than Petunia. He was thick around the shoulders, the neck, and the legs sticking out from under those cute little khaki shorts were hard as rocks. “I’d say you’re fine,” she said, “wanna come in for some punch? Maybe a cake?”

  “Uh, I’m sorry ma’am,” the driver said, laughing nervously. “I’ve got a lot of deliveries to make, and—”

  “What happened to the customer being right?” her voice got high pitched and irritated. “I’m the customer! I’m right!”

  The driver backed away two steps, and pulled out the pocket computer he used to scan packages. “Of course, yes, I didn’t mean to insult you, I’m—”

  “Coming inside then?”

  He pulled the computer out of his pocket and tapped the screen. “No can do, I’m afraid.” He offered a consolation smile. He must get this sort of thing a lot, for how smoothly
he transitioned back into conflict resolution mode. Looking past Petunia, into her living room, the poor guy’s eyes widened when he saw her collection of unicorns, old German-style baby dolls, and weird rooster statues.

  “Sorry Miss Lewis,” he said again, acting like someone about to walk right into Medusa’s statue garden. “But, I just got a message from my boss. Got to head back to the station and pick up another round of boxes! You know how it is,” his ability to maintain composure was almost incredible. “Independence Day is right around the corner. Big gift giving time of the year, you know. Bye now!”

  Petunia stood in the doorway, sighing as he trotted back to the truck. That – that view, anyway – was all she wanted anyhow. She watched him with hungry eyes until he hopped back in his truck and sped away. One day, she thought. One day, I’ll catch you.

  She’d been harassing the same UPS driver for years. Three? Four? It was hard to remember, but the game had been going on for most of the recent past. To Petunia’s mind, he enjoyed every second of it, but to the driver’s mind, he wished she’d stop ordering things every day just to gawk at him.

  Back inside, safe among her army of unicorns and dolls, Petunia picked one of the babies up – a German doll she named Serafina – and placed it lovingly on the end table. She sat, wriggling her fingers in an almost carnal gesture of anticipation. The box she was about to open contained two of her favorite things: chocolate, and sun dried tomatoes.

  Petunia was going to make herself a hell of a sandwich. Her favorite: basil, tomato, olive oil, chocolate, and marshmallow fluff, all crammed between two graham crackers. And all the ingredients were in this one, magical box. She could already taste the tangy, savory, lusciousness as she cut the tape, and then...

  “What the,” she glared into the package. “This is all wrong. No, no, no, this isn’t right.”

  She dug in, ripping through cardboard, tape, packing peanuts and finally arrived at the shipping manifest. Petunia yanked the paper out, unfolded and squinted at the blurry words, trying to make sense of them. Realizing it was her lack of glasses and not the world going out of focus, she held the sheet at arms’ length.

  “Charlene Teeter?” she asked the air. “Who the hell is Charlene... one package of Hanes cotton briefs, size medium? Two packages of Hanes crew socks? What’s going on?”

  She scanned the extensive list of household goods, cleaning products and exercise clothing, throwing it all behind her as she dug. “No chocolates? No sun-dried,” she trailed off, her mouth falling open in abject horror. “What is this?”

  Heat crawled up her neck. Rage, pure and wild and terrible, thudded behind Petunia’s eyes. Her temples throbbed with anger. Her fingers curled, nails growing into short, pointed claws that she gouged into the package. Balling up her fists, she ripped through the package, orange powder dribbling out of the gouged cardboard and catching on the white hair that covered her forearms.

  “Carrot,” she growled, as her buckteeth grew longer. “Carrot... cake? Carrot cake!”

  A scream ripped through Petunia’s diminutive frame that made Serafina’s dress shake. Petunia hunched her shoulders, squeezing her fists so hard the claws bit into the pads of her palms. “No!” she roared. “Must... destroy!”

  She grabbed the collar of her shirt, and howled as she tore at her own clothing. She lowered a shoulder, ran straight at her front screen door, bashing it open. The metal frame door cracked against her aluminum siding, and then fell back into place, closing peacefully.

  “Carrot cake!” Petunia shrieked, using her favorite substitute swear. She dashed through the woods as fast as her feet would carry her. There was only one thing that could possibly assuage her blood thirst. Only one release that would slake her thirst for destruction.

  Petunia needed a place to ruin, she needed to destroy something beautiful.

  She needed to absolutely wreck the hell out of a garden.

  *

  “Yes,” she panted, stooping over with her hands on her knees. “Yes, nothing but lettuce and radishes and onions as far as the eye can see. But where are the c-ca-ca-carrots?”

  Saying the word, letting the sounds escape her lips, was physically painful. It filled her with such hate, such unconquerable rage, that she was helpless against the feeling, hopeless to stop her own brutality. The only consolation? She took it out on vegetables.

  Petunia ripped through a layer of chicken wire, flinging the flimsy chain link over her head. She bent down, snatching a head of lettuce, squeezing it in her fist until it fell apart and left her white fur green with fresh-bled chlorophyll. “I’m gonna rip,” she said, breathing hard and yanking another lettuce from the ground. “I’m gonna tear. I’m gonna shred, pull, ruin!”

