A Taste of Honeybear Wine (BBW Bear Shifter Standalone Romance Novel) (Bearfield Book 2)

by Jacqueline Sweet

  “I’ve got you,” Michael said, cradling her in his arms.

  She should have thanked him, or swooned so she could trick him into kissing her, but instead she said, “The lockbox.”

  With Alison still in his arms, Michael chased the thief. He carried her like she weighed nothing. It was unreal. The big man bounded down the hall, his feet finding the perfect place to step with preternatural grace.

  A smashing sound came from the office. Broken glass.

  As Alison and Michael entered the room, the dark stranger with the big nose was perched on the window sill. He was tying loops of twine around the lockbox. He glanced up, winked, and then—where a man had been a second before—a bedraggled raven stood on the frame of the window. The bird hopped onto the lockbox, seized the twine in its claws, and then took off into the night air, cawing in what sounded like laughter.

  Chapter 3

  Bearly Arrested

  “I’m sorry to have to do this, son,” Old Pete said, “but you’re under arrest.”

  For Michael it wasn’t really a surprise. Alison had been livid after that fucking raven shifter nearly got her killed and then stole the lockbox. He knew better than to try and calm her down or convince her she’d seen something other than a greasy man from Rook’s Roost shift into his mangy bird form and fly away with the box that both of them were after. Any other woman in the world and Michael would have smiled at her, charmed her, kissed her softly all the way back to her bedroom and then eased her panties off. She would have forgotten any reason she had to be mad at him shortly thereafter.

  But Alison was different.

  He could barely talk to her. He was so eager to make the right impression, to not freak her out with the shifter stuff, that he just mumbled and grunted like some caveman. It would’ve been easier to just pretend he knew no English. Maybe then he wouldn’t have said so many dumb things.

  Maybe you missed. She’d shot him right in the chest and he basically called her a liar. Way to start the relationship, jerk. Lies and evasion and breaking into her home do not a good first impression make. Just because his bear—who was oddly still and quiet—thought she was his one true mate, the woman he was fated to be with, didn’t mean she thought that.

  The old stories they told in the Lodge on Bear Night were full of fated mates gone wrong. It was basically the old codgers’ favorite topic, aside from “Once I Did A Badass Thing.” Matt now had his story to share, how he’d found his mate and fought a were-shark. The old timers would be buying him drinks for years off that one. Michael would be damned if his contribution to the lore of Bearfield was “I Broke Into My Mate’s House Naked And Now She Won’t Speak To Me. PS Ravens Suck.”

  So when Michael was awoken in the late morning by Sheriff Pete banging on the door of his shack, he shifted into man form, pulled on some pants and a vintage Carebears shirt with the Irish bear on it, whatever his name was, and presented himself for arrest. Old Petey was freshly shaven, his round pink face looking tired and annoyed in the late morning sun. The man had a thick white mustache that looked like it was right off of Old Cops Magazine and bushy eyebrows that would have been more at home on a muppet. He wore a uniform shirt that was one size too small, and the buttons strained as Old Pete went about his business.

  “I’m real sorry, Michael. You know I am.”

  “It’s okay, Pete.” Michael looped a thick chain through the door of his shack, snapping it shut with a padlock. It was mostly for show. Even Pete could have pulled the door off the hinges if he’d given it half a try. “You’re just doing your job.”

  “No, you idiot. I’m not sorry for arresting you. What the heck were you thinking breaking into that woman’s home?” Pete’s pink face grew redder with grumpy exertion.

  “I didn’t know she lived there!”

  “Didn’t you smell her? See her car? With all your gifts that the great bear saw fit to bestow on you, how can you blunder about like this?”

  “There was too much honey, too much junk in that house. I couldn’t smell a damn thing. And there wasn’t any car last night.”

  “Well, there’s a car this morning. A car full of pissed off women, so you better be on your best behavior.”

