Bear the Heat (Mating Call Dating Agency, #3)

by Lynn Red

  “I think I want to open up to her,” he said out of nowhere. Daniels stared at him with a slightly open mouth for a few seconds.

  “You what?” he finally asked when he figured out what his friend had said. “This lab rat girl? Why? I mean, not to take anything away from her, but don’t you think you should get to know her first before you open up your heart and soul?”

  Breaker stared at him silently for just a moment. Daniels had this way about him – whenever he was joking, he sucked his full bottom lip into his mouth, hiding it under his mustache. When he was earnest though, he sucked the mustache in so that the long whiskers poked out the corners of his mouth and his bottom lip almost touched his nose. “I just mean... well, hell, just that you don’t even really know her. I mean, past the obvious.”

  “That’s the thing though – I do know her. Look, I don’t believe in all this magical fate bullshit either, but all I can tell you is how it felt to see her in that office, and then to see her again behind that house.”

  Daniels arched an eyebrow.

  “I mean, behind the house that totally wasn’t an unsupervised search of a crime scene.”

  The two exchanged brief smiles. It was Daniels who finally broke the silence. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t understand.” He let out a long, heavy sigh. “I just don’t want to see you getting hurt again. Last time that happened, you moped around here for a month and wouldn’t even eat. It was like I had adopted a sick old dog, except I couldn’t shoot you. At least, not without it being even more socially tricky than Old Yellering a dog.”

  “I get the feeling there won’t be any moping this time.” Breaker fished his phone from the front left of his jeans, where he always kept it with his keys.

  “Don’t that thing get all scratched up?” Daniels asked. “You know you have more than one pocket in those pants.”

  Breaker shrugged, his huge shoulders lifting into a mountain of muscle that touched his earlobes. “Still makes calls. And anyway, this way I don’t rack up another half-grand Candy Crush bill. And keep your damn mouth shut.”

  He was already touching numbers, but paused for a moment. He reconsidered what he was doing, and then continued. As Daniels watched his face, Breaker seemed to come to life. His cheeks lightened a shade, and his lips, normally drawn into a straight line, bowed up slightly on the corners. Before the big bear said anything, the furrow on his brow relaxed, and his pensive smile grew. Daniels thought he knew who the bear was calling – and it wasn’t the billing department at Lowe’s to pay off a washing machine.

  “Hello? Rory?” It was like the crease in Breaker’s forehead migrated southerly and transformed into a pair of lines framing his mouth. Like this, Daniels thought, he could actually start believing the bear had moved on from all the trouble he’d lived through. He almost believed his friend really was having one of those magical moments of transcendent soul-lifting you always hear about in inspirational pamphlets. Only it was on the phone with a woman, not anything more, not anything less.

  “Listen, yeah, God it’s good to hear your voice,” the big bear said. “It’s been... almost two hours, huh?”

  Daniels couldn’t help but smile at this mountain of a man, who he had personally witnessed bulldozing through the wall of a house like the Kool-Aid man to save a pair of cubs, blushing like he was passing a note to a girl in his high school home room. He had no idea what they were saying. He didn’t need to – Breaker’s face told the whole story.

  “I’m seeing her again,” he said as he tapped to hang up the phone. How he knew where to tap was a mystery.

  “You don’t say!” Daniels feigned surprise, but smiled nonetheless. “Let me guess, you two love birds heard about some crime scene that sounds like the perfect way to get to know each other better? Gonna go snoop around a murder scene and look for stray hair follicles?”

  “Close. Going to see a movie and have dinner afterward. But your idea’s pretty good too. Maybe when you and I go on a date, we can do that one?” Breaker had the shine back in his eyes.

  “It’s been a long damn time since I saw you look like that,” Daniels said, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “Whatever it is, don’t let anybody talk you out of it. Only one thing in this crazy, stupid world of ours can do that to a bear. And that’s—”

  “Don’t say love, you’ll jinx it,” Breaker cut in.

