Big Bear Mountain - The Complete Series (4 page)

“W
ow!” she said as soon as they were through
the heavy timber doors of the main entrance and into the largest room of the
house.

Jarrad suspected this might be the only
time in his life that he might hear a woman say that without it meaning the end
of their relationship or the beginning of a massive misunderstanding. He took a
second to savor the moment.

The breathtaking, airy room left her
speechless. Floor to ceiling windows that she knew would provide stunning
mountain views during the day, a colossal stone fireplace dominated the center
of the room, dividing the huge space in half. Large, opulent rugs covering much
of the stone floor and a perfectly crafted and polished wooden ceiling. It
reminded her of a lavish Hamptons home with a mountain retreat twist. Not the
kind of bachelor pad she would have imagined her ex-military, mountain man to
live in. It oozed class and it was spotless. And tidy.

“Are you sure there’s no Mrs. Ranger in
residence?” She had to ask.

Jarrad smiled at her attempts to sound him
out. “No. I can assure you that I’m very much alone up here. That’s how I like
it, too”, he added.

“No doubt.” Elle tried to hide the
disappointment in her voice. As much as she wanted to run, she felt drawn to
the robust, powerful man who seemed to relish her curves and who looked at her
like she was something special.

Don’t be a fool. You’ll only be setting
yourself up for more heartache,
she reminded
herself.

Maybe a little diversion, then. No
strings and all that. I could be dead tomorrow, after all …

“I said I’ll get a fire started, if you
like.” His impassioned, reassuring voice broke through her inner debate.

“Ah … of course. That would be lovely.
There’s nothing like an open fire,” she responded lamely, having been caught
daydreaming by him. Again.

“Is something wrong? You look … I don’t
know … distracted?” he asked.

“I’m alright. I just feel like I need a
shower and I don’t even have a change of clothes or anything.” Her nose
wrinkled when she looked down at her sweaty blouse and disheveled skirt.

“I’ll try to find something for you to
wear. You can shower while I get the fire started and cook you some dinner.
Hungry?”

A pang of jealousy stabbed at the pit of
her stomach as the thought of him having a pile of women’s clothes on hand.
Left overs from his other ‘conquests’, she figured. How could she be so stupid to
even think he might be interested in a curvy girl like her? Even if he was,
she’d be one of many he’d brought to his ‘fancy pants’ bachelor lair, only to
discard her when he’d had his fun.

Men! They’re all the same. Even out here
in the fucking wilderness!

F
reshly showered,
her wet hair smelling of the green apple scented hair products she found in the
shower stall, Elle emerged tentatively from the bathroom and into the adjoining
guest bedroom. She found herself alone and began to relax, although a small
part of her was disappointed Jarrad wasn’t there. She’d heard him fossicking
about while she was drying herself.

Emerging in her
underwear with only a towel wrapped around her, she saw that her clothes had
been whisked away. Lying on the bed, where she had left her clothes was the
most enormous sweatshirt and hoodie she had ever seen. Elle had no idea who or
what the Montana Grizzlies were, but apparently, they wore clothing fit for
some kind of giant.

The sweatshirt had
a large grizzly bear on the front and the words “The Last Best Place” stenciled
across it. The hoodie was more subtle with the words Montana Grizzlies splashed
across it in giant letters and a massive bear paw print.

Elle was beginning
to see a theme emerging with the bears.

And the XXXXXL
sizing.

OK, maybe not
hand-me-downs from other playmates. But bears? Seriously? Hey, does he really think
I’m that plus size? How rude!

After rugging
herself in the oversized garments, Elle made her way downstairs, drawn as much
by the delicious aroma coming from the kitchen as the need to give Jarrad a
piece of her mind for leaving her such ridiculous apparel.

“Ah, there you
are,” Jarrad said as she entered the kitchen.

Elle stopped short
and simply stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring down at her sleeves
nearly dragging on the floor, like a child wearing an adult’s shirt, before
fixing a cold stare on Jarrad.

“Yeah, about that
… I don’t get many visitors up here and my old college sweats were the only
things I had that I thought might do the job. I’ve bulked up a lot since then.”

She looked from
her massive, flapping hoodie to Jarrad and back again, realizing that he was
right. His current sizing would have been even more ridiculous. If that were at
all possible.

“Thanks. I
appreciate the thought. At first, I thought you were making fun of my figure.”

