Bear Shifters: Hunt Collection #2 (4 page)

CHAPTER 6

The next morning, Justin felt better than he had in ages, which was strange when he had found out last night that everyone hated him. He went into work early, arriving even before Kimber, and found the number for the animal telepathy research team. He called and told them he’d had a change of heart, asking if it was too late to give them a generous grant. They said they could scramble to get some research done before the effects of the solar storm faded and thanked him profusely. He was in an even better mood by the time Kimber appeared in the doorway of his office.

“You’re here early,” she commented. “How’s your shoulder?”

He ignored the question. He was too anxious to tell her the news. “I called the research team.”

“Really?” Her face lit up.

“Yeah. I’m sure it’s not ideal since we’re already in the middle of the solar storm now, but hopefully they can come up with some good findings.”

“That’s fantastic, Justin.” He could feel the emotions swelling within her, and he saw her blinking away tears.
Oh, I’ve missed this Justin so much.

Curious to know how she would react, he said, “And I broke up with Elle.”

Her face remained smooth, but he could feel her heart pounding as if it were his own.
Nonononono.
After that, there were too many thoughts flying through her head, and he couldn’t quite grasp any of them. He was confused, though, because it seemed like she had conflicting emotions about it. She had always given him the impression that she hated Elle. He would have expected her to be proud of him.

“How are you doing?” she asked after she had processed the information.

“I feel great. Honestly, I’m not sure why we were together for so long.” But really, it was because he had never paid enough attention to know how horrible she really was.

Me neither.
“Is there anything else? Have you solved world hunger too?” she teased.

“That’s my next project.”

“Sounds good. Well, I’m going to get to work.” As she turned and walked away, she thought,
He looks so happy. Why does he have to be so attractive when he’s happy?

He was surprised at the thought, and before he even knew what he was doing, he called, “Hey Kimber?” She paused and looked back. “Since I won’t be going to lunch with Elle today, would you like to come with me?”

“Sure,” she agreed.
Ah, why did I say yes? Is this like a date? I don’t want to be his rebound. Maybe I should change my mind. Yeah, I could say that I forgot that I have to –

“Why don’t you invite Vivienne?” Justin interrupted her thoughts, wanting her to feel comfortable, but not really wanting her to back out. “We can talk about potentially investing in her business.”

“I think she would love that. I’ll text her.”
No, you’re so stupid, Kimber,
she thought as started to walk again.
Maybe he really is interested in Viv. Do you want
her
to be his rebound instead? But if he’s going to offer her money… She does need it… But he can’t date my sister!

Justin smiled, amused at her inner turmoil. “Hey Kimber,” he called again. She took a few steps back so she could see him through the doorway again. “I think it would be a good idea if I don’t date anyone for a while. Don’t you?”

“That is none of my business. I will say, though, that if it were me, I would probably take some time.”

As she finally made it back to her desk, he expected her to feel relieved, but instead, it was her disappointment that pervaded his mind. She didn’t want to be his rebound, she didn’t want her sister to be his rebound, but she was disappointed that he wanted to take a break from dating? How could one girl be so hard to figure out, even when he could literally read her mind?

“Do you have any samples of your work?” Justin asked.

“Of course,” Vivienne said, reaching into her handbag for her portfolio. “I’ve found that people don’t like to invest in graphic design without knowing that you’re not terrible at it,” she joked.

Justin smiled at Vivienne as he took the portfolio and flipped it open, looking at the various logos and websites she had designed. Kimber shifted in her seat uncomfortably, sipping her water as she observed the two. They had been talking almost nonstop about Vivienne’s business plan. Kimber had heard most of it before, so she was struggling to listen to what was being said. Instead, she was paying attention to their body language, reading into every little move.

Even if Justin was interested in Viv, there’s no way she’d be interested in him. Right? She’s never been interested before, and she knows how much it would bother me. She wouldn’t want to hurt me like that. But she’s always lapped up any attention she could get from men, and he’s showing an awful lot of interest in her. Ugh, I need to just calm down. It’s just business. She would never. Would she?

Seemingly out of nowhere, Justin chuckled a little bit. Vivienne craned her neck to see which image he was looking at, asking, “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing. I just had this thought in my head. It’s nothing.”

Vivienne didn’t want to push the issue with someone who could be offering her money, so she let it go. “Do you have any questions for me about my work?”

“No, it all looks great. I’m definitely interested. In investing, I mean. I’ll take a closer look at your numbers when I get back to the office and I’ll let you know how much I can offer you.”

“That would be wonderful. Thank you so much.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have given Kimber such a hard time about having a crush on this guy in high school.

