Mountain Guardian Bear: BBW Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance (Bears of Pinerock County Book 4) Read online

  Mountain Guardian Bear

  (Bears of Pinerock County #4)

  by Zoe Chant

  Copyright Zoe Chant 2016

  All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  A note from Zoe Chant

  If you enjoy Zoe Chant …

  Chapter One

  Through dark woods, the young woman ran.

  She couldn't remember where she was running to, or what she was running from. She only knew that something was chasing her, and somewhere ahead of her, there was safety.

  She didn't know how she knew that, but she knew it as well as she knew her own—

  —name.

  My name. What is my name?

  She stumbled to a halt with one hand pressed against the shaggy trunk of a pine tree and the other clutching her head. It seemed to her that there ought to be some kind of head injury. Doesn't getting hit in the head make you lose your memory? And her head certainly hurt enough for it. But there didn't seem to be any bruises or blood, just a splitting headache. And she was also thirsty. Her throat ached, there was a stitch in her side, and her feet hurt—not surprising, she found when she looked down at them, since they were bare.

  Her body was as unfamiliar to her as everything else, a round body with chubby thighs. She was wearing nothing except a T-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts that she somehow knew, from the past that was now an utter blank to her, were what she normally wore to sleep in.

  But ... I'm in the middle of the woods ...?

  She looked up and around. The panic still beat at her, a fierce sense of urgency that told her there was danger somewhere nearby, but now that she'd calmed down a bit, she knew better than to run blindly through the woods at night. She might stumble off a cliff, or run into a bear.

  Thinking about bears made her heart jolt and start beating faster. Had she had a bad encounter with a bear recently? If only she could remember anything!

  She began walking again slowly, picking her way on sore feet over roots and around clumps of brambles. There was a bright moon somewhere above the pine trees, the only thing that kept her from being completely blind, but the shadows under the trees were inky black.

  Maybe this is a dream.

  It felt so real, though. The prickle of pine needles under her feet and the stinging of cuts on her bare feet and legs ... the ache of her muscles and the dryness in her mouth ... the sharp turpentiney smell of the trees ... and most of all, the sharp pain stabbing her temples—all of it was hard to dismiss as nothing but a dream.

  Just to be on the safe side, she gave her arm a hard pinch, and in the process she noticed something dark in the crook of her elbow. She thought it was dirt at first, but in a patch of moonlight between two large pines, she held her arm close to her face and discovered bruising on the inside of her elbow, as if from a needle or IV.

  She was shaking all over now. What happened to me? Did someone try to kidnap me? Did I break out of a mental hospital?

  What the heck is going ON?

  But there was no one to answer, and no safety here. She pushed on through the forest, limping a little. The ground was getting steeper, the trees farther apart, and she felt very exposed. When she looked up, she could see mountain peaks above her, sharp against the starry sky. It seemed logical that climbing higher into the mountains was probably a bad idea—she was getting further and further from shelter, roads, safety, and police: anyone who might be able to help her. And yet, whatever instinct drove her onward kept telling her to climb higher, climb farther ... that if she could just go far enough, she would be safe.

  Some part of her told her that she was not just running away; she was also running to something.

  Or someone.

  And then she emerged from a last clump of pine trees into a moonlit clearing with a cabin in it, and she knew she had arrived.

  Her first instinctive impression in the moonlight was of peace, safety, and ... home. That was it. This place felt like home, even though she didn't even know where home was for her. She was pretty sure it wasn't this. And yet it still felt like it.

  She approached the cabin. It was low and squat, made of big pine logs with a sod roof. It looked old. The grasses and wildflowers growing on the roof rippled in the night wind. The windows were dark. Somewhere, not too far away, she could hear rushing water.

  Either there was nobody home, or they were asleep. There was no car parked in front of the cabin, but somebody definitely lived here. She walked around a fire pit and past a vegetable garden with a fence around it. The garden was neatly tended, with all the weeds pulled. In contrast, the yard around it seemed wild and disorderly, but when she looked more closely she saw that it wasn't at all. The brush had been trimmed back, and young trees cut down before they had a chance to grow too closely around the cabin. It was only that the wildflowers had been allowed to grow in the yard, just as on the cabin roof. They were everywhere. She had to push through them as she walked toward the cabin. The moonlight leeched color from the flowers, turning them all to shades of silver and gray, but she thought that in sunlight the yard would be a riot of color. Even at night, it smelled good. She didn't know the names of any of the flowers (put that on top of all the other stuff I don't know) but one particular flower caught her eye, delicate and pretty, with sprays of small pale petals around a dark center. It grew all over the place here. She felt that she should know its name, and then the name came to her suddenly, along with something else.

  Daisy.

  That's the flower, and that's also my name. I'm Daisy.

  It made her feel a little more confident. At least now she knew one thing about herself. If someone asked her name, she could tell them.

