by Anya Nowlan
BEAR THE FIRE
FIREBEAR BRIDES
BOOK 4
BY
ANYA NOWLAN
A LITTLE TASTE…
She looked so cute when she was steaming angry. Rhodes had to bite the inside of his mouth to keep from kissing the stupid right off of her lips.
“You didn’t answer the first part,” he said coolly.
There was ice in those green eyes now. Those kitty cat eyes that seemed to look right through him whenever he was lying, that called to him when he felt like shit, and that made him fall in love with her over and over again.
“I had a debt to repay.”
“It’s not just that, is it?” he taunted, letting his mouth talk while his brain sat back and let him hang himself with what little rope he had. “You wanted this. You wanted to come here and see me. You miss me, don’t you, Kali? The thought of being in my arms again made you so fucking wet you couldn’t think straight, so you hopped on the first goddamn puddle jumper that would bring you back to my cock,” he hissed, leaning closer to her.
Her eyes went wide and her lips parted a little in a delicious “O” that was pleading to be kissed. Then her expression hardened and her cheeks went red with the same anger he’d seen on the runway. It drew him like a moth to a flame.
“I don’t have to listen to this, you fucking prick,” she bit out, undoing her buckle and launching for the door handle.
Before she could grab it, Rhodes had his hand under her chin, turning her head to face him, with his other hand on the back of her neck. And the next thing he knew, he was kissing the life out of her, his mouth hungrily devouring what had been his years ago, and what he knew would have to be his again.
Copyright © 2015 Anya Nowlan
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Bear The Fire
Firebear Brides
Book 4
All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be used, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Anya Nowlan. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.
Cover © Jack of Covers
You can find all of my books here:
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
A LITTLE TASTE…
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EPILOGUE
WANT MORE?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
Rhodes
“We certainly aren’t in Kansas anymore,” Rhodes noted with a lazy flick of his longish blond hair.
“You could say that again,” Ragnar chuckled, clinking his bottle against Rhodes’s as they sat on the big porch.
“Dry as hell here, though,” Rhodes commented wryly, looking at the alcohol-free beer Ragnar was sipping.
Yes, he knew that his brother was a recovering alcoholic, or an obsessive addict as Ragnar himself liked to put it. But it seemed like at least one of the younger Hamilton brothers had arrived in a good place in his life. That was more than Rhodes could say for himself. With an unsaid expletive twisting his lips, he took a big gulp of his beer and slouched back in the seat, almost glaring at the vibrant sunset.
“Cut the shit, Rhodes. You don’t want to talk about weather. So tell me, what made you come back?” Ragnar asked.
Rhodes had managed to dance around that topic for days now. He’d come to Hamilton House, nestled in the foothills of eastern Idaho, near Shifter Grove, thinking that he could just breeze through the visit. No muss, no fuss, get the family off his back, and get going. But that did not appear to be the case. For two days he’d managed to avoid any topic more serious than “Who does your hair?” and “How’s the surfing in Hawaii?” but Ragnar had him cornered now. Without any other member of the Hamilton clan around, Rhodes couldn’t pretend to dodge anymore. Ragnar saw through him too easily for that.
“Your girlfriend asked me very nicely,” Rhodes said, winking at Ragnar.
The steely expression he got in return made him re-evaluate his choices in the conversation and clear his throat.
No poking fun at the life mate. All right.
For Ragnar, he would behave. Everyone else was up for grabs, though.
“All right, all right. It’s partially true. Abigail got me on the phone and told me that Idaho was burning down right around her or something and that you cubs needed my helpful, brotherly hand.”
“And?” Ragnar pried.
“And I got fired anyway, so I figured what the hell,” Rhodes added dryly, feeling his throat close up a little.
He took a deep swig and the beer went down easy, like the two bottles before it. It did nothing to ease the sting, though. He was bitterly aware of the fact that his expression had been twisted ever since he stepped off the damn airplane, and nothing could unscrew him other than reckless abandon in the fine company of some hard liquor.
“What got you fired?” Ragnar asked, no judgment in his voice.
Rhodes liked that about Ragnar. Royce would have given him a stern look and Redmond would have launched into a series of unfortunate jabs at his lack of qualification to be a firebear that would eventually end up in a friendly, if heated, tussle. But Ragnar listened. Not that it would matter much either way, seeing as Rhodes had no intention of sticking around for much longer.
“Apparently I don’t respect my own life and safety,” he said, smirking.
“Call the press, I think we need to make a special announcement,” Ragnar said, rolling his eyes. “Wasn’t that obvious from the last two jobs you got fired from?”
“Three,” Rhodes corrected. “I was in Wisconsin for a while too.”
“Never did trust those cheese-loving yuppies, did you?” Ragnar commented with a snort, drawing a chuckle from Rhodes.
