Dating Agency Bear: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (BRIDES fur BEARS Book 6)

DATING
AGENCY BEAR

By

Natalie Kristen

For more books set in
Shadow Point

BRIDES fur BEARS

Bad Bear (Book 1)

Brave Bear (Book 2)

Brash Bear (Book 3)

Big Bear (Book 4)

Mail-Order Bear (Book 5)

Dating Agency Bear (Book 6)

GRAY
BEARS

Marrying
the Bear (Book 1)

Loving
the Bear (Book 2)

Mating
the Bear (Book 3)

Tempting
the Bear (Book 4)

Taming
the Lion (Book 5)

Embracing
the Lion (Book 6)

Copyright
© 201
6
by
Natalie Kristen

ALL
RIGHTS RESERVED

No
part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic
or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without written permission from the author, except for the
use of brief quotations in a book review.

This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are
used fictitiously or are the products of the author's imagination.
Any resemblance to actual locales, events, establishments or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

About
this Book

Penelope
Hatfield is starting a new life in Shadow Point and at her younger
brother's encouragement, she decides to set up her own dating agency.

Not to brag, but she really
is a
matchmaker
extraordinaire.
Her
own love life is a mess, but enough of that.

She can spot a great match
from miles and she has successfully paired off all her friends,
neighbors, colleagues, acquaintances, even acquaintances of
acquaintances.

S
he
always
seems
to pick gems for others, and lemons for herself.

But
when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, right?

Damien
Ken realizes he has been outpranked and outsmarted by his buddy and
work mate, Graham, when Graham drags him to meet his elder sister—who
is the owner of a brand new dating agency.

He
doesn't want to be matched and mated but when he meets the agency's
owner, Damien realizes that he may just have the last laugh.

Penelope
is his, even if she doesn't know it yet.

But
someone is out to sabotage Penelope and destroy her life. Can Damien
and Penelope foil a diabolical, deadly plot before it is too late?

Can
two pranksters plan the most awesome wedding ever in Shadow Point?

You
betcha!

*
* * * *

CHAPTER
ONE

Penelope Hatfield drummed her
fingernails on the desk and rearranged her pens again. She jabbed at
the keyboard of her trusty laptop in irritation when she saw the
screensaver. If the screensaver came on, that meant she wasn't using
her computer. And if she wasn't using the computer, that meant she
wasn't working.

Unless she had a client
sitting in her office and she was attending to said client. Then
that would be work as well. But—there was no one else in her
little office. Just her, Miss Hatfield—the boss/owner/only
employee of Miss Hatfield's Dating Agency.

She should be busily typing
her new clients' data into the computer so she could find them
suitable dates as soon as possible. Unfortunately, no new clients
had walked through the door of her dating agency the whole morning.

Penelope scowled at the
screensaver again. Her screensaver cheerfully announced the name of
her two-week-old business: Miss Hatfield's Dating Agency.

It was nothing fancy, but it
was pithy and to the point.

Determinedly, Penelope pushed
her black-rimmed glasses up her nose and scrolled through the files
on her computer. She reread the profiles of her clients, all ten of
them. Yep, she had ten clients now. It wasn't enough, but it was a
start.

Pursing her lips, Penelope
sat up smartly and faced the front door of her neat but tiny office.
The rent of this small corner unit was cheap and she had gotten all
her second-hand office furniture at a steal. As a small start-up,
she had to keep her expenses down and her business up. Every
businessperson knew that.

Penelope blew out a breath.
A businessperson. Yep, that's her. She was her own boss now. She
had always worked for others before, but now she was working for
herself. It was amazing, and frankly, rather frightening.

This was her brand new
business, and her brand new life. Could she really succeed at this?
Her business, that was.

She had great organizational
and interpersonal skills, but was that enough? For a business to
succeed, you needed clients. Lots of them. Penelope swung her gaze
towards the door again and muttered an oath and a prayer.

But it didn't matter how hard
she stared at the door. The door chime remained silent. The single
men and women of Shadow Point weren't beating a path to her agency.

Maybe this wasn't such a
sound business idea. After all, what did she know about marriage and
matings? She had never been married. She had hoped—

Penelope forced herself to
release the pencil in her hand so she wouldn't snap the poor pencil
in two. She couldn't afford to keep breaking pencils. Office
stationery cost money. For her business to have a fighting chance,
she had to watch her bottom line like a hawk.

Gulping down her cold coffee,
Penelope wondered if she had made the right decision coming to Shadow
Point. Her younger brother was here, and he was her only family, but
this wasn't her hometown. She and Graham had left their hometown
soon after their parents were killed in a violent home invasion.
They'd sold the house and moved away. They just couldn't live in the
house where they'd watched their parents die.

Graham moved to Shadow Point
where he found a good job with Beck's Builders, a renovation company.
Penelope had always wanted to experience life in the city so off she
went. She was young, unattached, and there was nothing holding her
back. She would move to the big city and make her mark.