  Michael sighed and ran his hands through his hair. He had barely slept. He’d been thinking about Alison all night. The fire he saw in her eyes when she leveled the gun at him, the way her wide soft mouth fell open into a little O of surprise when she shot him. And the way the curves of her body caught the light and held it like pooled water. He’d never been with a curvy girl in his entire life. His usual type was lean and sporty, either dancer-thin or muscled and hard. The tourists Bearfield attracted were inevitably hikers and kayakers and mountain climbers. City girls with something to prove and no fear in their hearts. They took Michael to bed with the same fearlessness they showed the river or the mountain. Fucking him was as much a sport to them as anything else in Bearfield.

  But Alison was different. He could scent her attraction, but it was a different sort than he was used to. He couldn’t quite place it. And when he thought about the softness of her, the way it would feel to pin her down, to feel her legs wrap around him, to plunge deeply into her—he’d given his hand a workout last night, and still hadn’t been able to sleep.

  It was all her fault.

  “So wait, why are you apologizing to me if not for the arrest?”

  “Because I called your brothers before I came to get you. They’re waiting at the station already.”

  Michael’s heart plummeted. “Damn it, Pete. You didn’t need to do that.”

  “I did. I really did. The woman you robbed last night—her mother is here and she wants to throw the book at you. Breaking and entering, burglary, indecent exposure, assault, battery and about forty other state laws that you broke doing your damn fool pleasure.” Pete’s mustache bristled as he lectured Michael, quivering with outrage. Getting an earful from Alison’s mom was the last thing he wanted. And it wasn’t like he could send Michael off to jail. You can’t put a shifter in prison. The captivity would drive him bananas until he either shifted in front of his jailers or smashed the walls down and ran off. Either way, attention would turn to Bearfield and that wasn’t something they could afford.

  Michael had to do everything he could to placate Alison’s mom, or he’d have to go into exile. Leave Bearfield forever. He couldn’t do that, though—it was his home.

  “You know I didn’t steal anything, Pete. I’m not a thief. I was just doing a little recon before the auction.”

  “Damn fool. If you’d stopped to talk to me or your brother you would have known there was an heir located. But no, like usual you wander off half-cocked and naked and let everyone else clean up your mess.”

  Shame burned on Michael’s face. “It was a raven, Petey. A raven shifter stole the box. I saw him. A greasy little guy with lank black hair and the biggest damn nose you’ve ever seen.”

  Pete’s eyes went wide. “A raven? They haven’t been so bold in ages. Not since your daddy was alpha.” He crossed his arms and for a moment Michael saw him not as the blundering old sheriff, but as his distant uncle standing at his father’s side, helping adjudicate the affairs of the bear-blooded and shifter-kin of the mountain. He hadn’t held that post in twenty years, but something of the old crafty adviser still lurked behind those comically large eyebrows.

  “Look, I can explain—” Michael began, but Pete cut him off.

  “This box. Is the pendant inside? Is that what you went blundering about for?”

  “If I didn’t go after it, someone else would have!”

  “You fool. You damn fool.” Pete spat, looking angrier than Michael had ever seen him. “You should have just told me or Marcus. We could have done something. But now we’re all at risk. And not just from the mortal world, but also from those bastards over at Rook’s Roost. If they figure out what the pendant is, we’re screwed, my boy.”

  He didn’t want to think about this. About any of this. Mich
ael wanted to find Alison, to charm her off her feet and into his bed and find every obscene noise he could sweat out of her. He didn’t want to get involved in a shifter war. Not now.

  He opened the back door of the patrol car to climb in.

  “You’re not really going to wear that, are you?” Pete asked, his eyebrows rising high enough that Michael could see his bleary blue eyes. “This woman’s your mate, Michael. You could at least try to impress her and her people.”

  Michael looked down at the green Carebear on his shirt, the four-leaf clover on its belly like a talisman against the world. He shrugged at the old cop. “It’s my lucky shirt,” he said.