“I guess you could say that. On Hawaii we had some fires on the small islands and they wanted to call off the jumps because it would be too dangerous. You know how it is, it’s the insurance companies talking, not the fire department. So I did one of those jumps anyway. Put out the whole fucking fire on my own. And what do I get? Fired,” he said, trying to muster some anger into his voice and failing miserably.
Losing his job was one of the few things he really couldn’t bother getting angry about.
“Sounds reasonable enough,” Ragnar noted glumly, in that older brother non-judging way that he had.
“But enough about me. Tell me why anyone isn’t explaining to me why we’re here.”
“Here, as in...” Ragnar asked, feigning ignorance.
Rhodes’s eyes narrowed, catching the shifty look in Ragnar’s eyes. Yeah, he could see it. They were hiding something, the whole bunch of them. No way that three of his eternal bachelor brothers had all suddenly hooked up with the women of their dreams and moved to Idaho to start some weird werebear commune. No, there had to be more to this and none of them were being straight with him, as if telling him the truth would make him run for the hills.
Though he could see how tha
t may be a worry in his particular case.
“In Hamilton House. Don’t fuck around with me, Ragnar. I know something’s up. No way you’d come here after… you know. So, why?” Rhodes asked, sliding over the topic of their father’s death with all the grace of a bull in a china shop.
They’d been kids when their father had died in a fire on the Hamilton grounds. Ragnar and Rhodes had been the only cubs to see it. After that, their mother had packed the car and taken the four of them out of there, never to return again. And yet here they were now, all four of the mostly estranged Hamilton brothers, with three of them now acting like they’d never been apart for a day. It was weird, to say the least.
“Guess we’re just getting old. Wanting to reconnect. After Uncle Herbert died, it was now or never. So Royce came back, and he called Redmond… and then Redmond got me when things got dirty.”
“With the Hasslebacks,” Rhodes said, spitting the word out.
Thinking about the Hassleback clan made his hands ball into fists, and uncurling them was a Herculean feat of its own. It was Eric Hassleback, the clan patriarch and Alpha, who had been the reason that their father had died. Now the possibility was good that one or both of his sons were the assholes trying to burn down Shifter Grove and everything around it.
I thought stupid skipped a generation, Rhodes thought glumly.
“Yes,” Ragnar confirmed.
It was getting dark now and none of this conversation was taking Rhodes anywhere. He was not in the mood to talk, but then again, he rarely was. In Hawaii, when he wasn’t working, he was surfing, and when he wasn’t surfing, he was mountain climbing. Or base jumping, or deep sea diving, or any number of things he couldn’t really do in this boring-ass state, surrounded by an overprotective clan of bears.
He would have liked to claim that he felt suffocated by their attention, but in all honesty that would have been copping to a level of dramatics he didn’t quite possess. And as much as he hated to admit it, Hamilton House and the grounds felt… right. While he was far from a happy camper, he couldn’t remember himself being quite so at ease with himself anywhere else, ever. Something about the air, how everything fit together, and the happy memories beyond the sad ones tied Hamilton House together with something good in him.
To say that he was appalled by this realization would have been an understatement.
Still, some sappy sentimentalism wasn’t enough to keep him put. As far as Rhodes was concerned, he’d come and seen the kin, so that meant he wouldn’t have to do it again for another ten years. Maybe call Ragnar around the guy’s birthday every year… that would be enough to say he kept in touch, right?
“When are you planning to leave?” Ragnar asked, as if reading his thoughts.
“Day after tomorrow, I think. An old buddy offered me a job down in Mississippi.”
“That’s a big fire state,” Ragnar commented with that trademark dry wit of his that made Rhodes’s hackles rise in irritation.
“Yeah, well, a smokejumper takes what he can get,” he scoffed.
“I doubt there’s a lot of smokejumping in Mississippi,” Ragnar grinned.
Shooting him a dirty look, Rhodes shrugged. When he said he’d take what he could get, he wasn’t kidding. He had… a reputation. Not a good one. Yes, he was competent at his job and yes, he was one of the best out there. He was young, brave—almost too brave—and his type of blood-boiling anger would ensure that he would always come out of the fire by the skin of his teeth if need be. He never quit.
But he also had a temper, and after a few assault and battery charges and a few more that had been dropped by colleagues in different states, it was becoming harder and harder to find a job. They called him a liability. He called them cowards. At the end of the day, they still had their jobs and Rhodes was slumming it in Idaho, feeling like he’d barged in on a triple wedding in the making.
“I’m not sure you’re the one to talk, Arson Investigator Hamilton. There’s like what? One arsonist every twenty-years here?” Rhodes taunted, seeing whether or not he could get a rise out of Ragnar at the expense of the dark memory both of them shared.
