Bearly Dated (The Enigma Shifters) Page 3

  Although the timing might not be the best, she was about to see more of him than she thought.

  His attention would be divided between whatever the clan needed in town and spending time with her. He’d also have to arrange for backup when he couldn’t personally be out here. The situation was complicated, but doable.

  “When do you want me to start?”

  She barked out a laugh, a sudden sound that caught him straight in the chest.

  “I should probably ask you how soon are you available, but how does right now sound?”

  Her question had come out professional enough, but that's not what he heard. He heard a woman who urgently needed him, and that felt good. Really good. With his mother and sister both involved in their own lives it had been a long time since a female wanted him for more than her next orgasm. Although in this case, he was certainly willing to oblige that need as well.

  “What about tomorrow?” He had no idea what else he had on deck this week, but whatever it was, it could wait until he felt comfortable leaving her alone. As if.

  In the meantime, he'd find a way to tell her the truth about who he was and why he’d really come out here. He had a feeling the longer he waited, the worse she’d take that information. From what he’d heard about her and her sisters, they valued their independence and weren’t taking their new roles seriously.

  That left him unsure how she’d take the information he was a shifter. Most humans in these parts were unaware, but since she wasn’t as human as she looked and smelled, he hoped that meant the news would not freak her out.

  Like her sister, she might possess psychic powers that were lying dormant, just waiting for the right circumstances to reveal themselves.

  Jami had ignored her dreams, and the mating bond between her and the dragon. It had almost gotten her killed. He had to make sure history didn’t repeat itself with his mate, while also not overwhelming her. Without knowing what to expect, it was going to be a difficult balance.

  “Really? You can start that soon?” She looked skeptical again.

  “It's a small town. Not a lot going on right now, so your timing is perfect.” Not exactly true, but true enough. This was his main assignment as far as he was concerned.

  “What about price? I don't know if I can afford your—uhm—services.”

  His head shot up at the hesitation in her voice. Was it his wishful thinking or was her mind on more than just his handyman skills? He breathed in deep and his nose flared to life. Holy fuck, baby Jesus. He scented her arousal. Which of course, made his bear go wild and push at his skin to get out.

  Down boy. It's way too soon.

  “Definitely reasonable,” he said. As much as he loathed the idea of taking her money, he guessed that offering to work for free would not go over well. She’d been sweet so far, but he had a hunch that a starchy backbone lingered just below the surface.

  He might even go so far as to guess she was trying to play on his sympathies with the woman all by herself thing for a better price. “Electrical panel will probably run about nine hundred.” He knew for a fact that was well below market value, and the way her eyes lit up again meant she knew a good deal when she heard one.

  “Okay. If you want to text or email me some more information about your rates, I'd love to get them. But for now, let's definitely go forward with the electrical. Sound good?”

  Oh, it sounded good all right. “You've got a deal.” He held out his hand to shake on it and almost gasped when that bolt of electricity shot through him at the contact. This time, he caught the shudder that moved through her as well.

  Oh yeah. They had a deal all right. Probably for a lot more than she bargained for.

  4

  Right at the moment a shudder worked up her spine from his touch, a crack of lightning exploded just outside the cabin. She jumped nearly a foot, jerking free from his grasp.

  While the lightning had scared the hell out her, she didn’t think it actually had anything to do with the sudden racing of her heartbeat. This man…there was something about him she couldn’t quite pinpoint. Something that made her need to learn more about him.

  Or that might be her suddenly overactive libido talking. When she'd finally gotten a good look at the man standing at her door after her freakout over the blue paint on the deck (which she would have to sand out and re-stain, by the way, to fix), she discovered that her new potential handyman was a beautiful specimen of man.

  He was tall, of course, because she'd never met a man she was attracted to who wasn't. He had hair the color of deep, dark chocolate that curled against his neck and collar that made her hands itch to touch it and see if it was as silky smooth as it looked.

  The golden color of his skin had gotten her attention as well. Mostly because she was damned jealous of it. She hated the pasty pale color of her own skin in comparison. Although she did wonder how they'd look together, naked in bed with their limbs intertwined. She had a feeling the contrast of color would be glorious to look at.

  The deep emerald shade of his eyes mesmerized her. It had come as a shock that she managed to put words and sentences together in his presence. That thought made her almost roll her eyes. Since when did she get tongue tied and nervous around men? Her whole life had been filled with them.

  Her family, her friends, and then later, after her father passed away, she had filled her life with various men in the form of contractors, handymen, plumbers and electricians. Whatever she needed for the job, and mentors who guided her through the learning process of flipping homes.

  That thought made her spin and stare at the cabin. It was hard to believe she'd done it. Back in Texas, she had a team—and an investor to cover the costs of work. But coming here and listening to her sister weave a crazy tale had set her on edge and in desperate need of work to help her work through the turmoil she couldn’t shake.

  For this job, she’d gone all in with the entirety of her savings account just to purchase the small place. That had left her with a very slim budget for renovations, which meant she’d be doing a lot of the work on her own with only the help of a handyman.

