A Bride For The Bear (Bear Brides #1)

A
BRIDE FOR THE BEAR

By

Natalie Kristen

Also by NATALIE KRISTEN

Bear
Brides

A Bride For The Bear

Billionaire
Bear Shifters Romance

Taken By The Bear

Owned By The Bear

Saved By The Bear

MISTY
VALLEY SHIFTERS

Growl
For Me

Fight
For Me

Purrfect
For Me

MATE
series

Alpha
Mate

Bear
Mate

Vampire
Mate

Wolf
Mate

Wild
Mate

Dark
Mate

Blood
Mate

NORTH
WOLVES

To
Kill A Wolf

ALPHA
GAME

Alpha
Game

Alpha
Game 2

Alpha
Game 3

DARK
erotic romance

Rapture
In The Dark

Release
In The Dark

One
Night With Death

Copyright
© 201
5
Natalie Kristen

ALL
RIGHTS RESERVED

No
part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are
used fictitiously or are the products of the author's imagination.
Any resemblance to actual locales, events, establishments or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

About
this book

A down on her luck BBW
meets an alpha werebear in this standalone bear shifter romance.

Curvy Abby Vale is having
the worst week of her life. She has been dumped and fired all in the
same week. While looking for a new job, she sees an ad for a dating
site.

One particular profile
catches her eye. A werebear in Moonstone Creek is looking for a
mate.

Intrigued, she decides to
make the trip to Moonstone Creek to explore the small, thriving
shifter town.

As Alpha of the Nightfire
clan, Cole Jameson has to ensure the survival and renewal of his clan
of bear shifters. No stranger to violence and bloodshed, Cole knows
that a clan that is not reproducing and growing will be preyed upon
and wiped out. He orders all his clan members above the age of
thirty to sign up for a dating site to find a mate. A good Alpha
leads by example. Cole signs up, even though he suspects that a
hardened, cynical werebear like him isn't destined to have a mate.

But when Abby arrives in
Moonstone Creek, her lush human scent draws dangerous predators to
her.

To keep her safe, Cole will
have to fight not just a powerful rival clan, but his own demons.
Can he learn from his past and rise above the blood feud, or is
history doomed to repeat itself?

*****

Abby Vale kicked off her
shoes and sucked in a long, deep breath. This was officially the
worst week of her life.

The seams at the side of her
too-tight waitress uniform threatened to come apart. Abby snarled a
string of choice expletives and reached back to yank the zipper down
viciously. There was the satisfying sound of tearing as she wrenched
her uniform off her curvy body. There was no need to hold her breath
and squeeze herself into this ill-fitting, ridiculously short uniform
any more. She wouldn't be going back to the restaurant. She'd been
let go. Downsized, so to speak. Ha ha.

Abby snatched up her ripped
uniform and stalked to her bedroom. She stood in front of her mirror
in her simple cotton bra and panties and surveyed her figure. There
was absolutely nothing wrong with her body. She had full, generous
breasts, wide hips and a round, fleshy butt. There was nothing fake
or unnatural about her body.

Abby scowled at the crumpled
remains of her old waitress uniform. The restaurant had refused to
order a larger-sized uniform for her. Their uniforms were standard
issue, standard size, and this was the largest size they had. Every
day, Abby had to suck it in and squeeze herself into the tight, short
uniform, and endure the stiff fabric cutting into her flesh the whole
day. Sometimes she would skip meals just so she wouldn't put more
strain on that stupid uniform and have it rip apart while she was
bending to serve the customers.

But with few restaurants and
cafes hiring in the area, Abby had simply stuck it out. The pay
wasn't great but at least it kept a roof over her head and put food
on the table. Half her pay went to paying the rent for this little
apartment just two blocks away from the restaurant. Walking to work
meant she could save on transport and get a daily workout. She
wasn't a slob. She was a healthy, hardworking twenty-nine year old
woman. Her shifts were long, but she never complained. She was
usually the first to volunteer for overtime, just so she could earn a
little more.

She'd worked at the same
restaurant for two years, but the restaurant had recently come under
new management. And the new management decided that they wanted to
spruce up their image, pander to a younger crowd with bigger wallets
and bigger appetites. They wanted their waitresses to don even
shorter, smaller uniforms with higher hemlines and lower necklines.
And these new uniforms didn't come in her size.

And if the uniform didn't fit
the waitress, the waitress didn't fit the restaurant.

Abby sat down heavily on the
edge of her bed as her room suddenly looked watery and blurry. She
blinked hard, refusing to let the tears spill down her cheeks. It
just wasn't fair. Why her? Why now?

Why hadn't her new bosses
talked to her about this issue before? They could have given her
some time. Abby would have done everything to keep her job. She
would have put herself on a crazy diet and tried her best to cram all
her curves into the new, tiny uniform. Maybe it still wouldn't have
worked out, and she'd still be deemed too big for the job. But at
least they'd have given her a chance. It hurt that they didn't even
try to keep her.

