Big Bear Dad: BBW Surprise Baby Suspense Romance (Sweetwater Father Bears Book 4) Read online

  Big Bear Dad

  Sweetwater Father Bears

  Anya Nowlan

  Contents

  Copyright

  A Little Taste…

  1. Alistair

  2. Remy

  3. Remy

  4. Alistair

  5. Remy

  6. Alistair

  7. Remy

  8. Alistair

  9. Remy

  10. Alistair

  11. Remy

  12. Alistair

  13. Remy

  14. Alistair

  15. Remy

  16. Alistair

  17. Remy

  18. Alistair

  19. Remy

  20. Alistair

  Epilogue

  Bear’s Christmas Bride Excerpt

  Want More?

  About the Author

  Thank you for reading!

  Copyright © 2016 Anya Nowlan

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Big Bear Dad

  Sweetwater Father Bears

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this work may be used, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Anya Nowlan. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Cover © Jack of Covers

  A Little Taste…

  Pushing aside some branches, she finally came upon a more travelled road and followed it up to a small cabin. There was someone out front, a large guy swinging what looked like an axe. The sound of wood splitting drew her attention to the pile of firewood at his side.

  A regular lumberjack, she mused, strolling closer. I’ve been away from the wilderness for too long.

  The man’s head whipped around as she cleared the treeline, as if he had somehow sensed her there. Remy raised her hand in a friendly wave, so as not to seem she was trying to sneak up on the guy. The lumberjack let his axe fall into the tree trunk in front of him, leaving it stuck there, and studied her with his hands on his hips and a glower on his face, though it cleared a moment after.

  An odd sensation filled her gut as she walked up to the front of the cabin and got a good look at him. Sweat beaded at his forehead and left a trail down his neck, making the front of his gray t-shirt stick to his chiseled chest.

  Oh… Okay… A hot lumberjack.

  Angling his body towards her, his broad shoulders nearly seemed to block out the sun. Glancing at his strong arms, Remy was sure he could chop up enough firewood to keep the whole town warm in the winter without much effort.

  And then there was the way he looked at her.

  One

  Alistair

  Trudging home through the forest after leaving his truck parked at the edge of the small pathway, Alistair Samson could sense something was off. He sniffed at the air, his eyes narrowing. The faint smell of bear in the air already told him that not all was how he had left it, but as he neared his cabin, he only grew more suspicious.

  A few steps later, his cabin came into view, as solid and secluded as it had always been. For some reason, Alistair couldn’t help but let out a relieved breath. He had never been the kind of man to think much of possessions, but this cabin… well, it was as much a part of him as a limb.

  A worn, brown handle of a hunting knife was sticking out of his front door, shoved into the wood and holding in place a small, white piece of paper. His attention focused on it as he lumbered closer, his senses pricked. He could feel a growl growing in his chest as he stomped closer, his head on a swivel.

  It took me the better part of a day to plane and sand that door, his thoughts grumbled. And that bastard just sticks his knife in it like it ain’t no big thing.

  The scent was weak enough to not be recent, but that didn’t mean he was going to let his guard down. The smell was all too familiar to him, and it could mean nothing but trouble.

  Wright, you son of a bitch, what are you up to now?

  Nestled in the wilderness of Montana, Alistair’s cabin was off the grid, just the way he liked it. His only neighbor was another bear shifter a couple of miles to the east, who he wasn’t aware of until he was already halfway through building his home.

  The mountain of a man had showed up while Alistair was hewing logs, none too pleased at another bear moving in on his turf. At first, there’d been a moment of mutual surprise that neither had found the other earlier. After that, though? There had been little more than animosity between the two neighbors.

  Alistair sure as hell wasn’t going to let some cranky, overly-territorial shifter run him out of his new home. They got into a bit of a scuffle, if a werebear rivalry could ever be described as a ‘scuffle’.

  Seeing he had met his match, Wright retreated back to his corner of the forest, warning Alistair to not get in his way, or else. Not one to get into fights for no reason, Alistair had done his best to stay out of the man’s way, and it seemed Wright had the same idea. He hadn’t moved to the middle of nowhere to mingle, after all.

  They did end up getting into it a couple of more times, but lately, everything had been quiet. No broken bones, no missing teeth. Except for seeing Wright around town a few times when he was getting supplies, Alistair hadn’t had a run-in with the guy in a while.

  I knew he’d resurface, trying to stir up shit sooner or later, Alistair thought bitterly, his heavy boots thudding up the porch steps. A man can’t get a moment of peace even in the middle of nowhere, it seems.

  Yanking the knife out, he grabbed the folded up piece of paper and smoothed it out, half-expecting to see a death threat scrawled onto it.

  Come to my cabin as soon as you read this, the message read, surprisingly non-violent.

  Yet that didn’t do much to dampen his anger. Where did Wright get off telling him what to do, especially after he’d been such a pain in the ass for years?

