Big Bear Trouble: BBW Werebear Shapeshifter Romance (Sweetwater Brides)

W
hat is
it about this woman?

When his phone buzzed, he practically leapt at it. In her message, Karen was worried that they lived so far apart. He hadn’t even met her, but he felt like he knew all he needed to already.

His animal side was lashing out, impatient and angry, as if saying,
She is ours. Don’t let her get away
.

She was funny, smart and made his bear lose its mind.

Love via first text? Maybe.

He wanted to hear her voice, smell her scent and taste her lips. He tried to word his reply in a way that would be an invitation, but wouldn’t put too much pressure on her. After typing in the text and hitting send, Evan attempted to go about his day, but as the hours passed with no response, he started to fear he’d come on too strong and scared her away.

The thought terrified him and his bear – something that had never happened to Evan Grimpaw.

Around seven, as Evan was trying really hard to concentrate on watching TV, his phone finally buzzed with a message from Karen.

Got any good hotel suggestions?

Evan’s heart began pounding. She had better not have been joking, or he might just have to go get another bottle of whiskey, or five. Just a minute later, his phone lit up again.

P.S. I used to be an exotic dancer and if that bothers you, you can kindly fuck off.

Evan burst out laughing.

This girl just might be the end of me. I can’t wait.

T
he crowd roared
as Evan entered the ring. He took a deep breath, drawing in the excitement and energy of the jostling mass around him. The familiar rush of adrenaline was making his keen senses even sharper.

Evan faced his opponent, already standing in the cage.

Jamie Clearpond.

The two men had never gotten along. And not just because Evan was a bear and Jamie was a wolf. Evan didn’t think Jamie had any particularly compelling reasons to hate him, but you can’t stop a man from holding a grudge. Signing up for the fight was probably Jamie’s attempt at settling things, once and for all.

Does he even have any MMA training?
Evan thought fleetingly.

It didn’t really matter. Evan was going to wipe the floor with him either way.

Jamie stretched his triceps, a snarl on his lips and his eyes trained on the enemy. Evan could practically see the waves of anger rolling off him. He grinned.

Bring it on.

The ref shouted the go-ahead and the men started circling each other, slowly getting closer and closer. Evan considered Jamie analytically. He was in good shape, as most shifters were.

A bit on the slow side, though
, Evan thought wryly as Jamie tried to land a punch to his face but hit nothing but air.

Jamie gathered himself and tried again, this time aiming for Evan’s ribs. Evan swerved, making the wolf miss and stumble. Laughter echoed from the crowd in between cheers.

Enough playtime.

Evan pounced on Jamie, landing blow after blow to his midsection, finishing off with an elbow to his jaw. The man staggered and fell to his knees.

Evan took a step back. No fun in beating an opponent when he was down. Jamie got back on his feet, growling. He took another swing at the werebear, and then another.

Has no one taught him not to telegraph his punches?
Evan wondered idly, blocking the hits with ease.

Evan's whole life seemed to be in the cage. Ever since his fallout with his family, his existence had revolved around cheap beer and heavy training, with the occasional, lucrative twirl in the underground fighting scene of Montana. He was hellishly strong and took real pleasure in playing with his opponents, something that his fans enjoyed far too much.

Guys like Jamie? Evan ate them for breakfast.

The mutt bellowed in frustration. He backed up and charged at Evan, knocking him down and landing on top of him. Evan gathered his knees, bucking them against Jamie’s torso and sent the man flying. He fell in a heap on the other side of the cage. The crowd grew wild.

Jamie had barely gotten back up when Evan started leveling him with punches. The wolf kept his hands up, but Evan slipped past his defenses easily. A gash appeared over Jamie’s eye, covering the right side of his face with blood. In desperation, he let down his arms to try and land a blow to Evan’s torso. The bear saw it coming and grabbed Jamie’s arm, twisting it at an unnatural angle.

He let out a scream, making the crowd roar.

The ref intervened, separating the men. Jamie cradled his arm, hunched over and out of breath. Blood was dripping down his neck and onto his chest. He glanced at Evan, eyes filled with something indescribable. He half-hoped that Jamie would give up – both the man’s body and pride had taken enough of a beating already.

“Go home, wolfie,” Evan sneered. “Leave the cage to the real men.”

Instead, Jamie straightened up and began slowly stalking towards him.

Jamie launched for Evan’s legs, but he danced away, quick on his feet. The wolf had learned from his mistakes and was keeping his guard up. He backed away when Evan’s jabs started getting too close to his face.

Fine. I gave you a chance.

Evan was growing tired of the game and shot forward, kneeing Jamie in the stomach and knocking him back into the chain link surrounding the cage. He grabbed the metal, holding on for balance. The referee took Evan’s arm, pulling him back before he could reach Jamie.

