A Mate For The Bear: BBW Paranormal Alpha Shifter Romance (Bear Brides Book 4) (5 page)

He narrowed his eyes at her.
“You won't try to skive and sweep all the dirt under the carpet
now, would you?”

She gasped. “Of course
not!”

Dalton chuckled. “Glad
to hear that.”

His expression turned
serious. “You're not alone, Joyce. You never were. You have
me. I'm your friend, your...family. Ever since you told me you
worked as a stripper during the weekends, I've been going to a
different strip club every week hoping to find you. I've been
searching for you, Joyce. You have people who care for you, who will
support and defend you, no matter what.”

“Oh, Dalton...”
she whispered, her voice breaking. “I never thought I'd ever
meet you. I was afraid...to get you in trouble with the Crimson
Wolves. But you...you actually went around the clubs looking for me,
looking for...trouble.” She shook her head. “You
shouldn't...”

He took her hand and squeezed
it. “If I hadn't found you tonight, I would have carried on
looking, searching, my whole life,” he said softly. “You
are my m—” Blowing out a breath, he amended quickly,
“Friend.”

“You are a true friend,
Dalton. A real friend.” She laughed suddenly. “And I
met you on that dating site. Wow.”

“Wow, indeed. I have
to thank Cole. My Alpha signed me up for that dating site.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Long story.
You'll meet Cole soon. He'll be happy to tell you the story of how
he met his mate, Abby.”

“Let me guess. They
met through the dating site.”

“Bingo.” Dalton
turned to grin at her. “Welcome to the family, Joyce!”

The doorbell jangled again.
“I'll get it,” Dalton said when Joyce hurried out of the
kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. Strands of red hair were
coming loose from her thick braid and she had flour on her face and
marinating sauce on her sleeves. But to Dalton, she'd never looked
lovelier and sexier.

He had moved Joyce into his
house just last night, and she had gotten up bright and early this
morning and started on her chores straight away. By mid-afternoon,
every item in his bungalow shone and sparkled.

Dalton scowled when the
doorbell sounded yet again. He almost regretted inviting his brother
and cousins over. Well, technically, he didn't. They invited
themselves.

Dalton had initially planned
on spending the evening alone with Joyce, but when the phone rang and
Joyce dutifully answered with “Dalton Jameson's residence”,
his younger brother, Tony, had spluttered into the phone before slyly
inviting himself and his cousins over for dinner.

Dalton knew what they were up
to. They were here to see Joyce. He had told them that Joyce was
his new housekeeper, but they didn't believe him. He should have
known that he couldn't hide anything from them. His brother and
cousins knew him better than he knew himself.

“All right, all right.
Stop the racket already,” Dalton grumbled as he opened his
automatic gate. They'd taken a leisurely walk to his house since
they all lived on the same street. Tony rushed towards the house
with his mate Terri, their faces glowing with excitement.

“Where is she?”
Tony asked, craning his neck.

Cole and Abby grinned as they
came up to him. “So you've found her, eh?”

“I'm sure I don't know
what you're talking about,” Dalton said with a straight face.

With a baby in each arm, Brad
looked every inch the proud papa bear. “She's your...”
Brad began but Dalton coughed loudly enough to drown out the rest of
Brad's sentence.

“Housekeeper,”
Lisha supplied, giving her husband a look.

“Right.”

The rowdy group crowded past
Dalton and swooped into the kitchen, startling Joyce into dropping a
spoon. “Oh, I...”

“You must be Joyce,”
Tony grinned. “We've heard so much about you!”

Joyce blinked. “You
have?”

“No, they haven't,”
Dalton said firmly. “Tony's exaggerating.”

Abby, Terri and Lisha went
forward and introduced themselves and their mates. Joyce warmed to
the females immediately, and when she saw Lisha's twins, she
exclaimed delightedly, “Oh my! They're gorgeous! I'm all
stained and sweaty from my cooking right now, but after I wash up,
can I...”