  However, thanks to her love for DIY, and after watching years of home renovations shows on television, she had discovered she had a knack with power tools that would come in handy here.

  This project marked her sixth flip, but the first all on her own, and she hoped her best one, yet. The location could not be beat, what with the river and mountain view in a very small gated, but not too froufrou community. The cabin however, needed a lot more work than she wanted to admit. It had good bones though, and as far as she was concerned, that's all that really mattered.

  She was prepared to put in whatever sweat equity it took to transform it into the most luxurious seven-hundred-and-fifty square foot getaway anyone could want.

  Speaking of wanting...

  The sound of an engine out front made her peek around the corner of the building to see a small SUV had pulled into the property, filling her with excitement. Her handyman had returned.

  She watched him climb out of the vehicle and reach back in before emerging with a large box that looked suspiciously like a pizza box. What the heck?

  He crossed her deck and headed in her direction. She didn’t know what to do. Should she get up and greet him? Wait for him to join her? She could be gracious and get him some wine, too.

  “So, problem,” he started. “The storm is moving in quicker, and potentially stronger, than expected. A couple of large trees fell on this side of the bridge and blocked the exit from your little peninsula out here. It looks like I’m going to be stuck out here until a road crew can get out with the heavy equipment it will take to move them.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, looking at the box in his hand. “Then where did you get that? There aren’t any food places for miles out here.”

  He pursed his lips in what might have been meant as a smile, but she couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t easy to read.

  “Had this
in my car before I came out here. I picked it up after work to eat at home as soon as I got done out here.”

  Well, that made sense.

  “Do you like pizza?” he asked.

  She laughed and motioned him under the cover of the back deck. The rain had started, and it was coming down hard.

  “I mean, who doesn’t? It’s pretty much the perfect food in my opinion. Depending on the toppings, you can hit all the important food groups.”

  “Thank God, because if you didn’t, I don’t think we could be friends.”

  While they both laughed, she couldn’t help but focus on the fact that he wanted to be friends. Her mind was on hyperdrive when it came to him, but screw it. If that meant she read too much into this, then so be it. She could use a friend who had nothing to do with her dilemma back in Enigma. The whole point of coming out here was to get away from the drama her sister had dragged them into.

  5

  Violet woke from a fitful night of sleep to find that she'd beat the sunrise again. Frustrated, she threw off the covers and decided to face the day anyway.

  If she couldn't sleep anymore, without thinking about a certain contractor she'd met yesterday or about the strange dream of being surrounded by water that woke her in the middle of the night, then she might as well get up and get to work. There was a long list of projects with her name on them waiting.

  She wandered into the kitchen and headed straight for the coffee maker. As she scooped the beans into the grinder and waited for them to be pulverized, her mind wandered to Carter.

  She'd sensed something different about him as soon as he'd gotten close. While she’d always been sensitive when it came to reading people, this felt different, somehow. Much stronger than ever before. Paranoia on her part, most likely, but that didn’t mean she would totally write it off.

  All the information her sister had given her about psychics and shifters may have caused her brain to overload and short circuit, but she hadn’t dismissed it as easily as she led on.

  Her sister wasn’t stupid, nor was she fanciful. If she said these things existed—then they existed.

  She just needed more time to process it all than Savannah and Jami did. Hence, the main reason she’d come out here to get away from all of that. Time alone helped her think, and hard work cleared her mind of a lot of extra noise.

  And there’d been a lot of noise in her head lately.

  She’d failed to tell anyone the full extent of her recent dreams. Nightmares, really. But they were getting stronger, not to mention scarier, and that made her nervous.

  Now she had a hot handyman she inexplicably couldn’t stop thinking about, staying in the cabin with her, and she wasn’t sure what to do about that.

  When he’d returned to her cabin because of the bridge, what choice had she had but to take him in? She checked her cell phone again to see if the signal out here had changed, even though she knew it wouldn’t.

  It hadn’t. Without wifi to boost the signal, they were crap out of luck. Thank God she’d bought a generator before coming out here. Roughing it without internet was one thing. Roughing it without power? That, she couldn’t tolerate. Not if that meant no coffee. Or power tools.

  She had standards, after all.

  She set the coffee to brew and waited impatiently for her cup to fill. It was beginning to get lighter outside, and she wanted to watch the sun rise over the mountain behind the cabin. Morning here in Summer Cove, was proving to be her favorite time of day.

  The cool, clean air coming in off the river that ran directly behind the property refreshed her mind and made her feel settled. A far too difficult feeling to obtain when her reality had taken a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn into the weird.

  With her cup topped off with the strongest black coffee she knew how to make, Violet journeyed out to the back deck, doing her best not to wake Carter who was asleep in her loft.

  He’d offered to pitch a tent outside, but with the storm that blew through last night that had sounded ludicrous to her. They were both adults, and she had a feeling she could trust him. Hunches like that were probably dangerous, but if she couldn’t trust her instincts, there wasn’t much she could trust.