  Oh, I’m coming to your cabin, alright.

  Gritting his teeth, Alistair slipped the knife under his belt, determined to get some answers out of Wright. They had been getting on each other’s nerves for so long, it was starting to feel normal. Like breathing, shifting or hunting his own meat, being annoyed by Wright was firmly in Alistair’s daily schedule.

  Yet in that moment, Alistair decided they were going to hash this out, once and for all.

  Running a rough hand over his dark, closely cropped hair in annoyance, he stepped into the forest, easily finding his way through the familiar surroundings. Wright’s homestead was as remote as his was, but Alistair knew the woods well. And even if he hadn’t, he could locate the fellow shifter by smell alone if need be.

  Leaves rustling around him and twigs cracking under his feet, Alistair trekked his way to Wright’s home, only getting angrier as he went along, dusk falling around him. With a long day of felling trees for the local lumber company behind him, all he had wanted to do was kick up his feet and have a cold one.

  But no, he had to deal with Wright, instead.

  To say his mood was sour was an understatement. Broad shoulders tense, he broke through the thick branches surrounding him to reach a narrow, grassy path that lead to the small clearing Wright’s house was located on.

  He could alread
y see the foliage thinning up ahead when an unfamiliar scent in the air made him stop in his tracks. Drawing in a deep breath, his brow furrowed as he tried to place the smell.

  It almost smells like… wolves.

  That was odd. With Alpha predators like him and Wright around, animals tended to trust their instincts and stay away. Wolves wouldn’t be dumb enough to encroach on the lands of not one but two closely situated werebears, would they?

  It had to be something else, but before he could get another whiff, the wind carried the scent away, replacing it with the smoky, acrid smell of a forest fire instead. It was almost enough to freeze Alistair in his spot for good. There were few things that incited a deep, primal sense of unease in a shifter quite the same way that fire did. It was just about the only enemy a bear had known through the ages, other than his own kind.

  Instead, Alistair moved on. Picking up his step, Alistair pushed onwards until he broke out of the tree-line and into the clearing, breaking out into a run as he spotted smoke billowing up in the distance. It was obvious something was very wrong, and even though he and Wright had their share of differences, he wouldn’t just stand by if a fellow bear was in danger.

  He could hear it even before he could see it – the crackle of fire, confirming what he had scented. Wright’s cabin was engulfed in flames, the blaze devouring the wooden building with increasing ferocity. The wind only spurred the fire on, making it lick up the walls until it reached the roof.

  In the darkening backdrop of the evening sky, it would have looked picturesque, had it not been so… jarringly horrific.

  What the… was all Alistair could think, staring at the scene in front of him.

  “Wright?” he called out, stepping closer to the cottage. “You in there?”

  The smell of smoke was overwhelming, making it impossible for him to sniff out if Wright was in the home or not. Digging into his pocket, Alistair was ready to call this in to the fire department when he suddenly heard something that made him stand still in shock.

  A sound, barely audible, cutting through him like a knife and making his bear take notice.

  Is that… a baby crying?

  He broke into a run. Moving towards the house, ears pricked, he could definitely pick up the sound of a child, wailing, from somewhere inside the cabin. The bear inside him reared its head as his body filled with adrenaline.

  Without even really thinking, he charged towards the crumbling building. Raising his arms to shield his face from the heat, he ran up the stairs and shouldered the door open. The fire had already weakened its structure, so he all but flew through the door, skidding to a halt when he got inside.

  Going with his ears, he ran into one of the back rooms as the house groaned and snapped around him. The smoke was already crawling into his lungs, making him cough, with his arm over his mouth doing little to slow the smoke down on its path down his throat. The flames had luckily left what looked like the nursery – the only room with an open door - mostly untouched, so he had little trouble finding the crib and scooping up the baby inside.

  Bundling the little one into the blankets around him, Alistair gently pressed the baby close to his chest. Slouching to cover the child with his body, he rushed back outside, doing his best not to inhale too much of the toxic smoke and to not jostle the precious package in his arms.

  At least it’s still crying. That’s a good sign, right?

  He made it outside, gasping as he drew in big gulps of fresh air. The baby was still crying as he pulled the blankets aside. It was a baby boy, his eyes squeezed shut and his face red from screaming, but he seemed mostly unharmed. He wasn’t coughing or showing any symptoms of smoke inhalation, so at least there was that silver lining.

  “Wright?” he called out one more time, a hint of desperation in his tone right before the building started to collapse in on itself.

  If the man had been trapped inside somewhere, it was too late to go back now. He couldn’t risk getting trapped in the burning wreckage and leaving the baby to fend for himself with a wild fire roaring around him.

  With how bad the cottage was looking, finding survivors was highly improbable even if it hadn’t been a death warrant to step inside there.

