Big Gator: A BBW shape shifter paranormal romance by Annora Soule Page A

said.
                 “ If
you can get through this,” Brandy assured her, “then you can get
through anything.”
                  Brandy
hugged her and comforted her until she was ready to accept the
situation.  When Susan stood up, she thanked Brandy, and then
she left.
                  Marianne
had watched the whole thing from a window.
                 “ You
did good,” Marianne said.
                 “ You
could have come out and helped!” Brandy said.
                 “ You
totally had it under control.”
     
     
     
    Chapter 9
     
     
     
                  Brandy
and Marianne lay out sunning themselves.  They had shifted and
were enjoying the sun in the patio area behind Ray's health club.
                  Ray
also had shifted and was sunning himself with them for a little
while.
                  When
Brandy had enough, she shifted back.  Ray admired the 30-second
view before she wrapped herself in a towel.  Marianne had pretty
much dozed off at this point.
                  Brandy
pulled a lounge chair over so she could still sit next to the other
two, and she pulled her smartphone out of her purse. Stretching out
on the lounge, she began to scroll through her contacts list. 
She had been calling kinfolk all week, letting them know she was
still alive. She found the number for her Aunt Josephine in New
Orleans, and gave her a call.  She hadn't spoken to her since
last Christmas, and now she had all these free minutes to use up
before she lost her primo calling plan.
                  Someone
picked up on the third ring.
                 “ Aunt
Josephine?”
                 “ Hold
on a sec,” someone said.  Now the voice sounded male, and
young.  That had to be her cousin Tim.
                 “ Hello?”
                 “ Aunt
Josephine, it's Brandy.”
                 “ Brandy! 
Gosh, Sugar – how y'all been?”
                 “ Okay
– not bad – I'm just calling to check in.  It's been
awhile.”
                 “ That's
because you haven't returned my calls since after your brother's
funeral,” Josephine said.
                 “ I
know,” Brandy said.  “I'm sorry about that.  I just
needed space.  I wasn't handling it very well.”
                 “ That
wasn't something that should be
handled well,” her aunt said. “Someone so young as Charlie.”
                 “ So
how's life in the Big Easy?”
                  Brandy's
aunt filled her in on the basic goings on with the Louisiana branch
of the Guyette family.  Times had been hard for them with
Hurricane Katrina years back, but they managed to pull their lives
back together slowly but surely. Before Charlie's death, a number of
Guyettes had finally moved back to the state after staying with
relatives throughout the Deep South.
                 “ Oh,”
Aunt Josephine added. “You don't know yet, but your cousin Jenny
has a lead on the LaBelle family.”
                 “ Uh
oh,” Brandy said.
                 “ This
could be for real this time,” her aunt told her.
                  There
was a small contingent of Guyettes who still maintained a general
grudge against Madame Eve LaBelle and who never could accept their
shifter status.  They absolutely hated being gator shifters and
were always trying to hatch one plan after another to reverse the
curse.
                  Messing
around with Hoodoo, however, was decidedly risky business. Hoodoo, as
opposed to Voodoo, is a practical system that blends concepts and
spells drawn from three streams of folk magic: African, Native
American, and Anglo/Celtic. Truly, Hoodoo is a melting pot mixed
right here in the U.S., and it is not for the faint of heart. 
It involves