City life was everything she
thought it would be but always, she felt there was something missing.
She loved, or she thought she loved the hustle and bustle of the
city. She had a good job and she had lots of friends. She even had
a long-term boyfriend.

Ian and her had seemed like
the perfect couple to all their friends. Everyone thought they would
be the first to get married. Instead, she'd attended all their
friends' weddings and engagement parties without a ring on her
finger. She'd even begun to grimace instead of smile when the
increasingly awkward question came up: So when is your turn?

All their friends were
getting engaged and married. And ironically, she was the one who'd
set them up on dates and introduced them to their better halves.

She was a natural-born
matchmaker. She could sniff out a good match among her friends,
neighbors, colleagues, acquaintances, even acquaintances of
acquaintances.

Everyone said that if she
ever found herself out of a job, she should set up a dating agency.

Well, talk about
self-fulfilling prophecies.

Penelope's head jerked up at
the sound of her door chime. She leaped to her feet and said
automatically, “Good morning! Welcome to Miss Hatfield's
Dating Agency...”

The professional smile on her
face faded and her shoulders slumped when she saw that it wasn't a
new client.

CHAPTER
TWO

It was only her younger
brother, Graham.

“Hey,” she said
glumly, dropping back into her chair.

“That's no way to greet
a client,” Graham snorted, putting his feet up on her desk.

“Tsk! Get your dirty
boots off my desk. And you're not a client,” she snapped.

“I could be.”
Her brother waggled his eyebrows just to annoy her.

“Ha! Finally!”
Penelope pounced on his words. “After all my cajoling and
arm-twisting, you've finally seen the light.” She snatched up
a form and thrust it at him. “Fill this up. And I assure you,
that as a client of Miss Hatfield's Dating Agency, all your
information will be kept strictly confidential.”

Graham sputtered and jumped
out of his chair. “I'm not signing up for your matchmaking
services!”

“Why not?”
Penelope asked in a wounded tone. “You were the one who
encouraged me to set up the business. You said and I quote: You can
do it, sis! You've got the skills to be a great matchmaker!”

“Well yeah. But your
skills should be used on other people. Not me!” Graham said
fervently.

“Thanks for the
endorsement,” she mumbled.

“Look, Penelope, I know
you'll do a great job for your clients. But I don't need an agency
to get dates...”

“Is that what you guys
think?” Penelope frowned.

“What?”

Penelope huffed and threw up
her hands. “The ten clients I have so far are all female. I
don't have a single male client!”

“Give it some time,”
Graham began. “You've only...”

But Penelope pushed away from
her desk and began to pace up and down in agitation. “I need
guys to sign up, Graham! For a dating agency to work, I need at
least one male client. Just where have all the guys gone? Do they
all think they can meet their wonderful, perfect mates on their own?”
she grumbled.

She rounded on her brother,
fixing her large, brown eyes on him with laser-like intensity. “You
are single. And you're male” She wagged her finger at Graham.
“And you're my brother. It's the least I can do for my baby
brother.” When she gave him her sweetest, most maternal,
affectionate smile, he paled and recoiled from her. Geez, it was as
if she had flashed a row of predatory, deadly, shark teeth at him.

Striding purposefully back to
her desk, she grabbed a form and began writing. “I'm signing
you up. I'll fill in all your details for you. All you have to
do is answer the short questionnaire at the back of this form. Heck,
I'll even waive your registration fee. But you—Graham
Hatfield, are going into the agency's database!”

Graham made a strangled sound
as she began ticking boxes and filling in blanks on the form.

“Okay, I know your date
of birth, your age, your eye color, your species, your zodiac sign,”
she muttered as she scribbled furiously. “What's your height,
Graham?”

“You're not serious.
You...you can't do this, Penelope,” Graham said, a note of pure
panic creeping into his voice.

“Why? I'll find you
your perfect match, Graham. I've matched all my friends, neighbors,
colleagues, acquaintances...” She ticked off the list on her
fingers. “And they're all as happy as can be. I just know a
good match when I see one!”

“I know, I know you're
good. Just...” He raked his hands through his short hair.
“Don't do anything rash, Penelope.”

She folded her arms and
narrowed her eyes at him. “I need at least one male client,
Graham. Just one, and I can get this show on the road.”

“I'll get you a male
client,” Graham blurted out. “I swear! Just...don't
sign me up!”

Penelope arched a brow.
“When?”

“Today.”

“You know,”
Penelope sighed dramatically. “Nothing will make me happier
than to see my baby brother happily mated. I know you'll make a
wonderful mate and father, Graham. Boy, I can't wait for you to have
a bunch of adorable, rambunctious cubs!” She rubbed her hands
with glee. “I'll have so many nephews and nieces to spoil...”