It had sounded like a joke to Alanna who was twenty-three and felt like she’d been around the block a lot more than most girls her age. A bear shifter mobster with his fingers in every pie? She hadn’t been worried.
Now, she was bruised and she had been kidnapped. John had kept her tied up in the trunk for the first couple hours of their drive after he’d found her. He’d only untied her after she’d promised not to run away again, and when she’d mouthed off after that, she’d been rewarded with a smack.
She shifted in the booth and stared out the window at the snowy mountains where other bears were running free, where she wanted to be running free too.
But in her mind all she saw was Rawley. He was handsome, really. He was a lot older than her. She’d seen him first in his bear form, up on his hindlegs roaring as the party-goers cheered.
There had been a lot to cheer for. He was the biggest bear Alanna had ever seen.
Later he’d shifted into human form and he’d spotted her laughing as she sat on a log next to her brother. He’d brought her a plastic cup of champagne. He was wearing a nice suit. He’d looked just like one of the humans who stayed in the fancy resorts all around Park City. He had brown eyes so light they glimmered and turned to gold.
“Hey there, beautiful. You look like you need company.”
Watch out for Rawley, Carl had said.
It probably wouldn’t have made any difference if she had.
Now she would never know, and now she had to marry him...or Alex would die.
2
Nathan
“Goddamn,” Nathan said, sighing. His laptop was kaput. The battery was shot. He’d known that, but now it wasn’t even powering up. He sat back in his designer side chair at the small dining table next to a floor to ceiling window that looked out on the glorious Black Bear Lake mountains beyond. There was nothing in his email that couldn't wait. Maintenance work orders went right to an app on his phone. Still, he hated dealing with computer stuff.
“Stupid goddamn…”
Nathan rubbed his chin, the scruff growing in rough on the pads of his fingers. He’d been flirting with growing out a beard, but he hadn’t quite decided yet. The light scruff was a good look though. He always got more looks from women when he had some scruff on him. It went with the whole sexy handyman thing, he supposed.
“You need a shave.” His little brother Eric sat down across from him with his coffee and smirked. “Actually…you know what, nevermind. It looks good like that.”
Eric Strauss was the youngest of the four Strauss brothers. He was also the concierge at Black Bear Lake Lodge where Nathan was the handyman. But they both held equal rank along with their brother Cody. It was Connor who really ran things, but they all had an equal share. They’d bought the place themselves with a chunk of the sizable Strauss family fortune. It was a life Nathan would never have predicted for himself. But he found that he loved the place and he loved running it with his brothers.
“Thanks for your approval,” Nathan said sardonically. He shoved the computer in Eric’s direction. “I need a new evil machine.”
“You mean a laptop?” Eric raised an eyebrow. “Jesus. It’s like your Amish.”
“I just bought this one and I already need a new one,” Nathan said. “What a scam.”
“It’s like five years old!”
“Exactly,” Nathan said, shrugging.
“Oh my God.” Eric chuckled. “I think you can afford it. You could afford to buy the company that makes it if you wanted to. I’ll order you a new laptop, no worries.”
“Will you set it all up?” Nathan said warily. “I dunno how to do all that shit.”
“Yeah! I’ve noticed. Sure, of course I will. And I know you haven’t backed this shit up lately, so hopefully, it’s in the cloud or I can rescue your data.”
Nathan squinted at him. “The cloud is like…you don’t mean an actual cloud, right?”
“Jesus,” Eric snorted. “You’re so Amish.”
“We’re bear shifters. We should be Amish really.”
“For a guy who wants to live without technology, you sure like the hot tub in your suite.”
“I mean that’s really just hot water,” Nathan said, grinning because he was caught out.
He had been wary of working at a place like Black Bear Lodge when Connor had first convinced them all to buy the place and run it, not because they needed the money but because it would be fun. But Nathan had just come from years of running on his own, away from family and all the obligations he’d thought came with it. He’d been young then, wild and more than a bit rebellious. He’d spent some years in the wilderness making trouble and doing some things he’d never confessed to anyone (mostly due to falling in with an asshole of a bear named Rawley). But after that, he’d come home for good.
