Bear Fire: Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (BBW) (Pine Ridge BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance Series Book 4) (11 page)

They enjoyed the warm springs for a
few more minutes, then climbed out and stretched out on the soft grass to dry.

Collapsing beside her, Matt wrapped
a thick arm around her. She burrowed under his arm and nestled her head against
him. She might be a dragon again now, but she felt so protected, so safe with
Matt. Somewhere a bird chirped, and wind sighed over the rolling green Irish
hills.

Still trembling, she ran a hand
over his gargantuan chest, feeling his seed trickle out of her. Ha, no way she
could stand for awhile.

“So,” she said softly. “What now?”

He stared up at the sky, as if
thinking, then smiled and turned to her. His eyes looked deeply into hers.
Moisture from the springs still glimmered in his eyebrows.

“Now you join my crew,” he said.

“Your
crew
?”

He laughed at her surprise. “That’s
right. What else? You’ll become a Pine Ridge Shifter, first class.”

She blinked up at him, feeling her
mouth hanging open. Then a smile spread across it and she inclined her face
toward him for a kiss. His lips met hers, and his tongue played against hers.
One of his hands idly cupped her breast, squeezing gently. His lips curved up
against hers.

She could feel that it wasn’t the
only thing curving up, either.

“Third time’s the charm,” he said.

Chapter 13

“To your
dragon
!”
Rick said.

Jackie grinned, feeling her cheeks
grow warm. The Pine Ridge crew was ranged around the fire pit at Graywood Park,
the subdivision of log cabins where they lived just outside of town. They had
all come to celebrate Jackie getting her fire back, and also her and Matt
finding each other. A few still manned the hotel, but most had come. Jackie
felt so welcome, so alive.

“Hear hear!” the crew of shifters
roared back. Someone clapped Jackie on the back, and she almost spilled her
beer.

She smiled and waved back, thanking
them. Rick’s toast over, the party resumed. Connor, the red-haired, Viking-like
alpha of the crew, made his way forward and shook Jackie’s hand. His hand was
huge and calloused.

“I understand Matt’s found his
mate,” he said. “Congratulations.”

Matt curled a muscular arm around
Jackie’s shoulder, and she leaned into him, loving his hardness, his warmth. He
felt so huge, so strong and protecting, and he exuded a musky, primal scent.
She was noticing it now for the first time. All her senses were coming awake at
last. She’d forgotten how the world used to
smell
,
back before her fire was stolen. It was wonderful.

“Thanks,” Matt told his alpha, and
they shook hands and clapped each other on the back.

“So I’m part of the crew now?”
Jackie asked.

“That’s right,” said Connor. He
grinned through his red beard. “You’re Pine Ridge now, Jackie Gage.”

She had to force herself not to
duck her head. “Thank you.”

“A
dragon
shifter,” Rick said, coming over. “That’s
amazing
! Woo-hoo! Congratulations!”

“Thank you,” Jackie said again. She
had been saying it all day. It hadn’t gotten old so far.

She, Matt, Connor and Rick clinked
glasses.

“So,” said Rick, smiling, “could
you, say, light a cigarette?”

“You don’t even smoke,” Matt said.

Rick shrugged. “Well, if I started.
Could you, Jackie? Could you?”

“Ha,” she said. “I’d be more likely
to set your hair on fire.”

Connor smirked. “Would be a good
look for you, Rick.”

Rick scowled, then brightened.
“What about the fire pit?” he said, gesturing. “Could you light that?”

“It’s already lit,” Matt pointed
out.

“Yeah, but what if it wasn’t? Could
you, Jackie?”

“I could light it,” Jackie said.

“That could sure save money on
kerosene,” Connor said, sounding pleased, as if he were just now realizing the
benefits of having a dragon shifter around.

Rick clapped his hands, beaming. “I
knew it! Okay, so what about flying?”

“Soon,” Jackie said. “My wings are
connected to my fire. I think they just have to regenerate or something. Might
take a few weeks, even longer, for me to be able to call on them. But yeah.”
She sighed and glanced at the stars. “Someday I’ll be able to fly again.”

Matt kissed her on the brow, and
she smiled, slowly and gently.

Rick downed a healthy swig. “Fire
and wings, oh yeah, baby! This is going to be awesome!”

Still smiling, he moved off to find
his own mate, Barb, who had her police jacket off and was drinking a beer on
the other side of the fire. Jackie couldn’t wait to get to know her better.
Jackie had been a criminal for years, but that would change now. It was time to
become a respectable member of society, and Barb seemed pretty cool. Well, for
a cop.

“So what will I do?” Jackie asked
Connor. “I mean, as part of the crew?”

He rubbed his red beard. “Why,
anything you like, I guess. We need all the help we can get running the inn.
Someone from the big city could sure come in handy. Class the place up a bit, if
you know what I mean.”

“I don’t know … I wasn’t exactly
living in a penthouse. Although I did burgle a few.”

Connor chuckled. “That’s closer
than
I
ever got to one. See, you’ll
be a big help, I have no doubt.” He tilted his head, considering. “Maybe you
could run security.”

