Text copyright ©2017 by the Author.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
From Cynthia
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
About the Author
From Cynthia
Nearly twenty years ago I was told by my boss that people like us, those in Human Resources, couldn’t write. I decided to show her she was wrong. I began producing—and getting published—non-fiction work, mostly how-to articles based upon my expertise in the personnel field. Then I decided I wanted to write what I loved to read, which was romance.
The first story I wrote was for a contest, and I placed second. I subsequently had more short stories and novellas published in now-defunct magazines and online publishers, including Ellora’s Cave, Amber Quill, and Samhain Publishing.
My traditionally published work includes a werewolf series with Kensington under the pen name Sherrill Quinn, and two paranormal series with Grand Central Forever as Cynthia Garner. More recently I’ve written contemporary romance under the name Jett Munroe. The research-and-creation-of-characters part of the process is what I enjoy most. The plotting…not so much. But the evolution from the kernel of an idea happens, a book is born and, for me, it’s usually a messy, painful progression. It goes from fun to not so fun back to fun again, because the reward…
Is fabulous!
I appreciate everyone who supports me in this endeavor—my family, friends, co-workers, and especially you, my readers! For what’s the point of sharing stories if no one is there to read them?
Acknowledgments
There are a lot of people who contribute to the publishing of a book. I have a lot of “thank yous” to send out:
To my critique group: Roz, Laura, and Patti—you ladies seriously rock! I appreciate so very much your willingness to take on much more than one chapter at a time to accommodate my crazy writing schedule.
To my beta reader: Suz—girl, you make my stories so much better. Your Mr. Spock brain comes in handy!
To Nicole Kuhn: Your editing make my books better.
To Celia Kyle: Your books started it all, making my novella possible. Thank you for allowing me to write in your world.
To the folks at Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, especially Britt: Your hard work and generous patience make the process not quite such a nail-biting event.
To the other authors launching novellas in this world at the same time as me: Let’s enjoy this ride together!
Bear My Heart
Ivy Fitzhugh is on the run with her best friend’s eighteen-month-old little girl, Bella. To save the toddler from the same fate as her now dead mother at the hands of Bella’s father, Ivy plans to take the little girl to a small bear clan near the Everglades in Florida. But fate and a broken-down, POS car have other plans.
Cullen MacAvoy is a part-time deputy sheriff and a full-time Enforcer who also makes a living crafting wooden furniture. He recognizes Ivy as his fated mate, but he wants nothing to do with it. He doesn’t want to end up like the other males in his clan, led around by their mates as if they didn’t have minds of their own.
No, he’d help the woman and her adorable little girl, sniff out the secrets she hid, and let her go on her way.
He wouldn’t let his lonely bear have any say about it. But when Bella’s father shows up, Cullen must admit his feelings and protect the woman he loves, at all costs.
Prologue
Eden Millicent Lancaster stared at her friend in growing horror. “Bayleigh…” She swallowed. “Don’t say things like that, honey.”
“You know it’s true. My husband’s going to kill me one of these days.” Her friend Bayleigh’s shaking fingers curled over but couldn’t completely cover the large, hand-shaped bruise on her forearm. “And he’s started being verbally abusive toward Sybil. It’s only a matter of time before…” Tear-filled eyes pleaded with Eden. “She’s just a baby. He’ll kill her too.”
Both of them glanced toward the eighteen-month-old girl who slept in the portable crib set up in a corner of Millie’s one-bedroom apartment.
“But…why?” Eden didn’t understand in the slightest. Things had seemed to be going well between Bayleigh and her husband, Garland Scott, until the last month or so. Unless… “How long has he been hurting you?” she asked her best friend, eyes narrowed and heart braced.
“From the beginning,” Bryson whispered.
Eden’s legs gave out, and she slumped in a heap onto an armchair in her living room. She and Bayleigh had known each other, instant friends, since the first day of ninth grade.
She was a shit best friend, to not realize things had gotten this bad.
“You couldn’t know,” Bayleigh said and sat down on the sofa. “I was too ashamed, and afraid of what he’d do if I went public with the abuse. Plus…” She curled into herself and put her face in her hands. “Oh, Edie, I’m such an idiot. He totally manipulated me into thinking everything was my fault. If he got angry over something, it was because I didn’t do what I should have. When he hit me, it was to get my attention because I let my mind wander.” She looked up, face shiny with tears. “I let him do that to me. But he will not do that to my daughter.”
“She’s his daughter, too,” Eden reminded her. “Surely he loves her.”
“Like he loves me? He tells me that all the time, even when he’s hurting me.” Bayleigh wiped her face with her fingers. “Women have little value to him,” she said. “He wouldn’t think twice about killing her, if she turns out not to be what he wants. And she will, because she’s my daughter. If he views me as weak, which he does, he’ll never see her as anything but weak, too.”
“But the Itan will intervene, right? Or at least punish him.” Women and cubs were supposed to be cherished. Protected. At least in other clans they were. Maybe that was just an old wives’ tale. Maybe all bear clans were like the one she and Bayleigh belonged to.