The wolf stood, shaking his head as if trying to clear out some dizziness. One of his eyes had swollen shut, the skin around the socket purple and bleeding. He wouldn’t relent and started to approach Evan once more.

He’s not a quitter, I’ll give him that
, Evan thought, slightly incredulous that Jamie was still standing.

The men grappled, Jaime sinking his fingers into Evan’s forearms, while he landed a kick to Jamie’s thigh, prompting him to let go. The wolf started swinging at Evan wildly, rage taking over reason.

Time to end this
, Evan thought, winding up.

His fist hit Jaime straight on, making him sway on his feet for a moment before collapsing on the floor. The ref rushed over to his motionless body.

This time, Jamie didn’t get up. The fight was over.

At least for now.

K
aren nearly jumped
out of her chair when her phone started buzzing. She put down the files she was organizing and rummaged around in her purse. When she saw the name on the screen, she let out a sigh of relief.

“Hey, mom. I can’t really talk right now, I’m at work.”

Like that had ever stopped her before. Karen pressed her phone between her ear and shoulder and continued shuffling the papers around as her mother droned on and on about finding a nice man and settling down and
finally
giving her some goddamn grandchildren. Karen didn’t really need to devote her full attention to the call – she had heard it all before.

“…I talked to auntie May and her son has this friend who she thinks would be just great for –”

Karen hurriedly cut her off, “No, no, mom, please, I don’t need you to set me up! Look, I’ve got a date later this week, okay?”

“Really? You’re not just saying that?”

“Yes, mom, really. He seems like a nice guy.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful, what’s his...”

“Look, mom, I really do need to get back to work. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Okay, honey. Bye!”

Crisis averted. For now.

There was no date, of course. In truth, Karen wasn’t really keen on dating anyone at the moment.

She looked at her phone. Four missed calls and two unread text messages. No doubt from Kyle. Some people just can’t take a hint. Or in this case, a pretty blunt, “It’s over!”

Mom didn’t know about Kyle. Karen had met him under… not the most palatable circumstances. She had been working at the Pink Pony as an exotic dancer when they first crossed paths. All the other girls had warned her about dating clients, but did she listen?

No.

When Karen got out of the dancing business and started doing temp jobs, she realized that dating Kyle had just been a symptom of unhappiness. She didn’t like being a dancer and just wanted some romance, support and understanding in her life. Kyle was eager to please and a nice distraction. But it wasn’t fair on him.

When he professed his love for her, Karen finally broke it off. She didn’t feel the same. That’s when the crazy came out – non-stop calls, texts, messages on Facebook.

At first she tried reasoning with him, consoling him even. But when his words turned nasty, she decided not to add any fuel to the fire and stopped responding altogether. Not that it deterred him.

Later that evening, in her shoebox of an apartment, Karen opened a bottle of wine and fired up her tired little laptop. She checked her social media pages, wrinkling her nose at all the photos of diamond rings and baby bumps. Karen felt left behind – no career, no family of her own, only thoughts of restraining orders keeping her warm at night. Perhaps her mom was on to something after all. Isn’t life meant to be shared?

To her mild horror, Karen found herself switching between browsing Instagram and looking up dating sites. It was a brave new world out there. Meeting people online was totally normal, right?

Amish Connection? How are they even supposed to sign up?
Karen thought, scrolling through the options.

Finally, she found a page that looked like it would attract the least weirdos. Bonus, signing up was free. She took another sip of liquid courage before typing in something that could have counted as a witty screen name.

What’s the harm, right?

Plus, this could have the added benefit of getting her mom off her back. Lying about non-existent men and imaginary dates was only going to get her so far.

Let’s do this
, she thought with a sigh.

Karen recalled the last time her mom had set her up with someone and shuddered. There
had
to have been better options out there.

She could hear her phone buzzing in her purse and ignored it.

Scrolling through the profiles of one hyper masculine hiking and/or fishing enthusiast after another, she finally realized she had stumbled upon a dating site for humans and shifters. Shifters had come out of the closet, so to speak, a while ago now, but still liked to mostly keep to themselves. Some people were still uncomfortable with the clear physical advantage they had over regular humans and felt either threatened or jealous. Karen was unperturbed.

Well, this is a nice change from the hipsters and aspiring screenwriters of New York
, she mused. She poured herself another glass of wine and clicked on a few profiles
. Who the hell likes Nickelback? Next. Oh, hello there
, Evan
.

If there ever was an embodiment of the tall, dark and handsome cliché, it was him. Tan, built, hazel eyes and luscious dark brown hair. They seemed to have similar tastes in movies and music. His pictures showed someone very outdoorsy and adventurous, which brought back happy childhood memories of her grandparents’ farm.

