A Bride For The Bear (Bear Brides #1) Read online

  A BRIDE FOR THE BEAR

  By

  Natalie Kristen

  Also by NATALIE KRISTEN

  Bear Brides

  A Bride For The Bear

  Billionaire Bear Shifters Romance

  Taken By The Bear

  Owned By The Bear

  Saved By The Bear

  MISTY VALLEY SHIFTERS

  Growl For Me

  Fight For Me

  Purrfect For Me

  MATE series

  Alpha Mate

  Bear Mate

  Vampire Mate

  Wolf Mate

  Wild Mate

  Dark Mate

  Blood Mate

  NORTH WOLVES

  To Kill A Wolf

  ALPHA GAME

  Alpha Game

  Alpha Game 2

  Alpha Game 3

  DARK erotic romance

  Rapture In The Dark

  Release In The Dark

  One Night With Death

  Copyright © 2015 Natalie Kristen

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously or are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual locales, events, establishments or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  About this book

  A down on her luck BBW meets an alpha werebear in this standalone bear shifter romance.

  Curvy Abby Vale is having the worst week of her life. She has been dumped and fired all in the same week. While looking for a new job, she sees an ad for a dating site.

  One particular profile catches her eye. A werebear in Moonstone Creek is looking for a mate.

  Intrigued, she decides to make the trip to Moonstone Creek to explore the small, thriving shifter town.

  As Alpha of the Nightfire clan, Cole Jameson has to ensure the survival and renewal of his clan of bear shifters. No stranger to violence and bloodshed, Cole knows that a clan that is not reproducing and growing will be preyed upon and wiped out. He orders all his clan members above the age of thirty to sign up for a dating site to find a mate. A good Alpha leads by example. Cole signs up, even though he suspects that a hardened, cynical werebear like him isn't destined to have a mate.

  But when Abby arrives in Moonstone Creek, her lush human scent draws dangerous predators to her.

  To keep her safe, Cole will have to fight not just a powerful rival clan, but his own demons. Can he learn from his past and rise above the blood feud, or is history doomed to repeat itself?

  *****

  CHAPTER ONE

  Abby Vale kicked off her shoes and sucked in a long, deep breath. This was officially the worst week of her life.

  The seams at the side of her too-tight waitress uniform threatened to come apart. Abby snarled a string of choice expletives and reached back to yank the zipper down viciously. There was the satisfying sound of tearing as she wrenched her uniform off her curvy body. There was no need to hold her breath and squeeze herself into this ill-fitting, ridiculously short uniform any more. She wouldn't be going back to the restaurant. She'd been let go. Downsized, so to speak. Ha ha.

  Abby snatched up her ripped uniform and stalked to her bedroom. She stood in front of her mirror in her simple cotton bra and panties and surveyed her figure. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her body. She had full, generous breasts, wide hips and a round, fleshy butt. There was nothing fake or unnatural about her body.

  Abby scowled at the crumpled remains of her old waitress uniform. The restaurant had refused to order a larger-sized uniform for her. Their uniforms were standard issue, standard size, and this was the largest size they had. Every day, Abby had to suck it in and squeeze herself into the tight, short uniform, and endure the stiff fabric cutting into her flesh the whole day. Sometimes she would skip meals just so she wouldn't put more strain on that stupid uniform and have it rip apart while she was bending to serve the customers.

  But with few restaurants and cafes hiring in the area, Abby had simply stuck it out. The pay wasn't great but at least it kept a roof over her head and put food on the table. Half her pay went to paying the rent for this little apartment just two blocks away from the restaurant. Walking to work meant she could save on transport and get a daily workout. She wasn't a slob. She was a healthy, hardworking twenty-nine year old woman. Her shifts were long, but she never complained. She was usually the first to volunteer for overtime, just so she could earn a little more.

  She'd worked at the same restaurant for two years, but the restaurant had recently come under new management. And the new management decided that they wanted to spruce up their image, pander to a younger crowd with bigger wallets and bigger appetites. They wanted their waitresses to don even shorter, smaller uniforms with higher hemlines and lower necklines. And these new uniforms didn't come in her size.

  And if the uniform didn't fit the waitress, the waitress didn't fit the restaurant.

  Abby sat down heavily on the edge of her bed as her room suddenly looked watery and blurry. She blinked hard, refusing to let the tears spill down her cheeks. It just wasn't fair. Why her? Why now?

  Why hadn't her new bosses talked to her about this issue before? They could have given her some time. Abby would have done everything to keep her job. She would have put herself on a crazy diet and tried her best to cram all her curves into the new, tiny uniform. Maybe it still wouldn't have worked out, and she'd still be deemed too big for the job. But at least they'd have given her a chance. It hurt that they didn't even try to keep her.

  They had simply outgrown her and decided to get rid of her. They had just kicked her to the curb.

  Like what Kenneth had done.

  Kenneth had texted her a few days ago to tell her that he'd met someone else, and that was it. He refused to answer her messages and he wouldn't pick up her calls. It was over. Just like that.

