RANCHER BEAR’S BABY(24)

A low growl sounded from the trees but I just climbed into his truck and headed towards town. Either he’d show up or he wouldn’t. I had a feeling he would, though.

I’d been to rodeos before. I’d grown up in Georgia and there’d been plenty of cowboys running around. Sitting down in the small stadium seats in Landing, though, felt different. People shied away from me and no one seemed inclined to start a conversation. Hell, even if I’d been serious about finding a man there, it would’ve been damned near impossible since everyone treated me as though I were a leper. Landing residents were even less trusting than I was.

I didn’t let it get to me and instead, enjoyed the show. About halfway through, I sensed Matt. I could feel him when he showed up. The whole crowd seemed to go still and when I looked over, he was standing at the end of my row of seating, fully dressed and looking about as delicious as a man could possibly look.

He was dressed in jeans and a flannel. He’d shaved to reveal a chiseled jawline, and he’d cut his hair. He looked incredibly edible, instead of like the wild man I’d first met. He slowly made his way over to me and sat down stiffly avoiding eye contact and staring straight ahead. “You took my favorite shirt and my truck.”

I stood up and started shrugging out of his coat. “Hold this. I’ll just take this off and you can have it back. No harm done.”

Matt grabbed me and pulled me back down. “Keep your fucking clothes on, woman.”

“Leila. My name is Leila.”

He snapped his head in my direction and frowned. “You said your name was Maggie. The emails said your name is Maggie. What’s the deal?”

I ignored him and reached up to run my fingers through his shorter hair instead. “You clean up real nice, cowboy. I won’t lie and say that I didn’t like the wild look, but this is hot as Hades.”

He glared down at me. “Why do you insist on antagonizing me?”

Seeing him show up for me emboldened me. I leaned up and nipped at his earlobe. “Because negative attention from you is better than no attention at all.”

Matt’s hand landed on my thigh and he squeezed. “I don’t have a lot of control, Leila. I haven’t been out in a while.”

Over the show, and over pretending like I wanted anything more than for him to handcuff me to his bed, I stood up and looked down at him. “Let’s go home, then. I’ll tell you everything on the way and then, when we get there, you can punish me for being a bad girl and telling you that my name was Maggie.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but I’d worked his nerves enough that he didn’t. “This is a bad idea.”

I caught his hand and grinned. “Fine then. You can call me Maggie and I’ll be your good little school girl. Whatever you want. Just take me home, bear.”





CHAPTER 9: Matt




I sped up the mountain like the idiot I was. I kept telling myself that I needed to stay away from her, she deserved better than some fuck up with a broken bear, but no matter how many times I said it to myself, I couldn’t escape her. She was like kryptonite. I’d spent two days hiding in the woods to avoid her, while never straying more than fifty feet from her, except the vague chat with my brother.

I spent two days sleeping on a pile of leaves to keep myself from being in the cabin with. I was afraid of making some dumb mistake. Like claiming her. My bear wanted nothing more than to sink his teeth into her beautiful flesh and mark her so the world would know who she belonged to. Bear was relentless, too. He knew she belonged to us. He was pissed at me for hiding from her.

That wasn’t that unusual, though. I’d spent years with my bear pissed at me, but I was in control then. I’d spent way too much time in an office, focused on money, and bear had eventually stopped talking to me. It was only in the months after dad died when I’d been avoiding everyone had bear started coming out again. And when he showed up again, he did so with a vengeance. He no longer accepted being pushed down and ignored and I had to appease him by suppressing the human form for months before we came to somewhat of a truce. I was still broken, but my bear didn’t hate me anymore and I’d gotten better and faster at the shift than I ever had been.

My bear definitely wasn’t quiet now as I swerved around a car that was going too slow and pushed on the gas pedal even harder. He was as eager to claim his mate as I was to be alone with Leila.

I shot a look over at her. She was slipping out of the jacket she’d been wearing. “What are you doing?”

She grinned. “Getting undressed. Are you going to ask me any questions?”