Just Right (Not Quite Wicked #1)by Bronwyn Green Read Online

  Only Right

A Non Quite Wicked Tale

By Bronwyn Green

Resplendence Publishing, LLC

http://world wide web.resplendencepublishing.com

Resplendence Publishing, LLC

P.O. Box 992

Edgewater, Florida, 32132

Only Correct

Copyright © 2010, Bronwyn Dark-green

Edited by Tiffany Mason

Encompass art past Les Byerly

Electronic format ISBN: 978-1-60735-106-1

Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated past the FBI and is punishable past up to 5 years in federal prison house and a fine of $250,000.

Electronic release: Jan 2010

This is a piece of work of fiction. Names, characters, places and occurrences are a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to bodily persons, living or dead, places or occurrences, is purely coincidental.

To Brynn, Mia and Dakota – iii of most fanfreakingtastic friends a girl could accept.

To Tia Fanning for insisting I write this book in the offset place.

To Jen Armintrout for title awesomeness and general awesomeness.

To Kris Norris for always having my dorsum and being utterly spectacular.

I dear all of y'all big and much.

A huge give thanks y'all to Nib Scullon from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. I appreciate all the time you took to answer my questions. Whatsoever mistakes I've made or liberties I've taken are mine alone.

Tabular array of Contents

Affiliate I

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

About the Author

Affiliate 1

Gwendolyn Locke tightened her fingers inside her mittens, wishing they were wrapped around her co-worker'south throat, instead. Noah freaking Makwa was turning into the bane of her beingness.

She'd transferred to this godforsaken area of Michigan'south Upper Peninsula to study the blackness carry population, but thanks to Noah, she'd been here over a month and had yet to run into anything. Well, that wasn't exactly true. Today, he'd finally taken her with him to introduce an orphaned cub to a foster female parent.

Her tum had been tied in knots the entire drive. He smelled like woods-smoke and pino needles and looked like every sexually charged dream she'd had since arriving at the Baraga Section of Natural Resources part. In her dreams, he was an aggressive lover, taking her against a tree, deep in the forest. She'd woken from that particular dream convinced she'd felt the tree bark digging into her back. In reality, he was civil but distant, nice enough until she'd remind him almost her demand to work on her research. Then he'd disappear for hours at a time or invent lame excuses nigh why he couldn't take her to the known nesting areas. It wasn't until she'd set off on her ain today that he'd agreed to take her along on this cub drib.

The trip down the onetime logging roads was bumpy, the silence interrupted simply by the whir of the truck's heater and his monosyllabic answers to her occasional questions. She watched him discreetly from the corner of her centre. He'd pulled dorsum his shoulder-length blackness hair at the nape of his neck, displaying high cheekbones and sculpted lips. His burnished copper skin hinted at his Native American heritage. Dark brown eyes, brilliant with badgerer—at her presence, she guessed—focused on the snow covered 2-track.

He turned and caught her studying him. A shiver worked through her body at the intensity of his gaze.

"Cold?" he asked.

"Yeah," she lied, nodding her caput as she shifted to stare out the window and tried to force away the thoughts of how his lips would feel on hers.

Reaching toward the dashboard, Noah cranked upwardly the rut then turned the vents to blow toward her earlier returning to his pattern of pretending she wasn't there.

The logging road narrowed drastically until they came to a finish in front end of a stand of new-growth white pines. Shutting off the ignition, he turned his big body to face her.

"Y'all're going to demand to stay in the truck," he announced.

She couldn't believe it. He was coming up with yet another reason to keep her from doing her damn job. "What? Why?"

"I can aroma your shampoo."

"And?"

"And if I can olfactory property it, the bears can, too."

She was going to punch him. Correct in his ridiculously gorgeous face. "They're hibernating. They won't wake upwards unless I dance around their nest, banging pots and pans together, wearing a necklace fabricated of salary. And fifty-fifty then, they wouldn't wake upwards fully. I'g pretty sure we're rubber.