“Of course,”
Lisha smiled. “Daren and Rita love to play! I have to warn
you though. They're very strong despite their size.”

Joyce laughed. “I'm
not going to wrestle them.”

“But they love
wrestling!” Lisha answered, chuckling. “They wrestle
with their dad and uncle all the time.”

Joyce glanced back at the
stove and oven. “Maybe you'd like to wait in the hall,”
she suggested, swallowing nervously. “I'm afraid dinner won't
be ready so soon. I was expecting Dalton's guests to arrive at
seven. I still have to...”

“We're not his guests,”
Tony quipped. “We're his family.”

“We're not here just to
eat, you know,” Abby added. “We're here to spend time
together, cook together, and enjoy the company, the food, the
gossip...”

Terri laughed and rolled up
her sleeves. “Come on, we'll tell you the latest news in the
clan as we cook. Those bears are always up to something. Oh, oh,
oh, I think I know who Connor has his eye on,” she said in a
stage whisper.

The males groaned as the
women began to titter and chatter non-stop around the kitchen. Brad
and Cole helped with the cooking as well. Tony was put on
babysitting duty, and Daren and Rita squealed and laughed as they
took turns trying to poke their little fingers into his mouth. When
Tony snapped his teeth and growled at them, Daren growled back and
shifted into a little bear cub. Tony guffawed and tickled him, and
between fits of laughter, Daren shifted back to human form. Rita
clambered over her brother and raised her arms to Tony, begging to be
picked up.

Dalton decided to go help his
brother out, and was about to swing little Rita into his arms when
Tony stopped him. “I got this,” Tony said. “I'm
great with the kids!”

“I can help,”
Dalton said.

“I'm not the one you
should be helping.” Tony gave his elder brother a meaningful
look. “You should be helping her. She's not really your
housekeeper, and you're not really her boss, are you?”

“I...”

“Go,” Tony urged.
“Go whip up your specialty. Impress her!”

“You know I can't cook
to save my life. And my specialty is buttered toast!” Dalton
protested.

“And it's the best
buttered toast I've ever tasted,” Tony replied with a grin.
“When I eat it, it always gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
That's the feeling you want to create. You want to get her warm,
fuzzy...and frisky!”

Dalton glared at his brother
and glanced over his shoulder to see if Joyce had overheard, but the
girls were too busy talking about shoes as they tossed ingredients
into a pot on the stove.

Brad and Cole heard though
and they obviously approved of the plan. His cousins stopped their
chopping and dicing to give him the thumbs-up. Brad grabbed a loaf
of bread and tossed it at him. “Do your magic, Dalton!”

“Shoo!” Tony
waved him off. “Rita doesn't want you. She only has eyes for
me. Right, baby girl?” he cooed and blew a raspberry on her
tummy.

There was nothing to do but
go with the flow. Dalton wasn't a whiz in the kitchen like his
cousins, but he liked helping out in the kitchen and contributing his
limited culinary expertise towards the meal they were putting
together.

Dalton knew full well what he
could and couldn't do. He couldn't cook, period. Whenever he tried
to whip up a fancy new dish, it always came out wrong. It would be
too bland, too hard, too burnt. In other words, his dish was
just...inedible. But his brother and cousins always scraped the dish
clean and swallowed every last morsel. Their loyalty and bravery
were commendable. It took a stout heart and a strong stomach to eat
his disastrous creations without flinching or fainting.

Dalton finally decided not to
inflict any more pain and agony on his faithful family. He would
hang up his apron for good. But Tony and Brad had stumbled to his
house after a drunken night out with the boys and had woken up on his
living room couch with the mother of all hangovers. Dalton had made
the two youngsters sit down at his kitchen table and placed a big,
strong pot of tea and a stack of buttered toast in front of them.
Dalton had never seen a plate of toast disappear so fast before.
Tony and Brad gamely declared his buttered toast to be the best in
the world, and before long, the whole clan was clamoring for Dalton's
famous buttered toast.