  “Oh, love? Nah, I was going to say a game of strip Monopoly followed by naked Twister, but—”

  “Ha! Shut up you old son of a bitch,” Breaker roared. “I gotta run. I, uh, gotta go pick up Twister.”

  Daniels took a long drink of his coffee and watched his friend disappear through the front of the garage. “Whatever this is,” he said softly, “I sure as hell hope it works.”

  *

  “Do you think this is okay?” Dora held up a shirt that was candy striped, red and pink. The pink slats were very thin, the deep colored pink ones fatter. “I don’t look like a twelve year-old do I?”

  “No, not a twelve year old,” Eve had her sardonic smile on her face. She was just about to say something sarcastic. Dora couldn’t ever get mad at her though, because her sarcasm was always funny. “I think you look more like a candy cane. Which I guess does feed into the whole twelve year-old look. So yeah if that’s what you’re going for, definite win.

  Dora turned bright red and tried to grit her teeth to not look like she was laughing, but good lord did it never work. Without skipping a beat, Eve moved right on to the inquisition. “So, what’s this guy like? Are the twins nice?”

  “Wait, how did you know about the twins? I mean, yeah they’re awesome, but how did you—?”

  Eve rolled her eyes around in their sockets and stretched her neck around much further than it should have been able to go. “You talk really loudly on the phone. And so does he, and also I might have been listening on the intercom when he called the first time.” Dora got used to the whole owl-thing years ago, but the neck rotating business probably wouldn’t ever come without any tiny shred of a wince. “Anyway, past that, why would I spy on him? You don’t pay me to spy on people and find you boyfriends. And hell, it doesn’t seem like you need any help anyway. Kind of amazing, honestly.”

  “Amazing?” Dora asked, slightly chuffing. “Why is it so amazing that I managed to find a guy without you doing it for me? And also amazing that you don’t consider phone snooping to be, you know, spying.” She threw the candy striped shirt onto her bed and crossed the small-ish room to the closet. As she was rooting through it for something else, she continued. “Yeah well, he’s really nice, he has two kids, who are awesome twins, and he’s—”

  “Forty-three,” Eve finished. She looked at Dora in the floor-length mirror where her friend was holding up a dress. The squirrel froze. Eve looked away, but Dora caught her eyes again. “I’m absolutely sure he didn’t mention age on our phone call, so what gives?” she asked.

  “I just asked Rory how old he was.” She sensed Dora getting irritated and staved it off. “And before you get upset, I just did it because I’ve seen enough of those May-December Robert Redford movies to know that you don’t have the patience to deal with that sort of thing.”

  “I’m not... I mean, I should be mad, I guess, but I can’t be,” Dora said with a half-smile. “I know you mean well, but... jeez, you could’ve at least asked. And anyway, I’m thirty-eight, that’s not May-December, it’s more like... I dunno, April-June.”

  Eve laughed softly. “Yeah, true. I just worry about you. I want things to... I don’t know,” Eve trailed off. Dora thought she could hear just the faintest hint of a sniff in the back of her old friend’s voice.

  “Hey,” she said. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong? Monte’s a really nice guy and the twins who you already know about are super cool, too. I’m not gonna get hurt.” Dora held up another dress, this time a sort of shimmery blue one with slightly metallic green stripe down either side. She loved this dress, but somehow it didn’t seem right. Instead of messing
with her clothes, she sat back down on her bed, right beside Eve. She put her arm around Eve’s shoulder. “Talk to me.”

  Eve just stared straight ahead. “There’s not much to say, really. I just saw how you were looking at that guy, and how you acted after your dates, and I got one of those tingles in the back of my head.”

  “Your dating Magic 8-Ball, huh?”

  Eve smiled. “Yeah, something like that. But yeah, I know all that stuff you’re saying is true. And for the record I didn’t snoop on the twins. I just knew they existed. Even my creeper nature has a limit. As it happens, that limit is sixteen years old, so the girls fell outside my comfort zone.”

  “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” Dora said, hugging Eve tight. “And I hope I’m a pretty good one to you.”

