Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Sneak Peek
Newsletter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
Author's Note
The Good People of Bearfield
Excerpt: Taken By My Shifter Billionaire Stepbrother And His Motorcycle Club (Of Vampires)
Excerpt: The Alpha Contract
Excerpt: Tiger Billionaire
Excerpt: The Diplomats' Daughter
About the Authors
A Taste of Honeybear Wine
By Jacqueline Sweet & Eva Wilder
Copyright © 2015 Eva Wilder & Jacqueline Sweet
Cover design by Jacqueline Sweet
All rights reserved worldwide
No part of this book may be reproduced, uploaded to the Internet, or copied without permission from the author. The author respectfully asks that you please support artistic expression and help promote anti-piracy efforts by purchasing a copy of this book at the authorized online outlets.
This is a work of fiction intended for mature audiences only. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, locales, business establishments, or actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.
Sneak Peek
When he broke into her house, he never expected to meet his mate.
When Alison Meadows inherits a creepy old farm house, it's the perfect opportunity to put her bad break-up behind her and start anew. The house is hers, free and clear. There's just one catch: she has to find a mysterious lockbox amongst the mountains of junk her grandfather hoarded.
Michael Morrissey is a bear shifter with a big heart, a sexy shrug, and a clothing-optional lifestyle. The night he breaks into an old house looking for lost family treasure? That's when he comes face to face with his mate. She's beautiful and sassy and curvy in all the right places.
When a raven steals the lockbox they both want, Alison and Michael are in trouble. Now they'll have to enter Bearfield's dark shadow world, outsmart a trickster, and steal back the treasure they both need from an evil shifter. Can they keep their heat in check long enough to get the job done?
A Taste of Honeybear Wine is the second standalone book set in the sleepy and mysterious town of Bearfield. The Bearfield books can be read in any order and feature happy endings and no cliffhangers.
* * *
Her lips were soft and yielding, just like the rest of her. Michael held Alison’s ass in his hands as he pressed her against the raw stone of the mountain and kissed her like he was dying and she was the only water in the world. His body was trembling with need. Being close to her, smelling her, hearing the music of her voice drove his bear into a frenzy. The bear wanted to mate—it cared about nothing else. Michael had never been especially good about controlling his bear. Marcus kept his on the tightest leash possible. Matt and his bear were so simpatico that control wasn’t even an issue—they always wanted the same things. But Michael, his bear was wilder. He was younger and still trying to get mastery of it.
Alison wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, holding on to him tightly. She kissed him back, her tongue tasting his and liking what it found. A low growl rumbled in his throat and he felt himself growing uncomfortably hard in his jeans. He was grinding against her, wishing he could make her pants and his vanish by sheer friction. It would be so easy to reach down and ease his pants off, to free himself right here, to take her on the soft ground.
Alison moaned as he kissed his way down her neck. He wanted to rip her shirt open, to gather her breasts in his hands and taste her skin.
“Stop,” she said. “We can’t do this.”
No, his bear roared. She is our mate. We will take her. Michael closed his eyes and put her down. He held his breath as he stepped away from her. He was the master of his bear. It wouldn’t control him, not now. In the wild, bears mated for a season. They fucked and ran, leaving the female behind to deal with the offspring. He couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that. His bear didn’t even really want that. His kind, the bear shifters, mated for life. When they found their true mate, it was for ever and ever. It was one of the ways that his human side strengthened the bear. He had cunning, sure. He could use tools. He could make plans and follow through. But also he could fall in love. Wild bears didn’t. The man and the bear joined together were greater than either separate, their strengths were magnified, and their weaknesses diminished. But it wasn’t always easy.
“You have to back away from me. Your scent is driving me crazy.” Michael fell to his knees, trying to keep his head. The bear roared with fury at being denied its mate and it wanted out. It wanted to shift, but if he shifted now he’d lose Alison forever. He knew it.
“My scent? I don’t even wear perfume.”
“Back away,” Michael growled, his voice deepening as the shift threatened to come on.
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Chapter 1
Bearly Hidden
Alison Meadows had a dream and her dream was on fire.
“Are you there? You just sort of stopped talking?” The voice on the phone was her sister, Chloe. Young, bright, studying dance at Berkeley and with the annoying habit of phrasing everything like a question.
Alison stood at the entrance of the house she’d inherited. It’d been a two-hour drive to get to Bearfield, to see the home that once belonged to her grandfather. In the pictures, it was a majestic Victorian farmhouse with three stately stories and a pole barn looming behind it. The reality was much grubbier.
