My Paranormal Valentine: A Paranormal Romance Box Set

by Michelle M. Pillow

Cautious. Careful. Just as I’d been when e-mailing my request. But Dutch hadn’t been cautious enough because he’d attached pics of some items they carried sitting on top of a box. And in the corner of the box was an address for Hit-The-Mark.

  I zoomed in on it and entered it into my map app. Karl muttered something about “could I type a bit quieter,” so I slid out of bed and headed downstairs. Ugh. This place was out in the middle of nowhere. Not ideal for a retail location, but their website was horrible for internet traffic and sales. How the heck did this guy make any money? I glanced out the windows at the tinge of pink and gray on the horizon. Four in the morning was too early to head to this place unless I planned on breaking and entering, and I wasn’t quite there yet.

  I set my phone down on the table and headed up the stairs, determined not to let anything else disturb our lazy morning sleep-in, and hopefully lazy morning sex, only to run back down and scoop it up, putting it on vibrate. Just in case. Because there might be an emergency with the Flying Fish Excursions campaign, or Brent might need me, or that graphic designer might be burning the midnight oil.

  Then I hid it under my pillow to further muffle the sound, and wrapped myself around a very warm bear shifter, dozing off with my face against his back.

  It was nice to wake up next to someone, to go through a morning routine with them, to have the kind of sex that rocked the bed against the wall and made the floorboards squawk.

  Yeah, I’d slept almost sixteen hours. Yeah, it felt really, really good. But it hadn’t felt nearly as good as sex in the morning. Oh, yeah.

  “I like your shower,” Karl told me as he walked into the kitchen, his hair wet, his clothing clinging to his damp skin. He’d popped back to his house while I’d started to make breakfast to grab some clothes and now had them in a drawer upstairs. He also had a toothbrush in my bathroom. And I was well aware that this was moving too fast, but I was going to take Ahia’s advice and just ride it out. What happened, happened. And I hoped it happened.

  Karl walked over and kissed the top of my head, stealing a piece of bacon from the plate. “I wish your tub was big enough for my grizzly form.”

  “I don’t.” I swatted his hand as he reached for another bacon piece. “I have to dig enough hair out of the drain as it is. Cleaning bear fur out of my tub isn’t my idea of a good time.”

  “Just as well. I don’t think I could hold the shower massager with my paw. You’d have to get in with me and wash me,” he teased.

  I envisioned a dog-wash type scenario, only with me squashed into the tub with Karl’s giant bear shape, rubbing shampoo into his fur. I’d need a whole lot of shampoo. “I’m more than happy to wash you as long as you’re in your human form.” Mmmm, now that was an image.

  He wrapped his arms around me. “Let’s eat. Then we can take another shower. This time together.”

  My phone beeped. It had been beeping all morning. Karl had announced repeatedly that he was going to throw it out the window or flush it down the toilet. This time he pulled away and glared at the device.

  ‘I know I know.” I turned and put a hand on his chest, grabbing my phone. “I swear when it’s your turn and I’m at your den I’ll leave it locked in the car.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “And be running out every five minutes to check on it?”

  Maybe. If I could get a cell signal, that is. “Once an hour?”

  “Once a day,” he growled. “Otherwise I’m going to take my ax to it.”

  Crap. I was going to suffer some serious withdrawal in this relationship. “Okay. Once per day I get to check my phone at your place.”

  I looked down at said phone and grimaced. Kennedy was assisting with injured from a building collapse and wouldn’t be back for another three to four days at the earliest. I couldn’t wait that long. None of us could wait that long. If Kennedy couldn’t help me check out Hit-The-Mark, then I’d just need to do it myself and hope they didn’t have some sort of magical doorway that identified me as a shifter.

  “I take it from the look on your face we won’t be taking that shower together?” Karl asked.

  “No. I want to. I really want to, but I need to visit this outfitter and see if I can figure out who is manufacturing the tainted bullets. When I get back, we’ll do some shower action, I promise.” I handed him a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon, and shooed him over to the table.

  Karl scowled. “I don’t like the idea of you going after these guys. Let the humans handle it.”

