Ready to Bear Read online

  Ready to Bear

  (A Greyelf Grizzlies/Urban Dwellers crossover)

  By Ivy Sinclair

  Copyright 2015 Shadow Creek Press

  Cover design by Aria Tan

  eBook edition, License notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and didn’t purchase it, or it wasn’t purchased for your use only, then please return to the retailer of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The airplane banked to the right in a steep turn, and Billy caught his first glimpse of Copper City. The sheer number of buildings below him was enough to bring his bear to the surface of his consciousness. Billy hated the city almost as much as he hated airplanes. But speed was of the utmost importance in this case, and so he had been coerced against his will into the tiny tin can currently coasting at just over 10,000 feet in the air.

  “Not a frequent flyer?” the older woman in the seat next to him said with a kind grin.

  She reminded Billy of his grandmother, which was the only reason that he didn’t snap a smart reply. He released his grip on the edges of his armrests and forced his shoulders to relax. “It’s been awhile. That’s all.”

  She nodded indulgently. “My husband Stanley used to love to fly. Isn’t that strange? You’d think that most of us wouldn’t want to spend any more time in the air than we had to and leave it to the birds. But it is so convenient, isn’t it?”

  Billy murmured in agreement and turned back to the view out his window. The woman had tried several times over the course of the three-hour flight from Minneapolis to regale him with stories of her deceased husband. Billy was full up on his Stanley talk.

  He wondered again how he had let Lukas talk him into this trip. It was Lukas who should have been squeezed into the cramped airplane seat, not him. But as far as excuses went, he supposed Lukas had one of the better ones. Lukas’s mate was due to give birth to his first child any day now.

  Billy had gotten a lead in a cold case he’d been working for the last eighteen months. It was hotter than anything they’d seen in over a year. He had followed it to Copper City. Lukas hadn’t trusted anyone else but Billy to take it on in his stead – but then again, Lukas didn’t really trust anyone, period. Billy barely made the cut.

  It was a strange situation that Billy found himself in. He was the sheriff of the small town of Greyelf, MN. He was also a council member of the Greyelf Grizzly Clan. That meant that he had an advisory role to the Grizzly’s alpha, Lukas Kasper. Lukas had taken on the alpha role a year and a half ago, and the transition had been far from smooth. But somehow between Billy and Lukas’s mate, Maren, they managed to keep Lukas in line and on the right track. Most of the time, anyway. Lukas’s temperament made him the epitome of the term ‘wild card.’

  As the plane began its final descent into Copper City International Airport, Billy wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead and said a silent prayer. It was true that he had an irrational fear of flying, but it probably had more to do with his bear’s unease than anything. Billy was a grizzly shifter. Grizzlies weren’t meant to be confined in such close quarters for long periods of time. He was ready to get off the plane and stretch his legs. It was too bad that he couldn’t go out for his normal run. It would definitely take the edge off his anxiety.

  Billy and Lukas had been tracking a man for the last eighteen months who had been at the center of the scandal surrounding Lukas’s alpha claim. Worse than anything, though, the man had threatened Maren’s life, and that was something that Lukas wouldn’t stand for. He considered it a personal affront that the man was still on the loose. Secretly, it wasn’t anything that Billy was willing to stand for either. But that wasn’t something that he and Lukas ever spoke about. Not if they were going to continue working together.

  Once upon a time, Maren had been on the cusp of a full-blown romantic relationship with Billy. That was before Lukas blew back into town and swept Maren up in his wake. It had rankled Billy more than he let on to anyone. He had a grudging respect for Lukas and what he had accomplished since becoming the alpha. His loyalty was to Lukas and the clan. But lately Billy couldn’t help but feel the chafing of his responsibilities, especially as he watched Maren’s abdomen swell with Lukas’s child.

  “Are you going home?” The woman next to him wasn’t about to be deterred from engaging him in conversation, despite the fact that the flight was landing.

  “Just visiting,” Billy said. He felt the hard bump as the tires of the plane hit solid ground again and couldn’t help but heave a deep breath of relief.

  “Visiting a special someone?” She gave him a sly wink.

  “It’s just business,” Billy replied, unwilling to give her anything else. He turned his whole body away from her to discourage any further conversation and stared out the window at the tall skyscrapers in the distance. Billy hadn’t had anyone special in his life since his brief stint with Maren. The single women who interested him were in woefully short supply in Greyelf. Of course, he didn’t encourage anyone’s interest either. Luckily, or unluckily depending on the perspective, his two jobs consumed him. Guess that was what had landed him on the airplane to begin with.

  When the plane finally reached the gate, he was eager to get off. He had to hold his bear in tight check as he waited for the rest of the passengers in the rows ahead of him to get their bags down from the overhead bins. He helped the woman next to him get her bag down, more to speed up the deplaning process than out of politeness. He knew that he was acting rudely when he skimmed around her on the jet bridge as soon as he stepped off the plane, but he had to get outside.

  He practically sprinted through the airport, and he knew that he earned several dirty looks and curses in his wake as he jostled past oblivious travelers. He didn’t care. He needed fresh air, and he needed it now. It had been years since he had felt these waves of panic, thinking that he was going to lose control of his bear. But the long flight and the inquisitive woman had completely derailed his thoughts and pushed both him and the bear into an uneasy, unruly state of mind. Something was wrong. He could feel it.

