Evernight Publishing ®
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2016 Pumpkin Spice
ISBN: 978-1-77233-658-0
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Karyn White
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
Goldie Locks began from a clipping in the newspaper that sparked my attention: Woman Arrives Home to Find Man Sleeping in Her Bed. Isn’t that how all good fairy tales begin? I took my musings to my favorite fellow writers, two blondes, who helped me with some of the inside jokes. These blondes became the basis for Rapunzel. Every Goldie has a Rapunzel in their life—I’m lucky because I have two. To DV & JW—this is for you. XOXO PS
GOLDIE LOCKS AND THE THREE BROTHERS BEAR
The Amāre Tales, 2
Pumpkin Spice
Copyright © 2016
Chapter One
“Hayden, you're going to love this.”
I spun around in my chair and faced my editor, Bob, who was perched above me in the editor’s box. While I coveted the bird’s eye view he had of the newsroom, I didn't envy the position or stress he had overseeing the only all-news radio station in Amāre. It was hard enough competing with Internet bloggers to stay one step ahead on local and state issues, I couldn’t imagine having to worry about ratings, too.
“What ‘cha got?” I leaned back in my swivel chair and interlocked my fingers behind my head.
“Some gal on the East side just called the cops because she found a man asleep in her bedroom,” he said.
I dropped my hands and shot forward in my chair. “And she didn't know him?”
When Bob shook his head, his black comb-over threatened to reveal the balding he refused to accept. Balding didn't worry me, but the ever present threat of losing my six-pack and gaining a beer gut did.
“Nope,” he said. “No clue. She found a complete stranger in her bed.”
“No way.”
“Way,” Bob said. “Just heard it on the police scanner, and Delores down at Metro confirmed it.”
“So what exactly happened?” I grabbed the pencil tucked behind my ear and began taking notes on my reporter notepad—a thin elongated pad that fit squarely into the palm of my hand where I placed it as I already drafted the on-air news promo that would tease the story: Woman finds stranger in bed.
“Apparently,” Bob said. “She’s a nurse that works the night shift. She got home this morning and found some man asleep in her bedroom.”
I scratched out the headlining promo and wrote: Woman arrives home to discover … a stranger in bed. It wasn’t quite hitting the mark, but if Phil read it just right on the air it could blow down the house and pull in listeners. I glanced at my empty notepad and realized Phil could read it in Swahili, if I didn’t get the story I wouldn’t get the listeners. “This nurse, she work at the city or state hospital?”
Bob knew what I was asking. Was this a local gal or a transplant? The Amāre city hospital hired local, but the state hospital hired whoever they could recruit.
“I’m pretty sure she’s a city employee.” Bob flipped through his steno pad. “Yeah, she’s a city nurse.”
I jotted down Amāre Medical Center, which would instantly generate on-air interest. “Did you get her name?”
When he didn’t reply, I glanced up, and my editor was wildly grinning.
“Goldie,” he said.
I stared at his gray-blue eyes to see if he was bluffing. Bob was part of our monthly newsroom poker game. He had been a decent player until I learned his tell—anytime he bluffed he'd occasionally blink like he had something in his eyes. His eyes weren't winking, fluttering or twitching. The old man was telling the truth.
“Her name is Goldie?” I asked just to clarify. “Like Goldie Hawn?”
He shrugged. “If she looks half that good it's your lucky day.”
I rolled my eyes, grabbed my backpack and held out my hand for a set of car keys I knew Bob would toss me. “Where am I headed?” I caught the keys and address at the same time.
****
The station’s news van was as outdated as the faded brown paint, white rimmed tires, and turquoise leather interior, but still it beat using my own gas and adding miles to my Mustang. I climbed into the van, programmed the East side address into my iPhone and headed toward the rich side of town. In the little mountain community of Amāre, the haves and have-nots were easy to identify. Those that had wealth lived on the East side, and those that barely had enough to survive lived on the West side. Unfortunately, I knew the dynamics all too well. My older brother lived on the East side, and my baby brother lived on the West. I lived in the middle of the two divides up on the mountain.
The neighborhood wasn't hard to find, and the red and white flashing lights from the squad car made her house easy to identify. For all the money the Eastsiders had, their homes all looked alike. Goldie's house was a cookie-cutter replica of my brother’s. I pulled up to the white washed two story complete with a pristine, manicured lawn and porch swing that looked like Martha Stewart hung it herself. Yet despite the Stepford appearance, the lights from inside the house shone against the beveled glass windows and gave it a warm yellow hue. It looked inviting. I stepped out of the news van and stared at the soft, welcoming glow. It’s no wonder the guy wanted to come inside.
I slung my backpack over my shoulder and plugged the handheld microphone into the media player. The microphone was old school, but I found most people preferred to speak into something versus speaking into air. A microphone gave them somewhere to direct their responses.
