After a couple of hours Jen thought they had earned themselves some play. The wood supply had been topped up. The paths were clear. Her drive was bare right down to the road. Once the snow plow came by, she could take her truck out. Her cell was still silent. Power was still off. Internet still down. Might as well enjoy herself.
Zeke was standing watching her. His bear was snowy and alert. She didn’t think he was worn out by his exertions. Although he still looked pissed off. He took life too seriously, she decided.
She stripped off in the lean-to and took bear herself. Zeke had been looking in the door and he was startled by her shift. He backed off moaning and sat down abruptly on his haunches. Jenna charged, bowled him over onto his back. She leapt over his supine body, in one vigorous bound, and headed into the woods.
It took Zeke a moment to realize what had happened. In his whole life he had never met a bear who was so easy in her bearskin. Growing up, adults seldom ever talked about their bears. When he and Patrick hit puberty his father had warned them never to shift where they would be seen.
Particularly not in front of stepmom number two. That had been Susan. She wasn’t a bear, and didn’t even know Jeremy was a shifter. Most emphatically the twins were not to let her have an inkling, of a whisper, of a shadow of their bears.
Uncle Gil had taken them camping and helped them learn how to shift and control their bears. But he too told them to make sure they kept it a secret. “Folks won’t like it,” he warned. “You don’t want to scare someone into shooting you.”
Well, no. It wasn’t until the army that he had met other shifters. The services had plenty of shifters, not just bears, but cougars and wolves. He guessed they were like him, desperate for adventure and the adrenaline rush of danger. But, of course, you never, ever talked about being a shifter in the Army. It was just that you could hardly miss the scent of bear or wolf or mountain cat. Not when you were one yourself.
This blithe rambunctiousness of Jenna’s was something new to his experience. Even when he and Patrick had been boys, he had never played games in bear. But Jenna had obviously taken bear simply in order to play. She was standing by the tree line, bouncing a little and huffing at him. She tossed her head invitingly and bolted as she had done the day before.
Once again, he reacted without thought and gave chase. Didn’t she realize he outweighed her, was twice as big, and his legs twice as long.? And yet she had disappeared! She dropped down onto his back from above and used his prostrate bear to launch herself into a flat out gallop. Her huffs were louder and sounded suspiciously like laughter to him.
He caught her underneath the drooping boughs of a snow covered Douglas fir. She was crouched underneath the snowy tent wiggling ecstatically on the needles that covered the snowless ground at the base of the trunk. Her eyes were sparkling under her golden eye spots and her mouth was open in an ursine half-smile.
She submitted to his bigger bulk and let him sniff her head and flanks. She smelled delicious. He had never even met a female shifter other than his cousin Laura. And Laura had never smelled like this around him. This was some ambrosial combination of human Jenna and female bearshifter mingled with the ripeness of desire.
She smelled even better than she had yesterday. Jenna took advantage of his lapse in concentration to gather her limbs and break away from him. She led him as merry a chase as she had the day before. She dashed through the trees, circling back to bump his forelimbs with her round flanks, and once sneaking up from behind to nip his rump.
He had no idea how long they frolicked together. He only knew he was becoming more and more aroused. And he was pretty sure Jenna had no intention of letting him mount her while they were both in bear. How would that work anyway? But this didn’t stop him from feeling the excitement of the hunt and rampant desire.
He was almost relieved when she led the way back to her cabin and pelted down the path to the lean-to. He followed his frisky mate right to the door and watched her take human. She was fast. Much faster than he was. Her body morphed at speed and seemingly without the agony a shift produced in his body.
Her eyes were sparkling and she stood tall and proud and styled herself for him. She posed so her luscious breasts lifted, proud and round, and her spicy sex wafted her earthy scent to his twitching nostrils. She was blushing, but she held his eyes.
