by Anya Nowlan
She’d tried to encapsulate herself and Julian from the situation as much as she could. They had decided on a two-hour period every evening where neither of them was allowed to say a word about Ryder or Jackson or any burning trucks. Ryder had hiked up his scare tactics, so Julian was out on patrols a lot more than Susie would have liked, but she knew he had to do it. For both himself, as well as her. It was amazing watching him transform from an urban billionaire into a werebear once more. He had started giving over control of his companies to some of his Vice Presidents, cutting himself off more and more from the everyday running of his companies. Even more impressively, he’d started embracing his bear side more openly. She’d caught him conspiring with Jackson a few times about how to best control his wilder side and had even gone on a few runs in bear form, which made Susie incredibly glad for him. Even with the danger looming over them, Susie and Julian had easily fallen into a steady rhythm of finding each other’s quirks and re-learning all they’d forgotten about each other (of which there was thankfully not much).
Susie had essentially moved in with Julian. He wouldn’t have it any other way. The brash billionaire had demanded that she didn’t stay alone (which of course meant she would stay with him), and since his house was closer to the rest of the clan, then the lodge was the logical choice for most evenings. Susie wasn’t complaining. His protective streak was out in full blazes again, and being on the receiving end of Julian Arder’s overbearing love made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. She’d missed it. He didn’t toy around with his affections, and there was never a moment in the day where she wasn’t sure that he was devoted to her. She tried to let him know that she felt the same as he did, and by all accounts, she was succeeding.
“I wish we got decent cable up here,” Julian grumbled during one of their ‘no Ryder’ times, flipping through the newspaper and looking particularly forlorn while studying the football results from last night. Susie smirked to herself, curled up on the couch with a steaming cup of tea and some work from the hauling business. She’d made it a point to scour her paperwork the very next day after figuring out that Ryder was the one behind the inconsistencies, but she still wasn’t completely satisfied with her results. Susie had at least managed to cover all that she’d lost in the fire set by the Bitterroot boys from the profits Ryder hadn’t managed to funnel out of the business yet, and she’d fired two drivers who had been conspiring with him. Now, she just wanted to triple check that she’d managed to get all the loose ends, as well as help a few other local businesses that might have befallen the same fate. At the very least, she was determined to slow Ryder down. Not a lot a warlord could do without money.
“Right, with all the free time you have, babe,” she said, quirking a brow at him. Julian smirked, letting the paper fall on the counter. It was raining hard outside, and the warm fire in the fireplace made the cottage especially delightful and cozy. He was halfway across the floor to her when a heavy knock fell on the front door. Susie whipped around, dropping her papers on the couch. A knock on the door at that time of the evening never meant anything good those days. Susie scrambled over the backrest of the couch and was almost at the door when Julian pulled it open. His mouth fell and a second later he had pulled the man at the doorway into a tight hug. It took a moment for Susie to recognize the strong face of Jonah Arder, but when she did, her heart leapt for joy.
Oh thank god, the trifecta is together, she thought to herself, beaming as she closed the door behind the two brothers. Jonah stepped in almost reluctantly, wet from the rain and looking like life had run over him and spit him up.
He was dressed in a worn leather jacket, and his jeans were sticking to his powerful thighs because of the rain. Susie noticed a hint of sadness in his hazel eyes that she hadn’t remembered ever seeing in the youngest Arder brother before. He had always been serious, sure, aspiring to be like his older brother, but his softer soul and more artistic nature had always made him perhaps the sweetest of the Arder brothers. Now, she could sense a hardness about him that came as a surprise to Susie.
“Jonah! It’s been forever!” Julian said when he finally released his youngest brother from the strong embrace. Jonah’s bag plopped down on the ground and he smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.
“Hey Julian. Susie,” he said, nodding to her. “Glad to see you here,” he said with a weak smile. She smiled back. It was good news for the Arder clan that the last of the three Alpha brothers was back. They were much stronger together than they could ever be alone, but it wasn’t hard to sense that not everything was quite right with Jonah.
