Hard To Bear (2 page)

The picture was of
Flint McCoy.  He was a bear shifter and a multi-millionaire businessman come back to Blue Moon Junction to help his family renovate their turn of the century farmhouse and expand Sweet Stuff, their honey and jam business.  He was also the man responsible for making Coral feel like even more of a failure than she already felt when she’d applied for the internship at the Tattler.  She’d been trying to land an interview with him since the day she’d arrived, for a standard puff piece for the newspaper’s feature section, and his secretary had repeatedly blown her off.

The last time she’d called, half an hour ago, his secretary had accidentally failed to
disconnect the connection after she talked to Coral.  Then she’d heard his voice in the background saying “Was that the pain in the ass newspaper reporter again? For God’s sake, I’ve got work to do. Tell her I died.”

“Then she’d have to write a story about that,” the secretary reasoned.

“True.  Just tell her I’ll be busy night and day for the next few months, will you?”

“I’ve tried, and she just won’t give up. Can’t you give her ten minutes of your time
so she’ll quit calling?” his secretary wheedled.

“No,” he grumbled. “I hate reporters,
they’re nothing but trouble.”

And then the connection had cut off.

Great. If she couldn’t even land a feel-good puff piece interview, what chance did she have of succeeding in the journalism world?

It didn’t help that looking at his picture did strange things to her anatomy. 
She could feel her nipples swell every time she looked at his handsome face, and an urgent pulsing that throbbed between her legs.  It happened every time that she glanced at the picture, which was many times a day, strictly for research purposes, of course.

She couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to gently nibble on that lush lower lip.  Bears ate a lot of honey. Would he taste like honey?

Well, there was no point in mooning after him, anyway.  Even if he didn’t loathe reporters, Coral wouldn’t be his type. She’d grown up in New York City, land of the pin-thin fashion model, and she knew the drill.  She was a weird anomaly, a wolf shifter who was fat, thanks to the fact that her mother was not a wolf.  Her mother was a witch. A well padded, size 18 witch.  Coral and all of her sisters had inherited the chub gene, which made them stand out like a freakshow attraction among shifters. Most shifters weren’t fat.

Handsome millionaires like Flint would never give a second glance
to a full figured girl like her.  They always came accessorized with skinny, hungry, but undeniably beautiful arm ornaments who had job titles like “lingerie model” or “socialite”.

Annoyed, she clicked off the website that featured his picture. It had been taken at some business function in Seattle, where he ran an import export business
.  Looking at the picture was just making her feel even more inadequate.  Since there was no chance she’d ever get an interview with him, there was no need to keep looking at his smug handsome face, she thought, with a sharp twinge of regret.  

             
“Coral, my plant is dying again.”  Bettina, the receptionist, plopped an African violet plant down in front of her.

             
“Your plant, my hopes and dreams, all the residents of the Golden Acres nursing home…” Coral muttered, glancing at the wire basket which held half a dozen obits that needed to be typed up.  “What isn’t dying around here?”

             
“What?” Bettina settled into a chair next to Coral, looking puzzled.    She was a beanpole thin girl with brown hair which she wore severely parted down the middle, and a healthy smattering of freckles on her face.

             
“Nothing. Ignore me.  I’ve just got my crabby-pants on today.”

             
Coral stared at the African Violet plant and concentrated, and the drooping leaves perked up.  A couple of tiny buds appeared, and then unfurled into flowers.  Thanks to their mother, all of her sisters had cool powers, and she had the ability to make plants grow…slightly faster.   All her houseplants were always green and very healthy.  In high school her nickname had been the Jolly Green Giant.

             
She handed the plant back to Bettina.

“Stop over-watering it,” she said.  “You’re smothering it with love.”  

              “Story of my life,” Bettina sighed. “My last boyfriend said the same thing about me.”  She glanced around, then said in a low voice “Frederick asked me out.  Do you think I should go out with him? What do you think of him?”

             
Coral tried to think of a polite answer.  “Er, well, I think…you should take it slow.  Especially if you have a history of taking it fast.  Get to know him.  Go out to coffee with him before you dive in all the way.  See if you even like him.”

Bettina nodded. “Good advice.”  She took her plant back to the front desk.

All right, enough stalling, she thought. 
She turned back to the last two obits that she needed to type up. After that, she’d type of a list of announcements for the “About Town” section.   Then she’d call up The Blue Moon Junction Garden Club to get the details of the upcoming Blue Moon Junction pie bake-off.

By the time she was down with all of that, Frederick would no doubt be back, alternating between editing cow pictures and leering down her cleavage.  What did he expect to see there, anyway? Dancing mice?  It was the same cleavage she’d had the day before, and the day before that.

Instead of typing up the obits, she fished in her purse, pulled out her zebra-striped cell phone, and dialed the number that she’d saved in there.  It was the number of the newsroom editor at the New York Daily Gazette.  She’d met him at a journalism job fair a month ago, and he’d given her his card, after hitting on her at the bar.  “I’ve never been with a big girl before,” had been his cringeworthy pickup line.

Yes, she was that desperate.  If she could get hired, she’d find a way to hide from his sloppy advances.  Anything beat this tiny little backwa
ter newspaper, where she was doomed to spend her days writing up crop reports and weather stories.

“Hello, Mr. Espinosa?” she said.

“Yes, who’s this?” he snapped.

“Coral Colby.
  I met you at the journalism job fair, and you told me to call you.”

“Who?” he barked irritably, and her heart sank. 

She paused a second, and then hung up the phone.  She wanted to smack herself for even trying.  At least Frederick hadn’t been there to offer to “cheer her up”.

