His To Bear

by Scarlett Grove

  “Yes.” He glanced over at the men fishing on the dock and then back down at Millie’s curvy hips. His body shuddered as his bear grumbled with desire.

  “Come on,” she said.

  He followed her up the path to the entrance of the lake resort and through the front doors. They took a short elevator ride to the second floor and went into her room.

  “It’s cheap to stay here this time of year,” she said, unlatching Bucky’s leash. The dog immediately jumped on Brody.

  “I think my dog is in love with you,” she said, struggling to get the creature to behave.

  Brody liked dogs but he could tell it was giving Millie stress. He looked down at Bucky and let the bear shine through his eyes. A low growl rumbled from the back of his throat, and the dog backed away, going to lie down in the corner.

  Millie heaved a sigh of relief. “Finally. Okay let me show you this report.”

  She grabbed a pile of papers from her desk and sat down at the end of her bed. She was wearing skin-tight running pants that showed every curve of her luscious behind and thighs.

  She waved him over to sit beside her. He didn’t know if he could control himself. When he sat next to her on the bed, the smell of her skin wafted into his nose.

  She smelled of cedar and honey. His bear started pacing back and forth, angry that Brody refused to jump on her and mate with her right then and there.

  Millie flipped through the papers, and began to explain what she’d found.

  “It seems that the fall is what killed him. He had a snapped spinal cord, and his ribs had fractured, puncturing his lungs and heart. If he’d lived, he would have been paralyzed for the rest of his life.”

  “He said he was pushed.”

  “Okay. That’s the thing. He fell on his back, but he had impact wounds on his front. His stomach was crushed from the front.”

  “He was in bear form when I found him. He’d probably fallen that way.”

  “Interesting. His back was broken by impact. I can’t determine how the bear’s body related to the man’s. Fascinating really. But if I just look at it as the human injuries, I can see that he was hit from the front and then fell on his back.”

  “So whatever hit him, pushed him off the cliff. Something awfully powerful. A truck maybe.”

  “That sounds plausible,” she said, standing. “I’ll fax you the full report from the hospital in an hour. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get dressed and take a shower.”

  He stood reluctantly, watching her behind as she moved through the room. When he walked to the door, it took every ounce of willpower in his body to leave without telling her she belonged to him.

  Chapter 4

  Confused feelings clashed inside Brody’s body. Hot fury burned in his gut at the thought of his friend’s death, but the overpowering adrenaline rush he felt when he looked at his mate throbbed in his chest.

  He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, and walked down the hallway of the lodge.

  The best thing he could do for anyone was his job. He had to find the person who’d killed Chris to protect the community. Having a killer on the loose wasn’t safe for anyone, including his mate.

  The hangover still blurring his mind, he knew that he couldn’t bring Millie into his world with how broken he was right now. She might be his fated mate, but she didn’t deserve a man who was overcome by darkness.

  That only made him feel more despair, but there was no way around it. He had to protect her. That also meant protecting her from himself.

  He got in his truck and drove down to the sheriff’s department. Inside, the news of Chris’s death buzzed between desks. He checked Sheriff Charles’s office door and found Natalie inside, weeping in her father’s arms. Natalie had been Chris’s fiancée. She loved him even when she found out that he was a shifter, and was ready to make the ultimate commitment. Now she’d lost her fated mate. Brody couldn’t even imagine her devastation.

  He made a quick knock at the door and the sheriff waved for him to come inside. Natalie sniffed and wiped her eyes.

  “Natalie, I’m so sorry. Are you all right?” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. She sank into his arms for a hug, sobbing again.

  “I miss him so much already,” she said.

  “I miss him too,” Brody said through his anger. Poor Natalie.

  “Excuse me,” Natalie said, pulling away. She wiped her face again and charged out of the room.

  “She’s been a mess,” Sheriff Charles said, shaking his head. “How you holding up? I knew you two have been friends a long time.”

  “I’m hanging in there,” Brody lied. “I spoke with the doctor who examined Chris’s body this morning. She suspects something heavy slammed into him before his fall.”

  “Like what?”

  “She doesn’t have any ideas about what, but he was in bear form when he fell. I suspect maybe a truck. Something like that.”

  “Who owns the land above where he fell?” Sheriff Charles asked.

  “Steve Mathews from what I remember. He has a big spread on that part of the ridge.”

  “Steve Mathews? Isn’t he the wealthy business man from the coast?”

  “Yes. That land is some kind of private resort or a hobby ranch. I’ll look into it today.”

  “Sounds like a good plan,” the sheriff said, sitting back at his desk.

  “Tell Natalie I’ll talk to her later,” Brody said, walking out of the room.

  He went back to his office to find more information about the Mathews’s ranch and to wait for the formal search warrant to come in. He wanted everything to be done to the letter because whoever pushed Chris had done it from Mathews’s ranch.

  As soon as he received the search warrant, a fax started to run through his machine. It was the medical report from Millie.