  Her rage overwhelmed her, red streaks filling her vision. She kicked a lettuce, punched a cabbage, rending a jagged, horrific path through the garden, littered with eggplant viscera, pumpkin guts, and that weird, red juice that leaks out of beets when they’re cut and put on a plate.

  When she finished, the long, white fur on her arms was stained a fascinating mess of orange, red, green, and brown. She was sticky, sweating, breathing hard. What most people get from running a couple miles, or doing a few bench presses, Petunia got from violently attacking vegetables. A grim smile crawled across her face.

  She looked to the ground, noticing a length of PVC pipe, and followed it back to a faucet. Wrenching the valve open, she waited a moment, and then started to unscrew the hose. Instead, she grabbed the length of green rubber, and tore in, gnawing through it with her surprisingly sharp rabbit teeth, and hosed herself off.

  The sun beating down on her back warmed Petunia to the bones. The cool, mountain breeze that blew through whoever’s farm this was, cooled the water, refreshing her and calming her rage.

  That is, until she saw the enemy.

  Sitting there, unassumingly, nestled in two short rows against the eastern chicken wire fence, was the very thing that put her in this rage in the first place.

  “You made me eat these, Mom,” Petunia said to no one in particular. “You made me eat them... you made me a monster!”

  The first carrot was hard to pull – they always were. As her muscles swelled, and she roared with anger, excitement, Petunia felt every nerve in her body flare to life. She snapped into the first one, using its juice to paint her face with slashes that resembled war paint.

  Carrot number two came up easier. The first one always is the hardest. She held the root, snapped it in two, and frayed the greens before hurling it against a tree. A third, and then a fourth and a fifth and sixth were pulled and murdered.

  And then she saw it.

  The smooth, aged wood in her hand felt cool, and strong, and right.

  “Yes,” Petunia hissed, sucking air through her teeth. “Yes, yes, yes!” With each word, she drove the fork of the hammer into a carrot, or the dirt, or... well pretty much just carrots or dirt. When her rampage finally climaxed, in a shower of orange, green, sweat, mud, and ecstatic screams, Petunia opened her eyes to find the world clearer, more focused, than it had been before her break.

  She took a deep breath, relishing the chaos, and let it out with a groaning sigh. Surveying the wreckage, she felt good – she felt whole. But there was one thing left to do. One last act.

  Her calling card.

  She poked through the lettuce blood and the pumpkin guts until she found what she hunted. Pulling one last carrot from the ground, she brushed off the dirt, and turned her most deliberate victim around in her hands, studying each line and curve and bump like a lover staring into her beloved’s eyes.

  With a loud, vicious crunch she bit into the foul root, burying her incisors in the vegetable. She winced at the taste, but this was her penance, this was her pain.

  Bending down, she felt her entire being calm and glow. She re-interred the carrot halfway. Whoever found it would know.

  After a life of being poked and prodded and jabbed. After a life made fun of for her massive buck teeth, her p
uffy cheeks, and her nearly clear skin and eyes, Petunia would, in some small way, have her revenge.

  If she got her way, there wasn’t a single carrot in Jamesburg safe from her wrath.

  She dropped the hammer, then picked it back up and stuck it through one of the belt loops on her jeans, swaggering out of the field like a samurai who’d just beheaded her sworn blood enemy. Something else caught the corner of her eye.

  In the northeast corner of the field, she spied red orbs.

  Spared from her rampage by some act of divine mercy, the tomatoes glistened in the sunlight. Petunia sauntered over, plucked one, and took a huge bite.

  Tangy, sweet juice ran down her chin. Red goo, seeds, and a bit of pulp fell from her mouth as she chewed, then swallowed. Over and over, she bit, moaning and groaning, and gulped hungrily until she’d managed to down four of the fruits.

  Her stomach filled, her rage quelled, Petunia wiped her mouth with a red and orange stained arm. She used the fork of her hammer to liberate one of the largest vines, holding it with gentle care.

  This would be her new plant; her new trophy. She’d care for it, she’d nurture it, and love it.

  And then tomorrow, she’d go back to work at the Jamesburg Cannery, and no one would know her name.

  “They will,” she said bitterly, picking a seed from between her teeth. “Oh yes, they will.”

  -4-

  “I’d really like to stop thinking about that fox for thirty seconds.”

  -West

  West had other things that needed attention.

  The garden, for one, needed replanting. The chickens were hanging out, clucking, making eggs. There was so much to do, so much to replace.

  And, aside from that, West needed to do something to get his mind off that fox.

  He wiped his forehead, and flung his arm to the side, shaking off the beads of sweat. Jabbing two fingers down to the second knuckle into the dirt, he wiggled them, spread them apart, and then deposited another tiny pepper plant in the hole. Carefully, he packed down the earth, gave it a little drink from the hose, and then stood back up.