Hold My Bear (Virtue Shifters Book 5)

  HOLD MY BEAR

  VIRTUE SHIFTERS: BOOK 5

  ZOE CHANT

  HOLD MY BEAR

  Copyright © 2022 by Zoe Chant

  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.

  Cover Art: Ellen Million Graphics

  Created with Vellum

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  A Note from Zoe Chant

  Teaser: Gladiator Bear by Murphy Lawless

  CHAPTER 1

  Virtue, New York was the kind of small town that Charlee Lind had spent her whole life trying to get away from. Postcard-cute, friendly—even neighborly—and probably judgmental as heck.

  It was also the kind of town she kept coming back to. Much as Charlee wanted to feel at home in big cities, in truth, she always felt anonymous, one single unknown face in a too-large crowd. Maybe there were people who really could reinvent themselves when they moved somewhere new. Somewhere big, where their past didn't follow them.

  Maybe, but Charlee wasn't one of them. She always felt like no matter where she went, she couldn't ever escape who she'd been.

  But today was going to be different. Charlee took a deep breath and straightened her clothes, then pulled her hair up in a bun. Not a sleek smooth professional one, but a tidy knot of gold-and-brown curls that said she wanted to be taken seriously, but wasn't uptight.

  Except about how she ran her kitchen.

  The ad had kept popping up on her social media. Chef wanted for new bistro in Virtue, NY. Competitive pay, apartment above the restaurant for the right candidate. After seeing the ad half a dozen times, Charlee looked the town up on the internet, and—

  —and, well, it looked postcard-perfect and friendly, even if the website was years out of date. She'd driven up to have a closer look, and walked by the soon-to-be-a-bistro half a dozen times while checking out the town. The new bistro was about a block off the town's main square, which was absolutely humongous. It had a church on one end, a judicial hall on the other, and a gigantic gazebo in the middle.

  Strangely, even though it was the kind of place she’d spent her whole life trying to escape, it felt comfortable, even familiar. It was as if part of her had always been looking for this exact small town, and now that she’d found it, she could almost recognize it.

  Charlee didn’t know why, but she realized she kind of enjoyed the feeling. Right now, signs were pointing people just a little way out of town, where the Virtue Harvest Fair was going on. The town itself was hardly deserted, but it was maybe less busy than it would have been otherwise. Still, Charlee didn't feel like she stood out as she walked around investigating. She felt like she belonged.

  The new bistro was going into what had obviously been a bar, back in the day. It looked like someone had been doing a lot of renovation work lately. The whole place smelled like sawdust, even from the outside, and there were fresh-cut boards and old beams and piles of new building materials, including a really nice hood system for the kitchen that gleamed in the afternoon sunlight.

  Seeing that shiny new hood system had, on some level, made Charlee decide to apply for the job. Someone had spent real money on that system, suggesting they were serious about doing everything right. It made her feel good about updating her resume and sending it out.

  Of course, with the way her luck went, she figured would probably never hear from them, so she didn't think anything of it when her phone rang with an unfamiliar number a couple of hours later. She picked up with a, "Hi, this is Charlee," but didn't even put the book she was reading down.

  A nice-voiced man said, "Charlee Lind? Oh, good. Hi, this is Steve Torben from the Virtue Bistro? I was just going over your resume and you look like a great fit for the position. Are you available for an interview this week?"

  Surprise heated her face, even though she reminded herself she'd applied for the job and there was no reason to be surprised. Hardly anybody got back to her so fast, though. Hardly anybody got back to her at all, really. "I—uh, yeah? Wh—when?"

  "When's good for you? I'm in the restaurant literally all the time right now. I've got to get the hood system put in this afternoon before it rains, but aside from that, I'm at your disposal."

  Charlee pulled the phone away from her face to look at it uncertainly for a few seconds. She wasn't used to an employer being prepared to work with her schedule. It seemed like a promising beginning, though, once she thought about it for a few seconds. "Tomorrow? I can come over around…ten, if you want?"

  "Terrific. I look forward to meeting you." Steve hung up, and the next morning, Charlee was outside the bistro building, tying her hair up in a knot and trying not to be nervous.

  The door burst open unexpectedly and a big man with truly amazing shoulders exited at speed. He was carrying a sink that looked both old and heavy, but came to a sudden stop, biceps straining under his tight t-shirt with the weight of the sink. "Oh no. Is it ten already?"

  He tried to look at his wristwatch, but clearly didn't think it through: he just kind of let go of one side of the sink, which swung wildly in his grip and nearly fell.

  Charlee yelped and leaped forward, helping him to grab it before it fell on anybody's toes. He said a word that Charlee's grandma wouldn't have approved of, then gave her a pathetically grateful smile. "Thanks for the save. If you can cook, I think you're hired. Ow, that was dumb."

