Green Bearets: Jarvis (A Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (Base Camp Bears Book 3)

by Amelia Jade

  She wiped her face with the back of her hand, taking a deep breath and trying to compose herself. It wouldn’t do to let Jarvis see her like this. She needed to be tough. This had happened, and there was nothing she could do to change it, she told herself. Time travel didn’t exist, and moping over the past wasn’t going to help her with moving on. Only accepting it and looking forward to the future would do that.

  It wasn’t going to be easy, she knew that. But Carrie knew she was strong enough to do it. Perhaps today would be the start. Having someone else come in and look around would be ideal. Only Andrea had been in the house since it happened. Carrie hadn’t even bothered calling the police. She’d known immediately there would be nothing they could do. It would have to be Jarvis and his people who found Angelo, if anyone could.

  You can do this, girl. Stand up straight. Good. Take a slow, deep breath. Hold it. Good, now slowly let it out. Excellent. Roll those shoulders. And again. One more time. All right, now you’re ready to—

  A hand landed on her shoulder.

  ***

  Jarvis

  She screamed.

  “Carrie!”

  But she wasn’t listening. The woman whirled and lashed out at him, a fist coming at his head—or at least, the height where a normal human head might be—with surprising accuracy and coordination.

  Jarvis leaned back out of the way, his combat reflexes taking over, even if the punch wouldn’t have done much more than reddened his skin for a few seconds at best. His right arm shot up, fist punching toward the ceiling. He cocked his arm back like he was flexing his bicep, trapping Carrie’s flailing right hook in his elbow.

  Then, without slowing, he stepped forward with his right foot, pivoted so that he was now behind her, and clamped his left hand on her left wrist, bringing it tight into her body so that she couldn’t flail anymore.

  “Carrie!” he said firmly into her ear as she continued to struggle, her scream turning into curses as she tried to wiggle her way free of his vise-like grip.

  “Let me go!” she shouted angrily, her head dipping to the left.

  Her teeth flashed brilliant white as she went to dig them into his left arm, but Jarvis was faster. He let go of her wrist and dipped his hand behind her elbow and tugged her arm around her back, into what was commonly referred to as a “chicken wing” hold.

  “Carrie, it’s me, Jarvis,” he said, standing up enough to straighten her out, so that she could no longer move.

  A wide-heeled foot stomped down on his tactical boots, but was stopped by the steel-toe insert.

  “Ow!” she cried out as he tightened his grip on her left arm a bit.

  “Stop trying to hurt me,” he told her firmly. “And listen. It’s Jarvis. From yesterday. Major Eidelhorn. You came to see me, remember?”

  The pain seemed to get through to her more than his words had, and she suddenly relaxed in his arms.

  “Thank you,” he said, taking a deep breath in as he released his hold on her.

  That proved to be a mistake. Carrie’s scent drifted up through his nose as he inhaled, washing over him with a lovely mixture of wildflowers and a hint of cinnamon. It was a deadly combination that had his bear thrashing against its mental confines, desperate to be let free.

  A vision flashed through his head. It consisted of spinning her around and lifting her onto the counter, putting her at the perfect level for him to lean in and kiss her, tasting her. He would run his fingers up her legs and use his strong fingers to wrap around her waist, holding her tightly. He kissed her deeply, until she moaned and pressed against him, her hard nipples showing through her shirt. Carrie’s hands reached out and grabbed his belt, fingers fumbling to—

  Enough!

  Jarvis wrenched himself violently from his fantasy, placing him firmly back in the present. His bear roared at him, but he simply added several more layers of sound-dampening rock to its prison, keeping it locked tightly away while he was around her.

  Taking a step to the side, he emerged from behind Carrie. He had to admit she looked stunning in the off-white dress she wore, with black boots that came up and over her knees. He eyed the thick heel on them, thankful for his steel-toes. Shifter or not, getting one’s toes smashed was an unpleasant experience that he was okay avoiding.

