Smolder: A Werebear + BBW Paranormal Romance (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 2)

by Sexton, Ophelia

  Not that it really mattered. She would be dead in a few minutes, and then Pete was getting the hell out of Bearpaw Ridge and going home.

  * * *

  Mark's office phone rang just as he was finishing up the first draft of Greg and Sheri Roberts' will. He glanced at it and saw the Caller ID of the Bearpaw Ridge PD.

  Curious, he picked up the handset and hit Talk. "This is Mark Swanson."

  "Mark, it's Bill Jacobsen. I wanted to you let you know that I just had a visit from an Albuquerque police officer named Pete Langlais. He wanted to interview Caitlyn about the death of his partner. You know anything about that? Has she mentioned it?"

  "No," Mark said, surprised, "but it definitely sounds like I should be there when he talks to her. Where is he? I'll be right over."

  "I sent him over to your place on the ranch," Jacobsen said. "One more thing: Langlais was a cat shifter. Couldn't figure what kind, though—I've never smelled anything like him. I thought I should let you know."

  "Thanks. I appreciate that," Mark said tightly.

  He felt a pang of unease at the thought of an unknown shifter looking for Caitlyn.

  "So is it true that you've mated Caitlyn Morgan?" Jacobsen asked. "Are congratulations in order?"

  Mark blinked. He wondered which of his family members had spilled the beans. This was one of the downsides of living in a small town—it was damned hard to keep a secret.

  "Not quite yet," he told Jacobsen. "But I'm working on it. It's a little tricky, because she's an Ordinary."

  He knew Jacobsen would understand that to mean that he hadn't told Caitlyn about shifters. Yet.

  "In that case, good luck," Jacobsen said.

  "Thanks," Mark replied. "And thanks for letting me know about Pete Langlais. I'm going to head home and see if I can catch him there."

  "I'm sure it'll be fine," Jacobsen assured him. "I checked his ID. He's legit—he's been with the Albuquerque PD for ten years."

  As he ended the call, Mark felt his uneasiness deepen. Someone—a shifter—had come all the way from Albuquerque, in person, to talk to Caitlyn? Why hadn't they just phoned or emailed her?

  Something was going on, and Mark didn't like the thought of a strange shifter in his own home, interviewing his mate, when he himself wasn't there.

  Mark stood and decided his office hours were over for the day.

  * * *

  Something moved outside the kitchen window. Caitlyn turned her head to look out the window. And froze.

  She had just finished posting the day's batch of stories and reader-submitted photos on the Mythtrust News site and needed a break from working on the Roger Pemberton story. She had decided to go with the angle of a stalker who had lied about a paranormal event to hide his crime, and she hoped Jake would agree.

  She wanted to surprise Mark with a special dinner tonight, to repay all the times he had cooked for her.

  As she began to sauté Italian sausage and diced onions for her special lasagna, she caught sight of movement out of the corner of her eye.

  A huge sabertooth cat stared at her from a few feet away, oversized ivory fangs gleaming. It was crouched low, nearly hidden by the low shrubs in Mark's back garden.

  It looked like a combination of a lion and a tiger, with a brindled coat of reddish brown and cream, an abbreviated dark brown mane covering its neck and framing its face, and large golden eyes fixed on her with a predator's intensity above those huge teeth.

  Caitlyn's first shocked thought was, Montoya's video wasn't a fake!

  Then the sabertooth's muscles bunched, and she realized that only a thin, fragile barrier of glass separated them.

  Moving automatically, she turned off the stove, then began backing slowly away, heading for the doorway that led from the kitchen to the rest of the house.

  Her phone was out of reach, sitting on the breakfast nook table next to the large bay window. And Mark's house didn't have a landline phone in the kitchen. She needed to get to the living room—

  The sabertooth cat leaped for the window and came straight at her. Too terrified to scream, Caitlyn threw herself to one side, hoping to dodge the monster.

  As glass shattered and Caitlyn's field of vision narrowed to a pair of malevolent golden eyes burning above deadly fangs, an enraged roar shook the house and vibrated through her bones.

