Beck (BBW Bear Shifter Moonshiner Romance) (120 Proof Honey Book 4)

by Becca Fanning

  Eventually the mother bear stopped walking and growled at the little bear who quickly rushed over to his mother. Jeanie caught the whole thing clicking away, a series of images that she was sure were spectacular and unique. It was amazing.

  They were getting closer and closer.

  Every instinct in Jeanie was telling her to run away now. Climb, run, panic! Where? Where could she run to that wouldn’t make the bears chase her? No, she had to keep her head. Just breathe. Jeanie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Running wouldn’t save her. If she was about to die by bear then there was nothing she could do about it. Of course there hadn’t been any overtly aggressive behavior from the bears. If anything they didn’t seem to care that she was in the woods at all. Even the large one that was now behind her off in the trees, seemed undisturbed by her presence. Perhaps the people here were no threat to the creatures and so the bears didn’t worry about them.

  Jeanie stood mouth open, clicking away on her camera as the bears walked right passed her. They were so close if she’d reached out a hand she would have run her fingers through the mother bear’s fur. It was amazing.

  The mother and her cubs met up with the other big bear. There were grunts and nuzzlings as though in greeting. This was unusual to say the least. Bears were only social when they were young or mating. They didn’t stay in family groups and male bears could be especially bad tempered and violent. But this one nuzzled the cubs and then as one creature they all turned to look at Jeanie as though posing for a family portrait, the parents behind the babies.

  Jeanie took the shot and stood flabbergast as the bears then turned and carried on walking through the woods.

  Jeanie’s legs were rubbery on the walk back to her car which made it rather difficult. She knew it was just the adrenaline draining out of her, but that didn’t make it any easier. She kept stumbling and bumping into the trees, taking more care of her camera than herself. At one point she slipped and landed heavily on her backside.

  “Well done Buchanan,” she moaned and hauled herself up.

  She began to slip and slide down a steep embankment. The ground suddenly gave way and Jeanie was sliding, arms pin-wheeling to keep her balance. The pine needles underfoot were smooth and slippery as ice. Her hiking boots, though good, had no hope of gaining traction as in a cloud of dust, Jeanie slid down into a ditch. She over balanced and landed heavily on her right arm bending it at a strange angle at the wrist.

  She heard the pop and cried out.

  As the dust settled around her, Jeanie felt her wrist explode into a world of agony. She had never felt this awake and horribly in her body before. There was nothing but her wrist at its strange angle and her pain. She wanted to cradle her arm but didn’t dare touch it. It was while she was sobbing and rocking herself to and fro that she heard a voice.

  “Hi,” it called, “Are you okay?”

  Jeanie looked up and out of the ditch she was sitting in.

  A man was standing on the edge looking down at her. He was tall and broad shouldered with thick black hair lying in a wavy mass on his head. His eyes were an unusual hazel color that made them seem to be golden. For a moment Jeanie forgot her pain and wanted to reach for her camera. She moved her arm and cried out again.

  “Looks like you’ve done yourself an injury,” the man said. He slid down into the ditch and came to rest on his haunches next to Jeanie. “What’s your name?”

  Jeanie looked at him and swallowed. “Um, it’s Jeanie,” she said. “Jeanie Buchanan.”

  “Hi Jeanie, my name’s Ryan Hunt,” he spoke gently, quietly to her in a calm and reassuring voice. Jeanie knew he was doing this to stop her from freaking out and she was amazed to realize that it was working despite her knowing what he was doing.

  Ryan spent a moment examining her wrist. “Well, it’s not broken. That’s the good news.”

  “It’s not? Sure feels broken,” Jeanie said feeling shock take over. She was hot and cold at the same time.

  “It might be fractured, but you’ll need x-rays to be sure.”

  “Is there bad news?”

  “’Fraid so. The bad news is it looks badly dislocated,” Ryan continued. “Now ordinarily I would put it back myself, but this looks a little out of my league. I think you need a professional. Just in case. So let’s get you up. My car is just over there through the trees. I’ll drive you to the doc.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to, really. I’m fine, I can drive myself,” Jeanie said. She didn’t want this hunk of a man to think she was the typical damsel in distress. She was a scientist. She didn’t get distressed.

  “You left handed?” Ryan asked.

  “No.”

  “Then you’d better let me take you.”

  Ryan pulled her to her feet and then lifted her in his arms. Jeanie was amazed. He picked her up like she was a feather. Then he walked up and out of the ditch without slipping once. She wondered where he bought his boots. Clearly they had better grip than hers did.

