Riding Bearback (BBW Shifter Cowboy Romance) (Bear Ranchers Book 1) Read online

  Jess slept in fits and bursts. She woke often and at one point in the night thought she heard an animal howl. She hoped it was just a wolf, a normal wolf, but her gut told her not to be naïve. Conrad was here. Her footsteps would be hounded by wolves until he made her crazy or she died.

  By morning Jess was a more composed person. She looked in the mirror at her bloodshot blue eyes and pale cheeks, but apart from a slight swelling under one eye, she looked perfectly normal. What was in that crème?

  Throwing on jeans and a blue Tee she went out into the yard as Wyatt’s truck pulled up, brimming with workers. He had organized extra help for the day, including as it turned out, his sister, Donna.

  Donna was lovely in daylight too. She bounced into Jess’s house, and in no time at all, was elbows deep in boxes pulling things out and finding places for them.

  “Wyatt told me about your ex,” she said.

  Jess didn’t say anything.

  “Sounds like a right turd to me,” Donna said. “But you know what? I believe that nasty people get their payback in the end. Just you wait and see, this Conrad will get his. Especially if my brother has any say in it.”

  “Really?” Jess asked, interested despite her feelings of dread.

  “Oh sure, no one messes with a girl my brother has his eye on,” Donna said. She went on to explain how strong and brave her brother was. How there wasn’t a man who could beat him.

  Jess smiled, “He’s not a man. Conrad is a werewolf, Donna. So I don’t know if your brother can beat that.”

  Donna didn’t seem concerned at all. She just smiled and carried on working.

  That night a cow died.

  Something broke in and hauled it halfway across an open field, leaving bits as it went. The next night brought the same thing, only with two cows this time. Jess fretted and spent half the night awake listening, not daring to go outside because what could she do against a werewolf?

  Wyatt did his best, he fortified the fences, tried every trick he knew, but still those crafty wolves were getting in.

  “I’ll have to speak to him,” Jess said six days later and five cows down. Wyatt and Charlie were seated at her new kitchen table holding mugs of coffee.

  “You can’t,” Wyatt said flatly.

  “Actually I can,” Jess said with more vehemence than she had meant. “This has to stop. It just has to.”

  “Do you think talkin’ will do any good, deep down in your soul?” Charlie asked.

  Jess sighed and shook her head, “Probably not. But what can I do? I haven’t slept in forever, and each night more of my cattle are slaughtered and mutilated. Conrad has to stop or be stopped. We have to have a plan.”

  Charlie looked at Wyatt who shrugged. “There might be something,” he said.

  “What?”

  Charlie shrugged, “There is a man, he makes things. Things that work on werewolves.”

  “You’ll have to use it though,” Wyatt said.

  Charlie nodded. “I will. I’ll take her there.”

  There turned out to be a little shed in the middle of nowhere. The man was small, greying and owlish with huge eye glasses. He grunted and spoke only to Charlie even though he accepted cash from Jess happily enough. And then with a package under Charlie’s arm they left and returned to the farm.

  The package turned out to be a gun, and silver bullets. Jess nodded.

  “Okay, so do you know how to shoot? Oddly it never came up as something I needed to know,” she said.

  Wyatt smiled. He and Charlie showed her how to load the gun with normal bullets, and then spent the afternoon teaching her to shoot. It was a rifle and took some getting used to. Jess kept closing her eyes when she pulled the trigger. In the end she hit the target three out of five times and that would have to do.

  Wyatt sat with her in her sitting room. They had taken to spending silent hours together. He had practically moved into the house now, sleeping downstairs on the sofa, at his insistence. Some nights Jess tiptoed downstairs to find him gone, she suspected to walk the grounds, but he was always back in the morning looking tired.

  This had to end. So when Conrad came sniffing around this time, he would meet his maker in the barrel of a loaded gun. And she would be the one pulling the trigger.

  Night settled over the valley. Clouds rolled up dark and forbidding. Jess watched them from her back porch, a cup of tea in her hand. She was sitting on a swing chair, gently rocking back and forth. Wyatt came outside. He had been sleeping in Jess’s bed. At her insistence. After all, she needed him fresh so that they could deal with Conrad once and for all. With his feet and chest bare, his hair tousled, Jess found herself wishing that her life was different.

  How wonderful it would be to wake up to Wyatt every morning, looking as he did now. She longed to stand up and wrap her arms around him, holding him close and smelling me, touching him. But she had to get rid of Conrad first. Legally he had no hold on her, but he just wouldn’t let her go. And so long as he drew breath, there was no way she could be happy, with anyone. So she sat in her chair and clutched her tea a little harder than she meant to.

