Bear Fate: A Billionaire Oil Bearons Romance (Bear Fursuits Book 8)

by Isadora Montrose

  “I admit Calvin showed a different side today. But he’s usually so stiff and disapproving that I just want to creep into a hole.”

  “Patrick was like that at first. But the love of a good woman has made a new bear of him.” Heather was smug.

  “And you think I could work a similar miracle on Mr. Calvin Bascom? I don’t think I’m cut out to be a miracle worker, Heather. I’m not much for trying to change people. I just want to take them as they come. And Lance doesn’t seem to need much in the way of changing.”

  “You’re infatuated,” Heather accused.

  “I’d say, interested. I enjoy Lance’s company, and I look forward to more of it. He’s easy to talk to.” And he smelled right.

  “Is he a good lover?”

  “Heather Dupré Bascom! You’re asking for a little too much information, sis. We haven’t gotten anywhere near that far.”

  “Is he at least a good kisser? Kissing is important. If a man’s no good at kissing, he is not going to be any good at the rest of it. It’s been a long time since Willie was killed.” Heather’s voice was warmly sympathetic.

  “This has nothing to do with Willie,” Amber snapped.

  “Sure it does. You’ve lived like a nun since he died.”

  “Maybe,” Amber conceded. “I’ll tell you this for nothing, I don’t feel like a nun around Lance. Not the least littlest bit.”

  *Bearly Ever

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Calvin~

  About the time his SUV was rumbling down the side road towards the Diegos’ house and the small cabin that Carlos and Rosa were renting to Amber, it finally dawned on Calvin that he was about to make a fool of himself. What he wanted to do was scoop Amber up and carry her off to the Big House where the security was as tight as Steve Holden’s experts could make it.

  Unfortunately, he had about a snowball’s chance in hell of persuading her to move into Laura’s house. Amber was sure to assert her independence and insist on remaining in the cabin. And he had no way of compelling her to do the sensible thing. Hell, he didn’t even have an invitation from Laura, let alone a direct order.

  He stepped on his brakes. The SUV obeyed and glided to a smooth halt on the snow-covered road. The lights of Carlos’ and Rosa’s house glimmered through the trees. The cabin was a glow from behind the house, reflecting off the snow on their roof. Amber was home and up. He turned off his vehicle and thought.

  He needed proof that she was in danger. If that damned snake wanted to do her an injury, his best strategy would be to slip out of jail, attack her, and return to his cell before he was missed. That would be a piece of cake for a snake shifter who could leave by the ventilation system, or any other set of vents. Even a drain would do in a pinch. He had better scout around the cabin and make sure Blondie had not already paid her a visit.

  A snow bank that had been broken by cows moving between pastures made a perfect spot to conceal the SUV. Cal got out into the frigid air and began to strip. He disapproved of taking bear anywhere. Doing so on the ranch with dozens of people around was simply asking for trouble. He ignored his shivering and reached into the SUV to turn off the overhead lights.

  When he was completely naked and standing barefooted in the snow, he began his transformation. He fucking hated this. The wrenching pain as his bones broke and reformed was excruciating. He set his jaw against the feral bellow that threatened to give him away and endured. It seemed to take forever before the change was complete and he was equipped with large paws and a heavy coat. When he set off towards the trees, his face still ached as if he had been punched in the jaw.

  But his eyesight had sharpened. The snow reflected enough light that he could clearly see the tracks of the hares and deer that had been visiting the ranch. His hearing improved too. He distinctly heard boots squeaking in the snow and tramping up onto Amber’s wooden porch. The boots stamped, knocking off snow. A brisk knock followed.

  The door opened. Had she even bothered to check who her visitor was before she opened her door?

  “Hey,” Amber’s rich contralto said softly. “Leave your boots on the mat.”

  “Thanks,” replied Prescott’s baritone. The door shut and blocked all but a murmur. That bastard was kissing her.

