Holden

By Becca Fanning

Dani was born into a life torn between two extremes. One the one hand, her father built a dynasty that supported poor rural families and provided entertainment to vast regions. On the other hand, her father was responsible for a heinous wave of kidnappings and disappearances of Shifters in these same communities. Dani told herself that she didn't have a choice in the matter, that she had her part to play in all this. But even she couldn't stomach that lie any longer. The truth would come out, no matter the consequences.
Holden had a throbbing headache. Not the best way to start out a Wild West show. He tried to keep his pain out of his voice as he rubbed the long snout of his horse. Horses could sense it, and a rider on edge meant a spooked horse. He tried not to think about the disappearing Shifters in the area, and instead focused on tonights show, the last of the season. Then it would be time for a vacation. Somewhere sandy where they served drinks with those little umbrellas.
But instead of a vacation, Holden would be in for the ride of his life.
This 16,000+ word BBW Bear Shifter Romance Novella contains all the heat and passion you expect from a Fated Mates story!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gizmo Media
• Release date: May 23, 2021

Book preview

Fanning

Chapter 1

When Dani woke that morning, there was no transition between waking and sleeping. She knew instantly that she was awake. She knew what day it was and what would happen during the day and she knew that this time, with no doubt, no hesitation, she would have to do something about it.

Just the thought of her father and what Dani had come to call Collection Day was enough to send her jackknifing straight up in her bed, heart pounding.

Early morning sunlight came through her east-facing bedroom windows. Her bedroom was sprawling and spacious with more than enough room for as many pairs of cowboy boots as she cared to collect, and all the heels, jeans, skirts and dresses, tank tops and blouses any girl could ask for.

She'd trade them all to not be Walter Sjoberg's daughter and not facing Collection Day.

Dani was in the shower when Teresa called into the room. Miss Danielle, you want the oatmeal for breakfast?

Dani didn't. But it was complex carb day on her fast metabolic diet and it was working. Her tightest jeans fit again and looked great tucked into her boots with a one of her corset tank tops.

Then again, she was hoping today would be the last time she had to look beautiful as she acted as bait. With strawberries! she called back. Coffee and cream and two sugars. She could almost feel her father's disapproval for all that he was probably still asleep on the far side of the spacious ranch house.

For her part, Dani's mother was probably still passed out. Her way of dealing with Collection Day was to drink herself into a stupor the night before. By the time her hangover had gone away so had the day.

Collection Day. By the end of the day the Wild West Show would be over. Sticky children and their sunburned parents would return home. There would have been displays of roping and branding cattle, simulated branding of course, which made her wonder if the cows thought the humans crazy. There would have been gunfights with blanks and celebrities locked up in the hoosegow for some charity or another.

And the mini-rodeo, which was mostly for fun, would have finished up. The events always drew big names in rodeo, superstars of bronc riding and bull riding. They came because their name lent cachet to events and raised more money.

Among them, far too often, came the Tyrell Clan, a family of shifter bears, a rodeo family of brothers and cousins. On those occasions there were always a number of shifters in the audience, filling the arena. There was always angry mutterings on those occasions. Old timers and haters said the shifters spooked the horses. Mostly they just hated anyone different.

There was always controversy surrounding the rodeo clan, just because they were shifters. The Rodeo Authority in every venue was contacted with demands that the bears not be allowed to ride. So far the rulings had come down in the favor of the Tyrells, despite their known status as shifters.

Despite some other things, too, like a propensity for drinking and gambling (Eddie Tyrell, and that was mostly under control) and practical jokes when they did get ousted from an event (they'd set pigs loose in an arena in Texas, to the amusement of a few and the fury of many).

The tide was turning, though. Anti-shifter sentiment was growing and the number of disappearances of shifters in their community had grown high enough that news of it was hitting the so called normal community.

And she, Dani Sjoberg, knew why at least some of those disappearances were happening.

She was, directly, the cause of more of them than she wanted to consider and today, if her father had his way, she'd be the cause of another.

Not again. Not this time. This time I'll have proof. Because law enforcement wasn't going to do anything until she had proof, especially given her father had money and status and ran his own Wild West shows as well as participating in others. He was a rider, roper, racer – a cowboy. A rich cowboy who brought his money into rural communities that needed it.

Law enforcement wasn't going to so much as lift a finger without proof.

I was there. I saw it. It was because of me. That wasn't proof enough. Or maybe it would be. If only the people the crimes were committed against weren't shifters.

Law enforcement didn't like shifters. They didn't trust them.