The Bearfield Baby Heist

by Jacqueline Sweet

  The Bearfield Baby Heist

  a Bearfield story

  Jacqueline Sweet

  Contents

  Copyright

  Get Your Free Books

  Also by Jacqueline Sweet

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Epilogue

  About Jacqueline Sweet

  Also by Jacqueline Sweet

  Reckless Romance

  Copyright © 2016 by Jacqueline Sweet

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The Bearfield Baby Heist by Jacqueline Sweet—Mina is due any minute now, and her cub-in-the-oven is causing havoc and stealing her shifter husband's powers. When the Cuckoo steals Mina and her unborn child, her suddenly mortal mate must risk everything to save them.

  Get Your Free Books

  Mated in Bearfield—A semi-sequel to A Slice of Honeybear Pie, Matt and Mina's wedding day is approaching and Mina is not ready. Her mom is in town and is in the dark about shifters. Her bakery is about to open, but a bear is eating all the pies. And to complete the mating ritual, she and Matt have had to abstain from sex for a month. But her special day is here, and Matt is giving her that hungry look. Will all of the waiting be worth it? Oh yes, yes it will.

  What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Shifter—A pregnancy guide for new moms carrying a supernatural bun in their ovens, covering such important topics as: Shifter-proofing your home, the care and feeding of baby shifters, and the appropriate time to socialize your little fuzzy bundles of joy. Written by USA TODAY bestselling authors Cynthia Fox, J.K. Harper, Jacqueline Sweet, Auriella Skye, Elianne Adams and Claire Ryann.

  Get your free books now when you subscribe to Jacqueline Sweet’s newsletter.

  Also by Jacqueline Sweet

  the Dragon’s Heart books

  * * *

  Dragon shifters, a missing father, a haunted mansion and secrets long thought buried

  * * *

  Chained

  Scarred (coming May 2016)

  Book 3 (coming June 2016)

  The Bearfield Books

  * * *

  Strong Bears, Curvy Heroines, a Sleepy Town Full of Magic and Mysteries and Good Food

  * * *

  A Slice of Honeybear Pie

  A Taste of Honeybear Wine

  Honeybear Halloween

  A Honeybear Christmas

  Fake It Til You Mate It

  The Bearfield Baby Burglary

  The Honeybear Alpha (coming Summer 2016)

  The Penrose Magical Academy series

  * * *

  Stand-alone stories set at a magical university full of witches and wizards and shifters and sex. Co-written with Devon March.

  * * *

  Tutoring the Wolf (coming Fall 2016)

  Part I

  Fake It Til You Mate It

  Danny and Sarah are perfect for each other, only it might take a shifter conclave and devious maneuverings for them to realize it.

  Chapter 1

  The bakery looked like an earthquake had shook it to pieces. Flour clung to the floor in mounds like fallen snow. A broken jar of homemade strawberry jam dripped down the wall. Two of the giant oven paddles were snapped into kindling.

  And Mina Brooks had no one to blame but herself.

  “Maybe you should go home, boss?” The voice belonged to Mina’s assistant, her right-hand woman, her Gal Friday, whose name was actually Saturday Johnson.

  Mina looked at the destruction and gritted her teeth. Her hands had done this.

  “No way, girl. I can get the hang of this.” Mina opened a cupboard with the gentlest of touches. “I’ll make some muffins. Some banana molasses muffins. They’ll be amazing. We haven’t served these in like a month and the customers will freak out.”

  Mina bent over, her breath exiting her in a whoosh. The baby bump pushed on her diaphragm like a cannonball. She was nine months pregnant and refused to stop working. She grabbed the muffin tray—it was industrial sized, perfect for making four dozen muffins at a go—and just at that moment, her little bundle of joy twisted and kicked within her. Mina’s fingers flexed and grasped at the muffin tray, twisting the stainless steel into a pretzel.

  “Mina, I say this as a friend and as the person who has to clean all of this up: Please go home.” Saturday smiled at her with kind eyes. It almost made it worse. She was so reasonable. So calm under pressure. She’d only been at the bakery a few months, but the woman was already an indispensable part of Mina’s life.

  There were times, Mina knew, that she hated Saturday. She wasn’t proud of it. She tried to pull the feelings apart and see what was at the root of them, but she knew what it was. Saturday was younger than her. She was competent and selfless. She was pretty in a statuesque way that Mina never would be. Mina was all curves—even more so now—her body was rounded swells and strong calves and forearms thick from kneading dough. Whereas Saturday was built like Serena Williams.

  Working with her was like seeing the better version of herself from the universe next door.

  Not that it mattered. Saturday was nice as could be. She was working to pay off her student loans. And nine days out of ten, Mina thanked the gods for Saturday’s help.

  It was just that today was not one of those days.

  “That little bear cub inside you is going to wreck this place, boss.” Saturday said. Her accent was all East Coast. “Go home, let Matt take care of you. I’ll get this place cleaned up and I’ll send you some cherry scones.”