  When they pulled up to the station, a crowd was waiting outside. Not just Alison and two skinny women that had the same eyes as her, but otherwise resembled her not all, but also Marcie Jackson, Shawna Killdeer, Mina, Matt and Marcus. More people would have gathered to glower at him, but the parking lot outside the little station was completely full.

  “Can you just keep driving, Pete? Drop me at the edge of Rook’s Roost and I’ll get the box back.” Michael couldn’t bring himself to look out the window. He glimpsed the disappointment etched in his brothers’ faces, and that was enough. His bear cowered in the presence of Marcus. As a man, Marcus was intimidatingly large and strong and severe, but as an alpha he was unstoppable. His word was law. If the man told the mountain itself to move out of his path, the stones would have apologized profusely for accumulating there before rolling themselves away.

  “One of these days, kid, you’re going to learn to take responsibility for your actions. And starting a war with those damn ravens ain’t the way to do it.”

  “But they stole the box. I saw them do it.”

  “Do you know if the shifter you saw was acting on the orders of his queen? Maybe he wasn’t even part of their clan, did you think of that? All you saw was a raven shifter and already you’re itching to go prove yourself. You need to calm down, boy.”

  Michael took a deep breath and rested his head against the seat in front of him. He barely fit in the car at all. What would Pete do if he ever had to arrest Marcus? Could his brother even have fit through the door? The question was moot. No one could arrest Marcus. The FBI themselves would take one look at him and run away. He could feel his brother’s glare on his neck, burning him like the sun. The longer he waited, the worse it would be. Better to just get it over with.

  “Hey, Pete,” Michael said, “how’d you know Alison was my mate? I didn’t tell anyone, not even Matt.”

  “Shawna Killdeer woke me up with a phone call at three in the morning, is how I knew. Her visions are getting stronger, and even worse, they’re coming true.”

  “Two fated mates in such a short time. This ever happen before?”

  “No, son. If we see one mate in a generation, it’s a blessing. Two this close together is either a miracle or a sign something bad is coming.”

  Pete huffed and puffed his way out of the car, walking around to open Michael’s door. Michael hung his head low as he exited the cruiser. He couldn’t look Marcus in the eyes and he also didn’t want to look Alison’s mom in the eyes, for fear of what he’d see there. But he couldn’t resist seeking out his mate’s gaze. Michael glanced up, his eyes locking on Alison’s, and the yearning he saw in them made his bear roar triumphantly. She feels it, he thought. She feels the connection. Maybe this whole thing can still be salvaged.

  “Why isn’t this . . . this . . . this sex burglar in handcuffs?” The woman’s voice was high and steely, trembling with outrage. It was Alison’s mother. She was tall and thin like a fencepost wrapped in barbed wire, wearing a pencil skirt, a blouse the color of dandelions and four-inch heels. She had thick black hair that fell to her shoulders in perfectly controlled waves and a face etched with lines from a lifetime of glowering and frowning.

  Old Pete shrugged. “My handcuffs wouldn’t fit him, even if I knew where they were. Besides, I’ve known Michael since before he was dumb enough to go exploring abandoned houses for fun. He’s harmless.”

  “The house was not abandoned.” The woman pronounced the words like she wished they were knives she could stab Pete with. “I demand he be locked up until a trial can be held.”

  “Yeah, that’s going to be a problem,” Pete said. “We don’t really have a jail here. Just sort of a room with an uncomfortable chair.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. Michael could sense Pete was taking exactly the wrong approach with her. She was used to being stymied, to being disappointed, to being fought with. You don’t raise several daughters on your own without developing a backbone of steel. Pete’s bumbling sheriff routine and aw shucks attitude would just piss her off with their inefficiency.

  “Maybe we should have him sent to the county lock-up then?” she asked, a note of triumph in her voice. “I’m sure the county judge would be happy to hear the case.”