“What’s wrong, Jonah?” Susie asked, cutting right to the chase. Julian’s jaw squared as he picked up Jonah’s bag and put it on a chair. She shared a look with Julian, and he quietly agreed to her questioning. If something was wrong then with the current state of things, it was probably for the best to get it out in the open as soon as possible. Jonah took a deep breath and pushed back his shoulders, standing up to his impressive height in the middle of Julian’s living room. Though the youngest of the Arder brothers, Jonah was built thick and strong like the other two, his dark hair, somber disposition and hazel eyes reminding Susie of the last Arder Alpha, Joseph Arder.
“Well. How do you tell the leader of your clan that you’re sleeping with the enemy? Especially if that leader is your brother?” Jonah said. Susie stood in stunned silence, glancing between Julian and Jonah.
I guess we should be thankful he isn’t sleeping with a werewolf, Susie thought to herself. Julian’s hand reached for her and she stepped to his side, supporting her mate. She got the feeling that Julian wasn’t quite prepared to deal with his little brother’s love life, but thankfully, it was right up her alley.
“It depends. Is she cute?” Julian asked, offering a meek grin. Both of the men broke out laughing, cutting the tension in the air, and Susie could only shake her head in amusement. She had to hand it to the Arder brothers. They sure knew how to keep things interesting.
SAVING HER BEAR
MONTANA WILD BEARS
BOOK 3
BY
ANYA NOWLAN
CHAPTER ONE
„Right. So, do you want to tell us all about this mystery woman who has the capacity of making Jackson’s head blow up?“ Julian asked, quirking a brow at his brother. Jonah smiled sheepishly. He carefully slipped the strap of his guitar case off his shoulder and set it to rest against a mahogany cupboard near the front door. Just like Julian, he hadn’t been home in a while but for entirely different reasons. He tracked mud inside on his black combat boots, but Susie waved him off when he tried to apologize for it. Jonah shrugged off his heavy black leather jacket, sighing audibly as he hung it up on a hook, water dribbling off of it.
Not the conversation I want to be having with my estranged brother, he thought to himself. His motorcycle was standing in front of the house, hammered by rain. It had been a hassle getting up the mountains on it, even if the Warren brothers had offered him a lift on their truck when they had decided to come back home. But, Jonah had the feeling that the next few weeks would be a trying time, and he preferred to lose as little of the things that he held dearest for as long as he could. His bike was one of those few things.
„Well, I figured I’d try you on for size before I went to Jackson. So I guess I better,“ Jonah said, scuffing a hand through his wet hair. Julian nodded quietly and Jonah was glad to see that his brother didn’t have any noticeable wounds anymore. He’d heard about the fight Julian had had with Drake, and he had to admit that he was impressed at the description he’d received. Ever since Julian had stopped shifting as a teenager, Jonah had drifted away from him. Knowing that his brother had returned to his wilder side made his heart swell with pride. It was nice to get good news for a change from Bear’s Grove and the Cabinet mountains, what with Ryder causing trouble and the Bitterroots getting up to all sorts of dangerous nonsense. Just the thought of them made his stomach knot.
They’re not going
to like what I have to tell them.
Jonah followed Julian deeper into the living room, taking a seat on the soft, worn couch. Susie rushed off to make tea and to get him something dry to wear, as his bag was as drenched as he was. Flash floods were a real joy, but the weather seemed befitting for what he had to tell. Julian’s eyes seemed to burn a hole through Jonah as he sat in silence for far too long, trying to find his words. Susie had made herself scarce, and Jonah had the sneaking suspicion that she was trying to give the two Arder boys more space than he wanted. Having her as a mediator would have made things easier, but at the same time he knew that the conversation he was going to have with Julian would be times and times milder than what he would have to deal with from Jackson.
