Bridge Hollow Shifters: The Complete Collection

by Samantha Leal

  He cleared his throat and took a step back. His mind a muddle of bewilderment.

  When the world went back to moving at a regular pace, he registered the look of confusion on her face and she slowly dropped her hand, aware that he wasn’t going to shake it.

  She looked wounded and bruised, and he went to speak, but didn’t have a clue what to say.

  “Okay…” she half whispered.

  “I’m Anson,” he said to break the silence. “I’m just here for the rent.”

  And now he was coming across like a total dick. But he couldn’t understand what was happening to him. He had never felt anything like that before, as if his whole body had suddenly gone into overdrive. He felt his senses heighten and his heart was still raging, his skin tingled, and his cock pulsed with desire, he had to look away from her and he had to get out of there fast.

  She was looking at him as if he were insane, either that or she was incredibly offended.

  “I don’t know anything about any rent,” she said sternly as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  Her eyes were searching him as if she were trying to figure him out, and a flicker of realization seemed to flash across her face before she stepped backward, turned to face the other way and walked to the back of the room and behind the counter so she could be as far away from him as possible.

  “Well, it’s due every month on this date,” he said. “Where’s Beau?”

  The girl looked momentarily worried, but then she sighed and reached for her cell phone.

  “She’s gone away for a few weeks,” she said finally as she seemed to be hurriedly typing a text. “She flew out of here and I guess in all the rush she forgot to mention that. I’m sure it’ll be sorted though, so just give me a couple of days to figure it out.”

  She was now refusing to look him in the eye, and he took a step back, feeling the hostility toward him. Not that it was her fault, he was the one being a total jerk.

  What the fuck is happening? He thought as he reached the door and went for the handle.

  “I’ll call back then,” he said as he cleared his throat. “No rush… I mean… Just speak to her.”

  “Sure,” Krystal said as she watched him leave with a scowl across her face.

  He lunged through the door and let it slam behind him, the bell and the wind chimes all going crazy as he went and he strode off down the street as fast as he could, not looking back. When he was a safe distance away and his heart had returned to normal, he looked at his hands and it were as if he should be able to see the blood thumping through his veins. There was nothing to see, just his regular palms, but his whole inside was on fire. His body was reacting to something, and it was both exhilarating and frightening.

  He ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath as he leaned back against a building down an alleyway just off Main Street. He had lived his whole life never experiencing anything like this, but it was hard to ignore. The girl, Krystal, with her piercing blue eyes, long black hair and sexy nose ring… She had done more than caught his eye when he had walked into the store just now.

  Her scent had enchanted him.

  “Fuck,” he whispered as he closed his eyes. “No… No… No…”

  His Aunt Nora’s words echoed in his mind and he shook his head and refused to acknowledge them. Today was just another day, and he certainly wasn’t going to let himself be tempted by the new girl in town which just so happened to be one of the psychic’s nieces.

  He was mad a himself for not having more self-control.

  He didn’t want a woman in his life. He already had enough on his plate looking after Aunt Nora and Heidi. He had a brotherhood and a serious business, and the town was in the grips of a sinister turmoil they didn’t yet know the full implications of.

  He waited until he had calmed and then shook his head again, moving out of the alley and back on Main Street. He wasn’t going to let that strange feeling throw him off course today, he had too much to do.

  Sexy shop girl or no sexy shop girl. He was pushing her out of his mind and getting back to work.

  4.

  Krystal sat at the register cradling her cup of takeout coffee and her slice of carrot cake. The scowl was still fixed firmly on her face, and no amount of caffeine and sugar was going to clear it any time soon.

  Anson.

  He had seriously pissed her off, but he had also piqued her interest because she had marked his card a few moments after he walked in.

  Anson was a shifter.

  He had acted such a tough guy and he had been so rude, and it hadn’t taken Krystal long to figure out why. He was an immature animal, one with no emotional maturity, and one that only focused on one thing… mating and acting like a total savage.

  She shuddered.

  He hadn’t been quite what she had been expecting when she had come back to town and had made peace with the fact that she was going to be around shifter men. She had thought she would have known instinctively the second he had walked in the door, but it had taken her a good few moments, and she wasn’t sure if he hadn’t acted so bizarrely if she would have seen it at all.

  He had looked like a man. A huge, hulking beast of a man with muscles to die for, sure, but a man… not an animal. He had deep brown eyes, shaggy hair and a gorgeous beard that made her bones ache, but he hadn’t been as repulsive has she had thought they might be. Everything she had ever heard about shifter men had been negative. Her mother had known them well when she had lived in Bridge Hollow, and she had always told her how dangerous they were and that they were totally bad news.

  Well, he was rude, that was one thing that was certain.

  He had no manners, he looked like a hulking mountain man, and he had run out without even saying bye.

  And Krystal had been in a bad mood ever since.

  She stabbed at her piece of cake with the plastic fork the coffee house had given her, and she tasted one more tiny bit before she pushed it away and sighed.