  They had been together for over a year, and he didn't even have the decency to break up with her in person. She had been dumped via text. How pathetic was that. What a loser!

  A strangled, wretched sob escaped and Abby bit her lip and swiped angrily at her scalding tears. She'd lost her boyfriend and her job all in the same damn week. Could her life get any worse?

  She'd had it. Up to here.

  Terri, Abby's best friend, had rushed over immediately when Abby phoned her to tell her that she'd just been dumped. Together, they'd polished off three huge tubs of ice-cream and watched their favorite comedies through the night. Abby had laughed till she cried, and cried till she laughed. For a few hours, she didn't know if she was laughing or crying, but she felt a whole lot better after that.

  The ice-cream had been therapeutic, and Terri's optimism and encouragement had helped restore some of her shattered self-esteem. Terri told her that she would find someone way better than that jerk Kenneth, someone who would love and cherish her with all his heart. Abby had smiled at her friend's heartfelt words, but she wasn't so sure. Of all her doomed relationships, her relationship with Kenneth had lasted the longest. She had always wanted to get married before thirty, and she'd secretly harbored the hope that Kenneth would pop the question soon.

  Did she think that Kenneth was Mr. Right? No, not really. But Abby wasn't a starry-eyed, naïve young thing. She knew that Mr. Right was just a mythical creature, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. They didn't exist in the real world. In the real world, there were fights and arguments, and you had to make compromises. You had to set
tle for less and just try to make things work.

  Her relationship with Kenneth hadn't been fraught with too many arguments and fights. Kenneth hated confrontations, avoided them like the plague. If he was unhappy about something, he would just keep a stony silence and distance himself physically and emotionally from her until she went to him and apologized. Sometimes she didn't even know what in hell she was apologizing for. It had occurred to her that she was always the one doing the apologizing and compromising, but she'd stupidly thought that it didn't matter who lowered their pride first as long as it kept the peace and kept the relationship going.

  Abby's head sank into her hands. Compromise couldn't keep a dead, decaying relationship going. She knew that. But she had been so hung up on the idea of getting married before thirty that she had stubbornly clung on to a relationship that was way past its expiration date. Kenneth wasn't the right fit. He wasn't the one for her. At least he had grown some balls and taken the step to end a relationship that was going nowhere, even if he was too chicken to talk to her about it first.

  Abby snorted out a wet, painful laugh. Nope. She wouldn't be getting married by thirty. From the looks of it, she probably wouldn't be getting married in this lifetime.

  She had no boyfriend, no job, no life.

  That was the goddamn truth. She had to face it, and get over it.

  But first, she would put a stop to her pity party and go throw a real party for herself. Terri wasn't around so it would be just her and her frozen, crispy, sweet and savory buddies.

  Drying the last of her tears, Abby got up and pulled a comfy old t-shirt and track pants from the cupboard. With a loud huff, she marched to the kitchen and rummaged for her hidden bags of chips. There was no need to restrict and deny herself anymore. She could eat whatever she wanted, as much as she wanted, any time she wanted. She didn't have to squeeze into that ridiculous, tiny uniform ever again. Smirking, she grabbed a pizza from the freezer and nuked it. What the heck. She would have her chips and ice-cream first, and pizza for dessert.

  After a few heavenly spoonfuls of frozen goodness, Abby felt better. An empty belly never did anyone any good. She would eat her fill, refuel and recharge herself. So what if she'd lost her job? She would look for a new one. There, the old Abby was back. She was indomitable, intrepid, independent. Somewhere along the way, she had gotten lost. A string of broken relationships had done some serious damage to her ego and crushed some of her spirit. And a pressurizing, exhausting job which didn't pay all that well had helped chip away at her self-esteem.

  Abby brushed the crumbs from her t-shirt and took another slice of cheesy pizza. The pizza was tasty enough, but it couldn't beat her gran's delicious, gigantic pizzas. She still missed her gran, even though it had been eight years since her grandmother passed away.

  She had lost her parents at a young age, and for years it had been just her and her grandmother. But her beloved gran had passed away when she was twenty-one. Abby had moved to the city after her grandmother's death and doggedly searched for a job and a place to stay.

  She had met her best friend Terri Quinn quite by chance. She had been waiting in line at the supermarket when Terri came skidding into her with her overflowing basket of groceries. Abby had immediately helped her up and helped retrieve her runaway groceries.

  Terri had insisted on buying her a cup of coffee. The two of them had hit it off and bonded over coffee and cakes, and Terri had been her best friend ever since.

  Abby licked her ice-cream spoon and automatically reached for her phone. With a sigh, she put down both the spoon and the phone.

  Terri was out of town, attending a meeting with her boss. She worked as a secretary to one of the Directors in an advertising firm, and she constantly had to accompany her boss on work trips. Abby knew that Terri's job was stressful and her boss was hard and demanding, but at this moment, she rather envied Terri. At least she still had a job.

  After downing another slice of pizza and a cup of coffee, Abby felt revived. With food and fire in her belly, Abby powered up her laptop and curled her fingers over the keyboard.

