If you enjoyed this book … try by Zoe Chant!

 

 

A BBW park ranger + a bear shifter smokejumper + a lonely fire-watcher's post = one red-hot fire between the sheets!

 

Some women would hate being stuck in a remote fire-watch tower, but for curvy Angie Dearborn, it's a peaceful retreat to nurse her broken heart. Love? Who needs it? She's got books, a dog, and the world's most solitary job. And she likes it that way. Until Hudson comes into her life ...

 

Bear shifter and firefighter Hudson Pierce knows Angie is his destined mate as soon as her touch sets his body and soul aflame. Emotionally wounded Angie doesn't believe they have a future together, but this sexy smokejumper is determined to mend her broken heart and prove to her that their love is possible.

 

Will it take a real forest fire to ignite their fire?

 

 

Preview:

 

Today Angie had spent the morning watching a bear through the binoculars.

They didn't get bears very often. Usually the largest animals she saw were mule deer. But she'd spotted this bear when she first climbed up to the tower, a tiny dark speck moving across the distant hills. Throughout the morning she watched its lazy start-and-stop rambling. It was clearly having fun, a bear out for a stroll in the sunshine. When the day started to get hot, it wandered down into a cool, shady ravine and she lost sight of it.

She wondered if she should shut Cyclone in the cabin today. If the bear didn't get distracted by anything, its ambling trajectory would eventually bring it fairly close to her location. She wasn't worried about herself; she'd be perfectly safe up in the tower. But she didn't want her dog to get hurt.

The bear was likely to sleep through the hottest part of the day and then resume its trek in the evening, though, so she probably didn't have to worry for a while. Maybe she would forgo her evening walk with Cyclone just to be on the safe side.

It did make her aware of how isolated she was here, and how many things could go wrong. She carried the emergency satellite telephone with her all the time, even shoving its bulk into her knapsack when she went hiking. But what if she did have to deal with a bear? Or fell down the tower's stairs and broke her leg ... or worse?

"You'd fetch help for me, wouldn't you, Lassie?" she called down, leaning over the edge. She was starting to get used to the dizzying drop. Far below her, lying in the tower's shade next to his water bowl, Cyclone looked up and thumped his tail.

Angie grinned. Who needed a boyfriend? The most steady and stable guy in her life had four legs and a tail, but he was still the best friend a girl could ask for.

Men. Who needs 'em. Not me.

She scanned the hills again for the bear, hoping to see it so she knew where it had gone, but the only movement in the hills was a jackrabbit.

After lunch, I'll leave Cyclone in the cabin for the afternoon, she thought. It would be hot and he wouldn't be happy about it, but it was better to be safe than sorry out here in the middle of nowhere.

She was starting to think about coming down for lunch when Cyclone gave a sudden soft woof. He wasn't a barker—she'd never been quite sure if it was a breed trait or simply part of his natural personality, but if Cyclone barked, it meant there was something important to bark at. Thoughts of bears made her heart leap into her throat. She circled the tower's little observation hut, looking out from all sides, the whole time expecting to see a dark shape padding around the cabin.

There was no sign of a bear, but Cyclone was on his feet, tail wagging. Then, to her alarm, he bounded down the path to the cabin.

"Cyclone!" she called, but the dog either didn't hear her or chose to play deaf.

He vanished into the cabin's shadow. To her surprise, Angie heard a voice—a male voice. The words were unintelligible with distance, but the tone was a talking-to-dogs sort of croon.

Not a bear at all, she thought, limp with relief. Just a hiker.

A minute later, the hiker appeared around the corner of the cabin. From here, she could make out nothing more than the flash of a light-colored shirt. "Hello, the tower?" he shouted.

"Up here!" Angie called, and waved.

The hiker climbed the path to the tower in long, easy strides. He must've been out in the sun all day to have hiked here—and there was no other way he could have reached the cabin, because in the rural silence she'd have easily heard a vehicle—but it didn't seem to have dampened his energy. Cyclone bounded along beside him, delighted to have found a new friend.

At the base of the tower, Hiker Guy stopped and looked up at her. Broad shoulders strained at his sweat-dampened shirt. "Well, this is a nice surprise! I didn't realize this old fire tower was staffed anymore."

"They just started again," she called down. "The whole Southwest is a tinderbox right now, and even with all the modern technology we have, we still haven't come up with anything better for some of these remote locations than an actual human being with binoculars."

"Good news for me," he called back.

"How's that?"

"I'm a firefighter. A smokejumper, to be precise. You're up there keeping me and my buddies safe!"

Angie laughed, dangling over the side. "Keeping you out of a job, you mean!"

"Hey, have you ever seen a dry-season wildfire? The fewer we have to fight, the safer we all are." He scratched Cyclone's ears as the dog leaned against his leg, then gave a sudden, fast grin. "Gotta say, though, when I saw your binoculars flash in the sun up there, I was expecting some grizzled old park ranger. I feel like I'm talking to Rapunzel here."

Angie ran a hand through her tousled, curly hair. "Sorry, even if you asked me to let down my hair, it's not long enough to do a whole lot of good. And besides, I was just coming down anyhow."

"That'll save us both some neck strain," he said with another grin.

Angie realized as soon as she set foot on the top step that he was going to have an excellent view of her ... assets on her way down. Well, let him look! She didn't mind.

Her own boldness surprised her. She certainly wasn't looking for a relationship, not after Larry, but she was really having fun talking to him. The loneliness must be getting to me a little bit, after all. It's nice to have company.

"Rapunzel's tower could have used a good set of stairs," Hiker Guy said as she circled around and around on the descending steps. "You have to climb those every day?"

"Twice a day, at least," she said, pausing on one of the landings.

"No wonder you have such great legs."

This made her miss a step.

 

***

 

Click to keep reading for free on Kindle Unlimited!

 

You can also read Bear Watching in with Bear Down, another standalone bear shifter romance from Zoe Chant. When their plane goes down in the far north, a wildlife biologist and a hunky bush pilot start their own fire! !