“Of course, I can see him. Why wouldn’t—” Trevor’s voice trailed off as comprehension lit my brother’s eyes. “Is he… He’s not…”
I turned back to Nicholas. “It didn’t work? You’re still here. We buried your bones just as you said. Why didn’t it work? And why can my brother now see you?”
Nicholas lowered his arms as Trevor’s arm had dropped with the pistol at his side.
“It did work, but not in the way I expected.” Nicholas grasped my hand, tightening his fingers around mine. He placed my hand upon his chest. “I’m alive, Alice.”
I heard the thunk of the pistol hitting the rug after it fell from Trevor’s slack fingers.
“Alive?”
Nicholas nodded. Light and love shone from his blue eyes as he gazed at me.
“I’ve been given a second chance at life, Alice. A chance to spend the rest of my days with the woman I love.”
“Nicholas…”
“Marry me, Alice,” he said. “I promise to spend the rest of my new life proving to you that I am the hero you deserve.”
“Oh, Nicholas… Yes.” I smiled as fresh tears surged behind my swollen eyes, tears of joy and happiness as I saw my dismal future drift away to be replaced with a new hope-filled one. A life of love spent together.
“This will be a strange story to tell your grandchildren,” Trevor said quietly from where he stood in the middle of my bedchamber.
I smiled, and Nicholas let out a bark of laughter.
Where to find Tricia Schneider
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Other Titles by Tricia Schneider
The Merriweather Witches
The Witch and the Wolf
The Witch and the Vampire
The Witch’s Thief
The Witch’s Kiss
The Cougar Shifters
Loving Boone
Claiming Cody
Ice Princess
Night of the Full Moon
The Mermaid
Her Haunted Valentine
About the Author
Tricia Schneider is a multi-genre romance author. From werewolves, vampires and witches to wicked pirates and sexy aliens, she weaves sensual stories where happily-ever-after is a guarantee. She firmly believes there is a book for everyone. A sentiment she gained after years of working as Assistant Manager and bookseller at Waldenbooks. After the store closed, she turned to writing full-time, publishing paranormal, historical, fantasy, sci-fi and gothic romances.
Tricia lives in Pennsylvania with her four children and two rescued cats. When she’s not typing away on her laptop, she’s riding shotgun in a ’67 Impala while keeping her eyes open for a madman in a Big Blue Box.
Hers To Bear By C.D. Gorri
A Barvale Holiday Tale 2
Paranormal Romance
Edited by BookNookNuts
Cover Design by C.D. Gorri, Mystic Worlds Ink Publications & Design
Copyright C.D. Gorri, New Jersey 2020
Dedication
To Tammy,
Because you love Halloween and I absolutely adore you. Thank you for all the support, encouragement, and constant dedication.
Xoxo,
C.D. Gorri
Description
Barvale might be home to one of the biggest Bear Shifter Clans in the entire continent of North America, but shhhh…it’s a secret!
“Crazy” Maisy Daniels couldn’t leave Barvale fast enough after high school. She’d earned that hated nickname after telling her classmates she’d seen a boy change into a Bear just behind the football field! A social pariah and the butt of every joke in her grade, it was no wonder she’d promised herself to never step foot in that godforsaken town again.
But when her dad has emergency surgery, who else can help? Maisy returns home to find things are a mess. The tractor is broken and there are only a few hours until the Daniels Farm Annual Haunted Halloween Hay Ride & Spooky Soiree begins. Unfortunately, the only repair shop open belongs to the bane of her high school days, Arthur Lance himself. It’s time for Maisy to just grin and bear it!
Arthur Lance just opened his third full service garage and automotive repair shop in his hometown of Barvale, New Jersey. Business was going great, but his Bear wasn’t satisfied with a job well done. The silly animal was still pining for the one who got away back in high school. Burying himself in work was the only thing he could do to keep his beast placated and his human side sane.
Maybe his fate is to be alone as punishment for hurting the only female he’d ever wanted? His Bear can’t stand the thought. He’s stuck at work on Mischief Night, when to his surprise he gets a frantic call from Maisy Daniels herself. Finally, Arthur has another chance.
Will Maisy accept him as her fated mate when he finally reveals the truth?
Prologue
Don't miss your opportunity to get a F*R*E*E book from C.D when you reach the end of this collection. Watch for the Reader Magnets links!
Barvale High School, Twelve years ago...
“Crazy Maisy!”
“Crazy Maisy!”
“CRAZY MAISY!”
The chanting grew louder and louder as Maisy Daniels hurried away from the high school football field. She could hardly control the trembling of her body. As if being a chubby blonde with braces wasn’t hard enough, she had to go and blab to the school busybody what she’d just seen behind the old bleachers.
Crap. Why did Maisy make the mistake of telling Lorna Manning what she’d seen? Her first school event after a rough couple of weeks as a freshman hadn’t been enough for her? She had to go and trust the one girl who’d tormented her in middle school. How could she be so stupid!
Barvale High School, home of the Black Bears Football team, was about to celebrate homecoming by announcing the royal court and playing everyone’s favorite game against their rivals, the Maccon City Wolves. Maisy had gone by herself right after she’d finished her chores at home. She’d been waiting for someone safe to walk in with on the far end of the field when she’d heard a strange sound.
