Bear Fate: A Billionaire Oil Bearons Romance (Bear Fursuits Book 8)

by Isadora Montrose

  He hoisted her by her voluptuous bottom and held her with her feet dangling, moving her so that her sex massaged his engorged cock. The relief was stupendous. She moaned into his mouth.

  Patrick looked around wildly for someplace to lay his prize down. Beneath an oak tree a patch of green moss glowed. He set the Dupré female down on her back and she squirmed into place. Her plump arms extended to grasp him. Her knees came up in invitation.

  “Now?” he growled.

  Her blue eyes widened. “Yes,” she whispered so softly for once he was glad of his sensitive bear hearing.

  He spread her legs wide so he could see her moist and glistening sex. He probed with his forefinger and pressed upward. She was soft, swollen, pink and slick. Her passage clenched around his finger. He pressed harder and at the same time moved his thumb through her pussy juice to moisten it before he made circles around her clit. She screamed. The cries echoed around the forest and were answered by the raucous calls of the jays. He was inside her before the noise had died away.

  Her thighs were thick, muscular, and strong. They grasped his hips snugly. Her heels pressed into the dents above his buttocks increasing his arousal. Everything inside him clenched tight. They rocked together fiercely.

  He tried to continue his thrusting, but his climax overwhelmed him. He collapsed onto her soft and plushy body, shouting against the side of her head. After a long moment of enjoying the softness of her relaxed and satiated female flesh, her hands pushed at his shoulders and he rolled off her body and lay panting beside her.

  “Oh,” she sobbed. “Oh, what have we done?”

  As if she had not lain in wait for him. He wasn’t going to fall for such a blatant trick. Patrick sprang to his feet. “It was good for me too. But I’ll have to say goodbye now. My clothes are on the other side of the creek.”

  She cowered on her knees, hands covering her mouth. “Is that all you have to say to me?”

  “Thank you, Miss Dupré,” Patrick drawled. “I don’t know when I’ve had such a pleasant time.” He sauntered back to the stream, and swam across to the other shore. When he had put his clothes back on, he glanced across the water, but Heather Dupré had vanished.

  * * *

  “What happened to you, Heather?” Amber demanded.

  Heather wasn’t surprised that her twin had noticed she was upset. But she wasn’t ready to talk about her encounter in the woods. She shook her head and tried to smile. She had obviously lost her mind. Not that Patrick Bascom wasn’t just as much to blame.

  She changed the subject. “Do you think we have enough berries to make a start tonight?”

  Amber peered into the two flat baskets of salmonberries that Heather had picked before her swim. She stirred them gently with a finger. “I think so. I picked up apple cider vinegar from the store on my way home. And we have brown sugar and salt, so we’re set.” She opened the cupboards underneath the kitchen counter one after the other. “I don’t remember where the jam kettle is.”

  “It’s in the cupboard beside the fridge. At the back,” Heather tried to act normal.

  Naturally, Amber knew she was upset. Even if they hadn’t been identical twins, they were sisters and best friends. She felt changed by the episode with Patrick. It wasn’t just losing her virginity. Everything inside her felt raw and scoured, not because he had been rough, but because her feelings left her bewildered.

  She didn’t understand. She hated Patrick Bascom as passionately as she had desired him earlier. As soon as he had appeared in the river, she had known. This was the male fate had selected for her. She had immediately known who he was – she had a bear nose after all. But she had suppressed how rude and unpleasant a man he was and acted like a randy idiot.

  Not that it was entirely her fault. What kind of jackass watched a female bear shifter dancing alone in the forest in the springtime – in mating season – and joined her, when he didn’t have honorable intentions? Not that she wanted a jerk like Patrick Bascom to have any kind of intentions whatsoever. All the nasty words he had flung at her just for asking about their inheritance were engraved in her memory.

  As passionately as she had sported with him this afternoon, she now wished she hadn’t danced the bedtime tango with him. Hadn’t set eyes on him in bear. He should have gone away as soon as he saw her in bear during mating season.

  Not only did Patrick Bascom have no manners, he didn’t know how to behave. If she had not been beguiled by his smell, she would never have done any such foolish thing. How could she have given herself to such a jerkwad? How could he smell so right and be so wrong?