  “You scared the shit out of me,” Carrie said, breathing hard.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her, frowning. “I didn’t mean to. I called your name out several times. I thought you heard me.”

  “You did?”

  He nodded. “I’m truly sorry. I can only imagine how that must have been, me seeming to sneak up on you after what happened here. I promise, that wasn’t my intention.”

  She waved a hand, taking a deep breath of her own. “It’s okay. I was clearly lost in thought and not paying attention when you called my name.” Carrie shrugged. “Shit happens. Just give me a minute to catch my breath.”

  Jarvis grinned at her logical attitude. “Of course. Take all the time you want. I’ll just poke around in here while you do, if that’s okay?”

  Carrie nodded, waving her hand again, this time at the rest of the room. “Have at it. Most of the stuff is mine. Those boxes over there are things he had brought by the day of. Said he didn’t have room at his place. I wasn’t overly impressed, as he didn’t even tell me until they showed up.”

  “Awkward,” he muttered, eliciting a smile from Carrie.

  Even though he was trying to maintain a humorous attitude, his heart was sinking. It was just more proof that Carrie and this man, Angelo, had been serious. He’d been moving stuff into her place. They must have been together for some time.

  Focus on why you’re here. You are not here to woo her. Something weird is going on with her boyfriend, and you need to figure out what. Maybe after that’s all over things will change and you can pursue her. For now, be good.

  Mental chiding finished, Jarvis turned his attention to the three large bins taking up much of the floor space in her TV and entertaining area.

  There was no lock, so he simply lifted the lid of the first one.

  “Rope. Rope. Rope. Some more rope. Chalk?” he asked, confused, looking over at Carrie.

  “Rock climbing,” she said with a shrug. “Apparently it was a really big hobby and passion of his. Both of them are.”

  He dropped the chalk back, the rest of the contents of the box suddenly making sense.

  “Both?” he asked, dropping the lid and moving to the next one.

  “You’ll see.”

  Jarvis frowned, lifting up the next lid.

  “Scuba diving,” he said, the rebreathing gear, miniature tanks, drysuits, and all much more identifiable than the rock-climbing bin. “And this one?” he asked, pointing at the last bin.

  “More scuba gear,” she said.

  Curious, he lifted it up. Snorkels, masks, and flippers all stared back at him, inert and mostly neatly organized.

  “I don’t get it,” he muttered, half to himself. “Why store all this here? This would be better suited to a storage locker, no?”

  Carrie shrugged. “That’s where I told him to take it if he didn’t have room himself. But he said it wouldn’t be an issue. He only needed to keep it here for three weeks.”

  “Odd. Wonder what his deadline was. Three weeks is almost up, just one more to go, if like you said, it all came the day we kicked the Fenrisians out.”

  “I just figured he couldn’t get a storage unit until then, that they were booked. A week from today is the end of the month, after all.”

  Jarvis nodded slowly. “That’s a good point. It could very well have been that.”

  Something was niggling at his brain. Something about what he was seeing. But what? Jarvis looked at the three bins for a long time. His subconscious was trying to tell him something, he knew that. But the real question was, what? What had it seen with the items in front of him that didn’t add up?

  Nothing came to him, however, and he sighed, vowing to give it more though
t. The answer would come to him at the most inopportune time he was sure. But until then, there wasn’t much he could do about it.

  “Can you show me the rest of the place?” he asked. “Anywhere they were, or that things got broken.”

  “Sure,” she replied, beckoning him to follow her down the hall. “But nothing was broken, that’s the crazy part. Even the door wasn’t broken. They picked the damn lock, as far as I can tell.”

  “They picked the lock?” he asked, stunned.

  “Unless I somehow forgot to lock it,” she admitted. “But I’m pretty fanatic about locking my door once I come inside, no matter what time of day it is.”

  Jarvis decided not to mention the fact that the front door hadn’t been locked today. He figured that she’d left it that way for him, but he didn’t think saying so would help his case, so he wisely kept his mouth shut.

