Mail-Order Bear: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (BRIDES fur BEARS Book 5) (3 page)

Reid was done playing games.
His cousin was always pulling pranks and tricks on him, but this
time, Damien had gone too far. Reid stalked up to Damien and grabbed
his collar again. But this time, his claws were pushing against
Damien's stubbornly set jaw.

Reid growled, his anger
making his bear peer out of his scowling human face. His bear glared
at Damien for an instant, before chuffing in annoyance and receding.
His bear would never hurt Damien. Damien was family, and a Ken bear
would spill blood for another Ken bear but they would never draw
blood from each other.

Reid loved his only cousin
like a brother. But at this moment, he could have made a bear rug
out of his cousin's hide.

“Get. Rid. Of. Her!”
Reid ground out.

“Give her a chance,
Reid. You've got to let someone in, some time...”

“I am not letting her
into my house.”
Or my heart.

“Don't be an ass,
Reid.”

Reid opened his mouth to
yell, but forced himself to take a deep breath instead.

“I did it for you,”
Damien snapped. “Sometimes I don't know why I even bother.
Geez, I even had to pretend to be you. Who wants to be a bitter,
grouchy old bear?”

When Reid spoke again, it was
in a dangerously low voice. “So let me get this straight. You
put in an ad for a mail-order bride, pretended to be me and wrote
back and forth to the women who responded to the ad...”

“Not women. Just one.
Only one woman answered the ad,” Damien pointed out. “But
she seems real nice.”

“...and you gave her my
address and asked her to march straight up to my door,” Reid
plowed on, his restraint fraying. He was going to rip his pompous,
presumptuous cousin to shreds!

Damien raised a finger as if
he had just remembered something, something else he had conveniently
forgotten to mention. “Oh, one more thing. She has a
four-year-old son.” He pulled some papers from his pocket and
placed them on the table. “Her letters.”

“What…?”

“Well, you like kids,
don't you?” Damien reasoned, looking eagerly at the door.
“They should be knocking on your door anytime now...”

Damien must have sensed the
danger he was in, because the rascal almost tore the door right off
its hinges as he wrenched it open and barreled out.

“Her name is Lauren
Sanchez! Her son's name is Eddie. Be nice to them!” Damien
yelled over his shoulder. “And you're welcome!”

CHAPTER
SEVEN

Lauren held her nephew's hand
and shouldered the large backpack that held all their worldly
belongings and what was left of their lives and dreams. Eddie looked
up at her with large, worried eyes and swallowed.

“Y-you're coming here
to get married, Aunt Lauren?”

Lauren nodded. “Yes.
We'll have a new home, and we'll be safe from those wolves. And you
have to call me Ma,” Lauren reminded gently.

“Oh.” Eddie
looked down. “Because you told this guy that I'm your son.”

“Yes,” Lauren
said guiltily. If she told the truth, then Reid Ken would probably
probe deeper and ask her how Eddie's parents had died. She would
have to explain that Eddie's deadbeat dad had not only gambled his
life away, but theirs as well.

She was using a lie to enter
into this marriage. This was a terrible, ominous start to any
relationship, but she didn't come to Shadow Point expecting to find
love. She was a mail-order bride, and she would be a dutiful wife to
Reid Ken. She would clean his house, cook and wash for him,
and...bear his children.

Lauren gulped. Could she
take a stranger to bed? She had never taken a man to her bed, yet
she was supposed to be a mother to a four-year-old boy. Would Reid
be able to tell that she was a virgin?

Her head was beginning to
pound. If she lingered any longer, she might just chicken out of the
whole deal.

Squaring her shoulders,
Lauren held Eddie's hand and gave him a bright smile.

“We'll be all right.
As long as we're together, everything will be all right. And—we'll
always be together. Right, son?”

Eddie gave her a crooked
smile. “Right, Ma.”

Glancing at the torn piece of
paper in her hand, Lauren asked for directions from a passer-by and
started making her way determinedly towards Reid Ken's house.

She couldn't tell much about
Reid from his letters. She had received only two letters from him.
One was to thank her for replying to his ad, and the second one
informed her that he would like to meet her this weekend. He had
given her his address and sent two bus tickets with the second
letter. He hadn't said anything about getting married right away,
but maybe he didn't want to scare her off. But he did want to get
married, right? Why else would he advertise for a mail-order bride?
Lauren nodded resolutely to herself. She would have to convince him
to marry her as soon as possible. One month was almost up.

Reid's letters had been short
and to the point. Maybe he's a very busy man, Lauren concluded. So
busy that he didn't have time to date and court a woman. But he had
been married before. The man was divorced, didn't have kids but
wanted a family.

Lauren swallowed hard. He
would accept Eddie, wouldn't he?

“Are you scared,
Aun...Ma?” Eddie asked softly.

Turning to her nephew, Lauren
tried to turn her wince into a smile. “I'm just...”

“I'm scared.”

Lauren sighed. “So am
I, Eddie. I've never done this before.”

Eddie giggled suddenly.
“Yeah. I don't think you've gotten married before. I've never
seen you in a big, white dress.”

Lauren chuckled and ruffled
his hair. His hair was jet black, like hers and her brother's.

“I don't know if I'll
be wearing a big, white dress for my wedding,” she said.
Or
if I'd be getting married at all.
What if Reid took one look at
them and saw her for the fraud she was?

As they neared a simple,
single-story house, Eddie tightened his grip on her hand and
whispered fiercely, “I'll protect you, Aunt Lauren. We can
leave. You don't have to marry him if you don't want to.”

Lauren's smile didn't reach
her eyes. “But I want to get married, Eddie,” she said
very softly.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

Reid flung the door open as
the woman raised her fist to knock. “Oh!” She stumbled
back a step but recovered quickly. “I'm looking for Mr Reid
Ken.”