Justin choked on his soda, and the girls watched in concern, asking if he was alright. “I’m fine,” he croaked, his throat still recovering. “Just went down the wrong tube, I guess.” He took another sip, more carefully this time, and cleared his throat before saying, “I think we’ve talked enough business for one afternoon. Our ten-year high school reunion is coming up. Are you planning on going, Vivienne?”

“I don’t know. I keep in touch with most of the people I care about, so I don’t know if there’s any point.”

“What, there aren’t any guys that you had a big crush on? You’re not interested to see how they turned out?”

Vivienne sighed dramatically. “I just think they’ll all be disappointing compared to you. I’m pretty sure you’re going to win the high school reunion.”

Before Kimber could react to her sister’s flirtation, Justin asked, “What about you, Kimber? Any big crushes in high school?”

Kimber’s mind went blank. She was too mortified to come up with something to say. Fortunately, Vivienne came to her rescue, “What makes you think you can ask us without answering the question yourself? Who did you have a crush on?”

“Oh, there were a lot. Kimber knows. She listened to me gripe about every one of them. But you know, they were all a dime a dozen. None of them turned out to be worth the effort. Kimber is the only girl in my life who has stood the test of time.”

Just then, their server arrived, asking if they wanted dessert. While Justin was preoccupied with ordering a few for them to sample, Vivienne was excitedly nudging her sister next to her in the booth. Kimber slapped Vivienne’s leg, hissing, “Stop it,” but she was also fighting back a goofy grin.

The sisters composed themselves just as the server was leaving. Justin handed Vivienne her portfolio, and as she was busy putting it away, he gave Kimber a sweet smile. Her stomach flipped, and based on the way his eyes seemed to twinkle, she had to wonder if he knew exactly what that smile had done to her.

CHAPTER 7

It was six o’clock, the office was practically deserted, and Kimber was packing up to go home for the day when the phone rang. She answered, “Justin Woods’s office, how can I help you?”

The research team was on the other end of the line, so she put them on hold, jumped up out of her chair, and poked her head into Justin’s office. “It’s Ken and Gretchen. They said you wanted daily updates?”

“Yeah, transfer them over, then you can come back and listen in if you want.”

Within moments, the scientists were on speaker phone, and Justin and Kimber were anxiously listening to their report. “We’ve been able to run some scans on a few different animals: a rat, a lizard, a bird, and a chimpanzee,” Gretchen began. “Just as we hypothesized, they all have increased brain activity, especially the mammals. What is particularly interesting is where the activity is most concentrated. There are synapses firing like crazy in part of the brain that corresponds with feelings of empathy.”

“Hold on, are you saying that animals feel empathy?”

“Some more than others, but yes. There are stories of elephants rescuing humans who are lost and whales saving seals from predators like orcas. It’s not uncommon,” Ken explained.

Gretchen took over. “It appears that when the empathetic part of the brain is hyperactive, the subjects can read not only feelings, but also thoughts.”

“If this was true of all your test subjects, why wouldn’t it affect humans?” Justin wondered. He actually wanted to understand why it might affect shapeshifting humans when it didn’t affect anyone else, but he couldn’t exactly say that out loud.

“We think that humans might have some kind of defense mechanism in the brain that blocks the electromagnetic effects of the solar activity,” Gretchen explained. “In the next few days, we hope to take a look at human brain activity to see if we can find out exactly what’s going on. We’ll also be making more observations of the animals’ reactions to the phenomenon. The solar storm is supposed to last for a few more days. There was actually a massive solar flare just a few hours ago, so depending on how fast the coronal mass ejections travel, we could be feeling effects any time now.”

“I look forward to hearing your next update. Thanks, Gretchen, Ken.”

“Well?” Kimber said as Justin ended the call.

“Well what?”

“‘Gosh, Kimber, I’m so glad you set up that meeting and guided me towards such a great philanthropic opportunity. You must be the best assistant the world has ever known.’ Or something to that effect.”

With a grin, Justin leaned forward. “I know you’re joking, at least partly, but you really are something else, Kimber. Do you know that?”

She looked down, feeling awkward.
What is going on with him?

“Well, should we get out of here?”

We?
She was surprised by his use of the word. “You’re not staying late tonight?”

“No way. The deal went through without a hitch, and I’m taking a vacation. It might only be fifteen hours long, but hey, it’s longer than what I normally get on a Monday night.” Kimber stood to leave, but Justin said, “Hold on, I’ll walk out with you.” He gathered his things quickly before following Kimber to the elevator. He pushed the button, and as they waited, Justin asked, “So, do you have any big plans tonight?”