  And a huge brown bear came out of nowhere to tackle the sabertooth just as the cat landed on the floor of the kitchen.

  Two heavy animal bodies skidded across the slick linoleum, struck Caitlyn, and sent her crashing into the nearest wall.

  She collapsed, the wind knocked out of her, and wheezed frantically for breath as she watched the lion and the bear tangle together in a frantic tumble of limbs and bared fangs.

  Her heart was pounding in her ears so loudly that it drowned out most of the growling and snarling going on. She had never been so terrified in her entire life.

  On the scale of terror, even her car accident hadn't come close to this.

  I'm dead. I'm dead because one of those guys is going to kill and eat me. Oh God.

  * * *

  The sabertooth cat raked at Mark with its hind claws, trying to disembowel him.

  Mark didn't care. Both he and his bear wanted the cat dead, bloodily and messily dead, for daring to invade his home. For trying to hurt their mate.

  And in any case, his thick pelt protected him, leaving him with deep scratches but little worse.

  He swiped at the sabertooth with one huge paw and saw blood spray as his long, wickedly curved claws sliced through fur and flesh, raking savagely down its side.

  Only the thick, reddish-brown mane prevented Mark from completing the stroke and tearing the intruder's throat wide open.

  The sabertooth yowled in agony, twisted sinuously, and rolled swiftly out of reach as Mark roared and swatted at the cat again. He missed, and it took off with a giant leap through the broken window.

  Then it was gone, leaving scarlet splashes of blood in its wake.

  Mark wanted to pursue it, but he needed to make sure that Caitlyn was all right. Had the sabertooth injured her? If it had, Mark would track it to the ends of the earth and kill it.

  Pete Langlais, you're dead. You just don't know it yet, he thought grimly as he lumbered over to where his mate was huddled on the floor.

  She gave a muffled shriek at his approach and curled into a fetal position. The reek of terror rising from her made his heart hurt, especially when he heard her frantic whisper.

  "Play dead…play dead…oh God, it's coming closer…play dead."

  He was frightening her. His mate thought he wanted to hurt her.

  Mark halted, took a deep breath to calm himself, and willed himself back to man-shape. His bear, riled up by the scent of the wounded cat and concern for their mate, didn't want to retreat at first, but Mark's will finally prevailed.

  When his shift completed, leaving his skin prickling with the familiar pins-and-needle sensation, he saw that Caitlyn was sitting up, her back to the wall. Her face was bleached of color, and her eyes were wide…and horrified. He saw her scan the long bleeding wounds on his torso and limbs and shake her head in disbelief.

  He crawled slowly over to her on his hands and knees, carefully avoiding the shards of glass glittering on the linoleum.

  "Caitlyn?" He reached for her, and she flinched away from his touch.

  Her reaction sent a stab of pain through him.

  "Are you hurt?" He couldn't smell blood.

  She just stared at him.

  "Caitlyn?" Despite the emotions surging through him, he forced himself to keep his voice gentle. "Are you all right?"

  "You were a bear…I saw you," she said, her voice a disturbing monotone. "Pemberton was right. Oh my God."

  "Caitlyn," Mark began. He had no idea what he wanted to say next.

  She began to shiver, and he recognized the signs of shock.

  Still naked and on his knees, Mark reached for her. She didn't resist when he wrapped
her in his arms. Her skin was cold and clammy.

  He rose to carry her into his home theater room, where he could wrap her in the fuzzy blanket currently draped over the back of his sofa.

  As he left the devastated kitchen, she whispered, her voice tearing through his heart like a sabertooth's claws, "You lied to me."

  Chapter Thirteen – Secrets and Revelations

  "Caitlyn, I'm so sorry," Mark apologized yet again as he returned from the kitchen. "I was going to tell you, I swear. I was just waiting for the right time."

  He sat down next to where she was huddled in the corner of the big leather sofa and offered her a steaming mug. "Here, drink this."

  Each movement an effort, she accepted it. Her mind felt like it was filled with white noise. Thoughts moved like molasses through the crackling static of disbelief warring with a new reality.

