Smoke (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 7)

by Ophelia Sexton

  And then Evan fell hard for an Ordinary woman from California and had permanently shattered Mary’s hopes.

  Up until that point, Mary had never believed that fated mates were anything more than a fairy tale for shifters. In her pack, as with many shifter clans, all matings were arranged, and as long as the prospective couple didn’t hate each other on first sight, it was presumed that love and mate-bonding would eventually happen.

  The fact that it hadn’t happened for her just made her think that she was defective in some way.

  But Mary had seen how Evan had changed literally overnight once he met Steffi. He’d gone from pursuing every attractive woman who crossed his path to being completely committed to his mate.

  Mary was happy for him, but the abrupt end to their relationship had stung a lot more than she had expected or wanted.

  Why did a commitment-phobe like Evan get a fated mate, and I’m still alone?

  Mary had never quite managed to connect with any wolf shifters in that way. She’d agreed to an arranged mating to Gary di Mannaro after her high school graduation, but she had never managed to mate-bond with him. The failure haunted her.

  Gary had been a nice guy, and the sex had been decent if not great, and she had tried her best to be a good mate, really she had, but her wolf never had warmed up to him.

  In the end, he’d asked her for a divorce so that he could try mating someone else. That had hurt—not because she was in love with him, but because it meant that she had failed at something important.

  And Mary hated to fail at anything. She had worked hard for everything she had—her job as one of Bearpaw Ridge’s police officers, her house, her position as one of the pack’s enforcers.

  And now here she was, attracted to yet another bear shifter.

  Somehow, a perfectly normal thing like finding another wolf shifter and bonding with him as a mate seemed impossible for her.

  Chapter 5 – Breakfast with the Bad Boy

  The morning was getting hot when Tyler returned home an hour later, carrying the duffel bag that Mary’s parents had given him and a newly cut house key in the pocket of his jeans.

  He opened his front door and was greeted by a refreshing wave of cool air that smelled of Mary.

  Tyler couldn’t help himself. He stepped into his living room and just stood there for a long moment, inhaling deeply and letting her scent wash over his senses.

  He felt her presence nearby but couldn’t hear her moving around. So he tiptoed down the hall. The door to her bedroom stood half-open, so he peeked inside.

  She was asleep, curled up on top of her new bed, her dark gold hair a glorious damp tangle over her shoulders and the comforter beneath.

  Tyler’s bear was oddly pleased to see her wearing his robe. Tyler felt equally pleased to see that she’d felt secure enough to lower her defenses and leave herself vulnerable in this new place. That means she trusts me, right?

  It felt like a compliment, and he was determined not to disappoint her.

  He leaned into the room, carefully set down the duffel bag against the wall just inside the door, and tiptoed away to take a quick shower before cooking the breakfast he’d promised her.

  * * *

  The rich scents of brewing coffee and frying bacon crept into Mary’s dream.

  She was back in the basement of her cottage, frantically trying to find a way out as smoke rose all around her, blinding her…then magically transformed into the welcome smells of breakfast.

  And suddenly she felt safe. She opened her eyes and felt momentarily disoriented by her surroundings.

  This isn’t my bedroom! Where am I?

  Then memory returned, and with it, the knowledge that her bedroom, along with the rest of her home, was gone forever.

  She heard the soft clink of dishes and the sizzle of bacon in a pan, and her stomach growled at the appetizing smells wafting down the hall.

  As she sat up, she spotted a big black duffel bag sitting just inside the bedroom door and realized that Tyler had been as good as his word.

  He was standing in front of a sleek, professional-grade gas stove when she emerged from the bedroom a few minutes later. He looked up and gave her a once-over that made her insides heat up in an alarming way.

  “Hey, how are you doing?” he asked softly.

  “Better after a shower and a nap,” she answered and patted the hip of her jeans. “Thanks so much for getting these. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate clean clothes and a toothbrush.”

  “I liked the sheep PJs, though.” He grinned and pointed over his shoulder at the sleek cordless phone perched on the kitchen island. “Your parents are worried sick about you and want you to call them.”