  The thought of her made his heart jump to attention. In a perfect world, claiming his mate would be all that mattered. But this wasn’t a perfect world. This was a world where humans hated shifters just for living. There were people all over the country and all over the world committing horrible crimes against their neighbors, and Brody was on the forefront of putting a stop to the madness.

  He stood from his desk and took the report to Sheriff Charles’s office. “This is the report, sir,” Brody said, setting it on his desk. Sheriff Charles was on the phone and just gave Brody a slight nod before Brody left to go outside.

  He climbed into his warden’s truck with the Montana game wardens’ logo emblazoned on the side: a sheriff’s star with a grizzly bear at the center. Montana game wardens had been dominated by grizzly shifters for generations.

  In Montana, it was the equivalent of Irish cops in old New York. But it wasn’t like the grizzlies kept other shifters or humans out. It had just been a tradition for a long time.

  Brody loved his job. But today, he wouldn’t be protecting the forest like he’d signed up for. He would be investigating the death of his best friend.

  He drove up the ridge to the Mathews’s ranch, stopping at the big gate made of roughhewn logs with the ranch’s logo arching over the top.

  It read Ridgeline Ranch and had a drawing of a jagged ridge below the words, burned into the wood.

  Brody pulled up to the gate and looked at the high-tech latch keeping it closed. That wasn’t a traditional wooden gate. On the fence to his left, there was a communication box, blinking yellow.

  He rolled down his window and squinted at the box. Then he looked up again and noticed a camera focusing on him.

  “Welcome to Ridgeline Ranch. How can I help you today?” the voice asked.

  “I’m Brody Oberon from the sheriff’s department. A man fell from the cliff at the edge of this property. I’ve got a search warrant to go check it out.”

  “Come on up to the house. Someone will take you out there.”

  The double gates slid open and Brody drove his raised pickup truck down the well-maintained gravel road into the Ridgeline Ranch. Anger swirled in his b
rain. He was looking for someone to blame and he knew it was clouding his judgment.

  He pulled up to the front of the house and got out as a woman in her fifties with dark black hair and wearing a red flannel shirt and jeans emerged from the house.

  “You’re the sheriff?” she asked as she approached him.

  “I’m with the sheriff’s department. Warden Brody Oberon,” he said, reaching out to shake her hand.

  “Emma Slone. I’m the housekeeper and general manager for the Ridgeline Ranch. I’m shocked at the news that a man fell from the ridge.”

  “Is the owner, Steve Mathews, here?”

  “Mr. Mathews arrived two days ago for the party.”

  “I’d like to ask him a few questions if I could,” Brody said, putting his hands on his hips.

  “I’m afraid Mr. Mathews is on a conference call at the moment. But I’m sure something could be arranged.”

  “Great. Let’s go take a look at the cliff then,” Body said.

  Emma hopped into the passenger seat of his truck and she directed him through the property to where it led out toward the cliff. The place was a maze of homes and outbuildings. A large barn and paddock dominated the center of the ranch. Beyond the construction were acres of open fields where cattle grazed. It was all fenced in with a high voltage electric fence line.

  They bumped down a rough road and parked where it dead-ended into the forest. “We’ll have to walk from here,” Emma said, getting out.

  Brody followed her through the trees, looking around for signs of clues. The trees opened onto a rocky ledge that ran the span of the property. Below, in the shadow of darkness, was the spot where Chris had fallen to his death. Brody cringed just thinking of it.

  He pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and began to snap pictures. “Is there any way a vehicle could get out here?”

  “No. Definitely not. It’s all blocked off by dense forest and most of the ledge is far too narrow to drive a car.”

  Brody stopped at the exact spot where Chris had fallen. He knew it because he could see the rocks piled at the bottom where he’d found Chris. Looking down, he found a faint tire track print in the dusty ground. Squatting, he snapped pictures of the imprint.

  “This is a tire track,” he said, pointing.

  “What? That’s impossible.”

  “Look,” he said. Emma stared down at the tire track and then back at Brody.

  “The only thing that could get out here would be a four-wheeler.”

  “Those things don’t have enough power to push a bear off a cliff.”

  “Well. I don’t know. I’d think not though.”

  Brody kept snapping pictures. They continued along the ridge until it opened onto an open pasture with short grass. Brody could see the outline of tire tracks in the grass, leading up to where the forest opened up to the ridgeline.

  He took several more pictures, following the impressions in the grass until they disappeared in the gravel driveway leading off to more guest cabins.

  “I need to get back to main house, but I’ll have Mr. Mathews give you a call to set up an appointment to ask some questions. You’re welcome to search the rest of the property before you leave.”

  “Is anyone in those cabins?”

  “No. A few people stayed after the party the night the man fell. He wasn’t on the guest list at all. We didn’t even know he was here. He must have come with one of the other guests.”

  “I’m going to need your guest list.”

  “Yes. I’ll send it over. Most of the guests have already left. Most were from out of state.”

  “I’ll still need to see the list.”

  “Of course. I’ll email it to you. In the meantime, I need to get back to the house. Can you find your own way out?”

  “Yeah. No problem. Thanks for your time.”

