Note to readers: The events in this story occur directly after the end of .

 

Bearpaw Ridge, Idaho

It was a glorious day for a wedding, and the pasture down by the river was the perfect place to hold a big celebration. The warm summer air smelled of flowers, with mouthwatering whiffs of grilling chicken, elk, venison, and the Grizzly Creek Ranch's own beef.

Elle Swanson's daughters-in-law Caitlyn and Steffi had outdone themselves in decorating, and there were flowers everywhere. Wide blue-and-white ribbons tied in bows to the rows of folding chairs fluttered in the summer breeze.

Elle, as mother of the groom, stood in front of the first row of chairs facing a low dais, watching the radiant bride Cassie walk slowly down the aisle on her father's arm.

A long red carpet had been stretched over the grass between the chairs to mark the aisle. It led to the dais where her son Thor and her sister Margaret, who was officiating the wedding, eagerly watched the bride approach.

Thor looked somewhere between nervous and ecstatic and kept tugging at his tux, trying to straighten a jacket that already fit perfectly across his broad shoulders.

They were surrounded by Cassie and Thor's wedding attendants, who consisted of Thor's four brothers, Cassie's best friend Amanda, and Elle's set of three daughters-in-law: red-haired baker Annabeth, blonde journalist Caitlyn, and brown-haired marketing director Steffi.

As Cassie approached the dais, Elle thought wistfully of her own wedding, all those years ago.

It had been an arranged marriage, as so many shifter matches were in those days. But Elle had fallen in love with tall, dark-haired Ashton Swanson at their first meeting, and she had spent the entire day of her wedding feeling so happy she thought she might simply float away on sunshine and spring breezes.

And afterwards, during a spectacular wedding night, she and Ashton had bonded in a true mating. Elle had felt like the luckiest woman on earth.

She still did, even though she and Ashton had only enjoyed a brief decade of marriage before the catastrophic automobile accident that took his life.

The years since then had been difficult but rewarding.

With Margaret's help, Ellie had managed to keep the Grizzly Creek Ranch from going under while her boys were still young. She had gradually transformed it from a traditional working ranch to a tourist destination while still maintaining a herd of award-winning heirloom beef cattle.

And her five sons had all grown into fine, upstanding young men with solid jobs and good prospects.

Elle had only one niggling regret. Four out of her five sons were now mated, and there wasn't a single bear shifter among their mates.

At least Cassie was a shifter and not an Ordinary like her sons' first three brides.

Granted, a sabertooth shifter wasn't the mate she would have chosen for her second-youngest son, especially not after all the trouble her family had had with sabertooth shifters a few years ago.

But Cassie and Thor had bonded well before today's wedding, so Elle had bowed to the inevitable and tried to make the best of things.

It hadn't been easy.

Sure, Cassie seemed sweet enough, but she had brought fresh trouble with her in the form of an abduction attempt and a violent confrontation that had left four sabertooth shifters dead and another badly injured and in police custody.

And all of this had happened only two days before the wedding!

Elle viewed sabertooth shifters as a whole as a violent, brutal, and only marginally civilized shifter lineage.

There were exceptions, of course—like Cassie—but trouble seemed to follow the sabertooths like a swarm of bees following their queen.

Not that any of the things that happened this week were really Cassie's fault, Elle reminded herself.

Her son was head-over-heels for his bride, and she seemed to feel the same way about him.

In the end, love is the only thing that matters, right?

Elle watched as Cassie's father, Justin Long, who was wearing a white dress shirt with a black and crystal bolo tie under his tailored black jacket, handed the bride ceremonially off to Thor.

The man kissed his daughter on the cheek, then approached Elle to take a seat next to her.

Justin was tall and leanly muscular, with short, tawny hair currently hidden under his fancy white cowboy hat. He had handsome tanned features and striking blue-green eyes. He oozed catlike grace and confidence, and his slow smile did funny things to Elle’s breathing.

She found herself uncomfortably aware of his presence next to her and tried to concentrate on the ceremony instead.

It didn't help that she found his scent—clean, healthy male with a hint of feline musk—disturbingly appealing.

She tried to focus on the ceremony, on the joy reflected in both Cassie and Thor's expressions as they gazed at each other, but she found herself sneaking sideways looks at Justin.

