Bearly a Memory: Pacific Northwest Bears: (Shifter Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page A

I’m just trying to figure her out. Her name is Brooklyn Nishi. She lives in California. I’ve talked to her work and her parents. Nobody knew she was out here, and they had a suspicious incident at her work. I’m not totally sure she isn’t in some kind of trouble.”
    “Uh-huh, sure. I’ll believe that. Couldn’t be that Ms. Nishi is curvy, drop dead gorgeous, and smells tasty, could it?” Eddie said, giving his cousin raised eyebrows that he wiggled.
    “Stop sniffing her,” Tanner rumbled.
    “Oh, yeah. I see how it is. Fine, you called dibs. I can respect that.”
    “I’m going to go check on her. You have a problem with that?” Tanner was feeling defensive all of a sudden. He didn’t like it. He was the calm, cool one; the master at defusing tense situations. Now he was agitated, his skin crawling knowing she was in the other room. He wanted to see her breathing for some reason.
    “She’s been moved to room 103. Good luck,” Eddie said with a wink.
    Damn him. He would probably tell his mom who would then call Tanner’s mom. Nothing momma bears liked more than matchmaking for their kids. He had work to do, not momma gossip to manage.
    Walking down the long hallway to room 103, Tanner paused to listen. No sound was coming from the room. He knocked lightly, and there was no reply. Pushing open the door, he walked straight into a privacy curtain someone had pulled closed. Tanner quietly pulled it open and stepped into the area with the bed. He closed the curtain behind him to give her privacy. She wouldn’t know if people were staring at her, but he knew for sure that he didn’t want anyone watching her without permission.
    She was lying on the bed, her color much better than the worrisome gray color that she’d been when they found her. There was a large inflatable blanket over her that was hooked to a machine pumping warm air through it. She still had an IV in her arm, and there was oxygen in her nose. Other than those tubes, she just looked like she was sleeping.
    Someone had dried her hair, and it flared out on the pillow like a curly cloud. Tanner wanted to touch it but curled his hand into a fist to keep his desires in check.
    Standing at the foot of the bed, he wrapped his hands around the handles at the end and stared. He didn’t know what he was looking for. He just knew that he and his bear were both pretty damn content just watching her breathe in and out.
    Every breath was reassuring to him. It calmed his animal. Gave him a sense that everything was going to be okay, just because she was still there.
    Tanner didn’t know what his next steps were. Without her input on her own disappearance, he had nowhere else to research without raising suspicions. But did he just stay there and wait for her to wake up? That would be seen as a little too involved for a sheriff. His bear wanted to pull up a chair and hold onto her hand until he finally saw she was going to be okay. Again, not something a sheriff should do.
    Taking one last look at her, he turned and walked back into the hallway, making sure to secure the curtain for her privacy.
    He gave Eddie a chin lift and walked back outside to call Brooklyn’s mom.
    “Maybelle, she’s still unconscious,” Tanner said when her mom picked up on the first ring. “They have her body temperature back up, and she’s resting comfortably. They say she does have a bruise on her brain where she hit her head. But they are sure she just needs some rest to wake up. I’d like it if you could entrust her to me until I can make sure she was just on a vacation up here, not running from a potential contract on her life. These men are not amateurs, Mrs. Nishi. The kinds of people that would even put a price on a person’s head don’t do it for show. If they intend to kill your daughter, I won’t let that happen,” Tanner finished.
    “All of my momma instincts are telling me I need to be by my baby’s side. But I’m going to trust my baby girl to you, Sheriff