  The cabin had a low porch made out of split logs. They were worn smooth, and felt almost soft to her bare feet after the rough climb. Beside the door, there was a handmade-looking rocking chair with something furry on the seat that she thought at first was a very large cat, but realized upon closer inspection was actually a bundle of clothes wrapped in some kind of furry vest or jacket. A pair of boots stood under the chair.

  Well, rural people were a little eccentric. At least the place seemed to be clean, with none of the junk that sometimes accumulated in rural places, like old washing machines in the yard and cars up on blocks.

  Still, she paused nervously at the door with her hand raised to knock.

  This is nuts. What if they're not friendly? What if they're with the people who kidnapped me? How do I even KNOW?

  But she did know. She might not be able to remember anything, but she knew right down to her bones that this was a safe place, and that she in particular would always be safe her. The person who lived here would never hurt her.

  Cautiously, she tapped on the door.

  "H-hello?" she called. Her voice sounded loud in the stillness of the night.

  No one answered. Daisy knocked again, more boldly this time, but the door seemed to be made of solid split logs like the porch, so it didn't make a loud knocking sound like an ordinary hollow door would have done. Instead the best she could do was a muffled tapping.

  She waited for a
little while, but no one came to the door. She had a strong feeling that no one was home. Glancing nervously over her shoulder, she tried the door—instead of a knob, it had an old-fashioned brass latch—and found that it wasn't locked. Some part of her expected it to creak, but instead it swung open easily on well-oiled hinges.

  "Hi?" Daisy said in a mousy little whisper. Knocking on a stranger's door was one thing, because she really did need help. Sneaking into their house was a whole different thing.

  And yet it didn't actually feel wrong. It was like she'd been here before, like she'd even lived here. And yet she knew, with the same certainty that she knew her name was Daisy, that she'd never been here in her life.

  What is going on?

  She crept cautiously into the cabin. It was not large, consisting only of a single room. Moonlight shafted in through a window beside the door, and a second window stood like a block of wan light on the far wall. By that illumination, she could make out a squat iron stove with a pair of old-fashioned firedogs holding wood beside it, a table and chairs made of heavy home-split boards, and a large, solid four-poster bedframe. The whole place looked like something out of a past century. The most modern thing she could see anywhere was a propane burner on its own little cabinet near the wood stove, with a line vanishing into the wall, presumably to a propane tank outside. There was a kerosene lamp on the table.

  Just inside the door was a small, apparently custom-made cabinet, similar in style to the one holding the propane burner, and on top of it was a bucket of water with a metal dipper hanging on the side. Realizing what it was brought Daisy's thirst rushing back. She scooped up a dipper of water and cautiously sniffed at it, then sampled it. The water was fresh and cold, and she drank two dippers, soothing her dry, sore throat.

  She hung the dipper back where she'd found it and crossed the floor quietly. Her feet sank into heavy hooked rugs covering the floorboards. The bed was piled high with blankets and furs, and Daisy sat down on the edge of it, still unable to understand why she felt so much at home here, or why it didn't feel more odd to be sitting on a stranger's bed.

  A deep feeling of peace came over her, and with it, a surge of exhaustion.

  I can't sleep here. I have to ...

  But she didn't know what she had to do. The one thing she'd been focused on was getting, apparently, here, and now that she was here, she wasn't sure where to go next. There was no sign of a phone, and anyway, she wasn't sure who to call. She knew there must be people out there who had tried to hurt her, and it was possible they would follow her here, but she was too tired to keep running. Her whole body trembled with fatigue. The water had helped slightly with her headache, but her temples still throbbed in time to her heartbeat.

  Maybe if I just lie down for a few minutes, I'll feel better and it'll be easier to decide what to do next.

  She stretched out on the bed, then rolled over and pulled a quilt over herself. She was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.

  Chapter Two

  Gannon had been out on his usual patrols when he came upon a fascinating smell.

  Normally, there were few smells in this forest, his forest, that he didn't know. He was familiar with individual families of deer and elk; he knew where eagles nested, where foxes denned, and which deep mossy pools were the ones where the biggest trout lurked.

  Unlike the rest of his bear clan, Gannon hadn't grown up here. His alpha, Alec, and the rest of Alec's family had spent their childhood learning this forest as intimately as four bear-shifting children running wild in the wilderness could. Gannon had only come to live on the ranch about ten years ago. But he was fairly sure that in the years he'd lived here, he had come to know the woods even better than the others did.

  He might not be a true forest guardian anymore, but he was this forest's guardian, and no one else could ever know a forest so well.

  He was usually aware when strange humans entered his woods. He'd been especially vigilant ever since last year, when Axl's mate Tara had been menaced by hired gunman, and now he paid special attention to any unfamiliar human scent that he encountered on his long patrol sweeps around the edges of his territory. Most trespassers were hunters or tourists unaware that they'd crossed onto private land. Gannon disliked having strangers on his clan's land. He'd never attacked anyone—at least not anyone who wasn't attacking him—but if he came upon someone who wasn't supposed to be there, he shadowed them as a bear: leaving huge pawprints ahead on their trail, sometimes letting them catch glimpses of the enormous dark-colored grizzly ghosting between the trees.