Taking a deep breath, Dalton
grabbed the butter from the fridge and went to work on his signature
dish. His hand shook a little as he buttered each slice of bread
with care and precision. Cole and Brad saw the tension on his face,
and exchanged a look. Brad leaned forward and said in a low voice,
“She'll love it. I know she will. We've been eating your
buttered toast for years, and we love it. It's true. Ask Tony.”

Dalton turned to see Tony
grinning and nodding enthusiastically. His busybody brother was
keeping track of their conversation while babysitting the cubs.
Brad's cubs were all over him. Daren was perched on his shoulder in
bear form and Rita was busy gnawing on his finger. Dalton chuckled.
“I never thought I'd say this, but you'll make a great dad,
Tony.”

Tony looked thoughtful and
glanced at Terri, who was giggling and whispering to Joyce. “Hmm,
maybe I should put my cub-making plan into action,” he said,
catching Daren deftly in his palm as the growling little furball
tumbled from his shoulder.

“You do that,”
Cole encouraged. “The clan could do with more cubs and new
members.”

Dalton turned back to his
task. “I don't know if Joyce will want to eat this plain,
boring toast.” He scrunched up his nose. “You guys are
different. You will eat anything I cook—because you're
family.”

“Joyce...is family
too,” Cole said softly.

“Yeah, Lisha was
thrilled when Tony called. She was so excited to meet your mate,”
Brad laughed. “We all are. She's great!”

Dalton placed the bread in
the toaster oven and stole a look at Joyce. She was bending over to
remove the roast from the oven, and the sight of her round,
delectable ass made the blood rush from his head to his groin. His
eyes trailed down her nape to the bountiful curves on her body. Her
hips were wide and full, just right for grabbing as he pounded into
her…

Dalton bit down a growl.

What the hell was he doing?
Just for a moment, he had let his control slip, and immediately both
his mind and his bear had run wild. His beast wanted to mount that
lush, human female and claim her, mark her hard. The man wanted to
take her to bed and enjoy her, savor her, pleasure her for hours.

Dalton shook his head and
forced his hungry gaze away from Joyce. His raging bear and
maddening erection was making it extremely difficult to do anything.
He could hardly think or see straight. When he stared at the butter,
all he could think about was how soft and smooth her body would feel
beneath his...

“Dalton,” Cole
hissed. “Your toast is getting burnt!”

Dalton cursed and dragged the
smoking bread out of the oven. He scowled at the blackened edges and
swore under his breath. Joyce turned to him with a surprised look
and put down her ladle. When she started to walk towards him, Dalton
gulped and tried to toss the burnt toast into the bin before she
could see it.

“Wait,” Joyce
said. “You're not throwing out perfectly good food, are you?”
She clucked her tongue. “All you have to do is cut away the
edges. Here.” She took the plate from him before he could
protest and in a few seconds, she'd trimmed away the burnt bits and
rearranged the golden slices neatly on the plate.

“They smell heavenly,”
she beamed, taking a whiff. “May I?'

“Oh. Of course.”
Dalton sucked in a breath and held it as she took a small slice and
bit into it.

“Mmmm.” Joyce
closed her eyes and sighed. “This toast is perfect, Dalton.
Buttery, crispy, and just one mouthful gives you a feeling of...home.
I have just eaten a slice of heaven!”

Brad nudged Dalton. “I
told you, didn't I?”

“My brother's buttered
toast is da bomb!” Tony boasted. “You can't get it
anywhere else. He only makes it for us!”

Dalton exhaled the breath he
had been holding and gave Joyce a lopsided smile. “I'm glad
you like it.”

“Like it? I love it!”
Joyce exclaimed before turning back to the stove. “Dinner's
almost ready. Your toast will complement the roast and the stew
perfectly!”

“Add our potato gratin,
and the meal is complete!” Cole and Brad crowed.

“Eh, people, I think I
need a little help here...” Tony raised his hand and waved
frantically. Rita was grunting and scrunching up her little face as
she squirmed in Tony's arms. “I haven't mastered the art of
changing a poop diaper.”