“Oh Chloe,” she said. “It’s a wreck. Half the windows are missing. The yard is just a tangle of weeds and pricker bushes. The barn is literally a pile of rotting timber and the house is well on its way. How the hell am I going to turn this into a bed & breakfast?”
“A bed and brew-fest? A brew and bedfest?” Chloe asked, her voice a distant drawl on the phone. “What did you call it?”
“A disaster, that’s what I’m calling it. Look, I’ll call you back later. I need to like cry for an hour and then firebomb the spiders out of this place.”
First Drew dumped her, and now this. Alison wasn’t sure her luck could get any worse, but she sure didn’t want to see the universe test that theory. Tears burned her eyes, threatening like a storm on the horizon, but she held them back. Alison had a job to do—one task for her mother—before the house was officially hers. And anyway, she’d cried enough over Drew’s cheating heart. He didn’t deserve more tears.
The house—her house—was nestled at the base of the mountain, built in a sort of scooped-out bowl shape
that she was sure had some specific geological name you’d hear once in college and then never again until it turned up in the Saturday crossword. But she was a botanist, not a geologist. She only knew the basics. Across from her house a massive forest spread out across the valley floor. A hodge-podge mix of trees both native and foreign mingled in suspicious harmony, living alongside each other and creating a unique ecosystem. Alison craved the chance to wander into the woods, to scope out the local flora, to find edibles and herbs and hidden fruits ripe for the picking. But that’d have to wait. By the look of the exterior of the house, it’d have to wait a long, long time.
It was late morning in Bearfield. She had all day to make some part of the house livable, to find her mother’s prized lockbox. The treetops in all directions were aglow with soft light. Fat black ravens hopped from branch to branch, fixing Alison with quizzical expressions. The hush of a river rushing its way down through the valley sounded from behind the house. The location was picturesque, definitely suitable for her longer term plans—if only the house didn’t look so dilapidated.
Alison moved her car into the shadow of the house and found the keys she’d been given. She needed to investigate the state of the place. If the house was even half as bad inside as it was out, she’d be sleeping under the stars tonight.
The house had belonged to her old coot of a grandfather, the one she hadn’t even seen since she was a child. He’d all but disowned her family after some feud with her mother turned ugly. It really wasn’t a surprise. Her mother had a way of turning even the most innocent of conversations into a battle. If her grandfather had been the same way—well, some people just couldn’t get along, even if they were family.
“Okay. You can do this,” Alison said to no one in particular. Nature swallowed her voice, made it small and insignificant. A raven cawed in response. Drew’s words came back to her, as they did every time the world grew quiet. “You really thought I could love someone like you?” He’d said it so coldly. Two years together—wasted. He’d met her family. They’d spent Christmas together with his parents back in Connecticut. All of that groundwork was gone, demolished. Her sister Emma’s wedding was just around the corner. She’d been counting on Drew to be there with her, counting on having him as armor against the stares and thinly veiled disgust of her mother.
When you have six sisters, people tend to generalize you. Chloe was The Dancer. Emma was The Successful One. And so on. Alison, though, didn’t get to be called The Botanist or The Quiet One or even The One With Disastrous Taste In Men (because, honestly, everyone knew that was Harper). No, the world had decided she was The Fat One. At least with Drew, handsome Drew, at her side, the wedding would have been bearable. But alone or with Chloe as her only companion, it was going to be a real siege.
Alison sighed. Maybe living in an abandoned farmhouse would be good for her. It’d force her to spend some time with herself, get her head straight. She could take a break from men as a species and build the business she’d been dreaming of—an establishment that was part brewery and part bed & breakfast. A cozy home full of fascinating travelers, great beer from her own private recipes, and locally sourced food cooked simply. It’d been one of those dreams that come to you in the middle of the night and at first seem impossible. What did she know about running a business? But as she talked it out with Chloe, with Emma, and even with critical, negative Drew, it felt more possible. And when her mother told her she could have Grandpa Jackson’s house, it seemed actually possible. But there was one catch: before her mother would sign it over, Alison had to find an old lockbox in grandpa’s things. Something he’d stolen from her mother ages ago, supposedly.
She should have known the deal was too good to be true. Her savings wouldn’t be enough to fix this place up. She could borrow money from her mother, probably, but that would just lead to a business partnership with the woman, and Alison was smarter than that.
When Alison opened the front door of the farmhouse, she lost her breath. Rows of boxes stood heaped on top of each other alongside both walls. A narrow channel had been carved between them, small enough for a wizened old man to walk through but not large enough for Alison. The house was enormously stuffed full of just junk.