  We’d been over this twice already this morning. “We need to find a way to negate the self-defense excuse and show the police that what’s happening can be classified as a murder, and to do that we need to not be forced to shift when we’re shot, and not go rogue. That’s a magic thing and it’s going to take a while to find something to counter the spell on the bullets. In the meantime, we need to make it so every human on the planet isn’t packing these things. If that happens, we’ll never be safe shifting. We need to cut off the supply and we need to do it fast.”

  Every time we were in our animal form and came across a human, we’d be vulnerable. There were penalties for hunting without a license, so very few humans could use the mistaken identity claim, but with the videos online and those five dead scientists in Ketchikan, there would be enough fear flying around that anyone could claim self-defense.

  “I really don’t want to be out eating berries and get shot,” Karl admitted.

  “Exactly. And it wouldn’t just be ‘crap, that hurts’ shot either. It would be death—right away or eventually depending on how good of a shot the human was and if we could get to help in time.”

  Karl leaned back and fixed me with a hard gaze. “I went back to that rogue corpse after you left Ketchikan. I don’t like this, Brina. I know you’re strong and capable, but that bear was three times your mass and that bullet was killing him, driving him mad. I don’t want that to happen to you. And I’m scared that if you take a bullet like that, you’ll be dead before you hit the ground.”

  I didn’t really know how to respond to that, so I tried to address his fear. “I’ll be careful.”

  “I’d rather you wait for this Kennedy human,” he grumbled.

  Me too, but sitting around while other shifters could be dying wasn’t going to happen. “She won’t be back for days.”

  He scowled. “You said she saved Brent and Leon when they were shot.”

  “Saved them by operating and getting the bullet out of them. She’s a trauma surgeon. And we wanted her to go in because she’s human and she’s new to the pack. It’s not likely they’d recognize her, either as a local member of the pack, or a shifter.”

  Karl grunted. “She probably smells like Brent. There’s just as good a chance she’d get shot too.”

  I didn’t want to think about that. “Brent would skin me alive if I let anything happen to his mate.”

  “Well, I’m gonna skin him alive if something happens to you,” he grumbled.

  “I’ll be careful.” I repeated. “And all this is moot because Kennedy isn’t here to go, and I’m not waiting for her to come back. I’m going to go check it out, then head to Brent’s to brief him and do some research. Then I have my marketing work to do, which I should be doing right now. I’ll be back later tonight.” I eyed my phone. “I’ll call you and let you know when I’m finished. Maybe I’ll come over to your den tonight so I can see your place.”

  The bear muttered something under his breath and didn’t speak again until he was done eating.

  “I’m going with you.”

  It was a good thing I didn’t have food in my mouth, because I would have choked from surprise at his words.

  “Karl, you’ll scare the crap out of them. You can’t go with me.”

  He glowered. “If they can’t tell you’re a wolf, then they won’t be able to tell I’m a bear.”

  How did I put this? “Your eyes glow sometimes, Karl. Actually, they glow a lot and that’s not exactly human.” It wasn’t exactly shifter
either, but it was clearly supernatural. “And besides that, you’re this huge jacked-up guy who looks like he’s two seconds from picking up a car and slamming it through the side of a building. One look at you and the clerk will be pushing that emergency button under the counter.”

  He considered my words. “I don’t like being around humans very much. Never thought that they might be scared of me.”

  I’m sure the people who bought wood from him, or the guy who had Karl haul his truck out of the ditch were happy to wrap up the transaction and be about their way. “I love that you’re a grumpy, scary bear, but this situation calls for a non-threatening, skinny, redheaded woman.”

  He laughed. I can’t recall that I’d heard him laugh before and the sound thrilled me. Humor transformed him, turned a sexy, dark, brooding guy into someone gorgeous and lighthearted. Even the darkness that lurked behind the gold flecks in his eyes receded, nearly vanished, when he laughed.

  “Brina, every inch of you screams confidence and determination. If I were looking for someone to rob, I’d pass you right by. You walk around like someone who would beat the ever-loving shit out of anyone who messed with her.”

