Smolder: A Werebear + BBW Paranormal Romance (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 2) Read online

  Smolder (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 2)

  By Ophelia Sexton

  Published by Philtata Press

  Text copyright 2016 by Ophelia Sexton. All rights reserved.

  Cover Design by Jacqueline Sweet

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Excerpt

  …Mark smiled at her, the admiration undimmed in his eyes, and stepped forward to take her arm.

  The touch of his fingers against her bare arm sent a jolt of pure sensation straight to the pit of her belly.

  She hadn't felt anything like this since high school. Caitlyn froze and stared up at him.

  His hot hazel eyes burned into hers.

  She should say something. Anything.

  Her lips parted, but her mind was completely blank, as if the heat of his presence had burned away all rational thought.

  Mark made an odd sound low in his throat, almost like a growl. Then his big hands were cupping her face, his fingers sliding into her hair.

  Her heart hammered frantically as he bent his head, lowering his face to hers with excruciating slowness.

  She wanted to grab him and haul him down to her. She wanted to run away from this man, practically a stranger, who incited such overwhelming feelings in her.

  But she could do neither. She felt as if she were frozen in place by the strength of her yearning.

  She felt his breath against her lips like a warm caress. An instant later, his mouth brushed against hers in a feather-light kiss.

  Heat seared through her, racing down her spine, kindling an urgent throb of desire between her thighs. She gasped, and he withdrew.

  Wait, what?

  "I'm sorry—" he began. But his hands still cradled her cheeks.

  "I'm not," Caitlyn said firmly, and rose on the tip-toes of her good foot to return the kiss.

  Dedication

  To Keri and Andy in beautiful Salmon, Idaho, with many thanks for their hospitality, friendship, and warm support for my writing endeavors.

  Thanks also to Lieutenant Tony Bender of the Woodbury Minnesota Fire Department, for his informative YouTube video tutorial, Auto Extrication Side Removal on Upside Down Vehicle, and the Fairfax County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association, for sharing their EMT training videos.

  Any technical errors in this book are wholly the fault of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One – Death on the Rio Grande

  Chapter Two – Upside Down

  Chapter Three – Revelations

  Chapter Four – Interview with the Baker

  Chapter Five - Kissed

  Chapter Six – Dangerous Inquiries

  Chapter Seven – Lost and Found

  Chapter Eight – Discovery

  Chapter Nine – Movie Night

  Chapter Ten – Family Dinner

  Chapter Eleven – Going All The Way

  Chapter Twelve – Assassin

  Chapter Thirteen – Secrets and Revelations

  Chapter Fourteen – Opening Negotiations

  Chapter Fifteen – Shifter Standoff

  Epilogue

  Also by Ophelia Sexton

  Beast Warriors (with Bliss Devlin)

  Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters

  Chapter One – Death on the Rio Grande

  "Caitlyn, you'll never guess what came in this morning," said Jake Zimmerman as he pulled a USB stick out of a small padded envelope and tossed it across his dining room table to her.

  It was Friday afternoon, and they were sorting through the mail, looking for any submissions worth posting on Jake's popular paranormal investigations website in the coming week.

  Most people sent in their photos and video clips via email, but there were a surprising number of snail-mail submissions too. All of the stories worth posting were scheduled on the big laminated calendar propped up on an easel in the dining room.

  Caitlyn Morgan snatched the small item out of the air just as her boss finished triumphantly, "—an honest-to-God shapeshifter video. Finally! The guy who sent it to me writes that he's a cop and that he filmed this while he was off duty on Wednesday morning. It looks like the real thing!"

  "A shapeshifter? Really?" Caitlyn asked, trying not to smile at her boss's obvious excitement. "At least it’s better than yet another chupacabra video. I noticed that we've been getting an awful lot of those lately."

  She put the USB stick down carefully next to her iPad.

  "Okay, I'll watch the video and write up an article with a clickbait headline this afternoon, and we can post Monday or Wednesday, depending on what else is in the pile." Caitlyn shook her head. "Gotta warn you, boss, the shapeshifter pickings are slim this week. Maybe it's time for another skeptical article? Can we debunk the chupacabras once and for all?"

  "Nah." Jake shook his head. "Those stories generate a lot of clicks. How about you see whether that Bigfoot video we got last week is a candidate for debunking? Or maybe there's a haunting we could investigate?"

  When she had graduated with straight As and a journalism degree a few years ago, Caitlyn Morgan had never thought she'd end up as the chief—well, only—writer for Mythtrust News—All the Stuff They Don't Want You to Know!

  At least the money was good. The Mythtrust News website was a two-person operation run out of Jake's suburban Albuquerque home. It was hugely popular on the Web, attracting hundreds of thousands of clicks, Facebook shares, retweets, and, most important of all, lots of advertising dollars.

  The site's content was primarily focused on Jake's burning interest in shapeshifters—werewolves, were-bears, were-anything, really—and proving their existence to a skeptical world.