Ever curious, she’d tiptoed behind the tall gate and stopped to crouch down between the rows of broken, old bleachers and a very large green dumpster to see what all the ruckus was about. Her green eyes widened when she spied the most handsome boy in her class, Arthur Lance, just a few yards away.
She would know him anywhere. He had recently moved to Barvale with his family, and she’d seen him in town and when his mother came to her family’s farm store to shop. Of course, he was normally with a group of popular boys whenever she saw him. And being the attractive, athletic boys they were, they always seemed to hang around with the popular girls.
Not Maisy’s crowd. It was no wonder he didn’t know her from Adam. Gosh, he was handsome. At sixteen years old, he was already six-feet tall and slender, but still built, with inky black hair and warm brown eyes.
She’d been following him with her eyes all over school. He was one of the most popular guys and only a grade above her. But what was he doing standing under those rotten wooden bleachers the high had recently ripped out for the pretty nifty bucket seats and storm shelter that were currently filled with hundreds of students and folks from town.
The noise seemed muffled in light of her pulse racing, but she knew it would be loud. Barvale sure loved their football team. Arthur was supposed to be very good from what she’d heard, but Maisy wasn’t exactly an expert on the subject. Shy and into reading and the SYFY channel, Maisy was not the average high school kid. Maybe it was from being an only child or from growing up with a down-to-earth father and no mother. She’d ponder that later, right then she was busy.
Her eyes widened when she saw what Arthur was about to do, but wild horses couldn’t make Maisy look away as he pulled his sweatshirt over his head to reveal smooth, bronzed skin. He seemed to be sweating, and he grunted like he w
as in pain, grimacing and gritting his teeth hard before pushing down his pants. She covered her mouth with her hands.
It wasn’t that she was seeing a naked boy for the first time that had her so freaked out. Or the fact that said naked boy was one she’d often daydreamed about. Nope. None of that was as frightening as what had happened right before her eyes.
Arthur Lance, high school royalty, had crouched down on all fours, panting and groaning, wait, was he growling? Holy smokes! Yes, he was growling. He was like some kind of wild animal. Maisy gasped as she realized he was getting bigger, and bigger, and, oh goodness, furrier. She bit back a scream when he stopped writhing and grunting. The enormous, dark creature that was Arthur Lance turned his glittering black eyes on her and chuffed out a cloud of warm breath in the cool night air.
Holy crap! The boy she’d been crushin’ on had just turned into a Bear! She might have passed out if she wasn’t so afraid for her life. Turning on her heels, Maisy ran as fast as her chubby legs could carry her all the way to the ladies’ room inside the school. That was where she’d seen Lorna Manning and had stupidly confessed to her.
Not ten minutes had passed before the chanting began. She didn’t know it then, but “Crazy Maisy” was going to follow her around throughout her high school career. Not wanting to stay and be humiliated she ran home as fast as her chubby legs could carry her. It was two miles down the main road to Daniels Farm, but she made it in under eighteen minutes. Heart thundering and panting for air, she walked into the kitchen and she sat down hard with her head in her hands. What was she going to do? Why did this have to happen to her?
“Maisy, is that you? What are you doing back already sweetheart?” her dad had called from the living room.
“Hey Dad. I, uh, wasn’t feeling well. I’m gonna go to bed,” she lied and took the stairs for her room.
Her pink quilt was comforting as she plopped on her bed and stared at the clouds painted on her ceiling. It was one of the last things she and her mom had done together. It might be childish now for a high school student, but she’d refused to let her dad paint over it. She loved her ceiling clouds.
A drunk driver had taken her mother to an early grave a few years earlier and there wasn’t a day that went by where she didn’t miss her deeply. Her father was doing his best, but the farm took up a lot of his time. She didn’t mind, truly she didn’t. Shame filled her as she thought of the difficulty and pain her loose lips would cause her remaining parent. Darn it. She hated that it might get back to him, but there was nothing she could do about it now.
People knew who she was. Daniels Farm was a legacy. Her grandparents had passed it down to her dad, and their parents before them. She did a report on it once and learned it had been around since the eighteen-hundreds. The Daniels family had practically settled these parts. So yeah, word would get around. She loved the farm and its history, loved the little sleepy town of Barvale, but hated that she was going to be the butt of every joke for the next who knew how long.
She also didn’t love knowing that something scary lurked within her beloved town. So naturally, she’d felt off and confused when she’d run into Lorna in the bathroom. She had simply blurted it all out to the one girl she should’ve known not to trust.
Days had passed since that night and ever since the kids had been chanting “Crazy Maisy” at her in the hallways and at lunch time. It had been a full week since homecoming, and she’d spent more time with the principal and guidance counselor than she’d ever wanted to.
“Maisy, honey, if you could maybe just admit you made it up?” her father pleaded as they sat down with the principal once again.
“Mr. Daniels, I am afraid that won’t help. Teenagers can be extremely cruel. The best thing for her is another school, perhaps? We can help with a scholarship to Holy Oak Academy?”
