Her Bear and a Baby: BBW Bear Shifter Baby Paranormal Romance (Who's the Daddy? Book 2)
Read Her Bear and a Baby: BBW Bear Shifter Baby Paranormal Romance (Who's the Daddy? Book 2) Online
Authors: Harmony Raines
Tags: #General Fiction
Her Bear
and a
Baby
(Who’s the Daddy? Book Two)
***
All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written consent of the author or publisher.
This is a work of fiction and is intended for mature audiences only. All characters within are eighteen years of age or older. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, actual events or places is purely coincidental.
© 2016 Harmony Raines
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Her Bear and a Baby
Bear shifter, Beau, has become a recluse. After the death of his sister, he struggles to face the world. A once highly respected PI, he now lives alone, hardly ever venturing out in his human form. Instead, his bear is his refuge, and he knows it would be only too easy to melt away into the mountains and never return.
But the ghosts of the past hold him to his childhood home.
Bear shifter, Elise, has a problem. A promise she made on her sister’s deathbed means she must try to find the father of, Connor, her sister’s child. Beau is the man she tasks with the job, telling him she was abandoned by her mate, who left her pregnant and alone.
The only problem... When she comes face to face with Beau, she realizes he is her true mate. Should she maintain the lie? Or should she come clean and tell him the truth.
That secretly she doesn’t want to just find the man who betrayed her sister ... she’d like to put a knife in his heart instead!
When secrets are revealed, Beau and Elise find they have more in common than they ever could have imagined. And eventually they will find out who is the daddy, to baby Connor.
“So can you help me or not… Beau?” Elise asked the hunk of man flesh standing in front of her. She had to try her hardest not to reach out and touch his hard, toned chest, or run her hands down his washboard stomach… or wrap her hand around his—undoubtedly hard—cock.
She could tell he wanted her, and knew exactly why. But there was no way she was going to let a hot, horny shifter get in the way of what she needed to do. No way at all. It had been the downfall of her sister, and she was not going to get sucked in the same way.
“Yes…” He cleared his throat. “Yes, Miss Arnold. I can help you find this man, Gable O’Donnell.”
She shifted the baby in her arms onto her other hip, sensing Beau Branson’s eyes as he watched the movement with something akin to lust. If he wasn’t careful, she would be wiping the drool from the PI’s mouth, just like she wiped it off of baby Connor’s.
“And you know
what
he is?” Elise asked. Of course he knew. The reason she had picked Beau Branson, PI for this job was because he was well known in the shifter community for getting the job done.
Oh, and fucking any woman he wanted, too. Apparently washboard abs and dimples made most women go weak at the knees. She sighed involuntarily. Damn, why did life always give her lemons?
Connor gurgled and she turned her head, dragging her eyes away from Beau, to look into the clear, innocent blue eyes of the sweetest baby she had ever known. Whenever she felt life only gave her lemons, seeing Connor always reminded her that, in many ways, she had been given a glass of lemonade that was always more than half full.
“A shifter. Yes. I know all about shifters.”
“Because you’re one yourself,” she stated.
“Because I am one myself,” he repeated, an unfathomable look in his eyes. Then his focus snapped back to the present, and Elise could tell he had incredible control over his shifter urges. “But I’m going to need all the information you have.”
“There’s not a lot, he was the secretive sort. I have his name, Gable O’Donnell, and a description. Five-foot-eleven. Black hair, cropped short, and brown eyes… So dark they look as if you are staring into the abyss.”
He looked at her sharply. “Nice taste in men. You like them rough?” He sounded a little disappointed.
“Let’s just say he wasn’t my usual type,” she said evasively, trying not to catch his eye. Trying not to let him catch her lie.
“So let me get this straight.” There was that hint of disappointment again. “You slept with him because he said he was your mate. Then he ditched you?”
“I
know
he is my mate. Yes.”
Liar, liar,
her bear chimed crossly.
“And you know he’s a shifter?”
“Yes. That’s why I traveled all this way. I figured that a shifter would be the best person to track down a shifter. Am I right?”
