The Baby Shift- Oklahoma Read online

  The Baby Shift: Oklahoma

  Shifter Babies Of America 33

  Becca Fanning

  Copyright © 2019 by Becca Fanning

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Also by Becca Fanning

  Chapter 1

  “Today’s the day, man! Finally!”

  Ryan Edwards looked down at his phone and smirked. He’d gotten six similar text messages from various members of his adopted werebear clan, each of them more enthusiastic than the last.

  Any minute now, his boss, Andrea Fiorello, was going to call him into her office and tell him that he was finally being moved to the Parks Maintenance Department. Finally, after five years of pushing papers and collating manuals and ordering coffee and pastries for all the big departmental meetings, he was finally going to get the job he’d always wanted.

  Ryan had never expected he’d be Andrea’s administrative assistant for quite so long. When he’d interview for the job after completing his master’s degree in Natural Resource Management at the University of Denver, he’d assumed he’d be there for a year, maybe two, before switching departments to a job that allowed him the outdoor time he needed to stay sane as a werebear in a man’s world.

  But annual reviews had come and gone, and despite countless hours volunteering at the city of Norman, Oklahoma’s various parks and recreation sites, Andrea had never once so much as mentioned moving Ryan to a different position. Until last week.

  Last week, he had come into work early after finishing his usual morning hike a bit faster than usual, and had been greeted by an email from Andrea, the subject line of which read: “Meeting next week; let’s discuss your trajectory in the department.” Ryan had barely contained a very un-bearlike squeal of excitement as he read it. Finally! Finally, he was going to get free of the confines of his desk, which was so small that Ryan had had to modify it, so it didn’t dig into his knees every time he scooted his chair forward. Finally, he was going to get to spend his days outside, actually making a difference in his beloved adopted city.

  “Ryan? You ready?” Andrea called from her office, and Ryan pocketed his phone, straightened his tie, and stood up. He smoothed a hand over his buzz cut, checked to make sure both his boots were tied, and walked into Andrea’s office with a confident stride that said “Hello, Boss, I am ready for a promotion.”

  But when Ryan walked out of his boss’ office an hour later, a promotion was not what he had been given. Or at least, not the promotion he had been hoping for.

  Instead of being given a title like Parks and Recreation Program Manager, or even Parks and Recreation Maintenance Manager, or basically any title that didn’t have the word “administrative” in the title, Ryan was now “Parks and Recreation Senior Office Administrator.” Basically, this meant he managed the department’s interns, and now, instead of just ordering the coffee and pastries, now, he got to sit in on the meetings where they were consumed. So, he could take notes. And record them in a Google Doc that would then be sent to Andrea for review.

  To say Ryan was disappointed would be a severe understatement. He had barely been able to contain a displeased growl as he left Andrea’s office, and his only real consolation was that she had given him the rest of the day off, as a token of gratitude for his many years of “good service.”

  So now, not only was Ryan absent a new job, but he was also left with twelve hours to fill until his self-enforced bedtime. And Norman, Oklahoma, was not the kind of city that you needed twelve hours in. Ryan usually got his weekly errands done in two, and since Sunday was errand day and today was Monday, he didn’t even have those. He was at a loose end.

  As he waved his badge to the building security guard and walked into the bright, springtime sunshine, Ryan’s phone buzzed. It was probably one of his friends seeing how the meeting went. Ugh. What the hell was he going to tell them?

  “Turns out, I’m even more inadequate than I thought I was, and I’ll probably rot in that office until the day I perish from boredom” seemed, even to his ears, a little overdramatic.

  So, in response to the text message that was indeed from one of his clan members, he used the symbol that explained a multitude of sadness: the frown emoji.

  Immediately, he was inundated with messages of “Oh no!” and “Shit man!” and “Andrea sucks!” accompanied by a poop emoji, which did make him smile a little bit.

  Ryan was so focused on this phone screen that he nearly ran into one of those shop signs planted on the sidewalk. He stopped just in time and looked up from his phone to read “Sale! All books $2!”

  Ryan put his phone away and peeked into the shop. He’d passed it a few times before on his walks through town but had never gone inside. He was more of an audiobook than printed book person, since he spent most of his free time outside of work in the woods and parks in and around Norman, getting the outdoor time a shifter of his kind so desperately needed to stay sane.

  But if he was going to be spending the foreseeable future chained to his desk, with a litany of tasks he could, at this point, do blind, maybe a paperback or two might come in handy for those moments when he got sick of reading the latest Reddit threads.

  Opening the door, Ryan walked into the shop and was immediately assailed by two smells: paper and vanilla. The paper made sense—books covered almost every available space in the large space. But vanilla?

  Then Ryan looked toward the store’s cash register, and it all made sense. Because vanilla was the most perfect scent of all time, evoking homemade cookies, Christmas candles, the smell of his grandmother’s house. And it appeared to be coming from the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  Chapter 2

  Heather Davis was finally starting to think of Norman, Oklahoma, as home. Her bookstore was thriving, she was on a first-name basis with the pizza delivery boy who gave her the medium double-pepperoni and jalapeno pie she needed every Friday night, and as of that morning, she had now officially run in every one of the city’s fifty-plus parks.

