Bunny and the Bear: A Shifter Romance Novella

by Cassandra Johnson

  Swinging the door of the back room open, Josh was sitting at the computer, looking sweaty despite the arctic blast of the air conditioning.

  “They went for it. That Margaret lady from the bonds office called asking for my moms’ number and my aunts.” Josh said, taking a napkin from a drawer in his desk and mopping up the sweat on his brow.

  “Good, that might give us a couple days before the bonds office realize they are on a wild goose chase and figure out they should have been looking in their backyard the whole time,” Zeke said, though there was little feeling in his voice.

  “You alright, boss?” Josh asked.

  Zeke didn’t know if he was just trying to get back on his good side, or if he was concerned –but Zeke shook his head somewhat, falling into a seat. “I fucked up, Josh,” Zeke admitted mournfully.

  “You think the bondsman knows something?” Josh looked like he was getting ready to chew through a box of tums if this was the case.

  “No, not that. I met this chic a couple weeks back and uh, when I went to the bonds office she was there. Apparently, she’s like –apprenticing with them or some shit like that, I don’t know.” Zeke shook his head.

  “You think maybe she knows about us?” Josh asked, leaning forward in his seat.

  “No, not like that, but I thought the same thing and followed her back to her apartment and kind of… accused her of some shit that I had no proof of.” Zeke scrubbed his fingers through his greasy hair, realizing how badly he needed a shower.

  “Uh oh.” Josh chuckled faintly. “Yeah, the lady-folk don’t like it when you do that. Listen, if she liked you at all, she’ll get over it or you could persuade her.” He smiled somewhat.

  “Persuade her.” Zeke murmured the words in a flat monotone as he sat up in his seat somewhat, resting his elbows on his knees. “Like how?”

  “Well, woman are delicate –fuck all don’t tell them that, but they are of a more tender nature, most of them anyway. So, you pissed her off –and maybe she verbally handed you your ass?” Josh asked with a slight tilt of his head.

  “Kind of,” Zeke mumbled, not going to easily admit that some five foot nothing little woman had backed him off her doorstep like she was a rabid Rottweiler.

  “What did she say to you, exactly, tell me everything word for word.” Josh turned to his computer, rapidly tapping at the keys a moment before he looked at Zeke again, making a ‘come on’ motion with his hands.

  “She said that I was an asshole and she was wrong about me, and she thought that I was different.” Zeke rambled on for a second –he wasn’t going to tell Josh all the details, he didn’t need to know, and this was a need to know basis. He was still getting shit from the rest of the pack for his little rumble in the woods with her.

  “Uh-huh. I thought as much. Ok, here’s what you do big guy. So, you said that you knew where she lived right? What’s the address?” Josh turned back to the computer again, waiting, his fingers poised over the keys ready to start hammering out the address that Zeke gave him.

  “I wasn’t paying attention to the street address; I just followed her car back to her apartment.” Zeke got up from his seat and walked around the desk, looking at the computer screen in front of Josh. He was on that edible arrangement’s website.

  “Oh. Well, that does pose a problem.” Josh turned in his seat to look up at the man, feeling a little ill at ease with the big bear looming over him. Josh might have been out of the fire and back into the frying pan, but being near someone who could easily snap his neck always made him nervous and uncomfortable. “Do you think you could find your way back there by memory?” Josh asked while he might have been uncomfortable, he wasn’t about to let this go.

  “Yeah, without a doubt.” Zeke knew those apartments, they weren’t that difficult to find, he just didn’t know the street address or the apartment number, he just watched Tiffany park and go inside. He didn’t think at all about anything else he might need to remember.

  “Here’s what you do. Give her a day or so to calm down, then go get her some flowers, maybe find some chocolates or sweets and leave her a little note with them. For the love of God don’t talk to her. Just leave them on her doorstep and let her find them on her own. Leave your number with the note. If she really hates your guts then she’ll throw it all away and move on with her life, but if she still has some soft feelings about you –maybe she will accept the gift and give you a call. And remember, say you’re sorry.” Josh explained to him. “Women like it when you are humble.”

