by T. S. Joyce
Baby It’s Cold Out Bear Holiday Bundle
(Book 2)
By: T. S. Joyce
Books included in this collection:
Baby It’s Cold Out Bear
Holiday Bride
Bear Valley Valentine
Unlove Me
Contents
BABY IT’S COLD OUT BEAR
Baby It’s Cold Out Bear Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
For more of these characters…
HOLIDAY BRIDE
Holiday Bride Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
For more of these characters…
BEAR VALLEY VALENTINE
Bear Valley Valentine Copyright
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
For more of these characters…
UNLOVE ME
Unlove Me Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Newly Released Holiday Story from T. S. Joyce
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About the Author
BABY IT’S COLD OUT BEAR
By T. S. JOYCE
Baby It’s Cold Out Bear
Copyright © 2015 by T. S. Joyce
Copyright © 2015, T. S. Joyce
First electronic publication: November 2015 in A Very Alpha Christmas
Re-released as a single title: April 2016
T. S. Joyce
www.tsjoycewrites.wordpress.com
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Published in the United States of America.
Chapter One
Emry Mason gasped as the back end of her car fishtailed over the ice on the deserted road. Struggling to regain control, she gripped the steering wheel and eased the brake, slowing the car.
The road to the room she rented from Helena Parks was the worst in this kind of white-out weather. Her windshield wipers worked double-time, clearing the snowflakes from the front window. Not that it helped much. She still couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of her.
Too bad the snowplows didn’t work this far outside of Breckenridge. Right now, the team was probably scrambling to keep the roads off Main Street viable, leaving the country cabins to fend for themselves. Not that Helena’s house was a cabin. More of a sprawling Victorian-style home that had been remodeled to take in tenants after her husband had passed a few years back.
“Mother trucker,” Emry muttered as her back tires took off on their own against the black ice again. A few more inches of snow, and she would get better traction, but right now, it was like driving on soaped-up glass.
Her cell rang the happy notes of “Jingle Bell Rock” from the seat beside her. Emry debated not answering it, but if it was Helena telling her to bring home something from the grocery store before the big storm hit, she needed to turn around and head back to town.
“Hello?” she answered, not taking her eyes from the road for one second.
“Emry, where are you?”
“About a mile away from home, why? Do you need me to go back and get something from town?”
“No, no, don’t turn around. I need to tell you something.” Helena’s voice sounded small and uncertain, as it always did, tugging at Emry’s heart. The woman had been through so much.
“What’s wrong?”
“You know how I’ve been searching for a new tenant to fill the empty room across the hall from yours?”
“Yeah.”
“I found one, but he’s… Emry I might have done something daft.”
“What do you mean? It’s great that you found someone to occupy that space.” Lord knows Helena could use the extra income, and it would decrease the amount of rent Emry was currently paying to make up for the empty flat.
“He’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” The word whipped from her throat as the car skidded sideways, then straightened again.
“He’s one of those…bear shifters,” she said low. “I wanted to tell you before you came home so you could be wary.”
“Wait, how do you know he is one of them?”
“Well, his eyes glow like a demon’s, and he was up-front about it. He’s one of the registered ones. He said no one else had a room available to rent in town, but he has steady work and has promised to do the repairs around the house for free. And I need the money, sugar.”
A bear shifter? There was a crew of bear shifters that lived in town who were involved in the community. Four firefighting brothers and their families, and decent men as far as she’d been able to tell. But they’d only come out with their existence last year, and so far, only a handful of other bear shifters had registered publicly like the government now required. The Breck Crew was one thing. Their family name had been a part of this town for generations. The thought of a new bear shifter ran goose bumps up Emry’s arms despite the heavy winter jacket warming her.
“It’s okay. I know you need the rent. And thank you for warning me. That would’ve been shocking to run into him without a heads up— Aaah!” she screamed as she jerked the wheel, narrowly missing a heavily furred fox that dashed across the road.
The phone fell from her hand as her tires spun out, turning her car sideways. She jerked the wheel and tried to turn into the skid as she’d learned in Driver’s Ed, but nothing she did helped. Her foot pumping the brake didn’t slow her at all as the nose of her car angled toward a deep ditch beside the road.
Too late to save herself, she threw her arms over her face as she was catapulted off the icy street. Her stomach dipped as her car went airborne for a moment as she hit a small lip and skidded into the ditch. Her shoulder hit the window as the car came to a hard stop in a snowbank.
Chest heaving, Emry grabbed the wheel and stared at her window, completely covered in white. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” she chanted, eyes burning with tears.
