Bear Heat: BBW Fireman Bear Shifter Romance (Firefighter Bears Book 1) Read online

  “How are we going to move everything without Dad being here?” Brooke finally asked as her mom put a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her. She poked at her food without much gusto as her mom sat down and started eating as well.

  After a moment she answered, “We’ll just move the essentials today. Namely, you!”

  “Ha ha, Mom,” she said, giving her best smile.

  “Don’t want to move back in?”

  “That’s one way to put it,” Brooke said. Her mother’s smiling expression turned to one of hurt. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. I’m just down about losing my job. Losing my place. It’s not how I imagined this year going, is all.”

  “Found anyone yet?”

  “What? Mom? What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Well? Have you?”

  “No.”

  “You need to find yourself a man. Your life will turn around once you find someone else.”

  “I was trying to focus on work, Mom…”

  “I know, I know,” her mom said, leaning in close. “Your father, he knows some guys from work that you would find yourself head over heels about. I’ve met a few of them at those little dinners. Trust me – you would love them.”

  “I’m not interested in meeting men at one of you and Dad’s stuffy little dinners. You know I never liked those things growing up, so what makes you think I would like them now?”

  She knew it sounded a little harsh, but it was true. Her parents had always been shining pillars of their community. Her father always had his work parties where he shook hands with all of the players in the city. Her mother had always been there, and as she was growing up, so had Brooke. But she’d never liked them. Her parents and she operated on different wavelengths.

  Her parents enjoyed being important – and Brooke could care less. She just wanted to help those that needed it, so she’d gone the route of a teacher.

  And look how it turned out for me. Maybe I should have learned how to be more popular, how to meet the right people, how to find Mr. Right…

  Don’t say that. You’re going to turn out just like her!

  They finished their breakfast in mostly silence and then Brooke got up to pack up her most important things while her mom did the dishes.

  In her room, she paused for a few moments and just took in the scene. There was her king-sized bed that she’d always slept in alone. Her dresser sat alone in the corner. A nightstand was against the wall.

  And it’ll never be home again.

  Maybe that’s okay. Maybe this is the start of a new chapter in my life.

  It certainly felt like it – but that didn’t mean it felt good.

  She grabbed the suitcase from the closet and went to the dresser, grabbing clothes at random. She didn’t know what kind of clothes she would need, so she grabbed a little bit of everything. She made sure to grab a few extra pairs of nice clothes she could wear to interviews.

  My life is over. I’m moving back in with my parents. My life is over. My life is over. My life is over.

  She kept repeating those words in her mouth until the suitcase was packed and she found her mother waiting at the door to her bedroom.

  “We have all the toiletries you’ll need at the house.”

  Brooke wanted to scream. Her mother was always so proper.

  “Toiletries. We’re fancy around here,” she imagined her mother saying. But she just grimaced, grabbed the suitcase, and decided to follow her mother out to the living room. The sun was out – if you could call it that – and it was still a dreary day.

  After a few minutes of grabbing everything else she needed, Brooke decided she was ready to go. She took one last look at her apartment, sure she would be back, and then closed the door behind her and locked it. Mrs. King was nowhere to be seen and Brooke felt the slightest twinge of guilt. she might never see the old woman again. That was another blow.

  “Where’s your car?” her mom asked when they got out in front of the apartment.

  “Frozen solid in the school parking lot.”

  “We’ll have your father go get it once he’s off work,” her mother said, gesturing to a car sitting in front of her apartment.

  “This is yours? Is it new?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” her mother said, getting into a car that would always be out of Brooke’s price range. Brooke reached out a hand and opened it, unsurprising to find that it still had the new car smell. She hesitated for a moment, unsure if she should even step in the car with her dirty, wet shoes – but she dropped down inside just the same.

  “It’s nice,” was all Brooke could say. Her mother had always had the nicest things – after all, her father’s job could pay for everything. Brooke had always had the nicest things growing up, whether she wanted them or not. She had been home schooled for most of her life, only finishing high school in an expensive private school that probably cost more per semester than she made in an entire year.

  The drive home was quiet and awkward. Her mother kept looking like she wanted to strike up a conversation, but every time she opened her mouth, Brooke’s glare made her close it.

  She felt bad – but she wasn’t in the mood. She felt as if everything she’d ever worked for was suddenly falling down around her. It was a strange feeling; partly terrifying, partly okay because she felt like there was nothing she could do about it.

  They pulled up to the gate in front of her house and Brooke grimaced. For the briefest of moments, the gate stayed shut, but whoever was working the guard booth must have recognized the car because it opened up and they drove through.

  As always, Steve Halstead was waiting outside – rain or shine – to park the car. They parked in front of the massive stone steps flanked by ridiculous looking lion statues and together, they climbed out.

  “Miss Brooke!” Halstead said, smiling widely. He was getting older, old enough to retire actually, but Brooke knew he would never quit. He simply made too much money and had it too easy to ever quit working for the Sharps.

  “Steve,” she said, smiling for the first time since she’d realized where her life was going. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Likewise! Oh, is that a suitcase? Coming to spend the weekend?”

  “Something like that,” Brooke said, avoiding the question.

