Daxton (BBW Bear Shifter Moonshiner Romance) (120 Proof Honey) by Becca Fanning Read Free Book Online Page A

continued, “but Fairhaven’s a great place. You’ll love it here.”

    The ranger’s smooth words washed over Elise’s nerves, and she hoped that he was right.

“What do you mean ‘coming for me’?” Elise yelled into the phone. “Who even says that anymore, Jane?”

    Jane Walsh was Elise’s agent, a woman who never stopped working. She and Elise had been on the phone from the moment that Elise checked into her cabin on the West Ridge. There was a complimentary fruit basket on the kitchen counter, which provided Elise with both breakfast and lunch during the conversation. It was necessary to keep going over the facts. Elise was desperate to process the scale of her mistake.

    “Chantelle Picard is not happy about what you said,” Jane confirmed for the hundredth time. “She tweeted that she’s coming for you, and encouraged all her brainless fans to do the same. Your feed is full of abuse. Don’t look it at honey, promise me.”

    Elise rested her brow on one hand, trying to soothe her tension.

    “Oh God, it’s all over isn’t it?” she replied. “I’m never going to get a gig again.”

    “Are you kidding me?” Jane shot back. “The whole internet’s talking about you. You’re ten times more well-known than before. We just have to let things die down, then plan a relaunch. You got to the park okay?”

    “Not really,” Elise sighed. “I mean, I’m here now, and the cabin’s stunning. But last night I almost got attacked by a bear.”

    “A bear!” Jane exclaimed.

    “But then this other bear showed up and started fighting it.”

    “So… you were rescued from one bear by another bear?” Jane asked.

    Elise paused. In her frantic dash to escape, she hadn’t really thought about it like that.

    “I guess I was,” she mused. “This other bear was a little different. It had these weird golden eyes.”

    On the other end of the line, Jane choked on her coffee.

    “Golden?” she repeated.

    “Yeah, and-”

    “Don’t you realize what that means?” Jane cut in.

    “Clearly not,” Elise answered. She waited, listening as Jane took a deep breath in.

    “Do you remember that guy we met at the wrap party for that awful werewolf movie?” Jane began. “The one who said he was their ‘authenticity consultant’?”

    Elise had to think for a moment, but the face of a slim, silver-haired man came to her mind. She suddenly remembered what was so striking about him.

    “He had golden eyes!” Elise said.

    “He was one of those people,” Jane explained, her voice heightened by excitement. “A shifter!”

    The whole world knew that shifters existed, those peculiar souls who could transform between their human state and a designated animal form. Elise had only ever met one, at that wrap party, though she’d sometimes heard stories of other people who had encountered those rare beings. That was what the golden eyes meant, and Elise had forgotten. The Best family shot back into her mind at the realization, their golden gazes burning in her memory.

    “You were rescued by a shifter,” Jane said, clearly impressed. “And one who turns into a bear too. That’s a powerful friend to make on your first night.”

    “I guess it is,” Elise mused.

    Jane began to chatter about the situation with Chantelle Picard and her horrible twitter army, but Elise’s mind had started to wander. Those five park rangers circled her head, each of them broad and muscular. Reinicke, Hart, Kurt, Ben and Dietrich. It had to be one of them who had come to her rescue. But which one?

A hand-written note had arrived from Anina, inviting Elise to dinner at the Rangers’ Lodge. Elise was overcome by a strange excitement at the prospect of meeting the shifters again, now that she knew a little of what they were. It was rare, to be able to say that you actually knew a person with a supernatural ability, even more so to have been rescued by one. Elise had returned to her car at the park’s front entrance to