  Cherry scones. Just the words were enough to make Mina’s mouth water and to make her little cub roll over inside her. The little one had inherited her mate’s sweet tooth, that was for sure.

  “Don’t you dare send me scones. I’m already as big as a house. If you send me them, I will eat every crumb and lick the plate clean.” Mina protested as she removed her apron and chef’s hat. She knew she had to go—every time the little one kicked, her strength grew tenfold. It was a miracle that she hadn’t ripped apart the plumbing or severed a gas main yet.

  “I’ll send two bags then,” Saturday laughed, taking the chef hat from Mina and popping onto her own head, where it looked perfect. “You need to take some time off. You don’t want to have your kid here in the bakery, do you? Seriously, it’ll all be under control. I have help coming in soon. We’ll keep things running just like you do. No one will even know the difference.”

  As far as Mina was concerned, that was the problem.

  It was almost two years since she’d first come to Bearfield. On the run from some very bad men, one of whom was a mobbed-up ex-boyfriend, she’d crashed her car, been arrested, met her mate, and fallen in love in less than a day.

  Her life since had been like a hurricane surrounding the world’s coziest bed. And in that bed was her husband, the man of her dreams, her mate, Matt Morrissey. Did he have flaws? Of course. Who doesn’t? Matt could be a little lazy. He liked sleeping in. He got crumbs all over the house. And sometimes he turned into a bear.

  When you married a bear shifter, there was a certain amount of oddness you accepted into your life. He had brothers who were also bears. He occasionally had to go off on pack business, to negotiate with other clans or supernatural beings. Mina accepted this. It was weird, but he was worth it. They were worth it.

  A year and a day after they met, they were married
and mated. She got pregnant that very night. The whole thing was very magical. She was more than human afterwards. Some part of Matt’s magic had entered her and stayed with her, slowly transforming her. She wasn’t a shifter—it didn’t work like that—but she was now bear-blooded, a bear-mate. She could run without tiring. Her senses were sharpened. She could lift a fifty-pound bag of flour without a second thought. It was fun, at first.

  But then came the complications.

  Mina walked home from the bakery. It was dawn in Bearfield. She kept bakers’ hours, despite everyone telling her to take it easy. The rising sun painted the town in deep gold hues. The peak of the mountain loomed behind cotton candy fog, its presence obscured but always felt. The little town lay nestled in a crescent-shaped nook in the mountain. Shadows fell over half of the buildings, but the other half glowed in the dawn sun. Mina sighed with delight. She rarely saw her home like this. She arrived at her bakery before dawn, worked all morning baking and getting ready, then stayed until almost closing every day. They were long hours, but the place was hers. The hours were worth it. She was building something good in Bearfield. Every time she fed a local a muffin or a sweet bun and they smiled that blissful smile at her she could feel roots extending deeper into the earth. As she fed the people, they loved her. They made space for her.

  When she’d lived in San Francisco, people had been nice in her neighborhood, but it was nothing like the home she’d found in Bearfield. Here, everyone knew her name. They knew where she lived. They invited her to barbecues and picnics, to their kids’ recitals. She was accepted by these people in a way that had never felt possible in the big city.

  She walked past the movie theater, past the newspaper, past the grocery store and the spice shop. All the way across town until she was back at home.

  Matt had a beautiful house when they met, and with her help it was now a beautiful home. It was a half-mile into the forest, down a muddy dirt road. Matt had made a walkway for her, though, that ran parallel to the driveway. He’d knocked down trees as a bear, shifted to a man, and carried them to his workshop. He and his brothers, the flighty Michael and ever-grumpy Marcus, had argued for hours about the best way to make the walk. Eventually they cut the trees into planks and had fashioned a little wooden walkway for Mina, with a railing along one side. Her own personal nature walk.

  It was a present to celebrate her pregnancy, the first of a thousand little gifts from Matt’s brothers and the people of Bearfield.

  Her child—their child—would be the first shifter baby born in a generation. The first since Matt’s brother Michael had been born.

  Every time she walked the wooden path back to her house, through the dense forest, Mina could feel the love radiating from the reddish timber. Solar lanterns lighted her way, hanging from tree branches overhead. They were gifts from the raven people who lived deep in the woods. Something about them made Mina feel more like royalty, like the gifts were from a neighboring kingdom sent to pledge their support and not just a baby shower gift.

  The wooden beams were mossy and slick with morning condensation. As Mina walked, her little one kicked and stretched harder than ever, driving the air from Mina’s lungs in a groan.

  At home, she found Matt still asleep in their big bed. The morning light played across the curves of the muscles in his back and arms like it was fondling him, like it didn’t want to let go. His skin glowed like honey.

  She tried to get into bed without waking him, but it was impossible. Her toes were just so cold, and his skin was so warm. She dug her feet under him to warm them and he yelped in surprise.

  “Ice cubes!” Matt said. He popped his head up and looked around. His hair was standing up in a sleepy mess, like a porcupine pompadour. Then, blinking himself into consciousness, he smiled at the sight of Mina, melting her heart again. Everyone needed a devastatingly handsome man to smile at them in the morning.