  “Let me,” he said, grabbing the suitcase from her. She tried to protest but he was fast for his age, and surprisingly strong, too, when he wrestled the suitcase from her. He led the way up the stairs and Brooke and her mother followed. Once inside, he set the suitcase down and went back out to tend to the car.

  Brooke took the moment to grab the suitcase off the floor and ask her mom, “I take it you haven’t turned my room into a library or a guest bedroom or something like that?”

  “It’s the same as it ever was,” she said, smiling. “If you want, I can have Ginger fix us up some tea in the sitting room and we can catch up on what’s been going on in your life. You know, you’ve been a stranger these past few years.”

  “I’ll be down in a little bit,” Brooke told her mom, ignoring what she said. It stung, but it was the truth. She had been a stranger. Ever since she’d gone off to college, she’d done everything herself. She hadn’t taken any handouts from anyone, especially her parents.

  Until now. Until you moved back in with them. It was always meant to be, wasn’t it?

  Brooke grimaced and hoisted her suitcase up the winding spiral staircase, laid with rich, red carpet. She reached the second floor landing and took a left, passing three rooms on either side of the hallway before she reached hers at the very end on the right side. She’d always loved her room; it was the corner room and was always flooded with bright, cheery sunlight.

  Or at least, it had been. The January gloom greeted her as she opened the door to find everything exactly as she had left it. There were still posters hung up on the walls and her sheets were bright pink and blue, a stark contrast to the classiness of the entire mansion her parents owned.
She had expected her mother to gut the room the second she had left it – she was pleasantly surprised.

  Brooke collapsed onto her old bed, a far cry from the one back in her apartment that she would probably never live in again.

  She knew she could have just asked for money, but somehow, that would have been even worse.

  Officially back home with her parents, Brooke curled up into a ball on her bed, and she began to cry.

  Sam was still running when McCready came back, holding a plate of sub sandwiches, and said, “Lunch if anyone’s hungry.”

  Immediately, one of the other two guys who was still in the running came to a slow halt and made his way over and grabbed one. The other seven guys were already sitting around wrapped in coats, watching as Sam and the others run.

  And now it was just Sam and one other guy. And they kept running.

  It was cold, yet Sam hardly felt it any longer. He was more worried about the protesting in his legs, the screaming in his lungs, and the feeling that he couldn’t go for much longer.

  He stole a glance at the other rookie: he was looking just as ragged as Sam. But Sam ignored focusing on the other guy and instead decided to only pay attention to putting one foot in front of the other. It was all he could do.

  There probably wasn’t a prize for lasting the longest or a reward or anything of value from lasting long except for letting McCready, and in extension, the other members of the Forest know that he wasn’t going to quit. He was here to stay, even if he had forgotten his uniform – which he would never forget again.

  He longed for a sandwich. He longed for his coat, sitting right over there. He longed to just stop running and sit down and relax for a few moments. He didn’t want to run any longer but he wanted to give up even less.

  He halfway watched as the huge Shifter from the day before came outside wearing nothing but his uniform. He walked over to McCready and said something that he couldn’t hear.

  Suddenly, McCready bellowed, “Stop! Gather round!”

  The other guy complained that he was going to win and then whooped in victory as Sam stopped and walked close to the others. He grabbed his coat as McCready yelled, “Smith, I won’t ask again!” and the last man came close.

  Sam pulled his coat on, realizing just how cold he was, and bent over almost double as he sucked in cold air into his screaming lungs.

  “Follow us,” McCready said and the recruits followed dutifully, Smith and Sam at the rear, both of them barely able to walk any longer. McCready led the way back inside until they were in a sort of meeting room. There was a small raised podium in the front of the room and behind that a sheet for a projector, though it was now off. Chairs were arrayed in rows in front of the podium and leading back.

  Sitting in the front chairs were Shifters that Sam had never seen before. Most of them were relaxed, leaning back with legs outstretched, and even one Shifter with hair down to his shoulders was sitting with the chair turned around. The men were sitting there like they belonged and the mood they gave off was a stark contrast to the ten rookies at the back of the room.

  These are the members of the Forest. Peterson, Haley, Dixon, Buckner, Ortega, and Graham. They could all be sitting here, right now.

  He knew he was making them larger than life – but he couldn’t help it. He’d looked up to guys like this his entire life, and now that he was finally here…

  “Chief Rawls went into the hospital last night. He’s struggling to hang on,” the man at the podium said.

  “What?” one of the members of the Forest yelled. “Bullshit!”

  “Calm down, Graham. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true. The cause isn’t confirmed yet but it looks like a heart attack.”

  “A heart attack can’t take out Rawls, Sharp!” the man with the long hair yelled. “He’s healthy as a horse! As a bear!”

  There was a slight round of laughter that went around – but it wasn’t heartfelt. It was there to try to take the edge off of things.

  Sam looked around at the others around him – Smith looked green. The others looked unsure, nervous, and he couldn’t blame them.

  The Chief is dying? What does that mean for the Forest? What does it mean for us? For me?

