Can't Bear To Run (Kendal Creek Bears, #1) (21 page)

“The hell are you looking at?” I asked, with more than a drop of venom in my voice. “Didn’t anyone tell you it’s rude to stare?”

He narrowed his eyes, either because he was reeling from a concussion, or because he was trying to menace me. He said nothing, just kept right on staring. I took a step closer to him, because that was a perfectly reasonable thing to do, given the circumstances.

“You reachin’ for a gun?” the stranger sneered.

When he said that, it came to my attention that I had, in fact, been reaching into my jacket for a gun. “Won’t do,” he drawled, “killin’ me.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” I said with a scoff. “But I
am
one half of the law in this town, so I’d like to know why a stranger just got thrown out of Kendal Creek’s finest drinking and wings establishment, if you don’t mind.”

If pragmatic detachment was my dear husband’s main defense mechanism, mine was sarcasm and a sharp tongue.

“I just come lookin’ for a sweet thing to take home,” he said, licking his lips.

Pale blue eyes were complimented with a clammy-looking face and platinum blond hair that was pulled back into a tight ponytail. It wouldn’t have surprised me one bit to see a pencil mustache on a character like this, or beads of sweat on his upper lip, come to think of it.

“No sweet things for you here, friend,” I said. When he took a step closer to me, I spread my feet and popped the snap on my holster. Wisely, he froze. “Go on back to wherever it is you came from.”

A crooked, trembling smile spread across Captain Clammy’s face. “Ain’t any sweet things?” he asked. “Seems to me as I’m lookin’ at one right now.”

“Cute,” I said. “I haven’t heard that one in, oh, a week. “But no thank you. My self esteem doesn’t need to be validated by drooling lechers. Which one of these rides is yours?” I tilted my head in the general direction of the parking lot.

“Whichever one impresses you the most,” he grinned again, “sugar.”

“Okay that’s just about enough.” In one smooth motion I pulled my .38 out of the holster and leveled at the class-one idiot who presented himself in front of me. He started laughing.

“What the hell is going on?” Dax’s voice came from behind me, but I was tunneled in. Something was wrong. This guy was part of something bad.
Very
bad. “Raine, why are you pointing your gun at him?”

“He called me sugar,” I growled.

Dax sighed. “He can’t help it,” he said.

“What? What’s that supposed to mean? He tried to intimidate me and then hit on me. I don’t have to take that.”

“No, but you also can’t shoot him for it.” His hand on my shoulder relaxed me. “Put the gun back in the holster. I have some, well it’s news, that’s for sure. Good or bad, I don’t know.”

Not taking my eye off the creep, I slid the pistol under my arm, clipping the holster strap down. “What’s the news?”

“Here, I’ll break it to you this way. Theodore, apologize to my mate for being an asshole,” Dax said.

The creep took another step forward and extended a hand. I hesitated for a moment, but took it.
Clammy as expected
.

“Teddy Mason,” he said.

I stared blankly. “The reporter? From the
Shifter Picayune
?”

“The very same,” Dax said, turning one corner of his mouth up into a half-sneer. “Marta said he showed up about fifteen minutes after she found out Greg Nobson’s cubs had gone missing. Says he was—“

“Told by a source that there was about to be a clan war,” Teddy interjected. “Between the Kendals and the Creightons. The two biggest clans in the region about to go at one another. I wanted to be here to see the thing from the very beginning. It’s going to be a werebear civil war, and I’m not gonna miss a second of it.”

“That’s not suspicious at all,” I hissed. “Are you sure I can’t shoot him?”

Dax snorted a laugh. “If the paper didn’t know he was here, I’d say differently.”

I reached back for the gun, half-playing but kind of wishing he’d let me. “Just say the word. It can be an accident.”

“You can’t kill me,” Teddy said. “I’ve got a Pulitzer.”

“No you don’t,” Dax said.

“I got close. Final round. Just as good.”

“Right,” Dax drawled. “
You
get back to your room. I can’t stop you from reporting, but I can stop you from getting in my—”

I jabbed him with a pointy elbow straight between his seventh and eighth ribs.

“In
our
way,” he corrected himself.

“See ya around, Sheriff,” the clammy reported said. “Next time, maybe you’ll handcuff me.”

“Enough,” Dax growled. “Get the hell out of here before I turn around and let her do whatever she wants.”

“That sounds good,” Teddy said, almost licking his lips.

“One more crude joke about my mate and we’ll see exactly how tough a bear neck is,” Dax growled. “Get it?”

