Pacific Northwest Werebears(37)

“Um, that’s very nice of you to offer, but I really have to get back to the office and file my report.”

Wyatt turned his shaded eyes to her, “Not your type huh?”

“What? No, that’s not it, I, uh, just want to keep this professional,” she stammered. Dang, he was flirting.

“Huh, professional,” Wyatt said with a grin, turning back to the road.

Jinger fidgeted in her seat, praying this day was already over with so she could curl up on her couch with a bucket of Skittles and forget about it.

Turning down another dirt road, Jinger could see the clear cut up ahead. Good, work she knew about.

Spending less than an hour observing the cut, Jinger decreed that the area was up to code. Underbrush had been stacked in large piles ready for burns. There were fire breaks cut around the perimeter of the area. Not a thing looked wrong. Unusual for someone to be willing to file a complaint if there was a serious safety concern.

“Your site is cleared, Mr. Rochon,” Jinger said turning and giving him his copy of the inspection report.

“Wyatt, please.” He took the paper and folded it before tucking it into his shirt pocket.

“If you wouldn’t mind driving me back to my car, I can get out of your hair…Wyatt.”

Sighing and swinging his glasses towards her he nodded and turned back to the car. As they trudged through the uneven ground, a number of times he steadied her by grabbing her elbow or offering a hand over a large log. She graciously accepted each time and the moment their skin touched, Wyatt felt tingles of electricity course over his palms.

He wondered if she was The One, but his dad and Cage said it was a bolt of lightning hitting. The whole world stopped and finally made sense when you met your mate. Sure she smelled amazing, her body was rocking, and he loved the touch of her skin. But he wouldn’t call that a thunderbolt.

Maybe Cage was wrong, dating is a fun way to pass the time. You get company, someone to spend time with and hopefully some mutually satisfying sex. Was that enough, he wondered.





Chapter 4




Making it back to the car, he held open the passenger side and held Jinger’s hand as she took her seat.

“I really wish you would accept my offer for lunch, Jinger. I swear it’s the best camp food in the state,” he tried one last time with a cajoling smile.

“I wish I could, but I still have a lot of work to do today,” she mumbled. She felt ridiculous turning down this gorgeous man, but he was probably just being polite. Beautiful men like him could have any woman they wanted. They did not choose short round office monkeys.

Wyatt made his way to the driver’s side and took off without another word. They rode in silence the whole way back to the work site. It was horribly awkward. Like fifth-grade spelling bee awkward, when you knew you needed to say something and nothing would come out and the whole school was watching you.

Except it wasn’t the school watching, it was Wyatt Rochon and he seemed, annoyed. She could feel a strange tension coming off of him. Like she had actually upset him by not taking him up on his offer. Was she being a bitch? She never wanted to come off as a bitch, professional and competent sure, but not a bitch.

“Uh, Wyatt?”

“Gingersnap…”

“I’m actually a little hungry, is that offer for lunch still available?”

Turning his eyes away from the road, he looked back and forth between her and the dirt path and finally a stunning white grin stole over his face.

“Yeah, darlin’, offer still stands.”

Wyatt altered their course and headed down to their base camp. Less than thirty minutes later they pulled into the clearing where Jinger saw a number of work trailers laid out in a U-shape. Each marked with a crude hand painted sign. She knew a lot of the crew stayed out at base camps like these so they didn’t have to make the often long and boring drives into secluded forest lands each day. Some of the loggers didn’t even have homes, they just moved from site to site as needed.

Pulling the truck up to a building marked, ‘Office’. Wyatt turned off the truck and jumped out. Jinger had already gotten her door open when he reached it. He still took her hand and helped her down from the truck.

“I’ll be just a minute then we’ll walk over and see what Sophie’s got cooking,” he said before heading into the building.

Jinger took a moment to look around, it was tidy if not rugged. She had managed to calm her nerves during the drive. It was just lunch, they could talk trees and then she would be on her way. No fuss, no muss.

The door to the building kicked open and Wyatt stormed out. He looked a little pissed, but wiped the look of his face when he saw Jinger. Grabbing her hand he gave it a tug and he practically dragged her across the parking lot towards a trailer marked ‘Mess’.