She was distracted by the sound of loud arguing coming from the front of the building.

“Tramp!”

“
Dried up old prude!”

“Ladies, please!”  The two women yelling insults at each other
sounded as if they were well into their seventies.  That last voice belonged to Bettina.

Well, this promised to be more interesting than the obits, and she had until five to get th
ose finished.

She
pushed back her chair and strolled to the front of the newspaper’s office.  The newspaper was housed in a low-slung brick building on Main Street, and most of the reporters and photographers worked in one big open room.   The newspaper’s publisher and a couple of the editors, had offices tucked away on the side of the room.  The reception’s desk was at the front of the room facing the street.

An older woman
, a wolf shifter in a pink floral dress and pink sneakers stood there.  Her hair was done up in a complicated waffle-weave beehive which was undoubtedly sculpted on a regular basis at the Kurl Up And Dye salon down the street, and there was a pink floral braid woven into the beehive.  She was seventy if she was a day. 

The object of her ire was
Maybelle Briard, the newspaper’s librarian, also a wolf shifter.

“What is that thing in your hair?”
Maybelle demanded of the woman, pointing at the pink braid.  “And what would your mother say?”

“I visited her Saturday, and she thought it was very pretty.”

“That’s because she’s blind,” Maybelle glowered at her.

“Mind your own business, nosy parker. You always were a busy-body.  Oh, hello! Coral Colby, there you are.”  The woman marched over to her and stuck out her hand.

“I’m Blanche Briard.  Maybelle is my cousin, but please don’t hold that against me.” She shot her cousin a dirty look. “She’s been jealous of me since high school, because I was always more popular with the menfolk.”

“
That’s because she was a hussy with the morals of an alley cat,” Maybelle scoffed.

“
Better than having your legs locked at the knees.  Marigold asked me to keep an eye on you, and report everything back to her as soon as she gets home,” Blanche said.  “She’s married to my nephew.”

Marigold was best friends with Ginger, and, since she was also so pregnant she was ready to pop, she and her husband had accompanied Ginger and her husband on their
babymoon. 

“Why does she want you to report back
to her?” Coral asked. “What would there even be to report? We’re in Blue Moon Junction, where nothing ever happens – what’s so funny?”  Maybelle, Blanche, and Bettina had thrown back their heads and were literally howling with laughter.

“Well, bust my britches, that’s a good one,”
Maybelle said, wiping tears of merriment from her cheeks.

“It sure is,” Blanche agreed. “
Just give it a little time here,” she added to Coral. “You’ll see.”

“I got here four days ago, starting working at the newspaper three days ago, and the most exciting thing that’s happened so far is a random cow
wandering downtown,” Coral protested.

“
That’s because you don’t know where to look.  I figure we should go to the Henhouse, grab a cup of coffee, and I’ll catch you up on everything you need to know about Blue Moon Junction,” Blanche said.

“No, if anyone’s going to catch her up on what she needs to know, it’s me,”
Maybelle said. “Just let me grab my purse.”

“Don’t listen to a word that old horse’s
patoot tells you, especially about me,” Blanche said. “And she can’t come with us, because I’m not speaking to her right now.” You could have fooled me, Coral thought.

“Horse’s
patoot! Why, you pug-faced-”

“Outsid
e! Both of you!” Bettina bellowed, and Coral suddenly had a brilliant idea.

“Ladies,” she said. “You’re both coming with me.”

As the two women followed her out the door, Blanche turned to holler over her shoulder “I’ve been thrown out of classier joints than this one, believe me!”

“It’s true,”
Maybelle grumbled as they walked to Coral’s car. “She always was a troublemaker.”

Ten minutes later, they were pulling up in front of the sprawling rural homestead of the McCoy family. 
The McCoy’s had lived in Blue Moon Junction since forever, from what Coral had been told, and they owned a big property with half a dozen houses, and acres of blueberry bushes, raspberry bushes, and strawberry fields, as well an apiary with hundreds of beehives.

I
n addition to their farm stand, they had a little specialty store in town which sold home-made jams and jellies and honey. 

Flint had swept into town a few weeks ago, announcing plans to expand the family business. He was building a new
, modernized factory on their property, and also had a construction crew swarming all over the house his parents and brothers and sisters lived in, updating it and adding a new wing on to the century old farmhouse. For reasons Coral did not understand, he didn’t want to talk to anyone at The Tattler.  What kind of businessman refused guaranteed good publicity?

There were houses scattered all over the property, with various McCoy aunts and uncles and
cousins and their families living in them.   Blanche and Maybelle were still arguing as she pulled off the main road, but Blanche stopped long enough to point out the house where Flint was staying, and where he’d set up his office.  

Coral pulled up in front of the house and
parked, a malicious smile twitching at her lips. 

Flint’s home was a three story Queen Anne style house with
gingerbreading everywhere.   Pansies and violets were artistically arranged in fresh red mulch around the front of the house.  There was a huge wraparound porch with a porch swing and a wicker table and chairs.

The three of them walked
into the front room which Flint had converted into a reception area.  A bench with cushions faced an antique walnut desk.  His secretary, a severe looking woman with hair pulled back into a bun so tight her skin was stretched, glanced up in annoyance.

“I’m sorry, Miss Colby, but Mr. Mc
Coy isn’t in,” she informed her.

“Yes he is,” Coral said, settling onto the wooden bench that faced the desk. “I saw his car parked off to the side.” He drove a big Lexus. Pretentious jerk, Coral thought.