  Wyatt stared off into the distance. “The clouds look promising,” he said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky tonight.”

  “Sorry?” Jess asked, flustered.

  “Rain, maybe it’ll finally rain,” he said smiling. “Pull your mind out of the gutter, girl!”

  Jess shook her head at him, a naughty smile she couldn’t stop any more than she could still her heart, playing on her lips. That’s it, Jess, kill Conrad and then…then…

  Wyatt seemed to know what she was thinking. He stood in front of her, his flat stomach right there. She wanted to touch him so badly. He went down on his knees so that his face was level with hers. “We’re gonna get him and this will be over. Then…” he kissed her.

  Jess felt awkward and strange, her thoughts melting into whispers. After too a short a time Wyatt pulled back. She hung in the air, floating and ran her fingers through his hair, only then noticing that somehow her tea cup was on the floor.

  “Thought we should have something to fight for,” Wyatt said. This time when he kissed her she threw her heart and soul into it. Conrad had never kissed her like this. Hell, no one had. All other kisses were epic fails compared to this one.

  And when they surfaced for air, Jess was straddling Wyatt, her hands running down his tight abdomen as he fondled her breasts. “I want you so badly,” she gasped.

  Wyatt stopped kissing her. His hands withdrew from her Tee. Jess slid off his lap feeling terribly foolish.

  “No,” Wyatt said gently. “We can’t do this, not yet. Not with your ex hanging around like a rabid dog. I want you, I want you in my life, in my bed…but not looking over your shoulder to see when he’ll come and ruin everything. Also, there is something I must tell you.”

  “What?” Jess asked still breathless.

  “Remember what you asked me the first day, how I was so good with the cattle?”

  This seemed a strange topic to bring up now of all times. Jess sighed, “Yes, I remember. So what?”

  “So…Please don’t hate me,” Wyatt was so serious with such fear in his eyes Jess took his hands in hers.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He sighed. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. Every night I’ve wanted to say something, but I couldn’t bring myself to it. But Conrad will come in force tonight. I got a message to him and there’s been bad blood between his kind and mine for a long time.”

  “Your kind?” Jess asked suddenly afraid of what he might say.

  Wyatt shrugged, “I’m a bear Jess. We all are, Kyle, Jesse, the whole lot of us.”

  She sat in shock, not moving. “A bear,” she said and as she did she realized that there had been signs the whole time. The golden eyes, the massive frame, the way they walked and talked. “Right,” she said and stood up.

  “Jess?” he said standing up too.

  “No,” she said holding up a hand. “Just…” sh
e turned and fled upstairs.

  --

  It was the dead of night. It had rained for hours. The heavens opened and poured their hearts onto the dry and grateful ground.

  Jess, Wyatt and Charlie waited. They sat around the kitchen table, drinking mug after mug of coffee. Jess wasn’t sure now how she felt about Wyatt being a bear. She was still attracted to him. Oh, how she was attracted to him. Sitting opposite him and not reaching for his hand was the hardest thing she had ever done. But there was no getting round it. He was a bear, a shape shifter and just look how the last relationship with a shifter had turned out. She was sitting here planning to kill her ex. What if she ended up in the same situation, but this time with Wyatt?

  But it was different. Wyatt wasn’t Conrad no matter what else he was. Surely she could give him a chance. Jess vowed to think about it later, after ending Conrad. Then she’d be able to think.

  And then they heard it: the howl. It began with one voice and rose to a crescendo of hundreds of howls.

  “It’s time,” Wyatt said and stood up.

  It had been a tense couple of hours. Dealing with Wyatt’s revelation had simply added to the turmoil in her head. She was planning murder. Wondering what Wyatt would be like in bed. Surely she should be at least a little concerned that she wanted to kill Conrad. That would at least make her a good person, but right now she wanted to be free, at any cost. Even your soul? He was still a person, no matter how horrible.

  So when the howl went up, Jess shuddered but took the rifle in hand and moved to the entrance hall. Conrad would come for her, everyone knew it. So she would wait in the house where the light was best and Wyatt and the others would be outside. Only Old Charlie would be inside with her. But she had silver bullets. All it would take was one to seriously hurt the little shit. She had no idea if she would actually be able to kill him, but hurt him a lot, now that was something her conscience could handle.

  Wyatt glanced at her. She held his gaze. What passed between them was mostly longing and a fair amount of fear. Then he ducked out of the front door.

  Charlie sighed at her. “You know he’s willing to die for you,” he said to her.

  She didn’t reply.

  “Yup, that boy will hurt tonight, for you. I hope you appreciate it.”

  “Charlie,” she said, but it came out as a wail.