Bayleigh shook her head. “You have to know our exalted leader has the same viewpoint as my husband.” Sarcasm edged the sorrow and fear in her tone. “Otherwise Garland would never be permitted to get away with it. Anytime he’s had any interaction with us, it’s clear he considers us to be sub-standard. Partly because we’re female and therefore, in his opinion, weak, and partly because we’re not purebreds. And, therefore, weak. The only ones the Itan of Lookout Mountain cares about are purebred bears.” She stood. “He won’t do squat about Garland. Heck, he probably tells him to go ahead and beat on me.”
Like Eden, Bayleigh was half bear, half human, and the human half kept her from shifting. There had to be more to it than that, because they both knew of other mixed breeds who could shift into their animals, but Eden and Bayleigh could not, and the Itan wasn’t forthcoming with an explanation.
This was wrong on so many levels. That Bayleigh had to ask a friend to hide her child
in order to protect her from the other parent was incomprehensible. Yet that was where things stood.
“Edie, I’m a thirty-one-year-old, seemingly-intelligent woman who’s stayed with an abusive husband for seven years!” Bayleigh grabbed her purse. “You…you just watch Sybil for me, okay? I’m going to go home and pack some things and get them loaded into the trunk of my car while Garland’s at work.” She checked her watch. “It’s early yet, but if you don’t hear from me by lunchtime, you have to take Sybil and run.”
Eden popped up off the sofa. “It’s come to that?” she whispered. She had no doubt about what her friend was trying to tell her. She just couldn’t get her head wrapped around it.
Bayleigh nodded. “The best thing you can do is settle with a bear clan where Garland and the Itan have no influence. I put together a list for you.” She bent her head and dug in her purse. Dragging out a thick envelope, she pressed it into Eden’s hands. “The list is in here, along with four thousand dollars. I’ve been saving for months. This was all I could get my hands on without alerting Garland. It’s not much, but it should help.”
“Bayleigh, no!” Eden tried to hand the money back. “You don’t need to pay me to watch over your daughter.”
“This is to keep her safe. You need it,” Bayleigh returned, her inner mama bear lending her innate ferocity, even if the bear couldn’t come completely out. Bayleigh walked to the door, her heels clacking on the hardwood floor. “If you have to run, you need to leave your cell phone behind so he can’t trace you through it, so you’ll need a new phone. You’ll need fake ID.” When Eden started to object, Bayleigh lifted a hand. “We both know a couple of guys back from our time in foster care. They’ll kit you out. Plus, you might need to buy a car so he can’t be on the lookout for yours. I’m sorry, with all that, four thousand dollars won’t go very far.”
If she had to buy a car and pay Mike for fake ID, it wouldn’t go far at all.
“You take the next couple of hours and get yourself ready to go. Seriously.” She swallowed. “You’ll need to put some of your blood on Sybil’s skin, somewhere beneath her clothes, so that she smells like you. Every day, Edie. Don’t forget. Get your blood on her, and that should fool other shifters into believing you’re her mom.”
“You can count on me.” Eden dragged Bayleigh into a hug and fought back tears.
“I know.” Bayleigh drew away and glanced at her daughter. Even with Eden’s limited abilities, she could scent anguish rolling in waves from her friend. A tear trailed down Bayleigh’s cheek, and she drew in a sharp breath. She opened the door and looked at Eden. “Take care of my baby.”
“Come with us,” Edie begged. “We can leave right now. We’ll make sure he never finds us.”
Bayleigh shook her head. “I can’t take that chance. If I’m not home when he gets there, he’ll come looking for me, us, right away. I don’t care what he does to me. He won’t touch Sybil.” She wiped tears from her cheek. “Take care of her.”
“I’ll protect her with my life,” Edie promised.
And that was the last time Eden Millicent Lancaster saw her best friend.
Chapter One
Ivy Fitzhugh, formerly known as Eden Millicent Lancaster, tightened her death grip on the steering wheel of the beater car she’d paid cash for at a small car lot in a little town outside of Nashville and prayed to a god who never, ever, fucking never answered her. “Please, please, please,” she chanted as the engine wheezed and popped. The vehicle shuddered and moaned, and all she could do was guide it off the asphalt and onto the wide, dirt shoulder. She stared straight ahead for a moment, seeing a winding ribbon of black road cutting through rural northern Georgia, with not another car in sight. “This is great. Just great.”
It amazed her that she’d only been on the run for—she glanced at her wristwatch—not even twenty-four hours. Noon yesterday had come and gone, and she’d given it another hour before she’d secured the baby in the car and taken off. She’d stopped at her bank first and cleaned out both of her accounts, adding another three thousand to the pile of money in her purse.