As assumed, he could not. Scoffing, Rhodes pulled a hand through his hair, slicking his dirty blond locks back. He was getting antsy. His hands were itching to do something other than build the damn workshop, which he’d thrown up with the rest of the Hamiltons in a day. The grounds had plenty of work for able-bodied men before they could bring livestock in or plant anything, but the thought of staying in one place like that, shackled to the land, made his stomach knot.
No, he needed to keep going.
“You going to keep running, then?” Ragnar asked as Rhodes got up.
He whipped around, scowling. “You think I’m running?”
“I know you’re running, Rhodes,” Ragnar said, taking a swill of his beer. “Question is, from what?”
Rhodes met the question with silence, considering Ragnar’s stoic features. He hadn’t changed a bit, it seemed. Though there was a glow about him, like the pieces had fallen into place and suddenly his existence made more sense. Rhodes couldn’t help but envy that, considering the currently fucked-up nature of his own.
“How’s Kali?” Ragnar asked, seemingly determined to test the limits of Rhodes’s patience that night.
Like a hot iron prod being shoved between his ribs, Rhodes sucked in a strangled breath before throwing his brother a murderous glare. Any other man would have been decked for that, but Ragnar could sit there, unflinching, as Rhodes’s rage wafted around him like a blood-red cape.
“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” Rhodes huffed, slamming his beer down on the table and stalking toward the door leading into the kitchen and the rest of the house.
“If it isn’t mine, whose is it?” Ragnar asked, his words echoing in Rhodes’s ears as he skulked through the house, heading toward the bedroom he’d occupied on the third floor.
No one’s, he thought grimly. No one’s at all.
Ragnar was the closest thing to a real friend Rhodes had ever had. Or managed to keep, anyway. His temper got in the way of a lot of things—lasting friendships and bonds being one of them. A green-eyed, laughing face floated up in his memories, smiling at him sweetly and making him and his bear tense with expectation.
No, you’re not going to start this shit again, he told himself firmly, wiping the memory aside. Kali has nothing to do with this.
He trundled up the stairs and pulled the door shut so hard behind him that the whole floor seemed to quake. As usual, just a poke and a prod and he was on his hind legs, roaring and spitting at the world at large. That inkling of peace he’d thought he’d felt in his heart was gone again, as if whisked away by the wind—which seemed to be lacking in dry, scorched Idaho, it seemed.
Flustered, he threw off his shirt, boots, and shucked off his pants and lay down on the bed, staring listlessly at the ceiling. Being alone with his thoughts was always difficult. Even with the alcohol sloshing around in his system, the morose and agitating thoughts he managed to avoid so well during the day were with him as soon as he was alone. And damn if he didn’t hate it.
Kali’s name kept coming up like a tease from the past, something almost close enough to grab but always slipping away at the very last moment. He wasn’t even surprised when he gave in, his hand moving to his already rigid cock, curling around it tightly and starting to work himself to release with jagged, hard strokes. He could remember everything about her body, like it was yesterday that she’d been in his arms.
The generous swell of her breasts, those lush, kissable lips, and those eyes that were so green that they looked like pale jade pools, the kind that a man could sink into and never come up for air.
Like always, Kali did it for him fast. But even with that tension out of his body, wadded up and thrown in the garbage, he couldn’t sleep. Somehow it just made him feel emptier, and the void was that much harder to fill.
Fucking Idaho.
CHAPTER TWO
Kali
“Whipped cream or no whipped cream?” Kali asked, forcing a smile on her face.
“I already told you, no whipped cream,” the sullen customer barked, scrunching his nose.
“No sir, I asked you about cinnamon before, not whipped cream. However, noted, no whip cream. Coming right up,” she said, a smile plastered on her features so hard that her face hurt from the strain of wearing the damn thing.
She flipped around and scooted over to the coffee machine, going through the mechanical motions of preparing Dustin’s, as was his name, triple chocolate latte with no cinnamon, no whipped cream. Cassandra gave her a pitying look from the other machine while straightening the rim of her red visor.
“Good day, huh?”
“The best,” Kali answered, smirking.
Her voice still hurt from the concert last night, played to a grand total of about thirty die-hard fans, but she’d rocked out just the same. It wasn’t the size of the venue or the number of audience, but the pipes of the artist, as their drummer, Mike, always said. Sighing, Kali finished off the coffee, capping it and turning toward the counter again with one last commiserating look shared with Cassandra.
“Here you are, sir,” she said, beaming again like it was the best thing in the world to serve surly customers inexplicably expensive coffee in a tiny corner coffee shop in Seattle.
He grumbled something that might have been a curse, grabbed his cup, and stepped away. Relaxing her shoulders, Kali was busy counting her blessings for managing to keep her tongue behind her teeth this time, when a sudden roar of anger made her jump with surprise.
Dustin turned around, his puffy face red with rage, shoving the cup in her face.
“I ordered it with cinnamon and with whipped cream, you stupid bitch! Can’t you even get your damn job right?!” he heaved, looking like he was about to pop.