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Candy Bear (Small Town Valentine's Day Shifter Romance) (Fate Valley Mysteries Book 4) by Scarlett Grove, Fun, Flirty (4)

Chapter 4

When Samantha emerged from the steamy bathroom wrapped in a towel, she took a deep breath and inhaled the aroma of coffee brewing in her hotel coffee pot. With the sleep washed from her eyes, and the fog clearing from her brain, she slipped into her clothes and poured herself a cup. The taste of coffee on her tongue, first thing in the morning, helped clear the cobwebs from her mind and helped her focus on her task for the day.

It was Valentine’s Day. But that wasn’t the important part. Today was the moment when the statue of Fate Valley’s founder would be installed in the town square. Ambrose Valentine Morgan, her distant relative. Today she hoped that she would gain further insight into her relationship with him.

After dressing and slipping on her boots, she made her way to the Fate Valley Diner. She was met by the same waitress from the day before and sat in a booth, perusing the menu for her breakfast. She finally settled on a Spanish omelet with hash browns, fruit on the side, and as much coffee as Debbie could bring her.

She sat reading the paper, which was full of articles about the usual small-town goings-on. The biggest news was the statue being installed and the paper was filled with announcements about the event.

There was a brief article with a biography of Ambrose Morgan on page three. It was about how he had come from St. Louis to prospect the area for the dam that would fill the valley and create the vast reservoir that had come to be known as the Lake of the Fates. The resulting hydroelectric plant powered half of the state and was one of the most important energy supplies in this part of the country.

When she was finished reading the article, Debbie brought her meal and she dug in, hungrily eating her omelet and hash browns. She loved the taste of small-town diner food. There was nothing quite like it in New York City.

Sipping her coffee, she flipped through the paper and read an article about a small statue of a lion that had been flipped upside down in front of the town hall. The statue’s head was crushed and had to be replaced. Police had arrested several members from a group called Midwest Mayhem. Samantha had heard something about the traveling pranksters before. They were punk rock anarchists who liked to make trouble all over the area.

She flipped to the back of the paper to the classifieds. She saw that same advertisement for the Mate.com dating website and sighed.

“Lonely on Valentine’s Day?” it said. “Find your mate and don’t waste another minute being alone.”

She closed the paper, drumming her fingers on the laminate tabletop. There were a lot of shifters in Fate Valley. She knew that shifters mated with their one special someone called their fated mate, and that no one else would do. She herself hadn’t given much thought to dating or mating.

Growing up a foster child had not been easy. So, Samantha had done everything in her power to go to college and have a career that could support her. She felt grateful every day that she got to write for the Historic Times, it was a true blessing. But sometimes she really did feel lonely.

A couple in the booth across from her were speaking softly as they sat close together and shared a piece of apple pie with whipped cream on top. She let out a long sigh and picked up her cell phone, unconsciously clicking over to the dating site. It was as if she was possessed by the spirit of St. Valentine himself as she filled out the profile and answered the questionnaire.

The questions were strange, and she didn’t understand how they could possibly match her with her perfect someone. But after she clicked enter and her matches began to load, she suddenly snapped back to reality. What was she doing? She was here on a research trip, not to find a mate! She had to go back to New York in a few days. What if her mate lived in Fate Valley or some other shifter community?

Shifters tended to live in small towns so that their animals could be close to the wilderness, whereas she was from the biggest metropolis in the entire country. It just wouldn’t work out. But her curiosity got the best of her when the matches loaded. Her heart started to thwack in her chest as she scrolled down the page through the less-than-perfect matches. She gulped and scrolled past the 97% match and the screen kept going.

And then, there he was. Her 100% match. The most drop-dead gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her life. His profile name was Candy Bear. How enticing could you get? Her heart fluttered and so did her eyelids as she slid down in the chair as if melted by the heat of his piercing gaze. She had to fan herself with her hand to cool down. Debbie came over at that moment to refill her coffee.

“Something got you all hot and bothered, hon?” Debbie asked, filling her porcelain cup.

Her throat all choked up, Samantha couldn’t speak. All she could do was show Candy Bear’s profile picture to Debbie.

“You’ve been matched with Benjamin Darling?” Debbie said, slapping her thigh. “Oowee, he’s going to be happy. You sure are a catch. Such a lovely young woman. Benjamin’s been waiting a long time. Wait till I tell everybody in town.”

Samantha gulped down the lump in her throat and finally found her voice.

“Please don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what got into me. I’m from New York City. I can’t get involved with a shifter from Fate Valley. I’m here on a research trip, not a mate trip.”