To their credit, his brothers had never begrudged his time away from them. Not even Connor had been angry. It was as if they all understood that he had needed to see what was out there in the great beyond before he returned. After that, he’d never wanted to leave his family again. And as it turned out, playing handyman for the luxurious resort they now ran in Big Bear Lake was his dream job.
The lodge was right there on the mountain, surrounded by glorious woods where he could run and fish and play with his brothers in his bear form. It also boasted four luxury suites in the east wing, one for each of them. Best of all, he considered handyman to be the easiest job at the lodge because things didn’t break down badly very often. In cold weather, the pipes were the biggest problem. He did some maintenance here and there, but the rest of the time, he was usually fixing something minor or waiting around to be told what to do next or helping out his brothers if they needed it. But for the most part, he had run of the place. He couldn’t have asked for anything better.
“Oh, before I forget,” Erica said, tapping his fingers on the laptop. “There’s a busted bathroom sink in twenty-seven and it’s just been booked.”
“I’m on it. Pipes are all fucked up stuff. Usually, just have to run hot water through em’. But I’ll check it.”
“Alright.” Eric nodded. “You want to go on a run tonight? I know you like night runs when you think you might freeze to death.”
“Yeah!” Nathan said. “Sounds good. See if we can wrench Connor away from his office and Cody from the kitchen?”
“Cool cool.” Eric got to his feet, taking his coffee and Nathan’s laptop. “See ya later.”
“Yep.” Nathan gave himself a few more minutes to drink the rest of his coffee and read the local paper on his phone. He still hated reading from a screen, but the hard copy of the newspaper always went missing as soon as it reached him.
“Wish I was Amish,” Nathan muttered.
Finally, he got to his feet and headed off to the maintenance stock room at the back of the lodge to grab his tool belt. He had no other work orders yet today but he didn’t like to laze about too much, especially with bookings picking up for their busiest season. He planned to check up on the gondola and look at the recent inspection report. They’d never failed to pass inspection but if the report mentioned things like even slightly worn parts or dirty windows, he wanted to check them out himself.
Nathan whistled tunelessly as he headed upstairs to Room 27, a spring in his step because he liked the busy season and all the people around, even when they were demanding or a little ridiculous. He found it all fairly entertaining and he wasn’t in charge of enough business at the lodge to stress about anything. That was Connor’s job.
“Hey, Nathan!”
“Nathan! Good to see you again!”
“How’s the season been so far, Nathan?”
There were a lot of regular guests at the lodge. They always seemed to want to talk to him and he was happy to oblige.
When the Strauss brothers had bought it, the Black Bear Lodge had been functional at best but nothing very special. But together, they’d turned it into one of the most popular and luxurious ski resorts in Colora
do, always popping up in Top Five lists on travel sites alongside Aspen resorts.
The place as sprawling and boasted any amenity a visitor with some money in their pocket might possibly want. They had powder almost year-round, hot springs, an indoor pool, a full spa with saunas and a gym. They even had a shopping promenade with so many well-stocked vendors that the brothers themselves rarely needed to go into town. The food was gourmet quality all under the supervision of Cody Strauss, who took food very seriously.
But what Nathan liked best about the lodge was that, despite its obvious luxury, the place felt homey. At least to him. The old fashioned wood paneling gave the place a mid-century feel and the oil paintings of bears on the walls had been custom painted, all depicting scenes of Nathan and his brothers in their bear forms, some based on photographs from their childhood. Nothing was old at Black Bear Lodge, all the furniture new and sturdy and at once classic and modern. But the place had an old feel to it so that when guests visited they felt at home, as if visiting some rich uncle’s mansion instead of just feeling as if they were in a hotel. Cody had taken on that idea and run with it in his menus for the dining hall, creating twists on comfort food like macaroni and cheese with gruyere or grilled salmon pizza.
