Bear Cop: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant Read Free Book Online Page A

could he have upset her even more in that situation? She had wept in his arms, and he had been allowed to comfort her. And he wouldn’t give up that moment for anything in the world. Eve trusted him. And that meant that everything would turn out all right in the end.
    The bear huffed impatiently in the background of his mind, but he forced himself to block him out. The bear could wait another day. Maybe he’d ask Eve to take a walk with him this evening. Or maybe he would tell her when they sat together in front of the fire as the sun went down, and it would seem silly then and not scary. She wouldn’t even believe him until he shifted, and, after having laughed at him, she certainly wouldn’t be scared. Not his brave Eve.
    When he returned, he found the shack filled with the aroma of frying fish.
    “That smells delicious!” he said as he came in. Eve was kneeling in front of the fire; a blackened pan sat on the burning wood. Fish was sizzling on the hot surface, and he heard his stomach grumbling again while she laughed at him.
    “I hope you’re hungry!” she said. “I forgot that we have no fridge, so—I fried all the fish, since it won’t keep.”
    “I’ll catch more tomorrow. Or this evening,” he added as he sized up the gently charred trout.
    She laughed again and brushed the hair out of her eyes. It left a smudge of coal on her cheek, and he stepped closer and then knelt down by her side to gently wipe at it with his shirt.
    “You’re that hungry?” She gave him a doubtful look and prodded the trout once more.
    It was nearly too large to fit into the pan, but his bear was making an approving sound, and his stomach grumbled again.
    “I can eat a lot,” he said and then dipped into the soot and flicked his fingertip against her nose. Laughing, she batted at his hand and then retaliated.
    “I’ll paint you a mustache if you don’t stop!” She held her blackened fingertip threateningly in front of his face.
    He raised his hands in surrender, and then he leaned forward to press a kiss to it, ignoring the soot. She grinned at him, proud to have won that battle, all radiant and glorious with the fire behind her making her hair gleam like gold.
    She really is perfect, he thought again. Those luscious curves and her breasts that pressed enticingly against her shirt, her tousled hair and her laughing eyes and the soot on her nose.
    Mate , the bear huffed, and he agreed.
    She’d already made this shack feel like home. One day soon, they’d fill a house all of their own with love and laughter.
    After their lunch, they took the pan to the creek they had found to scrub it clean. The sky stretched blue above them, and Chris noted the absence of clouds with relief. The thought of a day or two all alone with Eve in this little shack was tempting, but he was worried that more rain would make the river swell even more. They should be fine as long as they stayed on top of the hill. Eventually a rescue team would show up—still, his bear did not like the thought of their mate in a situation that might prove dangerous for her, and Chris had to agree.
    Once the pan had been cleaned, they walked along the creek for a while. Chris regretted that he hadn’t brought the fishing rod along. Upstream, there were larger rocks, and once or twice, he saw the movement of silvery bodies in the eddies shadowed by the stones.
    At last, after they had walked for half an hour, the creek ended in a pond. Hawthorn grew around it, and witch-hazel; it was very quiet, save for the solitary call of a bird in the distance, and Chris tensed all of a sudden as he looked at the pond.
    He could not quite say what it was, but something within him had abruptly become alert. Slowly, he turned, eying the brush that grew around the water. He could not see any threat, or indeed anything out of the ordinary—they were all alone here in the forest, or so it seemed. And yet, there was a tingling sense of alarm.
    He glanced at Eve, but she did not