  She had been in town for a week now minding the store, and that had been the first time she had come in contact with, what she was pretty sure was, a shifter. In fact, it was the first time she had spoken with anyone except the patrons of the store and the people who worked in the coffee house. She had wandered around town without being noticed and she put it down to the fact she must just blend in as a tourist. Not many of the locals had been into the store, most of the time, for this week at least, it had been tourists looking for some kind of magical souvenir to take home, and with Beau being away, no bookings had been taken for tarot readings or other forms of divination.

  She sipped her coffee and realized that her mind kept drifting back to Anson, even though she was trying her hardest not to think about him. He had been such a big presence when he had come to the store, she had almost felt him before she had heard or seen him, and it was as if she just knew someone had come in. She had been out back in the store room and hadn’t heard the bell ting, or anyone call to her, but she had felt the energy of someone else in the same space as her, and it had made her dash to the front of the shop. She had almost been afraid they were be being robbed, as if her intuition was kicking in. But when she saw him browsing the mystical book section, she could see that he was a customer and not a thief.

  Not even a customer, she corrected herself with a cringe. The owner of the building.

  She tapped her phone to make the screen come alive and there was still no reply from her aunt. As soon as he had appeared and asked for money, she had texted Beau to ask her if she had left an envelope anywhere, or if there was a bank account she could access to transfer it across to him. Her aunt had been pretty good at keeping her updated on her travels, and she had arrived in Germany the day after she had left Bridge Hollow after only having to take two flights.

  When Beau had left, she had briefed her on the person she was looking for. He was an expert in parapsychology and the spirit world, and Beau was beginning to become convinced that the happenings of Bridge Hollow
could be connected to an accident that had happened there almost a hundred years ago and it was the spirits of the people who had died that were coming back and trying to punish the town for forgetting them.

  Krystal didn’t know what to think, but she could see the determination and urgency in Beau’s eyes, and she had wanted to find her friend in Europe to see if he had any theories of his own. It was typical for her that this man was eccentric and had shunned modern technology, choosing to live out his days in practical isolation in the middle of a forest.

  And now Krystal was back in Bridge Hollow after twenty years, leaving when she had only been seven years old, and she had just had her first encounter with a shifter.

  “I wonder what kind,” she found herself saying with a little smile before she shook her head and made the thoughts go away.

  She sipped the rest of her coffee and got to her feet, she had plenty she could be doing around the store before closing time, and the afternoon was passing by quickly. She looked over her shoulder at the selection of boxes that were still left to be unpacked and she decided she would make the executive decision to start decorating the place a little more. If she did a good job, she hoped her aunt may keep her on once she had returned.

  As it hit 6pm, Krystal hadn’t even realized it had gotten so late. No one had come into the store for hours, and when she looked outside, she realized the sun was low in the sky and dusk was rolling in. She shivered and rubbed her arms to warm herself up, and then she made her way to the front of the store and began to collect the items outside on the sidewalk, the chairs and tables, sandwich board with the store logo, and the little items she had put out for sale.

  She thought she could feel a pair of eyes on her, and when she looked up, she noticed a big truck was parked on the opposite side of the street, and a couple of men were standing and talking by the side of it. She intuitively knew it was him from the size of him. Even though he wasn’t underneath the streetlight and it was dark over there, she could tell it was Anson.

  She had managed to block him out of her mind for the rest of the afternoon, keeping herself so busy by unpacking boxes and getting sorted, but it was as if someone wasn’t going to let her forget him that easily.

  He was chatting to his friend and they both looked like they were from a different world. They were both so big and muscular, they were incredible to look at and it made her swallow nervously.

  These men were seriously fucking sexy.

  She hadn’t bargained for that when she had returned to her hometown.

  They must do all kinds of bad things for her mom to warn her off them so vehemently when she had been alive.

  He turned and his eyes caught hers instantly, as if he could feel her standing there watching him. A smile quickly flickered across his lips and she found herself smiling, too, but then it was as if they both realized at the same time that they shouldn’t be acknowledging each other, and Krystal quickly forced her smile to drop, quickly followed by his, before she turned and continued carrying everything back inside the store.

  She could feel his eyes on her, but luckily she had managed to get everything inside, and without letting herself look at him again, she flipped the sign to CLOSED, locked the door and turned off the main light at the front of the shop before she scuttled to the back.

  When she opened the storeroom door and went inside her heart was pounding and breath came quickly. Her palms were slick with sweat and she had tingling skin.

  “Jeez,” she breathed as she fanned her face. Her nipples were hard and her pussy ached. “What the fuck was that…?”

  She waited for a moment until she felt like she could breathe normally again, and then she rolled out her shoulders and slipped back out of the storeroom and locked it behind her. She flicked off the rest of the lights in the store and went out the back hallway toward the staircase that led to the split-level apartment above.

  She was already in love with the apartment, and she had really felt at home since she had arrived. Her aunt hadn’t truly been living there, but she had clearly known she was going to need the space for someone, and so she had taken Anson up on his offer for the extra floors. They had been empty anyway, and Krystal had already decided that when she told her aunt she was going to be staying in Bridge Hollow, she would offer to pay the landlord extra for the space.