  “Got it,” said Amber hauling the huge, black enamel canner out. “Should we wash the salmonberries first? I always think they get soggy when you wet them. And they don’t seem sandy or dirty.”

  “Aunt Carol says that the boiling vinegar kills all the germs.” Heather tried to sound normal. “She doesn’t wash them first. But we do have to take the stems off. I’ll get started while you sterilize the jars.” She sat down at the table and began the slow task of pulling the small green leaves off the top of the tiny berries.

  It took all evening, even though they only made sandwiches for supper. But by bedtime, they had three dozen small jars of pickles. “Have you thought where we’re going to keep them?” Heather asked.

  “We’ll have to put them in boxes, and put them under a bed while they cure. There isn’t anywhere else in this place.”

  Amber was right. The little apartment above Miller’s Hardware Store where they both worked had only one bedroom, no hall closet, and was cramped for two people. And they could barely afford the rent. But it was better than living with Aunt Marlene and Uncle Bobby.

  “We can get boxes from work,” she said to Amber. “They can stay on the table until tomorrow night to cool. I think we should buy some fancy labels and make them look special.”

  “If we put circles of fabric and tie them on with ribbon, they’ll look like presents. I’ll bet we can ask as much as five dollars a jar.” Amber rinsed dish soap off the big enamel pot and set it in the dish rack. “I have that print fabric I bought to make cushions, we could use that.”

  “And we have a whole spool of white curl ribbon,” Heather recalled. “I think it’s on the top shelf of the bedroom closet. I’ll go get it. You know, we wouldn’t have to buy fancy labels, if we made tags out of old cards. I’ll bet Aunt Debbie has a boxful somewhere that she’d let us have. All we would need was a pen and a hole punch and we wouldn’t have to buy those.”

  Not quite two hundred dollars for a whole afternoon and evening’s work. No matter how hard they tried, they were never going to be able to leave French Town for Portland. Not in this lifetime. They would be stuck here forever with no prospects whatsoever.

  Amber gleefully high-fived Heather. “Way to go, sis.”

  Heather kept her doubts to herself. Let Amber be happy for once.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When Patrick returned to Zeke’s cabin, he found Zeke and their uncle sitting at the dining room table eating sandwiches and drinking coffee. Gilbert Bascom got up to shake his hand and pound him on the back. The cabin was oddly quiet and there was no sign of Zeke and Jenna’s triplets. He supposed Jenna had taken them someplace.

  “Zeke said you were injured in Syria.” Gil’s tone made it a question.

  Patrick looked down at his arm where the gouge made by shrapnel had closed. A thick pink line had replaced the raw wound. It still looked a little tender, and probably he should replace the bandage to protect it. But either the river water was a magic elixir, or shifting had had a curative effect. Shift on a stick.

  “It’s just a scratch,” he said dismissively. “How was Maine?”

  “Another honeymoon,” Gil said with a satisfied smile.

  Patrick repressed his urge to sneer. Gilbert and his hillbilly bride had taken yet another cruise. Gil’s money had opened up another world for his backwoods wife, but he persisted in believing that she was in love with his
battered face instead of his bank account.

  Zeke headed for the kitchen for another mug and the coffee pot. Patrick sat down with Gil, even though the last thing he wanted to do was chat. He needed some time to process his stupidity in the woods. That was the sort of idiocy that happened when you gave into your inner beast and turned into a bear. What the hell had got into him? Fucking a Dupré as if he didn’t know what they were. Shift.

  “Where are the triplets?” he asked.

  “Jenna and Debbie took them over to her mother’s. I think they wanted to give me and Zeke some privacy. Jenna is a kind woman. And Debbie always likes to get back home to French Town. She’s a small-town gal at heart.”

  “You think Jenna would have married Zeke, if he wasn’t one of the B&B Bascoms?” Patrick blurted out. He kept his voice low. His twin also had bear hearing.

  “In a heartbeat. It’s a bonus that he’s independently wealthy. Zeke is what you would call well integrated into the Yakima Ridge community. He’s made himself responsible for the Yakima Ridge Internet. He’s being trained by the fire department. He is not homesick for Colorado. And he does not regret his marriage. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, boy. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were jealous of your brother.”