“Security?”

Connor nodded, becoming more
enthusiastic. “Sure, why not? I mean, you know it from the other side, right?
You know how to infiltrate a place. You know what to look for to stop up the
gaps or whatever.”

She mulled on it. “Actually, that’s
not a bad idea. And soon I’ll be able to fly around the outside of the inn and
make sure there’s no one scaling the sides of it.” She glanced at Matt to see
what he thought. “Matt?”

He was frowning.

“What is it?” Jackie asked him. For
some reason she felt a trace of alarm.

“Nothing. Just …”

“Yeah?”

He winced. “Walsh. He said he’d
been looking for this place. For Pine Ridge. I just now remembered.”

Connor scowled. “That is peculiar.
Wonder why he would look for Pine Ridge.”

“Some mystical reason, probably,”
Jackie said. “Tannenbaum said something about the Fae.”

“I think we should tell her,” Matt
said to Connor. Matt’s face was serious.

Connor paused, then nodded. “Yeah,
she’s part of the crew now. You’ve got my permission.”

Matt cleared his throat. “Jackie,
are you ready to know the secret I had to keep from you? The one Tannenbaum
mentioned?”

Hesitantly, she nodded. Finally she
would get to know what Matt had been holding back from her. Suddenly she
realized she was nervous to find out about it. Some things were kept secret for
a reason, after all. She tried to keep her fear from her face, though, and be
brave.

“We in the Pine Ridge crew are the
guardians of a gateway to the Fae Lands,” Matt said. “The Great Alpha assigned
us to protect it.”

“The Fae Lands …” Jackie said, awed
and delighted. Then, more thoughtfully: “
Protect
it …” She swung her gaze from Matt to Connor, then back. “Does that mean
someone wants to do it harm?”

“It, or the Fae,” Connor said, and
ran a hand through his thick hair. It seemed to be a nervous habit.

Jackie bit the inside of her cheek.
“You think Walsh could be what he wanted you to protect it from?”

“Could be,” Connor said. “Could be.
I don’t know.”

“Well, then that’s a relief,” Matt
said. “He’s gone, locked away in some magical prison, and no one deserves it
more.”

Connor didn’t say anything for a
moment, then let out a huge breath. “Yeah. He’s gone. If he was what we were
ordered to protect against, then I guess that part of our mission is over.
We’re still the gate’s guardians, though, and if one asshat wants at it you can
bet that others do, too.” He drained his beer and burped. “We’ll keep them all
out, though, of that you can be sure. Now relax and enjoy the party, both of
you. That’s an order from your alpha.”

His confidence restored, he moved
off through the crowd to find another beer.

Alone with her mate at last, Jackie
smiled up at Matt. He looked awesome. He wore a tight T-shirt that etched his
firm pecs and eight-pack, and over it a loose cowboy-type leather jacket. His
blue eyes twinkled out of his handsome face.

His voice lowered an octave. “Maybe
we should get out of here.”

She swallowed. “You mean …”

“That’s right.”

He leaned in to her, letting her
feel his hard body, and she felt her panties grow wet all over again. Oh boy.
He had her number, all right.

“But this party’s for us!” she
said.

“Trust me, they won’t miss us.”

“But … but …”

He grabbed her hand and dragged her
through the crowd, then out of it, moving toward their new cabin; she’d already
started fixing it up. She giggled and went with him gladly, feeling a naughty
tingle spread all the way through her.

For a moment, something flamed hot
inside her, and at first she thought it was her fire. Then she realized what it
was, and she felt her cheeks burn. It wasn’t her dragon she was feeling, but
her love for Matt instead. She wasn’t surprised that it burned just as bright.

THE END

FIRST IN THE SERIES

She was raised to hate bear shifters. He was raised to hate
humans. On the run, can they find happiness together? If you haven't read
Bear Run
, the first book in the Pine
Ridge series, you can find it here:

Amazon US:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CH3WC1W

Amazon UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01CH3WC1W

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed reading
Bear Fire
as much as I did writing it.
The next book in the Pine Ridge series will be out soon. To be notified when it
comes out, you can sign up for my update list. I promise not to spam you. I’ll
only send you an email when I have a new book coming out or a discount. You can
sign up for the list
HERE
(
http://madmimi.com/signups/238306/join
).

Oh, and please leave a review. A review means so much, not
just to me but to other readers. It's the best way for readers to discover new
writers, and it's very nice for me to see how people are responding to my
stuff, and also find ways I can improve.

To encourage you to leave a review,
just email me
([email protected]) after you've posted your review — forward me
Amazon's confirmation email — and I'll thank you with a free gift of
Pine Ridge #5
which comes out in a few
weeks (if it's not out already by the time you're reading this). So post those
reviews! :) You can leave them here:

Amazon US:
 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JEQXHVO

Amazon UK:
 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01JEQXHVO

Hugs,
Belinda Meyers

Paranormal Romance Author

Email: [email protected]

Find
me on Facebook