In Room 27, Nathan headed straight to the bathroom sink and hummed to himself as he tested the water and found that it was draining slow. It took him just a half-hour to bring in some boiling water and run it through until the pipes had cleared. When he was done, he mopped up the water he’d spilled on the floor, made sure everything was immaculate for the new guests and that he’d left no boot prints on the carpet, and made his way out again.
As he headed downstairs, nodding at passing guests and rambunctious children, he got a strange feeling. It felt like an itch he couldn’t scratch as if something new had just wormed its way into his head. It wasn’t a bad feeling necessarily, almost like a dizzying kind of buzz. The spark of instinct, Connor would say.
He couldn’t tell what the feeling meant as he reached the bottom of the stairs and walked into the sprawling front lobby with its burgundy carpet and wide oak counter where a huge man in a grey sweater was checking in alongside a young woman who looked like she’d been run through the wringer. They were both bear shifters. Nathan could smell it on them quickly and he flushed at the scent of a lady bear shifter. Just the scent of vaguely attractive women bear shifters always aroused him a little. He ducked his head and walked around the counter behind Eric, who was checking them in, keeping his hands busy as he wiped them on a rag from his back pocket.
There shouldn’t have been anything unusual about the two guests, except that the young woman, who stood with her head bowed so that he couldn’t see her face, had lank and greasy brown hair and Nathan spotted a couple of twigs sticking out of it. She had a faint bruise on her jaw and her clothes were dirty. She stood stiffly, her arms crossed, and strangest of all, she carried no baggage. At a cheap roadside motel, it might have seemed normal. But it seemed odd to see a character like that at Black Bear Lodge, especially since the man with her looked so well put-together.
“Welcome to the lodge,” Nathan said, stopping for a moment to greet the two guests.
It wasn’t a habit of his. But he had the strangest urge to get a closer look.
The man glared at him and said, “Yeah. Thanks.”
The woman ducked her head and didn’t say a thing.
Something seemed just a little bit off about it all and it bothered him. But he had work to do and Connor’s #1 rule at the lodge as he’d said several times was do not get involved with the lodge’s guests!
He was usually shouting when he said it.
Nathan ignored the strange feeling, headed down the hall behind the lobby, and snuck into the kitchen to scare himself up some lunch. Minutes later, Nathan was halfway through a turkey sandwich when his phone buzzed. The task app he used for work order notifications told him the bathroom sink up in 27 was still backed up.
Goddammit.
He wrapped his sandwich in some Saran wrap and shoved the plate back in a fridge even as Cody appeared to purse his lips and glare at him.
“Don’t just leave that in the big fridge—”
“I’ll be right back!” Nathan said, still chewing. He swallowed and clapped his brother on the back.
Cody was just as broad and muscular as Nathan. To new people, he always looked a little goofy in his apron and chef’s hat, like a bodybuilder playing dress-up. He growled under his breath at Nathan. “I swear!”
He should have double-checked, he thought now. He should have gone into the pipes and checked for a blockage. It didn’t happen often, but on occasion, guests could get some pretty crazy stuff into the pipes that clogged them up for a while and running scalding water usually worked, especially in winter. But for tough clogs, it was always deceptive.
Nathan went back to his maintenance room and grabbed a snake and a bucket.
Upstairs, he wrapped softly on the door which was opened by the unamused heavy in the grey sweater. Nathan had that weird feeling in his head again and it fizzed and boiled over when he saw the girl who sat still in a chair at the dining table in the living room, her hands folded in front of her, her head bowed.
The pair seemed weirdly unhappy to be staying at a luxurious ski lodge, especially the girl.
“Sorry about the clog, sir,” Nathan said dutifully. “Fix ya right up. For your trouble, I have a gift card you can use down at—”
“Sure, sure,” the guy said, waving a hand. “Whatever. I generally expect when I get to a hotel room that shit will work but go ahead and fix it.”