  Michael was about to open his mouth, which he knew was a bad idea, when Marcus spoke in his quiet, rough voice.

  “Ma’am, I’d like to apologize for what my little brother has done. He had no right to enter your property like that and even less right to scare your daughter. I swear we will do everything we can to make this right.”

  “And who are you to make such a promise?”

  “My name is Marcus Morrissey, and I’m the mayor of Bearfield and Michael’s legal guardian. You say there’s a lockbox that went missing.”

  “Stolen by his accomplice,” she sneered, like she’d seen through his clever trick.

  “That lockbox—well, we’re pretty sure an old family heirloom of ours is in it. Likely along with whatever is so precious to you. Your father came upon our heirloom and took it when it wasn’t his to take. Can’t fault the man for that, he didn’t know. My father had misplaced it after an accident in the woods. But your father, when alerted to the provenance of the pendant, declined to hand it over and swore he didn’t have it. And that’s just not right.”

  “You can’t expect to hold me responsible for what my father did,” the woman said, but the fight was ebbing out of her. Marcus was giving it to her as straight as he could, and she could tell. He wasn’t lying or stonewalling and she respected that.

  Michael wanted to interrupt, to give his side of the story, to issue assurances to Alison’s mom, but as his big brother spoke, his bear growled low and threatening, cowing Michael’s bear into submission. It was a trick that Marcus used often, speaking softly with his human voice while his bear—his terrifying bear—roared and growled and threatened.

  Marcus folded his arms across his chest. “Not at all. I just hope that when we recover this box for you, you’ll do the right thing and hand over the bear pendant to us.”

  She thought about it, worrying her lip with sharp white teeth as she considered the angles. Michael could almost see the wheels spinning, see her calculating her profit margins and risk. The woman was used to haggling, to negotiating. “If you return the box unopened, I will give you the pendant.”

  “And drop all charges against my little brother.”

  “No. He exposed himself to my Alison. Never.”

  Matt coughed and waved from next to Marcus. He smiled his best charming smile at Alison and then shook her hand. “Hi there, am I to understand that your goal ultimately in Bearfield is to convert your grandfather’s residence into a place of business? A bed and brewery, I think your sister said?”

  Alison nodded, clearly embarrassed to be addressed all of a sudden. Michael saw how her mother’s eyes narrowed with disappointment when she looked at her daughter, how the woman’s lips pressed thin and cold. “Yes, that’s right. I mean, that’s the goal. I think. Probably.” It was obvious that if she could have retreated into a cave at that moment, she would have. It took every ounce of willpower Michael had not to comfort her, to place an arm around her protectively, to defend her from the world.

  “Y’know, I was just telling my fiancée here that this town could use a good brewery. The tourist tr
ade in Bearfield in insatiable for quality cuisine. She’s in the middle of getting a bakery-slash-cafe up and running, and I think a little brewery with some delicious pub food—maybe venison burgers? Have you thought of that?—would be just the thing.” Matt’s stomach growled loudly, startling Alison’s mother. “But as much as our little town could use something like that, it would require permits and zoning hearings and all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles. Being on the mayor’s good side could help your business enormously. While being on his bad side, by say sending his little brother off to jail for five to ten years, could make operating any sort of business here rather difficult.” Matt smiled again, warmly, like he hadn’t just threatened to destroy the woman’s dreams.

  “I don’t care who his brother is,” she interjected. “I want him locked away.”

  “It’s not your call, Mother.” Alison’s voice was quiet but firm as she spoke, raising her eyes from the ground. “It’s my call. I’m the aggrieved party here. I can decide whether or not to press charges.” She looked Michael in the eye. He could see her pupils dilate with desire. He could smell the arousal on her skin. It filled him with a crazed hunger. His heart began to pound heavily in his chest, not any faster, just more intensely. His cock swelled in his pants, threatening to cause a scene if it reached full mast. He’d always favored tight jeans, but today was a bad day for them.