A soft hum sounded as her windshield wipers fought against the drift across her window.
“Helena!” she cried, reaching for the phone that had fallen on the floorboard near the passenger seat. “Hello, H
elena? Are you still there?”
“Sugar, what happened? Are you okay?” Helena sounded as frantic as Emry felt.
“I’ve gone off the road into the ditch. I’m covered in snow. Hang on, I’ll check if I have traction.” She hit the gas, but her car didn’t move an inch. When she pressed her foot down again, her back end sank. “I’m stuck!” she cried, panic seizing her throat.
Stuck with a blizzard on the way in below freezing temperatures.
Her phone beeped, and she swallowed a sob. “I’m about to run out of battery. What should I do? Should I try to get back to the road and flag down help?”
“No, just stay where you are. I’m going to get help.”
Emry shook her head sadly. Helena was sweet to offer, but the woman hadn’t been past her front porch in three years. She’d stopped living when her husband passed and now couldn’t get over her anxiety enough to leave her house. “Helena, I don’t know if anyone will be able to come get me from town before the storm hits.”
“Emry, just…don’t go anywhere, don’t get out of the car. I’ll get help to you. I promise.”
Emry’s phone clicked to silence, and she stared in horror as her screen went dark. The battery was dead. Now her only hope of rescue was a woman who was utterly homebound.
She was completely screwed.
Perhaps if she tried to open the door… It was a long shot, but maybe someone would come down this road. With a grunt, she pushed as hard as she could on the door, but it didn’t budge. She scooted over the console and tried the passenger door with the same results—strained muscles and a scratchy throat from grunting.
She crawled back to the driver’s side again and swallowed the suffocating fear that clawed up the back of her throat. Think, think, think. She could dig her way out! Such desperate thoughts, but she rolled down the window, collapsing a heavy mound of snow into her lap. Shit-cicles, that was an awful idea. She rolled up the window and dusted the snow off her as best she could.
Staring at the white wall in front of her, she grasped the wheel in a death grip and tried to think of anything to get her out of this dire situation, but all that came to mind was an acute and gnawing hunger. Was it already growing colder in here? She was going to starve and freeze, and what an awful way to die.
Panic seized her again, and she dumped the contents of her purse with a strangled cry, then rifled through its contents until her fingers brushed the shiny package of a lone granola bar. Like a deranged squirrel with a nut, she tore into that sucker and gulped it down.
And after she’d licked the last chocolate chip smear off her finger, she looked at the empty package and hated herself. What was wrong with her? That was an amateur survival move if she’d ever seen one. It hadn’t been ten minutes since her crash and, out of sheer panic, she’d just inhaled the only food she possessed.
When her car groaned and rocked sideways, Emry startled so badly, she dropped her granola wrapper between her seat and the console.
“Crap,” she muttered. It must’ve been the snow settling over her beloved little hatchback to better suffocate her. Was the air already growing thinner? She sucked in a deep breath as she reached for the wrapper. If she was going to die out here, she didn’t want whoever found her to think she was a slob. At least she’d worn her pretty panties for the autopsy. “I don’t want to die,” she groaned, just to hear her own voice in the void.
“You aren’t going to die,” a man’s muffled tone sounded from somewhere beside the passenger’s door.
Great. Hallucinations already.
A gloved hand wiped a thick layer of snow from the windshield and Emry screeched.
“Are you okay?” the man asked. He was blurry through the remaining smears of snowflakes across the front window, but she could make out a heavy jacket hood over his hair and a scarf covering the lower part of his face. His eyes however, glowing ice blue and inhuman, made it quite clear who Helena had sent to rescue her.
A muscle under his eye twitched as she sat frozen like a snowball against her seat, trapped in his glare.
His unsettling gaze raked over her chest and lap, bringing a strange, warm sensation to her veins where they’d been chilled before.
Was he checking her out? He was totally checking her out.
“Put on your seatbelt.” His voice came out hard and less than amused.
Oh.
“Okay,” she said in a mousier voice than she’d intended. After clearing her throat, she tried again. “Give me a second.”
Fingers trembling, she pulled the belt over her lap and chest, then clicked it into place. Then she attempted to smile at him through the window, but her teeth were chattering. Her face froze in a grimace when she noticed he wasn’t leaning against her car anymore.
“Put it in neutral,” he called from somewhere behind the car.
When she did, the metal frame of her ride groaned, and the car lurched forward. Stunned, Emry held onto the steering wheel for dear life as she was pushed jerkily up the steep embankment and back onto the road.