  Mary suppressed a sigh. She did owe her parents a call—they’d probably heard all about the fire by now. Plus, she needed to call her cousin Jennifer and start the insurance claim paperwork.

  “Breakfast is nearly ready,” Tyler continued, sliding a skillet filled with sunny-side-up eggs away from the burner while thick bacon slices sizzled in a cast iron pan placed over another burner. “Coffee?”

  “You are my new best friend,” she said, making a beeline for the coffeemaker perched on the counter.

  The glass carafe was filled with a strong aromatic brew, and two large mugs had been set next to it.

  “Hey, I need all the friends I can get in this town,” Tyler told her, and his tone was serious rather than joking.

  Mary paused in the act of filling her mug. “Well, you can count on me. I owe you, big-time.”

  Tyler grinned. “Officer Jacobsen, I sure hope you remember that the next time you catch me driving a shade above the speed limit.” He gave her an exaggerated wink.

  Mary laughed, poured a generous glug of milk into her coffee, and took a blissful sip.

  The shower and short nap had done a lot to dissipate the feeling of numb exhaustion that had gripped her in the wake of the fire, but she really needed the coffee to clear away the lingering cobwebs in her brain.

  “It’ll just be a minute,” she told Tyler as she picked up the phone’s handset.

  “No problem,” he replied as he carried the skillet of eggs over to the table and began dishing them up.

  “Mary, is that you? Oh, thank God!” Mom answered the phone on the first ring, which told Mary exactly how worried she was.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier,” Mary apologized. “With everything that happened, I wasn’t thinking very clearly.”

  “Are you really okay? Is your house as bad as Annabeth said it was? Have you had a chance to speak with Jennifer yet?” The questions poured out of her mother in a breathless rush.

  “I’m fine,” Mary assured Mom. “Just shaken up. I wanted to take a shower and get some coffee before I called Jennifer.” She paused, finding it difficult to say the next words. “My house is gone, Mom. The garage too…my car. Everything.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” The sympathy in Mom’s tone made Mary want to cry.

  She rubbed the treacherous stinging sensation out of her eye. “Tyler Swanson saved my life. And he went back into the burning house to get my computer and my photo albums.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Mary saw Tyler freeze in mid-scoop, the edges of a fried egg dangling precariously over the edge of the spatula that hovered in mid-air over one of the plates.

  “He came by earlier and let us know you weren’t hurt,” Mom said. She paused, then continued, “Is it really true that you’re living with him now? Tyler, of all people…?”

  Tyler put down the skillet on the quartz countertop, using a little more force than strictly necessary. Mary winced—with his enhanced shifter senses, she knew that Tyler could overhear both halves of the conversation.

  And Mom knew that perfectly well too. And apparently didn’t care. Mary clenched her teeth together.

  She loved her parents, she really did, but the older she got, the less she and they agreed on anything.

  “Your uncle wil
l be so disappointed when he hears,” Mom continued. “Why don’t you let me talk to Dean? He’s got an extra roo—”

  Mary winced. “Thanks, but no thanks,” she interrupted firmly.

  If she didn’t stop Mom now, then there would be no turning back the tide of arrangements, and Mary would find herself committed to living in a guest room on her older brother’s ranch, which was located a good half-hour drive out of town.

  “I’m good. Really,” Mary protested before Mom could continue. “And I want to be close to work until I can rebuild my place.”

  Mary heard her mom sigh. “It’s not normal, this wanting to live alone…or with one of those bear shifters.”

  Mom was right. Pack members tended to cluster together, living under the same roof if possible.

  Just another way that I’m bad at being a wolf, thought Mary.

  Her parents hadn’t been happy when Mary bought the cottage after her divorce, even though she’d still been located in town and just a short walk away.

  And they certainly hadn’t approved of her close friendship with Evan Swanson before he mated Steffi. Bad enough that Mary had actually gotten divorced, but then, instead of resuming her hunt for an eligible wolf shifter, she’d spent her free time hanging out with a bear shifter.