  That had to have been the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me. Forget his comparing my hair to Indian paintbrush, or my freckles to stars in the sky, this was romantic.

  “Okay. Point taken. But my eyes don’t glow gold. That’s why you’re not going. I’ll be careful. And I’ll see you tonight.”

  He scowled. “You’ll call me when you leave the shop, is what you’ll do. Or text me. I think my phone receives texts.”

  I picked it up off the table and flipped it open. “Yeah, you can get texts. And yes, I’ll let you know when I leave.”

  “Promise?” He was still glaring at me.

  “Promise.”

  “Good.” He stood. “Because otherwise I’d worry. And if I was worried, I might be tempted to go to that store and gnaw on all those humans until they told me where you were. Might even kill them.”

  Shit. “That won’t be necessary, wild man, because I will text you.”

  He gathered the dishes and went over to the sink, smiling as he turned on the tap. “I miss this running water thing. Wouldn’t be too hard for me to do a gravity-fed tank to my sink at one of the dens.”

  No it wouldn’t. And it would make me a lot happier than having to haul water around. But I didn’t want him to change the way he wanted to live just for me. He was adapting to my place nicely. I could do the same at his place. I picked up the rest of the dishes and put them in the sink, grabbing a dishcloth to wipe the table.

  “Ahia and Raphael were at Brent’s yesterday,” I said casually. “They examined the bullets and are going to pull some strings to get an antidote or counter spell or something. Seems Raphael knows someone in Hel that might be able to help.”

  Karl grunted. That was it. Just a grunt and no words. I swear the guy’s communication skills made me want to whack him over the head sometimes. He was going to make me spell this out, ask all the embarrassing questions that I hated to ask, but really needed to know the answer to.

  “So…how well do you know Ahia?”

  “Well enough. She’s okay for an angel.”

  That hardly sounded like he was harboring any unrequited feelings for her. I began to breathe easier, giving the table an extra wipe. “She said you put a wolverine in her bathtub.”

  Karl grunted. “She bear-tipped me when I was taking a nap. It was a good nap too.”

  “And the bicycle tires on her Jeep?”

  “As I said, it was a really good nap. Can’t let her get away with that shit, angel or not.” He put his arm around my shoulder, shutting off the water with his other hand. “I’ve known Ahia since I came to Alaska. She’s okay in small doses, but think I’d wind up killing her if I had to spend more than a few hours in her presence, know?”

  And that put all my fears to rest. We finished the dishes together, then I left Karl at my house to head to Hit-The-Mark, promising once more to let him know when I left the store. It felt good driving away, knowing he was still in my house. We’d spent the last two nights together. We’d pretty much been in each other’s company for four days straight. And I couldn’t wait to see him again.

  Chapter Twelve

  I’d wondered why I’d never heard of Hit-The-Mark when it was practically in my own backyard. Now I knew.

  There were two types of sporting goods stores around Juneau—the huge chain stores that carried everything from kayaks to golf clubs, and the specialty stores, which carried eighteen types of kayak oars and attachments in case you planned to fish in the middle of your paddling expedition. If you couldn’t get it there, you’d need to go to the internet and wait for a week or two because overnight or two-day shipping to Juneau cost an arm and a leg.

  Hit-The-Mark didn’t even appear to be a store. It was a shack back off of a long dirt road. It looked like someone had turned a tiny, one-bedroom, pre-fab house into a ramshackle retail location. I sat in my car parked next to two others and wondered whether I dared go in or not. When I’d envisioned myself strolling into something like Cabela’s, or at the very least Harry’s Bait and Bullet, the idea of being shot in the middle of the store was ludicrous. This place was isolated to the point where I swear I could hear banjos. There were two cars here, but they were probably employees, or belonged to someone who lived in the back room. Were they even supposed to get walk-in customers? Had I totally tipped my hand by driving out here?

  Only one way to find out. I got out of my car and headed toward the front door. There was clearly a sign that said “open,” so I went on in, trying to look like a confused tourist who wasn’t sure she had the right place.