  “And this will get her to talk to me?” Zeke asked him skeptically, one thick brow arching somewhat as he glanced at the website again for a few seconds.

  “It just depends on how hurt she is. She might make you wait a couple days, maybe even a week just to really drill her point home, but if she isn’t completely done with you –she might come around.” Josh said looking at Zeke. “You really don’t deal with women on a romantic level, do you?” He asked, finding something that he seemed to have some expertise in whereas Zeke, was a complete idiot.

  “I’ve always been of the mind that three hours with a woman is three hours enough, you meet, maybe take her for a drink and dinner and then you rail her and say your goodbyes,” Zeke replied with a mild shrug of his shoulders as he turned away from the computer and went back to his seat.

  Josh stared at him, stunned for a few seconds before clearing his throat and going back to the website that was open on his computer and clicked the little X in the top right corner.

  “Well, if you want to get the girl and possibly keep the girl you have to start thinking differently,” Josh said after a minute or so. “Not that there is anything wrong with your methods, they work, and you get what you want –but if you want to keep the same woman around for a while, that’s what you do.” Josh felt his shoulders shrug up and down lamely. “Anyway, back to our other problem. Mel.” Josh said. “What kind of plan do you have for tracking him down?”

  “I’ll shift. I can track a lot easier when I am a bear, I’ll be able to sniff him out no problem.” Zeke replied with a nod. He didn’t know why he didn’t consider this in the first place, maybe he was trying to give Josh a chance to make up for talking him into hiring his cousin, but truthfully up until now, he’d thought that they would be able to track Mel down without any problems, he wasn’t a criminal genius, and roaming around as a bear wasn’t always so easy –people noticed things like bears just walking through town, this was going to be tricky.

  16.

  Without any word from Margaret on the case, Tiffany didn’t have anything else to keep her mind off Zeke, the bastard. He wasn’t at all who she thought that he might be. But what was she expecting? She’d slept with a total stranger in the middle of nowhere, it was stupid of her to think that he would be some great guy who just happened to be interested in spending time with her without his dick inside her. The rest of the evening was spent gorging herself on pizza and watching really bad romantic comedies where she shouted at the television screen telling Renee Zellweger, Kira Knightly, Katherine Heigl and that chic from the Titanic not to fall for those tricks, but these were movies and the girl always got the guy and they ran off into the sunset for a happily ever after, except for on the Titanic. Things like that didn’t happen in real life, not always, and not the way the movies made it out to be either.

  By the time morning came, Tiffany was hanging her head over the toilet, puking her guts out as she faintly gurgled. “Fuck you, Papa John… how dare you do this to me.” Poor Brody was laying on the mat beside the sink whining as another volley of last night’s dinner was emptied into the toilet, and on top of all that, she had to go to work at Tom’s by three o’clock. Tiffany already knew that it was going to be a rough shift.

  Nibbling on some crackers and the single ginger ale that was in the back of her refrigerator, she considered calling out sick. Tiffany had plenty of time before her shift started, but the thought of leaving the closing shift short handed and someone
else being called in on their day off to cover for her or even just someone who had already worked their shift having to stay made her feel even sicker with guilt so she went back to the bathroom and finished off the bottle of Pepto that was in the vanity cabinet and got in the shower. Maybe by the time she needed to start getting ready for work she would be feeling better? Either way, Tiffany knew that she would go into work and if Ryland thought that she was too sick to perform her duties, he could send her home.

  Checking her phone, she didn’t have any missed calls or text messages from Margaret about Mel, so she set a clock on her phone and laid back down across the couch and fell back to sleep listening to the television with the volume playing on low feeling somewhat better after getting herself cleaned up, but she felt as if she’d been running a marathon.

