Bear Pause (BBW / Bear Shifter Romance): A Billionaire Oil Bearons Romance (Bear Fursuits Book 6) Read Online Free PDF

completely inappropriate. Completely. With an effort of will, Laura turned on her booted heel and went back through the stables to her office.
    She usually left her door wide open so that anyone who needed to speak to her could walk right in. But today she closed it before she sat at her desk staring at her shaking hands. She was losing her mind. That was the only explanation. Sensible, practical Laura Bascom did not take one look at a stranger and turn into a lustful puddle.
    Brooding about Clive’s will and her options had sent her around the twist. Okay, sure she needed to find a man, marry him and get pregnant. Fast. At her age, with luck, it would take her six months to get pregnant. She had until her thirty-fifth birthday to marry and give birth to a child if she was going to ever have more than a life interest in the ranch. So seventeen months. Not long at all, considering she was no closer to finding a man than she had been last month.
    Which didn’t mean she could start fantasizing about some guy who worked for her. She would be better off with one of her brother Calvin’s elegant friends. Only those guys were so not her idea of sexy. She preferred her men to look like men.
    Cal waxed his chest and so did his pals. She on the other hand was atavistic enough to like a bit of fur on a man’s body. She was willing to bet that if tall, dark and sweaty had turned around, he would have had lush curls on his chest to match those on his brawny forearms.
    There she went again. She had to stop this unseemly fantasizing. Think about Cal’s friend Greg. He didn’t need her money. He had made lots of his own. He might just possibly agree to a marriage of convenience. But she couldn’t imagine going to bed with a guy who didn’t want her.
    And she didn’t just need a husband. She needed a baby. She couldn’t see how it would help to sign up for months of trying to have sex with a man who didn’t turn her crank any more than she turned his.
    It was all very well and good for Trev Carmichael, and Daddy, and her brother Cal, and her almost brother Zeke, to say she was a catch and should hold out for the right man. But Laura had lived over three decades in her body and she was perfectly aware that the only men she had ever attracted had been fortune hunters after some of the Bascom billions.
    She only had to remember losing her virginity to Mark to understand why she was skittish of men. Mark had been followed by Chester. Neither one had wanted her – what they had been after was the B&B Oil money they figured she came with. They had pretended to be in love with her, but their comments about her body had been the opposite of loving. She had dropped them both the minute they started suggesting that she could stand to lose a few pounds.
    She had always been a big girl. Tall, broad hipped, big breasted and sturdy. If she starved herself to look like the cultural ideal of an anorexic supermodel, she would have to shed the muscle that made it possible to do her job. Besides, if a man loved her the way Daddy had loved Mama, the last thing on earth he would want was to change her. Too bad she had never found a guy like Daddy.
    She had been happier since she had decided to devote her energies to the ranch. She knew she was dragging her heels over finding a husband, and if she continued, she was going to lose the ranch. But every time she thought about marrying Greg Bushnell she got a knot in her belly and a rock in her gullet.
    There was a knock on the door. “Come in.” She schooled her face to its usual calm.
    Her administrative assistant Rhonda poked her orange head in. “Jim Don Fletcher wants to know if he should deliver that mare this afternoon. You need to check your email.”
    “Right.” Laura smiled weakly. “I’ve been busy.”
    Rhonda raised her eyebrows at Laura’s bare desk. Even her laptop was still locked in its drawer. But the older woman didn’t say a word, she just turned on her efficient heel and headed