  “That is very odd,” he agreed. “Shifters aren’t normally known for their restraint when it comes to breaking and entering. I would have expected the door to be knocked down, things trampled and broken as they came upstairs.”

  She shook her head. “They were so proper and organized that in hindsight, I’m surprised they didn’t take off their shoes too.”

  Jarvis smiled, noting the way that talking about the incident was coming easier and easier to her. His soldier had been correct when he’d called her strong, though he was fairly positive this was only the tip on the surface when it came to Carrie. She was much more than the beautiful figure his eyes could see as he followed the sway of her hips up the stairs, almost forgetting to look around as he went.

  “This is the bedroom,” she said, stepping off the stairs and into a room straight ahead. “This is where we were.”

  He flinched at the mention that they had been in bed together when the break-in happened. The last thing Jarvis wanted to do was to imagine Carrie in bed with another man.

  Another man? What, are you so intent on bedding her already that you only want to imagine her with you?

  He very carefully did not answer his own question. Not just then, at least. Jarvis had a feeling he wasn’t ready to hear the answer to it, and it would be wiser just to look around.

  Scanning the entry, he saw several scrapes on the wall that could have been made as big figures filed in and spread out. But nothing had been outright broken, and in the two weeks since it had happened, all scents except for hers had vanished. The only reason Carrie’s remained was because she’d lived here all the time, and her scent was much more invested into the building.

  Jarvis did note that he couldn’t detect this Angelo’s scent either. If he’d been living with her, it hadn’t been for long.

  A small sliver of hope wormed its way into a chink in his armor, but he pushed it aside, not wanting to be distracted.

  “I’ll be blunt with you,” he said after another minute of looking around. “When you first came to me, I had thought this was an open and case shut of your boyfriend running afoul of some assholes from Fenris. But the more I look at this, the more I hear from you about it, the more I don’t believe that. Something is going on. They came to him for a reason. They were polite about it—well, as polite as you can be—for a reason.”

  He scowled, wanting to punch the wall. “I just don’t know what that reason is.”

  “I should have come to you earlier,” Carrie said, eyes downcast as she spoke.

  “Hey,” he said, stepping forward and grabbing her chin without thinking, lifting it so she was forced to stare at him and not the floor. “You do not have any blame in this. You didn’t do anything to make them break in, nothing. This was not your fault. Do you understand me?” he said, letting some of the command persona of his Major Eidelhorn identity slip through.

  The steel in his voice seemed to get to her, and Carrie stood a little straighter. Her eyes hardened and she nodded once, the movement breaking his grip on her chin.

  Jarvis stepped back.

  “Do you know where he lived? I’m going to need to go there,” he said. “Look around for any other clues.”

  Carrie nodded. “Yeah, I can give you the address.” Her eyes flicked past him. “Oh, and here. These are his keys. One of them will get you into his building I’m sure.”

  Jarvis took the keychain from her. There were three keys on it, two larger, and one smaller. In addition there was a remote start for a car, and dangling from it all was a bright-red cast metal toy sports car. A very expensive one in the real world.

  Once more his subconscious began to scream at him, but Jarvis couldn’t figure out why. What the hell was so interesting about a little car on a keychain? It wasn’t that odd; plenty of people had trinkets attached to their keys. Why wasn’t this man allowed to have a sports car? Sure, it was a fairly typical thing of a human male his age, but that didn’t make it suspicious.

  Did it?

  He mentally filed away the address Carrie gave him as they walked back down the stairs and out of the house. She locked it behind her.

  Jarvis very carefully did not see the little shudder run through her as she sighed in relief. Being in the house that long must really have tortured her more than she let on.

  So strong…

  “When do you want to go over to his place?” he asked, breaking the silence as they stood at the end of the walkway leading up to her house.

  Carrie hesitated. “I…I don’t know if I want to go. Give me a bit to think about it, okay? I may just say go on your own.”

