The minister started the ceremony and directed them to say their vows. Buck started, clearing his throat. His words came out in a strangled croak at first, but he soon found his voice.
“Maria Reyes, my heart, my world. When I first found you alone and scared, I could never have imagined this day would come so soon. We had a hard road, getting to this point. But I would gladly walk through fire, just to see you smile. I never gave up on you at the worst of times, and I never will give up on us in the best. Our love was fated to heal us both. And with you, I’m complete.”
Maria’s heart fluttered and her knees went weak. She held onto Buck for support, getting lost in his blue eyes.
“Buck Kincaid. My hero. What can I say about a man as loyal and brave as you are? I am at a loss for words because words can’t begin to express my gratitude for what you’ve done for me. You never gave up, no matter how hard I pushed you away. The kind of strength your actions required is beyond my comprehension. You will always be my greatest inspiration, Buck Kincaid. From the first moment your bear threw me out of my wild shift, to today as I stand here with your baby in my belly.”
The minister finally gave Buck leave to kiss the bride. Buck gathered Maria in his arms, pulling her tight against his chest. He planted a kiss on her lips, hard and solid, his arms wrapped around her. She’d never felt so safe, so claimed, so protected.
When he let her up for air, everyone was on their feet, cheering and clapping for the happy new couple. Maria gasped and smiled as Buck took her hand and they led each other away as man and wife.
Chapter 14
Buck could barely contain his grizzly from the first second he saw Maria in her wedding dress. She looked like a princess, straight out of a dream, walking down the aisle on her brother-in-law Heath’s arm. The beast within growled and clawed at him throughout the ceremony, reminding him at every second how truly beautiful his mate was.
Their bond still radiated back and forth between them, giving him impressions of Maria’s heart and happiness. She glowed with the budding life inside her. Her curves already becoming softer and fuller.
They sat together at the wedding table, all his brothers except Cyrus were there on his wedding day. Leland stood over the grill, turning steaks and hamburgers from the Timber Bear Ranch. Buck held Maria’s hand under the table, feeling her slender fingers entwined with his.
A bonfire sparked in the distance and children roasted marshmallows over the flames. Buck slid his hand up Maria’s thigh and cupped her small belly, thinking of the baby who now grew inside her womb.
Music played softly as the last of the sunlight faded beyond the mountains, casting the wedding party in darkness. Torches lined the perimeter of the reception area where the guests sat at picnic tables, eating barbecue. Twinkling lights were strung in crisscrosses over the tables, illuminating the party in their delicate light.
Buck took Maria out onto the lawn that had been prepared for dancing. He held her close, feeling her heartbeat against his chest. Her small hand in his, the small of her back under his palm. Everything about this moment was so full, Buck almost felt he didn’t deserve it.
Ever since his mother died when the Kincaid brothers were just boys, they had each held a broken piece around inside their hearts. Each Kincaid brother had dealt with their mother’s death in their own way. Buck had poured himself into his work and being a dependable member of his clan and family. It wasn’t until Maria came into his life that he was able to take a step back from the constant drive he felt to prove himself as man.
Now that Maria was here, she was his priority. She and their cub. With his mate by his side, Buck knew what it meant to be a man.
The day he’d gone to find Maria on the mountain and finally bring her home, Leland and Jessie had cut his quota of logs. A week later, they all worked together to complete Jessie’s house. Ever since Jessie had moved out of Buck’s house, and Leland had started spending a few days a week on the mountain cutting timber, Buck had felt a massive weight of responsibility come off his shoulders.
Now he could focus on his mate and his cub, in the house he built with his own hands, running the business he’d created out of the mess his father left. Together, he and Maria had healed what needed to be healed inside each other.
When he guided his beautiful wife back to the wedding table, his brother Jessie stood at the other end, tapping his champagne glass with the side of a spoon.
“It’s time to embarrass Buck with wedding speeches,” Jessie teased.
The guests started laughing and clinking glasses in agreement.
“To my big brother Buck, Saw Bear. Or otherwise known as Mr. Dependable. Who knows where we Kincaids would be without you. You’ve always been our rock, Buck. Doing what you needed to do to keep the ship running. When you found your mate, you gave her the same commitment you give everything. You turned a bad situation into something good. You found a way to bring Maria off the mountain. Because that’s just the kind of man you are Buck. We are all lucky to have you in our lives. I know I don’t usually say this kind of thing, but I want you to know how much I appreciate you, brother. And you Maria, for bringing happiness into my brother’s life. To the happy couple, I hope every day is filled with all the love and joy you can stand. Congratulations!”
Everyone cheered and cried and hugged when Jessie finished speaking. Buck felt his heart ready to burst it was so full. When he didn’t think he could take any more, his brother Leland left the grill and raised his own glass.
“Buck. My brother. The best second any Alpha could ever hope for. Jessie was right. You are the family rock, the guy who kept this place going. If anyone deserves an easy love story it’s you. But that’s not how fate works is it?” Leland laughed and so did a handful of other guests. “You got the mate you needed to fill your heart. And so did Maria. No one is happier for you than I am. If you guys ever need anything, Sylvia and I are always here to help in any way we can.”
