Hard To Bear

by Georgette St. Clair

  Yeah, that’s it, Coral thought in exasperation. I can’t resist a skinny, socially awkward virgin.

  Mr. Brewster walked up to her. “Tomorrow, you’re going to start investigating who bought those parcels of property. And give Interpol and the Shifter’s Council a call, and see what kind of comment you can get on the missing people.”

  “When would we run a story?”

  He shook his head. “There’s a story there, but we don’t know what it is yet. I’d like to nail down who bought all those pieces of property. And at this point, we don’t yet have proof that the property sales are connected to the disappearances.”

  Coral sighed and turned back to her computer. She was frustrated. She knew that the disappearances were connected; she just couldn’t prove it yet. Her phone rang and she glanced down; it was Flint calling. Scowling, she turned the phone off and tossed it into her purse.

  Chapter Ten

  Over the past year, there were six property purchases in the swamplands northeast of Blue Moon Junction, Crystal found by visiting the Blue Moon County tax collector. Every purchaser was a business that appeared to be a corporation in name only, with no information available about them on the internet. One of them had an address in Crystal Grove, a tiny town three hours drive from Coral Grove. It was still early in the day, and Mr. Brewster suggested that Coral take a drive out there to see what she could find.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Frederick asked. “It could be dangerous.” He flexed his small bicep.

  Across the room, Coral saw Bettina staring at Frederick, and then deliberately turning her back and hunching over a magazine she’d been reading.

  “Oh, I beg your pardon, were you talking to me? The jealous one?” Coral asked coldly, raising an eyebrow.

  “You’re not being fair. You made it sound like I’m some kind of loser, like there’s no way that woman like Melinda would go for someone like me. You wouldn’t like it if I said that Flint didn’t like you,” Frederick protested, sounding petulant.

  “From the body language I saw at the restaurant, you were clinging to her arm and she was completely ignoring you and staring at me and Flint. If you want to make a fool of yourself, though, go ahead. You’ll figure it out soon enough. I just wish you weren’t hurting Bettina’s feelings in the process.”

  “It’s just…I’ve never had anyone like Melinda even give me the time of day. She’s like this beautiful Amazon goddess.”

  “Bettina’s a good person, and you guys were having a great time together, and you’re going to throw it all away on a woman who is clearly using you.”

  A hurt look puckered Frederick’s narrow face. “For your information, Melinda got called away on family business, but she still called me last night and again today.”

  “Sounds like true love. Good luck with that,” Coral said, as she headed out the door. Love makes fools of us all, she thought.

  Speaking of which…Flint had tried to call Coral half a dozen times the evening before, and she’d glanced out her window before going to bed and spotted his car parked down the block. He was sitting out there watching. Making sure she was safe.

  Or was he? She suddenly wondered as she walked out to her car. Was he watching to make sure she was safe, or just watching to see what she was up to?

  She tried, and failed, to put him out of her mind as she drove to Crystal Grove. The sun was shining and the back roads looped through lush green woodlands, past citrus groves, and miles and miles of farmland. Massive grain silos towered over herds of cows grazing behind barbed-wire fences like a scene out of a cowboy movie. It was beautiful, but again and again Flint’s face swam before her vision, and the memory of his hands and his mouth on her sent unwelcome ripples of desire running through her body.

  Finally, she arrived at Crystal Grove, a town so tiny it barely deserved the name. It was nothing but a tiny collection of one story buildings clumped on either side of a rural back road.

  Coral parked in front of a feed and grain store, and quickly found the address she’d been looking for – in a small white bungalow-style house on a weed choked lot.

  She walked in , and the clerk behind the desk glanced up. He was an older human, skinny, wearing glasses. He squinted at her suspiciously. Apparently he didn’t get too many visitors.

  “Can I he’p you?” he asked.

  “I’m looking for Redbird Investments,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Never heard of ‘em.”

  “This is the address they gave,” she said. She glanced at the bank of mailboxes on the wall behind him. “Is this an address rental business?”

  He shrugged. “What if it is?”

  She shot him a skeptical look. Why was he being so weird and cagey? “I imagine they’re one of your clients. They must rent this address.”

  “Like I said.” He repeated it slowly, with a hostile edge to his tone now. “Never heard of them. Who’s asking?”

  “The Blue Moon Junction Tattler. We’re doing a story on the purchase of a number of properties around our county. One of the purchasers gave this address for their business. That’s fine, we’ll still put the address in our story, and say that an employee at this address denied that they’d ever heard of Redbird.”

  “You can’t do that.” He tried to sound menacing, and pushed his chair back, standing and glowering at her.

  “Since it’s the truth, actually, yes I can. And please, don’t try to intimidate me. I’m a wolf.” Actually she was feeling kind of intimidated, not by him so much, but by the fact that she was in a tiny backwoods town in the middle of nowhere, and she could practically hear the banjo music from Deliverance playing. However, she was damned if she was going to let this jerk see that he’d rattled her cage.

  He glowered at her, puffing out his narrow chest. “Are you threatening me? I think I’ll just call the sheriff.”