  Granted, the Jacobsen pack and the Swanson clan were close—Evan’s mother Elle and Mary’s uncle Bill had been good friends ever since kindergarten. But still, it was tradition that the different shifter lineages kept to themselves.

  It was a tradition that was rapidly fading. Not only had many of the Swansons—including Tyler’s dad—mated Ordinary women, but Thor Swanson had actually mated a sabertooth shifter.

  That had been…shocking. Everyone knew that sabertooth prides were bad news, and sure enough, they’d caused a lot of trouble here in Bearpaw Ridge a few years ago when they tried to harm Mark Swanson’s Ordinary mate.

  In any case, Evan hadn’t ever actually officially moved into Mary’s place. After a while, though, he’d begun keeping some of his things in her guest bedroom so that he could stay over whenever it was his turn to be on call for the fire department.

  Like all of Elle’s sons, he owned a house located on the Swanson clan’s Grizzly Creek Ranch, but he was rarely ever there.

  As a wildlife biologist, he usually spent his summers camping out in the wilds of Montana, conducting research on wild Canada lynx. The rest of the year, he lived in town with his mate Steffi, close to his office at the local state Fish and Game headquarters. His place at the ranch was used as a vacation rental for the ranch’s thriving bed-and-breakfast business.

  “—you know people will talk about this,” Mom finished plaintively. “About you.”

  “Mom,” Mary said, as patiently as she could. “My house just burned down. I think people are going to be talking about me whether or not I’m renting a room from Tyler. Besides, his place is nice. And it has air conditioning,” she added. “Not to mention home-cooked meals.”

  “Well, I guess you’re old enough to make your own decisions,” Mom said in same tone that she used when talking to one of Mary’s nieces or nephews when they were about to do something foolish.

  Mary gritted her teeth. “Yep,” she said, clamping down on her desire to explain herself. Time to get off the phone. “Anyhow, I just wanted to let you and Dad know that I’m okay. Shaken up, but okay. I’ll let you know what Jennifer says about my insurance coverage.”

  “If it isn’t enough to rebuild your place, you could talk to Dean about maybe building an addition to his—”

  “Mom,” Mary growled. “For the last time, I am not moving to Dean’s ranch. Ever.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve got to go. My breakfast is getting cold.” With an effort, she gentled her tone. “Love you. And say hi to Dad for me.”

  “Love you too, sweetie. But I thought you liked your brother.” Mom sounded bewildered.

  “I do. I just don’t want to live with him. Bye, Mom,” Mary said, and pressed the End Call button.

  She put the handset back on the charger and saw that Tyler had dished up the bacon and was now lifting the first golden-brown waffle from the waffle maker.

  “Sorry about that,” Mary said.

  His short dark hair was damp, and he had changed out of his firefighter’s dark cotton pants and BPRFD T-shirt. He now wore faded jeans that outlined his firm, fine ass.

  Like most male bear shifters, he had shoulders a mile wide and a chest ridged with hard muscle under his clean dark-red Schaeffer Construction T-shirt.

  When he turned to offer her a plate with the waffle, she caught a glimpse of the edge of a tattoo peeking out from the collar of his T-shirt. More ink covered his bulging biceps and ran down his forearms to his wrists.

  She wondered if his chest and back were covered in tattoos. I hope I get the chance to find out, she thought before she stopped herself.

  No more dating bear shifters. And I mean it!

  Without looking at her, Tyler poured another ladle of waffle batter onto the iron. “Don’t worry about it. I didn’t exactly make a good impression the last time I lived here.” He handed her the plate with the finished waffle. “Here—this is for you.”

  “But that was years ago,” Mary protested as she accepted the food. “Wow, this looks great.”

  Since she was standing near the coffeemakers, she took the opportunity to refill her mug, and his too. “Should I take your coffee over to the table?”

  “Yeah, thanks, that’d be great,” he said. “I’ll be joining you in a minute or two. Why don’t you get started?”

