Smoke (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 7)

by Ophelia Sexton

  “I’m sorry,” Mary said, struck to the core. “I had no idea.”

  “No one did, but thanks.” Tyler’s expression lightened. He continued, “Anyhow, Aunt Elle suggested I go live with my Grandpa Rob and Grandma Betty in Portland and use the opportunity to think about what I wanted to do with my life.” He took another forkful of eggs. “That move turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. My Mom’s family, the Schaeffers, are all Ordinaries, but they did their best to help me. Grandpa Rob gave me a job at his company and actually paid me a decent wage.”

  “Doing what?” Mary asked, fascinated.

  “A little bit of everything,” Tyler answered. “He moved me around the company, had me work with different guys doing everything from demo to carpentry and painting. After I’d been working for a year or two without screwing up, Grandpa Rob started encouraging me to study for my general contractor’s license. I liked building things, and I really liked earning his respect. He was tough but fair, and when he complimented me, I knew I’d earned it.”

  “Yeah, I know that feeling,” Mary agreed.

  It was true. Sheriff Bill Jacobsen might be her uncle, but he’d never given her a break just because she was his niece and a fellow pack member. She’d worked hard to earn her promotion to deputy sheriff, and she cherished the memory of the day last year when Uncle Bill had confided that he was going to recommend that she run for sheriff after he retired.

  “So it sounds like things are going really well for you in Portland,” she added.

  Tyler nodded. “Grandpa Rob retired last year, and I’m running Schaeffer Construction now.”

  “So you’ll be returning to Portland soon?” Mary asked.

  She’d made a serious dent in the delicious breakfast while Tyler was talking and was now mopping up the syrup with the last of her waffle.

  “Not as soon as I’d like,” Tyler said, taking a sip of his coffee.

  At his words, her wolf sent a wave of protest and uneasiness through her, making her joints ache.

  What the heck? I barely know him!

  “I never wanted to come back here,” Tyler continued. “But after Dad died, Mom called and begged me to come home, just for a little while.” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I’m an only kid, so I couldn’t really say no. You know how it is.”

  Bear shifters were notoriously protective of their mates and families. Phoebe Swanson might be an Ordinary, but if she had told her son she needed him, he would have felt compelled to come to her aid.

  Just like pack bonds, thought Mary.

  Tyler’s next words confirmed her suspicion.

  “Once I saw how badly the house was wrecked…I don’t know what came over me, but I promised her I’d rebuild it for her. So now I’m stuck here until the project is finished. I’m doing a lot of the work myself, but I need workers for some of the jobs. It’s been taking forever, because there’s a serious shortage of electricians, plumbers, tilers, and other skilled workers in this county.”

  “Has Fred Barker been able to help you out at all?” Mary asked.

  Fred, a wolf shifter and a member of Mary’s pack, was the town’s longtime electrician as well as a volunteer firefighter.

  “A little, but Fred’s got more work than he can handle right now,” Tyler answered. “I’ve been helping him out with roofing and framing work whenever I can, just to even out the trade.”

  The mental image of Tyler in a tool belt and hardhat, straddling a beam, made Mary’s face go hot. She reached for her mug and hastily raised it to her lips, hoping that Tyler wouldn’t notice her flush.

  What the hell is wrong with me? I’m a grown woman but he makes me feel like a teenager with a crush.

  * * *

  After breakfast, Mary rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher, then began washing the skillets.

  Tyler tried to take over, and there was a brief standoff until he reluctantly backed down. Not quite defeated, he grabbed a dishtowel and began drying the skillets as soon as she’d scrubbed them clean of grease and dried bits of egg.

  As they stood side by side in front of the sink, she was deeply aware of the fact that he was close enough that his scent surrounded her, and she could feel the heat radiating from his body.

  Just a couple of inches separated them. If she took a half-step to her right, she could put her nose into the crook of his muscled neck, then kiss her way up to…

  Damn it, girl! Down!

  Her constant stream of R-rated thoughts would’ve been bad enough if Tyler was a nose-blind Ordinary man. But she knew that a bear shifter’s sense of smell was even keener than a wolf’s. She didn’t want to embarrass him—or herself—with the scent of her arousal.

