Thank You For Not Shifting (Peculiar Mysteries Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

softened. He nodded. “Let’s get going then.”
    * * * *
    The ride in his half-ton truck was like sitting in a Jon boat as it crossed a choppy wake. “Jesus, Doc. You ever heard of shocks?”
    “This beauty is reliable.” He patted his dashboard, his gray eyes shining as moonlight streamed into the cab. “I can count on it to get me where I’m going.”
    “Yes, but can you count on it to get you there free of hemorrhoids?”
    He smiled, and my pulse quickened. It made me stupidly happy to see the corners of his lips tug up. “I heal fast.”
    I laughed, the repulsive image of the skinned corpse fading with each minute in Billy Bob’s presence. “You’d have to.”
    He chuckled. My lady bits clenched. Ugh.
    “How have you been?” he asked.
    His concern flattened my woo-woo feelings, and my lady bits unclenched. “Fine.” My throat was tight. “Are you going to do the autopsy on the body?”
    “Yes,” he said. “Mark Smart will transport the victim to the clinic.”
    “Tonight?” I hadn’t thought about where or when Billy Bob would examine the body, but when he’d asked me to stay at his house, I’d just assumed it would happen tomorrow.
    “I need to identify him.” He shook his head, his eyes tight at the corners. “For his family. It’s not fair to let him go unclaimed by his people.”
    My stomach hurt. For too long, my younger brother Judah and the other victims of those insidious hunters had gone unclaimed. I remember what it had been like for the two years before we discovered why my brother had disappeared. I’d never stopped wondering or worrying. My emotions had run the rainbow of anger to grief to hope to denial and back to anger. I didn’t want another family to suffer the same experience. Not even for a day.
    I nodded sharply. “Good.” I swallowed. The heat of anxious energy burned in my gut.
    Billy Bob put on his blinker before turning up his long driveway. We passed his sweat lodge. I couldn’t buy into all his shaman bullshit. Yes, we had the ability to transform into animals, but that didn’t mean every type of magical crap out there was real. When we crested the hilltop, his house appeared. It was a large, one-level ranch home with the clinic attached on the nearest side.
    The outside lights were on, illuminating the large front porch that stretched the length of the house, maybe sixty feet long and eight feet wide. The place had two front doors about twenty feet apart. One was Billy Bob’s private entrance to his home, and the other was the public door to the clinic. A van was parked near the clinic door, the lights off.
    Billy Bob turned the truck off. “Smart is here with the…” He looked at me.
    I swallowed the knot in my throat. “Do you need help?”
    His expression flashed with surprise. “Are you sure you want to help?”
    What he was really asking was, Can you handle it ? I nodded, telling myself to woman up. “I’m tough, Doc.”
    “That you are.” He put his hand on my forearm and gave it a squeeze.
    His touch electrified my skin with an energy that pulsed through my body. I pulled away from him as if I’d touched a hot coal. He thinned his lips, his gaze now on the steering wheel.
    “We better get to it,” I said to cover my embarrassment. Shit. What was wrong with me?
    I should have apologized. He was being kind. It wasn’t his fault my stupid hormones did a jig every time he walked into a room, or that my whole being wanted him whenever he touched me. It was as if he was the socket and I was the bulb. Every time he touched me my body would light up. I’d never had that reaction to another man. Ever. I’d like to say it was some transference because he was my doctor, my caregiver, during some of my darkest hours, but truthfully, he’d made me feel that way before I’d been kidnapped.
    He opened his door, got out, and shut it hard behind him. I winced. After a few calming breaths, I got out too. By the time I reached the clinic, Billy Bob and