  “Saturday kicked me out.” Mina snuggled under the covers and tried to find a way to cuddle with her mate that didn’t involve squishing her belly.

  “You knew you’d have to take a break sometime,” Matt rolled over and maneuvered himself so his arm was under her head and her baby bump was resting on him. It felt good. Really good. The little one never kicked or surged inside her when Matt was around.

  “I know. I know! But I’m not ready. There’s still so much to do. I haven’t trained Saturday on half the recipes.”

  “She’ll figure it out.”

  “And the cub keeps moving at exactly the wrong time.”

  “He’ll be here soon.”

  “She,” Mina said. “It’s a girl.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.”

  Matt kissed her head and held her. His body radiated a soothing heat that sunk into her bones. It was relaxing in a way that made Mina want to nap like immediately.

  “What if Saturday is a better baker than me?”

  “What?” Matt asked. “Where’d that come from?”

  “She’s just so good at it. It scares me. What if when I go back to work in a few months everyone loves her muffins more than mine? What if they get so used to her, they forget about me?” Mina didn’t mean to express her fears so nakedly, but being next to Matt had a way of disarming her.

  “They won’t. You’re an incredible baker. You work hard at what you do. Everyone in this town loves you, you know? And not just because you feed them. They can see your heart. They love you because you’re an amazing person. Some other woman baking your recipes out of your shop for a season won’t change that.” He squeezed her close with both arms, and she could almost feel the anxiety flee her body. Almost.

  “What about Maureen?” Matt asked.

  Mina pursed her lips. “That is a white girl’s name.”

  “Mandy?”

  “Shut the hell up,” Mina laughed.

  “Minx!” Matt’s voice was excited.

  “Yes, perfect,” Mina said sarcastically.

  “Well, I’m sure the right name will come to us in time.”

  The baby rolled over inside Mina and she could almost swear it was laughing.

  Chapter 2

  Matt Morrissey had a bear in his heart.

  It’d always been there, always been a part of him. It didn’t have a name—it didn’t need a name. It was just his bear. You didn’t give your foot a special name. You didn’t name your favorite thumb Joshua. And you didn’t name your bear. It was just your bear.

  The bear had been a part of him since before he had memories. The baby books said that kids didn’t develop real memories until they were three, sometimes four years old. It had to do with language acquisition, and how we use words to organize our thoughts. Words were a memory hack. A way to trick your brain into remembering. Before words, there were only feelings and sensations. Matt couldn’t recall memories from before words, but he remembered his bear.

  He shifted for the first time when he was a baby. The way his mother told the story, she’d put him down in his crib for some quiet time, while she dealt with Marcus’s temper tantrum, and when she came back to the crib he was gone. Six months old and he was gone. The windows had been open in his room and she was sure he’d crawled out and fallen, despite barely being at the sitting-up stage of development. She was about to scream out the window for help, the story went, when she heard Marcus laughing in the kitchen. One thing about Marcus was that he never laughed. Like ever. He was one of those kids who went from sad to sullen, even as a toddler playing with blocks. But he was laughing and Matt’s mom ran to see what was going on.

  And there Matt was, shifted into a bear cub, curled around a half-eaten jar of peanut butter and fast asleep.

  Matt’s child had a bear in her heart. His heart. Their heart. Whatever. He could hear it, or rather his bear could. It snored, loudly, most of the time. When it woke it made little grumbling noises, like it couldn’t find its car keys even after looking all over the inside of the womb. It was a ridiculous, sill
y little thing and Matt was not even close to ready to meet it.

  He left Mina at home with a stack of baby books, two fresh bags of scones from Saturday, and a kiss on her lips. Matt needed to get some air, to check in with the Bearfielders, and to get some bear time. Because while the man who was Matt was anxious with thoughts of baby monitors and diaper changes and the proper way to swaddle a newborn, the bear that was Matt was full of a peaceful bliss.

  Matt walked out of his home, the peaceful sounds of his cub still snoring inside his mate drifting on the breeze. He stripped down and folded his clothes into a backpack—a trick his brother Michael taught him—and shifted. Or rather, tried to shift. He focused and willed the change, the blurring of the edges between man and bear. But nothing came. His skin didn’t fizz. The light didn’t change as his eyes became more sharp. He didn’t feel the weight of the bear fall upon him like a winter coat.

  Matt couldn’t shift.

  He jumped up and down, shaking his hands like he was preparing for a race, and tried again. He could feel his bear inside, sleepy and warm and dreaming of honey-soaked apples. But he couldn’t shift.

  Panic edged up Matt’s spine.

  He quickly got dressed and drove into town to seek out expert help.

  He found his brother, Marcus, in his usual booth at the the Gizzly Griddle diner. On the counter, near the cash register, a glass fishbowl had a photo of Matt and Mina smiling with the caption “Name our baby!” written on it. Matt flinched when he saw it.