Bearly Hanging On (A Werebear Shifter BBW Romance) (Laid Bear Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

but it’s true.”
    Anxiety tightened her chest and she pulled her hands free. She’d seen this with her mom far too many times. Too many lusftul moments wrongly interpreted as love. Her fingers twitched at a lock of hair, tugging on it repeatedly, rhythmically, soothing her nerves.  
    “Jesus, what’s with you boys? Didn’t you hear what I just said to Derek?”
    Chet nodded, but his smile was self-assured. How could he be so confident? She’d just shot him down! “I know, poor guy. But this is different. And the thing is, Crystal…you feel it, too.”
    All she could do was stare at him. In a book, they’d say she was ‘agog’, and that was about as good a description as any. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Some guy she barely knew and had only macked on a couple of times was professing his undying love for her. And he thought she was a freak!
    The trouble was, he wasn’t entirely wrong. She did feel something for him, something special. But love? It couldn’t be. Okay, so she didn’t know exactly what it felt like, but she knew it couldn’t happen this fast. That was just nuts!
    Her heart was threatening to jump right out of her chest, and not in a good ‘he’s got me so hot’ way. Stammering and stumbling backward, she said, “I…um…you…what…”
    A girl several years younger than them interrupted their…whatever it was. “Chet, we should jam or we won’t make it back before Mom and Dad get home. Oh, hey, I’m Sandy, Chet’s cousin.”
    She stuck a lace-covered hand at Crystal. Why was she doing that? A spark niggled at the back of Crystal’s brain. She was supposed to do something here but couldn’t remember what. Her brain was so foggy and jumbled, it was a shock she could even remember to breathe.  
    “Oooohkay…” the girl breathed as she pulled her hand back, grabbed Chet’s arm and started dragging him away. Blissfully away. Tragically away.  
    Don’t let him go , Crystal’s heart screamed, while her brain shouted, Later days!
    Chet dazzled her with one last smile before leaving with his cousin. “See you soon, Andie.”
    Andie? She was Crystal! Wasn’t she? Yes. She was almost positive her name was Crystal. So who the hell was Andie?! And then her brain regained full function — or most of it, anyway. Andie was Molly Ringwold’s character from Pretty In Pink . Blane’s true love.  

CHAPTER FIVE

    “Thanks again for helping me out this week, Chet,” Uncle Max was saying as he shuffled through a huge stack of papers on his desk. “You’ve been a real lifesaver since Jackie went on maternity leave.”
    Rather than sit around the house pining for Crystal and feeling sorry for himself, Chet had offered up his skills — as limited as they were — for his uncle to use at his logging company, Pearce Forestry Products, Inc. He’d pictured himself felling giant trees with nothing but an ax or sending one through the debarker machine. Something rough and manly. Dangerous.
    Not once in his fantasy did he envision filing paperwork all damn day.  
    But it gave him plenty of time to think about Crystal, to remember the way her lips felt under his own, the way her heart fluttered madly when he kissed her, the sense of utter contentment he felt in her presence.
    He and Sandy had gabbed for hours that fateful night, and several nights since, about how and why werebears and humans should never mate. It was something they’d been taught from childhood and had never thought to question, but now they wanted to know more about the why.
    “Maybe I should just ask your dad,” Chet said one evening during an after-dinner ping-pong game in the basement. Sandy responded with a frantic shake of her frizzy blond hair.
    “Are you buggin’?! ‘Oh, hey, Uncle Max. Why can’t werebears and humans mate?’ Yeah, like he won’t see right through that!”
    Irritated, Chet slapped the ping-pong ball back with a wicked spin, which Sandy just managed to save. “Fine, what do you