Chapter 3

3

I was staring off in the direction the cats had gone when the most gorgeous man in the world walked into my view. He was like a Viking god, complete with wide shoulders, a trim waist, and wearing a shirt that emphasized the muscles hiding under it.

His entire being exuded an impeccable sense of perfection. Well, everything except his glasses. He could be a shifter, but shifters never needed glasses.

Was he human? He was certainly a prime specimen of humanity if that were true.

The Viking lifted his chin in greeting as he got closer. I blinked several times because I couldn't seem to stop staring at him. His mostly blond hair fell to his shoulders, making him look like a cover model for a romance novel.

Not that I read romance novels. Well, okay, I did occasionally read them, but no one knew that. It was the one vice I would kill even my siblings to hide. But a witch couldn't read magical novels all the time, right?

I blinked as I checked him out, hoping my attraction to him wasn't obvious. If this guy was some joke Carol was playing on me, it wasn't funny.

"Hello, I'm Farley. Are you the innkeeper?"

His sexy voice hit my ears before the vibrations traveled to my nether region. He could've been reading a shopping list aloud and I would have probably reacted the same.

I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn't the innkeeper but quickly realized that might make him leave. Did I care? It surprised me to discover I actually did.

Besides, he might be a potential guest. Right? I had to be polite to him. Also, a lame excuse was better than trying to name this sudden fascination I had for a stranger, even if he looked like every fantasy I'd ever had.

I opened my mouth, but it took genuine effort to get words to come out. "I'm here temporarily, but you could say I'm the innkeeper for the next thirty days. What can I do for you?" Please say something sexy again.

"The Baba Yaga sent me to help you." And then he smiled.

He had beautiful and even teeth, except for two pointed incisors that looked like mini-fangs. I nearly wet myself at the sight of them.

Wait. What did he say to me? Oh, yeah. His name was Farley and Carol sent him to help me.

But help me with what? Did I get to pick the task? He could be a rebound guy to help me forget Ethan… and maybe every other man I'd ever known. There was something very appealing about Farley the Viking.

His low, sexy chuckle when released vibrated every cell in my body. I think he knew it because he smiled even wider. His smile alone could make me forget my name.

I giggled before smiling back. "You're much nicer to look at than this broken-down house."

"How are you on a first-name basis with my Auntie Carol? Someone told me you were, but I thought they were making it up."

"You have to be invited to call her that. I save calling her ‘Carol' for when she makes me mad."

The sexy shifter looked me over and then laughed again. Then he dropped his gaze from mine. He was either extremely shy or very young.

Goddess, and now I could smell him. He smelled like vanilla cookies and bears. It was a nearly irresistible combination.

I didn't normally go for shifters, but male witches were off my list forever. Dragons would never hang out in a place like this, and full humans bored me. Shifters were pretty much all that was left because I was running out of species to date.

I could tell I was going to say something stupid to him. Several things hovered on my tongue. I wanted to say, " Would you like to see my bedroom? I just got a new bed ." Luckily, before I embarrassed myself with such a blunt proposition, the bear shifter broke the spell he wove with his very existence.

"Aunt Carol asked my father to help you, but he was too busy experimenting and couldn't leave his Petri dishes. So you get me instead. My new job in Boston doesn't start for a few months yet."

"I see. So you're my consolation prize," I said, mentally smacking my forehead. "Sorry. I haven't recovered from meeting Fat Bastard. That cat brings out the Jezebel in me."

Farley scratched the top of his head, adjusted his glasses, and then sighed. "Is that your real name? Aunt Carol said it was Selene."

I sighed. "It is. How old are you? I'm guessing fairly young since you didn't recognize my sarcasm."

The bear shifter smiled that devastating fanged smile again.

Damn it.

He grinned at my discomfort, the way men like to do when they know you're attracted to them.

"Bears age differently from humans. Maturity is another matter, though. Are you asking about my maturity or the number of years I've been alive? It intrigues me that you would want to know that information. I'm curious about why. Bears are naturally curious, you know."

I puffed out my cheeks and blew out a breath. It effectively released the initial lust he'd caused in me. I'd deal with the rest later. "How old is your father?"

He visibly winced. "I don't think I've ever asked him. Both my fathers were in a set of triplets. My mother was older than both of them by at least a decade, but it was never really an issue that I could tell. Age is such a relative thing to shifters. I realize, though, that it matters to humans because they believe age equals life experience. So by human standards, Dad Charlie is very old. He has to be at least fifty."

"Fifty is not that old, Junior, and that would make you what? About twenty in human years?"

I kept pushing because if I knew how old the uncomfortably attractive shifter was, I could use his youth as a logical reason to resist my pull on him.