  “You are,” Eve said. She got her sideways, suspicious look on her face. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear,” Dora said. “You need to take a break. Not like a long one, or anything like that, but you need to find your happiness. You need to look at yourself for a little while and find someone that can make you as happy as everyone you match up.” Eve opened her mouth, but Dora cut her off. “I know what you’re about to say. You’re going to tell me how finding happiness for other people is what makes you feel content and satisfied. I’ve heard it a thousand times, but can I just head that off and tell you this is only gonna last so long?”

  Eve didn’t reply, but she didn’t look irritated either. “Yeah?” she finally asked.

  “Yeah. You need to take time for you. Otherwise,” Dora took a deep breath. “At some point you’re going to run out of people to make matches for. Or, if not that, you’re gonna become so neurotic from never getting laid that you’re going to sit around balancing index cards on top of each other by yourself in an apartment full of Persian cats.”

  “That was... oddly specific,” Eve said with a smirk. “But I know what you mean. I’ve just always been so focused on this stuff that my own life kind of seemed—”

  “I know about you running away from that guy twenty years ago,” Dora cut in. “You were drunk that one time and you were very open. Anyway, I know about that. I know it haunts you, and I know you wish you could go back and change it.”

  “I must’ve been really drunk.”

  “Well, yeah, a wheelbarrow was involved.”

  Eve shook her head. “I don’t want to go back in time. It’s not like that. I was just so worried that I’d become one of those house-wifey girls and never do anything except that. I just... I don’t know. The older I get the more I think that maybe I should’ve given Rake more of a chance.”

  “Holy shit, Rake?” Dora asked. “Talk about tingling. With a name like that, what was he, bear?”

  “Lion,” Eve said with a wistful smile. “And yeah, you don’t need to tell me about the tingling. He wasn’t the one though. I think that’s part of why I ran.”

  “Still, running? I don’t know, that doesn’t sound like the Eve I know. The one I know would strangle the shit out of life until she was sure she’d gotten everything possible out of it, and then moved on, somehow leaving everyone feeling better for having been through it with her.”

  The owl shrugged, still smiling off into the distance. “Yeah, well. I was younger then. Wasn’t as, you know, driven as I am now. Although apparently I was, because I ran away from a mating to start a business finding mates for other people.” She laughed softly to herself. “And no, the irony isn’t lost on me. I guess I just thought I could use my weird little ability to match people to make a living and make a bunch of people happy.”

  Dora squeezed Eve’s shoulders. “I’m not telling you anything you haven’t thought about a thousand times already.”

  “No, you’re not,” Eve said smiling and hugging her friend back. She let herself relax her defenses for long enough to lay her head briefly on Dora’s shoulder. It doesn’t sound like much, but for Eve that was almost like opening up her soul and laying herself bare, which Dora understood.

  Dora stroked her friend’s short, brown hair, and then patted her. “It’s all going to be fine,” she said. “I have something to admit.”

  “You’re secretly a drunk?” Eve chuckled. “Not so secret I guess.”

  “Shut up,” Dora said with a laugh. “No, I had an ulterior motive for talking to you about all that stuff. I could have just let you get away with your normal vague allusions and all that, but I pressed for a reason.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “Well,” Dora shrugged. “It’s a secret. I’ll just say this much – you’ve got friends looking out for you, too.”

  Before that could really sink in, Dora hugged Eve tightly again, kissed her forehead and stood back up. “How about this?” she held up a poodle skirt and flipped it back and forth.

  “You going to a Sadie Hawkins dance?” Eve asked. Her voice was distant though.

  Dora knew that tone – Eve was thinking, calculating, trying to figure out what the hell her friend was talking about. And the fact that she couldn’t immediately divine her meaning made Dora smile. You’ll see, she thought. There’s a whole damn town looking out for you, Eve. A whole town. And as soon as we find someone for you that will make you as happy as you’ve made a hundred others, you won’t know what hit you.

