Romance: Undercover Panther: BBW Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance (BBW, Paranormal, Werebear Romance) (Shapeshifter Romance Series by Ashley Hunter) by Ashley Hunter Page A

reign over his customers, gauging their life and molding his self to be their friend so that they would tell him everything when they came to his bar to drown their miseries.
    “Hi,” Bob said happily. He was always happy.
    “Hey,” Angie said, with a sigh attached to the tail end of that greeting.
    She walked behind the bar. The night was still young and only a couple of people were in the bar. Sinclair, an old man who looked like he walked out of a Clint Eastwood western, was a regular who came on the dot every night and left on the dot, ordered exactly the same thing, sat in exactly the same spot and talked to nobody, not even Bob.
    Apart from him, there was a young man sitting in the corner, wearing a cowboy hat. It was horribly out of place and time, but he pulled it off. It was bent low over his head and a matchstick dangled from his lips. He sat facing the door and the bar.
    His one hand was on the top of the table, holding the mug holding his beer and the other hand was under the table. He was wearing a long black coat. He looked terribly rugged and handsome.
    Angie’s breath caught in her chest. It didn’t happen often that a mysterious, strange and sexy stranger came to the Thirsty Crow. It was a place for has-beens and people who wanted to wash away their sins. It was not for people who belonged in the real world.
    “Hey, Bob,” Angie said, nudging the old bartender.
    “Yeah?” he said, turning to look at her.
    “Who’s he?” she said.
    “Who’s who?” Bob said.
    Angie looked at him.
    “I am asking about the old man who comes here every night.”
    Bob looked sheepish.
    “Hey, don’t be snippy. I don’t know.”
    Angie widened her eyes.
    “The sun must have risen from the west,” she said.
    Bob rolled his eyes.
    “Don’t get cocky, kid,” he said.
    “I have never seen him before. Just give me till the end of the night and I will have his dog’s name and his doctor’s address on my napkin.”
    “Don’t be so sure, old man,” Angie said, still looking at the stranger.
    “I know a guy who doesn’t like to be seen or known.”

 
     
     
    Chapter 1
     
    Angie was tending to the bar and it was nearing ten. The bar had been busier than usual, and Angie had not yet deciphered a pattern to people’s drinking habits. Though she had noticed that two occasions garnered the heaviest drinkers: Valentine’s Day and Christmas.
    She had not been able to look at the stranger in the corner for some time now but she was sure that he was sitting at exactly the same place that he was when she had come in.
    At the back of her mind, there was a certain knocking that prodded her now and then to look in his general direction without giving the indication that he was totally ogling. Add to the fact that he was dangerously handsome, Bob’s ignorance about his identity made him mysterious and sexy.
    Just then Angie was directed from her unholy thoughts by a knock on the counter. She turned to see another oddity in the dingy bar at the edge of the street, in a town on the edge of the world: a married couple.
    They ordered two drinks and Angie’s eyes followed them to their booth in the corner. They both entered the same side and as soon as they were seated, the woman leaned towards her husband and planted her lips on his.
    Angie was now blatantly staring at the couple that seemed to give no consideration to the outside world as they embraced and kissed.
    “I see you have met the Garys,” Bob’s voice floated from behind and he joined her in her vantage point.
    “Who are they?” Angie said, taking her eyes off for a moment from them.
    “Just two regular people, like you and me,” Bob replied.
    “Don’t go Buddha on me, old man,” Angie said, rolling her eyes.
    “He is Michael and she is Martha,” Bob said and paused without any reason.
    “I guess I know all about them now,” Angie said.
    “They have been married for seventeen years. I have seen them in here after a long time. They used to come