I stepped onto the wraparound porch and immediately noticed that the ceiling was strung with mini lights. They intermittently twinkled. In the early morning light, the twinkling wasn’t as brilliant as I imagined it would be if the sun wasn’t competing to be seen. Even though the flickering lights were barely visible, it added a rustic charm to an ordinary East side home. I was about to knock on the front door when her voice filtered out of the open front window.
“Who is he?” Her tone peaked, but even distressed it had a certain melody to it that was captivating.
I quickly turned on the voice recorder, stuffed an earbud into my ear and aimed my handheld microphone toward the window screen. I checked the volume gauge on the media player. It was turned to the maximum setting. It allowed the faintest sound to be recorded. If the cat and fiddle kicked it up next door, I’d know. When she spoke again it was as if she was whispering in my ear.
“I've never seen him before this morning.” The sincerity in her voice made me want to know more. I leaned on the window sill just out of view but closer to her.
“As I told the other officer.” Her voice in my ear was hypnotic. Captivated, I pressed against the screen without any thought. “I came home from work and found a pair of shoes I didn't recognize by the front door to my house.”
“Shoes?” The officer’s voice wasn't as easy on the ears.
“Yes, a pair of black loafers or—I don’t know, men's shoes?” Her voice sounded so familiar, but I didn’t know anyone named Goldie. I inched forward on the window sill and then inched a little more. Only when I inched forward a third time, my weight shifted and I forgot that the only thing between me and
this Goldie woman was a thin mesh screen. And suddenly it gave out. I crashed through the screen, fell forward, but my height and weight prevented me from falling entirely into her living room. My upper body was in her house while the other half of me was still hanging outside her window. It was like a Halloween costume gone wrong—and I was wearing both ends. If the fall didn’t hurt, her ear-piercing scream did.
I tried to get myself upright, but each time I attempted it, I kept tipping back down and couldn’t seem to regain my footing. I looked like the classic toy drinking bird. The only thing missing was a glass of water to dip my nose in.
I finally decided to hold myself up with one arm. Under normal circumstances, the one-arm push-up would have been quite impressive, but these weren’t normal circumstances. I managed to pull the earbud out of my ear and look up as my former college roommate entered the living room. I smiled. "Hey, Burt."
“Bear, what the hell?”
“Do you know him?” Even shocked her voice was alarmingly spellbinding. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
Burt grabbed my arm and helped me to my feet. I quickly brushed off my jeans and extended my hand. “Good morning. I’m Hayden Bear with KBRU News Radio.
“Uhh…” She looked at me to Burt and back again at me. “I’m Goldie.”
Her long wavy hair was as rich and golden as her name. If her golden hair didn’t catch a man’s interest, her eyes would. A mesmerizing shade of green with flecks of gold that seemed to shoot into a shimmering starburst of color, they were impossible not to stare into. Offset by skin that was the fairest I’d seen in all the lands I’d traveled, she was a beauty beyond compare. Wow.
“Goldie,” I said at the young woman dressed in coral-colored hospital scrubs. Suddenly, I wanted a sponge bath.
She softly smiled, and in that smile a man could forget where he was. Or what he was supposed to be doing.
I cleared my throat. “Sorry about your screen.” I pointed to the mesh mess on the hardwood floor beneath my feet. “Yeah, I'll get that fixed and returned to you. Though you probably shouldn't leave your windows open at night. Three houses across town were recently hit, and they’re all owned by the Pig Construction Brothers. They said the guy who hit them was a real wolf. So open windows probably not a good idea…” As soon as I said it I wished I hadn’t.
“Oh, we’re going there?” Her green eyes flashed with anger, and the fairest face in all the land ignited with fury. “It wasn’t the front window that was the problem, Mr. Bear. It was an unreliable lock that allowed a total stranger access to my house and my bed.”
I fumbled with my media player and held out my microphone that had taken a hit when I came tumbling into her house. The mic was smashed, and the handle had dented. It looked like I was offering her a limp flower. “Would you mind repeating that?”
Her full, rose-tinted lips curved into a smile, and when she began to laugh it wasn’t loud and obnoxious, nor was it high and squeaky. Hers was the perfect pitch. “You’ve got to be the worst or the best newsman in the industry. I’m just not sure which.”
I felt my cheeks tinge with heat and tried to shrug it off. “I’m neither. Just desperate to get a story on the air before the bloggers beat me to it. And this is a good story.”
Goldie and Burt stared at me. Only Goldie was still smiling, and I would do anything to keep that smile on her face.
“Right, well, I was hoping to get an interview about the recent events,” I said.
“And you couldn't what? Knock on the door?” The tone in her voice was serious, but her playful grin wasn’t.
“Well the last guy didn’t so…” I snorted a laugh. Suddenly the playfulness on her face disappeared. Nope, wrong answer. “I should have knocked,” I said to her and then glanced at Burt and gritted a smile. “I was about to knock when...”
“You heard something too good to let get by?” he said.
Yes, her voice. I nodded. “Something like that.”
“Well, Bear, I’m sorry, but you won’t be able to interview Miss Locks,” Burt said.
“Oh, come on. It was an accident, and I said I’d pay for the repairs.”