  He burst through the doors into the late afternoon sunlight and put his hands on his knees as he breathed in deep gulps of the air. Unfortunately, it was tainted with the acrid taste of fuel exhaust, cigarette smoke, and the unfamiliar odors of hundreds of people. He had been away from that kind of environment for so long that he had forgotten the rancid state of the air, and now his senses felt overwhelmed.

  “Are you okay?” He heard a soft voice ask behind him.

  Billy whirled around barely keeping the snarl from emerging from his lips. He stopped short when he saw the owner of the kind, breathy words. It was a woman. She was younger than him by at least a few years. She was barely tall enough to hit his chin even in the wedges that enhanced her bare, shapely calves. Stunning emerald eyes stared back at him from underneath a mane of ebony curls that fell in soft waves around her shoulders. She was curvy in all the right places. Billy wondered why she bothered trying to hide them in the flowing white peasant shirt paired chicly with a fitted denim mini-skirt.

  “I’m fine,” he managed to say without sounding like a complete dumbass. “I just felt a little claustrophobic in there.”

  “No doubt. They’re nothing but tiny tin cans in the air, right?” The woman smiled at him. He blinked. It was exactly what he had thought before the plane landed.

  “Something like that.” Billy stood upright. The woman’s appearance had done what he had been unable to do all
day. His bear was silent. That alone brought a calmness to his state of mind. “Thank you for asking, by the way. That was nice of you.” He had managed to uncover his manners too, apparently.

  “Sure. Good luck, and have a nice day,” the woman said. She gave him another smile and put up her hand up into the air as she stepped closer to the curb to hail a taxi. The move was graceful. Billy thought that he could watch her all day. There was something about her that drew him to her. He had never been seized by such an irrational idea before, but he wanted to throw this woman over his shoulder and take her somewhere quiet so they could be alone. Then who knows what could happen.

  Billy almost called her back to ask her name before he realized that would be stupid. He didn’t hit on strange, attractive women. She’d probably think he wanted to stalk her. But as he watched her get into the taxi and caught his last glimpse at her bouncing curls as the taxi pulled away, he wondered when and why he had made up that stupid rule. A little female company certainly would make his time in the city more interesting, especially since she had dredged up such immediate feelings of longing and need.

  Heading back into the terminal, Billy retrieved his bag from baggage claim and made his way back outside. He hailed a cab and got inside. He felt the vibration of his phone in his pocket. Pulling it out, he saw he had a text message.

  “How’s the big city?” There was a smiling emoticon after the words. It was from Maren.

  “Just like I remember. Loud and smelly.” He typed his reply with a wry grin. Although he couldn’t have Maren in the way that he had wanted, she had become a close friend over the last eighteen months nonetheless. He had caught Lukas watching their interactions closely. It was almost amusing. It was clear to everyone except his alpha that Maren was head over heels for Lukas. She lit up from the inside whenever he came into the room. It made Billy more than a little bit envious on multiple fronts.

  Still, he was happy that he and Maren had maintained a friendship. Although his romantic feelings for her had almost completely dissipated, it was still awkward and uncomfortable for him sometimes. Luckily, Maren never seemed to notice. But other times, like now, Billy was just grateful that somebody out there in the world gave a shit about him.

  Another text message appeared. “Lukas wants you to call him when you get to your hotel.” Naturally, Lukas had Maren doing the summoning for him. Probably because he knew that Billy would never be snappy with Maren.

  He sent a quick text back. “Yes, ma’am.”

  He put the phone back in his pocket and leaned his head against the headrest. His thoughts wandered back to the woman at the airport. In Copper City, he hadn’t expected to experience the typical “Minnesota nice” that he was used to back home. In the city, people were usually too self-absorbed and in a rush to care the slightest bit about anyone but themselves. He wondered where she came from and what her name might be.

  His mental eye slid down the memory of her body again, noting the beckoning swell of her chest where just the slightest hint of pale skin peeked out from under the lapel of her shirt. Going even further down, her hips swelled in an attractive S-curve that would have made Billy want to grab hold of them while pressing her against him.

  He suppressed a groan as he shifted in his seat. His jeans were suddenly uncomfortably tight in the crotch. It had been far too long since he’d had a roll in the hay. He was horny. That was a complete distraction from what he was there to do. He wasn’t in the city to meet a woman. He was there for business.

  Mentally, he scolded that part of himself that threatened to derail his intentions, although he couldn’t help but still wish again that he had asked the woman for her name. It would have been nice to see a friendly face in this strange place. He didn’t know anyone in Copper City.

  The taxi deposited him at his hotel fifteen minutes later, and Billy had managed to keep his mind blank most of the rest of the trip. His eyes took in the concrete jungle around him, and he felt his bear stirring again. He was glad that he had brought along his athletic gear. Although he couldn’t shift and let his bear run free, he’d still be able to take the edge off with some exercise. There was more than one technique he had learned over the years to keep his bear under control.

