Secrets of the Bear
Terry Bolryder
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Soldier Bear Boxed Set
Terry Bolryder Reading Guide
Copyright © 2017 by Terry Bolryder
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
1
Francis stared out at the rain from the beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows at the front of the mountain lodge where he’d lived for the past year.
It was really coming down, and he felt bad for anyone that was on the roads in weather like this.
He turned on a lamp and sat in his La-Z-Boy, pulling a book into his lap that he nevertheless didn’t open.
He just had an uneasy feeling, as if something odd were about to happen.
He couldn’t really figure out why he had feelings like that at times; he just knew he had strong intuition. That’s what had led him here, to Bear Canyon, first for the Brawl and then to his job as mayor.
Considering how the town would be expanding, that job would actually have meaning in a few years.
Amazing to think how different it was from his life a few years back, before he’d begun training for the Brawl. The prize money, safely invested, meant he could pretty much do whatever he wanted for the rest of his life, and his living expenses were basically nil because the cabin had been pretty much given to him, with one contingency: the Brolins, the brothers who’d grown up in it, could use it to gather when they came back to the canyon.
Now that the Brawl was cancelled permanently, Francis wasn’t sure how often that would be.
He looked out the window again, seeing a faint pair of headlights in the distance, heading down the winding road through town.
He cocked his head, narrowing his eyes, a sinking feeling coming over him as the car took the turn at the bottom of the steep drive that led to his cabin.
Who could be coming here and why?
He set aside the book and turned off the lamp so he could pretend not to be home if needed. Or at least pretend to be asleep.
He didn’t mind phone calls for help from the townsfolk, but he wasn’t in the mood to entertain some entitled tourist who wanted to rent or offer to buy his cabin.
He walked to the side of the window, standing hidden behind the drapes between the window and the front door, peeking out.
The car was a newish hatchback he’d never seen before. Definitely not in town.
A tourist, then, he thought with a sigh.
If it was someone who simply needed help, they could have stopped down in the town where there were twenty-four-seven services for tourists whose autos broke down.
He squinted at the person who got out of the car, but in the utter darkness, all he could make out was a short sort of figure bundled up in a thick coat and scarf. Though, some hair had escaped and was blowing in the harsh wind.
As the character walked up the front steps, they were battered by the hard, nearly horizontal rain slicing through the air.
He let out a sigh as a firm knock sounded.
What should he do? He didn’t want to leave anyone out in the cold like that, but he couldn’t very well open the door this late. What if it was a robber?
Not that there was anyone, shifter or human, Francis felt could take him. But he didn’t want to have to beat up anyone either.
He waited. Maybe they would just go away. But as lightning lit up the area around him and thunder rumbled, Francis realized the intruder on his privacy wasn’t going away anytime soon.
Since it wasn’t safe for anyone to be out there, he was just going to have to open the door for them.
He sighed in frustration and moved behind the door, peeking through the peephole, but the person was bundled so tight only a nose showed through.
He swung open the door, bracing against the cold and wet, and gestured for the person to hurry in.
When they did, he shut the door with his back to it, breathing heavily. Damn, it was cold out there.
The tourist took a few steps inside and then began slowly unwinding their scarf.
“Look,” he said, trying not to sound as impatient as he felt. “This isn’t a tourist stop, and I’m not renting the cabin, and it’s not mine to sell, so you might as well—”
He stopped when the figure turned around, scarf dangling at her side, familiar face somewhat reddened by the cold and rain.
The woman he’d run to get away from until he settled here in this tiny mountain town. The woman he’d fallen in love with when he’d known there was no hope of her being his.
The woman who could never know anything of what he felt for her, so he had to run as far away from her as possible.
“Valerie,” he said, taking a step forward, blinking as if he couldn’t believe she was there. He fumbled for the dimmer switch, giving them just a bit of low light.
Her brown curls, olive skin, green eyes were all as strikingly beautiful as he remembered.
But there were hollows under her eyes; he could make them out even in the subdued glow from the overhead lamps. Her face held a kind of strain he hadn’t seen there before.
She held her hat and scarf in both hands as she took a step forward. “Hello, Francis.”
“Valerie,” he repeated, feeling as if his heart had tied itself to cement and jumped overboard. “What are you doing here?”
She took another step forward, into better light. Those weren’t hollows under her eyes. One was blackened with purple bruises.
“I need your help.”
2
Francis just stared in shock as Valerie flushed over her tanned skin.
His friend’s mate, whom he’d run from over a year ago, showing up on his doorstep, asking for help, was literally the last thing he’d imagined in his entire life.