Everyone awed at Leland’s speech. Leland lifted his glass and returned to the grill to flip a few more steaks and veggies. That was right before Corey Bright stood up from his table, lifting his glass toward Maria.
“Maria Kincaid-Reyes. You were one of the first humans to be admitted to the Bright Institute for Shifters. And we were happy to have you. You were an excellent student, despite the difficulties you faced in the past. When you were bitten by a shifter I’d allowed in my school, I never thought I could forgive myself. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in our institute.” He looked over at Willow who smiled encouragingly back at him. “We know we can’t take back what happened to you, but we do want to give you something to make the transition into your new life a little brighter.”
Maria looked from Corey to Buck and back again. Buck could see the excitement in her eyes. Corey Bright was a genuine billionaire. There was no telling what he would consider “help.”
“You were one of our most promising students in our botany classes. Because of that, Willow and I want to build you a greenhouse to your specifications here on the Timber Bear Ranch.”
“What?” Maria squealed.
She covered her mouth and her eyes went wide.
“We’ll send the contractors out after the honeymoon to get started.”
“Corey!” Maria squealed again.
He crossed the space in his tailored tuxedo and leaned over the table to give Maria warm hug.
“Thank you both so much,” Maria gushed.
“You deserve it, Maria,” Corey said, squeezing her hand. “We are just relieved you got ahold of your shift and found your happily ever after.”
“Everything works out when fate takes you in hand,” Buck said, slapping Corey on the back.
Chapter 15
Maria walked down the aisle between rows of tiny pine trees in her greenhouse. Her baby Joy was slung across her chest, quietly sleeping. Buck walked into the greenhouse, looking at all the saplings Maria had skillfully raised for his timber business.
The planters would take the starts up onto the mountain this spring, completing the cycle of timber management Buck had worked so hard to establish. Maria’s greenhouse added another level of control to the project. But that wasn’t all she planted in her garden.
Since the Brights had built her greenhouse, Maria had taken over a two-acre area behind Buck’s house for her nursery. For now, she mostly supplied saplings for Buck, but she had numerous projects that were growing into fruition as she held her little baby Joy in her arms.
Buck crossed the space and planted a kiss on her forehead and then another on Joy’s. Her lioness purred inside her, seeking out Buck’s grizzly through the bond they shared.
Now that she and Buck had delivered their child and worked together on the ranch, their bond had only become more pronounced. They knew each other’s needs and desires without speaking. And the bond shared even extended to their little Joy.
She was a sweet, quiet child who always seemed content. She took after her mother as a lion shifter. One of the rare females born with an animal inside her. Maria couldn’t be prouder of her daughter and her family.
“Are the saplings ready to go out?” Buck asked.
“They are,” Maria said. “The planters can take them out as soon as they arrive.”
“It will be different having someone else do the work.”
“It’s good for you to not do it all yourself, Buck.”
“You’re right. I need more time for you and our Joy.”
“I’ll take every second I can get,” Maria said, leaning up on her tiptoes to press her lips to Buck’s.
“And I’ll give you ever second I have, Maria, for the rest of my life.”
“I know you will, Buck. You’ve always been there for me. And I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure I’m always there for you.”
“All we can do is try to be our best for each other,” Buck whispered, embracing his family.
“You are the best for me. I’m learning to be my best for you too.”
“You’re prefect just as you are, Maria.”
Joy giggled in her sling, waking up as her parents professed their love for each other. She stretched and wiggled, reminding them that their Joy was alive and growing, bringing them closer to each other with each passing day.
Mountain Bear
Love isn't always obvious ...
A solitary man ...
Cyrus Kincaid has been living in the woods since the Great War ended. In tune with the elements and his shifter nature, he's content to be alone ... mostly. His longing for a mate, however, won't be silenced.
An unhappy woman ...
Daisy Danes is the stepdaughter of a Mafia boss. She loves pink designer suits, her Yorkshire terrier Fifi, and shopping. What she doesn't love is the fact that her stepfather plans to marry her off to a hyena shifter in exchange for a shipment of drugs. In a desperate act of rebellion, she signs up for a shifter-human dating site and learns that she does have a mate -- a bear shifter who lives in a remote cabin on Fate Mountain.
A perilous path
When the hyena shifter tries to double-cross her stepfather, Daisy escapes with Fifi and flees through the forest -- straight into Cyrus's arms. Despite their being mates, it's anything but love at first sight for this unlikely couple, and things get even more dangerous when a dark figure from Cyrus's past resurfaces. Can they overcome their differences in time to defeat their enemies and find a happy ending?
Chapter 1
Cyrus Kincaid took a deep breath of fresh morning air, filling his lungs to capacity. He exhaled with a low growl and stretched his arms. Across the clearing, the mist clung to the trees where his log cabin rested below the peaks of Fate Mountain.
He scratched his bare bottom before lunging off the porch, shifting into his grizzly before his paws hit the ground. He ran, slicing through the forest with a primal intensity.
The line between grizzly and man had become thin in his years of solitude. He’d honed his shift into a fluid machine, his human and grizzly bodies primed for action at any given moment.