Laughing, the reporter turned on his heel and opened the door of the beaten-up station wagon. He slid across the bench seat and drove—rather, puttered—off, presumably to Wilma’s small lodging house, about ten minutes down the road.

“What’s the good news?” I asked, as soon as Dax and I were alone.

“I didn’t accidentally kill anyone,” he said.

Laughing, I turned to him. “I’ve never known you to joke at a time like this. What’s up?”

He shook his huge head, shaggy black hair and fiery green eyes catching the neon of the COORS sign on Marta’s wall. “He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t sure of the story. Something’s going down, but I’m not entirely sure what.”

“So the clan war isn’t happening?”

Dax shook his head. “Jack Creighton is an idiot,” he said, referring to the Creighton clan’s current alpha with remarkable candidness. “But he isn’t
that
much of an idiot. He wouldn’t start a war by kidnapping some cubs. He’d stew and smolder until he exploded. You know that.”

I did. Jack Creighton was a good guy, perhaps a little soft in the head, but he also had a legendary amount of patience. He could happily wait for years and years, nursing a grudge, to start a war at exactly the right time. Assuming, of course, he wanted to start one in the first place. Which, because of the truce between the clans, didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

“Well if not him, then who? No other clans are anywhere near as powerful as—“

Dax cut me off by taking my hand and squeezing it. “I don’t know,” he said, and then fell silent.

A few moments passed before I decided to turn the mood around. “Well hey,” I said, “we’ll be fine. We’ll figure it out. We have each other, right?”

That brought a smile to Dax’s perfect lips. “Yeah,” he said, eyes twinkling.

“Anyway, I thought you said there was some bad news? If you not killing Theodore was the good news, the bad news is probably
actually
good.”

“So the good news and the bad news was exactly the same,” he said, laughing at his own joke. I did too, but mostly because he made a joke and then laughed at it like a king of all dorks. “Come on,” he grabbed my hand. “We’ve got a hick to visit.”

Alpha Lion Romance

C
assiopeia is lanky, quick-witted, and spent most of her life running from one thing or another. She escaped an overbearing family, and a series of dangerous misadventures, but then landed square in the midst of a traveling carnival. In the gritty, grimy dirt circus, love is the furthest thing from Cass’s mind – she’s much more occupied with avoiding her boss Lyle’s slimy fingers.

Just about the only things Cass has left are her mind, a few books, and impossibly vivid dreams of a man she’s never met, but who she knows – somehow – is going to find her. And when he does? Well, who knows? But it’s gotta be better than the circus.

Oh, and then there’s the lion who sleeps in her trailer.

At first, Lex was impossible to control. He clawed, he snapped, he roared and raged like any lion would, but somehow never hurt anyone, like there was something more to him than caged animal ferocity. He lashed out at everyone except for a certain woman with curly brown hair and a thing for khaki cargo pants.

No one knew that the REAL Lex – the same man Cass dreamed of for so very long – was hiding beneath the fur and claws. When the lion-shifter lays eyes on the woman he knows he can’t live without, this king of the jungle can’t rest until he’s taken his queen. And when he first reveals the tall, dark and handsome underneath the tail and teeth? Cass isn’t too surprised that the man IN her dreams turned out to be the man OF her dreams.

A Jamesburg Shifters novel

J
amie Ampton is a sharp-tongued, pointy-toothed, vampy shifter with a penchant for neatly done-up hair buns and a habit of attracting EXACTLY the wrong sort of guy. Guys with a dash of arrogance, a pinch of cocky swagger turn her head... but when her last one turned out to be more “self-important jackass” and less “gruff and strong and takes what he wants,” it left her cold.

So to speak.

Ryan Drake has a dark past and a mysterious present. When he shows up demanding the town alpha do his part to care for Jamesburg’s aging shifters, the first thing Jamie notices is that her heart starts beating a little quicker. The second is a knot in the pit of her stomach. And then, before she can catch her breath, he stares straight into her eyes.

She’s never been one for the big, loud, muscled-up types, but in the space of two breaths, the elegantly detached Jamie finds herself falling for a bear.

Little does Jamie know that before he stomped into that courtroom, Ryan decided that nothing was gonna stop him from getting what he wanted. But, once he saw Jamie? Suddenly there were two things that this massive blue-eyed alpha bear were going to have, no matter what it took: help for his friends... and Jamie.

And Ryan? Ryan is one bear who ALWAYS takes what he wants.

A Jamesburg Shifters novel

AVAILABLE FOR FREE!

S
ometimes a wolf’s gotta fight and bark and bite.

