Chance Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire 6) Read Free Page B

fence.
    “Ow!” She dropped the pump and shook out her fingers. “What was that for?”
    Chance was staring down at his own hand as if he’d never seen it before, and with troubled eyes, he backed away from her a step. He pulled off his black winter hat, and she noticed for the first time that he wasn’t wearing a jacket despite the bitter chill in the air. Instead, he wore a gray, skin-tight sweater with a smattering of holes on the shoulder and the top two buttons undone, exposing a rock-hard chest beneath. His hair was mussed from the hat, and her fingers suddenly itched to smooth it out, just to see if the platinum blond crop was as soft as it looked. He was tall, much taller than her, with wide shoulders that tapered into a V-shaped waist, and long, powerful legs clad in low slung jeans. His skin was fair, which gave her an advantage because now his cheeks were coloring red, and she could see she had some sort of effect on him.
    Before she could change her mind, she reached forward and pressed her hand onto his chest, right over his heart. It beat in a fast, steady rhythm under her palm.
    Chance’s gaze turned intense in an instant. He held her hand there, pressed against him, watching her like a hunter on prey.
    Uncle Victor had told her shifters didn’t have hearts, but clearly, he’d been wrong. Or he’d lied.
    Feeling like the earth was toppling and splitting under her feet, Emily huffed a frozen breath and pulled her hand away in a rush. “I’m sorry.”
    “Who are you?” he asked in a deep timbre that brought chills to her forearms. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. She was supposed to seduce him, not the other way around.
    “Emily Chastain,” she whispered. “I’m new here. Just bought a cabin up the road.”
    Even pretty monsters could hear lies, so she had to stick as close to the truth as possible.
    Chance stepped closer and tugged a strand of her chestnut hair that had been whipping around in the wind. He held it between his fingers for a moment, his eyes unreadable as he stared at it. But as fast as he’d snatched it from the air, he released it and turned, then strode inside the gas station, leaving her unsteady and wondering what the hell had just happened.
    As if in a trance, Emily filled the tank of her ATV and then stumbled inside to pay. With one slow blink to the back where Chance was loading his gargantuan hand with a stack of individually-wrapped pickles, she stepped up to the counter. She reached into her back pocket to grab…nothing.
    Shit. Frantically, she searched both back pockets, her front pockets, and inside the abundance of zippers of her fitted winter jacket. Double shit. “I-I think I forgot my wallet.” In her rush to get here, her mind clouded with anger, she’d left her pink money pouch on the kitchen table. She was sure of it.
    The gas station attendant raised her delicate, dark eyebrows and offered her a bland expression. “Seriously?”
    “I’m so sorry,” Emily rushed out. “I live right up the road. Is it okay if I go get it and come right back?”
    “No. No free gas. That shit’s hard to come by and like gold around here right now. If you were a townie, I’d trust you, but as it stands, I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
    “But I am a townie. A new townie—”
    “I’ve got her,” Chance said from behind as he handed the attendant a wad of cash. “For my gas, this plethora of pickles, and her gas, too. You can keep the change.”
    The attendant, Renee, her nametag said, counted the money and gave him a flirty smile. “You’re giving me an extra twenty? For what?”
    “For being foxy as shit, Renee,” he said through a heart-stopping grin for the woman.
    A flare of something green and ugly unfurled in Emily’s middle.
    Chance waved to Renee and headed out, the bell of the door dinging as he left.
    “Sorry, I’ll be better prepared next time,” Emily rushed out, then bolted out the door after him.
    Chance was already in his