Bear Meets Bride (Online Shifter Dating Agency Romance) by Sasha Winter Page A

to never look out of place. Although dating had not worked out for them, they had learned enough of each other to build up a strong and mutual bond of friendship. When back in the office, Tom knew that she could often tell what he was thinking, and if a colleague happened to be making a fool of themselves, tried not to look her in the eye for fear of laughing out loud.
    “Hello, Jake. What can I do for you?” she said on answering the call. Her voice was clear and crisp, and Tom had often thought she should’ve worked on the radio instead.
    “The famous Nana Morgan!” he responded.
    “Oh! It’s you, Tom. You lost your phone?”
    “No, Jake’s just glugging some water down; it’s thirsty work out here.”
    “You at the site?”
    “No, that’s the reason for the call. Satellite navigation isn’t at its best in these woods.”
    “You’re lost, then.”
    “Like a bunch of kids in a maze. Were there any real firm directions that guy gave that could help? I can’t even catch the scent at all, so I’m guessing we’re nowhere near it.”
    “Let me quickly check the report,” Nana said, and Tom gave her what time she needed to produce something useful. As he waited he happened to notice out of the corner of his eye that a couple of the younger officers were staring in his direction and clearly talking about him. By the look on their faces, he thought he knew exactly what they were saying, and the content was not generous.
    “Okay, looks like I have something here for you,” Nana said.
    “Great!”
    “First, give me a bit of an indication where you are.”
    “Well we turned right off the road and have gone mostly downhill as the directions said.”
    “No no, the man started off going downhill when he was running from the site, then uphill towards the road. I think if you turn back and take the first right—that’s your right—that goes uphill, you’ll find all the paths will converge on the site, more or less.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yes, there are only two main paths coming from the mountain and you’re heading to the wrong one. If you start going uphill, that will take you to the right one, and even if you have to try a few of the paths that lead from there, the man was insistent the body is less than a hundred feet away.”
    “Okay, that sounds good. Hey, you set a date yet?”
    Nana was now engaged to be married, and the last time Tom had spoken to her, she’d been trying to figure out a good date for a wedding.
    “Not yet, but it’s all in hand,” she replied.
    “Well, good luck getting the place you want. I’ll see you back at the office.”
    “Thanks! Bye.”
    Tom might have ended the conversation in a friendly manner, but the look on his face told a completely different story. He had been challenging the two colleagues to break his stare but, perhaps spurred on by thinking they outnumbered him, their beady eyes continued to point his way.
    “What’s your problem, guys? You want to say something, just say it.”
    Nothing came back, though Tom felt all eyes turn his way.
    “Well, come on! Do you think I’m the killer or what?”
    “Woah there!” Jake was at his side in a flash, hands raised to calm the situation. “Let’s not get carried away. He’s right, though. Boys, if you want to say something then now’s the time…come on now, we’re a team here. Let’s say what’s going through our heads.”
    Eventually one of them piped up, half sulkily, half apologetically now that Jake was involved.
    “We just wondered if…if Tom must know this killer? That‘s all,” the first lad said. “We weren’t accusing him of anything.”
    “You mean we’re all in it together? All us bear shifters, we meet at night and fuck in the woods then keep it to ourselves when one of us goes a bit nutty?” Tom replied, his hands balling into tight fists by his side. “Well, let me educate you. Bears are solitary creatures; when I’m in bear form the last thing I want to see is another bear.