Seeing the boxes made Alison’s heart begin to beat faster. She had a feeling, an instinct. With this many boxes, and considering how old Grandpa was when he passed, there might be some genuine treasure to be found. Growing up in an antique store, Alison couldn’t help developing a nose for rooting out the hidden gold in people’s attics. Her grandfather had started the antique shop decades ago. It was nestled in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, right at the edge of Chinatown. He’d started it, succeeded at it, and then rather abruptly retired up here to Bearfield, leaving the whole operation in his daughter’s hands. Maybe one day Alison’s mother would leave it to her children, but that day was very far off indeed. And even then she’d find some way to make them pay for the privilege.
“Let’s check the back door,” Alison said to the raven watching her. “The whole house can’t be this full.” She wished Chloe had come with her. She could have used the moral support or maybe the backup.
The front hall was the worst, by far, but every room was a junk heap. Entering through the rear of the house, Alison found herself in a kitchen overflowing with canned food, canned soda, and piles of mouse-eaten boxes. She explored the house, tiptoeing as if she was going to wake a monster, opening each door with trepidation.
“What if behind the next door I find a skeleton tied to a bed?” Alison said to the empty house. But the room held crates of old photos.
“What if the next room has like a trap that fires a shotgun at me?” Alison asked the empty house. But the room was full of antique toys.
“What if the next room smells just really, really bad?” But the next room offered up velvet-lined cases displaying silvered daggers and firearms.
Three floors and a basement and an attic, completely packed with things. Alison didn’t know if she was more crushed at the amount of work it would take to fix the house, or more excited about the potential money to be found in selling off her grandfather’s things. She was a cocktail of one part exhaustion, two parts excitement, three parts despair and a dash of self-loathing.
A text from Chloe appeared on her phone. “Good luck tonight.” And then another, “Watch out for bears.”
“I’ll be fine.” Alison responded. “Don’t worry. What are the odds I’d see a bear?”
# # #
Michael couldn’t stop thinking about breaking into Old Farmer Jackson’s house.
When he woke in the morning, it was the first thought he had.
When he opened his junk shop and meticulously arranged his treasures in orderly rows outside for the tourists and locals to browse—his brother Matt jokingly referred to it as yard sale chic—Michael thought about breaking into the house.
When a call came in for someone who needed automotive assistance, or a tow, or who wanted an oil change—Michael rushed to help, but the whole time he dreamed about breaking into that house and rifling through the old man’s things. Michael had many jobs. He wore many hats. In a town as small as Bearfield, he needed to in order to make ends meet. But also, he loved it. And his bear loved it, too.
The bear in Michael craved the seeking and the finding. Running the junk shop was just an aftereffect of his primal need to sniff out treasure. It was what made him different from his brothers. While on the outside they were all tall, muscular, handsome men, on the inside they couldn’t have been less alike, especially their bears. Where Matt loved to sleep and eat and joke and make peace, and Marcus loved the kill and the fight and all of the cultural duties of the alpha, Michael craved the hunt.
He didn’t care about killing the game, that was Marcus’s thing.
He didn’t care about eating the kill, that was all Matt.
Michael wanted to track a deer across miles of wilderness. He wanted to wander as far as he could, learning
the roll of the land. He wanted to hunt for treasures in people’s basement sales. He wanted to peer at a car engine and find the secret flaw. He wanted to survey the pretty tourists at the Lodge night after night, finding just the perfect girl to take to bed and then leaving before the sun rose. He wanted to find treasure.
And the old Jackson farmhouse was the biggest treasure he’d sniffed out in his lifetime.
The old man, Carlisle Jackson—the oldest human in Bearfield up until last month—had kicked it and his estate was unclaimed. The estate’s status should have been a secret, but Matt had accidentally tipped Michael off, not that he’d realized it. His brother was the de facto executor of Jackson’s will and had been complaining about how the next of kin was impossible to find. It was shop talk. Matt was blowing off steam on his lunch break over a plate of pancakes at Red Redwood’s Redwood Diner just off Strawberry Lane. It was one of two diners in town, and the other was Marcus’ territory so Matt and Michael avoided it. The big, quiet man liked his solitude more than anything. Seeing his brothers once a month on hunting night was enough for him.
The estate news was harmless shop talk to Matt, but it set Michael’s nose to twitching.
No heirs and no next of kin meant an auction for the goods in the house. Jackson had been pushing a hundred years old when he passed, or maybe he was older. No one knew and Jackson certainly never told anyone. The old man had a personality like a sack full of rattlesnakes. The idea that he could’ve had a wife and children at some point filled Michael with a mixture of awe and dread. What kind of woman could love a man that ill tempered? Let alone have children with him?
A Taste of Honeybear Wine (BBW Bear Shifter Standalone Romance Novel) (Bearfield Book 2) Page 1