Alpha Bear: Glowstone Guardians Bear Shifter Romance, #1

By Jodi Hawkins

When now is all you have … don’t wait.

A serious man ... 
Alex Paulson doesn’t have time for romance. He’s Alpha of the Glowstone Guardians bear crew, and poachers are killing protected animals in Glowstone Park where he and the crew work. 
But when GIS technician Susan Bentley is assigned to help him, he instantly recognizes the curvy human as his mate. He’s found her at the worst possible time--but now that she’s here, he can’t let her go. 

A skeptical woman ... 
City girl Susan doesn’t believe in fated mates. She escaped her controlling parents, and now Alex is telling her they’re bonded forever? But no matter what she believes, the heat between them is too strong to deny. 

A lethal threat ... 
Then the poachers close in. Fighting for their lives, Alex and Susan are forced to make terrible choices. Will they lose each other just when they’ve finally found love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jodi Hawkins
• Release date: Jun 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533749970

Book preview

1

When Susan had signed her name to the research assistant contract, she’d expected to be filing papers and typing up research, not standing at a log gate in muddy shoes waiting for a stranger to come and pick her up. Her arms were exhausted already from holding her pretty wheeled suitcase out of the muck, and her shoes… well, the less said the better. They’d never be the same, that was certain.

She’d known the moment she saw the road into the park that her rental car wouldn’t make it, or at least, wouldn’t make it back out, so she’d returned it and enlisted the help of a surly man in a barely-running truck to drive her as far as the road would go. Ninety minutes and fifty dollars later, he had dropped her off, shivering, at a log gate marked NO TRESPASSING. She’d tried to ask him how she would get back, but he was already steadfastly ignoring her as he negotiated a three-point turn to get the hell out of there. Now, standing alone in the cold air of early fall, Susan didn’t really blame him.

The suitcase weighed a ton, so she carried it over to the logs and set it atop them on the only mud-free surface she could find. The gate was sturdy. Actually, impregnable was probably a better word, and really, it wasn’t a gate at all. Each log was at least twelve feet long, and damn near a foot thick. They were laid horizontally on top of one another, held at each end between two logs driven like piles into the ground. Examination revealed no mechanism by which it could be opened, but fresh tire tracks ran under the bottom log. They probably have some weird crane equipment that moves the logs, she thought. Something on a truck. Beyond the gate, the heavily tracked road traveled less than a hundred feet before turning and disappearing into thick forest.

Her boss, Doctor (never Mister!) Handley, had been very casual about the whole thing. She’d spend a week or two in the warden camp in Glowstone Park and the wardens would assist her in tracking the elk they’d tagged with biometric satellite collars. Too many had turned up dead, and Dr. Handley’s research was in danger. He’d mentioned that the wardens were a little reluctant about the whole thing, but assured her that she would have their full cooperation. In fact, he’d implied that the wardens were as worried as he was, being as the elk were being poached in shifter land.

He’d also pretty clearly stated that if the problem couldn’t be solved, and quickly, he’d be cancelling the research project, which would incidentally put Susan out of a job. She’d tried not to think to hard about that while she prepared for the trip. She’d only been away from her family a short time, and if she lost her job… well, there was no way she was crawling back to them. It’s do or die.

She’d looked on Wikipedia for what the weather would be like and packed accordingly. Or so she thought. Sitting out in the cold in her low-cut hiking sneakers, suddenly Susan realized the folly of using the average autumn temperature as a guide. Sure it might get to bearable temperatures in the full light of day, with the sun beating down, but in the park, surrounded by trees and low cloud cover, it was cold as balls. She shivered in her light shell coat and wished she’d brought long underwear. She even had some at home, but had talked herself out of it. At least there were fewer bugs this late in the year.

Susan leaned against the log gate, facing the way she’d came. What would the wardens look like? In her mind she imagined a thin, sharp-faced man, wearing a goofy Stetson hat and dressed all in green. Or else a weird bushman type, with a beard that almost, but not quite, obscured crazy eyes, wearing flannel and carrying an ax. She giggled at the thought, and then drew a sharp breath when she heard something behind her.

She turned, slowly, trying to be casual. You didn’t scare me. A lie, but she had to keep up appearances. What if it was a wolf, or a moose, or an elk? Or a bear, she thought, shivering with the tiniest fear. She’d read about the wildlife here, and the management thereof. Wolves had been reintroduced by the shifter who’d officially taken interest in the park, and there was a healthy natural population of smaller predators, but what had really caught her attention was the bears. Grizzlies, weighing 800 pounds or more, were known to live in the park’s ranges, and the pictures of the beasts had terrified her. One photo had a woman holding a sedated grizzly’s paw in her hands. The foot was the size of a dinner plate, and the claws were longer than her fingers. Why the woman was smiling Susan would never know.

What came walking around the bend wasn’t an elk or a wolf. It was a man, and even at this distance Susan could see he was one hell of a specimen. Tall, broadly built, and with just enough scruff on his face that she knew he could have grown one hell of a beard if he let it. He walked confidently in the slippery mud of the road, heedless of the muddy disaster his pants seemed to have become. He was dressed even lighter than she was, in a T-shirt that left pretty much nothing to the imagination.

She’d always dated skinny guys, non-threatening types that wore black rimmed glasses and drank microbrew. This man would take one of those guys, chew him up, and spit him out. His shoulders were three feet across if they were an inch, and his arms were bigger than any she’d ever seen. Susan bit her lip and suddenly wondered what he looked like from the back. His legs sure looked good in his tight pants.

What he didn’t look like was a warden of any sort. His T-shirt had a beer logo on it, and his expression was… well, he didn’t look too happy to see her. Susan grabbed her suitcase and waited for him to reach her.

When he got to the other side of the logs, they stared at each other for a moment. Green eyes held her gaze, and Susan could have sworn they flashed with an inner light. His face was fixed in a polite, neutral expression, but the tightness around his mouth gave him away.

Where’s your truck? he asked, finally. His voice was deep and smooth, with a faint rumble that excited her in a way she’d never felt in her life. He cocked an eyebrow and looked past her.

Susan licked her lips. My car wouldn’t have made it all the way up here, she said.

No shit.

Geez, does he have to be such an asshole about it? She decided to take the offensive. "Where’s your truck? I can see tracks here." She kicked mud under the log, missing him by inches.

I assumed that you’d be driving a work vehicle, being as you’re working for Handley. He crossed his arms, obviously ready to argue her down. Honestly, in this weather, she was feeling a little fighty herself, but those eyes… they made her think twice about giving him too much lip.

Dr. Handley, she corrected automatically, as if he was one of the revolving cadre of students that came to see the professor. Damn it. She blushed in embarrassment and closed her eyes in a wince. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… Can we start again?

No answer. She looked up and saw the man’s expression had changed. Amusement tinged the smile that had appeared on his face. "Let’s do that. You’re way too gorgeous

Reviews for Alpha Bear

[Nancy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the second time I have read this book and it was just as good a read as the first time I read it if not better...