  “Please do,” she said coolly. “My sister is married to the sheriff of Blue Moon Junction, and my newspaper publisher is expecting me back at the office. And believe me, we’re not done digging.”

  She walked out and then in a fit of pique, she pulled her point and shoot camera from her purse and took a picture of the building.

  The clerk ran out onto the porch, yelling at her “You can’t do that! If you run the picture, I’ll sue!”

  “Read up on the law,” she yelled at him. “I’m standing on public property. I can take any picture I want.” She quickly climbed in her car and slammed the door shut.

  Glancing through the business’s window, she could see that the clerk was calling somebody. Her heart pounded even faster.

  She called the publisher to tell him what happened.

  “If I’m not back in three hours, you should be worried,” she informed him.

  “If you run into any problems, call the police. Don’t try to handle it yourself,” Mr. Brewster said.

  Her heart thudded in her chest as she pulled away from the curb. There was an air of unseen menace hovering, which set her palms to perspiring. When she’d driven into town, it had looked quaint and cute, like something that should be on a postcard. Now she felt the bright light glaring harshly down on her like a spotlight, and the emptiness of the town made it feel spooky and abandoned.

  She drove out of town quickly, glancing behind her as she did. Her phone rang, and she grabbed it. It was Flint.

  “What’s up?” he asked. “You haven’t been returning my calls.”

  Her heart fluttered at the sound of his voice. Stupid bear. Why did he have to be charming and persistent and incredibly hot?

  “I’m working,” she said. “And you know why I haven’t been returning your calls.”

  “Will you at least go out to lunch with me?”

  “I can’t. I’m in Crystal Grove. Three hours away.”

  “Crystal Grove? Why?” he sounded alarmed.

  “Flint, I really should go now. I need to get out of here quickly. Those weird land purchases I was telling you about? One of the
purchasers was from here, and…it’s a long story. I’ll call you back, these roads are windy and I need to be able to concentrate.”

  “Tell me your route. I’m coming to meet you,” he said. “And if anyone starts following you, call me immediately.”

  She could have told him to mind his own business, but she was spooked enough that she was actually glad to have him know where she was. She recited her route to him, and stepped on the gas pedal.

  What the heck was going on here? The clerk clearly was hiding something. Who had he been calling? If the local police were in on it too, whatever “it” was, she could be in serious trouble.

  She’d been driving for about an hour when she realized that a car was on her tail.

  Chapter Eleven

  She was winding through a rural area, on a narrow road hemmed in by tiny trees. She accelerated. The car behind her accelerated. It wasn’t a police car, or if it was it was an unmarked vehicle.

  She slowed down slightly to see what the car behind her would do, and the car sped up until it was almost on her rear bumper. Glancing in her rearview mirror, she saw there were two men in the car, big, bulky men.

  She stepped on the gas again, thanking her lucky stars that her car was small and nimble. Still, the car behind her stayed right on her tail, clinging to her like a burr as she whipped around sharp curves, tires screeching.

  Her phone rang, but she couldn’t pick it up, because it was taking everything she had just to stay on the road. She was sure that if she slowed down, the car behind her would ram her and send her spinning.

  Just when she was really starting to panic, the thick trees gave way, and she saw homes on either side of the road up ahead. There had been a diner in this area, she remembered. She stepped on the pedal again, zipping out of the wooded area, and in a couple of minutes, she’d pulled in to the diner’s parking lot.

  The car that had been following her shot past, and vanished into the horizon.

  Had it been her imagination? Everything about this investigation was making her so jumpy that she couldn’t tell any more if she was being paranoid or observant.

  Heart pounding, she called Flint and told him what had just happened and where she was.

  “Stay there at the diner,” he ordered her. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  She sat down at a booth where she could watch through the window to see who was coming in the door, and ordered lunch.

  Flint was there in forty-five minutes, and she’d never been so happy to see him. He was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and lace-up work boots, and as always, he looked good enough to eat.

  “I saved you a piece of pie,” she told him as he slid into the seat across from her.

  He grinned. “You do know the way to a bear’s heart,” he said, and sat down at the table with her. He devoured the pie in a few bites, leaving a red smear of jelly on his upper lip. She looked at it hungrily, wanting to lick it off, and then head south, lower, lower…

  She suppressed a shiver of arousal at the sight of his tongue moving over his top lip. She remembered the feel of that tongue on her skin, the taste of it in her mouth. She yearned to taste him again.

  Flint reached out and took her hand in his. “I missed you,” he growled. “I didn’t want to, but I did. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

  “It’s been like one day,” she protested.

  “You mean you didn’t miss me?” The big, handsome bear shifter looked hurt. She sighed.

  “Maybe a little, but I tried not to,” she admitted grudgingly.

  “You need to stop working on this story, Coral. It’s dangerous.”

  “Ha. Danger is my middle name,” she said, with a bravery she didn’t feel.

  “Really? Coral Danger Colby? Were your parents hippies or something?”

  “No, you moron, then they would have named me something like Rainbow or Moonchild. And actually my middle name is Annabelle. I’m not going to stop investigating, because there are parents out there who don’t know where their son and daughter are, and this is all tied together somehow, and I can’t let it go.”