  It took Ryan a couple of minutes to walk back to his truck carrying Jeanie. He deposited her and her camera on the passenger seat and then slotted the seatbelt into place around her.

  “There we go,” he said and smiled at her. “Wouldn’t want you hurting any other parts on the way now would we?”

  His smile was naughty but nice. Jeanie hated thinking in clichés but it really was. It seemed to hint that this man had a fun streak that wasn’t on the surface. This one hid it deep, and she would bet good money that the only telltale sign was that smile.

  The drive to the main road took some time with Ryan going slowly and carefully over the uneven road surface.

  “So what brings you all the way out to Sun Valley?” he asked conversationally.

  “Work actually,” Jeanie confessed through gritted teeth.

  “You one of those National Geographic photographers or something?” Ryan asked indicating the camera that lay on the seat between them.

  Jeanie chuckled and shook her head. Her hair had come undone and was hanging about her in gentle auburn curls. She wished she could tie it up. It was such a bush when left down. But there was no helping it now.

  “Actually I’m only an amateur with the camera,” she confessed.

  “Oh, so what does Jeanie Buchanan do to pay the bills?”

  Jeanie sighed. “I do EIA’s; environmental impact assessments.”

  The change that came over Ryan was sudden and quite astounding. He hit the brakes and pulled the car over to the side of the road.

  “Do you work for Petersen-Snow?”

  “No! Well not directly. How do you know about them?”

  Ryan was angry. His face was flushed and he was gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. “Let’s just say we’ve had run ins.”

  “You have? Here? Wow! I thought this was the first time they were looking at property in this area.”

  “It is. Let’s just say that they aren’t my favorite people. Actually no one here likes them much,” Ryan said still sounding upset.

  Jeanie looked over at him. This wasn’t the most violent outburst she had ever endured. Once she had been doused in red paint by a person who thought that Jeanie would ever sign off on a project that involved destroying a wetland where a whole host of protected species nested. People jumped to conclusions all the time about her and her work. She knew how to deal with this.

  “Look Ryan,” she said trying to keep her voice calm through the pain in her wrist. It had throbbed with each jolt of the truck and had now settled into a constant thrum of pain that caused Jeanie to speak through gritted teeth. “You probably don’t understand the full extent of environmental impact assessments are for. It’s quite common to…”

  “Yeah, I know how this works.” He said interrupting her. “You come in and take a look around and then sign everything my people have worked for for generations over to some stuffed shirt in New York!”

  “That is not what I do!” she yelled, indignant. “Why do people always thi
nk that? Shit!” she turned to face him. “Some people in my profession might be a little hasty in their approving projects. That’s not me. I have to make sure that everything is above board. It’s a complex survey of the area taking the animal and human life into consideration. So don’t just assume that I’m in P & S’s pocket. Okay? Because I’m not! I take my job very seriously and I never just sign off. I’m extremely thorough.”

  Ryan’s golden eyes met hers and held her gaze. She hoped he could see her sincerity. Jeanie wasn’t in this game for the money, which could be huge if you took bribes which she didn’t. She was in this to do good, to make sure that people couldn’t run wild destroying environments that were unique and could never be reclaimed. It was her passion, her calling in life. It was amazing how often people got it wrong.

  After a while Ryan swallowed and looked out at the road ahead but stayed silent. Jeanie was panting a little as she calmed down after her outburst. She glared out the window feeling her pulse return to normal. The dirt track ran under a canopy of leaves, all turning golden and red as fall swept the land outside the car. Overhead clouds were massing, thick and grey. Ryan seemed to sniff the air. Then he sighed and put the truck back into gear and pulled out onto the road.

  They drove in silence then suddenly Ryan burst out saying, “You know Petersen-Snow, they plan to kick us all out of Sun Valley. Just think about that while you’re doing your job so thoroughly.”

  Jeanie was shocked. “Of course I will,” she snapped. “Interviewing local residents is part of the procedure.” If she was totally honest she would usually post an online survey and gauge people’s feelings that way, but perhaps this was a hands on kind of place. Anyway her driver was proving quite passionate about this and the last thing she needed was to end up dead in a ditch because P & S contracted her firm to do their assessments.

  She shifted closer to the door and looked out at the countryside. They turned onto the main road and now Ryan depressed the accelerator. The truck sped off. There was very little traffic and he had no trouble weaving between the other cars, breaking the speed limit. Seemed he was as eager to get rid of her as she was to be out of his car.