  But it was impossible to stop the fantasies of what it would feel like to kiss him…and do more. Her palms itched with the desire to pull up the hem of his T-shirt and smooth her hands over his tight torso and the hard, flat planes of his chest and back.

  Stop it…oh God, just please stop it, she pleaded with her wolf.

  But it wasn’t just her wolf who wanted to get closer to Tyler Swanson. Mary’s human half was just as attracted to the big firefighter.

  He had to be smelling her surge of desire by now. Tyler’s expression didn’t change, but he deliberately reached around her to put away the long-handled spatula in a drawer.

  His arm brushed her lower back, and the contact felt electric. Craving more, she couldn’t help leaning into his touch, just a little.

  “Dammit, Mary!” he snarled.

  Startled, she jumped away from that deliciously tormenting contact. “Sorry!”

  Hurt and humiliation speared through her like a volley of red-hot needles. She dropped her gaze to the floor tiles. I was wrong! I thought he liked me too, but he was just trying to be nice, and now I’ve screwed everything up!

  “I didn’t mean to—” she began.

  “Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep my fucking hands off you?” Tyler asked, his voice dropping into a sexy growl.

  Startled, she looked up and met his intense gaze. His hazel eyes were misted with shifter gold, and they burned through her.

  And then his arms came around her, pulling her close. Her breasts were flattened against his broad chest, and his breath was warm against her mouth as he bent his face to hers.

  She was surrounded by his scent, pressed against him from hips to chest, and it felt wonderfully, gloriously right.

  “I was going to wait to make a move, but I’ve been wanting to kiss you since I saw you in your pajamas,” he said, and his expression turned from frustrated to predatory.

  Relief washed through her, borne on a tide of eagerness. I wasn’t wrong! He does want me!

  “Oh, good,” Mary managed, before she surrendered to temptation.

  She was tall for a woman, but Tyler, like the rest of the Swanson males, was even taller. She raised herself up on tiptoes to brush her lips against his.

  When their lips made contact, it felt like being struck by lightning. A bolt of white-hot sensation shot through her, racing down through her chest to her toes and kindling a warm, pulsing ball of need between her legs.

  Her wolf flooded her senses with a rush of tingling energy that usually preceded a shapeshift.

  She felt Tyler growl against her mouth, and she realized that he felt it too. She started to pull back, but Tyler slid his hand up to the back of her neck and prevented her retreat.

  Then he took control of the kiss.

  Mary had kissed quite a few men, both Ordinaries and shifters. But none of them had ever made her feel like this.

  Her knees went weak as a powerful surge of desire swept through her like a tidal wave. Tyler deepened the kiss, and her lips parted under the sensual assault.

  He took that as an invitation to explore her mouth with his tongue, and it felt amazing. He seemed to know just how to stoke her desire.

  Good God. If he can kiss like that, I wonder what he’s like in bed.

  Screw my resolu
tion not to date any more bear shifters. She couldn’t wait to find out what else he could do with that talented mouth.

  When he finally ended the kiss sometime later, she felt intoxicated, as if she’d just downed several shots of whiskey in rapid succession.

  “Damn,” he breathed, looking as shaken as Mary felt.

  They were both panting, and Mary felt the heavy beating of her heart echoed in a hot pulsing throb between her legs.

  She clung to him, inhaling his scent and wondering what the hell was happening to her. Why a bear shifter…again? And why him?

  A knock at the front door startled them both.

  They instinctively sprang apart, then Tyler pulled Mary behind him in a protective gesture that made her melt.

  Even though, as a law enforcement professional, she was more than capable of protecting herself…and him.

  “Who’s there?” Tyler called, his voice thick with frustration.

  Chapter 6 – Remembrance of Things Past

  The universe just fucking hates me, Tyler thought in frustration.

  He’d been in his happy place with Mary, panting and appealingly flushed in his arms, her lips moist and swollen from making out with him.