  Swaying the baby in is arms, Alistair could only watch as the fire raged on, engulfing the whole structure in a matter of seconds. If he had gotten there a minute or two later than he had, the child in his arms would be beyond rescue at this point.

  Mysterious fire aside, there was something else weighing on Alistair’s mind that didn’t quite add up. Not only was there a mysterious fire… but a mysterious child as well.

  Wright doesn’t have any children as far as I know, so what the hell is going on here?

  Standing before the blazing remnants of what used to be Wright’s home, cradling a baby Alistair didn’t even know existed a minute ago, he couldn’t help but feel that he’d stumbled into something that he hadn’t been prepared for.

  Two

  Remy

  Remy Marshall sat at her register, greeting yet another customer with a polite smile and the well-worn “Hello, how are you today?” ready on her lips. It wasn’t exactly her dream job, with long hours and testy customers, but it paid the bills, even if barely. That was better than the alternative.

  Starving wasn’t high on her list. She’d rather take a few lumps from grouchy patrons every now and then.

  When she first moved to Seattle, she thought the big city would be full of opportunities and exciting chances, but her dream turned sour pretty quickly. Living from paycheck to paycheck wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind when she packed up her stuff and hopped on a Greyhound, bright-eyed and maybe a little naive. Living the life, she thought with an internal sigh, scanning the produce crawling towards her on the conveyor belt.

  Outwardly, she was all smiles, though. She might be ‘just a cashier’, like her obnoxious manager liked to remind her, but she wasn’t going to half-ass her job because of that.

  From the way the middle-aged man standing in line after the young woman handing her some bills looked, Remy already knew this day was only going to get worse. With almost a year at Sun Farm Groceries, she had learned the look of a person who liked to be annoyed at anything and everything, and loved taking their issues out on someone who had to sit there and take it, or risk losing their job.

  The man she had mentally named Grumpy, because he was short and well, grumpy, stepped forward. Crossing his arms in front of him, Grumpy proceeded to stare her down, as if waiting for her to confess to something.

  “Hello, sir. May I help you with something?” she asked, squaring her shoulders and putting on her friendliest smile.

  “Angry customers smell weakness, like sharks smell blood in the water,” Jane, one of her former coworkers had once said, soon after Remy got the job.

  It had seemed a touch melodramatic at the time, but she had grown to appreciate Jane’s words of wisdom. That girl had known what she was talking about.

  Jane had been the first person that she’d started to consider a friend, after moving away from her little hometown of Livingston, Montana. But Jane quit two months ago, leaving Remy to fend for herself among the ever-changing faces at Sun Farm. With shitty managers and even shittier pay, no one stuck around for long. “You bet there is, Remy,” Grumpy huffed, drawing out her name like there was something dirty about it. “I’m in a hurry, and you seem to be taking your sweet-ass time. We all don’t have time to stand around here, waiting for your hands to catch up to your brain,” he said, gesturing to the people behind him.

  Most of them just looked embarrassed, avoiding both Remy’s and Grumpy’s gaze. Others weren’t even paying attention, fiddling on their phones instead. No one was rushing to her defense, that much she was sure of.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I’m doing my best,” she replied, keeping her voice even while reaching for his goods.

  To her surprise, there was only a single grapefruit in front of the divider separating Grumpy’s pur
chases from the soccer mom’s behind him.

  “Well, your best clearly isn’t good enough. Now get to it, before you make me late.”

  Late for what? Your juice cleanse? she thought, barely containing her eye-roll.

  “Yes, sir.”

  She weighed the fruit and tapped on the screen in front of her, ready to get rid of him, but Grumpy was clearly not done.

  “The service around here is going downhill. I have half a mind to ask to talk to your manager.”

  Most of the customers in her line had moved to another register by this point, seeing as Grumpy looked like he had more he wanted to get off his mind. The soccer mom was the last to go, sighing loudly. Guys like that had this great tendency of taking all the time they wanted, regardless of the well-being of others around them.

  Grumpy puffed up his chest, holding his conceived power over her head. She just smiled even brighter, even though she wanted to chuck the goddamn grapefruit at his self-centered face. Nothing seemed to irritate guys like him than not letting their words get the best of you.

  “You are of course welcome to do so, sir.”

  “Like I want to waste any more of my time,” the man grumbled, his expression falling as he swiped his card and scooping up his purchase.

  “I hope your day is as pleasant as you are,” Remy chirped at him as he turned to leave.

  It was stupid to annoy this man further, she knew that. But she couldn’t help it. She was tired of letting assholes like Grumpy get away with being downright rude, just because he was the customer and she was the employee.

  Technically, she hadn’t said anything insulting or offensive.

  Before Grumpy could even react, she reached down under her seat and pulled out the ‘Please use the next register’ sign and plopped it onto the conveyor. Getting to her feet, she scurried off towards the breakroom, bumping into Colin, her manager, on the way there.