“Just wait till you meet Benjamin.”

“Please don’t tell anyone. I’m begging you.”

“Well, he’ll find out soon enough,” Debbie said. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled. Now, you be good to that boy, you hear?” Debbie said, giving Samantha a hard look.

Samantha gulped again, knowing she was in trouble. She’d made a grave mistake. She never should’ve signed up for the mating website. She needed to find out how Ambrose Valentine Morgan ended up on her genealogy report. It just didn’t make any sense that they were related. They were completely different.

She had to solve the mystery. It had been driving her for months. Finding a mate was the last thing on her mind before this morning, but here she was, staring at the picture of this gorgeous bear, whose name apparently was Benjamin Darling.

Benjamin Darling a.k.a. Candy Bear. She gulped, almost tasting his sweetness on her lips. She was going to have to pull herself together fast because the statue installation ceremony was about to begin in just a few minutes.

“Thank you for breakfast,” Samantha said, throwing some bills on the table.

“Don’t you go breaking that boy’s heart,” Debbie said. “You’ll have a lot of angry shifters on your back if you do.” She chuckled.

Samantha looked back at Debbie, her mouth dropping. Her heart raced with terror. Would shifters really come after her if she didn’t mate with this guy? Debbie only chuckled again, and Samantha hurried away, shaking her head in disbelief. She was so confused, she could barely think. Once outside, remembering why she was here, she pulled her camera out of her backpack. She went into the town square, joining the rest of the crowd gathered around the statue platform.

The morning sun was bright in the clear blue sky. Yellow beams of light cast long shadows across the ground. The mayor, a grizzly shifter as far as Samantha knew, stood at the podium and began to give his address to the people of Fate Valley. Samantha began clicking photographs and she turned on her audio recorder for the speeches. This would all be excellent fodder for her article in the Historic Times.

“We are gathered to honor our founder Ambrose Valentine Morgan. Everyone in Fate Valley knows he loved Valentine’s Day. He was the man who created the Lake of the Fates and brought all of us to this beautiful land. Without him, none of us would be here today.”

Most of the audience cheered, but Samantha could hear a few people booing somewhere off in the distance. She looked around, not sure who it was. She took pictures of the crowd, and ran across a few scowling faces. Was that a mohawk? She tried to zoom in on them to get a better picture, but they turned away and walked off. She shrugged it off and went back to recording the ceremony. The high school marching band began to play Stars and Stripes Forever. The crane holding the statue slowly settled it down onto the podium where it would rest forever.

She zoomed in on the stone sculpture. Ambrose now stood above the crowd, pointing out with one hand as his other hand shielded his eyes from the sun. She zoomed in on the plaque and clicked a picture of the inscription.

“For the love of family and the progress of mankind.”

Samantha scratched her chin. She knew that the hydroelectric plant had benefited a lot of people, bringing electricity to many families who hadn’t had it before. But she still didn’t have an answer to her most pressing question. How was she related to Ambrose Morgan?

As she contemplated her distant ancestor, she glanced up across the square and saw him. Candy Bear stood in front of Fate Valley Confections, looking tastier than a caramel-covered apple. She had to steady herself on a street lamp to keep her legs from buckling under her. The man was a mountain of a bear, sexy and stunning. His heavy muscled chest and piercing eyes did not say candy maker. They said pure man.

She imagined he knew how to handle a rifle, and a few other things as well. She couldn’t help thinking she wouldn’t mind him handling her. But then her senses snapped back to her and she was filled with fear. She was an orphan and had no idea how to love someone, let alone a hunk of a shifter like that.

Soon her excursion to Fate Valley would come to an end. If she didn’t find out how she was related to Ambrose Morgan, she would have to return to New York empty-handed and just write her article. Life would go on.

But as she looked across the square as Benjamin Darling, her mouth watered, and she smelled the rich aroma of chocolate wafting from his confectionery. Then he looked straight at her.

Her heart boomed in her chest and every instinct in her body told her to run over to him and throw herself into his big, strong, muscular arms, and let him take away all the sadness, loneliness, and confusion she’d ever felt.

She was alone on Valentine’s Day, with no family and no love of her own. Then she remembered what Debbie had said: shifters would be after her if she didn’t mate with him. Confusion slapped her across the face, and she turned away, darting through the crowd and back to the hotel.

When she looked over her shoulder, she could see he was following her. She lost him in the crowd and slipped through the hotel door and into the lobby. She stood with her back against the door, breathing heavily as the clerk looked up at her from her paper.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Not a ghost,” Samantha stammered. “More like the love of my life.”