  But now she’d pushed him away and was standing in his kitchen looking guilty and embarrassed because one of her damned wolf-shifter relatives had caught her kissing the town’s black sheep.

  And it wasn’t just any relative standing on Tyler’s porch. Oh no.

  He knew the universe fucking hated him, because he recognized the scent of the nemesis of his high school years, Sheriff Bill fucking Jacobsen.

  He forced down a frustrated growl, tried to ignore the one-two punch of that spectacular kiss followed by swift rejection, and called out, “Come in, sheriff! Door’s unlocked.”

  Because he’d be damned if he acted like he was embarrassed by what had just happened. He’d wanted it. So had she.

  And it had been good…so fucking good.

  Good enough that he was fighting the urge to carry her into his bedroom and taste every inch of her while doing his best to make her scream his name.

  Except that now Sheriff Jacobsen was going to be standing in his house looking all grim and judgmental.

  God damn it.

  He heard the front door open.

  Mary shot Tyler a quick glance, and he could swear she looked apologetic.

  “Hey, sweetie, I thought I’d drop off your spare uniform and see how you were doing,” Bill Jacobsen said as he advanced into the living room.

  He was a tall, lean wolf shifter with short, sandy blond hair that was turning silver at the temples. He was dressed in his uniform and had a bundle of clothes in sheriff’s department khaki tucked under one arm.

  Sheriff Jacobsen had been working for the Bearpaw Ridge Police Department for over twenty years, and he was experienced in handling shifters in both their human and animal forms…as Tyler remembered all too well.

  “I’m doing fine, Uncle Bill,” Mary said, looking as if she’d been caught red-handed stealing something. “Just, uh, shaken up a bit.”

  Smooth, Officer Mary. Real smooth, Tyler thought with amusement.

  He liked that their kiss had obviously thrown the usually poised and self-confident Mary Jacobsen for a loop.

  Hell, it had thrown him for a loop, and he couldn’t remember the last time that just kissing someone had done that to him.

  “Hi!” Bogey said brightly from his cage.

  Sheriff Jacobsen’s questioning glance took in the big cage and the parrot inside.

  “Hi,” he responded politely to the bird. “Are you a shifter?”

  “Nope, just a regular parrot with a side order of obnoxious,” Tyler said.

  “His name’s Bogey,” Mary supplied.

  “I see,” Sheriff Jacobsen said gravely. He inclined his head in the direction of the cage. “Well, hello, anyway.”

  “Hi,” Bogey said again, this time in a girlish voice that Tyler assumed belonged to the bird’s former owner.

  Confronted with evidence that maybe Sheriff Jacobsen wasn’t the authoritarian jerk that Tyler had considered him in earlier years, he decided to kill his former enemy with kindness.

  “There’s still some coffee in the pot—want a cup?” he asked, forcing himself to smile.

  The sheriff paused, clearly surprised by this offer. He scanned Tyler from head to toe with the same laser-like blue gaze that used to haunt Tyler’s nightmares as a teen.

  “Yeah, thank you,” he said and added after a moment, “I heard that I have you to thank for saving my niece’s life this morning.”

  Tyler wondered how that little piece of news had gone down. Trying to hide his smirk, because he had sworn to turn over a new leaf while he was in town, he turned to reach for a clean mug and poured the last of the coffee into it.

  “Just doing my job,” he told the sheriff, trying to sound casual. “Do you want milk or sugar in your coffee?”

  “I take it black,” Bill Jacobsen said, severely, as if adding anything to coffee was a sign of moral failure.

  “Right,” Tyler said, trying not to roll his eyes.

  He handed Sheriff Jacobsen the mug and groped for something conversational to say.

  Bogey spoke up. “Jeez, do you have to be such an asshole?” he asked, in Tyler’s voice this time.

  The sheriff froze, the mug halfway to his lips. “What did you just say?”

  “It was the parrot,” Mary said quickly.

  Tyler felt a warm glow at her quick leap to his defense. “Told you he was obnoxious,” he added.

  “Hm.” Thin-lipped with disapproval, Bill Jacobsen eyed the large cage.