  Cal reminded himself that he had not come out to spy on the girl. He was looking for sign of a villain. He resisted the impulse to batter down the door and forcibly remove Prescott. Now that Kenneth and Lucy were home, Steve had better get on with investigating that bastard. They had a duty to protect Amber against fortune hunters.

  The paths that led to the Diegos and the stables were packed down by those worn-out boots of Amber’s. He made a note to speak to Pat about it. Surely Heather could see that her sister was properly dressed? Amber had left her scent behind too. A delectable aroma of nubile female bear that aroused his bear senses and made him eager to seek her out. Except that he knew exactly where Amber was. What he was looking for was the musky odor of snake.

  Although the ground beneath the drooping boughs had been entirely protected from a winter’s worth of snow, the fir trees around the cabin were laden with snow. Each time he stuck his snout under the lowest branches, the pine needles were redolent of deer mice and other small rodents, but there was no smell of snake, let alone snake shifter. Soon his head was covered with snow mixed with pine needles. Melt water trickled into his eyes and nostrils.

  Disgruntled, Cal padded on. There were a great many trees. And he was leaving prints the size of pie plates. Fuck. Some cowboy was going to get his shotgun out and fill his sorry ass with buckshot. Couldn’t be helped. He quartered the area right down to the Diegos’ driveway and as far as the stream. He shook snow off by the water and watched as sparkling drops and broken needles pockmarked the unbroken and crusted snow.

  He was leaving spoor in a highly indiscreet manner, but at least he had established that the snake had not approached the cabin. Which did not of course mean that Blondie wouldn’t. The cabin only looked rustic. It had been built to withstand Colorado winters with heavily insulated walls and flooring and a sharply pitched roof. The windows were triple glazed and only a fool would open them on a night like this. Amber might be naive, but she wasn’t a fool.

  He could go home to his own warm and comfortable bed and leave Amber and Prescott to their evening’s entertainment. Presumably Prescott could handle a snake that crawled through the drains. The hell he could. Cal circled the cabin while their conversation hummed and buzzed. At least if they were talking they were probably not in bed. Unless Prescott hadn’t bothered with preliminaries. Shit. Their chatter was probably preliminaries.

  He selected a tall oak that would hold his weight and climbed up to sit in the crook of one of its snow-covered limbs. It was too damned narrow for comfort. Too damned awkward for sleeping. And too damned far from the cabin to hear Amber and Prescott. But at least he could see over the tops of the firs and the roofs of the cabin and house. If anything came, he would hear and see it.

  Images of Prescott undressing Amber’s ripe and luscious curves, peeling off her tight jeans to expose her lush thighs and generous rump, tormented Cal. Shit. He was no voyeur. As a rule, other people’s sex lives held zero interest for him. It appeared he was making an exception for this lovely young bear.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Lance~

  Amber had done something to her hair. Curled it or something. It hung loose and the thick, dark waves framed her flushed and beautiful face. She had changed her shirt too. The silky purple and black blouse followed the line of her bosom and hinted at the curve of her waist.

  “You look especially pretty,” Lance said inadequately. He was immediately reminded that a shave and a clean shirt had done nothing to alter his disfigured face. He had tried growing a beard, but his skin was so damaged that his beard grew only in patches. The result was even grimmer than when it was clean-shaven.

  “I made popcorn and hot chocolate,” she said shyly.

  He took his
parka off and hung it beside hers. Placed his shotgun against the door jamb. Her bed was made up and covered with a quilt and cushions. She had pulled her little table beside the single armchair and arranged the food on it. One of the two straight-backed chairs was set on the other side. She waved him towards the armchair and they enjoyed a polite skirmish which he lost.

  “I didn’t know if you like marshmallows.” She picked up her mug where three tiny ones floated.

  He shook his head. “Bit too sweet for me.” He took a sip and was pleasantly surprised. She had made it from scratch and it was bracingly chocolaty and barely sweet. “This is delicious.”

  Belatedly he realized that she was nervous. Probably afraid that having invited himself over, he would force himself on her. How could he reassure her without making her more self-conscious? He took a larger sip and reached for a handful of popcorn.