  Inside the front door was one long room that spread two thirds of the length of the house. There was a doorway to the left of the room that might have led to a bedroom. Along the back wall was another door and a wide passageway next to a bar-style pass-through that was most likely a kitchen/dining area. There was a tiny electronic cash register in the room where I stood next to a scale and some ledgers on an old dining table. Most of the room was filled with stacks of unassembled boxes, fishing lures in plastic packaging, bins of duck calls, scent lures, netting and traps, and small boxes of bullets, the calibers clearly marked on the sides.

  “Hello?” I called into the empty room.

  A man peeked out from around the pass-through. He was chewing. There were ketchup stains on his blond beard. At least, I hoped they were ketchup stains.

  He grinned sheepishly, then vanished only to reappear coming through the doorway, wiping his hands on a paper towel. “Hey. Sorry. Most time I get a customer they’ve called ahead. I’m surprised you found us out here.”

  “I did make a few wrong turns,” I admitted. This guy seemed nice. Normal. Not the murdering sort. I’d expected a villainous dude twirling a mustache, or a group of squinty-eyed thugs, not cheerful Grizzly Adams with a potbelly.

  “Need lures?” He glanced at my clothes, then out at my car in the driveway—the car that wasn’t towing a boat and didn’t have a kayak strapped to the roof. “Lots of times we come up on the GPS as the closest bait shop to Windfall Creek, even though I really don’t have much in the way of bait here. Most of my sales are internet fulfillment as opposed to walk-in traffic.”

  Windfall Creek was a small, local secret. It was a great place to catch sockeye. Karl and I should come out to fish here sometime.

  I shook my head to clear it of images of Karl and me relaxing on the bank of the stream, beers and fishing poles in hand. Or of Karl in his bear form, snatching salmon between two giant paws.

  “No, actually I heard you had bullets. Are you Dutch? I e-mailed you a few days ago.”

  “Oh yeah.” He scratched his head. “Yeah, I’m Dutch. I didn’t realize you were a local gal or I would have just told you to come on out. Figured you were up around Skagway or something.”

  “My parents are in Sitka, but I’ve been in Junea
u since I graduated college. You?”

  He grinned, placing his fists on his hips. “Vancouver. I moved up here last year. Inherited a bit of money and have always loved fly fishing in this area. I’m calling it my early retirement.”

  I found myself really hoping this guy wasn’t SharpShooter, or that he wasn’t knowingly selling the tainted bullets, but I sorta liked him.

  “This is definitely a fisherman’s paradise. Do you actually sell out of the store, or just online?”

  “Both, although my website is a mess right now. I really need someone to whip it into shape, get a decent point-of-sale system, and figure out what websites are best for ads. Maybe run some on Facebook.”

  Okay, now I was itching to make this guy a customer. I could seriously turn this spot into a hole-in-the-wall local best-kept-secret kind of thing.

  Maybe later. After I’d determined that this Dutch wasn’t murdering my people in cold blood, later.

  “I’m hoping to pick up some bullets today,” I said.

  He nodded and walked over to a pile of boxes. “Absolutely. I don’t have the biggest supply, but I’ve got a variety here. What ’cha shooting?”

  It was a familiar question. He meant both what firearm was I using and what type of game I planned to hunt.

  “I’ve got a Marlin 1895 and a Remington 870.”

  The clerk tapped a finger against his lip. “12 gauge on the shotgun? I’ve got a few boxes of those.”

  “Yeah, 12 gauge.”

  He rooted through the stacks. “Which model is the 1895?”

  “The GBL.”

  He pulled out a box and set it aside. “Nice gun. Short range, though. Most women going for moose or bear don’t want to be that close in. You hunting deer?”

  “Maybe,” I replied, trying to see if there were any special markings on the bullet boxes to indicate they might be “special” bullets. “I like to be prepared.”

  “You probably know this, being a local gal and all, but make sure you’ve got your licenses in order,” he warned. “I swear the Fish and Wildlife wardens here outnumber the hunters. Don’t take anything illegal because they will find out, and they will fine you and confiscate your kill. Some days I think they’ve got a bunch of crystal balls in their trucks or something.”