Table of Contents
Copyright
Foreword
Chapter One – Cynthia
Chapter Two – Hunter
Chapter Three – Cynthia
Chapter Four – Hunter
Chapter Five – Cynthia
Chapter Six – Hunter
Chapter Seven – Cynthia
Chapter Eight – Hunter
Chapter Nine – Cynthia
Chapter Ten – Hunter
Chapter Eleven – Cynthia
Chapter Twelve – Hunter
Chapter Thirteen – Cynthia
Chapter Fourteen – Hunter
Chapter Fifteen – Cynthia
Chapter Sixteen – Hunter
Chapter Seventeen – Cynthia
Chapter Eighteen – Hunter
Chapter Nineteen – Cynthia
Chapter Twenty - Hunter
Chapter Twenty-One – Cynthia
Chapter Twenty-Two – Hunter
Chapter Twenty-Three – Cynthia
Chapter Twenty-Four – Hunter
Chapter Twenty-Five – Cynthia
Chapter Twenty-Six – Hunter
Chapter Twenty-Seven – Cynthia
Epilogue
Also By Harmony Raines
Get In Touch
Protector Bear
Bear Creek Protectors
Book Four
***
All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written consent of the author or publisher.
This is a work of fiction and is intended for mature audiences only. All characters within are eighteen years of age or older. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, actual events or places is purely coincidental.
© 2019 Harmony Raines
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Protector Bear
Bear Creek Protectors
Book Four
Nobody threatens his mate and gets away with it!
Bodyguard, Hunter, returns to Bear Creek for some downtime between jobs. However, his world is soon turned upside down when he offers to help Cynthia, who has received a threatening letter from an unknown source. The investigative reporter, who is responsible for bringing an end to a child trafficking ring, is his mate.
Hunter swears he will do whatever it takes to protect Cynthia and her children. Even if it costs him his life.
But he would rather hunt down the person responsible for the threat and let his bear rip their head off.
Cynthia thought she’d ended the reign of terror brought about by a child trafficking ring. It soon becomes clear she has some unfinished business that will threaten her future and that of her children.
However, when she meets Hunter, she realizes she is not in this alone. She is his mate, and he’ll stand by her side no matter what.
With the help of other members of Bear Creek Protectors, she’s ready for one last fight, one last chance to bring a bad guy to justice, and reunite four lost children with their parents.
Chapter One – Cynthia
“Hey, kids, snack time,” Cynthia called to her children as she placed a plate of fruit and cookies on the table.
“Cookies!” Thomas shouted as he ran into the kitchen from outside. Her youngest child, Thomas possessed an endless supply of enthusiasm and energy. He’d been playing in the yard all morning, and for once he remembered to wash his hands before climbing onto a seat at the table and reaching for a cookie.
“Fruit first,” Cynthia reminded him, while trying to hide a smile as a look of disappointment crossed his face.
Thomas dropped the cookie from his hand and picked up a grape, his eyes bright as he figured out a way to circumvent his mom’s demands.
“I see where this is going.” Cynthia folded her arms and arched an eyebrow. “But one grape does not equal one cookie.”
Thomas plucked another grape and held one between each index finger and thumb. He looked at her with those cute puppy dog eyes that she found hard to resist. “Two?”
“Want me to take the cookies off the table?” Cynthia raised another eyebrow at her young son, and he grinned, before picking up slices of apple and orange, and setting them down on his plate.
“Better.” She left Thomas eating his fruit and walked to the back door. “Laurel. Snack time.” No answer. A sliver of ice-cold fear ran down her back and spread out through her body, making her knees weak. “Did your sister go outside, too?”
Maybe she’d gotten it wrong and her daughter was upstairs in her room. But Cynthia was certain Laurel had passed through the kitchen saying something about needing vitamin D. Her daughter was learning about how the body worked at school and, as usual, was implementing what she’d learned.
If she wasn’t in the yard, where was she?
Fear gripped Cynthia. The thought of someone taking her child paralyzed her.
“Mommy.” Thomas’s small voice snapped her out of her fear-laden daydream.
“Yes, Tom.” She fixed her focus on Thomas even though she itched to go outside and find Laurel. Her sweet daughter...
“Laurel went to the bathroom.”
Cynthia exhaled a long, drawn-out breath, as if she were a balloon deflating. “Of course she did.”
“Are you okay?” Thomas took a cookie from the plate on the table and slid off his chair. With his hand outstretched, he offered Cynthia the cookie as if she were a frightened stray dog he wanted to befriend. “Here, you can have a cookie even if you haven’t eaten any fruit yet.”
Cynthia put her arms around Thomas and hugged him so tight she didn’t think she would ever have the strength to let him go. “Thanks, sweetheart.” She kissed him on the cheek and then looked up as Laurel entered the kitchen.
“Oh, cookies. Thanks, Mom.” Laurel sat on a chair and reached for a cookie, but then saw the fruit on Thomas’s plate and took a piece of apple instead. “Yum.” She took a bite of the crisp apple and crunched it up.