His face took on a thoughtful expression as he pondered my accusation that he was twenty.

"I think of myself as thirty when I think about age, which I rarely do because age is so subjective. My biological mother was the same age as the woman who actually mothered me. She was evil, by the way. The woman is still alive, but I don't know her. The mother I consider my actual mother died in a badger attack. Her name was Hildy. She was the Shifter Whisperer before my cousin, Zelda, came to replace her. We call ourselves cousins, but technically, Zelda is my half-sibling because we share the same biological mother. My brothers and I were born first, so we're a little older. Zelda is in her late twenties, but no one can tell her age, either. Maybe that's because our human mother was a dark arts witch."

I'd always heard bears had a TMI problem. The information overload Farley just dropped sent my head spinning, though I could tell he had reported the details as succinctly as he could.

I tried very hard not to react to the news that the bear shifter—or bear cub, depending on your opinion—claimed to have two fathers and one mother, as well as a biological mother who was a criminal like the Shifter Whisperer. I think I got most of that right. The current Shifter Whisperer, the bear shifter's cousin, was also Carol's potential stepdaughter.

Honestly? I needed a whiteboard the size of a wall to write it out and keep it straight. Or maybe I could simply move to a non-Podunk place where people in the same town weren't all related to each other in strange biological or adoptive ways.

I refused to waste my limited magic keeping track, but there still wouldn't be a possibility of leaving for another twenty-nine days, six hours, and twenty-three minutes or so.

Since I was stuck here, I needed to pull this runaway train back onto the tracks. "Are you the handyman who's supposed to fix up the house?"

Farley the Viking Bear sighed—very loudly. "Yes, but I have to tell you that carpentry is not my best thing."

To stop myself from asking what his best thing was, because I could pretty much guess based on my hormones dancing the Mamba as I stared at him, I forced a more neutral question out. "Do you have any renovation skills at all?"

The bear cub, who looked all grown up but likely wasn't, scratched his head again. This time, he knocked his glasses askew and had to fix them. It was beyond adorable. I could easily imagine myself removing them and placing them on a nightstand beside our bed.

Except we didn't have a bed. The bear had one of his own, and I had mine.

We had nothing.

We'd barely said hello.

"When my Dad Chuck was still alive, I used to help him. He fixed things for a living. My brothers and I—I'm a triplet too—always went along to help. Bears seem to have a natural affinity for fixing things, probably because they break shit regularly. It seems to be a survival skill for my shifter species. I'm half bear at least, so I'm fairly sure I can both break things and fix them back."

"Or we can maybe wait for your father to have time." That way I wouldn't have to look at him or smell him or fight my urges to show him my bed.

"Dad Charlie—that's what I call my biological father—is a scientist. He will not leave his Petri dishes until they reach their proper growth outcome, which will be three weeks from now. I heard you needed a bedroom for a fairy who's coming to stay this weekend. So I'm here to help in any way I can."

It was Monday, and I had to be done with the fairy's room by Thursday. My guest was arriving early in the morning on Friday. Farley was right. I needed his help.

"How about you help me get one bedroom finished then? It will be a trial period to see if things work out between us."

Farley lifted an eyebrow and smirked. "I was thinking the same thing. Are we still talking about the house?"

I narrowed my gaze. He might look like a romance cover model, but his brain was incorrigible. "Yes. I was talking about the house. Does your sexy questioning get you laid as often as I think it probably does?"

He shook his handsome head to deny it. The wind chose that moment to blow his loose hair gently back from his face. Goddess, no man should look that perfect. He was ridiculously attractive.

"Women like the way I look, but they can't handle the real me. You strike me as a woman who might have what it takes. I knew that before you even spoke to me. It's part of your vibe."

"My vibe?" I laughed at his words, unable to restrain myself. "First off… you're too young to have a ‘real you', Junior. But I will say that you pull off male arrogance well."

"You can't be that old. How old are you? Mid-forties?"

"Mid-forties!" I exclaimed.

I took several deep breaths to calm myself before I zapped him. Being handsome did not excuse being stupidly rude.

"I am NOT forty yet . I will not be forty for years ."

Farley chuckled again, and that damn low tone of his vibrated through me just like before. This was why I always stayed away from shifters. I didn't trust this level of animal attraction. It was humiliating.

"See then? You're not old at all," he said calmly while favoring me with his enduring fanged smile. "In fact, we're practically the same age, Selene."

"I don't see why our ages even matter. We're working on the inn together, not dating."

Farley lifted both his hands in the air. "That was my initial reason for coming here. Let's get back to business. Would you like to show me your bedroom?"

"It's not my bedroom. It's a guest room ," I said.

"Right. For the fairy who's going to be hiding out here," Farley said, giving me a quizzical look.