  “Black pencil skirt, silvery top, sweater if you’re cold. Wear heels, but not stilettos because you’ll fall over, and unless you’ve managed to find one of those doofy guys who loves a klutz, you probably want to wait until a little later in the relationship before you show off exactly how good you are at imitating Chevy Chase imitating Gerald Ford.”

  7

  The address Breaker gave Rory was one she’d never heard of before. It was, so her phone’s GPS told her, eighteen minutes and forty-six seconds from where she currently was on the road leading straight out of White Creek.

  East from the town the road led first into denser forests than the town, some even nearing swampland with the constantly overflowed, overfed creeks and small rivers running through the land. But further still were the old foothills of mountains that weren’t much use for skiing or anything else that would bring tourists to the area. The peaks were too small, the mountains themselves too old and smooth-worn from the passage of time.

  But one of the really, really nice things about the mountains out past the heftiest of the oak forests, was that you could actually see the sky. For a second, the thought passed through Rory’s mind, followed by a thin, sweetly chilled wash of goosebumps. Is he taking me out here to look at the stars and be all romantic movie with me? No way. There’s no way, Rory thought. She hated that she kept thinking that it was all a misunderstanding. She hated that nothing she could do got it out of her mind that this awesome bear was just after her to help with his job.

  Or something else plainly ridiculous.

  She knew better. Intellectually she knew this guy was into her. The easy smiles, the laughs he gave her were real. The way he held his hand on her shoulder longer than he needed to when they were standing close.

  And, what the hell – the way he kissed her so hard she felt it in her toes – it all told her that this was the real thing. This was beyond doubt... and yet, that’s all she felt. Well, not all.

  When the phone buzzed on her dash, the shiver running down her spine was anything but doubtful. It was the sensation of anticipation snaking down her back like an forked lightning bolt. It stretched out to her arms, up the back of her neck. The tiny mink hairs below her ponytail prickled to life and a moment later, she realized with a tinge of excitement that her nipples were perked up, too.

  It was just like when he’d kissed her, just like when he’d smiled and then gotten bit by a tick and... before she knew it, Rory was laughing by herself in a silent car, and the phone was still buzzing the small pool of change she kept in front of her car’s in-dash clock. It hadn’t ever been set, so it wasn’t a big deal. From the amou
nt of money she spent on Twix from vending machines, the quarters were much more important. Rory only remembered she had to answer the phone when it stopped ringing.

  “Damn it!” she shouted, reaching for the phone and fumbling it under her chair. “You goddam asshole! Why’d you have to do that! Why couldn’t you fall on the arm rest?”

  Muffled laughter from her car’s speakers immediately torqued fear through her guts. “What the f—”

  “What’d that phone ever do to you? And while we’re at it, do you kiss your mama with that mouth?”

  “You son of a bitch!” Rory hissed, then laughed in a mixture that came out in a sort of chortle. “Bluetooth. God, I hate it when I forget about safety features that have been in cars for like five years.”

  “I’m just glad you’re pissed at the phone instead of me. If I ever make you that mad, just throw a pan at my head, all right?”

  She laughed again. God it feels good to laugh like this, she thought. How long has it been? Ever? If I have, I don’t remember it.

  “I love how you laugh,” Breaker said. If she weren’t driving, Rory would have swooned, and she was not the swooning type. “It sounds so honest. So... shit, I don’t know, I’m rambling like a stoned teenager. I need to see you. Now. Where are you? I can’t wait anymore. My heart is burning, every nerve in my body is twisted up and I think if I don’t get to kiss you soon, I’m going to implode.”

  “I,” Rory let her breath out slowly, trying to keep from hyperventilating, “don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone need me anywhere that badly, except one time I was really late to my shift at Popeye’s. I’m halfway down the Crawton highway, should be to the place you told me to be in about,” she looked down quickly at the handset, which had slid back out from under her seat, “four minutes and twelve seconds.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’m counting. Hurry.”

  The gruff, growly desperation in Breaker’s voice was something she hadn’t heard from him before. But in the seconds after the line went dead, she realized it was something she had heard before—in herself.