He came to a stop at the edge of the forest, where the mountain dropped away over a rocky ledge. He roared into the expanse, his echo reverberating back at him from three sides. He grinned, his grizzly teeth bared.
His human and animal minds were in such finely tuned accord that it was hard to tell where one started and where the other ended anymore. He’d come to know the animals of the forest. Black bears, mountain lions, and foxes had become his companions.
He shifted in the morning air, standing once again in his human form, tanned and toned from years of hard survival. Scars crossed his legs, back and arms, displaying the wounds of his past, some from the forest, some from the human war he’d fought.
Cyrus’s long beard and hair wafted in the chill breeze, the fall air blowing down the mountain. He inhaled a breath and took his fighting stance, focusing his attention at his core.
He’d been a master of martial arts since the war, and his time on the mountain had only honed his skill to furious intensity. In the mornings, he practiced the gentle art of tai chi. He moved in fluid motions, filling his body with vitality.
The view over the cliff and the mountains rolling out beyond filled his vision. He drank in the tranquility of this place, so far from the frantic pace of the human world. Only the wilderness could provide the constant edge of survival he craved.
He’d known for a long time that this was where he belonged, naked in the chill air of early autumn, running through his martial arts stances.
Cyrus closed his eyes, going deeper into the meditative movements. His shifter senses and animal instinct took him deep into the stillness of his mind. When he was deep in that place inside, he could feel the heartbeat of the forest.
Each squirrel in a tree, each rabbit in its den. He could sense the unfurling tendrils of ivy vines. He smelled the scent of the earth decomposing and the falling leaves of the deciduous trees.
He moved in a slow circle, his arms and legs in fluid, practiced motions. With a deep breath in and out, he cleared his vision, bringing up a three-dimensional grid of the world before him.
Cyrus tried to focus on details, but the grid dissipated. He growled and gritted his teeth, shifting out of his last tai chi position and into his grizzly form in a fraction of a second.
He rumbled through the forest, trying to bring the grid back up inside his animal mind. The grizzly’s instinct gave him an advantage over the man. He’d been working on transitioning his grizzly’s senses to his human mind for several years now. Each attempt brought him closer to control, but he still lacked the ability to focus on details.
Cyrus rumbled through the forest, tasting the scent of the trees and the ground, the smell of the small creatures around him and the growing warmth of dawn.
When he made it back to his cabin, he shifted in one fluid movement, jumping up onto the porch of his cabin. He walked inside. He threw a light leather duster around his shoulders, binding it at the waist. He poked the flames in his fireplace and threw a few more logs onto the fire.
Cyrus poured fresh water into his pot and waited for it to boil before he poured it over his tea. He’d been living alone on Fate Mountain for seven years now and he was surer each day that the choice to take to the mountain was the right one.
As he sipped his tea and ate his morning meal of rabbit and wild onions, he thought of the things he was missing in the world of men. Not much by his estimation, but there was still something that weighed heavily on his heart.
For all his self-assuredness, Cyrus felt lonely. It wasn’t a general kind of loneliness; the kind that made people go out to find friends to talk to. It was something else entirely. What he lacked was a mate. A special someone who he could connect to completely.
Cyrus was a man who respected nature and the natural order of things. He needed a mate to make him whole; without her, he wasn’t the man he was intended by nature to be.
Living
up here on Fate Mountain alone, he didn’t have much of a chance to meet his fated mate. He’d signed up for that dating website that all the other shifters couldn’t stop talking about last year when he’d gone down the mountain to sell pelts, mushrooms, and carved antlers. His brother Jessie had helped him sign up for Mate.com.
His mate had not been in the system at that time and all Cyrus could do was return to the mountain alone. As far as he knew, she still was nowhere to be found.
Some shifters never found their mates. But that didn’t keep the whole lot of shifters he knew from never giving up on the dream. Even Cyrus, a grumpy bear who liked nothing more than to be left alone, believed in the promise of happily ever after.
He couldn’t help it. He’d grown up on Fate Mountain with his shifter parents. They’d loved each other so much; his mother’s death had sent his dad into a tailspin. For all Hank Kincaid’s flaws, Cyrus couldn’t fault him for his devotion to his wife.
Cyrus shoved a bite of succulent rabbit meat into his mouth and chewed. Thinking of the past always put him in a dark mood. Living on the mountain had a way of keeping him focused on the here and now, which was all that mattered in Cyrus’s opinion.
The past and the future were all in the imagination. That’s what he’d learned from his years of solitude and silence on the mountain. However, that knowledge hadn’t made him want to go back to civilization any more.
When he was done with his meal, he cleaned up his plate and pulled on the rest of his clothing. Leather pants made from buckskin. A linen shift he’d made from raw fabric he’d bought in town. And his buckskin duster.
He hadn’t looked in a mirror in ages, but he knew that if anyone saw him, they’d see the image of a mountain man. Or a vagabond, depending on who it was. He’d let his hair and beard grow long and wild. He washed it with deer fat soap made with lye from the ashes. When he bothered to wash at all.
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