  “I just want to be sure that Zeke isn’t going to be left high and dry.”

  “Open your eyes, Pat, Zeke’s on top of the world. He’s busy. Madly in love with his wife. His lovely, loving wife. And those kids of his make sure he has no time to brood.”

  “That’s another thing, Gil. Triplets. What the devil did he have to go marrying a bear for? Triplets! I ask you.”

  “If you’ve never gone frolicking in the woods with your mate, in bear, you haven’t lived. I recommend it.”

  “Not you too, Uncle Gil?” Shock throbbed in Patrick’s voice.

  Gilbert Bascom just smiled reminiscently. Pat was unprepared for his frontal attack. “You have some explaining to do. What the hell did you want to stir up those blamed Duprés for?”

  “You asked me to distribute that money Great-Granddaddy Clive left his love child,” Pat reminded him.

  “I told you to think of a way to benefit the residents of French Town with that money,” Gil snapped. “Not to start World War III.”

  “You emailed me Clive’s letter. I read it. He wanted his illegitimate daughter to have six million dollars. Shirley Foster Dupré Miller is dead. She had a son by Solomon Dupré, which makes the Duprés her heirs. I reasoned that they ought to get Clive’s money.”

  Gilbert’s big broad face was red. A muscle twitched in his jaw. It took a lot to rile the older man, but Patrick seemed to have managed it. “Those Duprés are troublemakers and thieves,” Gil said through his teeth.

  Patrick sighed. “I found that out for myself.”

  “Shirley is dead,” Gilbert’s voice rose in exasperation. “The woman married twice. She didn’t leave any descendants – just stepchildren and step-grandchildren – from two marriages. Who have already had this whole town in an uproar squabbling over her estate – such as it was. Clive’s letter isn’t legally binding. It’s not a part of his will. We can do what we please with that money. There was absolutely no reason for you to start the Duprés fighting with the Millers again.”

  “Setting up a charitable foundation is contrary to Clive’s intentions.” Patrick tried to get Gil to see reason. “He wanted his child to have that money. I didn’t tell those Duprés to start a family feud. I presented them with a carefully prepared distribution of assets. How was I supposed to know that they would respond with some damned incestuous infighting? I swear to God, Uncle Gil, the whole boiling lot of them are so damned inbred they don’t have three wits between them.”

  “Bobby Dupré isn’t as slow as he makes out. Mind you, he’s cunning and close-fisted. But that’s exactly why I asked you to come up with a plan.” Gil pounded on the table with one big fist. “I didn’t expect that you would breeze into town while Deb and I were in Maine, and set off a bomb on Yakima Ridge. Deb wants this matter resolved, pronto. And what Deb wants, Deb gets. Do you understand me, nephew?”

  As far as Patrick was concerned, his Uncle Gilbert had lost his mind when he had met and married Debbie Benoit. But Gil seemed happy with his choice, and since Gil had been more of a father to him than his own daddy, he didn’t want to argue with him. He held up a big hand. “If I say I’m sorry, and I’m working to fix this, can we be friends?”

  “Gilbert leaned back in his chair and nodded. “So long as you fix it so Deb and Uncle Pierre are happy, I’m happy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Exactly what happened in Syria, boy?” Gilbert touched the scar peeking out from Patrick’s sleeve.

  “I caught a little shrapnel,” Capt. Patrick Bascom of the Colorado National Guard said dismissively. “I got off lightly. I spent a lot of my time writing letters home to folks who would never see their kids again.”

  Gil’s big broad face sobered. “Well, I’m glad to see you back in one piece. But you must figure this business out. This town doesn’t need any more hard feelings. I know you acted for what you thought was the best, but did you ever think that maybe Clive was trying to make mischief with that money?”

  “Why would he do that?” objected Patrick.

  Zeke came in with sandwiches and coffee. He snorted. “You look at how Clive treated Laura. Do you think he was trying to be fair when put it in his will that she had to marry and have a child in order to keep the Double B?”