“What? Are you
kidding? You’ve got an awesome figure.” Jarrad quickly turned his attention
back to the stove where he’d been working before Elle came in, embarrassed by the
openness of his words.

Is he flirting
with me?

“Been checking me
out, have you? Bet you say that to all the curvy women you rescue and bring
back to your mountain hideaway,” she probed.

Jarrad suddenly
became fascinated by whatever he had happening on the stove as he stirred one
saucepan vigorously while closely examining the contents of another. No matter
what he said right now, it would get him into trouble. If he said he loved her
smooth, glorious curves, then he was admitting he noticed them. If he pretended
he hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t a size 2 kind of girl, then he’d look stupid
or worse … a liar. Now was a good time for Jarrad to stop talking.

“What smells so
good?” Elle asked, breaking the awkward silence and taking in a good whiff of
the mouthwatering smell.

“Homemade pasta
with Flathead Lake cheese, baby spinach, wild mushrooms and crispy bacon,”
Jarrad responded with pride.

Looking at the
hulking man with his thin tee taught across his magnificently muscled chest,
stirring tiny pots and pans with sinewy arms, thick with bulging muscle and
hearing his glowing description of dinner, Elle couldn’t help herself.

She burst out
laughing.

E
lle was unmistakably famished. Perhaps from
having been on the run for so long without a break or from the stress of the
rescue. Maybe both, in equal measure. Either way, she scoffed down the best
pasta dish she’d ever eaten in her life with such enthusiasm that Jarrad watched
her with a look of bewilderment. He’d never seen a girl put away so much food
so quickly.

“That was delicious. That would rival some
of the best restaurant meals I’ve eaten, I think,” She said, mopping up the
last of the sauce with the crust of her bread.

Embarrassed, she pushed her empty plate
aside. Jarrad was barely half way through his. “I haven’t eaten in over 24
hours,” she offered, by way of explanation. Being on the run wasn’t ideal for
someone with a healthy appetite. There were a few times during the road trip
that she wished she was one of the skinny ‘lettuce leaf and carrot stick’ girls
she went to college with. But that was never going to happen. Elle enjoyed good
food and was of the opinion that life was too short not to.

“So, now you’re showered, changed, fed and
rehydrated. Want to tell me what you were doing dodging the cartel on a high
mountain road in a car and clothes better suited to a weekend in Vegas?”

She knew it was coming, but she still
hadn’t prepared her story well enough and wasn’t sure how much she could trust
this stranger. No matter how disarmingly hot he was.

“You could try telling me the truth, if you
haven’t come up with a story yet,” he said, as if reading her mind.

“How —”

“When I was in the army, my job and my
survival depended on me being able to read people.” He paused and fixed a cold,
ruthless stare on her. “I was damn good at my job, too.”

Elle not only felt like she was being
interrogated, but that Jarrad already knew a lot of the answers. That was
probably because he did.

Trooper Ryan had called Jarrad on his cell
while Elle was getting cleaned up and changed. It seemed the car and its driver
had turned up in a couple of state and federal bulletins relating to the
embezzlement of funds from a finance company. According to DMV records, the
recently vanished BMW was registered to the chairman of said finance company.

He wasn’t sure why, but when quizzed if he
knew the whereabouts of the woman in question, Jarrad told the trooper that he
had no idea. They’d been unable to make contact with the helicopter pilot to
verify where the rescued woman had been taken and they were hoping Jarrad could
fill them in. Jarrad was giving his heightened shifter instincts free reign for
the moment and they told him in no uncertain terms that the girl was in trouble
and that she was a good person. His bear knew that she had to be, otherwise,
she wouldn’t be his perfect mate.

Biting her bottom lip, Elle considered her
situation before deciding, on a whim, to trust the mysterious stranger. As much
as she hated to admit it, she had no other choice. No money, no car, no means
of disappearing without a trace as all of her personal belongings were in the
trunk of her car. Bottom line? She was heavily reliant on this giant of a man
for protection, although she knew next to nothing about him. But that didn’t
mean she was ready to tell him the entire story. It was too dangerous. For both
of them.

“It’s a long story …” She sucked on her
lip, stalling for time.

“Well, then, you’d better get started,”
Jarrad commanded, folding his thickset arms and leaning forward attentively.

That’s exactly what she did, too. Right
from the very beginning, when everything seemed too good to be true.