  “It’s not your job,” Flint protested. “Let the police handle it.”

  “The police,” she said evenly, “are trying to bury it, and they pulled me over and stole the notes I’d found the other day. They may even be involved, for all I know.”

  “I’m telling you that whatever it is you think you’ve stumbled on to, it’s clearly dangerous,” Flint said. “People have disappeared. Do you want to be next?”

  “So you think I should just walk away? Not happening.”

  He scowled at her, setting his fork down on his empty pie plate. “Somebody broke into your house, and now you’re being followed. You’re coming back to my house tonight.”

  “No, I’m not. You’re not being honest with me about why you’re here in town, and as long as there are secrets between us, I can’t keep seeing you.” She set her fork down and looked him in the eye. “And I’ll be honest here, since one of us might as well be, I can’t sleep under the same roof as you without giving in to temptation. So I need to stay away from you.”

  “I can promise to behave,” Flint said, looking pleased at her admission. “I’ll lock my bedroom door and resist any and all attempts at seduction on your part.”

  Coral shook her head. “No, you won’t.”

  “You’re right, I’d jump you the minute we walk in my front door. If you won’t come home with me, I’ll have one of my men watching your house tonight.”

  “When you say your men, do you mean the construction workers, or the Enforcers?” There. She’d laid it out on the table.

  Flint glanced around to make sure there was nobody listening. The booths around them were empty.

  “What makes you say that?” he asked in a low voice.

  Well, she was being honest, so she might as well ‘fess up.

  “I went through your pants pockets before I washed them the other night, in case you’d left anything else in them. I found a receipt for silver-coated bullets. Only Enforcers are allowed to carry them.”

  “You did what?” he spluttered. “You…you’re jumping to conclusions.”

  “I’m not,” she said. “You move like a cop. I know you’re in law enforcement. And you’re lying to me about why you’re here. It has something to do with the disappearances, doesn’t it? Or the land purchases? Or both? Are they connected?”

  A long, long silence stretched between them, and Coral could hear the thundering of her heart in her own ears.

  “Can’t you at least give me some idea of what you’re doing here? Can’t you even acknowledge that there’s something going on?” Coral pleaded.

  Flint stared out the window at nothing, for another long moment, then looked up at Coral, his face expressionless.

  “I’m still going to either watch your house at night, or have someone do it for me,” Flint said. “Let’s go; I’ll be behind you the whole way.”

  “Fine. Do what you want,” Coral muttered, grabbing her purse and following him out the door.

  Glumly, Coral climbed into her car and slammed the door shut. She didn’t want to fight with the bear; she wanted to tear his clothes off and make him shout her name as he came in her mouth. She wanted to feel their sweat-slick bodies pressing against each other as she nibbled his neck. Sticking to her principles sucked.

  They drove back to Blue Moon Junction without incident, with Coral glancing behind her frequently to make sure that nobody was following them. Then she pulled into the newspaper parking lot, and Flint drove away with a wave through the window.

  “No more solo expeditions,” Mr. Brewster said to Coral when she walked in. “I can’t afford to keep replacing reporters like this.”

  “Gee, I’m touched.”

  Coral saw that Blanche was sitting by her desk, waiting for her. She gave her a wave of acknowledgement, then turned back to Mr. Brewster. “Do we have a story yet?” she asked him.

  “There’s a stor
y there, all right, but I don’t know what it is yet,” Mr. Brewster said. “I want to keep digging into the ownership of those parcels. And we don’t have enough yet to tie the disappearances together, much less to time them to property purchases.”

  “But Adrian was investigating the purchase of that property. His journal said so. And then he disappeared. That’s the connection.”

  “I believe you. I just wish we still had that journal.”

  “We’re letting the police win here!” Coral protested.

  “No, we’re practicing responsible journalism by waiting until we have all the facts. And I think you’ve got some obits to type up.”

  Muttering rebelliously, Coral went back to her desk.

  Frederick glanced over at Coral as she sat down.

  “Is it true somebody followed you back here?” he asked. “I told you that you should have had me go with you. And by the way, Melinda called, and she was very relieved to hear that nothing happened to you.”

  Coral sincerely doubted that was true. “I’m not sure you should be telling her our business,” she said uneasily. “Why does she even care what I’m up to?”

  “Oh, please. I trust her completely,” Frederick said.

  Coral shrugged; he was blinded by lust.

  Bettina walked over, grabbed a chair, and pulled it up. “I’m pretty good at computer research,” she said. “I can help you track down the ownership of that land, if you want.”

  Frederick glanced over at them. “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked hopefully.

  “Well, you could go take a long walk off a short pier, without a life preserver,” Bettina suggested, and then turned on the computer and started typing.

  Frederick sighed and turned back to the picture he’d been editing.

  “I’m going to go work at my desk,” Bettina said with a glare. She flounced off, and Frederick watched her go with an unhappy look on his face.

  “I miss being friends with her,” he said mournfully. “She’s the only girl I ever met who likes video games as much as me.”

  “Well, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Jackass. You just better hope that when you realize that Melinda is using you, it’s not too late with Bettina.”