  He hated thinking like that – but it was true. He’d put so much of his heart and soul into getting here, into joining this elite group of warriors – and now one had passed away just like that. It didn’t feel right, and it certainly didn’t feel fair.

  “You’re next in line, McCready,” the long haired man said, slapping him on the back. “Bet you weren’t expecting a promotion so soon.”

  McCready – and most of the other Shifters – shot the long haired Shifter looks of disgust or anger.

  “We need a few days to work things out. It all happened so suddenly that we weren’t expecting to need a replacement so soon. We’ll get you more information as soon as we have it,” Sharp was saying from the podium. Like the others, he was a big man, with bright golden eyes that seemed to pierce through you. But he looked out of place, somehow. Almost as if he didn’t belong, and suddenly Sam understood.

  Sharp didn’t belong here because he wasn’t part of this elite unit. He was a higher up, maybe the man on the top of the totem pole, but he was different from these men because he didn’t get his hands dirty. He wasn’t the Shifter out risking his life day in and day out.

  This was a man of politics, and he could tell that while the men might respect his authority, they didn’t much care for him.

  And then he looked at the divide separating him and the other recruits from the members of the Forest; there were two rows of chairs between them and he realized that there was just as much of a gap between them, maybe even more, than there was between the men of the Forest and Sharp.

  “Shit, man, the Chief is probably gone,” one of the Shifters said, shaking his head. “Always thought he would go out in a blaze, you know? Maybe grab a girl and jump out of a fifth story window. Use his body to cushion the blow, you know.”

  And suddenly the Shifters in the front of the room – even Sharp – were sharing stories about the Chief, a man that Sam had heard of before but had never known, and now never would. He felt extremely awkward, like he was somewhere he didn’t belong, and without even realizing it he was out of his seat and in the hallway. No one else had joined him.

  He walked down the hallway and back out into the bay. The two firetrucks were there, seated silently. In the two days he’d been here, he hadn’t had the chance to see them up close and he certainly hadn’t heard them take off for a fire or any other sort of disaster. He reasoned that was a good thing, especially with the passing of the Chief – it was sure to shake things up.

  He walked along one of the engines and ran his hand along the slick paint. It was a machine of beauty, something he’d dreamed of since he was a young boy floating from home to home.

  “What do you think of it?” he heard a voice ask from behind him.

  Sam jumped and turned around to find McCready standing there, looking at him. The other Shifter didn’t look mad that he was standing there, just curious.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean –”

  “It’s fine,” McCready said, coming close and looking at the machine with Sam. “Didn’t want to stay and talk about the Chief?”

  “I didn’t want to intrude. I wish I would have known him – I’ve read a lot about him. But that moment was for those who did know him.”

  McCready shrugged his shoulders and said, “I can see that.”

  “About my uniform, sir –”

  “At least you weren’t late,” McCready said. “Tomorrow things are going to be different. I’m not sure how the Chief’s condition is going to shake up the bureaucracy. Could shut this whole thing down.”

  “I hope not.”

  “I hope not too, Carver,” McCready said. “Everyone’s free to head home for the evening. You did well out there on the court. You have a lot of drive that I don’t think a lot of these other men ha
ve. You keep your head up and you bring your uniform, and I think you’ll have a better chance than most ever do.”

  “Thanks, Sarge,” Sam said. With that, McCready had disappeared between the two trucks, undoubtedly going back to talk about the Chief and what he had meant to the squad.

  It was an odd situation. Sam stood at the trucks for a few moments more and then decided it would be a good time to head home. He was hungry – he didn’t dare go hunt down his sandwich – and he knew he smelled horrible. He was still wet and cold and all he wanted to do was get home, eat, have a hot shower, and then sleep.

  He knew it was barely 1 in the afternoon, but he didn’t care. Home was calling his name.

  If you can call it that.

  It wasn’t much – but he didn’t know what else it was. It wasn’t home, but it was a place to stay, and a place to stay while he tried to join this elite squad of bear firefighters.

  Outside was just as cold and dreary as it had been all day – and he was sick of being outside. But he walked home, already tired from running, his legs still burning in protest, his body screaming at him that he’d pushed it much too far.

  But the Sergeant said I had drive. He said I have a better chance than most do. Does that mean he believes in me?

  Don’t think like that, he told himself. Sergeant McCready wasn’t there to coddle him, or to make him feel better about himself. He was there to find the best recruit he could find.

  Whether that’s me, or someone else…

  Sam trudged home, shivering, tired, but eventually, he made his way inside, up the stairs lined with trash, and then he was inside his apartment and slammed the door behind him. He locked the place down, glaring at the pile of clothes that was his uniform sitting there forgotten on the table. Then he went to his cell phone, plugged in the charger, and made sure that it was charging before he went to the bathroom to rinse off and take the longest, best shower of his life.

  Sam wasn’t sure what was going to happen in the future. He wasn’t sure if he would make it into the Forest. Was his drive, his determination to be the best he could be, enough?

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he worried that the Chief’s passing would have repercussions that no one had yet felt. Those thoughts – he felt guilty even thinking them, but he couldn’t deny the truth in them. He was afraid that the Sergeant’s warning that the Chief passing away could destroy everything, and he hoped it wasn’t true.