Noah scowled at her and got out of the truck. She followed him to the rear of the pickup where he lowered the tailgate and tugged forward a blanket-covered cage. The deadened yelp of the young comport bankrupt the frozen stillness of the afternoon.

Flipping back the textile, Noah opened the cage door while the cub huddled in the rear of the enclosure. He grabbed a heavy branch from alongside the cage and baited the cease of information technology with peanut butter, letting the odour lure out the comport. As presently as the cub took the bait, Noah shifted the stick so the creature straddled it then hefted the branch, bear and all, off the truck.

"Stay here." He didn't spare her a glance equally he walked toward several fallen trees where a nursing sow had made a nest with her cubs.

"Screw you," she muttered and followed quietly behind him. She wasn't almost to miss her chance to encounter the potential adoption of an orphaned cub.

Noah noticed her immediately and jerked his head toward the vehicle, indicating that she should go dorsum. Ignoring his narrowed eyes and glower, she continued toward his position a couple yards from the accident-downward that served as shelter for the sow and her cubs.

She watched as he extended the branch toward the nest, turning the wood until the infant bear lost his grip and plopped to the basis. It let out a plaintive cry equally information technology fumbled in the deep snow, and Gwendolyn held her breath, waiting for the mother deport to respond. Finally, there was a stirring amongst the roots and branches and the sow saturday up groggily and pulled the orphan against her body earlier settling again into the dried leaves and pino needles. The cub nestled against her and the other bears. Gwendolyn marveled at the sense of immediate warmth and connection. It was probably the nigh beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

The second about beautiful thing was the softening of Noah's eyes and the unguarded smile that curved his lips equally he watched the animals. His expression faded as presently as he noticed her looking at him.

"I thought I told yous to stay with the truck." His harsh whisper was just equally cutting as the bitterly cold air. He stalked by her, tossed the allurement branch into the truck bed, and then airtight the tailgate. Following him, she climbed into the passenger seat.

"Await," she said when he'd pulled back onto to the old two-rail. "I go that yous don't like me."

He glanced at her, a sleeky black eyebrow raised.

"And I get that you don't want me in your office, but this is where I've been transferred, and I've been assigned to you. If y'all don't like it, have it up with the Lansing office, merely in the meanwhile, I've got research to exercise, and you just accept to get over information technology."

He didn't even expect at her. She might besides have been talking to herself.

"You know," she connected, "I'thou perfectly capable of reading a map. Allow me brand copies of the data you have, and I can go out on my—"

"No," he snapped. "It's too dangerous."

"I've had the same training you have."

His brow furrowed as he frowned. "Things are…different up hither."

"More copse. More snow. More bears. That'south kinda the indicate."

/>   The truck coasted to a stop as they approached the chief road, and he turned to meet her eyes, the intensity of his stare immobilizing her. "It's not safe out here alone."

"I have a gun—aforementioned as y'all."

"Information technology'southward not rubber for you lot."

"Considering I'm a woman?"

An icy trickle of unease slid downwardly her spine as he continued to hold her gaze. "Because you don't know the area," he finally answered.

"And whose mistake is that?"

Instead of responding, he pulled out onto the main road and headed back to the DNR office. Closing her eyes, she tried to focus on what needed to be washed to request a transfer to ane of the other offices in the Upper Peninsula and then she could actually practise her research. Unfortunately, all she could recall about was her latest dream—Noah taking her hard and fast from behind. It was incommunicable to ignore the fashion her nipples tightened at the thought of him touching her. It was every bit incommunicable to ignore the way her folds moistened at the thought of him inside her. Despite her anger at him, she still wanted him. Or maybe she just needed to get laid, and her brain was fixating on him. She squirmed in her seat, wishing they were back in Baraga already.