  Over and over again, she relived the fight between that impossible sabertooth and the giant bear…who had dwindled down, its features and furs melting, changing, until Mark had emerged.

  Mark is a shapeshifter. A shapeshifter.

  How could it be true? She had spent her entire adult life denying that the paranormal existed…and now everything she knew about the world and reality had just been turned upside down.

  Montoya's video…Pemberton's wild story…All real. All true.

  What am I going to do now? She felt hollow inside and more battered than she had in the aftermath of the accident.

  For the lack of anything better to do, she took a swallow from the mug and tasted hot milk laced with honey and brandy.

  It was delicious, and it sent a ball of warmth expanding out from her stomach, dissipating the bone-deep chill that was making her teeth chatter.

  She took another sip, then another, until every last drop was gone.

  By the time she finished, the worst of the shakiness had passed, and she was feeling almost back to normal again. Mark had moved closer to her, and his right arm was draped over the back of the couch.

  Despite what she'd just seen, and despite her anger at his deception, his proximity felt good.

  But why wasn't he touching her? She needed the comfort that his nearness always brought her.

  But he had kept a careful distance between them since settling her on the couch.

  "I've called the police," Mark said. "Sheriff Jacobsen is going to want to ask you some questions about what happened here."

  Somewhere along the line, he'd gotten dressed in a pair of black sweats.

  "That…sabertooth cat. Who—who was that?"

  It has to be the same creature that Montoya filmed back in Albuquerque, she thought.

  But how did it know I was here?

  "I think it was an Albuquerque police officer named Pete Langlais," Mark said, watching her closely. "You know him?"

  "Oh my God. I talked to him on the phone a few days ago." She didn't try to hide her reaction.

  Pete Langlais was one of them?

  This is bad. This is really, really bad!

  "Caitlyn, what's going on?"

  She took a deep breath. Time to come clean…because if giant sabertooth cats were coming after her, she needed the help of a giant bear or two.

  No matter how crazy that still sounded, even after what she'd just seen.

  "It all started when this video arrived in the mail—" she began and was interrupted by the doorbell, followed by loud knocking.

  Mark raised his head to look in the direction of his front door, and she could swear he sniffed the air. "Come in, Bill! We're in the den!"

  A moment later, Sheriff Jacobsen entered the room. He gave Caitlyn a sharp look.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  She nodded. "You are not going to believe what just happened to me."

  Sheriff Jacobsen gave her a thin smile. "Try me. Mark's already given me the TV Guide version."

  Caitlyn blinked at this news.

  "Have a seat," Mark invited him. "Caitlyn was just starting to tell me about a video she received back in Albuquerque."

  "Good," said Jacobsen, settling himself down on the other end of the couch. "I'm dying to know why something as rare and vicious as sabertooth shifter is after you." He shook his head. "I've never met one before today."

  So the sheriff knows about shifters too? Caitlyn gulped.

  Shifters are real. And yet she still couldn't quite believe what she'd seen.

  "And how are you connected to the death of Sergeant Richard Montoya back in Albuquerque?" the sheriff asked.

  "Hold on a sec," Mark interrupted. "Caitlyn, will you let me sit in as your lawyer?"

  She threw him a startled glance. "Um, sure. But I don't have anything to hide."

  Caitlyn turned back to the sheriff. "I didn't have anything to do with his death."

  "That's not what Langlais told us…though he's not a credible source right now," Sheriff Jacobsen said grimly.

  "Look, this whole thing started when my boss and I received a video sent to the Mythtrust News PO box," Caitlyn began. "Turns out, the person who sent us the video was Sergeant Richard Montoya…"

  She told them everything she knew and had guessed, including why she had phoned Pete Langlais.

  Except for occasional questions to clarify details, both Mark and Sheriff Jacobsen listened attentively to her story until she was done, with Mark interjecting occasional cautions when she began to speculate about one thing or another.

  "Well, that explains why the sabertooth shifters are after you," he said with a sigh. "Your local group—they call themselves a pride—probably panicked that you'll post that video on the website and expose them to the world."