“You're looking at
him,” Reid growled.

She seemed taken aback at his
terse, hostile tone. Forcing a pleasant smile to her face, she
continued bravely, “My name is Lauren Sanchez, and this is
my...son, Eddie. We corresponded. I have your letters here.”

Reid scowled.
Not my
letters. My interfering, intrusive, infuriating cousin's letters.

“Pleased to meet you,
sir. It's...real nice of you to invite us to your home. We've
traveled a long way,” the boy said, holding out his small,
trembling hand.

Reid reached out and took the
boy's outstretched hand. It was just common courtesy, he told
himself. In truth, he had seen the fear and hope in the boy's eyes,
and saw how the boy had inched in front of Lauren so that he stood
between his mother and Reid.

The little man was protecting
his mom. Reid admired the boy's guts.

“Come in,” Reid
said gruffly. He started to take Lauren's bag from her shoulders but
she held on to her belongings. “It's okay, Mr Ken,” she
said politely. “I'll carry my own things. Thank you.”

Reid stared at her pretty,
flushed face and felt his body react to her instantly. Reid growled.
A sweet, curvy, young woman was standing in his home, just inches
from him. Any red-blooded, virile male would respond to this ripe,
beautiful female. It didn't mean anything.

The woman was very pretty
with smooth, bronze skin and long black hair which she tied into a
ponytail. Her figure was full and curvy, and she had a sweet,
innocent look. In fact, she looked younger than her stated age of
twenty-five.

Reid shook his head. She
might look soft and sweet on the outside, but she could have a heart
of stone. He had learned that the hard way. He wasn't falling for a
pretty face. Never again. A pretty face could hide the most
devious, coldest cheating heart.

Lauren and Eddie stood
awkwardly beside the door, staring around his little house. They
looked so vulnerable, and their eyes were tired, scared and sad.
Reid knew that he should just send them away, but he didn't have the
heart.

Reid blew out a rough sigh.
“This is the first time we're meeting,” he began.

Lauren nodded earnestly. “I
know we're strangers, so...”

“So if this doesn't
work out, you'll have to go home.”

“We don't have a home,”
Eddie interjected and hung his head. “Not any more.”

With a grimace, Lauren
explained, “We terminated our lease.”

“New people have moved
into our apartment now,” Eddie mumbled unhappily. “And
Aun...Ma quit her job at the shoe shop.”

Reid watched Lauren nudge the
kid. Eddie was probably not keen on moving. He probably didn't want
to come to Shadow Point at all. Reid didn't blame the boy. His
mother had answered an ad for a mail-order bride and uprooted their
lives to come marry a man they had never met. Eddie would have a
stepfather, and soon, step-siblings. It was a lot for a
four-year-old to take in.

Reid had read through the
letters that Damien left on his table. Lauren mentioned that Eddie's
dad passed away when he was a baby. So the boy never had a father.
Maybe Lauren had boyfriends, but the boy had never had a permanent
male presence in his life. Having a stepfather must be a daunting
prospect.

With another sigh, Reid
gentled his tone and said, “I'll show you to your rooms. There
are only two bedrooms in the house, the master bedroom and the guest
room. The boy will take the guest room down the hall, and you...”
He stared at Lauren and his body hardened. She was supposed to be
his mail-order bride, wasn't she?

It was only right that he had
his bride in his bed.

His bear reared up inside his
head and roared in victory.

Lauren turned and saw the way
he was looking at her. A deep blush crept up her face and her
breathing quickened. “I'll help settle Eddie in his room.”

Swallowing, she continued in
a quavering voice, “Then I'll come to the master bedroom.”

CHAPTER
NINE

Lauren heard Eddie make a
small sound of surprise and delight when Reid opened the door and
showed Eddie his room. “I'm sleeping here?” Eddie gasped
as he gazed round the neat, cozy bedroom.

“This is your room,”
Reid answered simply.

“Wow! I've never had
my own room before!” Eddie squealed.

Reid glanced at Lauren, but
made no comment.

“Eddie sleeps with me,”
Lauren began.

“There's only one bed
in our room,” Eddie prattled on, putting down his backpack and
clambering onto the bed. “Aun...Ma lets me sleep on the bed,
and she sleeps on the floor.”

Other than a crease between
his brows, Reid's expression remained unreadable.

“I'll show your mom to
her room. Do you want to explore your room?” Reid asked the
boy.

“Yes! This room is
amazing! It's so much bigger than ours!” He came to Reid and
looked up at him. “Thank you, sir.”

“You're welcome.”

Reid turned and walked out of
the room. Lauren glanced at Eddie over her shoulder, but the boy was
running his hands over the desk at the corner of the room and
switching on the reading lamp.

Lauren shook her head with a
mirthless laugh. Her nephew had boasted that he would protect her,
but here she was, about to step into the bear's lair and the little
man was busy opening cupboards and drawers.

Lauren took a shaky breath
and forced herself to walk into Reid's bedroom.

She would be sleeping with
him.

Well, she was his bride. Or
rather, she hoped that she would be his bride soon. If they were
about to be married, there was no reason why they couldn't sleep
together. They had to make sure they were compatible and sexual
compatibility was important in a marriage, right?

But—she had never had
sex before. And taking a man like Reid into her body…

Would it hurt?

Lauren didn't realize she was
shaking and whimpering until Reid laid a hand on her arm.

“You'll just be
sleeping here. I won't maul you,” he said. She gasped and
staggered back. He sounded both angry and contemptuous at the same
time.

She managed to give a jerky
nod, and stared blankly at the big, king-size bed in the room.