  She hurried up the gravel road to the main house. It was a huge, three-story log mansion with massive windows that looked out on the glorious view of the mountains. Steve Mathews must be loaded to afford a place like that.

  Someone at that party pushed Chris. But why had Chris been up here? Was Mathews involved? How did he know Chris? There was one thing that made men like Mathews tick. Money.

  Chapter 5

  It had been a long day for Millie. Being one of the only doctors in the hospital made the workload erratic. Sometimes there was hardly anything to do, sometimes there was far too much to do.

  She said goodbye to the nurses at the nurses’ station and walked out into the front hallway of the hospital. On her way out through the sliding glass doors, she almost smashed into Brody Oberon.

  “Hi,” she said, with a wide smile. She hadn’t expected to see him back at the hospital so soon. “What brings you here?”

  “I noticed something in your report I wanted to ask you about.”

  “Can we talk about this over a few drinks?” she asked. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Yeah, that sounds great. There’s a bar right across the street if you’re interested.”

  “That’s exactly where I was headed.”

  They went out into the cool evening air. The clear sky was turning pink and yellow as the sun plunged behind the mountains on the horizon.

  Across the street at the local bar, Brody held the door for her and she smiled up at him when she passed. How sweet was that? Men back at home never did that kind of thing.

  She’d been a high-powered important doctor not long ago, and men tended to see her as too tough and alpha to do things like open the door for her.

  They went to sit at the bar and ordered a few beers to take into a private booth. They sat facing each other over the sticky table. Country music played on the jukebox.

  Because it was a Thursday night, the place wasn’t hopping. Millie liked that. She liked to go out for a beer or a glass of wine after her shift. It was better than going straight home after work to be alone. At least that way she felt like she had some kind of social life.

  She took a sip of beer and gazed at the strapping man in front of her. Light blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a body like some kind of Greek god. No. Not a Greek god. Not even Greek gods were built as big and muscular as Brody Oberon. He was huge.

  She bit her lip just thinking about what he must have going on under his clothes.

  “So, what did you want to ask me about?”

  “I was looking over the report.” He took out his phone and scrolled through it. “I found this imprint on Chris’s skin. What do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know. If I had to guess, based on the pattern of his injuries, I’d say it was the logo of a vehicle.”

  “What kind of car logo do you think it is?” he asked, pulling the cell phone back to himself to inspect it further. He flicked his fingers over the screen, making the picture bigger then smaller.

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “I’ll do an internet search tomorrow. Oh, shoot. I have rounds tomorrow.”

  “Rounds?”

  “Yeah. I’m a game warden. My main job is to check people’s hunting licenses and make sure the public is following hunting and fishing laws. Since shifters came out, Montana game wardens have been deputized and we work on any crime committed against shifters.”

  “I could look into that logo if you want,” she offered. “I might be able to get a better picture of the pattern. Chris is still in the morgue.”

  “That’d be great,” he said, running his eyes up and down her body. His gaze made her shiver with excitement. Hot damn was Brody Oberon one sexy man.

  She had a fantasy of him taking her in the forest at night while the moon rose full overhead, and it made her squeal under her breath and squeeze her legs together.

  Millie hadn’t had a boyfriend or even a good lay in a long damn time…too long, considering how wet she was getting just looking at Brody.

  His cryptic behavior the first time they’d met had attracted her to him in a way she never would have expected.

  Aft
er everything she’d been through, she wondered if she didn’t deserve to break off a piece of that man meat. Maybe after a couple more beers the answer would be a firm yes.

  She giggled and ordered them another round, watching Brody as he smiled over at her.

  “You’re a very beautiful woman,” he said in a low voice, his nostrils flaring.

  Could he smell her arousal? This guy was a shifter, from what she’d heard from the nurses. Damn. Maybe he could smell it.

  Millie suddenly felt hot all over. Most of all in her underthings. Well, no use acting like it wasn’t happening.

  “Thanks. You aren’t so bad yourself,” she said, smiling. A good song came on the jukebox and she sprang from the table.

  “Want to dance?” she asked, reaching out her hand to him.

  He growled and took her hand, following her out onto the dance floor. Brody pulled her into his arms and began to lead her in a two-step.

  Surprised, she followed along, looking up into his handsome face as he moved her effortlessly across the floor. She’d expected to go out there and wiggle around like a dork, but this guy was doing a real country western dance with her.

  His strong arms and commanding hips moved her through the dance as the songs played on the jukebox. Beginning to break out in a sweat, she was relieved when a slow song came on. Instead of taking her back to the booth, he held her closer and waltzed around the room with her tucked in his arms.

  Her heart jumped in her chest, pounding in her ears. She felt giddy and lightheaded having Brody’s arms around her. It was like a dream come true to have a man like him hold her so close.

  She could feel the muscles of his chest relax and flex as he moved her across the floor. The smell of his skin intoxicated her senses, and she was lost.

  He leaned into the crook of her neck and took a long breath in through his nose. A low growl rumbled in his throat and Millie felt his shaft harden.

  Her eyes opened wide with excitement. Just when she was about to ask him if he wanted to go back to her place, he pulled away and led her back to the booth.