Nathan smiled tightly. The guy narrowed his eyes and swiped the gift card from Nathan’s hand as if taking back something that had belonged to him in the first place. Nathan wasn’t quick to anger (that was Cody’s job). He only nodded and said, “Will do.”
Nobody who visited Black Bear Lodge ever expected that the place’s handyman owned a quarter share in the place. They certainly never assumed that the guy unclogging their toilets could buy and sell them fifty times over. But sometimes that knowledge got Nathan through the day when a guest was being a real douchebag, and judging by this guy’s rip-off Rolex, he wasn’t as well to do as he was trying to pretend he was.
“I’ll be out of your way in two shakes,” Nathan said as he passed the girl.
She was pretty up close, even looking dirty and unkempt.
But she didn’t look up.
Nathan figured she was waiting for him to be done fixing up their bathroom so she could take a much-needed shower. He hoped she took advantage of the jacuzzi bathtub too. The girl looked like she needed to relax.
Nathan headed to the bathroom, but he couldn’t help noticing the way the man and woman really didn’t acknowledge each other. They didn’t give off “couple vibes” at all. The man sat down on the plush couch in the living room with a heavy sigh and looked at his phone, and for the first time, Nathan noticed that the girl didn’t seem to have one. She was waiting for him to fix the sink but she had no phone to look at…odd.
As a hater of so much technology, Nathan resented how most people stared at their phones as soon as they’d been still for two seconds without talking to someone.
The bad feeling wouldn’t leave his head, but he went to work on the bathroom pipes with his snake and bucket. It was smelly, dirty work. There was a clog and he inwardly kicked himself for not catching it before. He wore gloves and picked out the mass of slimy tangled hair and the rag holding up the pipes. God knew how the rag had even got there, but when he was done, he ran the snake all the way through. All clear.
Thank God.
“Almost done!” He called out for the couple’s benefit.
They did not answer.
Nathan triple-checked his work, running water through the pipes as thoroughly as he could before he cleaned up after himself and sprayed some deodorizer around the bathroom for good measure. When he came out, he noticed the girl at the dining room table
with her head down on her arms, her limp brown hair splayed out around her. His instinct was to ask her if she was alright and he even took a step in her direction when the guy staying with her took a step in his direction.
“You done here?” the guy said, a clear threat in his voice.
“Yep.” Nathan nodded curtly and looked the guy up and down. He was rather brute-shaped for sure, but Nathan had a lot more muscle and was broader. He never doubted his own bear in a fight.
I could take this asshole no problem, Nathan thought. The thought was enough. He made his way out with all his tools in hand.
But as he went back downstairs, he couldn’t stop thinking about that despondent girl. There was trouble there. He was sure of it.
3
Alanna
Save me.
Alanna had never wanted anyone to rescue her before. She’d never needed it before either. Having been on her own with her little brother for so long, she was used to being the one who did the saving. She wasn’t a trained fighter and she wasn’t big and muscular by any means, but she had always been scrappy and unafraid to fight dirty. But now...now she couldn’t fight at all. Not with Alex in Rawley’s clutches.
So, the first time, she’d thought that: Save me.
It was when the lodge’s handyman had come to fix their pipes. Alanna had allowed herself to fantasize a whole scenario in which the hot guy in the tool belt and faded jeans came to her rescue. He’d realize something was wrong, he’d just know. Then he’d shift and attack John, take him down no problem. He’d sweep her into his arms and then defeat Rawley for her when he came.
It was a nice fantasy anyway. But that wasn’t how life worked. Instead, he fixed their stupid sink just like they’d asked. John had been cranky about it, grumbling about how the place must not be as nice as it was reputed to be if the sink didn’t work when you showed up. Alanna only rolled her eyes as she sat listlessly at the dining room table.
Billionaire Bear Shifters: A Paranormal Romance Complete Series Boxset Page 2