  In addition to the plates of eggs and bacon and silverware, the table had been set with a large block of butter, a pitcher of warm maple syrup laced with a bit of brandy, and a bowl of fruit salad made with ripe apricots, peaches, raspberries, strawberries, and plums.

  The fruit smelled amazing, and Mary was willing to bet that at least some of it had come from the fruit trees and berry bushes she could glimpse through the French doors.

  In his cage, Bogey the parrot had a large, thick-walled ceramic ramekin filled with a portion of the fruit salad; he was cheerfully chowing down on it, flinging occasional bits out of the cage. Mary noticed that Tyler had spread a plastic painter’s drop cloth around the cage to protect the breakfast nook’s newly refinished hardwood floors.

  Tyler’s house had a generous back yard with a big deck. Standing at the corners of the wide deck, there were several large planters made from old wine barrels sawn in half, and she saw flourishing strawberry plants spilling down the sides of the barrels.

  “So you became a cop?” he asked from his station at the counter. “Why?”

  His tone was inquiring rather than accusing.

  Mary laughed. “Because Bearpaw Ridge needed more cops—I don’t know if you noticed, but the town’s grown quite a bit in the past ten years. Uncle Bill suggested I get a degree in Criminal Justice after I graduated from high school and told me that if I stuck with it, there was a good chance I’d end up promoted to his job when he got around to retiring.”

  “So you became a cop because you wanted to become sheriff?” Tyler extracted a second waffle from the waffle iron and walked over to the breakfast table to join her.

  “No, I did it because Bearpaw Ridge needed another shifter in law enforcement, and it sounded like interesting work.”

  She poured syrup over her waffles and handed Tyler the pitcher before continuing. “My pack takes public service very seriously. Most of us work for the city or county in one capacity or another. Dad’s always been in private practice, but he never took a better-paying job in a big city, because he knew that the town needed a shifter doctor.”

  “Huh,” Tyler said. “I never thought of it that way. When I was growing up, I mostly thought that there were an awful lot of wolf shifters living in a bear shifter town.”

  “Bearpaw Ridge was never just a bear shifter town,” Mary countered. “My great-great grandparents settled here at the same time as the Swanson
s. Our pack is one of the oldest in North America.” She forked up a bite of waffle. It was vanilla-scented under the maple syrup and tasted every bit as good as it smelled. “Oh, wow. Yum.”

  Tyler rewarded her with a slow, sexy smile that sent a bubble of heat through her belly.

  Down, girl, she ordered herself.

  “So what about you?” she asked, in attempt to distract him from sensing her reaction. “You just sort of disappeared after high school. I mean, there were all these rumors…”

  “I didn’t go to prison. Or join the Marines. Or get anyone pregnant.” Tyler counted off on his fingers. “What am I missing?”

  “I guess that means you didn’t join a Colombian drug cartel as an enforcer either?”

  “You’ve gotta be shitting me!” He raised his dark brows and looked gobsmacked. “And… nope.”

  “Well, you’ve got to admit that a bear shifter could make a hell of a career in any kind of organized crime,” Mary said thoughtfully. “Okay, so what have you been doing with yourself?”

  “Well, after that stupid stunt with the cop car, it looked like I might be headed to juvie,” Tyler began. “Most of the town felt that was where I belonged. But then Aunt Elle stepped in and convinced your uncle not to pursue the issue on the condition that she’d make sure I left town and didn’t return for a good long while.”

  “That reminds me. I heard at least one person tell me that Elle Swanson had killed you for embarrassing the Swanson clan. She apparently did such a great job at hiding your body that no one ever found it,” Mary said.

  Now it was Tyler’s turn to laugh. “No shit? Well, I know Dad would have murdered me without thinking twice—my old man was dying of embarrassment over the whole joyride thing, which was totally the point, as far as I was concerned.”

  “Your dad was a really nice man!” Mary exclaimed, shocked.

  “To everyone in Bearpaw Ridge but me.” Tyler’s expression turned brooding, and his tone was bitter. “I’ve done a lot of thinking about it, and I think he was nice to all of you because you couldn’t disappoint him the way that his only son could.”