  Jarvis shrugged nonchalantly. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, Carrie,” he said respectfully. “Just let me know.”

  “Hey,” he said, his mouth speaking suddenly before his brain could catch up. “Why don’t you come think it through over lunch with me?”

  Are you fucking stupid? You are. You have to be. Only a moron would ask her to lunch after just going through her house that was broken in to. You know, the house WHERE SHE LIVED WITH SOMEONE SHE CARED FOR. Damn, you really are stupid, aren’t you? Now she’s going to think you only came out to look at the place to try and spend more time with her.

  Way to ruin all your credibility, bud. Sometimes I wonder how you ever made it into an authority position in the Green Bearets. Because seriously, this decision just now was worse than recruit level.

  You stupid shit. You’re on your own now. This is going to be fun to watch as it all implodes around you.

  Sometimes Jarvis hated his inner self. It certainly had a bit of a caustic personality, though it was rarely ever incorrect about things. That had been a stupid question to ask. He could see the surprise in Carrie’s eyes.

  Her lips opened.

  Here comes the rejection…

  Chapter Three

  Carrie

  “Lunch?” she said, stalling for time.

  Yes. Lunch, you imbecile. That’s what he said. Way to pretend like you didn’t understand a basic question.

  Shut up. It caught me off guard.

  It was still spoken in plain English! A language you supposedly are fluent in. Now he’s going to think you’re just some vapid girl who has to hold up her hands in an L-shape to know her left and right, instead of a functioning adult.

  Maybe he’s into that? Hmm, ever think of that?

  Are you really starting a fight with yourself while he waits for you to answer? That is soooo mature.

  Hey, you started it! You stupid—

  Carrie shook her head, banishing the inner voices back into oblivion, where she hoped they stayed.

  “I don’t know,” she said slowly, not wanting to seem too eager.

  After all, if she were honest, she’d dressed up like this for a reason. Not that she was ready to completely admit it to herself.

  “Yeah, I’m starved,” Jarvis said, patting his stomach.

  Carrie laughed. He seemed like the type that could always be hungry.

  “Okay,” she said, relenting. “Lunch it is.”

  Jarvis’s face lit up, the smile that split his lips making the
butterflies in her stomach do a dance.

  Here he was, this tall, powerful shifter with superhuman abilities, grinning like a little schoolboy at the prospect of going to lunch with her.

  Knowing she made him smile that way was a damn good feeling. Damn good. Her self-esteem rose several notches that instant.

  Angelo hadn’t been the first asshole she’d dated, if she could really even call the two weeks they’d known each other “dating.” Before him there had been Rick, and Chester… she couldn’t forget Chester. The point was, she’d long ago begun to wonder if a nice guy would ever be attracted to her. Or if she was doomed to date failures for the rest of her life.

  Jarvis, she was positive, was a good guy. That he would do right by anyone he cared for. That he could be a good boyfriend, or husband, to the right woman.

  No. Not husband. Mate. That’s what shifters do, remember? They mate with someone.

  For life.

  The tendril of excitement that rushed through her at that idea caught Carrie so unawares that she lost her balance and almost fell over. She would have tumbled into the melting snowbank if a pair of impossibly strong arms hadn’t materialized around her, hauling her back up to her feet.

  “Whoa,” Jarvis said. “You okay there?”

  She nodded jerkily as she grabbed his arms for support, very carefully not letting her fingers rub along them, feeling the firm muscles through the white T-shirt he wore, his only protection against the cold.

  “Yeah,” she managed to say, disappointment flooding her as he released her, letting Carrie stand on her own once more. “Yeah I’m okay. Just embarrassingly lost my balance.”

  The huge shifter chuckled. “Happens to the best of us sometimes. Don’t worry about it. I won’t make fun of you for it. Not more than two or three times, that is.”

  She swatted at him, but he swayed out of the way with another laugh.

  “Not fair. You shifters are all so graceful and perfect. You’ll never screw up like that for me to return the favor.”