Beck (BBW Bear Shifter Moonshiner Romance) (120 Proof Honey Book 4) by Becca Fanning Read Free Book Online

another for a moment, then the stranger put a lazy smile back on her face. She had a glazed sort of look in her eyes, as though half her mind was somewhere else entirely. The woman certainly wasn’t a hiker, and Jane tried to sound bright and helpful as she returned the woman’s smile.

    “If you’re looking to get out of the woods, I’m waiting for rescue right now,” Jane offered.

    “Get out?” the woman asked. Her voice had the same faraway quality as her glassy eyes. “No way, lady. I’m so good where I am. Like, so good.”

    The shabby woman spun on the spot like a child. She looked up into the foliage overhead, and Jane had a moment of panic as she watched the unsteady creature wobble and almost fall flat on her face. There was something wrong with her, and Jane wondered if she could guess what it was. The drug-users she met in LA were more the uppers and downers type, looking for energy all day and oblivion all night. This woman, Jane decided, had sought out a permanent chillax. The woman stumbled closer and, sure enough, a recognizable smell entered Jane’s nose.

    “Well, you’re enjoying your vacation, aren’t you?” Jane said, now vaguely amused.

    The stranger nodded gleefully, her matted hair flopping with a dull thud. She sat down on the floor in front of Jane, knees crossed like a schoolgirl.  

    “You could use some, you know,” the woman mused, “you look all weird and tense.”

    Jane couldn’t pretend that the observation didn’t hurt her. She frowned, then frowned some more as the woman started rifling in the pockets of her shabby coat.

    “Oh no, really,” Jane stammered politely. “I don’t… I mean, I couldn’t take your stash.”

    “It’s no problem,” the merry woman said, still searching her clothes. “I got it gratis. Free sample from the Boys in the Wood.”

    Jane started at that.

    “In the wood?” she repeated. “Are you saying someone dealt drugs to you here, in the park?”

    The woman looked up with a wide smile.

    “Oh yeah,” she said proudly. “Grown here too. It’s good shit.”

    “Grown here?” Jane echoed.

    This was serious. If there was a drugs operation somewhere in the woods, the Best clan needed to know about it. Jane sucked up a breath, choking a little on the foul residue of pot smoke from the stranger, then she set her voice low and serious. It was the kind of tone she used with new interns back at the agency.

    “Listen, honey, you need to tell me where to find the Boys in the Wood, okay?” she coerced.

    “Ah,” the woman said with a giggle. “So you do want a fix.”

    “That’s right,” Jane lied calmly. “So where can I-”

    The question never got its end, for in that moment the shabby woman leapt up with a shriek. She held her hands either side of her head, eyes wide and crazed as she stared at a spot just behind Jane. When Jane turned, she too had a startled moment, for a huge grizzly bear had just emerged not three feet from where she sat. Unlike her addled friend, however, Jane knew what the golden gleam in the bear’s eyes meant. Even more of a giveaway was the strange satchel that the bear had thrown over is massive back.

    “Whoa,” the woman warbled. “I must be freaking or something. A bear with a bag? Am I seeing this right?”

    “I think you’re having a bad experience, honey,” Jane replied. “I, uh, well I don’t see anything there.”

    The woman continued to stare for a moment. The bear, for his part, kept perfectly still, as if he was listening to Jane’s words.

    “Perhaps you’d better go find somewhere dark to lie down?” Jane suggested.

    “Mmm,” the woman said with a nod. “Yeah, ‘kay.”

    The bedraggled stranger wandered off, and as she did so the bear came closer to Jane once again. He was huge and somewhat clumsy in his gait, with streaks of pale brown and dark mixed together, glittering in the sunlight. Jane watched as her savior passed her by and settled into a thick clump of