Gads, that bear shifter was strong. And for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out if that kind of brawn was sexy or terrifying as hell. He probably harbored big, hunky muscles under that jacket of his, but at the same time, he could also probably squish her head like a grape if he felt so inclined.
She rocked to a stop, facing home in the correct lane, as if she hadn’t slid off the road at all.
The man strode up next to her window and gestured for her to roll it down.
But…she felt safe with a door between them. Stop being a wiener. With a plastered smile, she rolled down her window. “Thanks for pushing me out of the ditch, roomie.”
Her attempt at levity was stomped out like a roach when the giant man leaned down and rested his giant hand on the window. His gloves had to be size Titan. “I’m not your roomie. I’ll be living temporarily across the hall from you, and I work odd hours so you won’t have to see me much.”
A pang of disappointment zinged through her as she tried to imagine what he looked like without the hood and scarf across his face. He was probably all scarred up from having bear-fights or something.
“Great. Well, just the same, thanks for saving me. I’m Emry.”
The man’s eyes tightened as he stared at her lips. Okay, now he was totally checking her out. Was he going to kiss her? Did she want him to?
He reached into her car and brushed his gloved finger across her cheek. “Is that chocolate?”
Mortification heated her face as she lifted the empty granola bar package in her withered grip. “I thought I was going to starve to death.”
The man’s shoulders hunched as he snorted a laugh.
Anger blazed through her. “Don’t be mean. I was traumatized.”
“Clearly.” The man pointed up the road at a jacked-up white SUV with chains on its enormous tires and a snow plow attached to the front. “Why don’t you follow me to the house and I’ll help you unload all of that”—he glared at the boxes overflowing with holiday lights, ornaments, wreaths, and garland—“crap.”
Her mouth fell open with the offended sound that wrenched from her throat. “Holiday decorations are not crap.”
He arched a dark eyebrow and strode off for his SUV. Rude.
“Hey, I introduced myself. What am I supposed to call you?”
“Call me whatever you want to,” he barked over his shoulder with a half-hearted wave.
Scrunching up her angry face, she hit the gas and skidded to a stop near his ride. “Okay, Norman. So nice to meet you, but I won’t be needing your help carrying in all of my crap. Have a fan-fuckin-tastic day.”
“Norman?” he asked. His deep voice was muffled behind the scarf as he turned toward her, his hands hooked on his hips.
“Poindexter?”
His eyes lost the spark of humor he’d had when he’d laughed at her for eating the granola bar. “Stop it.”
“Garth, Pickles, Douglas Flanigan Toadshorts—”
“Graylan,” he said with a deep frown. “My name’s Graylan Young.”
“Are all bear shifters grumpy like you?”
When a feral sound rumbled through his chest, Emry squeaked and rolled up her window, then eased onto the gas.
“He just growled at me,” she said on a breath, watching him disappear into the storm in her rearview mirror.
And for the second time since she’d met him, she didn’t know whether to be terrified or turned on.
Chapter Two
Graylan glared at his crotch and gritted his teeth, then dragged his gaze back to the bumper of Emry’s tiny four-seater car. Cherry red. For some reason, he wasn’t surprised she liked the flashy color for her ride.
Now, he wasn’t a stranger to the no-reason boner, but this one had been specifically caused by one fiery, sexy human who spelled nothing but trouble for him. His dick throbbed against the constraint of his jeans as he remembered how mouthy she’d been.
He had to think about something else, get his mind off Emry’s wide, dove-gray eyes, glossed, pouty lips, and chin-length raven dark hair. Her cheeks had gone all rosy when he’d growled a warning at her. He hadn’t meant to scare the woman. He was just pissed off at the reaction she was drawing from his inner bear.
Three weeks here, tops, and he’d be off to another job, another town, restless and looking for a new den, just like his monster required. Bear shifters like him were notorious nomads, and shacking up with a temporary housemate would bring him trouble when he left. Her too—he was a professional at hurting people.
He didn’t know Emry, but she didn’t deserve the kind of hell he brought with him.
Still, all his plans to ignore her were tossed out the window when he pulled up beside her car in front of Ms. Helena’s giant Victorian home.
With a fierce look, she stomped to the almost non-existent trunk of her small car. The angry half of her disappeared inside, while the rest of her stood splayed-legged in the snow as she dug around for the boxes in the back. Her fitted white puff jacket slid up, revealing the perfect curve of her ass in tight jeans tucked into snow boots.
