Clan of the Bear II: Bear Necessities

By Madelaine Montague

From the big city to the wilds of Montana wasn't just across the U.S.. It crossed into a whole other world ... and Tara was already in way over her head before she discovered there was just something about the fabulous Bayer brothers--besides the effect they had on her--that was a little odd.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Concepts Publishing
• Release date: Jul 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005688820

Book preview

CLAN OF THE BEAR:

BEAR NECESSITIES

By

Madelaine Montague

( c ) copyright by Madris DePasture writing as Madelaine Montague, June 2022

Cover Art by Jenny Dixon, June 2022

ISBN 978-1-60394-

Smashwords Edition

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

As someone who’d spent most of her adult years struggling, letters from lawyers, in Tara’s book, were always bad news. She filed the first two in the trash. The third was hand delivered by a PI hired to track her down.

She wouldn’t have opened the door to him, but he was a smart SOB. Instead of knocking at the door of her apartment, he staked it out and waited for her to sneak out the back to avoid her landlord.

Her father, she discovered, the one she’d never known, had died and had left her with a cabin, what sounded like a small fortune to her, and a piece of property in the back of beyond.

Tara stared at the paper without comprehension. Finally, she looked at the PI. If this is some kind of sick joke ….

It’s completely above board, Ms. Shelton, I assure you.

Tara frowned. It isn’t a scam? Not that she could see that anyone would be stupid enough to try to scam someone that was next door to homeless.

Well, was in ten days time—would be.

Might not be if she could collect the money the guy was saying she had coming to her, she realized abruptly.

Just for shits and giggles, she decided to check it out. There was just no sense in getting excited about it until she knew whether or not there was any truth to it.

Her misgivings weren’t exactly banished when she’d tracked down the lawyer’s office, but it had a sign that proclaimed that was what it was, right on the sidewalk where anybody could read it and she figured that had to mean he was legit. No conman, however brazen, she was sure, would be stupid enough to advertise.

The place was well kept even it was old and her uneasiness waned just a tad when she was greeted by that and an actual receptionist.

Granted, the poor old thing looked like she should’ve retired ten or twenty years earlier, but she was dressed the part and she was very business-like and official to Tara’s mind.

May I help you? she asked in a voice that was carefully modulated between cold professionalism and politeness.

Tara handed the letter over.

The woman looked at it and looked up at her. Do you have identification?

Tara was a little taken aback. She wouldn’t have thought lawyers checked such things, but it was an awful lot of money. Instead of complaining that the PI had tracked her down and that ought to be sufficient, she dug around her purse until she managed to find a picture ID and a couple of bills with her name and address on them for good measure.

This ID has expired.

Tara shrugged. I hocked my car. I didn’t figure I needed to renew the license. It’s still me. I haven’t expired.

The woman looked like she smelled something unpleasant, but she hefted herself out of her seat and left the reception area with the identification. I’ll just make a copy of these for our records.

Tara was left to twiddle her thumbs for nearly an hour, but if the bastards thought they were going to outwait her when she was flat broke, they had another think coming!

Finally, she was called back to the ‘inner sanctum’—where she discovered a lawyer that looked old enough to be her grandfather.

Which she decided was sad.

Poor man! Still working at his age.

That was probably going to be her down the road a piece.

He motioned her to a seat. I was a friend of your father. We were in ‘Nam together. I was sorry to hear about his passing.

Tara merely stared at him, trying to figure out if that required any sort of response. Oh.

He stared at her as if he was waiting for more.

Tara shrugged. I didn’t actually know him. He knocked my mom up and headed for the hills.

His lifted his bushy eyebrows and his cheeks took on a faint pink color that lifted his complexion from cadaver white for a couple of moments. He cleared his throat. Nevertheless, he did know of you and he left all that he had to you.

I heard.

Thankfully, he got right down to business after that and explained everything.

Her father was a recluse—mental problems stemming from his stint in Vietnam.

So the property he’d left would need to be swept for booby traps before it was safe to look around.

Great!

But he’d left the name of neighbors he thought were up to handling the job of disarming the explosives and a map had arrived with the other paperwork—banking information, the deed, title to his truck and so forth and so on.

Tara hardly took anything in after she discovered it was all real, truth, and legal.

She’d gone from the verge of homelessness to a landowner in nothing flat!

The lawyer offered to handle the sale.

Wait! What?

The property. I can handle the sale of the estate for you, if you’d like.

And give it all up sight unseen?

Not no, but hell no!

Uh … Thanks! Maybe I’ll take you up on it, but I want to see it first.

Understandable, but I can’t emphasize enough that it is dangerous to go until you’ve contacted the Bayer brothers at Three Bayers Lodge. The number is on the paper there. They’re ex-military themselves and specialists in explosives.

Tara nodded, bundled everything up and just sort of floated out of the office on cloud nine.

It was hard, she discovered, to think practical things when she was so caught up in her abrupt change in circumstances. It was like winning a lottery! Not a lot of wealth, unfortunately, but it was way more money than she’d ever seen in one place.

And a cabin and land that belonged to her! No rent! She couldn’t be evicted!

Just to be on the safe side, she waited until dark and went back to her apartment and climbed in the bedroom window. Thankfully, they hadn’t turned her lights off yet!

She began to gather up her most cherished belongings without really having made any sort of plans or decisions—that she was aware of. It was just sort of absent functioning while her brain went back over everything the lawyer had said, repeatedly, like a hamster on a wheel.

In all truth, she’d never given her father a hell of a lot of thought.

Well, not since she was a kid. When she was little, she’d given him a lot of thought, but it upset her mother when she tried to talk to her about him.

All she knew was that they were high school sweethearts. He’d gone off to Vietnam as a kid and come back broken. He’d tried for a while to pull himself back together, but he’d taken off when her mom got pregnant and left