Bad Bear: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (BRIDES fur BEARS Book 1) (4 page)

Staci quirked a wistful smile
as her thoughts immediately flew to Marcus. “Thanks.”

Staci went to her room and
fired up her computer. The bank occupied just a small area on the
ground floor of a low building which housed a number of shops and
small businesses. Her office had been partitioned off from the main
banking lobby with see-through glass walls. Clients who needed
financial advice could walk into her office to have a private chat
with her.

Melanie came up to Staci as
she was getting a cup of coffee from the machine.

“Hey, did you have a
good time last night?” Melanie beamed.

“Oh, hi Mel! I...yes,
yes I did,” Staci said quickly.

“Good. I had a great
time! Those witches were a hoot! We all had supper at the
Broomstick Inn after that. I thought of giving you a call to ask if
you wanted to join us, but...” Melanie nudged her playfully.
“I figured you were busy.”

“You saw me.”
Staci winced.

“Of course I did! You
were getting it on with one sexy bear. You go, girl!”

Staci was saved from
answering when Pamela, their bank manager came out of her office and
strode purposefully towards Staci with a stack of documents.

“Staci, can I speak to
you for a minute?”

“Sure,” Staci
said immediately, putting down her coffee cup. Melanie greeted
Pamela cheerily and sauntered back to her work station.

“I have to see a client
urgently at one o'clock this afternoon, and I forgot all about my
meeting with Marcus Beck,” Pamela began, looking a little
flustered. “Marcus requested that I meet him at his work site
so I could see for myself the work they do and structure the best
loan for his business. Marcus is a very busy man and I don't want to
re-schedule the meeting.”

“I'll go see Mr Beck
this afternoon,” Staci said immediately, taking the documents
from Pamela.

“Great! Beck's
Builders is the company. Marcus is the big boss.”

“M-Marcus?”

Pamela nodded. “Marcus
Beck owns Beck's Builders. They remodel homes and offices, but I
think Marcus is thinking of expanding into the building and
construction business as well. I'll let you talk to him and get the
details from him directly.”

Staci swallowed and managed a
confident smile. “I'll do that.”

Marcus was a common name, she
told herself. Marcus Beck from Beck's Builders couldn't be the same
Marcus from last night, could he?

Shadow Point was a small town
but it wasn't
that
small.

Right?

“Right,” she lied
to herself.

CHAPTER
NINE

Marcus tuned out the ribbing
and banter from his brothers and work mates. Joshua and Jax were
making too many wisecracks. When he got home last night, the twins
were watching TV in the living room. They had hounded him about
coming home without the girl, and when he admitted that he didn't
know where she worked, they had given him a look that said,
You
might be our big brother but you
can be
dumb sometimes,
and this is one of those t
imes
.

They were working on a solid,
double-story brick house that was recently completed by Gray's
Domain, the construction company owned by the Gray brothers. They
had worked with Gray's Domain for years now. Gray's Domain built the
houses, but Beck's Builders did the tiling, painting, carpeting and
landscaping. Beck's Builders was a renovation and remodeling
company. Marcus had skilled painters, tilers, plumbers,
electricians, carpenters on his staff. Some of them had been with
him since he started the business fifteen years ago.

Marcus rolled his eyes as Jax
whistled loudly at a skirt.

“Look where you're
pointing the nail gun, if you don't want your thumb to be part of the
house,” Marcus warned.

Jax chuckled as the other
guys began to whistle and call out to the approaching female. Not
many females came to the work site, and facing a bunch of
loud-mouthed guys the whole day could be...grating. The female was a
welcome distraction.

Marcus let his guys have
their fun. The females usually laughed and flirted back as they
walked past. Some stopped to chat for a bit and even called out
their phone numbers as they left.

Marcus heard high heels
click-clacking their way determinedly towards the work site. The men
grew more excited and exuberant at her approach.

“Hey, beautiful!”

“Lookin' for me, Hon?”

“Shut up, Damien!
She's obviously not looking for you! Which girl in her right mind
would look for you?”

Marcus took a deep breath and
his entire body jerked. His bear rumbled to life and almost ripped
out of his skin at her scent.

He knew that scent. He would
know her anywhere.

“Staci.” He
turned around with a low growl.

Armed with a file and a
mobile phone, Staci was striding resolutely into a seething, swirling
pool of testosterone. The men winked at her as she came nearer, and
openly ogled and propositioned her.

“Excuse me, I'm looking
for Mr Marcus Beck,” she said in a clear, no-nonsense voice.

All eyes swiveled to him.
“Mr Beck will see you now,” Joshua said, bowing low and
opening an imaginary door for her.

Once her eyes lighted on him,
she sucked in a quick breath and swallowed. He heard her mutter an
oath under her breath.

“Mr Beck, I'm Staci
Castillo,” she said. “I'm the new financial consultant
from Bronze Bank.”

There were audible oohs and
aahs from his men. “I never knew financial consultants came in
such pretty packages,” someone said.

“I'm going to visit the
bank more often.”

“Get in line, Nick!
Hey, Miss Castillo, I need to consult you about my finances. How
about meeting tonight, at my place?”

“Don't go to him. I'll
come to you, Miss Staci. Give me your address. We can have a
consultation all night long...”

Marcus's eyes flashed as he
walked past his men. His brothers saw the look on his face and began
to shush their mates.

“Shut up, dickheads!”
Joshua snapped.

But of course, no one did.

“Come on, let's find a
place to talk,” Marcus said, putting his hand possessively on
the small of her back and steering her away from the hooting, leering
males.

“Miss Castillo!”

They turned around to see
Damien pointing at himself with a paintbrush. The dork had painted
his phone number across his bare chest and was strutting around like
a peacock.