  She loved slipping the key into the door and stepping inside. There was something so light and airy about the place, and she felt instantly safe as if it had been made just for her. The building was old, and the ceilings were high in every room, but this apartment had been refurbed so that the floor above was showing in the main living area with a mezzanine level balconied and looking out above her. She liked it up there the best, she had set it up as her main living space and it felt like she was in a secret treehouse when she was in there. She had a comfy couch, beanbags on the floor, and all the books she had managed to fit in her cases when she had driven into town.

  She still didn’t know what her aunt was going to make of her wanting to stay full-time in Bridge Hollow. But over the past few years, Krystal had really felt the distance between them. After she lost her mom when she was eighteen, she had tried her absolute best to make it in the world without any family close by. But over time, it had started to take its toll and she had begun to feel incredibly lonely. She saw people going off to their parents’ homes on the weekend for Sunday lunches and to spend time at lake houses, and Krystal had been sitting alone in a studio apartment in a bustling city that had made her feel isolated.

  She had been scared stiff about returning to Bridge Hollow, but she couldn’t say it hadn’t already been on her mind before she had received Beau’s letter. It had been something she had been toying with for at least two years. Every time she and Beau met for a weekend away, or Beau came to her for Christmas or other holidays, she almost asked her every time, but had always lost her nerve at the last minute. It was almost as if she was waiting for a sign and for the right time.

  When the letter had come, asking her to go back, she knew there was no denying it any longer. She had been scared to make the decision, and it had been tough saying goodbye to her friends, but they were all settling down and getting married, and she had been seeing less and less of them over the months. She had hated her job and been looking for a fresh start, and she had never connecting with any of the men she had dated in the city. They had all been too pretentious and stuck up, and she always felt a draw back to her old hometown. She just needed the validation to be able to make the move, so she didn’t feel so bad on her wonderful mother. For Beau to ask her to come back though, that was what she had needed. She may not have told her yet, but while she had been gone, Krystal had been moving things bit by bit up from the trunk in her car and into the apartment, hoping she would be able to soon call it her permanent home.

  She finally felt as if she belonged to something, and she certainly had yearned for this place, even if her memories from her childhood were scattered and weak. She had settled in fast, and she was loving her cozy nights in the apartment, she loved working in the store, and once she felt a bit more confident around town, she knew was going to love going out and hitting up the bars and nightspots and making some real friends too. She didn’t realize how much she had hated the city until she had found herself here, and she just hoped her mom wouldn’t be disappointed with her for wanting to come back.

  She smiled and reached for the silver locket at her neck which contained a small picture of her mother. She always had it close to her heart, and she had tried her best to stay away, but now she was back, she knew it meant she was finally moving on and becoming willing to take charge of her own life. And for the first time in a long, long time, she was feeling happy and content just in her own skin.

  Her cell phone beeped and she picked it up and looked down at the screen. She had a new message from Beau, and she opened it and began to read…

  B: Sorry, darling! Yes, of course, I totally forgot to tell you, the
cash for Anson is in the safe in the basement. I’ll call you tomorrow with the details to get into it, I don’t want to send them over these airwaves, you never know who’s jotting things down. I’m leaving for the forest tomorrow and I have good faith that my old friend is still in his cabin living in perfect and tranquil simplicity.

  Going to bed now, it’s very late here. I love you. Aunt B x

  Krystal smiled and laughed. Her Aunt Beau was so funny at times. She was eccentric and loud, jolly and elegant, if she could grow up to be exactly like her, then she would be happy. Her and her mother had been similar, but Beau had definitely got the crazy gene while her mother had been more pragmatic.

  She set the phone down and stretched before she wandered up the stairs, across the mezzanine level, and into one of the rooms that led off it and into her bedroom.

  She still hadn’t unpacked many of her things in there for fear she would be told no by her aunt or by Anson, but she knew her aunt wouldn’t want her to leave Bridge Hollow now she was home, it was more just the logistics of where she would live. If there weren’t enough hours for her in the store, then she would have to look for something else, and she didn’t know how Anson would feel about the apartment being sublet, even if it did mean there would be a trusted person on the premises at night.

  She flopped down on her bed and lay looking at the ceiling. She really had felt strange since she had met him. His name and his eyes and the way he had glared at her had been piercing through her mind every five seconds. She felt excitement when she remembered him, when the vision of him crossed her mind, she felt every part of herself tingle with anticipation. She had never felt anything like it, as if she were both nervous of him, but also drawn to him and unable to shake him away.

  She rolled to her side, gripped her pillow, and pulled it to her. She had come back to this town with a hope of starting her life again in a new place, even if it was one she had lived in before. She had hoped to find a job she was passionate about, and she had hoped to find some closure on her own demons, ones that had been unfortunately passed down to her by the incredible woman who had raised her. But now she was here, she was feeling things she hadn’t expected.