  "It was dumb." Charlee smiled up at him. Quite a ways up. He was a big man. A big man with big muscles. A big man with big muscles and a big, bright smile that shone out from a well-kept blonde scruff of beard. His hair—darker blonde than his beard, almost brown—was long enough to sink her fingers into, but not long enough to get in the way in a kitchen. He had deep dark brown eyes that crinkled nicely when he smiled. He gazed down at her with a kind of awe-struck look that she wasn't used to.

  Her nose came up to about the middle of his chest. His big broad chest, which was full of muscles under that snug shirt. Charlee almost wished he'd dropped the sink, so she could get a better look at how the t-shirt fit his abs, and find out whether his jeans fit as well as the shirt did.

  Which was certainly not something she needed to be thinking about her potential new boss. She lifted her side of the sink a bit, grunting a little. "Where are we putting this?"

  "Oh! Oh, over there. I can get it—" He took the sink's weight and hauled it off to a temporary dumpster, the kind that someone would come pick up and take away. It was enormous and already filled with an amazing amount of debris.

  Much more importantly, it turned out Steve Torben's jeans fit him every bit as well as his t-shirt did. Charlee took advantage of the few seconds she had to stare in open admiration before she had to yank her eyes somewhere else and behave like a civilized person when he got done throwing the sink away.

  He wiped his hands on his thigh
s as he approached, which gave her an excellent excuse to look at his thighs for a second, anyway. Then he offered his hand. "Hi. Steve Torben. Sorry about the sink."

  Charlee smiled again. "No problem. I'm Charlee Lind. It's nice to meet you." She lifted her chin toward the restaurant building. "Looks like you're doing an awful lot of work by yourself in there."

  "Somebody's got to." Steve gestured her toward the building. "I grew up doing a lot of handy work, and maybe it's not faster, but it's an awful lot cheaper to do it myself. I've been working on it since July."

  "You're from Virtue?" Charlee went into the bistro, stopping just a few steps inside the door to admire the interior.

  It still had the old bar bones, right down to an actual bar with stools facing now-empty liquor shelves. The ceiling was old wood, but the walls had been resurfaced with clean bright sheetrock and paint, changing the interior vibe from bar to bistro. It smelled of fresh paint and recently-cut wood.

  The bar counter had been refinished, and the walls were lined with booths that looked both deep and comfortable. There were tables scattered around the floor, which had also been refinished, and off to the right, behind the bar, Charlee could see the kitchen. "You did all this yourself?"

  "Wait until you see the before pictures," Steve said cheerfully. "I'm planning to open next month, if I can find the right chef. And no, I'm from Colorado. My family runs a brew pub, but it's not what I wanted to do, so here I am."

  "Really? How'd you end up this far east?"

  "Somebody from Virtue moved to our town, and after a while they mentioned the old bar here that had closed down. I thought it seemed like the chance I was waiting for." Steve gestured toward a booth. "Want to sit down and talk about the job?"

  "Can I see the kitchen first?"

  A grin flashed across his handsome face. "Yeah, of course. What about you, you're not from Virtue, are you? I know I'd remember if I'd seen you before."

  A flush of pleasure ran through Charlee. She wasn't used to being thought of as memorable. "No, I'm actually from Massachusetts, but I've lived kind of all over the north-east."

  "A wanderer, huh? This is the first time I've really been away from home for more than a couple months, myself. Here's the kitchen." Steve led her into the compact, but well-laid-out kitchen beyond the bar, and for a few minutes Charlee forgot about anything else as she inspected the premises.

  It had the high-quality hood she'd seen the day before—he couldn't have installed that himself so fast—over a broad array of burners and grills. A solid length of steel counter provided lots of workspace, and there were workstations across from that.

  A comparatively small walk-in fridge sat next to a freezer of similar size, and across the room, screened windows could be opened for more ventilation. Charlee checked cupboards, tested the workstations to make sure they were convenient distances from everything else, and slowly came to realize she was waltzing around the place like it was already her own domain.

  Sheepish, she turned to face Steve. "It's a nice setup. I could work in here."

  "Great." The big man grinned down at her. "Then you're hired."

  CHAPTER 2

  Steve Torben had not been prepared for Charlee Lind.

  He'd been prepared for an interview with a chef, of course. Charlee had a solid resume—no cooking school, but lots of experience at different kinds of restaurants. He'd had a good feeling when he'd received her application, and she'd had a warm, kind voice on the phone. He'd interviewed a dozen chefs already, but none of them had felt right from just a moment's conversation, never mind the actual interview.

  But when Charlee walked up, Steve's bear said, Yes good now please, or feelings to that effect. It was clear within a heartbeat that this woman was the person he was meant to be with forever. It didn’t matter if she could cook, although he bet she could. What mattered was that he impressed her enough to help her decide to stick around.

  So Steve, in a show of epic grace and skill, nearly dropped a kitchen sink on the woman who was not only his new chef, but his mate.

  And instead of shrieking and backing off, Charlee helped him catch the wretched thing, which made her…amazing, in Steve's book.