  There were also secondary pages that hosted an eclectic mix of UFO reports, conspiracy theories, Bigfoot stories, dinosaur sightings, lake monsters, chupacabra, moth-men, hauntings, and anything else remotely related to the paranormal that might induce someone to click on a link and read the article.

  Within a short time of being hired, Caitlyn had figured out that Jake was a man desperately searching for paranormal validation, but one canny enough to have figured out a way to earn a good living pursuing his interest.

  Jake grabbed the next item in the pile, a plain envelope, and opened it. He pulled out a letter on professional stationery, read through it with an odd expression on his face, reached the end, and gave an explosive guffaw.

  "Want to share the joke?" Caitlyn asked, taking a sip from her mug of excellent coffee.

  She normally didn't drink coffee in the afternoons, but Jake's brew was definitely one of the perks of working for Mythtrust News.

  Her boss grinned at her and handed over the letter.

  He was a big, cheerful guy, graying where he wasn't balding, and old enough to be her father.

  Caitlyn really liked him—as a boss, he was generous and low-key, and they had become friends. His wife, Jen, was a teacher at a local elementary school, and Caitlyn liked her too.

  It was just…well, Caitlyn had always wanted to be a real journalist, not just a hack writing lurid stories for clicks. But paying journalist gigs were few and far between these days, and she knew she was really lucky to have la
nded a job with Mythtrust News.

  She looked down at the letter in her hand and sucked in a breath of dismay when she saw that the letterhead read The Law Office of Mark E. Swanson. The letter was addressed to Jake at Mythtrust News' PO Box.

  Dear Mr. Zimmerman:

  You are hereby directed to cease and desist all defamation of Edward M. Ornelas' character and reputation.

  Edward M. Ornelas is a respected professional hotelier in the community of Bearpaw Ridge. He has spent years building a positive reputation for his business, the Bearpaw Springs Resort. Mr. Ornelas has learned that you have engaged in spreading false, destructive, and defamatory rumors about his business.

  Uh-oh, thought Caitlyn as she skimmed swiftly through the rest of the legalese in the letter.

  Apparently Mr. Ornelas had finally read the article they had posted last year about a reported haunting at the Bearpaw Springs Resort, which was located somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Idaho. And Mr. Ornelas had taken great offense to the article's report of resort guests being injured and killed by said ghosts.

  When she got to the bottom of the letter, she saw a hand-written postscript:

  Jake, we both know that a ghost is good for a hotel's business, but a serial-killing ghost? Really? Are you trying to keep people away from the hotel because they forgot to put a mint on your pillow one night? Just print a retraction pointing out that no one's actually been murdered at the hotel in over a decade, and never by an actual ghost, and Eddy says he won't pursue this further. –MES

  "Do you know this Mark Swanson guy?" Caitlyn asked when she had finished reading. "You're originally from Idaho, aren't you?"

  "Hmm, yeah," Jake replied. "I worked for Mark's dad as a ranch hand while I was in high school and during my first couple of years of college. There was always something a little weird about the family, though—I mean, they were really nice people, but kind of secretive. And there were all kinds of stories about wild animal sightings close to town…well, you can say it spurred my interest in shapeshifters." He sighed, a reminiscent look in his eyes. "You should have heard some of the rumors going around town about some of the old families, but I was never able to prove anything."

  "Well, what are you going to do about the cease-and-desist?" Caitlyn handed the letter back to Jake.

  Still grinning, he took it and spread his hands. "I'm thinking this is the perfect excuse to put that haunted hotel story back on the home page of the website on Monday, while we look into that shapeshifter video. Why don't you write an article about having received the cease-and-desist, reiterate the original story, and then add a disclaimer that the ghost murders are only an unsubstantiated rumor? All this, with a catchy headline, of course." He pursed his lips. "Play up the controversy."

  Caitlyn shook her head wryly. "Only you would find a way to turn a threatening letter from a lawyer into more clicks for the site. Aren't you worried about being sued?"

  Jake shook his head. "Nah. With the right wording, I'll be in compliance with the request in that letter…and Mark's not a complete bastard." He paused. "Unless he's changed a lot since the last time I saw him."

  "Gotcha." She entered a quick set of notes into her tablet while Jake opened the next envelope.

  "Huh," he said after a moment. "Bearpaw Ridge again. That's unusual."

  "Wasn't the other place called Bearpaw Springs?"

  "That's the resort, but it's located pretty close to the town," Jake explained somewhat absently, still reading. "Hmm—some guy claims that he saw a man turn into a bear in the middle of town. It apparently then attacked him. Oh, and the local sheriff is apparently in on a conspiracy to silence the witnesses to the incident."

  Caitlyn raised her brows, looking up from her tablet. "Were-bears? That sounds right up your alley," she said.

  "I don't know…," Jake said hesitantly, frowning over the letter. "For one thing, he doesn't have any photos or videos to back up his story, not even an oversized paw-print. Plus the letter comes from the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in South Boise."

  "Oh, really? Inmate or guard?" Caitlyn asked, bringing up a Google search page on her tablet. "Maybe there's an angle we can use."