  She wouldn't be crying over the loss of her crummy job and equally crummy boyfriend.

  Lost her job? Just find a new one.

  She would get started on her job search right away.

  Three hours later, Abby leaned back and rubbed her eyes. Her job search hadn't yielded any results.

  The only restaurants and eateries that were hiring at the moment were way out of the city. She would have to spend two hours or more traveling out of the city to her workplace. That just wasn't feasible.

  Blowing out a breath, Abby was about to get up and go grab a new tub of ice-cream from the freezer when a banner flashed across her screen. Frowning, Abby read the banner and realized that it was an advertisement for a dating website. An advertisement for a dating site on a job portal? Abby shrugged. Made sense. Kind of.

  Absently, she clicked on the banner and was directed to an attractive, well-designed website. Just for fun, she began to click through the site to see what it offered. The site had many members and there were many profiles for her to browse through.

  For forty minutes, she scrolled through the profiles, her frown deepening as she read what the guys were looking for. Almost all the men were looking for slim, toned, nubile young women, preferably in their early twenties. Abby glanced down at her curves and laughed humorlessly. They weren't describing her, that was for sure. She was plump, fleshy and hurtling towards the big three-zero.

  She was about to exit the page when a new profile caught her eye. The profile had just been uploaded a few minutes ago, and there was no profile picture.

  There was something different about this profile. For one, his profile name was simply listed as “Cole”. It probably wasn't his real name. But at least it wasn't corny, suggestive or lewd, like most of the other profile names.

  “Cole” didn't state that he wanted to meet thin, young females. Instead, he specifically stated that he was looking for a curvy, robust woman who was at least in her late twenties to be his mate.

  The writer's choice of words intrigued her. He had written “mate”. The other profiles all seemed to be looking for casual sex, friends with benefits, or a beautiful, trophy girlfriend.

  Abby clicked on his profile information.

  Her eyes bugged when she saw his species.

  Werebear.

  Abby rested her chin on her palm to force her mouth close. “Cole” was a bear shifter, and he lived in Moonstone Creek, the nearest shifter town from her city.

  All the other males on the dating site were human. “Cole” was the only shifter she had come across on this site. If Cole was looking for casual sex like most of the other men on the site, she was sure that he didn't need to come to a dating site to look for women. There were shifter groupies all over the towns and cities.

  Male shifters had no problem attracting women. They were generally well-built, good looking and possessed a certain animal magnetism. There was a hint of danger about them that made them irresistible to females. She had dated a shifter once. The sex had been great, but that was all. He had been a young shifter, out to sow his wild oats and experience sex with all kinds of females, human, shifters, tall ones, skinny ones, fat ones too. She had just been on his to-do list. After a month of wild, animal sex, he had simply chucked her under the chin and swaggered out her front door. And that was the last she saw of him.

  Abby shook her head. A werebear didn't need to resort to a dating site to find a woman to fuck.

  Cole had to be a fraud. He was most probably an octogenarian masquerading as a thirty-eight year old werebear. His occupation was listed as “landscaper”, but Abby doubted he did much of the actual landscaping work himself. He probably owned a landscaping company and hired young, strapping lads to do the landscaping work for him while he sat in his plush, air-conditioned office.

  On a whim, she decided to refresh the web page before shutt
ing down her laptop.

  She glanced at her laptop screen and gasped when the refreshed web page displayed Cole's newly uploaded profile picture.

  Cole wasn't a wrinkled, old werebear.

  The man was gorgeous.

  He wasn't smiling in the photo but there was laugh lines radiating from his deep, brown eyes. He had handsome, rugged features, and his complexion was tanned and a little sunburnt. His brown hair was short and tousled as if he hadn't bothered to comb it. His expression was stern and too serious, and Abby thought he looked kind of stressed in his photo. She could glimpse his plaid shirt stretching over broad, powerful shoulders in his head shot. That in itself was refreshing and reassuring. Too many profile photos featured narcissistic, shirtless men flaunting their newly acquired ripped torsos. Those gleaming muscles had probably cost them hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars in gym membership fees. Cole's physique, on the other hand, looked like it had been honed by solid, hard labor. There was just something very natural and honest about this man, something which tugged at Abby and pulled her hands up to the keyboard.

  The picture could be doctored or edited, or simply a fake. But somehow, Abby didn't think so. She could see the lines on his face, the creases on his shirt and a trace of worry in his piercing eyes. He looked real and she just felt, in her gut, in her heart, that there would be a connection between them. She couldn't explain it. She just knew that she had to do this, or she would regret it. She had to contact him.

  As with most dating websites, there were way more male profiles than female profiles. As a result, the men had to pay a fee to list their profiles, whereas women could join the site for free. To contact any member on the dating site, you had to register as a member and fill in a mandatory questionnaire. The site would then calculate how compatible you were with the members on the site.

  It didn't take long for Abby to fill in her particulars and click through the questionnaire for new members. Her answers were all honest and to the point.