“Can I go back to eating my fruit now?” Thomas asked, wriggling in his mother’s arms.
Cynthia let him go and then chased her son across the room, trying to tickle him as Thomas scampered back onto his seat. Thomas giggled with laughter as he turned around and flung his arms around her neck. “I missed you, Mommy.”
Cynthia crouched down by the side of her son. “I missed you, too. Both of you.” Cynthia placed her hand on her daughter’s leg and tickled her. “I missed both of you so much. And I promise I will not leave you again. I’m sorry it took so long. But I had to make sure the kids were safe.”
“From the bad men?” Thomas asked.
“Yes, from the bad men. Because not everyone has a mommy or a daddy, or someone else to take care of them.” Cynthia looked at her children’s faces. Happy faces. She drank them in, etching them onto her brain. When she went to sleep, she wanted to picture their happy faces. Not the other children. The children who had been taken from their parents or taken from the street to be used and abused by wicked people.
Of course, she had seen the smiling faces, too, the faces of children and parents who had been reunited. But there were others. A handful who had not been found. There were parents out there who had no idea where their child was or if they would ever see them again. And there were children, lost children, who had no one to search for them.
“Can I have a cookie now, please?” Thomas reached for the plate as his mom nodded.
“Of cour
se you can. Good boy for eating your fruit first.” Cynthia stood up and looked out of the window. The back yard needed tidying, and she had plans to decorate the children’s bedrooms.
She needed to keep busy to block out the memories of the men...the bad men…who had entered her house.
To kidnap her children.
Cynthia brushed her hair off her face and tucked a stray strand behind her ear. “Want to go to the park after you’ve eaten your snacks?”
“Sure,” Laurel said. “Exercise is good for you. It helps you stay fit and healthy.”
“It’s also fun,” Thomas pointed out as he took a second cookie.
“It is fun. I thought we could go to the play area and then walk around the pond.” Cynthia poured herself a cup of coffee and walked to the door leading into the back yard. “We’ll have to wrap up warm. It might be spring, but it’s still chilly.”
“Not as cold as on the mountain.” Laurel sighed as she ate her cookie. “I loved making snow angels with Jenna and Flint.”
“Snow bear angels.” Thomas giggled as he remembered the fun he had when he and his sister were hiding out on the mountain. At least the whole incident hadn’t left them with nightmares.
If only the same was true for Cynthia. She might see Thomas and Laurel smiling as she closed her eyes, but sometimes, those images turned to tears. In her dreams, someone was chasing her children, reaching out to grab hold of them and take them away from her. Far away.
Just like their dad was far away. Never to return.
“Would you like to live in Bear Creek?” Cynthia asked suddenly. The words had just tumbled out of her mouth without her thinking, although the idea had been in her head ever since they’d come back to the house.
The house where it had all begun.
“Do you mean it?” Laurel asked with excitement.
Cynthia shrugged. The children didn’t think the idea was crazy after all. “It would mean leaving this house and all your friends behind.”
“We could live in a house in the mountains and we could make new friends.” Thomas liked the idea. Her son was terrible at hiding his emotions, he wore his heart on his sleeve and an easy-to-read expression on his face. Happy or sad, Cynthia could catch his mood in one glance.
“And you think you’d be happy in the mountains?” Cynthia asked. “How about you, Laurel?”
Cynthia’s daughter was quieter, more thoughtful. If they were going to leave this house and move to another town, Cynthia needed to know both of her children were happy with the idea.
The move might be best for all of them. But only if they were all committed to it.
“I love the mountains and I loved Flint’s bear.” She looked down at the half-eaten cookie in her hand. “As long as we’re all together, I don’t mind where we live.”
Cynthia placed her coffee cup down on the counter and went around to hug both her children. “Wherever we are, we will be together. I promise.”
“You won’t have to go away to work again?” Laurel asked in a small voice.
“No, that part of my life is over.” She kissed Laurel on the top of the head. “It was just something I had to do.”
When the children were older, she would explain it to them. By then it wouldn’t hurt so much to think of the reasons she had chosen to take down Cracol Lemnisci. However, until they were old enough to understand, she would keep it to herself, buried deep inside. But she could never bury it deep enough to stop the pain. It pierced her heart, the weight of her loss making it hard to breathe.
Perhaps one day she would let go of the pain. Enough time had passed that she should be getting over it now. And maybe she might. Now that Cracol was in prison, if she sold the house and moved somewhere new, perhaps she could start again. Maybe even meet a man she could fall in love with.
She smiled to herself at the thought of Jenna, the woman she’d hired as a nanny bodyguard for the children. Jenna who had found love and a lasting relationship with a bear shifter from Bear Creek. Jenna who had considered herself too old to find a man and settle down. Hadn’t that shown Cynthia that anything was possible, and it was never too late?
“Then let’s move,” Laurel said confidently as she ate her cookie. “Maybe we could have a puppy if we moved.”
