Scottish Werebear: A New Beginning: A BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (Scottish Werebears Book 4) by Lorelei Moone Read Free Book Online

Wasn't he, at least, a little concerned?
    Sure, their relationship - if you could call it that - wasn't exactly traditional, but she'd felt that he cared about her at least a little. Had she been kidding herself?
    Had it all been in her head? The little flirtations, the bond she'd felt toward him?
    Then again, he wasn't anything like her previous lovers. He wasn't really normal, strictly speaking. Could she expect him to react like a normal guy would to an extra-ordinary situation like this? Perhaps not.
    Leah took a deep breath, and a generous sip of the burning amber liquid she'd absentmindedly poured into a mug rather than a glass and decided to be the bigger person. She'd send him a message then.
    I guess you're wondering what went on here tonight, eh?
    Send.
    Leah stared down at her phone for much too long, but nothing happened. There was no response, no matter how long she tried to hypnotize it.
    Goddamnit. She had moved to this place in search for a simpler life. Two weeks in, she'd been the victim of a home invasion, come face-to-face with a life-sized bear inside her own home, undergone a weird brain-washing exercise courtesy of Margaret, who mysteriously showed up just around the same time as the bear.
    And, to top it off, she'd developed a one-sided crush on someone she can't have. She had completely misread that situation. Bloody brilliant.
    She threw the phone down onto the sofa in disgust and headed back into the kitchen. Through the windows, she could see that even the last one of the blacked out vans that had not too long ago been parked up outside her house had left, presumably taking Margaret with it. Good riddance.
    As Leah poured herself another double, she wasn't shaken anymore; she was furious.

    An insomniac at the best of times, Leah hadn't even tried to go to bed that night, so come 8 o'clock, she was still up. The buzz from the two shots of Scotch had worn off for the most part, and last night's events seemed very long ago.
    She began doing the one thing that usually seemed to help when she had some issues to work through in her head: cook up a new batch of product. Funny, how she hadn't attempted to cook a meal for herself from scratch, but thought nothing of combining all these strange ingredients to produce soap.
    She'd been telling herself for a while now that a new scent was required but just hadn't found the right combination of fragrances yet. Perhaps today was the day she'd figure it out.
    Leah laid out all her essential oils, pairing them up in groupings she hadn't yet tried together, and put on a pair of gloves.
    Although December had just begun, she didn't want to do anything Christmassy, so she quickly pushed aside the spicier scents.
    Something fresh, new. That's what she was after. Like newly cut grass or the first flowers of spring. Daffodils? Why not...
    She was just getting into the spirit of things when the doorbell rang and dragged her back into the real world. God. Hopefully, it wasn't that Margaret woman again.
    Leah took a deep breath and rushed out to open the door only to find her other neighbor, Carrie, waiting outside. Just great. She'd probably seen the activity outside her door at night as well.
    Matt had said she was a gossip - though, screw whatever Matt had told her.
    "Hi!" Leah greeted Carrie with an attempt at a wide smile.
    "Hey, Leah, how's it going?" Carrie couldn't quite disguise her curiosity. Her eyes clearly darted back and forth between Leah and the hallway behind her, as though she was looking for something or someone.
    "Yeah, not too bad, considering. I suppose you must have seen a bit of what went on here at night?" Leah said, hoping to speed things up by steering the conversation in the direction she expected Carrie wanted to head in anyway.
    "I did wake up to an awful ruckus outside. Cars pulling in, people running back and forth. I hope everything is okay?"
    "Someone broke in; can you believe it?"
    "No way! In this neighborhood?"
    "That's what I thought.