Hard As Steele (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack) Read Online Free PDF Page B

got a new friend here with me, someone I met in my travels,” he said. That was universal shifter code meaning he was with a human.  “Hey, by the way, I’m parched. Can you bring me a soda?” That was universal code among shifters for an incident of a human spotting a shifter, which was a level one emergency among their kind.
                  “Sure thing. Everything going okay?” Joel, the wolf shifter who’d answered the phone, asked. The casual tone on the other end belied the seriousness of the situation.
                  “Everything’s fine, no emergency.  We’re just hanging out and enjoying the solitude.”
                  “We’ll see you soon,”
                  The Silver Forest Pack would send the pack’s Shaman, and he would erase her memory. That was one of the most important functions of a Shaman. They could reach into human minds and do what they called a mind-wipe, leaving a blank spot in their memories or even implanting new ones that would explain away the brief period of time during which the human had witnessed a shifter.
                  In Roxanne’s case, it would be easy enough to have her believe that the bump on her head had caused her to have temporary amnesia surrounding the time of the car accident and the day after.
      She’d wake up next to her car, with the human police arriving – he’d make sure of that – and she’d think she’d forgotten an entire day of her life.
                  It would be as if he’d never existed. As if he’d never loved her.

Chapter Four
                  February 2014, Lonesome Pine, Montana
    Katherine Bertelsen crouched behind the thick underbrush, peering through her binoculars. Every breath sent puffs of white vapor into the air, and even through her thick wool gloves, her fingers felt numb. She wore winter camo from head to toe; it wouldn’t do to be seen.
    The sun overhead bathed the forest in a cold white light, but did little to warm the frigid winter air.
    The object of her scrutiny, Police Chief Jerrod Fennel, was standing in a small clearing among the towering Ponderosa pine trees, talking to four men in military uniform.  She reached down and patted her 9 mm pistol for reassurance. She knew it wouldn’t help her if they spotted her. They were armed with M4 carbines with grenade launchers. Still, it made her feel better having some kind of weapon.
    “See anything interesting?” A low, masculine voice sounded directly behind her, and she whirled around, pointing her gun. She and her father had spent many a day at the range practicing her quick draw technique. She was also a pretty good shot.
    The m asculine voice belonged to Edvin Gund. He was a couple of years older than her, a member of a large, reclusive clan who lived up in the hills. There were several families in the clan, all descended from families who’d come to mine for gold in the 1800s.  They homeschooled their children and only rarely came into town. Her grandmother had told her strange stories about them – that some of them could turn into wolves. Supposedly it was the result of some Native American curse from when they’d first settled the area.
    “Are you fricking crazy, sneaking up on me like that?” she hissed. “I could have shot you! And there’s a bunch of soldiers out in the woods here, and they do not look friendly!”
    Edvin was wearing camo, just like her. He was a tall, rangy young man, somewhere in his early twenties, with thick wavy hair the color of wheat.
                  “I know.” He spoke in a low voice. “You shouldn’t be out here, Katherine. It’s not safe. Why did you come?”
                  He knew her name? Katherine felt an odd fluttering inside her at that.  She quickly pushed it aside.
                  “I’m keeping an eye on Chief Fennell. I don’t trust him,” she said.