“It’s not that,” Burt said. “There’s a conflict of interest.”
I had shared a dorm room with Burt during freshman and sophomore years of college. We played a lot of poker on nights we should have been studying. His only tell was his voice. When it shifted down and low, he was either holding a killer hand or he was holding crap.
“Conflict of interest?” I weighed that Burt was bluffing to see how far I’d go to get the interview.
Burt cocked his head toward the foyer in her house.
I shook my head. “Nope. Any conflict of interest can be shared openly. I have no secrets.”
Burt placed his hands on his hips. “The man that Miss Locks found in her bedroom.”
I discreetly pressed the “record” button on my media player.
“The one that smelled like alcohol and cigars?” Goldie said. “The one I found passed out in my bedroom but not before he went into each of my guest bedrooms and tried out two other beds—that man?”
Burt nodded.
“It’s the million dollar question,” I said.
“Who is he?” she asked.
Conflict of interest, my ass. I extended my deformed mic toward him.
Burt looked me square in the eye. “He’s still sleeping it off, but we were able to identify him. It’s Dylan.”
“Bear? Dylan Bear?” I asked.
Burt gave a curt nod of his head.
I took a startled step back—too far back. Goldie reached for my hand. I grabbed it before I fell back through the open window.
Chapter Two
The current that coursed through my body when our hands connected was electric, heated, and downright magnetic. He slipped his hand into mine so naturally and effortlessly it was as if I found my other half. I held onto him until he regained his footing.
“Dylan Bear. Is he related to you?” I lightened my grip, but I wouldn’t let go until I had an answer.
Hayden’s deep brown eyes reflected his response before he did. “Yeah, he’s my older brother.”
I quickly released his hand. “And you had no idea that your brother had decided to let himself into my house and sleep off his bender in my bed?”
Hayden shook his head.
“In Dylan’s defense,” Burt said. “He lives one street over, and your house looks identical to his.”
Hayden raised his eyebrows. “Your house does look a lot like my brother’s.” He scratched the back of his head. Hair the color of wheat moved back and forth in a wave of motion. Suddenly I wanted to reach up and feel it between my fingers.
I shook my head. Goldie, get a grip. This is crazy. You don’t even know him.
“Burt, you’re sure it’s Dylan. My Dylan? It’s not like him to do something like this.” Hayden paused.
There was something about his voice. Something about the way he defended his brother. The absolute certainty he had in him that caught in my throat. He’s loyal. This is going to be hard for him to accept.
“Burt, you know Dylan. He’s a by-the-books kind of guy,” he said. “If he hasn’t first planned it out, it doesn’t happen.”
“Is your brother about six-two, lean build, and a carries a can of dip in his back jean pocket?” I said in a gentle, reassuring tone.
Hayden volleyed his head from side-to-side. “That could be said of many guys in Amāre.”
Even when the guy was in complete denial, he was cute. But cute wasn’t going to speed up this process and clear half of Amāre out of my house so I could get to bed. And right now all I wanted to do was go to sleep. While it was morning to them, for me, it was the end of my shift and time for some shut-eye.
I walked toward the man whose mere touch sent shivers down my spine and spun him around until he faced my open, screen-less window. I reached up and lifted down the collar of his denim shirt. His neck was thick and led to b
road shoulders that were tanned, muscular and tone. Mercy.
I gently touched the tattoo just under the collar of his shirt. The inked claws looked like it dug into him, but it was smooth to the touch like his skin.
He shrugged his shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“Just checking,” I said and put his collar back in place. “I’m sure everyone in Amāre also has this identical paw print on the back of their neck like your comatose brother.”
“It’s our coat of arms.” The definition in his cheekbones became pronounced, and his eyebrows furrowed.
Uh-oh. Touchy subject.
“It’s not a paw print,” Hayden said. “It’s a bear claw. We’re one of the oldest families to homestead in Amāre. The Bear family is steeped in tradition.”
I tried to mask my amusement, but I couldn’t help myself. “And is part of that tradition to enter a woman’s home, check out all her beds until they find the perfect fit, and then settle in for the night?”
When Hayden was embarrassed, his cheeks flushed and his deep inset brown eyes shone brightest. He was one bear of a man all right. I just wasn’t sure I wanted him and his brother in my house. I didn’t even know them.
“If,” Hayden shook his misshapen microphone toward me. “And I’m not confirming it’s my brother, but if, it is my brother, he would not have just entered your home unannounced. It would have been purely by accident. Dylan is the oldest Bear, and he’s nothing if not responsible.”
As if on cue, the sleeping Bear stumbled into my living room to join us.
“Hayden, what happened?” Dylan rubbed his head and blinked his eyes to adjust to the morning light. “Where am I?”
Hayden’s face drained of color. “Oh, no.” He exhaled and looked at me. “Miss Locks…”
I looked at Hayden, and if my eyes could have relayed a feeling it would have been empathy. It wasn’t Hayden’s fault his brother showed up unannounced in my bed.
Goldie Locks and the Three Brothers Bear Page 1