While he watched her, he was taking human without conscious thought for the first time in his life. He wasn’t aware that his bear fur was retreating or that his muzzle was shortening. He was only aware of the gorgeous, shapely Amazon before him. Her glorious breasts were tipped with juicy red nipples that puckered in the cold, and her long round legs led straight to that dark brown delta that lured him.
Zeke had lifted Jenna and was headed for the shower room before he realized he had taken human form. She was chuckling softly and burying her face in the curve of his neck. She sniffed at him and bit him lightly, then soothed the little nip with a warm, wet tongue.
Somehow he managed to get the water on and spraying down without dropping his treasure. She mustn’t take a chill. Once the water was warming them both he captured her giggling mouth with his and felt something that was more than happiness when she pulled his head closer and mated her tongue with his.
He was frantic to claim her. He tested her snug depths with one long forefinger and found her slippery and swollen. He rammed his engorged jackhammer home and urged her legs to grasp him close. Jenna obliged with an ardent shimmy and her passage clenched and unclenched as he pounded into her.
It was over all too soon. He heard his roar as his cum filled her up. His need was assuaged by his powerful climax. The best ever. Jenna was shivering in his arms, although the water was still hot. Her lips covered his face with little kisses and she laughed with apparent glee.
She didn’t seem to care that he had taken her without finesse. She was a warm, relaxed bundle in his arms and as he let her slide down his body she was chuckling happily. Didn’t she care that he was no better than an animal?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jenna looked so clean and wholesome in her blue sweater and jeans and crisp apron she made him ache for all the things he had never had. Her competent hands was making short work of a pile of apples. The oven was heating. The kitchen was warm. This felt like all the things a soldier held at the back of his mind when he was overseas waiting for the shelling to start.
“Tell me about the Army,” she said startling him out of his brooding.
“What do you want to know?”
“We could start with your rank,” she teased.
“Major.” Zeke gulped and swallowed his pride. “Well, I was a major.”
“Was?”
“I’m on terminal leave.” They said confession was good for the soul. Made his soul feel like crap.
She nodded. “Sounds like you don’t want to retire,” she said softly.
He grunted. There was no way in hell he was going to tell her about the mess he had made of his last mission. Or that the Army thought he was crazy.
“What will you do now?” She sounded interested.
Like she thought he had options.
“I don’t know. My father wants me to join the family business,” slipped out before he knew it.
Jenna smiled hugely. She took the two pastry balls she had made earlier out of the fridge and plopped them on the counter. “Hmm,” she said, her back to him as she stooped to get a rolling pin out of the bottom drawer. “That could go either way. Do you want to?”
“Hell, no,” he growled. “I don’t want a desk job.”
“What does your dad do?”
“Oil. We’re B and B Oil.” It didn’t seem likely, but maybe if she knew he had money, she’d be more inclined to keep him around.
“Oh, yes,” she said vaguely. “What are you trained to do?”
“Kill people. I’m real good at killing people.”
The face she turned towards him was sorrowful. “You know that’s not true,”
she said compassionately. She waved a floury hand. “I don’t meant that you aren’t a highly trained soldier. And I know you didn’t get to be a Ranger because you were just an average grunt. Rangers are our elite troops.
“But what you were trained to do was defend your country against its enemies. Not to kill. That’s a distinction you have to remember. Millions of Americans don’t like to think about the reality of how democracy is preserved. But you’ve spent a career on the front lines, and it isn’t anything to be ashamed of.”
“Huh.”
Jenna fit a circle of dough into her pie plate and deftly eased it down to the bottom with her fingers, before rolling out the other ball. “What’s your specialty? If you’re an officer, you have a degree, what’s it in?”
“Electrical engineering with a specialty in computer and systems engineering.” The words were dragged out of him.
“Cool,” she said. She dumped sugared apples on top of the bottom crust and adjusted them with a spoon. She cut tiny knobs of butter and dotted them over the apples and wet the edges of the pastry with a beaten egg. “Does that mean you could figure out how to improve my internet signal?”
“Well, sure. If I was hired by your provider.”