  She was high on life, feeling good and beaming when she heard the bell above the shop door tinkle, letting her know a new customer had just arrived. But when she turned to see who it was and play the “what kind of book are they looking for” game, Heather felt her heart stop.

  Because standing in the middle of her store was the single most attractive man she had ever seen. He was tall, with sooty black curls that hung perfectly over piercing gold-green eyes that seemed to see right through her. His mouth was quirked in a devilish smile, his pink, full lips begging for a kiss she would be only too happy to give him.

  And his body. Sweet Jesus, his body. No one should look that good in professional clothing. It just wasn’t right. His white button-down showed off the definition in his arms, with sculpted muscles Heather longed to run her fingers down, feeling their contours. She could tell he had one of those eight-packs that didn’t even seem humanly possible, and a very, very odd thought popped into her head, of licking whipped cream off those abs, running her tongue along the rivets of each separate abdominal muscle.

  Basically, this guy was sex on a stick, and Heather had to seriously fight her body as her hand threatened to come toward her face to fan herself, which would be very unprofessional and also a little bit creepy.

  Especiall
y when he opened his mouth, and his voice tumbled out and enveloped her, the baritone covering her in a warm, sultry blanket of want and need.

  “Hi. I was looking for a book. Can you help me?”

  At the mention of Heather’s favorite noun, she woke from her trance and remembered that she was, in fact, the owner of this bookstore. And, at that particular moment, she was also its only employee, since her store manager, Tracey, was currently in the stockroom-taking inventory.

  So, flicking her long honey-gold hair over her shoulder and coming out from behind the cash register, Heather walked toward Mr. Sexy and said, in her coolest, calmest and most collected tone, “Sure. What kind of book are you looking for?”

  However, even before he answered, she was already trying to find the answer to that question. Mr. Sexy’s face was tan, which meant he must spend a fair amount of time outdoors. And from the way he was built, she suspected that at least some of that outdoor time was thanks to exercise. A body like that, brawny and raw and dripping with power, wasn’t made in a gym.

  So, maybe he was a hiker? Rock climber? She suspected he was in here for a book that related to outdoor pursuits. Normally, she would say non-fiction, because statistics (and personal experience) told her that most male readers tended toward the more realistic side of literature, but this guy had a sensitive side. The way he held himself in front of her, his face so honest and open and inviting, told her that he wouldn’t turn his nose up at a good bit of fiction every now and then. And not just Hemingway, either, who seemed to be the author that most white men between the ages of 18-75 gravitated toward when they wanted a bit of fiction. No, this man definitely wasn’t opposed to some David Hackston, maybe even that novel by Molly Gloss she never seemed able to sell. Yes, Mr. Sexy definitely had hidden depths, she thought, and it seemed like aligned quite well with hers.

  And she was proved right when he opened his beautiful mouth a few moments later and said, “Well, I’m looking for some books on the outdoors. Something to make me feel like I’m outside, in the depths of the woods, even when I’m just at my desk or on my couch. Do you have something like that? I’d prefer fiction over non-fiction, but I’m open to anything, really.”

  Heather smiled. She loved being right. She usually was when it came to what customers wanted, but it never failed to remind her that this, owning a bookstore and connecting people to the literature they wanted and needed, was what she was meant to do. She took great satisfaction in doing her job, and she knew that this was going to be the most satisfactory transaction she’d made in quite some time. It was surprising how infrequently she met someone who loved the same books as she. In a city with so many parks and outdoor spaces, few of its residents seemed interested in reading about the outdoors in addition to experiencing it. It was a grave oversight, in her opinion.

  “Follow me,” she said, leading Mr. Sexy toward a shelf in the back. The display said, “The outside is the only place we can truly be inside the world.” ― Daniel J. Rice” and next to it was a small shelf of all the books on the outdoors that Heather loved. There was the requisite Jack London and Henry David Thoreau, but also Rachel Carson, Barbara Kingsolver, Louise Erdrich, Annie Dillard and Bill Bryson. It was a self-serving display, more a chance for Heather to compile her own favorite books into one place than anything else, but it was still the display of which she was proudest.

  “So. Here we have the non-fiction about appreciating the beauty of nature, the wonder of life outside the city. Some of it is more narrative than the rest, so it really depends what kind of style you prefer when you read. If you’re looking for something that really draws you in, however,” she said, taking a copy of Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, “try this. It’s beautiful and amazing and, if that isn’t enough, had won loads of awards, so the consensus is that it’s pretty fucking great.”

  Mr. Sexy laughed and nodded. “Okay. Sold. What else?” he asked, scanning his eyes over the rest of the books. Heather wished she could somehow non-creepily snap a photo of him standing like that, book in one hand, his eyes trained on the display in front of him and post it to Instagram for that #hotguysreading account. Sure, Mr. Sexy wasn’t technically reading at that moment, but she figured that the book-loving women of the world would still appreciate the photo. She sure as hell would.