F
resh out of college, Elle was desperate to
make her way in the world and escape the controlling, suffocating influence of
her socialite mother, whose idea of a hard day at the office was having a nail
appointment run five minutes late. So, the opportunity to interview as the
executive assistant to the financial controller of a national finance company
was a godsend. A prestigious title with a leading firm and a large enough
paycheck to escape the clutches of her domineering mother. Win-win.

For three years, Elle worked longer hours,
harder and smarter than anybody else in the accounting department, carving out
quite a reputation for herself as a hard worker and a savvy accountant. That’s
what they needed at Starnet Finance. The problem was, Elle was just a little
too smart and savvy. Worse, she had an enquiring mind and a pedantic nature.
Everything had to balance to the penny and when the accounts didn’t balance,
her investigative instincts kicked in. Like a pit bull with a bone, she
wouldn’t let it go until she’d solved the problem. She hated to lose a
challenge.

“So,” Jarrad interrupted her story to clear
up his confusion, “how did you know these bank accounts were actually being
used to launder money?”

“I didn’t at first, but after a while, I
saw a pattern. I doubt anyone else would have seen it because they weren’t
looking too carefully. They weren’t
supposed
to see the pattern. That
was the whole point,” she explained. The blank expression on Jarrad’s face
remained unmoved.

“OK,” Elle continued, “I had to verify the
bank accounts of the various loan applicants, right?” Jarrad nodded. “I’m
seeing deposits, all under $10,000 so they avoid the federal identification and
reporting requirements, being made into these accounts from branches all over
the country. All cash. I mean, who even uses cash these days, right? Not one
single online transfer. Only cash deposits.”

She waited for Jarrad to get his head
around what she was saying. When she was satisfied, she continued.

“These seemingly random cash deposits from
hundreds of different branches were then used to buy luxury cars, precious
metals, aircraft, ships … you name it, they bought it.” She waved her hand
expansively, to emphasize her point.

“But here’s the kicker.” She stabbed at the
dining table with her finger. “Each of the purchases, regardless of the amount
or which bank account I looked at was
exactly
the total sum of all the
seemingly
random deposits. In each and every case. No exceptions.” She poked the table
again to make her point.

“I’m with you so far. A bunch of people all
over the country are pumping money into these bank accounts and the account
holder then uses the funds to buy something. But how’s that illegal?”

“It’s drug money, from distributors and
dealers in every city in every state. Thousands of them. The money doesn’t
belong to the account holder … it belongs to the cartel” she clarified.

“What happens to the money? You said they
bought stuff with it.” Jarrad was trying hard to impress her by keeping up, but
she was losing him. Fast.

“They buy anything online that’s high value
and easy to sell. They either buy the goods overseas or have them shipped
there, then they sell it at eighty cents on the dollar and have the funds wired
by the buyer to their US based bank accounts. The money has been cleaned and it
looks like a legit commercial deal.” She leaned back with a satisfied smile on
her face, happy with her brief money laundering tutorial.

“I thought these guys used casinos and
online gambling to launder their money?”

“They did,” Elle agreed, “until the Fed
started monitoring them more closely and tightening the reporting requirements.
Online auction sites are the ‘new black’ as far as these money launderers are
concerned.”

“And they’re after you because …” Jarrad
let the question hang.

“Because I started digging when I noticed
the pattern and traced the operation to over a hundred of these ‘clearing’
accounts and each one is washing over a million dollars each month —”

“Wait,” Jarrad raised his hand, “that’s …”
He closed his eyes, his lips moving silently as he tried to make the
calculation.

He was too slow.

“Over a billion dollars a year,” she
interrupted his arithmetic. “And I’ve got the proof. The account codes, routing
numbers, transaction histories. Everything. All on a microSD memory card.”

“Where is it? We need to keep it somewhere
safe. It’s the only leverage we’ve got if these guys come after you,” Jarrad
reasoned.

“Oh, they’re coming after me alright.
They’ve got over a billion reasons to come after me. There’s just one problem
with your plan.”

“And that is …?”

“The memory card with the data on it is …
well, it
was
hidden in my overnight bag.”

The look of confusion on Jarrad’s face
suggested he didn’t quite see where she was going with this.

Her chair grated against the hard floor as
she stood and slammed her fist on the kitchen table. “Which
was
in the
trunk of my car.”