  "We don't have a lot of cooperation or agreements within the shifter community," added Sheriff Jacobsen. "But keeping our existence a secret—well, that's probably the only thing that we all agree on. It's just common sense, especially considering what's happened in the past."

  "They used to rouse entire towns to hunt us with packs of dogs and every weapon they could rustle up," Mark said grimly. "These days, the authorities would probably whisk us away to a lab somewhere for testing and vivisection."

  Caitlyn shuddered at his words. Thanks to a hundred sci-fi movies, she could imagine that scenario all too well.

  Mark strapped to an operating table somewhere, while sinister scientists wielded big needles and razor-sharp scalpels…

  She shuddered again. And realized that she wasn't afraid of him, she was afraid for him.

  "It sounds like your boss did the smart thing, sending you out of town," Jacobsen said. He sighed heavily. "I owe you a big apology, Ms. Morgan…Langlais knew you were here at the ranch because I told him." He grimaced. "He was a cop, and I believed his story about conducting an independent investigation into the death of his partner."

  Caitlyn shook her head. "You didn't know what was really going on…and neither did I."

  Jacobsen rose from the couch. "With your permission, Mark, I'll take a look at the kitchen now. I'm thinking we'll put Mary and Jim on Langlais' trail. If he's as badly hurt as you think, Mark, they'll hunt him down in no time."

  "I'll help," Evan said unexpectedly from the hall.

  Caitlyn started in surprise. She hadn't noticed him come in. He grinned crookedly at her, leaning against the doorway to the den. "I noticed the sheriff's car parked outside, and bear noses work a lot better than a bloodhound's nose…or a wolf's." He tapped his nose and winked at her. Then he glanced at his brother. "And I'm guessing there's no way you're going to leave your mate alone while that cat is still out there somewhere."

  Evan was a bear shifter too? Well, he was Mark's brother, so it made a crazy kind of sense.

  And…what did "mate" mean, exactly? Was it the same thing as fiancée? But she hadn't actually agreed to marry Mark yet, even if she couldn't imagine leaving him, not now.

  And I don't really care if he turns into a giant scary bear. The revelation surprised her.

  "Got that right," Mark said grimly. "Thanks, Evan."


  "No problem," Evan said. "Caitlyn's family now, isn't she?"

  "She is," Mark said.

  A jolt of warmth shot through her at his words. She wanted to snuggle against Mark, but he was still sitting six inches away from her, and his normally calm features wore a forbidding expression.

  * * *

  After more questions and discussion about what to do next, Sheriff Jacobsen left. He had already phoned his two wolf shifter deputies and put them on Langlais' trail.

  Evan stayed for a while longer and assured them that he'd pass the word about Langlais along to Dane and his mother.

  Caitlyn tried to protest. She didn't want to put them all in danger. But Evan shook his head.

  "Look, even if you weren't Mark's mate…that shifter came onto our land and attacked one of our guests. There's no way we can let that slide. Don't worry, Caitlyn. We'll take care of this. We're bears…and we protect our own."

  Mark nodded grimly, and the last of the residual terror from the attack dissipated in Caitlyn's gut.

  She was safe. The Swanson family would keep her safe. Big scary bears or not, she knew in her heart that she could trust them.

  Before he left, Evan helped Mark nail a large sheet of plywood over the broken kitchen window.

  While they worked, Caitlyn swept up the broken glass from the floor and dumped it into one of the grocery sacks. Then she got to work on the countertops, which also glittered with jagged shards.

  She looked at the ruined meal still sitting on the stove and felt like crying. The Italian sausage looked like it had been sprinkled with diamonds.

  When the front door had closed behind Evan, Mark made them both sandwiches and hot tea. The food made her feel better. Less shaky and hollow.

  Afterwards, Mark led the way up to the bedrooms on the second story.

  To her surprise, he stopped in front of the guest room door and opened it.

  Caitlyn looked at him in dismay. "What are you doing?"

  True to his promise, he had moved her out of the guest room and into his bedroom as soon as they had returned from their visit to Boise.

  They had spent three nights together since then. Caitlyn loved falling asleep with his big body curled around her in the aftermath of lovemaking.