The Bond: Bound to the Bear (BBW Paranormal Erotic Romance) (Mates of the Walkers Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

CHAPTER ONE
     
    Missy sighed under her breath, adjusting the straps on her heavy backpack. She had spent the last four days splitting her time between cursing her choices in packing and the fact that she hadn’t broken in her boots before setting off on the long trip. Then again, when she had made the rash decision to go off on this particular adventure, she hadn’t really had much time to plan. The price of that were sore feet and aching shoulders.
    At least the air and view are fantastic, she thought to herself glumly, eyes scooting around herself constantly in search for something familiar.
     
    She was deep in the Colorado countryside, surrounded by gorgeous landscape and about as far from outright civilization as she could get. There was a method to her madness in choosing the destination, but after six days of wandering up one hillside after another, she was beginning to have doubts about her master plan. As she slipped a bit on loose stones while scrambling up a sharper edge on the peak she was currently busy conquering, she had to take a moment to question her reasoning again.
    It’s not like you can be sure he’s here, Missy, she chided herself, a look of marked worry falling over her features.
     
    Missy really didn’t have anything concrete to base her assumptions off of and if she stopped to think about it, she would just want to kick herself. But, people in love were known to do slightly silly things, so she hid herself behind that. It was better than facing the very distinct possibility that she had managed to get herself lost in the wilderness with just a few days of supplies left for nothing but a baseless hunch.
    He has to be here, he just has to. Well, he didn’t, really, but she sure hoped he was.
     
    She brushed a lock of her fiery red hair behind her ear and trudged onward. The first time she had met the big lug of a man kept coming back to her. It had been a sleepy day at the bar she worked at when the handsome brute walked in, looking like he could fell a tree just by leaning on it. Missy remembered how her heart had beaten loudly in her chest, threatening to deafen her with its incessant pummeling. She had drunk in the sight of the gorgeous man, rugged but attractive in a wild kind of way, and the barkeep had to nudge her with his elbow to get her to go over to actually take his order. Missy had stammered and stuttered as she asked for what he wanted to eat and when he spoke to her, the heat pooling between her legs had erupted wildly and made her wet with blind lust. She had known then and there that she wanted that man and by the way he looked at her, curvy and tall as she was, she thought he wanted her as well. It was odd and struck her out of nowhere, but there was no denying her immediate interest in the man.
     
    A few times during his meal they tried and failed to make small-talk, gagging on their words and fumbling their sentences when Missy came to refill his strong black coffee or bring him his dessert. When he had left, Missy’s cheeks had burned with embarrassment. She had gone from a confident, sassy woman to a babbling teenager in a few seconds flat and she almost wanted to kick herself for not being able to get the guy’s number before he ducked out of the bar. Literally, he had to duck to fit through the door, as it was not made for men quite that tall. It had taken the better part of the day for Missy to get a grip over herself and to start paying attention to her work, but the soothing chestnut eyes of the muscled man and his deep voice still reverberated through her whenever she wasn’t strictly focusing on something else.
     
    When she had left for home that evening, she had been so distracted that she almost walked in the wrong direction. After mumbled insults at herself and her scattered brain, she had spun around on her heel and marched towards her house. The path led out of the small town and through a patch of forest, with her little cottage waiting on the other side