“Consider yourself hired.” Jenna added the top crust and cut the ragged edges with a knife. She folded the two edges together and began to flute the rim with her thumb and forefinger.
“I think your provider might have a thing or two to say about that.” Zeke smiled unwillingly.
“Nah.” Jen painted the entire top of the pie with her egg wash and began to cut five slits into a star in the top. “The Yakima Ridge Internet Service is owned by the community. If I tell them I have a tame engineer who can tweak our system, you won’t be allowed to leave until you’ve given it your best shot. Mind, you’ll be paid in pie and lodging.” She grinned cheekily at him, put the pie onto a cookie sheet and tucked it into the oven.
He was laughing now. “I get to stay if I make myself useful?”
“Even if you don’t.” She was perfectly serious. “Could be that with our existing set up there’s nothing to be done. But it goes down the minute we really need it — like before, during and after this bad storm.”
Jenna sighed. “I have patients all over the Ridge who can’t get hold of me. Haven’t been able to since New Year’s. Maybe you could improve things, so that didn’t happen so often? Although, like as not, it will take real money to get it to withstand bad weather. And we wouldn’t blame you for that.”
She was blushing and wiping the counters, paying way too much attention to removing the sticky pastry from the mottled surface. Zeke came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. He nudged her braid aside and kissed the back of her neck.
“I’d like to stay around,” he whispered into her nape. “I’d like it a lot. How long before that pie is baked?”
“An hour. But I have to turn the oven down in ten minutes.”
“Okay,” Zeke kissed her again. “I can wait.” He returned to his stool. “You can tell me about your life while we’re waiting. What exactly is your job?”
“I work for the Hanover Free Clinic. It’s really small. One doctor. One nurse practitioner — that’s me. And one receptionist. Nearest hospital is Yakima City and the idea is that we look after people in the community who can’t afford private care and also anyone who can’t get to the hospital. I do a lot of outreach to old folks and other house bound patients. In emergencies Doc Robichaud and I make house calls anywhere on the Ridge.”
“Who pays?” Zeke asked.
“Medicare, VA, and Washington State. Our billing to patients doesn’t amount to much.” Jenna swallowed hard and turned to face Zeke. “That was last year. Washington State has canceled their grant. They decided there weren’t enough people using the clinic to make it economically viable.” She rolled her eyes.
“So what will you do?”
“Me? I don’t know. The same number of people won’t be able to afford the two other doctors in the area. The bridge will go out and trap the same number of people this side of the hospital.” Jenna squared her shoulders. “I’m going to have to talk it over with Dr. Robichaud when this crisis is over. Maybe he will be willing to work for what folks can afford.”
“Are we talking big bucks here?” Zeke asked.
She nodded solemnly. “A quarter of a million every year.”
“Just from Washington State?” Zeke asked.
“From all sources.”
Zeke shook his head. They were closing an essential clinic to save chicken feed? “What will you do if you have no job?”
Jenna looked determined. “I’ll think of something. I’m needed here and the Ridge is my home.” Her voice was stubborn. “There won’t be fewer pregnancies because they close the clinic.”
“What happens if a woman in labor can’t get to a hospital until she’s in trouble?”
“She or her baby dies. Or they get airlifted out and spend a week or more in ICU and neonatal in Yakima General Hospital. It’s a false economy if you ask me.” Jenna rinsed her sponge. “In fact, ten years ago, the clinic was opened in order to reduce the amount of money each birth was costing. The emergencies were sucking up the lion’s share of funding.”
“So what’s changed to make the state want to discontinue the grant?” Zeke asked.
“Probably the agency making the grant isn’t the same one that is saving money. Or the person who organized it all has retired. All I know is that the rationale we were given was that we were too close to Yakima City to justify our existence. Dr. Robichaud made some phone calls, but we just got sent the same report.” For the first time Zeke saw Jenna look discouraged. “Typical runaround.”
“Hmm. So the clinic will close unless you find an alternative source of income?” Zeke asked sympathetically.