  She took some too. Like the hot chocolate, the popcorn was homemade with just the right amount of butter and salt. He glanced around. Yup, she still only had one hotplate and a microwave.

  “Did you make this on your hot plate?” he asked.

  She shook her head. Her curls bounced and her smile broadened. “In the microwave. My sister and I worked out a way that is faster and doesn’t set off the smoke detector.” She pointed to the plastic device on the ceiling.

  “Cooking alarm,” he said and she laughed. He helped himself to more. “It’s really good.”

  “Thank you.” Her nervousness was back. She cleared her throat and spoke. “I guess now that Laura has had her babies, she will be able to keep the ranch.”

  Lance raised his brows. “What do you know about old Clive’s will?”

  “Just that he left one that sure set the cat among the pigeons! Not just here in Colorado. He made a passel of trouble for my folks in Washington State too.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. Clive Bascom was a mean old goat, if there ever was one. I didn’t have much to do with him, myself, but I got to listen to him harassing Zeke, Patrick and Calvin. They’d show up for a visit and, without fail, he’d start in on them neglecting their true duty. By which, if you can believe it, he meant resigning from the military. And Major Bascom was in Special Forces, with I don’t know how many decorations.”

  “I heard he put it in his will that Zeke, Pat and Calvin couldn’t inherit unless they resigned,” Amber responded in horrified accents. “Is that even legal?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But if it isn’t illegal, it sure ought to be.”

  “Say that again. Half of my cousins are in the military, and the other half would like to be.”

  “It’s the same back home in Tennessee,” he assured her. “Anyways, I do know that Miss Laura got the lawyers to waive that condition, although I couldn’t say how. But that still left her to cope with the stipulation that she marry and have a child if she wanted title to the Double B. Which was just wicked, considering she had been running the ranch and the stud for Clive for over ten years.”

  “What a way for family to behave.” Amber shook her head. “But now that she has a husband and two children, Laura must get to keep the ranch for good, right?”

  “I’d guess so. And a good thing too. The alternate heirs are those cousins who tried to kill her and Steve last year.”

  “Gosh.” She was shocked all over again. “I guess that fits in with how Clive left money to my step-grandma.” He drained his mug and she got up and fetched a thermos. “Would you like another cup?”

  “Thank you.” He sipped. It was just as good. “Your step-grandma?” he prompted.

  “My Grandma Shirley was Clive’s love child,” she almost whispered. A blush stained her cheeks. “He left her money and you never saw a ruckus like my kinsfolk kicked up in French Town, fighting over it. There’s still a lot of bad feeling and a lot of it is focused on Patrick, because he was the one handling the money.”

  “I don’t understand. If the bequest was for your grandma,” he ignored the issue of illegitimacy, “Why was there a problem at all?”

  “By the time Clive Bascom passed, Grandma Shirley was long gone herself. The family started fighting over this new money.” Amber sighed. “Her will said she left her money to me and Heather, but the rest of the family didn’t see it that way. In the end, Patrick set up a scholarship fund in Grandma Shirley’s name and married Heather. He keeps trying to give me money, but no way.” She pressed her lips together tightly.

  “Hmm.” Best not to comment on that. “Is that bad feeling why you came out to Colorado?”

  “Partly. Mostly I was tired of being gossiped about.” She held out the bowl without saying what the gossip was about. “More popcorn?”

  He took a big handful. She passed him a paper napkin. “Think you’ll ever go back?” he asked.

  “Calvin says he will take me home as soon as my sister’s babies are out of the hospital.”

  He could take a hint. “How are they doing?”

  “Plumping up.” She reached into her hip pocket and produced her cell. “See.”

  The babies seemed to have fewer wires and tubes than before. They were still thin and their eyes were shut. But fans of lashes lay on rosy cheeks instead of being obscured by swollen eyelids. “They’re bigger,” he said, which was true.

  She sighed. “Not big enough to go home. Laura and Steve are so lucky.”

