RANCHER BEAR’S BABY(22)

Main Street in Landing didn’t have a whole lot of options when it came to clothes, but I managed to find a little country western store that sold jeans, boots, and such. I bought some clothes from an older woman who just kept giving me dirty looks, and changed into a pair of clean jeans in a bathroom inside a little general store.

I bought canned goods and a few jugs of water, along with multiple bags of candy and chips to snack on before going back to Matt’s cabin.

Matt was still gone when I got back, so I put my stuff away in his dusty cabinets and went in search of entertainment. When I found none, I just made myself at home in the middle of his bed and stuffed my face with a bag of gummy bears before falling asleep.

I woke up to a huge grizzly bear head hovering over me. My heart leapt into my throat and my body entered fight or flight mode before remembering that I was staying in the cabin belonging to a bear. “You gave me a damn heart attack! What are you doing?”

After a few seconds of his huffing and grunting, I reached up and caught his massive snout in my hands. “I don’t speak bear. Turn back and we can talk.”

Almost immediately, I had a very human, very naked, Matt kneeling beside me. I sat up so I had a leg on either side of him, his face was still in my hands. “Hi.”

He looked up at me, through golden eyes, and grunted. His brown hair hung down to his shoulders, and he was bearded. I got the impression he hadn’t worried about personal grooming for some time. He was at least a half foot over six feet tall and wide with thick, corded muscle. The man would’ve caused a riot of lust in any red-blooded woman, but the way my body was reacting had me wondering again about the whole fated mates thing.

His face looked almost innocent, despite the full beard, as he gazed up at me. He just stared at me, unmoving and eerily calm.

I stroked his cheeks and smiled. “You get tired of playing in the woods?”

With a shake of his head, he frowned and scooted away from me. “You’re in my bed.”

I grinned at him and nodded. “Our bed. Didn’t you hear? We’re getting hitched.”





CHAPTER 6: Matt




I stood up and reached into my closet to get pants. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worn clothes, but considering how often my dick was hard around the insane female, I needed something to at least pretend to hide it from her. I yanked them on and then turned around to glare at her.

“We’re not getting hitched. I hadn’t checked that email in months. I didn’t know Beatrix was sending someone and I neither need nor want a wife anymore.”

Genuine pain flitted over her expression for a second before she blinked it away. Every instinct in me demanded I comfort her, and it took extreme effort to fight it.

“Doesn’t matter what you want now,” she snapped, “I’m here and I’m staying. Get used to it, bear.”

I was under no delusions about myself. I knew I was scruffy looking, my bear was unmanageable, and I was a grumpy pain in the ass on a good day. Why in the world would a woman as hot as her want to be anywhere near me? She could have men lining up around the corner to date her. What the hell?

I pondered for a moment. She’d called bear ‘cute’… and she knew about shifters. Maybe she was some sort of shifter groupie. I could show her that bear wasn’t cute, and neither was I. It could work. I’d scare her into leaving. I grabbed her arms and pulled her up to face me. Instead of looking scared, though, she just grinned at me and rested her hands on my bare chest.

“Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

“Because I’ve suffered abuse at the hands of a man. I know all about abusive men, and you, Matt Long, aren’t one.”

This time, I couldn’t fight instinct; I wrapped my arms around her and held her tighter. “Someone hurt you?” I growled into her neck.

She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’m here now. Thanks to Beatrix and her Buxom Beauties. What made you choose a mail order bride service, anyway? You have a thing for buxom ladies?”

Fuck. She was teasing me and all I could think about was sliding my dick into her. I looked between us, at the space where my flannel shirt on her gaped open and her tits pressed firmly against my chest, and licked my lips. It’d been too long.

“You’re poking a stick at a sleeping grizzly, lady.”

She somehow managed to wiggle her body even closer to me. “What are you going to do?”

“Who are you?”

“Your mate.”

I jerked away from her and glared. “What the fuck do you know about mates?”

“I lived with a family of gators a while back. I heard stuff about mates.”