  Once outside she breathed deep. She'd temporarily settled in a few beautiful places as she’d learned to flip houses, but this one had her feeling different than any before.

  Bright and early too. Good thing she'd gotten up when she did. She was not prepared for the gorgeous man to see her first thing in the morning before she'd had time for a cup of coffee. That would not have been pretty.

  Not that she'd looked her best yesterday in her sweat-soaked and paint-stained clothes. She still had on the same cutoff shorts as before, but at least today she'd had the foresight to pick out a pretty pink tank top that wasn't all stretched out and nasty like yesterday's unfortunate but practical choice. In fact, it even had a little strip of lace around the bottom to fancy it up.

  She looked down and wiggled her freshly painted toes. And Mr. Handyman did not ever need to know that she'd agonized over nail polish colors last night after he’d gone to bed until deciding on the perfect shade of pink to match her shirt. It was exactly that attention to little details that made her flip houses a hell of a lot better than the average Joe.

  As she waited for Carter to come around the corner to greet her, she thought about the real reason she wasn't able to get him out of her mind. Yes, he was ridiculously good looking, but she'd seen plenty of those. Besides the eyes, there was one other thing, and that was his lush lips.

  Whether they were set in a grim line studying her, or parted in some sort of smile, they mesmerized her. Gifted with the perfect shade of pink, they drew her attention like a moth to a flame.

  She easily imagined him touching her body with those beauties. Almost feeling the soft slide of his flesh against hers. Violet sighed. This train of thought was far from productive. Luckily for her peace of mind, Carter strode around the corner with an easy smile and bright eyes to greet her.

  "Morning." He set his toolbox down on the deck and stepped closer. "Looks like we're in for another great summer day."

  "Aren't they all?"

  He laughed, moving to stand beside her and look out over the water. "Yeah, with this view, I would say so. This is definitely the best thing about this place."

  She lowered her cup and feigned a horrified look. "You don't like my cabin?"

  He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "It's not the worst I've ever seen."

  Violet rolled her eyes. "Clearly, like ninety-five percent of the population, you don't have vision. This place is going to be amazing when I'm finished."

  "If you say so. It will definitely have good electrical."

  She bristled over his words. His skepticism unnerved her. Or maybe it was his proximity. This close, she couldn't take a breath without inhaling the uniqueness of Carter. And it made her body wake up and take notice. In fact, a dose of him every morning might be better than a cup of coffee.

  Blasphemy! Clearly her brain was out of control. And she needed to get it back on track.

  "Ready to get started?"

  "Yeah, I think—" Carter stopped talking mid-sentence and moved to the edge of the deck and squatted down, frowning at the ground.

  Violet went on alert. The hair on the back of her neck rose. Something was wrong. Whatever had caught Carter’s eye did not bode well. "What's wrong?" she asked.

  "Do you have a pet?"

  "No. Why?" Now the sounds she'd heard last night seemed more real. When she'd gotten up to investigate and found nothing, she'd chalked it up to her strange dreams and put the incident behind her.

  "There are fresh tracks over here." He leaned forward and sniffed them. "I don't recognize the scent."

  “Bears?” she asked.

  He leveled his gaze on her. “What made you jump to bears? Out here in these woods, wolves and coyotes are more common."

  She lowered her gaze and stared at her pretty toenails. “I
don’t know exactly. I’ve just been thinking about bears a lot lately.” And she didn't really care to elaborate that by thinking about them she actually meant dreaming about them. But she had a feeling that would never fly. She might have opened Pandora’s box, and this would be the part where the third degree began. Every. Freaking. Time.

  Carter stood and slowly walked toward her, while she continued to stare at the ground. “Are you scared of bears?” His question came out low and controlled, and something about that tone sent a shiver racing down her spine. Not from fear, but something else…

  She shrugged. “Not in general, I don’t think. But that doesn’t mean I want to come face to face with one outside the cabin. I know they can be dangerous." He continued to stare at her and something about that unnerved her further. What was he trying to say without saying it? The shudder that suddenly wracked her body came unbidden and unwelcome. “Are you familiar with the bears in the area?” She couldn’t resist asking. If shapeshifters lived in this area, wasn’t it supposed to be a secret? Dammit. She should have grilled Jami for more information before running off to the woods. If what she had said was even partially true, then Violet needed more information on what to expect.

  His eyes narrowed, and she had that sensation that it meant something. Or that he knew something. “We do have bears. But they tend to steer clear of the humans and vice versa. They aren’t looking for trouble. It’s important for new people to understand the peaceful balance between humans and nature.”

  She quirked her mouth at the hard look in his eyes. Something about the way he said all that put her on edge. There had to be some kind of meaning behind his words. But how could she come right out and ask him? If he didn’t know, then she would look like a loon. “I take it that Summer Cove doesn't like strangers. You included. If that's the case, then why did you take this job?” Her nerves had coiled tight and second thoughts were beginning to worm their way into her mind.