Bear Arms (Alpha Werebear Shapeshifter Romance) (Mating Call Dating Agency Book 4) Read Online Free Page A

“you’re going to tell me everything about him, right? Every last detail?”
    “I’ll make you a deal,” Eve said, still smiling. “I’ll tell you as soon as I know. I have a date with him tonight at eight. It might be a double with his roommate, who I hooked up with Lexie Headly, the rabbit with the blog about how much she hates making potholders.”
    “Wait,” Dora said. “You’re going on a double date? I thought that was strictly against the—”
    “Yeah, the rules,” Eve said with a long trailing exhalation. “It is, but I figured this one time, it would be okay since the guy was really nervous about his roommate being awkward. At least, that’s what he said. He might be afraid of me, come to think of it.”
    Dora puckered her lips in thought, and rubbed her finger across her chin, back and forth over the cleft. “You are pretty scary,” she finally said. “But scary enough to intimidate a soldier? What’s the real story?”
    Eve sighed heavily. “Well... the real story is that,” she trailed off, very obviously trying to come up with something other than the truth. Dora called her out.
    “You realize it’s perfectly okay to be nervous about something you haven’t done in over a decade, right?” Dora asked. She put her hands on Eve’s shoulders and squeezed gently. “And also, you realize you don’t have to be embarrassed about things like that with me. Remember when I started dating Monte... what, two months ago? Remember how much of a goddam basket case I was before our first date? And remember how that turned out?”
    “I recall sitting on your bed and talking you out of dressing like a candy cane,” Eve said. A smile spread across her lips. “Look, it’s just that I don’t... I’m not used to admitting that I’m anything but perfectly calm and cool and collected.”
    “I know, hon,” Dora hopped off the desk again and hugged her friend tight. “I know you are. But you know something else?”
    Eve blinked and stared. “Don’t tell me the only way I’d be this nervous is if I’m in love. Just resist. Just—”
    “Whoever this guy is, you better bring him to meet me before you propose a mating. Because if you don’t bring him to meet your sister, I’m never gonna bless thing mating that’s obviously in the cards.”
    “Oh my god, shut up!” Eve laughed. “And wait, why am I the one who is going to ask him?”
    “While we’re on the subject though, what about Rake?” She was going a mile a minute, but Dora felt like if she didn’t release every word in her brain that she might back up and pop. “I thought you two were going to get together? You said he was coming to town sometime soon.”
    “I lied,” Eve said with a shrug. “I wasn’t sure I could go through with it and to be honest with you I felt kind of shitty about you putting yourself out like that, hunting him down and calling my old flame, and all... I didn’t want you to know how scared I was. I feel kinda stupid for doing it but, you know, I can’t much go back in time.”
    “No, you can’t, but you also don’t need to lie to me. If you’ll recall,” Dora scratched at one of her ears in an uncontrollable tic, “that’s the one constant with us—no need to lie. But no I totally get you. Sometimes the past just needs to stay that way. You and Rake did have a pretty rough patch.”
    Eve laughed so hard she almost made a snorting sound. “You could call it that. Or you could say that I watched him go feral, almost kill four guys who were chasing me, and then I flipped out on him because,” she paused for a second, looking backward in time with a wistful gaze that seemed to scan the years of her memories. “Well, I don’t know why, actually. He did save me. I guess it was just like flipping a switch in his brain that made him go from nothing to murderous.”
    “He did still go bananas, even if there was a reason for it.” Dora offered. “I read the newspaper article. I can understand why