  There was a hospital in San Luis but it was an hour or more away. So Ryan drove Jeanie into town to the local sawbones. His clinic was in an old house, converted and made to look more modern with some bad architecture. Jeanie wasn’t at all sure about this place, but she was desperate.

  Ryan pulled into the parking lot and stopped the car. He turned to Jeanie who was releasing the seatbelt catch so she could get out.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I jumped to conclusions about you. We’ve just met and I don’t know whose side you’re on, but it was wrong of me to yell at you. Do you think we could start over?”

  Jeanie was surprised. She blinked her hazel eyes at him, considering. “Apology accepted.”

  Ryan smiled. “Let me help you out.”

  He got out and ran around the vehicle to the passenger door. He pulled it open and helped Jeanie to her feet. She thanked him as he escorted her to the doctor’s waiting room. It was a little seating area with plastic chairs. Some children sat with their mothers, all of them sniffing, sneezing and coughing. That time of the year Jeanie guessed as she and Ryan made their way to the reception desk.

  A large lady wearing a dark blue blouse and black sleeveless pullover eyed them over her eyeglasses’ thick black rims. She had faded blonde hair and red-rimmed blue eyes that she turned on them with less interest than Jeanie felt she should have had. A half-finished box of chocolate chip cookies lay open on her desk, crumbs littering the polished work surface.

  “Can I help you?” she drawled.

  “I hope so,” Jeanie replied trying to put a brave face on. Her wrist was so sore now she was on her last bit of self-control to not dissolve into a fountain of tears.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, this is an emergency!” Jeanie retorted feeling her patience slipping away.

  “So what’s the emergency?”

  “It’s her wrist, ma’am,” Ryan said flashing the friendly smile. “It seems to be dislocated.” He indicated Jeanie’s throbbing appendage.

  The receptionist regarded it and nodded. “Yup, looks like. Well take a seat and fill out this form. Sign at the bottom of the second page only. Got that? Only at the bottom of page two! Then bring it back to me. You got health insurance?”

  Jeanie nodded.

  “Good,” the receptionist said and handed the form to Ryan. “You her husband or boyfriend or something?”

  “No, I just found her in the woods,” Ryan told her.

  “Well, okay then. Go take a seat and help her fill this out. I warn you though, as a walk in you’re going to have to wait a while.”

  “Thank you,” Ryan said and took the clipboard.

  They sat and Ryan helped Jeanie fill out the form, making sure she only signed on the instructed line. Then he handed it back to the lady and resumed his seat next to Jeanie.

  “Thanks for all the help. You don’t have to stick around. I’m sure you have better things to do.” She said hoping he would stay.

  “I can stay,” Ryan said texting on his phone. “Never know if you’re going to need someone to sign for you again.” He looked up and grinned.

  Jeanie was taken for x-rays quite quickly once the fat receptionist had captured her information on the computer. It was after that that the waiting started. They waited for an hour. By that time Jeanie was almost beside herself with pain. She was drained, sore and holding back tears. Why did she have to go and fall? Things were fine until that happened. And now she was waiting to see a doctor who seemed to be on his way back from Mars or something considering how long this was taking. Her mind was a mishmash of thoughts and feelings all jumbled together. She felt sick, hungry and tired, oh, so tired.

  Eventually she was called into a small consulting room with a plastic covered examination table.

  “Hop up and let’s take a look at your wrist,” the doctor’s voice said, drifting in from behind a screen where she could hear water running. Then paper towel dispensing.

  There were steps next to the table, so Jeanie walked up and sat gingerly on the edge. She was chewing her lips raw, blood already starting to trickle into her mouth. Any other pain would do right now. She just couldn’t take the agony from her right wrist anymore.

  The doctor appeared. He was a short man, grey haired and a little stooped. He smiled sweetly as he took a look at her x-rays and then at her wrist.

  “Dislocated for sure,” he said. “But we can fix that. Now don’t you worry. On three. One.” He pulled her hand.

  Jeanie screamed and kicked the doctor.

  Jeanie felt better.

  Despite kicking the doctor in the knee, she had her wrist joint realigned and strapped, and was beginning to feel the happy feeling that everything would be just fine, as the schedule 5 drugs shut down her pain centers.

  What a way to start a job! Jeanie wondered if she should call her office and let them know she was injured on duty. Then she thought about the mess of paperwork that that entailed. How she would have to get the doctor to write up a report about the incident. He would probably mention her nervous reaction to having her joint reset. No, Jeanie decided that the less Wilkes knew about this, the better.

  “You’re feeling better,” Ryan said as they climbed back into his truck. He hovered at the open passenger door. “Can I buy you something to eat?”