„Do you remember Calliope Masters? Callie?“ he finally asked, glancing up from his camo pants. He’d been out of the Marines for a while now, but some things stuck with a man. He still wore simple, functional clothes and his dog tags were always around his neck. You could take a man out of the Marines, but the spirit remained. He watched Julian nod carefully, his body tense. Jonah smiled inwardly, noticing the slight muscle twitches that would always give away a man’s nervousness or discomfort. His billionaire brother was the best at a lot of things, but Jonah could read his reactions as if he were an open book. Just another thing the Marines had taught him that was hard to get rid of when returning to the life of a civilian.
„I think I do. Curly hair, big brown eyes, nice ass,“ Julian said, grinning wickedly. Jonah tossed him a look and Julian raised his hands in mock defeat. „Just saying. Yes, I remember her. She was your age, a few years behind me. What about her?“
„Do you know which clan she belongs to?“ Jonah asked guardedly, feeling goose bumps crawl on his skin. The thought of Callie made his inner beast roar with need. Just the fleeting notion of her and her luscious curves and those perfect bowed lips made him react and his breath quicken – all reasons why this was so hard to admit, especially to his brothers. He hadn’t picked the best time to fall in love and most definitely not the best time to do so with reckless abandon. Julian pursed his lips and his blue eyes narrowed a bit. Jonah smiled sadly as Julian dropped his head and shook it slowly, staring at the fire.
„No. But let me guess. Bitterroot?“ Julian groaned loudly as Jonah nodded. „Yeah, Jackson’s going to love that. Is that... is she why you’ve stayed away for so long? I’ve got to tell you, Jackson expected you home long before he expected me to show up.“
„She’s one of Ryder’s, yes. You weren’t here then, but when the clans had a falling out...“ Jonah paused for a moment, gulping down the clot that was forming in his throat at thinking back to what had happened all those years ago between his and Ryder’s fathers. „Well, when Ryder’s and our clans stopped getting along, she went to Bitterroot with the rest of the clan. But we still kept in touch. We were in the same class, and I used to run with her. When I enlisted, she started writing to me. All through Afghanistan, she kept in contact with me.“
Jonah paused for another moment, seeing Susie peek out from the kitchenette. He nodded to her, waving her over. The hard part was over, theoretically. It was just the first few words that felt like lead and that he couldn’t extract from himself no matter how hard he tried. Jonah was almost feverish, trying to deal with the conflicting emotions that wanted to wash over him. Being away from Callie was hell, and any time he mentioned the war, he got an odd tinge of regret and excitement that battled one another. It wasn’t right to miss the horror of war, but being in the Marines had given his life a sense of purpose, and he liked that. Being with Callie had been the only thing to give him any respite lately, and now, without her, he felt the cold shiver of listlessness again.
He waited until Susie returned to them, putting two mugs of steaming green tea in front of the two bears. Jonah accepted his gratefully, enjoying the warmth of the cup between his calloused palms. He’d always thought that Julian was an odd contrast to him. The middle Arder brother had always seemed so carefree and joyful, until he was faced with hard life decisions and he’d made them with the kind of decisiveness Jonah only wished he had. While Jackson had thought that Julian ran from his brothers, Jonah knew that Julian had merely taken the only path he knew to become the kind of man that he could face in the mirror every morning. Jonah had aspired to do the same – to be someone who he could be proud of. But, he had to wonder that perhaps he hadn’t been doing the best of jobs lately. It certainly felt like it.
Susie took a seat on the armrest beside Julian, and Julian put his hand on her thigh. To Jonah, it looked like barely any time had passed since Julian and Susie were last together. They had the same immediate connection he remembered looking up to when he was younger. Jonah, who was four years Julian’s junior, was the youngest of the brothers and, as such, given the most leeway in his decisions as a youngster. The burden of leading the Arder pack was likely never to fall on his shoulders, sparing catastrophe, and his father had allowed him the kind of nonsense that he would never have tolerated from Jackson and Julian. This probably went a long way in explaining why Jonah had grown up feeling rather aimless for many years until his father’s death, when the Marines showed him a path that he could take and keep to finally grow up.