Staci chuckled and whispered
to Marcus, “Friends of yours?”

He gave a long-suffering
sigh. “Unfortunately, yes.”

CHAPTER
TEN

Staci concentrated on
putting one foot in front of the other without falling over. The
background shouts of Marcus's work mates faded and she was only aware
of Marcus's huge hand against her back.

“Marcus Beck,”
she said with a soft laugh. “It had to be you.”

Marcus raised a brow at her.
“You were expecting someone else? I don't think there's
another Marcus Beck in this town.”

Staci narrowed her eyes at
him. “You know what I mean.”

He smirked at her. “I
thought Pamela was coming out to meet me,” he said when they
reached a bench under a tree.

“She had another client
meeting, so I'm handling your file.”

Marcus grinned. “Lucky
me.”

Staci smiled and opened the
file. On the way here, she had mentally prepped herself and told
herself to remain cool and professional at all times. Nothing would
faze her. At the back of her mind, she already knew that Marcus Beck
would turn out to be that hunk from the bar.

She had managed to keep a
pleasant, unaffected smile on her face when Marcus's work mates were
wolf-whistling and propositioning her. But when Marcus turned around
and she met his eyes, her smile cracked and she stopped breathing for
a moment.

She had thought that perhaps
it was the beer that had made Marcus look hotter than he really was.
But out here, in the bright sunlight, Marcus was even more gorgeous.
He looked solid, broad and real. There was a light sheen of sweat on
his arms and his paint-spattered shirt stretched nicely across his
chest under his work vest. As he strolled towards her, thumping one
of his men on the chest as he passed, she realized that he was even
taller and bigger than he seemed last night. His skin was tanned and
he had muscles all over. She felt positively tiny walking next to
him, and Staci knew that she was a big girl.

Staci cleared her throat and
looked up. Marcus was smiling at her as he sat beside her on the
bench.

“I knew I would see you
again,” he said smugly.

“Really?” she
teased. She was surprised but glad that she was feeling relaxed in
his presence. She had been all nervous and worried for nothing the
whole morning. Marcus was easy on the eyes, and he was a likeable,
good-humored guy. Even with all the scowling and ribbing, she could
see the camaraderie among the men. “Who told you that?”

“My bear.”

“Your...bear,”
she said slowly.

“Yep. I don't hear
voices in my head, if that's what you're thinking. He talks to me,
without words.”

Staci nodded. “You can
only do that with someone who's really close to you, like...she's a
part of you,” Staci said wistfully.

“You had that kind of
connection with someone before?” Marcus asked carefully.

Staci let out a long sigh and
nodded. “I used to be really close to my elder sister when we
were growing up. We could communicate just with our noses and
eyebrows. Like she would wrinkle her nose like this, and I would
know what she was saying.” She demonstrated by scrunching up
her nose and screwing up her face. She laughed at the memory, but
the knowledge that it was only a memory made her sad. She wished she
was still so close to her big sister.

“What happened?”
Marcus prompted gently. “Did you two have a fight? Siblings
fight all the time.”

Staci shook her head. “No.
We didn't fight. I kind of wish we did. We just grew up and grew
apart. We had different interests, different friends, different
lives. We still talk, but not as much and not about everything.”

Staci shrugged and sighed.
“Ethel got married and moved overseas. We still keep in touch,
but...it's just not the same.”

“She's your sister.
There's always this secret, special language between siblings,”
Marcus said gently. “The next time you see her, talk to her
using your nose and eyebrows. You'll see that nothing's really
changed. She'll remember.”

“She'll think I'm
crazy.”

“No she won't. Trust
me.”

For some inexplicable reason,
she did.

“Okay, enough about
me.” Staci straightened up abruptly. She didn't know what
made her open up and blab about her life to Marcus. He wasn't
interested in such girly nonsense. Yet...there was so much
understanding and caring in his eyes.

Staci shook her head and said
firmly, “Now. Let's talk about you and your business. Tell me
about your business plans, and I'll let you know how the bank can
help you.”

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Marcus cleared his throat a
little too noisily. He was trying to distract himself and his bear.
The big horny beast was inching closer and closer to Staci, wanting
to rub up against her soft, luscious body.

Thankfully Staci was busy
checking something on her phone and didn't seem to notice his animal
antics. Marcus planted his work boots firmly on the ground and dug
his heels in. He was sitting close enough to her. He wasn't going
to act like some perv and press himself against her.

“So...” Staci
put her phone away and picked up a notepad. “Your business.
Beck's Builders.”

Marcus flashed a proud smile.
“I started Beck's Builders fifteen years ago when I was a
young and idealistic lad. I was twenty then, and it was just me and
Nick. Nick is my oldest friend, the very first friend I made in this
town. That's him, the big, growly guy standing on top of a crate
yelling at Jax and Joshua. Jax and Joshua are my brothers.”
Marcus grinned and pointed out the twins to Staci.

He saw Staci stare at the two
dark-haired, dark-eyed brothers and back at him. With his light
sandy hair and blue eyes, Marcus knew that there was no familial
resemblance at all. “We're not related by blood,” he
told her.

“They're your
brothers,” she said simply.

“Yes.” He stared
into the distance and went on, “Well, when we first started,
Nick and I took on all kinds of jobs. The twins were only ten, but
they liked to help so they would run errands or help us pack and
clean up. We worked really hard. We were good with our hands, and
we were strong and fast. Gradually, more of the guys came on board
and we could take on bigger jobs. Gray's Domain, gave us our first
big break and recommended us to their clients. Tristan Gray, the
boss of Gray's Domain, is a good friend. He's helped us a lot over
the years.”