But other times, a wolf just needs a mate.

Erik Danniken is the alpha of Jamesburg, a small town, hidden from the world, and full of all
kinds
of shifters, and secrets. But underneath it all, he’s just a big, rough, bad-boy of a werewolf with a tattoo that goes all the way up his chest. Oh, and don’t forget his massive, building-shaking motorcycle.

He’s done his fighting, he’s done his carousing. Now he’s the mayor of Jamesburg, and he’s done looking for a mate... because he found her.

Sometimes a girl needs romance and wine and sweet kisses.

Other times, she just needs a job.

Isabel Taylor was more than a little frustrated when she answered a very vague job ad and moved across the country. Curvy, tough and with more than a little bit of a naughty streak, Izzy couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw that first Jamesburg hedgehog stand up, turn into a man and order a drink.

She’s found her place, found a life she thought she’d never have, and found the love she’d given up on... the problem is, she and Erik have to keep it a secret from everyone else in town.

Erik wants to claim her forever, mark Izzy as his honest-to-goodness mate. Izzy wants him to quit being such a coward and just come out and do it, but will a good old-fashioned small town scandal make them keep their love a secret, and in the process, kill it before it can grow?

A Broken Pine Bears Novel

F
rom USA TODAY and NEW YORK TIMES best-selling author Lynn Red comes a steamy, sexy, hilarious alpha werebear romance... with two times the bears!

Jill Appleton is a witty, slightly-lanky, tall-enough-to-make-most-guys-nervous biologist with a thing for bears.

Whoa, whoa, not like that - she's got a thing for SAVING bears.

When she hears stories of a secretive group of Kodiaks in the Appalachian Mountains, she knows she's got to check them out. First of all, they're not supposed to be there, and second – bears that live in a pack? That's about as rare as biologists who love big crowds. Or, when it comes to Jill, it’s as rare as one of her dates not turning into a train wreck. She's all but given up on finding that one guy who the universe decided was right for her.

Good thing she's about to meet two.

Rogue and King, joint alphas of the Broken Pine werebear clan, could not be more different. King is quiet, stalwart, and strong. He holds clan traditions and history sacred, and refuses to wear anything but a loincloth – the way the elders did. Rogue would rather get a face full of werewolf teeth than bother with all that. He’s feral, wild, loyal to a fault, and loves to guzzle craft beer straight from a keg. And also – a loincloth? Jeans all the way for this bear, thank you very much.

With the outside world coming closer to Broken Pine territory all the time, and the werewolf packs getting more riled up than ever, something is wrong. But, when the two alphas - who according to clan law, both mate one woman, and mate for life - see Jill making her way to camp?

The two alphas feel their hearts beat together, and know in that second that no matter what, no matter how, they will have her, they will possess her. They’ll make her theirs at any cost.

––––––––

Thank you so much for taking the time to check out my new book! Click here to subscribe to my mailing list to keep up to date on all my new releases, giveaways, and free books!

Did you love
Can't Bear To Run
? Then you should read
Bearing It All (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance)
by Lynn Red!

From USA TODAY best-selling author Anya Karin writing as Lynn Red comes a steamy, seductive, hilarious and delicious alpha werebear romance.

Curvy, witty, carrot-topped Violet Larue is a fox shifter with a goal – she NEEDS to find herself a mate before she goes absolutely nuts.

After a string of bad relationships that left her heartbroken, and a bunch of dates that were more pie-in-the-face than swept-off-her-feet, Violet is just about ready to throw in the towel. She wants someone to chase her, to possess her, to make her his mate.

Somehow convinced to attend the only cage fight she’s ever seen, Violet has no idea that she’s about to lay eyes on just the bear for her.

Muscled, inked-up and one of the most dangerous fighters in the world, “Crag” Morgan is the bear of Violet’s dreams. With a dark past and an even darker present, love is nowhere near the top of Crag’s to-do list... until he’s looking around the crowd and catches a glimpse of a redhead with eyes that make his heart skip a beat.

He is everything she ever wanted. A self-assured, massively powerful alpha with a waist just perfect for wrapping her legs around? Uh, yes please! But little does Violet know that in the split second Crag spied her in the audience, she stole his heart. The bad boy fighter decided then and there to do whatever it takes to claim her... forever.

Note: THE JAMESBURG SHIFTERS is a series of standalone novels each featuring a unique hero and heroine and a satisfying HEA ending. No cliffhangers here! Books can be enjoyed in any order you like!

Read more at
Lynn Red’s site
.