“Possibly. Although tracking a shifter still means looking for a needle in a haystack if all you have to go on is a name, which might not be real. Men who go for one-night stands tend to not be truthful.”
He was right there: Gable O’Donnell didn’t exist in any online searches she’d tried.
“…and a description. A vague description.” His eyes shot up to hers again.
“I was drunk.”
“Of course.” He shook his head slightly, and she felt the disappointment rolling off him.
“And a baby,” she said, ramming home just how much of a disappointment she was. She deserved this. He could not be more disappointed in her than she was in herself for not keeping her sister safe, for not realizing something was so terribly wrong when she took off for months on her own, no contact, not even a phone call. How could Elise not have known something was wrong? They were twins, for goodness sake. She should have known.
“And a baby,” he repeated, his words bringing the world back into focus. His eyes flicked to Connor, who gurgled and smiled, a high-pitched sound escaping his mouth as he tried to get Beau to interact with him.
“OK. So I’m going to come out and say it. You cannot be this man’s mate. If you were, he would never have just walked away.”
“Never? I mean, I heard the bond was strong. But a shifter
could
walk away. If they had a really good reason.”
He shook his head as if trying to shake his head clear, or to shake off the way she made him feel. “It would be damn hard.” His eyes fixed on hers with a look of such intense longing, she had to fight to maintain eye contact.
To maintain the lie.
“Well. He’ll want to see his baby. Once he knows, then he’s sure to come around.” This was her risk, her gamble. Had she thought it through enough, or was she putting Connor in danger? If she had anyone else in her life she could trust, she would have left Connor behind while she searched for his father. As it was, she didn’t want to let him out of her sight. She didn’t want to lose someone else she loved.
But now Beau had presented another problem. Or maybe another solution. Time would tell.
“And what if he doesn’t? What if he disowns the kid … and you?”
Beau studied her and she tilted her chin in defiance before answering, “Then I’ll raise Connor alone. I don’t need a man.”
He shook his head. “Normally, I wouldn’t believe that, but in your case, you are probably right. I feel sorry for the guy who falls for you.”
His words hurt her, because of the truth hidden in them that she couldn’t admit to, not yet. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should. Some of us aren’t that strong.” His body tilted towards hers, and she had to tighten her grip on Connor, feel his plump thighs in her hand, and the way he wriggled in her arms, to remind herself why she was doing this. Why she was willing to deny her mate, when he was standing here in front of her.
“Right.” She reached down and picked up her purse and then stood up straight, avoiding his eyes, before heading for the door. “Shall I give you a down payment on your fee?”
“That won’t be necessary. I trust you.”
“Great. So I’ll see you in the morning?” she said brightly, as if the deal was done; the pact was sealed…
Running away,
her bear taunted.
We have no choice,
Elise answered.
We always have choices,
her bear reminded her.
Not when we made a promise to Eleanor,
Elise said, her heart heavy with sadness.
No, not when we gave our solemn word,
her bear agreed and then fell silent.
“Where are you staying?” Beau asked.
“Staying?” She turned to look at him, still lost in the memories of her sister, Eleanor, lying on her deathbed, with Elise promising on their mother’s grave that she would find Connor’s father. That he would know he had a son.
Elise had known it was wrong. The man, Gable O’Donnell, had put a child inside Eleanor and then vanished without a trace, without a word. How could it ever be a good idea to track such a man down and foist a beautiful child, like Connor, on him?
The promise had haunted her, had wormed its way into her brain until she couldn’t think of anything else. She had done her own research, but she had nothing to go on. And that was why she stood here now, in front of the man who was the most highly rated shifter PI in the business. Or at least had been.
Retired
. That was how another PI had described Beau. However, something had been left unspoken, a hint that there was more to the story. It hadn’t deterred Elise from coming here to find him. She would have paid him double his fee in an attempt to persuade him to help her. She hadn’t needed to. As soon as he opened the door and recognized her for who she was, she knew he would help her. For free,
if
she acknowledged their bond.