They had simply outgrown her
and decided to get rid of her. They had just kicked her to the curb.

Like what Kenneth had done.

Kenneth had texted her a few
days ago to tell her that he'd met someone else, and that was it. He
refused to answer her messages and he wouldn't pick up her calls. It
was over. Just like that.

They had been together for
over a year, and he didn't even have the decency to break up with her
in person. She had been dumped via text. How pathetic was that.
What a loser!

A strangled, wretched sob
escaped and Abby bit her lip and swiped angrily at her scalding
tears. She'd lost her boyfriend and her job all in the same damn
week. Could her life get any worse?

She'd had it. Up to here.

Terri, Abby's best friend,
had rushed over immediately when Abby phoned her to tell her that
she'd just been dumped. Together, they'd polished off three huge
tubs of ice-cream and watched their favorite comedies through the
night. Abby had laughed till she cried, and cried till she laughed.
For a few hours, she didn't know if she was laughing or crying, but
she felt a whole lot better after that.

The ice-cream had been
therapeutic, and Terri's optimism and encouragement had helped
restore some of her shattered self-esteem. Terri told her that she
would find someone way better than that jerk Kenneth, someone who
would love and cherish her with all his heart. Abby had smiled at
her friend's heartfelt words, but she wasn't so sure. Of all her
doomed relationships, her relationship with Kenneth had lasted the
longest. She had always wanted to get married before thirty, and
she'd secretly harbored the hope that Kenneth would pop the question
soon.

Did she think that Kenneth
was Mr. Right? No, not really. But Abby wasn't a starry-eyed, naïve
young thing. She knew that Mr. Right was just a mythical creature,
like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. They didn't exist in the real
world. In the real world, there were fights and arguments, and you
had to make compromises. You had to settle for less and just try to
make things work.

Her relationship with Kenneth
hadn't been fraught with too many arguments and fights. Kenneth
hated confrontations, avoided them like the plague. If he was
unhappy about something, he would just keep a stony silence and
distance himself physically and emotionally from her until she went
to him and apologized. Sometimes she didn't even know what in hell
she was apologizing for. It had occurred to her that she was always
the one doing the apologizing and compromising, but she'd stupidly
thought that it didn't matter who lowered their pride first as long
as it kept the peace and kept the relationship going.

Abby's head sank into her
hands. Compromise couldn't keep a dead, decaying relationship going.
She knew that. But she had been so hung up on the idea of getting
married before thirty that she had stubbornly clung on to a
relationship that was way past its expiration date. Kenneth wasn't
the right fit. He wasn't the one for her. At least he had grown
some balls and taken the step to end a relationship that was going
nowhere, even if he was too chicken to talk to her about it first.

Abby snorted out a wet,
painful laugh. Nope. She wouldn't be getting married by thirty.
From the looks of it, she probably wouldn't be getting married in
this lifetime.

She had no boyfriend, no job,
no life.

That was the goddamn truth.
She had to face it, and get over it.

But first, she would put a
stop to her pity party and go throw a real party for herself. Terri
wasn't around so it would be just her and her frozen, crispy, sweet
and savory buddies.

Drying the last of her tears,
Abby got up and pulled a comfy old t-shirt and track pants from the
cupboard. With a loud huff, she marched to the kitchen and rummaged
for her hidden bags of chips. There was no need to restrict and deny
herself anymore. She could eat whatever she wanted, as much as she
wanted, any time she wanted. She didn't have to squeeze into that
ridiculous, tiny uniform ever again. Smirking, she grabbed a pizza
from the freezer and nuked it. What the heck. She would have her
chips and ice-cream first, and pizza for dessert.

After a few heavenly
spoonfuls of frozen goodness, Abby felt better. An empty belly never
did anyone any good. She would eat her fill, refuel and recharge
herself. So what if she'd lost her job? She would look for a new
one. There, the old Abby was back. She was indomitable, intrepid,
independent. Somewhere along the way, she had gotten lost. A string
of broken relationships had done some serious damage to her ego and
crushed some of her spirit. And a pressurizing, exhausting job which
didn't pay all that well had helped chip away at her self-esteem.

Abby brushed the crumbs from
her t-shirt and took another slice of cheesy pizza. The pizza was
tasty enough, but it couldn't beat her gran's delicious, gigantic
pizzas. She still missed her gran, even though it had been eight
years since her grandmother passed away.

She had lost her parents at a
young age, and for years it had been just her and her grandmother.
But her beloved gran had passed away when she was twenty-one. Abby
had moved to the city after her grandmother's death and doggedly
searched for a job and a place to stay.

She had met her best friend
Terri Quinn quite by chance. She had been waiting in line at the
supermarket when Terri came skidding into her with her overflowing
basket of groceries. Abby had immediately helped her up and helped
retrieve her runaway groceries.