“Maybe, I don’t think staying here is-”
“It’s fine,” she turned her light green eyes on her principal first, then on her father, “I don’t want to switch schools. Freshman year is almost half over. They will get bored and stop eventually, and I will graduate in three years, and go to NYU. I am fine, Daddy. Mr. Cooper, I want to stay,” she nodded at both men and kissed her dad’s cheek before heading to her second period class.
They could call her “Crazy Maisy” all they wanted. She didn’t care. She would simply work hard, get a scholarship and once she graduated, she would never look back.
In the meantime, if she ever saw Arthur Lance again, she would simply run the other way. Her heart would be safe and whatever she’d seen that night would be her secret going forward. Barvale High would not be the end of Maisy Daniels.
Chapter 1
“Excuse me, Mr. Peterson? There’s a call on line two for Ms. Daniels,” the secretary’s voice sounded muted over the intercom, and Maisy frowned as she tried to guess who could’ve tracked her down to this meeting.
Working for All Business Accounting was not exactly the career choice of her dreams, but still, she made a decent living. Well, as decent as one could expect in New York City. The cost of living was about nine times that of her hometown, but Maisy hadn’t been joking when she’d promised herself to hightail it out of Barvale the second she’d graduated high school.
And here she was, almost nine years later. If only more had changed than just her address. But Maisy was still Maisy. She was still short, still well-rounded, and she still thought about that handsome boy or was it bear she’d had a crush on all through high school. Whatever it was she’d seen that night, she knew it was magical and aside from the taunting of her peers she’d been fascinated by it.
People turning into beasts. The very notion was fantastic and something she’d tried desperately to find out about. She’d read every piece of literature she could find about shapeshifters and were-animals. Sometimes she still dreamed about that bear. Okay, more like she still dreamed about Arthur Lance.
Her father mentioned him from time to time and she did go home for the odd holiday. Even when she did venture back there, she stayed out of town. Still, it had been months since she’d set foot in Barvale. The psychological scars of being “Crazy Maisy” ran deep, but she’d managed to come to terms with them. Maisy truly believed she had witnessed something out of this world. She didn’t blame Arthur for not coming forward, it was obviously part of some secret code.
But after years of isolating herself, she’d decided enough was enough. At twenty-eight years old, she was trying to live her own life away from that stigma. Living in the big city and working as a CPA for a firm that catered to small businesses might not be her exact dream life, but it was still a life. Her life. Of course, looking around the crammed and mildew smelling office she was sitting in, Maisy started to regret one aspect of her job. The in-house service aspect as it was. She hated going to their clients’ places of business to get the job done. In New York that meant anything from basements, attics, closets, and dingy little spaces crawling with roaches and trash. Not one of her clients seemed to understand what the word clean meant. Not in their books or in their space. Yuck.
As it was, Mr. Peterson, her current client, was more interested in looking at her assets than he was in giving his financial records to her. This was why she hardly ever wore skirts on the job, but something about the crisp October morning had left her in a good mood and she went ahead and dressed for it. Bad move. The man had been staring at her stocking clad legs for the past ten minutes.
“Mr. Peterson?” his secretary interrupted them again and Maisy waited expectantly for him to hand her the phone.
“Of course,” he jumped slightly and grabbed the receiver, clicking the button before handing it over to Maisy, “I’ll give you a little privacy, doll,” he winked before exiting the room.
Ugh. The sleazy little nightclub was on par with the last place on earth she wanted to be caught dead in. That and Barvale High, she thought and frowned at the reminder that back there she was probably still “Crazy Daisy” the girl who cried bear.
“Hello, this is Maisy Daniels,” she spoke into the receiver.
“What?” Maisy jumped up and started scrambling for her things, “Is he alright? No, I understand. Yes, okay. Please tell my father I’m coming home.”
“Hey doll, we ain’t finished yet-” Mr. Peterson’s eyebrows seemed to disappear into his bad toupee as Maisy waved a hasty goodbye.
She had no time to dally. Her father was in the hospital. Reticent or not, she was going back to Barvale as soon as she could.
“Sorry. My company will send a replacement,” she called out, and took the stairs two at a time to the crowded street.
Not an easy feat in high-heeled boots and a wool pencil skirt, but she managed. After hopping on the PATH train to her apartment, Maisy grabbed a bag and packed a suitcase before calling the garage where she’d parked her car at a monthly rate she’d rather forget since she hardly ever used the vehicle. After leaving a hastily scrawled note for her roommates, she dropped some fish food for Tyler, her goldfish, in his bowl, and took off down the hall.
Three hours later, Maisy was standing in the pristine hallway of the new Barvale Hospital. The smell of astringent was strong in the air, but she hardly noticed as worry gripped her heart.
“Your father has been moved to the ICU,” Dr. Luisa Cordoza told her and went on to explain a bit about the procedure her only remaining parent had just undergone.
They had been in the same class back in Barvale High, but thankfully all Maisy’s memories of the woman were fond. They had not been friends, but she wasn’t part of the group who’d bullied and teased Maisy relentlessly during her years there.
“He is in excellent shape and I expect he will make a full recovery.”
A Cursed All Hallows' Eve Page 110