  Waking up to the chiming and buzzing of her phone on the coffee table, Tiffany rubbed her eyes and sat up before turning off the alarm, looking at the time again as if she hadn’t purposefully set it for twelve o’clock. Her stomach felt considerably better, but she was still tired as she went and used the bathroom. If Tiffany kept having tummy issues she needed to make a run to the store really quickly and pick up some more Pepto, maybe even grab some of the tablets that she could keep in her pocket if she felt the need for them later on while she was at Tom’s.

  “I’ll be right back, baby boy.” Tiffany told Brody, who was following her all around the apartment as she picked up her keys and purse, shoving her feet into her sandals. She was aware how ragged she looked as she stepped outside into the noonday heat and went to her car, she felt herself sway somewhat with dizziness. Sitting in the seat for a few minutes with the A/C rolling she felt a bit better; she was also aware of how thrown together she looked. Her heart ached and she felt like if she made the wrong move, she might coax herself into another vomiting fit and she didn’t want that.

  Her flip-flops clapped against her heels as she walked inside the Kum and Go gas station. She had a wicked craving for an ice cold slushie and they carried a variety of things you might need when you were just running in some place trying to be quick. Finding the medicine, she tucked them under her arm as she went back to the slushie machines, looking at the beautiful row of rainbow colors all churning away. Grabbing the biggest cup they had, she went about pumping a little bit of each flavor into the cup except for grape, the last time she had grape soda she got sick to her stomach –Tiffany was now weary of any unnatural flavoring of grape things besides wine, juice and jelly. Drinking her slushie as she got in line to pay for her things, she instantly felt better, like the icy beverage was soothing her soul in a way that medicine just couldn’t.

  Stepping outside, Tiffany sniffed the air, tilting her head somewhat as she caught a familiar scent, though she couldn’t place it. Where was it coming from?

  Inhaling deeply, she walked around the side of the building where the bathrooms were, but she instantly regretted it. The rank scent of the dumpster immediately hit her nostrils and made her stomach churn. Turning back, Tiffany went to her car, feeling that whatever it was, wasn’t that important. She was probably smelling someone she had walked past while she was in the store, but because she was sick earlier that morning, her sense of smell was on hyper drive.

  Being off work for two days in a row was a rarity, so she wasn’t going to call in sick, she knew that, but a small part of her still wished that she would as she walked back into her apartment, checking her phone again. No new calls.

  As Tiffany put away a few slices of pizza and a drink into her thermal lunch box to take with her to work, she tried not to think about Zeke, he wasn’t worth it, he hadn’t even been in her life long enough to be worth the tears that she shed over him the evening before, but Tiffany had allowed her imagination to run wild in that two week period of time after they met and she’d built up her hopes for something that wasn’t in the cards. It made her heart sink, but instead of moping, she realized that in that period, because of a choice she made things in her life had changed and they were different now for the better. Tiffany made a new friend in Margaret and even though she hadn’t heard anything about Mel’s case yet, she knew that she would, so Tiffany decided she would do her best not to focus on the negative. As soon as Mel’s case was closed, Zeke would forever be out of her life and she wouldn’t even find herself thinking about him anymore –at least that was what she told herself to feel better.

  If things worked out, she might have a promising career in bail bonding and while it might have been physically taxing –in the short time she had been learning about it, Tiffany knew she liked it. Hopefully, the paycheck was also decent. At least she assumed that it was.

  Whatever the case was, Tiffany was giving some serious thought to asking Margaret about a position with the bond’s office, and she had a feeling that Margaret had been already keen to the idea of hiring her, they just hadn’t talked about it yet.

  As Tiffany clocked in at Tom’s for work that was what was on her mind as she cleaned up her station and signed in to her register, happily checking customers, if not just a little slower than usual feeling that her tummy was still just a little bit tender.

  “Are you feeling okay, Tiffany? You look a little pale.” Ryland asked as he came over to close the line at her register before any new customers came up. It was time for her break.

  “Oh yes, I was a little sick this morning, but I feel fine now.” Tiffany replied, logging off her register and giving her supervisor a brief smile.

