Authors: Clara Moore
ROMANCE: Highland Bear Love : A BBW Paranormal Historical Billionaire Romance (Fantasy Alpha Male Shape Shifter Short Stories) (4 page)
Chapter One
Cecelia
“Pick me up,” Michael pleaded, holding his little arms out wide. Cecelia couldn’t resist. He was too adorable with his trusting blue eyes and little blonde head. She lifted Michael up into her arms, bobbing the four-year-old as his sister and brother ran around her feet.
Cecelia Conrad didn’t usually cave to the adorable. With her raven-black hair and dark green eyes, she preferred the night over the day, mystery over mirth. But something about children lightened her spirit. It was why she had studied child development in college, and why she’d looked for work as an au pair upon graduating, eventually landing a job with the Johannsson family.
They were a beautiful bunch with their Scandinavian blonde hair and bright blue eyes – all except the father, who looked more Mediterranean than Scandinavian. The children took after their mother, Diana Johannsson, a hardworking woman with a genuine smile.
On a normal day, Cecelia took care of the children while Diana ran her own marketing company and their dad played big man at his law firm, but this wasn’t a normal day. They were on vacation, trading in the buzz of the city for the restfulness of the wilderness. As Cecelia held Michael on the porch of the log cabin where they were staying, if a two-story timber palace could be called a cabin, she looked out into an endless forest.
“You’re an angel,” Michael sang, twirling a piece of her nightshade hair around his finger.
Cecelia smiled and set him down. “Go play,” she encouraged. It was a good thing she did. As soon as Michael’s feet touched the ground, he hiccupped and turned into a bear cub.
“Oops,” he said when he changed back into a boy, covering his mouth. “I hiccupped.”
Thank mercy the clothes of shifters return with the flesh
, Cecelia thought as she watched Michael and his siblings run around.
Otherwise, I’d spend all day redressing triplets.
Nearby, Diana sat in a cushioned lounge chair drinking a pink lemonade Cecelia suspected had a shot of something special added to it. Between sips, she chatted loudly on her phone. “I miss the city already,” she groaned. “There’s no cosmopolitan on the Great Frontier.” She paused. “Yes, mother, I know we can come home at any time, but this will be good for us. We have bear in our blood. We need wide open spaces.”
She laughed as if she’d just told a joke, but then her face fell. “Mother, not this again. There’s no danger out here. You’re being oversensitive, like the time you thought the triplets were drowning at sea and it turned out they were only watching Sponge Bob. You need seer spectacles.” She laughed again.
Cecelia tuned the conversation out. Fixing a button on her purple flannel shirt, she wondered what it was like to shift. She never had, and she never would. Most of the members of her family were shifters, but the gene wasn’t always passed down. Her older brother was a shifter. At will, he turned into a big brown grizzly, but his heart was gentle, at least when it came to those he felt he needed to protect. He was in the military, using his abilities for good.
“My mom’s at it again,” Diana called from her lounge chair, tucking her phone away. “Being a seer is only a gift if you can see straight.”
That was something else Cecelia had missed out on – special gifts. It was rare, but some shifters could do extraordinary things, like see what others could not or make the earth tremble with a stomp of their foot.
“What is she worried about this time?” she asked.
“She thinks we’re in danger out here in the woods. I told her the only danger here was my husband’s barbequing skills.”
“The fearsome three are running around so much, they’d eat a plate of dandelions if you gave it to them.”
“They may have to if he burns everything again. I was thinking… there’s a tree house down the path. Why don’t you take the children there to play for a few hours? There’s something else I want my husband to set on fire.”
Cecelia tried not to cringe. Diana had no filter. It was one of the reasons she loved her, but sometimes it was too much. “I predict a fourth cub soon,” she said as she began rounding up the kids.
“So did my mom,” Diana called as they headed for the path. “That was three years ago.”
To be continued…
You can read the rest of the book at the following address:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0143O163I
Chapter One
Northern California
Cassie
“Did you hear the news?” Jessica asked, her eyes bright in the dark laboratory, much like the bioluminescent cells Cassie was studying. “They’ve brought in a white lion.”