  “No you pull yourself together. And when it’s all over if we’re still breathing, you decide if you love him. He doesn’t deserve any games you might decide to play with him. You been hurt, so what? Who hasn’t? Just ‘cos he’s a bear, doesn’t mean he’s a bad man. I’ve known this boy’s whole family. They are good people. I don’t know you, but you seem like good people too and it’s sad when two good people let other, stupid things get in the way.”

  He took a breath, “That’s all I gotta say.” He marched up the steps and was gone.

  Jess stood in the front hall and shook. She was a mess and the more she tried to pull herself together the more she fell apart.

  Noises began outside, howls and growls, grunts and roars. Then all hell broke loose. She twitched the curtains aside and just about screamed as a wolf soared through the air right at her. She cowered expecting a crash of window glass, but it never came. A bear, a huge black one, swatted it out of the air. All around the house wolves and bears fought. The wolves were quick, nimble and agile. But what the bears lacked in speed they made up in sheer power.

  A bear caught a wolf and with a great paw twisted its neck until it broke. The creature hung limp in the bear’s claws until it was flung at an oncoming wolf. She could see so little and hear so much. The battle raged around her. All she could see were the moments when the security lights caught them in their mad fight for what, her freedom?

  “Oh, God, I’m so selfish,” she said and flung the door open, stepping outside. “I’m here, Conrad, you spineless little maggot! Come and get me!”

  A wolf stepped out of the darkness. It was grey and snarling. Somehow Jess knew it was him. It stood in front of her, blood dripping from its maw. Then it padded up to her and stood growling. She raised the gun and sighted down the barrel. Could she pull the trigger? Could she end him?

  The moment hung, as though some celestial being had momentarily pushed pause. She felt the world turn, saw herself pulling the trigger, sighting right between his eyes. She saw Conrad fall to the ground as a wolf and lie there dying as a naked man, his pale skin shining in the moonlight.

  And then time came back. Conrad pounced and Jess squeezed her finger on the trigger. The shot went wide and disappeared into the dark. Now she was running, through the house, out the back door and down into the garden. It was a mad dash, she had no plan. Thoughts fell like loose ribbons from her head. This was primal fear, this was what it had felt like back before fire, before the world was tamed. He was on her heels, could easily have run her down. But this was far more fun, watching her dash blindly through the grass.

  Suddenly, something growled. Something else grunted and she felt Conrad disappear from behind her. A big bear with brown fur rose up in the grass. He and Conrad faced each other, circling. This wasn’t about Jess any more, she could somehow feel it. This was about bear versus wolf. This was a showdown years in the making. It was about blood.

  Conrad made a faint at Wyatt, but Wyatt was watching his eyes. They growled and grunted at each other, while Jess stood on the sidelines helplessly. And then they moved. She didn’t see who moved first. It was all a blur of fur and blood and sweat. The battle was fierce, so horrible. The violence from it radiated outward. This was no longer two people fighting, this was a bear and a wolf and it would end in death.

  She couldn’t take it. They ripped and tore at each other. Gashes forming in both coats. Jess, feeling more helpless and insignificant than ever, stood on the sidelines and screamed.

  Eventually she sat in the grass, hands over her ears, rocking to and fro staring into the darkness until a gentle hand landed on her shoulder. She started in fright and turned to see Wyatt. Blood dripped from wounds all over his body. He was a mess.

  She flung her arms around his neck and clung to him. “Are you okay? Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” he said. “We heal quickly. By tomorrow there won’t even be a scratch.”

  She begrudgingly let go of him and a gleam of pale flesh caught her eye in the blood soaked grass.

  “Is he..?”

  Wyatt’s golden eyes were sad. “No,” he said. “But he won’t bother you again. If he knows what’s good for him.”

  Wyatt leaned heavily on Jess as the two of them slowly walked back towards the house. She had the rifle in her free hand and it felt like a lead weight. As they walked passed the crumpled form of Conrad lying in the grass she saw that he was a misshapen mess. Caught somewhere between human and wolf, bits of fur and skin mingled on oddly shaped body parts. His breath came in ragged bursts. There was a lot of blood. She turned away from him and looked at Wyatt who was watching her with concern. She smiled at him and in his golden eyes saw movement.

  On instinct, the rifle came up as she spun around. Pushing Wyatt away, she cocked the weapon and fired. The silver bullet ripped through the leaping creature. It dropped to the ground with a wet thump.

  Conrad was dead.

  The sun was warm on her skin as branches waved gently over her head. She lay back on the blanket and stared up at the canopy of green above her. Wyatt shifted next to her and poured more red wine into her glass.