  Heather pointed out a few more classics like A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, The Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, and Landmarks by Robert MacFarlane. Mr. Sexy happily accepted each addition to the pile in his arms, seeming to trust Heather’s sage wisdom implicitly.

  “This is amazing. Thank you so much,” he said when Heather added a copy of Common Ground’s nature poems to the pile. “I think this is enough to get started with, but I’ll definitely be back, now that I know I can count on you for recommendations.”

  Heather preened a little bit at that, walking back to the register to ring Mr. Sexy up. It was the most books she’d sold in a single transaction in months, and the total wasn’t small, but Mr. Sexy didn’t even flinch when she read it out. He just handed over his debit card, giving her the perfect opportunity to find out his name.

  Ryan Edwards, the card read. She looked up at him as she swiped it through the reader and turned it around for him to type in his pin.

  “So, are you new in town?” she asked. Granted, she didn’t get out much, since she was stuck in the store most days of the week, but she had lived in Norman long enough to recognize most of its citizens. And she definitely would have remembered a face like Ryan’s.

  Ryan shook his head as he passed the card reader back to her, the receipt slowly spitting out. “Nope. Been here for five years now. I moved from Colorado after grad school and got a job at the Parks and Recreation Department.”

  “Ahh,” Heather sighed, putting the pieces together. She grabbed a canvas bag from under the counter; normally, she made patrons pay an extra five bucks for one, but she gave it to Ryan for free, since he had brightened her day up to no end. “So, you like the outdoors. Hence all the books,” she said, gesturing to the pile she was sliding into the small white bag that read “I’d Rather Be Reading Norman’s Books,” a play on the store’s name, Norman’s Books.

  “Exactly. Though my job includes far less outdoor time than I’d like. Hence the books,” he said, taking the bag from her and laughing. “Thanks again for your help. Maybe I’ll see you around town?” he asked, pausing on his way to the door.

  Heather smiled. “Yeah. I hope so.”

  Chapter 3

  One of the downsides of living in a small town was grocery shopping, or, more specifically, the fact that the guy who owned the grocery store dissected what was in your basket as though it was the key to your soul.

  Ryan knew that Jerry Hardey, of Jerry’s Grocery, meant well. He was a kind, old man who was nice to everybody and sold his food for far cheaper than was profitable. But on a Tuesday evening, when all Ryan wanted to do was buy his salmon and potatoes and go home, he really did not need or desire a lecture from Jerry on the terrors of eating too much fish.

  “Mercury poisoning! It’s a real danger, Ryan, I’m telling you. My cousin Rita went on this all-fish diet, looked amazing, positively glowing, and then a few weeks later she started feeling ill and wham!” he said, slamming his hand down on the hard metal siding of the conveyor belt, “she got so sick she nearly died.”

  Ryan nodded and tried not to show how exasperated he was getting. He’d been standing there for five minutes already, and if he didn’t hurry, he was about to get caught in the torrential downpour the clouds outside seemed to be threatening, and he had neither an umbrella nor a raincoat to protect him.

  Jerry opened his mouth, no doubt to continue his tirade, when another voice spoke up. A voice Ryan recognized. A voice that had frequented his dreams these last few weeks. Heather.

  “Jerry, I’m sorry to be a pest, but if we don’t check out soon, we’re going to get caught in that,” she said, pointing out the window toward the dark gray ra
in clouds that were slowly covering the sky, “and I have no umbrella and four paperbacks in my back, so...”

  Ryan raised an eyebrow at Heather, who smiled back at him with an innocence he’d didn’t buy for one minute.

  “Of course, dear. You’re right. I wasn’t even thinking of the weather. Just running my mouth, as per usual,” he said, smiling at her as he brought Ryan’s salmon and potatoes toward him and began scanning them. Ryan turned back to Heather to thank her, but just then, his phone went off. And so did hers. And Jerry’s. And seemingly every other phone in the store.

  It was a tornado alert, sent out by the local government, that asked all citizens to stay indoors until further notice.

  “Well folks,” Jerry said, his hands still resting on the ingredients for Ryan’s dinner. “It seems we’ll be stuck in here for the time being. I’ll get some folding chairs from the back of the store, and you can make yourselves comfortable. Grab a pop or two on the house and put all your perishables back in the fridge for now.”

  Jerry then turned back toward Ryan. “I’ll go put this salmon back for you. It’s on the way to the storeroom anyway. Heather?” he asked, looking past Ryan. “Need me to put anything away for you too?”

  Heather shook her head. “Nope. Just fruit and tinned salmon for me,” she said, holding up her basket.

  Jerry nodded and walked out from behind the register, shuffling toward the back of the store.

  Ryan turned toward Heather and laughed. “So, we meet again. What’re the chances?”

  “Pretty good considering we’re in one of two grocery stores in town, which is on the same street as my shop,” she said, grinning at him.