Normally, Cassie Judd paid little attention to what Jessica considered news – usually unpleasant gossip from around the zoo where they both worked as research scientists – but this time, Jessica earned her full attention. In shock, Cassie stepped away from the lab table.
“What do you mean they’ve brought in a white lion? You can’t just bring in a creature like that out of nowhere. There’s paperwork and preparations that have to be made–”
“I don’t know,” Jessica said, cutting her off. “The deal was done last night. It’s a surprise to everyone. They’re loading him into his den now.”
Intrigued, Cassie hurried out of the lab, giving Jessica her freedom to continue spreading the word. As she rounded the familiar paths, bypassing the aquarium and the gorilla enclosure, she removed her lab coat from her curvy frame and pulled loose her pony tail, allowing her glossy mahogany hair to pour down her voluptuous back. She wanted to appear more casual. If she called attention to herself as a scientist, she’d be inundated with questions about the animals at the zoo. Right now, her only focus was the white lion. She had read about the rare genetic mutation that made a small number of African lions so pale, and the superstitions surrounding them, but she had never seen a white lion up close.
That changed as soon as she turned into the lion’s den, a sheltered area behind the public enclosure. Behind the gate was a magnificent creature with strong, bulky muscles, a mane thicker than most male lions, and alarming grey-green eyes that stood out against his snowy coat. His eyes captivated her, much more than the novelty of his color. As he paced in his cage, those eyes spoke of a sadness. Cassie believed animals capable of emotion, but the depth of his sadness unnerved her. It was unnatural. And heartbreaking.
Briefly, the lion stopped pacing and looked at her. Something within her, something primal, told her it was not out of curiosity, but with intent, as if he were trying to communicate something to her.
“Where did he come from?” she asked the zookeeper handling the lion’s arrival – an older man who had worked at the zoo for most his life. At twenty-four and only starting her career, she had a lot of respect for the man.
“Don’t know,” the man answered, rubbing the sweat from his forehead. In the dead heat of the summer, the lion’s den was sweltering. “Got a call from the director this morning to say a new lion was on its way. Something about an emergency transfer. I was to move the other lions outside and prepare the den for this one. Never imagined he’d be a white lion. He seems like a pretty tamed fella, but there’s something about him that seems... odd.”
Cassie nodded her head. She couldn’t agree more. Tenderly, she put her hands against the metal gate that separated her from the beast. “What have they done to you?” she asked.
***
In the aquarium, Cassie tried to focus on the bioluminescent jellyfish, which looked like an infestation of tiny parachutes floating in the giant floor-to-ceiling tank, but her mind kept wandering back to the new lion.
Out of fear he wouldn’t interact well with the other lions, he’d been given his own enclosure. The public was delighted, fawning over him like bees to honey. The gift shop sold out of white lion plush toys his first day out of his den. He was the star of the zoo. But to Cassie, his newfound celebrity made his situation all the sadder.
“Another late night?” Doug, the security guard, asked as he passed through the aquarium.
“Night time is the best time for a researcher,” Cassie replied with a smile. “I’ll check in with you before I leave.”
“So sunset, then?” he surmised, familiar with her routine. “I’ll have the coffee waiting.”
“Thanks,” she called as he left, leaving her alone to observe the behavior of the hundreds of glowing
turritopsisdohrnii
.
“Another time,” she said to the jellyfish and went to see the lion.
With the zoo closed, he was back in his den behind the enclosure, lying in a corner with his head tucked in his paws, defeated, but as soon as she drew near, he stood and moved closer to her.
This was not the first time she’d visited him. It was one of many nightly visits. She felt drawn to the lion, as if he had some meaning to her life. It was her hope that if she spoke with him nightly, if they became friends, the sadness in him would recede. But it didn’t. If anything, he seemed to be getting worse.
“You’re not happy here, are you?” she asked, sitting on the ground with her side against the gate. He edged closer to her, the bulk of his body twice the size of a human’s, but he didn’t come too close. She got the sense he didn’t want to scare her off.
“You know, white lions have a place in mythology,” she told him, strumming her fingers along the gate. “They are believed to be children of the Sun God. You’re a gift to Earth. I’ve done a lot of reading since you’ve arrived. A lot. You’ve been a distraction,” she teased. Then she sighed. “But no books can tell me why you look so haunted. None of the scientific ones, anyway.”