“That sounds like a good idea. There’s an animal shelter near Bear Creek, we could go and adopt a puppy.” Cynthia might sleep easier at night knowing there was a dog in the house. One who would bark if an intruder came for her children... She closed her eyes and pushed that thought away. She had to find a way through the guilt and fear that threatened to consume her.
“And a kitten?” Thomas asked hopefully.
“Maybe a kitten, too.” Cynthia went back to her coffee with a cookie in her hand. “All I have to do is decide what I’m going to do for work.”
“You could open a cookie shop,” Thomas suggested helpfully.
“Or maybe a flower shop. You love flowers and watching things grow,” Laurel suggested.
“I love watching you two grow,” Cynthia commented. “But I think I’d like a job where I can still help people.”
“Just as long as you don’t go away again.” Laurel finished her cookie and got down from the table. “I’m going to change my clothes, so we can go to the park.”
“I’m going to eat another cookie.” Thomas’s eyes twinkled with mischief as he took one last cookie from the plate.
“And I am going to clear the table and wash the cups. As soon as you are both ready, we can go.” Cynthia picked up the empty plates and ran the hot water into the sink. As she quickly washed the dishes, she thought over what her options were. She had enough savings to last for a while, so work was not about keeping a roof over their heads. Instead, she wanted to find something challenging and rewarding.
Perhaps a therapist of some kind? Working with children would be her number one choice. A teacher?
She put the dishes away and wiped the counter and the table clean. As she finished, the mailbox flap clattered. Strange, the mailman had already delivered their mail. Cynthia dried her hands and left the kitchen. Walking down the hallway to the front door, she saw there was an envelope on the doormat. Instinctively, she peeked out the window to see if the person who left it was still around. No one. Cynthia didn’t usually get hand delivered mail.
Anxiously, she leaned down and picked it up. A sliver of fear slipped down her spine. Her name was scrawled across the envelope. No address.
Cynthia stared at it for several seconds. She didn’t want to open it. She didn’t want to know what was inside.
“Get a grip.” Cynthia shook off her fear. It was probably nothing, a piece of fan mail perhaps. Although she was very careful to keep her address confidential, since the story broke about child smuggling and how Cracol Lemnisci had gone after her family, it was easy to track her down.
One more reason to move to a new house.
Her fingers curled around the seal of the envelope and she cracked it open. Her nerves still jangled as she withdrew the handwritten letter from the envelope.
What you took from me, I will take from you.
Visions of her children swam across her eyes as she jammed the piece of paper back in the envelope. There was something else in the envelope.
Cynthia carefully inserted her hand into the envelope and pulled out a photograph of her children. It had been taken at the local park only days ago.
Placing the letter and the photograph back in the envelope, she folded the flap over to keep them from falling out. Trying to touch the envelope as little as possible, she went to the kitchen and opened a drawer, rummaging around for a clear plastic bag.
Cold dread crept through her veins. What should she do? Who could she trust?
Trying to keep her voice calm, she went to the stairs, grasping hold of the handrail as she fought the rising bile in her throat. With an enormous effort, she put her foot on the first stair and pulled herself up. The second one was easier, by the third step she’d
mastered her nerves.
This wasn’t like her, she normally threw off danger and plowed ahead no matter what. But unraveling the child trafficking ring had left her torn up inside. She couldn’t get the thought out of her head of how many lives had been ruined by the men responsible. Out of all the investigations she’d taken on, this one had been too close to home.
“Hey.” She reached the top of the stairs and steadied her voice. “Why don’t we leave for Bear Creek now?”
Laurel came out of her room, wrapped up in a hat and scarf with mittens on her hands, giving her mom a worried look. “Now?”
“Yes. Why put it off? I can call ahead and ask Jenna to put us up for a couple of days while I look for a place to rent.” She smiled, hoping it looked natural as she gripped the bag with the envelope in her hand, the contents etched into her brain.
“Yes!” Thomas jumped through his doorway, dressed in a Spiderman outfit.
“You were going to wear that to the park?” Cynthia asked, her fears temporarily pushed aside by the sight of her superhero son.
“It reminds me of bear shifters,” Thomas admitted.
“When Flint and Angel told us about how they could turn into animals, they said they had superpowers,” Laurel explained.
“Ahh, that makes sense.” Cynthia nodded. “So what do you say? Bear Creek or the park?”
“Bear Creek!” Thomas jumped back into his room and began opening drawers and closets.
“Laurel?” Cynthia asked gently.
Her daughters’ eyes were big and round as she studied her mom. “Did something happen?”
Cynthia didn’t want to lie to her daughter, but neither did she want to burden her with the truth. “Ever since we came back here...it doesn’t feel like home anymore.” She brushed her free hand down her thigh as if trying to wipe something off the palm of her hand. “I just keep thinking of those men in the house and how if Jenna hadn’t gotten you out...”
“You don’t feel safe.” Laurel came to her and wrapped her arms around her mom’s neck. “I don’t either.”
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