Damn the man for distracting her! She was too old to fall for a pretty face…even if it belonged to someone who wasn't deliberately trying to be sexy.

Justin just was, and that made her reaction to him all the more irritating.

Still, she noticed he was wearing a polished silver belt buckle in a flowing filigree pattern, with a small gilded outline of the state of Texas in the middle.

And he had ironed his brand-new black jeans. There was a neat crease down the center of each long leg, which ended in a pair of beautifully worked dark gray ostrich-skin cowboy boots. Nothing flashy, but she could tell they had been custom-made for him and were of the best quality.

Elle was glad that she was wearing a low-cut chiffon dress in swirling colors that complimented her complexion, and then she felt annoyed at herself for caring.

The wedding ceremony was short but heartfelt.

When the vows had been completed and the wedding rings exchanged, Thor enthusiastically kissed Cassie to the accompaniment of cheers and applause from the assembled guests.

Justin applauded, but Elle heard him mutter, "You'd better treat my baby girl right, Mr. Bear."

"Of course he will," she hissed under her breath, offended. "I don't know what you're used to, but he's a Swanson. We know how to cherish our mates!"

She didn't think anyone had overheard them over the tumult, even with all of the shifters in attendance, but then she caught her second-oldest son Mark glaring at Justin from his place on the dais.

Of all her sons, Mark had had the most difficult time coming to terms with his new sister-in-law.

This was probably because of the extremely unpleasant incident at the ranch a few years ago, when a group of sabertooth shifters from New Mexico had tried to kill his mate Caitlyn.

When their first assassination attempt failed, the shifters had invaded the ranch with hostages in tow and had engaged in a violent standoff.

But that was all in the past. Besides, the invaders had been members of a New Mexico pride of shifters. Cassie and Justin were members of the New Braunfels Pride, based in the Texas Hill Country.

Justin shot Elle a wary sideways glance from those amazing blue-green eyes.

"My apologies, ma'am," he whispered. "I'm sure you're right. But she's my only child, and she's already been through a real tough time, thanks to my poor judgment."

Elle remembered what Thor had told her about his fiancée's ordeal during a previous attempt at arranging a mating for her.

On impulse, she reached out and patted the back of Justin's hand, which rested on his thigh. "Cassie's family now," she whispered. "And we Swansons take care of our own."

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. She saw Justin try and fail to conceal a wince.

"I'm sure y'all will do a better job than I did," he murmured, bitterly.

* * *

Justin Long had never met anyone like Elle Swanson.

He'd heard that bear shifters tended to be matriarchal, but that hadn't prepared him for her air of quiet authority and unshakeable confidence, all wrapped in an extremely attractive package of mature womanhood.

During the brief wedding ceremony, he remained focused on Cassie's radiant smile as his daughter exchanged vows with the tall, dark-haired Swanson boy, but he couldn't ignore Elle's fascinating presence at his side.

His inner cat was extremely intrigued by her scent, and Justin had to fight the compulsion to lean in and press himself against the woman sitting next to him. He wanted to bury his face against the side of her neck and just breathe her in.

She was attractive. And a widow, so therefore technically available to be courted.

Unfortunately for him, she'd also made it clear that she viewed sabertooth shifters with deep suspicion and was tolerating his presence here solely out of courtesy to her son and his bride. Damn.

It was unsettling to realize that he wanted to get to know her better…a whole lot better.

Rather than putting him off, though, her air of deep reserve felt like an intriguing challenge.

Justin hadn't met many interesting shifter women since his mate Liza's death in a plane crash when Cassie was twelve. And Elle Swanson was definitely interesting, especially the glimpses he'd caught of the warm, vital woman who lived inside that tough shell.

But what can a sabertooth shifter from Texas with a fair amount of mileage on him possibly do to make a good impression on her?

Judging from what he'd heard over the past couple of days, she didn't have a lot of respect for his kind.

And he wasn't sure she was wrong.

Climbing a sabertooth pride hierarchy required behaving like a raging asshole most of the time, so people got the wrong impression about all sabertooth shifters based on the behavior of the high-ranking few.

Well, I'm going be in Bearpaw Ridge for another few days, he told himself. Maybe I can show her that we're not all violent criminals.