Bearly Hanging On (The Jamesburg Shifters #6)(14)

At least in Jamesburg.

She turned to dodge two people rushing through the halls and then narrowly avoided a third. Erik's head came poking out of his office, and he beckoned, arching his eyebrows the same way a normal human - or even a normal shifter, Erik was definitely neither - would stick out a 'come here' finger.

"What's with all the suits?" she asked, gliding inside his office and closing the door behind her.

Erik was fuming. "I have no idea! No clue, not a single one in the world. These crazy dipshits showed up at eight-thirty and started asking questions!"

"Eight-thirty, huh?" Jamie grinned. "That's really rude of them. It's almost like they expect this place to run like a normal courthouse."

A knock at the door made Erik cringe. "I wish Izzy were here. She always handles these sorts of people better than I do."

"You mean people-people? As opposed to growly ones that spend a lot of time scratching themselves in public?"

He sighed. "Yeah, something like—"

"Sorry to interrupt." A suit with a tall man inside who wore his hair in a plastered-back sweep stepped through. "But I can't find anything you said I'd find in these records, and knocking wasn’t doing any good."

Jamie was gawking, and the man apparently picked up on it. "Oh, good to meet you," he extended a hand. "Agent Craig Branson, Tennessee Valley Authority." His eyes went to rest on her shoulders. “Are you okay?” he asked when her wings twitched under her jacket.

“Yeah, scoliosis from when I was a kid. I’ve got bad shoulder blade muscles,” Jamie said as she pursed her lips. "Isn't the TVA like fifty years dead?"

"Something like that," the man responded cryptically. "We took over."

Nodding slowly, Jamie shook his hand. "Erik? What are they doing?"

He shook his head as Agent Branson turned his attention to the completely empty desk behind which Erik spent most of his time. Slowly, Erik reached down, and pulled a bottle of Jameson's out of the desk.

"Rough job, mayor? Sorry, Alpha. Is that right? The notes are mussed up and no one quite knows what to make of either you, or this town."

Erik was starting to get irritated. Jamie could see it in the way his eyes were starting to get a little more yellow than they normally were. Wolves were always such damn giveaways.

"Hey, uh, Agent Brosnan?"

"Branson."

"Right, yeah," Jamie said. "Maybe we can hold off a minute? I'm the jack of all trades in this place. If you give me a minute to talk to my boss, I'm sure we can straighten out whatever needs straightening."

"I'm not so sure," Branson said in a business-like way that made him seem colder than even Jamie. "These books are a mess."

"Well, give me a chance. There's a waiting room down at the end of the hall. Why don’t you and the other Agent Mulders - and yes, that's a joke - go down there and wait. I'll come get you when I know what the hell's going on."

Branson didn't like it - not one bit, but he did as she asked, probably more out of a desire to get done with whatever he needed to, than any sort of deference at all.

"I don't even know how to make sense of all this shit," Erik said, as Norman finally wandered in with the bagel and the bucket, having missed all the fun. "Wait, why did you bring a bucket, Pee Wee?"

"Er, well you asked me to, remember?"

"The hell would I want a bucket for?"

Norman started getting legitimately flustered, and, as he usually did when that happened, he turned red, and little beads of sweat popped up on his upper lip.

"Be nice to him, Erik," Izzy said, pushing past Jamie and Norman, and into the office. "He's your cousin. Stop being a dick."

Jamie laughed, silently, scrunching her nose to make sure she didn't do a goose impersonation. "Why did you want a bucket, Erik?" she asked, not able to keep herself quiet. It was Erik's turn to get flustered, but when he got mad, he hit things, or threw things, so Jamie quickly calmed him down by shaking her papers.

"My paper shaking brings all the wolves to the yard," she said, feeling very proud of herself for making a semi-relevant pop culture reference, though judging from the blank looks on everyone except Izzy's face, neither of the males in the room kept up with top forty radio. Or good music.

"You're priceless," Izzy said, displaying the first smile Jamie had seen cross that face since she started her second trimester. Or maybe it was halfway through the first. Who’s counting? "But let’s get down to it. The TVA is auditing the town ledgers. To answer a bunch of questions before they get asked, no I don't know why, no I don't know why the TVA is doing it and not the IRS, and no I don't know why Agent Branson looks so much like Kyle McLachlan in Twin Peaks."

Once again, the two girls chuckled while both of the clueless werewolves exchanged a look of commiserated confusion.

"You two probably spent most of your spare time watching pro wrestling, huh? That's why you get along with Ash so well." Jamie cocked a languid eyebrow and then closed her eyes, imagining a houseful of bears and wolves hooting and screaming at WrestleMania.

"So?" Erik asked defensively. "What's wrong with that?"

"Well, it's fake for one," Jamie said.