  “Sick? Sick how?” Ryland asked her, assessing her appearance for a moment.

  “I was,” Tiffany paused, lowering her voice so that no one else could hear what she was saying. “Vomiting.” She said with a little embarrassment in her voice.

  “Oh no. No, no. You should go home and rest, even if you feel fine a stomach virus can remain in your system for up to twenty-four hours.” Ryland said, nodding up and down quickly. “Come on, I’ll override the system so you can clock out and if anyone asks why you left early, I will tell them you are sick, and you needed to go. You won’t get any points.”

  “Ryland are you sure? I feel like I am perfectly able to finish my shift, I don’t want to leave us shorthanded.” Tiffany said, trailing after him, she’d already worked four hours of her shift, it didn’t seem like such a big deal.

  “I’m absolutely sure, plus Donna is here running the self-check until closing. We’ll be fine, if need be and we get a big rush, I can always hop on a register myself. You don’t need to be here right now.” Ryland said, scanning his badge, setting the override so that Tiffany could clock out for the night knowing that as soon as she was gone, he would be sanitizing every surface he could think of that he knew for certain that Tiffany had touched.

  “You really don’t have to do this, but thank you. I could use some extra rest. I took a nap before I had to come in to work and I did feel a little better, but when I got up was still tired.” Tiffany said as she clocked out.

  “Tiffany, it’s not a problem. As far as employees go, you have always been a shining example of what you are supposed to do, and you’ve never called in sick once since you worked here. It actually makes it look better on you that you did come in sick and were sent home.”

  Getting her purse from her locker, Tiffany never locked it, she just put her things inside and slipped the clock over it so that the door didn’t hang open. She trusted people a little too much.

  “Do you need any medicine?” Ryland asked her, still looking concerned.

  “No, I’ve got everything that I need at home. I might grab some Powerade before I go so that I can rehydrate though now that I think about it.” She said, taking her name tag off her shirt and tucking it into her apron.

  “Good idea, and some banana’s they are easy on your stomach. I had the stomach flu a few years back and that was all I could keep down.” Ryland replied before smiling. “I’ll see you tomorrow and I hope you feel better.” Getting back out on the sales floor, Tiffany followed him out o
f the break room and went to the produce section, grabbing a bunch of bananas before she picked up a six pack of Powerade on her way out of the store for the evening. Tiffany wasn’t used to getting off work this early unless she was working the morning shift.

  As she pulled into the driveway in front of her apartment, the headlights of her car landed on something large and brown sitting on her doorstep. At first, Tiffany couldn’t tell what it was, but as she shut the engine off and stepped out, she realized that it was a giant stuffed bear, one of the novelty ones you had to go to certain stores to find and weren’t very cheap at all. A small smile began to twitch at her lips as she picked it up and unlocked her door, hefting it into the living room and dropping it on the couch as she bent back over the doorstep to pick up the box of chocolates that the bear was sitting on.

  Settling onto the couch, she looked at the bear for a few seconds, obviously, Tiffany knew who it was from. There was also a ribbon around its neck, holding an envelope.

  Plucking it out, Tiffany ripped the envelope open and took the sheet of paper from inside and unfolded it. The handwriting was terrible, but Tiffany was able to decipher the meaning of the letter. Zeke had overreacted yesterday and now, he was too embarrassed to face her, but if she was still interested in seeing him, he left his phone number at the bottom of the page.

  Flipping the box of chocolates open, she took one out and put it in her mouth, chewing while she thought. Of course, she wanted to see him, if he was humble enough to apologize, even if it was in a note –perhaps he was just worried that she wouldn’t listen to him if he came to say he was sorry in person. Tiffany certainly hadn’t given him a chance to say anything else yesterday. Plucking her phone from her purse, she put the number in her contacts list and tapped the call button. As she placed the phone to her ear, she wondered if it was too late to be calling him? It was after six after all, perhaps he was an early to bed, early to rise type of guy?