Billionaire Bear Shifters A Paranormal Romance Complete Series Boxset - Brittany White Page 0,109

right into his arms and that was dangerous.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

“I’d like you to go out with me,” Cody said. It all came out in a rush. Even he looked surprised as he said it, a dazed look in his eye. He shut his mouth and frowned, glancing away.

Oh no...

“I can’t,” she said. “I-I’d like to but-”

“No no no.” He waved a hand. “Forget I said anything. Wasn’t thinking. Really.”

“I’d like to,” she said. “Just-”

“You don’t have to explain.” Cody let her hand go and she wished he hadn’t. “Anyway, enjoy the book, yeah? We’ll talk about it.”

“Alright.” She watched him go and sighed and it was another minute before she willed herself to walk out the door and make her way home.

37

Tobin

Tracking down the cubs had not been as easy as Tobin had originally expected.

The sleuth had been spitting mad to find their children gone. Although, the way they talked about them made Tobin think it was more a matter of pride than actual care for their children.

Not that it was any of his business.

Tobin considered himself a mercenary. The sleuth had hired him to do a job; track down the escaped cubs. They were paying him his fee and that’s all that mattered. What happened to the cubs beyond that was none of his business.

His first discovery had angered the sleuth yet more: The cubs had not escaped. They had been taken. He supposed he could say they had been freed. He had seen the chain and bucket of water. The sleuth had kept their children locked up like prisoners. But that was all semantics to him.

The problem after that was following seven different bears. It should have been easy except that the tracks kept confusing him. They would go one way and then stop or beeline in confusing trails and then he’d lose the tracks altogether. It almost seemed like the cubs and their kidnapper kept shifting back into their human forms, at which point Tobin would lose them. Tracking humans was not his strong suit. But that made no sense. Why shift into human form on the run when it was so much easier to travel the woods as a bear?

Maybe they’d done it deliberately to throw off trackers like him. If so, he was a little impressed.

On a Tuesday morning in summer, Tobin had lost the track once again. He had been on the trail of the cubs for three weeks and got nowhere. It was frustrating, and the sleuth was starting to lose patience.

“Goddamn stupid... ” He grumbled to himself, stabbing a french fry into his ketchup.

He normally ate on the trail, his bear happy to sustain itself with fish from the rivers or whatever he could find. But that day, having found himself foiled yet again, he’d been in the mood for a burger and a shake, if only to cheer himself up.

Tobin ran a hand through his scraggly salt and pepper gray hair and grunted before taking a bite of his double-cheeseburger.

He was sitting at a small table on the patio of Moose Burger , the burgers were not made from real moose, with a map laid out before him. He’d drawn out the tracks and trails he’d already gone over in colored pencil and now he was left with a scribbled mess.

“When I get my hands on these bears,” Tobin muttered. “There’s gonna be hell to pay.”

38

Cody

“JEREMY!” Cody grimaced as he shouted, tossing a grimy pan into a sink full of soapy water with a particular amount of hostility. Two dishwashers exchanged nervous expressions before brushing by him to get to the sink and he growled under his breath before again shouting, “Where the hell is Jeremy? This Béchamel is bullshit!”

Everyone kept scattering out of his way, disappearing into the pantry or out into the dining hall or scooting around him to cower by the ovens rather than face his wrath. His saucier, Jeremy, was nowhere to be found and it was really pissing Cody off.

It was possible, he supposed, that his anger was a little displaced.

“Hey!” Nathan blew through the doors, glowing at Cody, and he stopped short, crossing his arms. His brother gave him a gentle shove. “Can you chill just maybe for a second? We can hear you out in the dining hall, for crying out loud.”

“I will chill when I find my saucier!” Cody hissed, his eyes blazing.

“Damn, what got up your ass?” Nathan said.

He looked entirely too happy. Ever since he’d become a father