  Not many people stuck around once they discovered that a huge grizzly was stalking them.

  But invariably, a new human scent in the woods was accompanied with an instinctive surge of violation and general ursine grumpiness. His bear did not like new people around. Both he and his bear were slowly getting used to having more people around the ranch, since Alec, Axl, and Remy all had mates now; two of them weren't even shifters, and Remy's mate had a cub, while Axl's mate would soon. With the three new mates had come even more new people, as family and friends of the women showed up to visit.

  Gannon's bear was willing to accept the women and little Sebastian as part of the clan, and the visits from in-laws and female friends were an inevitable part of having new family members around, but both Gannon and his bear continued to be united in their general grumpiness about having new smells turn up in the woods.

  But this smell ...

  This smell was different.

  He had been restless for weeks now, feeling as if there was something he needed to find, but not quite sure what that "something" was. He had been spending even more time away from the cabin than usual, roaming the hills, driven by an urge he couldn't explain. Tonight, the feeling had been even more intense, and he kept catching faint whiffs of a smell that drove his bear into a near frenzy of eagerness.

  He didn't return to the cabin until near dawn. The sky was lightening in the east, pink tinting the clouds, and as soon as Gannon's bear padded out of the woods into the cabin's yard, that scent struck him with a bolt of comprehension that went right down to his bones.

  It's our mate, his bear pointed out.

  Yes, I know that. You don't have to tell ME.

  But the human part of him couldn't quite believe it. His mate ... here? There was no mistaking that lovely, enticing smell. The yard was full of it. Somehow she had come into his woods; she'd been in his woods tonight. And she had walked right through the yard to the cabin door.

  He shifted on the porch. His clothes were where he usually left them, folded up on the rocking chair. Normally he would have walked in without bothering to get dressed, but if there was someone inside, he didn't want to startle her. He dressed quietly in his usual work pants and the furry vest he'd made himself from a mountain lion's pelt. He left his feet bare, foregoing the boots this time.

  Cautiously, he nudged the door open.

  He could tell instantly that the cabin was occupied. It was neither sound nor smell that gave it away, but something deeper and more instinctive, a powerful sense that he was not alone. But he didn't feel invaded or annoyed. Instead, it was like a puzzle piece had been missing the entire time he was living alone in the cabin, and now it had clicked into place.

  Standing in the doorway, he inhaled deeply, breathing in her scent. Most shifters' senses were a little sharper in human form, but not that much different from a regular human. However, Gannon spent so much time shifted that some of his bear's keen acuity carried over to his man-shape as well. He could smell her easily. The sound of soft, deep breathing came from the bed.

  Gannon felt the corners of his lips tighten in the closest thing he ever managed to a smile. Whoever she was, she'd come right to his cabin, lay down in his bed, and fell asleep. Her smell told him that she was human, so she might not even know she was his mate, but her instincts had steered her true.

  He padded softly across the floor. All he could see of the girl in the bed w
as a spill of golden curls. She was sleeping tangled up in one of the old quilts that he'd found in the cabin when he moved in, a legacy of the Tanner ancestors who used to live in this cabin many years ago.

  Anything that's here, you're welcome to use, was what Alec Tanner, the young alpha of the Circle B bears, had told him when he'd first come to stay here.

  Despite the hospitality, however, it was hard not to be reminded that the others had lived on the Circle B Ranch all their lives, while he was a relative newcomer. Everywhere there were reminders that it wasn't his family who had lived here for generations; it wasn't his ancestors who had built the cabin and made the antique pieces of furniture that had come with it. He had done his best to make the cabin feel like his own, building new furniture to replace the pieces that were falling apart, and tanning hides to make his own bed coverings to go with the quilts. But some part of him could still never quite believe that it was really his.

  But this girl didn't know any different, did she? He stood looking down at her in the growing dawn light gleaming through the uncovered windows. For her, as it had been for him, this cabin was a place of safety, of refuge. He hadn't known whose cabin it was when he had stumbled to its door over a decade ago. She wouldn't have known either, even if instinct had led her here. And yet she'd come right in.

  Was she running from something? His bear snarled at the thought. Now that he was close to her, he could tell by the smell that she wasn't well. He could smell traces of blood, and a faint chemical smell that made his hackles stand up.

  If someone had hurt his mate, he wanted to rip them apart.

  But first, he needed to figure out a way to wake her up without frightening her.

  The cabin grew brighter. Gannon stood undecided, shifting from foot to foot. He'd never been confronted with a situation like this, and he had no idea how to handle it. She was his mate; he and his bear both knew it. But, as a human, she might not know it herself. And Gannon knew he was a scary-looking guy. He tried to stay out of sight when visitors came to the ranch. The last thing he wanted to do was to scare her.