  “Hey,” Bogey said brightly, still in Tyler’s voice. “Asshole!”

  Tyler braced himself for the inevitable explosion. Instead, the sheriff just shook his head wearily and offered Mary the folded spare uniform.

  When you were a shifter, you never knew when you’d be forced to shape-change. Most shifters kept a spare set or two of clothing stashed in easy-to-reach places, and that apparently included the Bearpaw Ridge PD.

  “You know, Mary, there’s no need to stay in a stranger’s home,” Jacobsen said, smoothly excluding Tyler from the conversation, “when there are pack members who would gladly take you in. You know that Mandy and I have a spare bedroom now that Jennifer is mated and living in a home of her own…”

  Tyler realized that he couldn’t stand the thought of Mary leaving before they’d had a chance to explore whatever-it-was between them.

  He tensed…and once again, she surprised him in a good way.

  Smiling, she shook her head.

  “I appreciate the offer, Uncle Bill, really I do. But I couldn’t possibly break my lease on such short notice,” she said cheerfully. “My new landlord requires at least one month’s notice…isn’t that right, Tyler?”

  What? Oh.

  Abso-fucking-lutely. Hell, I should ask for six months’ notice!

  “That’s right, Sheriff Jacobsen,” Tyler managed, hoping that the other shifter wouldn’t sense the bald-faced lie. “It’s in the lease.”

  Which doesn’t actually exist…yet.

  Tyler decided on the spot that his first priority this morning was to download a lease template from his favorite legal website, customize it, and make sure that Mary signed it ASAP.

  “Asshole!” Bogey repeated cheerfully.

  “Bogey, shut up!” Tyler growled, which only made the green-and-yellow parrot bob excitedly on his perch.

  When Tyler had first adopted Bogey, he’d been warned not to give the parrot any drama rewards for undesirable behaviors. Or to reinforce bad behavior with laughter. But it was just so damned hard sometimes not to yell—or laugh—at some of the shit that Bogey came up with.

  Tyler saw Bill Jacobsen sigh and shake his head before turning his attention back to Mary. “You don’t have to come into work today if you need to take care of business.”

  “Thanks, but working will keep m
y mind off…things,” Mary said, and the brief flash of heartbreak across her face made Tyler long to fix everything for her.” She glanced over at the clock on the microwave. “I just need to phone Jennifer about getting the insurance claim started, and then I’m coming in.”

  * * *

  Dressed in her spare uniform and armed with an insulated lunch box that Tyler had insisted on packing and giving her, Mary arrived at the police station 30 minutes later.

  The Bearpaw Ridge Police Department was located behind an old storefront at the opposite end of Main Street from Annabeth Swanson’s Cinnamon + Sugar Bakery & Café. Mary had taken the opportunity to duck into the bakery and buy a box of assorted pastries before coming into work.

  The police department was a pretty small organization, consisting of Sheriff Bill Jacobsen, who served as Chief of Police, three shifter deputy sheriffs including Mary, and her younger brother Kenny, who served as the combined Community Service Officer/Animal Control Officer.

  She met her fellow deputy sheriffs Roy Bagweshi and Annika Tringstad as they exited the building. He was a tall eagle shifter of Agaidika Shoshoni ancestry and she was a short, curvy wolf shifter with dark brown curls and a sweet smile.

  “Heard what happened, Mary,” he said and clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry about your house."

  "I’m really happy you’re okay," Annika added.

  “Thanks,” Mary managed.

  “Speaking of which,” Roy continued, “your parents came by. They’re waiting inside.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder and strode towards his official BPRPD Chevy Tahoe.

  Annika gave Mary a quick hug, then trotted after her partner.

  Mary’s heart sank, but she squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and entered the station.

  Sure enough, her parents were there.

  Mary had just enough time to set the pastry box down out of harm’s way before Mom launched herself from the old couch in the visitors’ area.

  She rushed forward, hugging Mary hard. “Oh sweetheart, thank God you’re safe. I was so worried!”

  The hug—and her mother’s familiar, beloved scent—made Mary feel better.