She should be going to her mate. Weren’t they still together?
“Where’s Charles?” he asked.
She flinched slightly and shifted her weight from foot to foot. He realized how rude he was being by keeping her standing in his entryway. Shock had obviously made him forget his manners.
He numbly pushed away the need to find out who put those bruises on her so he could go lay a beatdown on them and turned on a lamp as he walked to his recliner, gesturing for her to sit.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should stop with the questions. Obviously, you’ve been through enough.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t easy to find you,” she said. She gave him a strained smile as she set her scarf on the table beside her, followed by her huge, bulky winter coat. She was shrinking as he watched her.
He was disheartened to see her curves had diminished, though he should have guessed as much from the dark circles under her eyes, the hollows in her cheeks that weren’t there before.
She’d always been curvy, just the way shifters liked. When she was happy, she ate, worked out, and generally enjoyed life.
So what the hell had happened?
She wore a purple sweater that outlined a still cur
vy but much smaller body, a neck that had always been a bit delicate, a short torso paired with long, shapely legs.
Still beautiful, though she always would be to him. But he still couldn’t believe she was in his living room in Bear Canyon.
“What are you thinking, looking at me like that?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “That I’m not pretty anymore?”
“No,” he said. “It’s just… weird to be seeing you again.” And wondering what made her unhappy. Not to mention what put those bruises there.
“I know,” she said, folding her jean-clad legs underneath her. “It’s really beautiful up here, even if it is in the middle of nowhere.”
“I like it here.”
“I don’t blame you,” she said. Her eyes turned wistful as she looked at the rain falling outside the large, room-sized windows that revealed the hilly, tree-covered mountain. “Why did you run so far away from us?”
“Us?” he asked. “Did Charles care?”
“You were his best friend.”
Until he’d stolen the woman Francis was in love with. “I thought you two needed your own space.”
“We both cared about you.”
“I was tired of being a third wheel.”
“You introduced us,” she said. “You were never a third wheel.”
“How is Charles doing, anyway?” he asked. “I can’t believe he would let you come up here alone, let alone let something like that happen to his mate.”
She absentmindedly touched the bruises on her eye and continued to watch the rain. “We aren’t together anymore.”
His heart jumped, even if it shouldn’t have. If they weren’t together, then maybe there was a chance…
He shook his head. What a stupid, selfish thought to have at this moment.
Sure, there was a time when Francis had thought Val was his mate, but then he’d been incredibly wrong about that, and it had made him angry enough to want to escape his entire world.
Not far enough to escape her, though, the pretty glow of her sea-green eyes, the warmth of her tawny skin, the kindness of her smile that, even behind bruises, lit up the dark night.
But if she’d mated Charles, she was still his mate, even if they weren’t together right now. Mating was something that stuck for life. Perhaps it was his job to just help them get back together.
“What do you think about Charles?” she asked, her expression carefully neutral.
“I don’t know.” Angry thoughts pounded through him. Thoughts he had no right to think—that he’d been tricked, that everything he wanted had been stolen. In reality, Charles had just been the better man. Francis had lost fair and square.
“Because I don’t want you to call him and let him know I’m here.” She raised an eyebrow. “Even if you still have some misplaced loyalty to him.”
“Misplaced?”
She sighed, lowering her gaze as if tired. “I don’t know. But promise you won’t?” She lifted her stunning green gaze to him. Such a calming, soothing color, but nothing about her expression soothed him now.
She was trying to stay rational, but he could see desperation behind those eyes.
“Charles would want a chance to avenge his mate, even if you two aren’t together right now.”
She snorted. “No, he wouldn’t.”
Francis wrinkled his brow. “Why do you say that?”
She folded her arms over her ample chest and leaned back. “Just trust me.”
“So you broke up with Charles and then someone else did this? Or what?”
She frowned. “Do we have to go over this now?” She seemed to be shrinking into the chair, and her dark hair, lightly highlighted with caramel strands, was still damp from the rain.
“No,” he said. “But I’m struggling to see my place in this. And the bear in me is wanting to lay a beatdown, but I know it’s your mate’s place, not mine.”
The bear in him let out a snarl, deep inside. Francis rubbed his chest.
“I think I just want to rest,” she said. “Do you have a spare bed?”
With an amused smile, Francis looked behind him at the huge upper floor. “Yeah, I think that can be arranged.”
She answered him with a small smile of her own. “Looks like it. Thanks, I appreciate it.” She stood, gathering her scarf and coat in her arms.
“Should I go outside and get your things?” he asked, walking toward the door.
“No,” she said sharply. “I didn’t bring anything.”