Thinking to lay a false trail, from Chattanooga she’d driven northwest toward Nashville, where she’d parked her car at the airport, took a taxi and had him drop her off at a restaurant. She then had hoofed it, carrying little Sybil the whole way, to a car dealer several blocks away from the eatery. There she’d bought this little good-for-nothing POS, arranged to meet Mike to get a fake driver license and social security card, where she’d parted with most of the rest of her money. Then she got on Interstate 40 and headed east, and then south on I-75 into Georgia, where apparently this big steaming pile of good-for-nothing car decided it was time to stop cooperating.
She really wanted to let loose with a stream of curse words, but was mindful of her young passenger. So instead, with a sigh, she pushed in the button for the hazards, then twisted to check on Sybil. Lush dark eyelashes swept across slightly pink cheeks and the little lips were pursed, the mouth working as the eighteen-month-old sucked on her tongue while sleeping. Ivy straightened and leaned her head back against the headrest. “Well, li’l bit,” she whispered to the unaware little girl, “it looks like things just went from bad to worse.”
She blew out another exasperated sigh and unfastened the seat belt. Grabbing the big hobo bag on the front seat, she fished around until her fingers closed over her latest cell phone. Just as she brought it out, preparing to call nine-one-one for assistance, the rumble of a diesel engine caught her attention. She looked in the rearview mirror and saw an SUV with a sheriff’s logo pull onto the side of the road behind her.
“Bloomin’ heck,” she muttered. She hoped he didn’t take too close a look at any of her documents. They were good fabrications, but any officer of the law would have been trained to spot fakes. And the car…! She’d legit bought the car, but she’d gotten off the expressway long enough to swipe the plates from another vehicle. If he actually looked at the plate and compared it to the plate number on the vehicle’s registration, he’d see they didn’t match.
She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Sybil…no, Bella, that was what she was calling her now. Little Bella was still asleep.
As the deputy strode up to her car, she twisted the key to engage the battery and rolled the window down.
“You havin’ trouble here?” he asked in a voice so deep and smooth and slow, like warm honey, Ivy and her bear instantly wanted to trust him, wanted to pull him down and let him surround them with comfort.
But she couldn’t. Garland Scott was friends with several Itans—bear clan leaders—throughout the South. His influence stretched far, especially in the tri-state area of Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, but not to Florida, which was why she was taking Bella to a small town on the edge of the Everglades. It was comprised mostly of shifters—specifically, black bear shifters—and the little girl should be safe there. At least, she’d be safer there than anywhere else.
“Ma’am?” the deputy called to get her attention.
She looked up at a handsome, tanned face with mirrored Aviators concealing his eyes. It was hard to judge his height while she was sitting down and he was slightly bent, but she judged him to be three or four inches over six feet with invitingly broad shoulders and a trim, narrow waist. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his khaki uniform shirt, revealing corded wrists and muscular forearms.
She was a sucker for a man with good forearms.
And thick, dark brown hair the color of rich, freshly turned earth. The sun glinted off the strands, giving him a yellow aura of sorts. Ivy brought her attention back to the officer’s face. “Um, it just stopped. The car,” she clarified, then felt stupid for doing so. Of course she’d meant the car.
“Well, I don’t know a lot about cars,” he said, “but I can call a tow truck for you.”
“Would you? That’d be great.”
Summer was in full swing now, and sitting in a broken-down car caused sweat to roll down the side of her face.
She brought up one hand to swipe it away.
“Hey, this is no good,” he exclaimed. He pulled open her door. “Why don’t you and your little one wait in my SUV? It’s nice and cool.” He smiled, and a dimple appeared at the left corner of his mouth. Laugh lines around his eyes gave testament to the fact he must have a sense of humor.
And his scent… Holy Hannah, he smelled good, like forest and fresh air, with a hint of leather and cloves. The scent called to her inner bear. Right now, the little hussy was wiggling with glee at the clean and crisp aroma rising from him. Just because Ivy couldn’t shift into her animal didn’t mean it wasn’t part of her, didn’t lend special abilities beyond what being human provided.
She could differentiate smells better than a “normal” human, especially strong emotions like anger or fear. She healed faster than the average human, too, which, coming from the clan she did, was a good thing.
Still, she didn’t know this man. Just because he was in law enforcement didn’t mean he was trustworthy.
He seemed to understand her hesitation, because he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a leather holder. Flipping it open, he showed her his badge and credentials. “I’m Sheriff’s Deputy Cullen MacAvoy,” he said, his voice as rich as aged bourbon. “You and your daughter’ll be safe in my vehicle.”
Ivy studied him a few seconds. She didn’t scent anything to lead her to believe he meant her or Bella harm, and decided he was what he appeared to be. A small-town deputy sheriff helping a stranded motorist. “Okay.” She grabbed her big purse and got out of the sedan. Wrestling open the rear door, she bent and unfastened the belts keeping Bella secure in her car seat. She carefully lifted the dark-haired little girl, shushing her when she muttered sleepily.
“She’s a cutie,” the deputy said. “Mrs…?”
Grayslake: More than Mated: Bear My Heart (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 1
