Page 45 of Renaissance Bear

Fran nodded. "Yeah. I got Gus to come sniff it out, too, and he didn't pick up anything either."

Alis said, "Oh. That's why you let him do this, isn't it? You thought it was too…neutral? You were hoping he might figureout why?" She felt as if, like the shifters, she might be on the verge of understanding something, but she didn't knowwhat.

"Pretty much. I didn't like it, but unless I can pin down what's wrong, it doesn't matter." Fran lifted her chin toward Jon's truck. "So get out of here now, will you? I'd rather not explain to Sully why a Torben was hanging out at my crime scene."

Jon offered her a hand to shake again. "Yeah, will do. Thanks, Fran. I'll let you know if I figure out what the nothing is."

"Yeah, ditto. Nice to meet you, Alis."

"You too." Alis followed Jon back to the truck, both of them deep in thought.

Chapter 20

"Idon't know how amateur sleuths do it," Jon said as they headed back into town. "I feel like I need a true crime podcaster on our side right now, or something. There's got to be a shifter involved, or somebody who knows about us, but honestly, how would you make that kind of mark in the reception desk if you weren't actually a shifter?"

Alis, across the truck bench from him, curved her hand into claws and swiped at the air like she could come up with an answer. "You'd need something either really heavy and incredibly sharp, or heavy and a lot of time. And it sure doesn't look like there was time involved at City Hall. Officer Fran said she thought this was personal, though. Whoever's behind trying to buy the fairgrounds, and everything. She said a corporation would be tidier. No weird handwritten receipts."

Not that it was a receipt, but Jon knew what she meant. "I swear that makes even less sense. Well. It does and doesn't. The idea of some kind of corporate hit man out there threatening and kidnapping a small-town mayor is ludicrous, but if somebody's not trying to buy up the land to put the faire out of business, what the hell's their motivation? I'm sticking with brewerybusiness after this," he added firmly. "Solving mysteries isn't my strong suit."

"Speaking of which, um." Alis cleared her throat. "What's your schedule this summer? You said you and Laurie go around to some of the other faires…?"

A thrill of hope knocked everything mysterious out of Jon's mind. "Yeah, we started expanding East a couple of years ago. It used to be we stuck to the Mountain region, and then we moved out to the Pacific Northwest and California, but we've got our share of the market pretty well solidified in that part of the country, now. I'm scheduled for Kansas, Delaware, and Rhode Island later in the year." He thought his heart might leap out of his chest as he tried very hard to say, "You?" casually, and totally failed.

Alishehed and looked out the window, smiling nervously. "Ironically I'm going to Seattle and Sacramento over the rest of the summer, so we're not crossing paths at all. But if you'll be around, I mean available, over any of the weekends when you're in Delaware or Rhode Island, I could probably come see you. If you wanted."

She was doing about as good a job as he was at sounding casual. Jon reached for her hand as he idled the truck at a stoplight, and when she looked at him, smiled. "I would love that. I'll make sure to have free time, even if it means dragging Laurie out of the lists by his ear."

Alis gave a little rushing laugh that sounded of relief. "Okay, but I want to see that. I just, um. Well. I'd like to see you again when this week is over."

"Me too. Enough that I'm afraid I'll come across as way too intense and scare you off." The confession rushed out of him like Alis's laugh had, even as his bear more or less rolled its eyes with exasperation.

She's yourmate,it said.Youcan'tscare her off.

Yeah, well, I still haven't tried to bring up the whole polyamory problem, so I think being worried she might nope on out of the whole thing is pretty legit.

Although he was sure the bear understood the general idea of what he'd just said, because his emotional state would convey it if nothing else, the animal still gave him a look that indicated Jon's phrasing was incomprehensible. Jon muttered,I think I have good reason to be worried,and the bear clearly gave up on him as a hopeless cause.

Alis, in the meantime, gave him another shy smile. "So far I like your intensity. All of it." The way her voice dropped suggested she had some specific things in mind that she liked. Jon seriously considered bailing on the faire entirely so he could bring her home and explore those things. "So Delaware in…what, September? I don't remember when their big faire is."

"Labor Day weekend is when we set up there, but we're there for the whole three weeks."

"Oh, school's out that weekend. I can definitely see you then. Okay. Whew." She actually said 'whew,' and Jon found himself beaming at her.

"Whew. Yeah. Okay," he added, hoping to alleviate both his own nervousness and hers, "now that we've got our futures set up…"

Alis laughed. "Slow down, cowboy. I don't know that a date ten weeks from now counts as setting ourwholefuture up."

"Hey, you're the one bringing ourwholefutures into it! Because I'm not wrong, am I? A date ten weeks from nowissetting up our future."

Alis popped her mouth closed. "You know, as a school teacher, I tell kids all the time to think about what they want to say before they say it. Maybe I should take my own advice."

"Or not." Jon liked the idea of it being at least the start of theirwholefuture, but also still didn't want to make things toointense, despite Alis's apparent approval of intensity. Not until he'd talked to Lord Edward, at least. "Anyway, I was going to say, we've got to get through the shows at the faire today before we can do anything else. I thought I might ask some of the other shifters if they'd ever tried hiding their scents, though. Maybe somebody's got an idea, because I can't figure out how else those claw marks showed up. That's hardwood!Oldhardwood! It's like iron!"

"I get the impression from what you were saying that it also wiped out most normal human scents, too?" At Jon's nod, Alis went on. "So even if it's not a shifter, it's somebody who knows enough to wipe out scents anyway."

"And can cut through old hardwood."

"And has some kind of vendetta against the fairgrounds." Alis paused a moment. "Is your life always weird like this?"

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