“Yeah.” Jenna sighed harder. “My Uncle Ed is pretty rich and I’m kind of hoping he’ll see the way to using the Enright Trust to keep the clinic open.”
“Is your Uncle Ed any relation to Will and Doug Enright?” Zeke asked.
“Their dad.” Jen grinned. “I had to deliver Ed’s grandbabies on Christmas night because the bridge washed out and they couldn’t get Hannah to Yakima City. So I’m kind of hoping that Uncle Ed will come up with the money. But it’s a lot to ask, because it would have be a permanent annual grant.” Her voice petered out.
“How long do you have?” Zeke asked.
“I’m not really sure. I guess I didn’t read that far,” she admitted. “Just before Christmas the state sent out letters indicating which organizations weren’t having funding renewed in the new year. Funding isn’t my job. I just take care of patients.”
“There are always jobs for nurses,” he said.
“I have to stay on the Ridge,” she said obstinately. “I couldn’t live anyplace else. And I already have the only nursing job.”
“No place else?” Zeke sounded cynical.
She turned to look straight at him. “I was born here. I never want to leave. This is my place, my home. I went away to school, and never again. I literally couldn’t breathe in Portland.”
“Huh.”
“They told me I had asthma. But as soon as I came home, it all cleared up. It was more like an allergy to the city.” She finished putting stuff away and untied her apron and hung it up. “What about you? Are you going to go work in your dad’s heating company?” She led the way into the living area.
Zeke almost choked. Well, so much for impressing this woman. But it beat the hell out of being married for his money like Jeremy. He shook his head. “I don’t want to sit at a desk all day and push paper.”
“Couldn’t you get a job using your hands?” she asked.
Zeke laughed mirthlessly. “The deal is I go to work in Denver at head office.”
“Oh. That doesn’t seem active enough for a guy who’s spent time in the military. Could you work in the field in the telecommunications industry?”
“All I ever wanted was to be in the Army. Hell, I didn’t even want to make Colonel in case they stopped letting me have fun.”
Jenna looked at Zeke’s hard, sad face. He looked frustrated and angry. Of course, that was it – he wasn’t ready to leave the Army. He was being discharged unwillingly. “How long have you served?” she asked quietly.
“Eighteen, no nearly nineteen years,” he said bitterly. “Half my life.”
Jenna’s smile was both compassionate and wise. “Your life isn’t over just because your Army days are behind you. Everyone’s entitled to a little peacetime.”
Just for a moment he had a glimpse of paradise with this angel before his misery returned.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Their serious discussion had squelched Zeke’s ardor. Probably because Jenna’s revelation about her precarious job and having to tell her about leaving the military, were too much like reality intruding on his little glimpse of heaven.
He found himself sitting on her couch staring out the window at the winter wonderland that was her back yard. It was pretty fantastic, but he couldn’t really see a way to insert himself permanently into this bucolic picture. Except by offering to fund her clinic. Somehow that didn’t seem like enough to fool her.
As he watched, blue jays darted jauntily through the trees. A full sized buck appeared at the edge of her clearing to nibble lichens from the tree trunks. Jenna was pretty much living in the forest. He didn’t know what she meant about having to live here, but it sure was a lovely location. And it seemed she was a vital part of her community.
It wasn’t as if he thought of Success, Colorado as home anymore. Hell, the house he and Patrick had grown up in changed like a kaleidoscope every time Jeremy changed wives. And he changed far too often to suit Zeke. Best he could say for any of them was that each new one made her predecessor seem more attractive in memory. Double B Ranch land was available to him or his cousins to build on, but he had no urge to do so.
If he persuaded Jenna that she had a future with a mental case, what the hell could he do here in the woods? Once he had pumped some cash into their internet set up and funded the Free Clinic, his usefulness would be over. No way in hell he could just sit and clip coupons and feel like a man.
Dragon's Pleasure (BBW / Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 3) Page 31