Kimber laughed. “I’ll probably watch some Netflix. Maybe I’ll marathon a whole season of some TV show. There could very well be ice cream involved. Definitely sweatpants. If those aren’t big plans, I don’t know what is.”

Sighing, Justin said, “Do you have any idea how nice that sounds? To just sit and relax instead of going out to some party or concert or fancy restaurant? Maybe I’ll do the same.”

Ask him! Say, ‘Do you want to join me?’ Just do it! You’re letting the opportunity pass you by! ASK HIM!

But just then, the elevator dinged and the doors opened. As they stepped inside, Justin had to lift a hand to his mouth to cover the beaming smile that, in her eyes, was completely unwarranted.

Kimber was mentally beating herself up as she watched the numbers on the elevator going down with every floor they passed. Suddenly, the elevator jerked to a stop, the lights went out, and even the numbers on the digital display went blank.

“What on earth?” Justin said, jabbing at every button on the panel. Nothing happened. “I think the power went out.”

“Do you think it’s because of the solar storm?” Kimber asked. “I remember they said it can affect electronics.”

“Yeah, probably. I bet this is exactly what Gretchen was just talking about. What a coincidence that it happened right after she mentioned it.”

Justin tried pressing the emergency call button, but it too was out of order. Fortunately, his cell phone still had service, so he called 911 and reported the issue. “They said it will take some time,” he reported after he hung up. “The power outage is pretty widespread, so there are a lot of calls to respond to. It could be a few hours.”

With a groan, Kimber slid down the elevator wall to the floor. “But all my big plans!” she complained good-naturedly. “My couch will be missing me.”

Although she was joking around, Justin could feel that she was nervous. He knew it was probably because they were suspended in midair about twenty floors from the ground, but part of him hoped that being stranded alone with him was contributing as well. Still, he wanted to help her feel better, so he went and sat right next to her, their arms touching. Reaching into his briefcase, he pulled out his laptop.
Is he seriously going to work right now?
Kimber wondered. But then she laughed as he navigated to Netflix and asked, “What were you going to watch?”

“Oh, you can pick. It’s your laptop. Plus, it sounds like you never get to do this. Hey, look what I have!” She reached into her bag and grabbed a brown lunch sack. “It’s my lunch that I didn’t eat because we went out.”
Crap. Did it sound like I was implying that we went on a date?
she thought as she pulled out a turkey sandwich, a baggie full of berries, another one filled with sugar snap peas, and a cup of yogurt.
“It’s not ice cream, but it’s better than nothing.”

“It’s perfect,” he said, taking the half sandwich that Kimber held out to him. “Of all the days I could have forgotten to bring my sweatpants to work,” he joked as he found a show he had been meaning to get into and pressed play.

Once they had finished eating and the distraction of the food was gone, Kimber’s mind kicked into high gear.
He’s sitting awfully close to me,
she thought.
Is that just so we can both see the screen? That would make sense. I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like it would be necessary for our arms to be touching. Oh, stop it, Kimber. It’s not like he’s going to hold your hand or anything.

Justin was much more interested in her thoughts than in the show. He was wishing that she would just give him one straightforward thought, one single thought that would tell him how she really felt about him. Then a question popped into his head. Why did he care so much? If he knew how she felt, what would he do with that information?

His thoughts were interrupted by another of Kimber’s as she settled in a little more comfortably. Almost as if she was the one who could read minds, she thought,
I wish he would hold my hand.

He had barely processed the thought before he reached over and took her hand in his, intertwining their fingers together. Maybe it was a bad idea to act so quickly on what were supposed to be her own private thoughts, but it was too late now. Besides, he was pretty sure he had this floating around in the back of his mind when he sat down so close to her.

Kimber’s heart was pounding as she stared at their hands. She was shocked. It was as if he had read her mind. She had wanted this for more than ten years. She had imagined this moment so many times. Now that it was actually happening, it felt completely surreal. She looked up at him, her eyes filled with questions that were far too jumbled for him to make out. But he didn’t need telepathy to know that if he wanted to kiss her, this was the moment.

Without thinking about it too hard, Justin leaned towards her. Kimber watched as he came closer and closer, her heart beating like it wanted to escape from her chest. Finally, after ten years of waiting and wishing, his mouth pressed against hers. She closed her eyes, enjoying the taste and the softness of his lips. He lifted his hand and let his fingers weave themselves into her hair as he held her close. They could hear the dialogue from the show, the light from the image flashing on their faces, but it was completely forgotten. They were alone in the elevator, but it felt as if nobody else had ever existed.