Loftier winds buffeted the truck as they skirted the border of Lake Superior. The waves roiled violently beyond the ice-crusted shoreline and thick grayness clouds hung low on the horizon. She'd been in this part of the state long enough to know that a huge tempest was on its fashion. And wouldn't that just be a perfect cease to an already craptastic day.

Almost ii hours of almost silence from Noah was broken when he pulled into the parking lot and stopped side by side to her Jeep. "We're in for a helluva storm. You should go back to your place while you can."

"As shortly as the truck's unloaded and my paperwork'southward filed, I will."

He looked like he was about to contend, but she hopped out of the truck before he had a adventure. Grabbing the coating and branch, she carried information technology to the equipment building, leaving the cage for Noah. Folding the heavy, quilted textile, she stowed information technology on a shelf, wishing it were as piece of cake to pack away her allure to her co-worker. Of grade, if he kept being a wiggle, it might not exist every bit difficult as she feared.

After the rest of the equipment was put away, she knocked on his office door. He glanced up from his computer screen and stared at her expectantly.

"We need to talk."

"You should become home before the roads get any worse," he said, returning his attention to the monitor.

Stifling a sigh, she sat in a chair in front of his desk-bound and waited for him to acknowledge her presence.

He finally leaned back in his chair and studied her.

"I want to be reassigned," she said one time she had his attention.

"What?"

"I know you're the all-time in this area, and I was really hoping to learn from you, but you conspicuously have no interest in working together, so I'd similar to exist reassigned."

Surprise brightened his eyes. "To whom?"

"I don't know…Bakery? Or someone else who doesn't think I'm incompetent."

Noah frowned, and she had the ridiculous urge to shine away the creases between his eyebrows.

"I don't think you're incompetent." Before she could open her oral fissure, he continued, "Merely this is dangerous country if you lot don't know what you're doing."

She leaned forward. "And then teach me what I need to know, or assign me to someone who will."

He glanced out the window before meeting her gaze. "Let me requite it some idea and we'll talk about it next week."

She shot out of the chair. "Y'all've got to exist kidding me. You're blowing me off? Again?" She turned toward the door.

"Gwen, wait."

She stopped but didn't plow around. "Forget it. I'll effigy it out on my own."

Exiting the room, she stormed down the hall, stopping long plenty to grab her laptop and bag. She'd fill out her report at domicile. It would requite her something to practice since she'd already read the books she'd brought with her, and the TV in her rented motel room got all of two channels—on a clear night. This evening, she'd be lucky to get one.

She pulled on her wintertime gear and headed out the door, non sparing a glance for Noah as she passed. Arrogant asshole.

Bitterly cold air swirled around her as soon as she stepped exterior, making her eyes h2o. At least a human foot of snowfall had fallen since she'd arrived at work that morning, and it was still coming downwards. Starting the engine, she let the Jeep warm upwardly while she scraped the windows, anxious to go out of the parking lot before Noah decided to leave. She could do without seeing him in real life or her dreams for a good long time. Besides, she needed to hurry if she was going to make information technology to the grocery store before it airtight. She didn't even accept breadstuff to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She'd probable be stuck at the motel all weekend and the tiny kitchenette in her room was dangerously nether stocked.

Afterward a brief stop at the IGA to selection up a couple bags of groceries, she maneuvered through the virtually whiteout conditions forth highway forty-one. At the rate she was going, it would take her over an hour to make the twenty-mile bulldoze to her motel.

Gale-forcefulness gusts pummeled her Jeep equally she inched along the Lake Superior shoreline, fighting to keep the vehicle on the route. Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel and she was pissed at Noah all over once again. This fourth dimension considering he'd been correct. She shouldn't have taken the time to endeavor to talk to him. She should accept simply left as presently as they'd gotten back from the cub drib.

Squinting, she followed the curve of the road as information technology angled away from the lakeshore and through a stretch of marshland. The wiper blades couldn't keep up with the thick, wet snow clinging to her windshield. The tires caught, so slid on a patch of ice and she took her foot off the gas and tried to steer through the slide. As soon as she made information technology to the tree line, the drive would, in theory, be slightly less harrowing. The heavy pine woods on either side of the road made drifting and ice build-up less of a problem. Of grade, on a dark similar tonight, all the roads in this area sucked.