The grin he wore on his profile picture was mischievous, but his eyes were kind. Intricate tattoos peeked out from under his rolled up sleeves. Karen gulped down her glass of cheap chardonnay, poured another and started typing.

So what do I write? ‘I’m new at this whole Internet dating thing, we seem to have some similar interests and I can’t quite stop staring at your face?’ That’ll get me a date.

She rolled her eyes.

It was supposed to be more of an inner monologue, but once she had typed it out, it was just too honest to delete. She hit send, giggling like a little girl. She felt brave and invigorated.

Maybe I
am
ready to date again?

It was either that or the rather large glass of wine she’d consumed. Either-or.

K
aren awoke
at seven thirty to the sound of her alarm, like she had for almost a month now. But the worker she was subbing for was due back any day and her attempts at finding a more permanent solution had not yet been fruitful.

She grabbed her phone from the nightstand. 12 missed calls and 7 unread texts. But what was that? A notification from the dating site?

Someone has replied to my message?

Don’t’ worry,
I’m new to it too. I like your honesty... among other things ;) Evan

Ooh!
I like him already
, Karen thought, pulling herself out of bed and mentally crafting the best response.

By the time Karen got to work, she and Evan had already exchanged a couple of flirty messages. She let him know that she may not reply for a while – sadly they did not pay her to message hot guys.

Wouldn’t that be great…

On her lunch break, Karen took the opportunity to have a more thorough look at his profile. With disappointment, she saw his location was Wyoming.

Crap!

How had she not noticed that before? She shot him another message.

I’ve just realized we live states apart.

Karen’s phone dinged just a couple of minutes later.

Sweetwater is a great place for some relaxation and fresh air, in case you’re thinking about taking a little vacation.

Now that was practically an invitation. He was definitely one delicious man, but she was not just going to up and get on a plane to Wyoming to see someone she had never met and who could very possibly be an axe murderer.

Plus, this was just supposed to be a little dip back into the dating pool so she could get her mother off her back. Going to visit him would have been more of a deep-dive. She decided to leave the message unanswered for now and get back to work.

As she was making some copies, her manager Cheryl walked up to her.

“Hey, Karen, do you have a minute?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Felicity’s mom is doing a lot better and she’s ready to come back to work. You’ll still come in tomorrow, but on Monday we’ll no longer need you. I’m sorry, you have really done a great job, but it was always going to be temporary.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” Karen responded, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

It’s not like Karen didn’t know that it was coming. She’d just really grown to like the place. It was nice and quiet, and Cheryl was a good boss. Karen contacted the temp agency again, but they didn’t have anything to offer at that moment. After finishing up her day, she grabbed some take-out on the way home.

She still hadn’t answered Evan’s message, which was bugging her, but she just didn’t know what to say.

As she reached the steps of her apartment building, she heard someone calling her name. Turning around, she saw Kyle walking towards her. He was a tall, lean man with a thin face and pointy features. Dirty blond curls peeked out from under his hoodie. He was handsome in a tortured musician type of way.

The polar opposite of Evan,
she mused with some morbid humor.

“Kyle, I have nothing more to say to you. Please leave,” Karen started with a sigh.

“Look, I’ve had some time to think and I really believe we are good together. We made each other happy, remember? What else could you ask for?” he said, spreading his hands as if he was expecting her to run right back to him.

“Love. I deserve to be with someone I truly love and you deserve to be with someone who truly loves you. I’m sure you’ll find that person, but it’s not me,” she said sternly.

Kyle needed someone whose life revolved around him, while Karen was looking for more of a partnership.

Kyle’s tone turned from whispered pleading to angry iciness, “Oh, so you think I don’t deserve you? A little stripper whore with nothing going for her? You should be begging for me to take you back!”

“Fuck you,” Karen said, fury in her voice. She turned to her apartment complex and started to walk up the stairs.

Kyle grabbed her arm and pulled her back with such force that she almost fell on her ass.

“Who do you think you are? Don’t you walk away from me while I’m talking to you!”

“Let go of me or I’m calling the cops,” Karen hissed at him.

A group of twenty-somethings rounded the corner, laughing and talking amongst themselves, prompting Kyle to let go of her arm and take a step back.

“Don’t ever show up here again,” Karen said, leaping up the stairs.

She practically ran the steps to her place, only stopping to listen if he was following her. Her heart was beating so loud that it was almost deafening. As she locked the door behind her, she noticed how badly her hands were shaking.

That son of a bitch!

Karen wasn’t exactly proud of her past, but she didn’t deserve to be shamed for it. Fuck people’s prejudices and double standards, and men who think calling women whores makes them a tough guy.

She opened her laptop and started typing.