  “They are. But it won’t be long before your sister will be taking her daughters home. In another year, this anxious period will be history, and those girls will be toddling around shouting at their Aunt Amber.”

  She brightened. “They will, won’t they?”

  “You bet.” He covered her hand with his and squeezed. He wanted to kiss her, but her chair was just too far away – deliberately, he supposed.

  She withdrew her hand and picked up her mug again. “What about you? Will you go back to Tennessee?”

  “Just to visit. Nothing left there for me.” Which wasn’t as true as it had been. Somehow meeting Amber had made the old pain fade to unimportance.

  “That’s too bad,” she said sympathetically. “It’s not just Tennessee. We have a major unemployment problem in French Town too.”

  He nearly snorted hot chocolate all over her. As if! He settled for a half-truth. “That’s not exactly the problem in Falkirk. It’s just that all the jobs involve working for my cousin, and I can’t do that.”

  “How come?”

  “He stole my wife.”

  “You’re married?” Her blue eyes went round with shock and her voice squeaked.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Amber~

  “Divorced,” Lance corrected, while Amber’s heart squeezed painfully. “Holly divorced me to marry Tommy Jack.”

  She felt desolate. What did it matter who divorced whom? Marriage was marriage. She felt entirely blindsided by his revelation. It came from being from the ultimate small town. And from being raised among bears. She and Heather had hardly grown used to the idea that Patrick’s father was multiply divorced. Even Bobby Dupré had stuck to Aunt Marlene.

  Back on the Ridge, her male chauvinist kinsfolk might think that she and Heather intended to abandon all tradition to become modern women. But wanting to be treated as equals by their husbands hadn’t really altered their fundamental ideas about marriage. She and Heather still held fast to the values of bears. They both wanted a soul deep bond and forever after. Heather might have had to compromise, but she didn’t plan to. No way. No how.

  She forced herself to speak, “Tommy Jack would be your cousin?”

  “Yup.”

  “Do you have children?” Please, no.

  He shook his head. “No. We didn’t get around to it before.” He gestured to his face.

  “She left you because you were wounded?” As soon as they left her mouth, Amber wished her words unspoken. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  Lance gave a bitter laugh. “Told me that she couldn’t stand to look at me – even with the lights o
ut.”

  “That must have made everything a thousand times worse.” What sort of woman left her injured husband for his own cousin? Let alone a husband honorably wounded in battle? And what kind of person stated her reasons so baldly and unkindly?

  “You could say that.” His crooked smile was back. “At the time, it seemed like the final indignity. But I guess Holly had a point. After all, she didn’t sign on to look after an invalid.”

  “You are hardly an invalid. And that’s what ‘In sickness and in health’ means,” Amber shot back fiercely. She touched the back of his hand. “I’m sorry you had to endure that.”

  “I’m legally blind in this eye.” He touched his patch. “Can’t see much besides color and light. And it’s never going to get any better. Of course it probably seemed worse to Holly in the beginning, when both eyes seemed damaged, and I could barely walk.”

  Holly had left him because he might go blind? Dear heaven. “Light and color are better than nothing,” she said practically. “What about motion?”

  “With my left eye? I can make out movement no trouble, but I can’t bring anything into focus.”

  “Then why do you wear a patch? Some sight is better than none.” If it was unpleasant to look at, tough for the looker. She had seen it, and it was a real mess, but Lance was the one actually suffering. It was just wrong to avert your eyes from disabilities as if your delicate sensibilities were the issue.

  “It’s too repulsive to put on view, Amber. Besides, the lid doesn’t close properly and when dust and grit get in, the damn thing runs like a river.”

  “No dust and grit in here,” she responded. She did not expect him to remove the patch and he didn’t. But he looked less strained.

  “Anybody ever tell you that you are sweetness personified?”

  “Nope.” Not hardly. Back home, men usually described her as sharp-tongued and bossy. Of course Willie had thought she was sweet and sexy. But even if Lance didn’t mean his compliment, it was nice to hear the words.