  Patrick shook his head. Clive’s will had been a shock to their entire family. Laura was his and Zeke’s second or maybe third cousin, but they thought of her as a sister.

  “Laura went to work on that ranch the second she left college,” Zeke continued. “She turned the Double B into the success it is today. And I don’t know if you’re aware of how important she has made the Bascom stud in the Quarter horse world?”

  “She’s done okay,” Patrick said.

  Zeke glared at his twin. “No, Patrick, Laura has not done okay. She’s accomplished a flipping miracle. Before Laura took it over, the stud was just Clive’s expensive hobby. A money pit. She single-handedly turned it into a money-making business that has the respect of every breeder of Quarter horses in America. Not bad for ten years’ work. And how did Clive reward her for devoting her life to his interests?”

  “He left her only a life interest if she doesn’t marry and have a kid,” Pat said sullenly.

  “He sure did. And worse than that, he left the reversion to those two useless brats Piper and Nolan. You think that wasn’t malice?”

  Piper and Nolan Belington were second or maybe third cousins from another branch of their complicated family. Clive’s many marriages had made for a sprawling family tree.

  “Maybe Clive just wanted to see her married and having some kids. Having a more normal life,” Pat suggested.

  Gil made a rude noise. “Do you think Clive was demonstrating his respect for you when he stipulated that you, Cal and Zeke had to quit the military if you wanted to claim your inheritance?”

  “No. But he always made his feelings about us doing our military service very plain. I told Clive, and Zeke told him, that he could keep his goddamn money.” Patrick suppressed his anger at the from-the-grave attempt to control him.

  “If it wasn’t for Laura,” Gil continued, “You and Zeke would’ve been cut off without a plugged nickel. And you wouldn’t have kept your job with B&B, and neither would Calvin. Even though you’ve worked for B&B since you got out of law school. It wasn’t in Laura’s own interest to withdraw her challenge to Clive’s will, but if she hadn’t, you would have had to resign from the Guard.”

  “I know. I know. And I’m grateful to her. But the old man had a right to leave his money anyway he saw fit. I just never thought the old bastard had so many lost children.” Patrick threw the words at Gil.

  Gil sipped his coffee. “Your Great-Granddaddy Clive had a woman in every town. He married fo
ur times – that we know of. Had a heap of mistresses. As far as I know, Shirley Foster was his child. And he left her and her mother high and dry when he left French Town.”

  “That was long before he made his fortune,” Patrick felt obliged to point out.

  Gil’s brows met. “What difference does that make? Clive abandoned Lila with a bun in the oven.” He drank coffee. “Did you know that young man Laura has helping her at the stud is yet another Bascom? And I wouldn’t be surprised if the lawyers turn up some others. If Clive had wanted to take care of Shirley, he should have done it when she was born. What sort of a life do you think Lila Foster had bringing up an illegitimate kid in French Town?”

  Zeke chipped in. “I don’t see how Shirley’s stepkids are entitled to Clive’s money. Well, except for Amber and Heather Dupré. Those two girls looked after her right up until her death.”

  Heather Dupré had cornered Patrick right after he had had a long shouting match with the head of the clan. Bobby Dupré had used up his patience and his goodwill. Strangely, he had not found Heather more than passable when they had spoken, although she was irresistible in bear. He had told her in no uncertain terms that he was no longer willing to hand out money to any but Shirley’s legitimate descendants. She had slunk away without another word.

  “If you felt like that, Gil, why didn’t you deal with that money yourself?” Patrick argued.

  “Because I thought I could trust you to set up a foundation. This town could use a little injection of cash into community projects.”

  “You mean like Zeke paying for that clinic in Hanover?”

  “Yes. Like Zeke paying to keep the Hanover Free Clinic open.”

  “The whole fucking community has their hands in his pocket,” Patrick said in exasperation.

  “You think I have a better use for my money than seeing that kids get vaccinated, and women get prenatal care?” Zeke’s voice was genial, but his eyes were stern.

  Patrick bit his tongue before he could voice his suspicions that Jenna had married his twin for his money. “I know I screwed up,” he conceded. “But how was I to know that Shirley Foster Dupré Miller left no issue? I was told she had a kid with her first husband.”