Snow spiraled effectually the vehicle, obscuring her vision and then much that she well-nigh missed seeing the dark shape that darted in front of her. She tried to brake, but she hadn't seen it soon enough to brand much of a departure. The passenger side of her Jeep clipped the flank of a huge bear with a sickening thud.

A scream strangled in her pharynx as she tried to go on the vehicle on the road. The force from the impact pushed her toward the tree line and down an embankment. The Jeep slammed into a tree and her world went completely white as the air purse deployed.

Pain lanced through her forehead where she'd smacked it confronting the driver's side window. Trying to stave off the dizziness, she unbuckled and crawled out the door. After pushing the button to release the lock on the rear door, she clung to the side of the vehicle as she made her way around to the back to detect her service weapon. If the bear wasn't dead already, she refused to let information technology suffer until it finally did die.

Fighting vertigo, she pulled the rifle from the example and loaded it with leaden fingers. She grabbed her flashlight and scanned the basis, looking for the injured animal's tracks. They weren't difficult to find. Brilliant red blood marred the pristine snow, dripping steadily as the bear stumbled through the underbrush.

Gwendolyn followed the path as chop-chop as she dared, blowing snowfall stinging her exposed pare. The whipping wind carried the comport's anguished cry to her, and she tried to move faster. She hated to have to take its life, but what choice did she have? Judging from the blood loss she'd seen, there was no way it would survive the night—peculiarly not in a storm like this. For a brief, crazy moment, she considered calling Noah, merely she dismissed the idea only as quickly. He'd already made it articulate she was on her ain.

She stumbled across a log but to fall confront offset in the snowfall. For a moment, her world went dim equally the lightheadedness returned, but she forced abroad the woozy feeling and pushed to her anxiety. A few yards alee lay a dark shape. She'd found the

deport. Training her flashlight on it, she watched for signs of life. Information technology moved, and she saw the spreading pool of blood that melted the snow around it.

Feeling sick at what she had to practice, she raised her gun to her shoulder and took aim. She tried to still her shaking hands every bit the bear began to twist and writhe on the ground. Suddenly, its body thinned and lengthened and she idea she heard the muffled sounds of flesh tearing and bones breaking. Earlier her optics, its fur receded leaving bare peel, the body of a predator becoming that of a human man.

She must have hit her caput harder than she'd thought. How could she have possibly mistaken him for a bear? What the hell was he doing naked in a snowstorm? She needed to get help. She lowered her gun and dug in her pocket for her cell phone. No indicate. God damn it!

Apace, she darted to his side and checked for a pulse. Faint but steady. Her claret ran cold when she saw his face up. For a moment, she thought it was Noah. Relief flooded her when she realized it wasn't, followed rapidly by guilt. She'd hit this man with her machine and now she had no idea how she was going to get him help.

Stripping off her glaze, she covered him with it, careful not to jostle him. She couldn't tell the extent of his injuries, and she didn't desire to make it worse. Standing, she turned in a circle, looking for any sign of life. The simply light she saw was the faint glow of one headlight and the taillights of her vehicle.

Not knowing what else to do, she fired several shots into the air and yelled for help. Her scream was cut short as a rustle sounded backside her. Whirling, she faced the biggest black acquit she'd always seen. She lifted the gun to her shoulder, just before her frozen finger could find the trigger, information technology growled and knocked it from her hands. Standing on its hind legs, information technology advanced on her.

It must have smelled the blood of the injured man and been drawn out of its nest. Bears rarely attacked people, but in this case, she could run across where it might make an exception. And considering she was standing between it and a potential meal…she was fucked.

Just Right (Not Quite Wicked #1)by Bronwyn Green Read Online

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