Shifters with Secrets (An MMF Bisexual Threesome)(3)

Sofia and Thomas both just nodded.

“We’ll tell Francis that we’re on the way out,” said the male cop. “Let us know if you remember anything.”

“Thanks,” said Sofia and Thomas in unison as the two cops left, their thick shoes pounding up the delicate staircase.

Sofia slumped against the wall, listlessly looking into the room that, until this morning, had been her happy place. She’d loved going in there to do her dissertation, finding primary sources on the legends of werebears in the lower Sierra Nevada. Specifically, she was studying the legends of werebears and the early gold miners in Placerville, one of the towns that had sprung up during the gold rush of 1849.

Well, she had been studying that. Now, she might have to find something else to study — there weren’t a lot of copies of a books from the mid-1850s that still existed, and someone had just stolen a bunch of them.

“Hey,” said Thomas, his voice breaking into her thoughts. He reached out and took the mug from her hands, slipping an arm around her shoulders.

Even that couldn’t quite cheer her up, as acutely aware of his presence as she always was.

“We’ve got rubber gloves and boots in a closet somewhere,” he said. “They’re for flooding and water damage, after that time ten years ago that a pipe burst, but they’ll work for glass.”

Sofia tried to smile.

“All right,” she said.





***





Thirty minutes later, when Francis found the two of them carefully sweeping glass shards and re-stacking the wrecked newspapers, she wasn’t thrilled.

“You’re not even an employee,” she said to Sofia, her hands on her hips.

Sofia looked up at her, a huge chunk of broken plate glass in one rubber-gloved hand.

“You’re not covered by our insurance,” Francis explained, still fretting.

“I promise not to sue,” said Sofia. She dropped the chunk into a paper bag and it made a soft cracking sound against all the other glass shards in the bag.

Francis frowned, clearly unhappy about the situation, but not quite unhappy enough to argue.

“And you,” she said to Thomas, her tone beginning to soften. “This isn’t your job at all.”

“I’ve got nothing on my plate that can’t wait until tomorrow, Frankie,” he said. “I’m not even getting behind, I promise.”

He smiled and looked up at the older woman. It was a smile that tended to work wonders, and Sofia knew it.

Francis sighed, crossing her arms in front of her torso, but clearly losing the will to argue with the two of them.

“Just be careful,” she said. “My husband is coming to nail the plywood over the windows in a few hours, by the way.”

“Thanks, Frankie,” said Thomas, a smile in his voice.

The older librarian left the two of them alone to pick up newspapers and glass.

“You don’t have to help, you know,” Sofia said, quietly.

Thomas shrugged.

“I really don’t have that much to do,” he said. “Unless someone sneaks in soda again in their kid’s sippy cup and spills it into the printer, I’m mostly for decoration.”

You’ve got that right, Sofia thought.

“Still, you must have something better to do than pick up glass.”

“I like helping you out,” he said.

Sofia felt his eyes on her face, and looked up at him. He was gazing at her intently, just for a split second, and then he looked back down to the floor.


“Someone new around here is always pretty exciting,” he said.





Chapter Two





Finally, six hours later, most of the glass was cleaned up, some of the scattered newspaper re-stacked, and Thomas and Sofia went into the staff bathroom to rinse off their gloves.

They hadn’t found any of the books that she’d set aside for herself, though, no matter how hard Thomas had helped her look.

He’d barely been able to contain his fury about the break-in all day, even as he was trying to comfort poor Sofia, distraught about this setback to her PhD. Who the hell broke into a public library, destroyed a bunch of old papers, and stole something completely worthless like that?

The glass they could clean, the newspapers they could pick up. He even thought that he could fix the busted microfiche reader, but the books she needed were just missing. It was enough to make his skin itch and tingle, his bear desperate to get out and go on a rampage.

And Thomas had a pretty good idea of where to begin the rampage.

“I think I’m going to head over to the Tipsy Miner,” Sofia said. “Do you want to come?”

Her eyes flicked quickly to his in the mirror, and he thought again about how beautiful she was, all red lips and soft curves, especially bent over the sink like she was right now.

Thomas could just see the outline of her luscious body through her dress, and even though she was tired and a little disheveled, it was all he could do not to lick his lips.

“I told my folks I’d go to their place for dinner,” he lied.

He nearly kicked himself, but it was the right thing to do. Of course he wanted to go get drinks with Sofia, but he wouldn’t feel okay until he confronted the person he suspected was responsible for this.