“Anyway. When my tour ended and I was out on leave, we met up and it all kind of grew from there. She was in Texas because of college, and I was stationed there before I was supposed to go on another tour. My unit got taken out of the rotation, and things heated up between us,” Jonah tried his best to ignore the knowing smirk that lingered on Julian’s lips. He had to hand it to his brother, Julian sure knew how to make just about everything feel a tad more dirty than it really was (or at least what Jonah wanted it to seem like). “I ended up leaving the Marines with honorable discharge and moving in with her over the last year. We both got the call to return home and… well. I guess it’s not much of a stretch to imagine why I didn’t come running as fast as I could. I kept up with the situation here and so did Callie, but the more we learned, the more we knew we had to come home. When Jackson was attacked, we started getting our affairs in order to return. Callie came back a week ago, and I just got in today. The Warren twins headed into Bear’s Grove right ahead of me, and I think the Barrister boys are half a day out. Maybe a few others. I started making calls to my old crew when I made the decision to come back.”
Jonah ran out of words, deciding to sip at his tea instead. Julian’s piercing blue eyes threatened to drill right through him. He knew full well that Julian could unravel a puzzle faster than he could even imagine, so he probably already had his mind around this one as well. Jonah felt rotten for not having come earlier, but he kept telling himself that keeping up with the state of things was good enough until he was really needed. Jackson was a force of nature on his own, and even though the Alpha trifecta was stronger than any of them alone, Jackson could still hold his own against Ryder without him or Julian. Of course, seeing Julian back home was a relief, and he was confident that with the addition of his friends now returning to Cabinet, the Bitterroot clan would be in for a nasty surprise if they tried to retaliate again. The bigger problem was convincing himself that he could actually go through with anything that had the potential to harm Callie.
“Is she the one?” Susie asked suddenly, catching Jonah off guard. He almost choked on the scalding tea, sputtering for a moment. His hazel eyes went wide with surprise, staring at Susie. She matched his gaze with determination, and Jonah, whose mouth had fallen open at the direct question, latched it shut again.
She sure hasn’t changed. The look on Julian’s face told Jonah that the tech mogul completely approved of the question.
“I… Yes. I think she is. She’s the one,” Jonah admitted, a small smile creeping on his lips. The admission made him warm up from the inside, no fire or hot beverage needed. He’d been wondering about that for some time now, and the answer had been sitting inside of him for a while. It was no wonder that it had been so hard to leave
her side and dive into a conflict that could drag them apart forever. A werebear only had one fated mate and Calliope was his. Being stuck between love and his family was the biggest case of a proverbial rock and a hard place he could possibly imagine.
“Then I’ll talk to Jackson,” Julian said, raising his hand to quiet Jonah before he could object. “Trust me, Jackson is better off hearing this news from me – the general disappointment of the family – than from you. I’ll talk to him, and we’ll give him a moment to digest it. I think you’ll find him ultimately receptive, what with the recent addition of Tess into his life.” Susie nodded as well, further hushing Jonah’s strong-minded protests.
“You’ll love Tess. She’s just what Jackson needed. And, she loves a good love story, so you’ll have a sympathetic ear with her. Julian’s right, that’s the best way to go. But that doesn’t resolve your problem, though. How are you and Callie going to deal with being on opposite ends of this? You know that this won’t get any better before it gets worse,” Susie said, squeezing Julian’s arm for comfort. Jonah felt a hot stab of regret flow through him, seeing them so close. He hadn’t left things on the best of terms with Callie, and he hadn’t spoken to her in a week. Not since she had set off for home. He wasn’t even sure if she ever wanted to talk to him again, though a voice inside him told him that fate wouldn’t allow their story to end so abruptly.