  She would have been amazing anyway, of course. She wasn't short, except compared to Steve himself, and her honey-streaked brown hair was tied up in a cute knot at the top of her head. She wasn't over-dressed, either, even though this was an interview. Her shoes looked safe for a kitchen, and her pants were flattering, but heavy-weight, like chef's trousers. She wore a green button-down, and had a bag over one shoulder. Steve was willing to bet it had a chef's jacket inside.

  Her face was round, and her figure deliciously generous. Steve thought she might be the kind of person who had a 'Never Trust A Skinny Chef' t-shirt in her wardrobe. He thought she looked incredibly huggable.

  He thought she looked like the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, which was a lot to tell somebody three minutes after he'd met them.

  No rush, his bear rumbled. She's here now. Our mate.

  Simple as that. Charlee was there now. His good feeling about her when he’d gotten her resume had been a premonition about fate winding up to throw him a fast ball. All he had to do was…not fumble it, or something. Sports weren't really his strong point.

  There was a slightly careful look in Charlee's sea-green eyes, as if she was accustomed to being burned by more than just kitchen heat, but her smile was sweet and friendly.

  It was also, at the moment, slightly disbelieving.

  "I'm hired?" she asked dubiously. "Don't you want me to…I don't know…cook something for you first?"

  "Oh." Embarrassment swept Steve and came out in an awkward laugh. Right. He couldn’t just hire somebody because they completed his soul. Probably. Well, he was the boss, so technically, he supposed he could, but that wouldn’t be a good business decision. He cleared his throat and said, "Yes? That might be good?"

  Charlee's smile got bigger. "Is everything in the kitchen hooked up? I know the fridges are empty, but I could go get something from the grocery store and make you lunch. Bistro-style," she said with a glance back toward the renovated bar. "Tell me about what you want to be feeding people?"

  "I'd love to. Come on back out to the seats?" Steve followed Charlee out, impressed at how black chef's pants could still look so great around her bottom. She was awfully cute. She had a shy but steady presence that comforted him, somehow.

  That’s fate, his bear said contentedly.

  I know. I just never thought it would feel so...comfortable! So right! So sure of myself! It’s amazing! I hope she likes me!

  The bear chuckled. She will.

  Charlee pulled a chair out from one of the tables as Steve had that quick conversation with his bear. Then she glanced back at him with lifted eyebrows, checking to make sure this would do. Steve said, "Sure, here's great," and sat down with her.

  For a few seconds he found himself gazing straight into her eyes, apparently as if he'd forgotten how to talk. She still had that slightly cautious look, but her eyes were also bright with interest.

  I can do this, Steve told himself. It's just a job interview. With my fated mate.

  His bear made an amused sound deep inside his mind, but Steve waved it away, trying to concentrate on Charlee.

  Or maybe trying not to concentrate on her. Concentrating on her was the easiest thing in the world. Trying to hold a conversation about what he wanted from the bistro, that was harder. Not usually, but right now, looking into her beautiful, open face, watching her rosebud lips curl into a slow smile…

  "I want something elegant," Steve blurted, afraid he really would forget how to talk if he didn't say something now. "I grew up in a brewery, and it was great, don't get me wrong, but we served skin-on bacon fries and stick-to-your-ribs burgers and barbecue. Which I love," he said with a wry smile.

  Charlee grinned. "Oh, me too. It's salt-of-the-earth food, isn't it? Simple people-feeding food. But I think I hea
r a 'but' coming?"

  "Yeah," Steve said hesitantly. "It's not that I don't love what I grew up with. I do. But I always wanted to try something more…"

  He felt a blush coming on. 'Delicate' was not a word that he associated with himself very easily, or one that other people did, either, looking at him. Saying it out loud was surprisingly hard.

  Charlee, however, slid her hand across the table and clasped the top of his for a moment, saying, "Delicate?" like it wasn't a ridiculous thing for a big lunk of a man to say.

  An electric sense of absolute rightness tingled through Steve as Charlee's warm hand closed over his. He looked down at the comparative smallness of her hand over his, at the different shades of their skin, at her blunt, short-cut fingernails, and swallowed. He wanted to do something ridiculous, like raise their hands so he could kiss her knuckles, but that would not go over well in an interview.

  In fact, Charlee obviously realized she'd overstepped the bounds of an interview, too, and withdrew her hand with an expression of embarrassed confusion. "Sorry, that was really…invasive of me, or something. I don't know what got into me."

  Fate, his bear said contentedly. That's what got into her.

  Yeah, but I don't think she's a shifter. I don't get any sense of that from her, and this town is full of shifters, so I think I'd know. So she doesn't know it's fate. Aloud, Steve said, "It's fine, really. I appreciate it, actually. Delicate is exactly the word I was thinking, but it seems so…" He made a brief gesture at himself.

  "So not like who people think you are?" Charlee gave a small nod. "I get that. But—can I ask you something? How do you think people see you?"