  "Inmate. Guy by the name of Roger Pemberton."

  Caitlyn did a search and quickly found Pemberton's court records. "Arson, assault, attempted murder…this guy sounds like a real winner," she reported. "Apparently he was stalking his ex-fiancée and decided to burn her alive in her apartment when he discovered that she was dating someone else."

  Jake looked horrified. "That poor woman! What happened?"

  "She survived, luckily."

  "And now her stalker is writing us letters? Okay, I don't care if his story is true, I'm not going to give scum like that free publicity," Jake said vehemently. He crumpled the letter and tossed it into the wastebasket that had been placed strategically next to his chair. "Next!"

  He plucked a padded envelope from the stack. Good—padded envelopes generally meant DVDs or USB sticks with video.

  "Maybe it's a UFO story with some decent-quality smartphone video," Caitlyn said optimistically. "Readers really like UFOs."

  * * *

  When she saw the shocking news that evening, Caitlyn was working from her home office as usual.

  She lived alone in a sparsely furnished one-bedroom apartment and had a computer desk tucked away in one corner of her otherwise bare living room.

  Whenever her mother visited, she always complained about the lack of "real furniture," but Caitlyn had always thought that using her salary to pay off her automobile and student loans as quickly as possible made more sense than shopping for a sofa, coffee table, and all the other bits and pieces that Mom felt were lacking.

  It was dinnertime, and Caitlyn had just finished her first draft of the article revisiting the Bearpaw Springs Resort haunting and retracting the earlier report that guests had been killed on the premises.

  She emailed the article to Jake for his review and approval and then turned on the TV to watch the local news broadcast for any items of interest.

  The top story tonight was the mysterious death of a local police officer. Sgt. Richard Montoya, a veteran with the Albuquerque Police Department, had been found mauled to death along a popular riverside hiking/biking trail.

  The officer had been off duty at the time of the attack, and the police were appealing for any possible witnesses to come forward.

  Montoya…that name sounds familiar…

  Caitlyn grabbed for the padded envelope that enclosed the USB drive with the shapeshifter video.

  Meanwhile, the TV report switched to soundbites from area residents, many of them speculating that a pack of feral dogs had killed Sgt. Montoya while he was jogging his usual route along the Rio Grande just after dawn.

  With a sick feeling, Caitlyn looked at the return label on the envelope and saw that it had come from a Richard Montoya.

  Oh, no, she thought, feeling a sick jolt travel through her gut.

  At the same time, her reporter's instincts came alert. Sgt. Montoya had filmed what he claimed was a paranormal event…and less than twenty-four hours later, he had been killed in an unusually gruesome way.

  Even if the video turned out to be an obvious fake, it would still make a compelling story for the site.

  She reached into the envelope for the USB drive and stuck it in her computer.

  Meanwhile, the reporter on the TV was interviewing a grizzled older man wearing a baseball cap that identified him as a Vietnam veteran.

  "…no stray dogs in this area, and I oughta know, I walk this trail twice a day, every day," the veteran was saying. "I'll tell you what it was—it was a mountain lion. I've hunted 'em in the Fra Cristobal Mountains, and I know what they can do." The man paused, squinting into the camera. "Everyone should be careful—keep an eye on your pets and kids at all times until this cat is caught."

  A cougar had killed the police officer? A grown man in excellent physical shape? In the middle of suburban Albuquer
que?

  That just didn't sound right, thought Caitlyn as she located the video file on the USB drive and opened it.

  But what she saw on her computer screen made her blood run cold.

  The first few seconds of the video consisted of shaky footage of an antlered deer on a wooded path that Caitlyn recognized as a popular hiking/biking trail that ran along the banks of the Rio Grande.

  It appeared that the person shooting the video had been following the deer. From the video's timestamp, it was just after dawn, but the camera appeared to be sensitive enough to film in low-light conditions without an external light.

  Then the deer startled and bounded off the trail, disappearing into the trees. The camera followed its retreating hindquarters for a moment, then swung back onto the trail.

  "Holy shit!" whispered a man's voice off-camera.

  There was a brief scramble of blurred movement as he retreated behind a tree. Then the camera edged around the trunk to reveal what had startled the deer.

  A giant—wait, what the hell is that?—stood in the middle of the trail, its attention focused on something in the underbrush to one side.

  That was most definitely not a mountain lion.

  It looked…impossibly…like a sabertooth cat, almost twice the size of an African lion, with two huge fangs curving down from its upper jaw.

  As Montoya continued filming, the sabertooth made a deep chuffing sound, not quite a growl.

  Then its body began to contort in impossible ways, muscles knotting and rippling under the brindled hide, and the cat began to convulse…

  …and change, writhing and growling and groaning as it dwindled down.

  Until a naked, muscular man lay curled in the middle of the path, trembling and panting.

  "Holy shit," Montoya said again.

  And Caitlyn recognized the man who had been a giant sabertooth cat just moments ago.

  Lying nude and shaking in the sandy dirt of the trail was Philippe Bertrand. He was a very successful real estate developer who was currently running for mayor.