He turned back to her slowly. She’d left in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes on her back.
She had bruises. They might be fresh.
She wasn’t with Charles, but she didn’t want Francis to call him.
Things were all pointing in a direction that made him very uneasy.
“Val, why is it you don’t want me to call Charles?”
She fidgeted, burying her fingers in her coat and scarf, twisting them up in her hands. She looked so small and alone in the middle of his living room.
Francis took a commanding step forward into the room, his hands tightening into fists. “Dear God, what did he do?” Rage was building inside him with the power of the world’s strongest chemical reaction.
He pushed it down with every bit of strength he had, for her. “Valerie, tell me and I’ll kill him now. I’ll kill him right fucking now.”
He felt claws pushing out from where his nails had been, fur growing on the back of his neck.
Valerie rushed forward and grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling hard on him until his lips crashed over hers.
Shock overwhelmed him as the feel of her plump, warm lips devouring his took over, calming the animal inside him.
He felt the shift abate. Thank heavens. He didn’t want to shift with her right there.
His hand twisted in her curls and cupped the back of her neck. He kept the kiss gentle, even as her lips were voracious, trying to open his.
He kept them closed, even though feelings were flooding through him. Everything he’d ever wanted was happening right now. He feared he’d wake up and it would all be a dream.
She pulled back and he missed the feel of her lips immediately.
“Francis,” she said, looking up at him. “I need you to mate me. For protection.”
His eyes flew open, searching hers. They were desperate, afraid. He put his hands on her arms and gently set her back from him. “Valerie, you don’t need to do this. I can protect you either way. Now tell me what’s happening.”
She tore away and stormed over to the window, looking down. “You don’t understand. Maybe you never will. After all, you left when things got hard. Maybe you’d run again.”
“I don’t get it,” he said, coming up behind her. “You were Charles’s mate.”
She turned to him with flashing eyes. “And that’s all you’ll ever see from me, won’t you?” She pushed at his chest and tried to get past him, but he blocked her route. “You’re just going to be loyal to him no matter what I tell you. I should just go, because you’re not going to like what I have to say if I stay here.”
“Why not?” he asked. “Look, if you tell me he hurt you, my loyalty changes right this fucking second. I’d defend you to my last breath, Valerie. You should know that.”
She blinked, and he caught the glimmer of tears at the corners of her eyes. “Then why did you leave me?”
He felt deeply confused in a way that was painful. He’d thought he was doing the right thing by moving on and letting her and Charles have a chance at making their new life.
“Never mind,” she said, swiping her tears and trying to push past him again. But Francis was a huge guy, and when he wanted to, he could use it to his advantage. He blocked her way again, still trying to be gentle.
She sighed. “I’m just blaming it all on you because I feel stupid. But I need to go work this out on my own. I don’t even know why I came here.”
He caught her by the arms and pulled her in against him.
When she hit his chest, he wrapped both arms around her tight, as if he could ward off the desperation and fear and keep her safe from anything in the world.
She sank into him, wrapping her arms around him as she began to sob loudly against his chest. Angry tears were shed in the dark silence, and he let her cry as long as she wanted, keeping the animal in him calm.
Something had gone incredibly wrong. And no matter what happened immediately after this, the world would be different than he’d ever imagined.
Valerie was back in his arms.
3
“You’re staying here, with me,” Francis said firmly, his voice deep and reassuring.
“Okay,” Valerie said. She sank into his strength, so grateful to have someone like him to lean on for the first time in so long.
He was as warm and kind and welcoming as she’d remembered, as free of judgement as he’d ever been.
So that made it all the harder to imagine telling him his former best friend was a total monster, and she’d been a fool for picking him over Francis.
Not that she’d really had any sort of choice. Francis had always been kind and fun, but he’d never given any indication he had any interest in her, and Charles had assured her Francis had no interest in curvy girls.
Charles had lied about a lot of things, though.
She could still remember the whirlwind that being courted by him had been.
She shook her head, closing her eyes tight against the memories. She was here now, enclosed in huge, muscular, kind arms, being rocked slightly side to side as she cried. She hadn’t even known she had this many tears in her. It hadn’t been safe to cry for a long time.
Even if it was going to be complicated—trying to get Francis to see what Charles was—she knew she would be safe here. Francis wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She just knew on a base level she couldn’t really explain.
Perhaps because he was the only “shifter” she knew other than Charles, and maybe the only one who could take him on if he came for her.
When he came for her, because he would. He thought they were meant to be together; that was for sure.
Secrets of the Bear (Trapped in Bear Canyon Book 4) Page 1