Suddenly feeling tired, she closed her eyes and began drifting into sleep, staying awake long enough to feel his fur stick between the gate as he laid beside her.
…
You can read the rest of the book at the following address:
There were fifteen pickup trucks parked in front of Loma Rita’s tiny town hall. It had been a long time since any of those trucks had seen a dealer’s showroom. They were dented and scratched from long years of working in South Texas. There was scraps of hay and gravel in nearly every bed; a few had lost their tailgates.
The cowboys standing in a cluster near these trucks didn’t look much better. Years spent in the saddle had turned their skin leathery-brown; most had a perpetual squint lurking in the shadows underneath their Stetsons. They wore blue jeans that had seen much better days and faded t-shirts.
“It’s just bullshit, that’s what it is,” Millet Baynard proclaimed. He was one of the bigger cowboys, although far from the brightest. His t-shirt proclaimed his Longhorn pride. He was known in town for his ability to flatten beer cans against his forehead; his record was sixty cans smashed in a single minute. “Who cares about frikkin’ bats, anyway?”
“They’re an endangered species,” Danny Russell, tall, soft-spoken, and acting chair of the town board sighed. “That means the feds have got their nose in it, and there’s really nothing we can do.” He looked slowly around the assembled crowd, making sure to catch each cowboy’s eye in turn. “Roger can spend years appealing this decision, but the law is what the law is. They’re not going to let him develop anything down there. It’s all protected land.”
“As long as the bats are there,” Millet countered. He shrugged his sloping shoulders. “If they decide they want to nest somewhere else, then Roger will be able to build.” His nod was emphatic. “That would mean jobs for all of us. Good jobs.”
“If you mess with them bats, Millet, your ass is going to wind up in jail.” Danny’s best friend, Jorge, had recently retired from the Sherriff’s department. He knew Millet very well. “And it won’t be a weekend in the drunk tank. The feds take this environmental protection thing seriously. Are you really willing to spend five years inside on Roger’s say so?”
Before Millet could answer, a red Mazda 626 pulled up in front of the town hall. Every head turned to watch the door open. Janelle Washington had been sent by the Fish and Wildlife Service to represent the government’s side in the forthcoming debate. No one in Loma Rita had met her before, but more than a few sets of eyes widened appreciably at the sight of her lush, curvy form.
“Gentlemen,” Janelle said with a smile. “I assume you’re all here relevant to the Wilson appeal?” A few cowboys nodded, but no one said anything. Janelle flipped her long braids back over her shoulder, and adjusted her grip on her briefcase. “Well, then, let’s go in and get started.”
She stood back, allowing the assembled cowboys to lead the way. Danny Russell hung back as well, taking the moment to introduce himself. “I’m afraid Roger Wilson isn’t here yet,” he said, “so we may have some waiting to do.”
“Perhaps he realized it’s a lost cause,” Janelle said. “and decided to bail on us.”
“If that’s the case, you’ve driven a long way for nothing,” Danny said. He took a long moment to enjoy looking at Janelle. She was nearly as tall as him, with quick brown eyes and caramel colored skin. Her blue blouse and business slacks weren’t designed to be sexy, but they clung to her curves in all the right places. The three inch heels she was wearing didn’t hurt matters, and he noticed there was no wedding ring on her hand.
She noticed his interest and smiled. “Well, I wouldn’t stay for nothing,” she replied. “Meeting you has been a pleasure. Tell me about yourself. You work on one of the local ranches?”
Danny nodded. “I’m with the Lost King, just on the other side of town here.” He was about to tell Janelle about the outfit when Roger Wilson came squealing into the parking lot, sending gravel flying every which way with his arrival.
Janelle winced, moving to avoid the flying stones. Roger stopped his truck less than a foot from her, and flung his door open. “So you’re who the government sent down to tell me I have no rights to my own land?” he sneered at her. He turned toward Danny. “I assume you’ve told the lady we’ve got more important things to worry about than where some stupid-ass bats decide to bed down at night.”
… to be continued
You can read the rest of the book at the following address:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013TELNKO
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