  As Billy walked through the sliding glass doors, he found that he was suitably impressed with the hotel’s lobby and décor. Apparently, Lukas had sprung for far nicer accommodations than Billy was expecting. Then he gave a small mental shake of his head. It wouldn’t have been Lukas who did the booking for him; it would have been Maren. He’d have to remember to thank her later.

  Billy checked in and made his way to his room on the top floor. He opened the door and couldn’t stop his mouth from falling open. Directly in front of him was a floor to ceiling window. It felt as if he were standing on top of the world as he looked out at the tops of the skyscrapers all around the city.

  He felt his phone vibrate again. He pulled it out and hit the button to accept the call.

  “How’s the view?” He could hear the grin in Maren’s voice.

  “Fucking amazing,” he said as he crossed the room. The late afternoon sun streamed into the room, and he closed his eyes as he felt the warmth of its rays on his face. “I didn’t know the clan’s budget could afford anything like this.”

  “Call it the alpha special,” she said. “I might have pulled a few strings. I figured since you were going to be there for at least a few days, you should be comfortable.”

  “Thanks,” he replied. “Lukas there?”

  “Yep. Hang on a sec.”

  “It’s about time.” Lukas’s voice was far harsher than his wife’s when he got on the line.

  “I can only go as fast as the plane and taxi would take me,” Billy said with an eye roll. “Where you able to reach any of the Dwellers to let them know I’m here?”

  “I’ve been trying, but for some reason they still aren’t taking my call,” Lukas said. Billy could tell by his tone that Lukas was frustrated. “I guess I’m not really surprised.”

  “Perhaps next time you could try not calling them all assholes during an interview that gets national press coverage,” Billy said.

  “Another good reason you are making the trip instead of me,” Lukas said smoothly. “Let me know when you’ve made contact and if they know anything that will be helpful.”

  “Will do,” Billy said. There wasn’t a goodbye as they both hung up.

  The Dwellers was Billy’s shortened name for the Urban Dwellers. It was a trifecta of men who ran the shifter community in Copper City. Anthony Atwood, Kyle Frost, and Eric Carmichael. Billy had never met them in person, but he had read more than a few articles on each one. Their names were in the press almost as often as Lukas’s. They also represented the largest community of shifters who hadn’t agreed to fold in under Lukas’s leadership and the Greyelf Grizzly Clan.

  It was a sensitive topic. Lukas had been working for the last eighteen months to unite all of the shifters together. He believed that by working as one giant voice, they’d finally be able to demand full integration with the humans. It was a lovely vision, but Billy wondered if it would ever come true.

  Now Billy was in the awkward position of having to ask the Urban Dwellers for help. Of all the places where his suspect could have gone, it appeared that Joshua Bailey had decided to try to disappear in the big city. Considering Joshua hated all shifters, Billy found it more than a little bit ironic that he set up camp in the city with the largest community of shifters in the country outside of Greyelf and territory around it.

  Billy pulled his files from his bag and tossed them on the bed. He looked at his watch. He knew that his destination for the evening wouldn’t get going for at least a few hours. He had time for a shower and a shave. He wanted to be sure that he looked at least somewhat presentable.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Thea Philips was tired both mentally and physically. As much as she tried to enjoy her parents’ company, after more than a few days with them she was
ready for her own quiet life back. Of course, after her mother married Robert Carmichael, her life wasn’t quiet at all. It was all relative in some respects.

  After the taxi dropped her off outside the luxury apartment building in the center of Copper City, Thea gratefully smiled at Karl, the doorman, and headed inside. Karl would make sure that her bags arrived safely on her doorstep in the next hour. It wasn’t as if she needed anything but the handbag on her arm at the moment anyway.

  The elevator began its slow ascent to the penthouse. She knew that being twenty-five years old, she should feel silly for still living under her parents’ roof, but when her parents owned something like ten houses and apartments around the world, there was always empty space available for occupancy. The apartment in Copper City was rarely used now that Robert had retired. Her parents enjoyed the more exotic locations around the world now.

  Thea was eager to see her younger brother, Alexander. He was fifteen years old and her pride and joy. After her mother had married Robert, it was quickly apparent that she wasn’t all that interested in being a mother anymore. She hadn’t been that great before Alex was born either. She had clawed her way to the top of the social ladder by getting pregnant with Robert’s baby while he was still married to his second wife. Thea had to give her mother props in some regard; when she put her mind to it, her mother couldn’t be swayed from her goals.

  The elevator doors opened into the massive foyer of the penthouse.

  “Alex?” she called out. “I’m home!” She expected him to be waiting for her and found that she was disappointed as she began to wander through the rooms. On the counter in the kitchen, she found a scribbled note.

  “Went out for dinner with Eric. Be back later.”

  She sighed and crumpled up the note before tossing it in the garbage. Then she poured herself a glass of wine and dropped into the luxurious leather couch that was the centerpiece of the living room. She took her first sip and let out a small sigh. She was home, and she had done her daughterly duty by spending a week with her parents. She had purposely chosen to accompany them on their Napa Valley tour so she could see more of the inner workings of the vineyards. Her parents went to drink. Thea went to learn.