Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: 5/26/2020
It’s not easy being a
billionaire, a wolf shifter, and a woman…
Lexi Summerfield built her
business from the ground up. But with great wealth comes great responsibility,
and some drawbacks Lexi could not have anticipated. Lexi never knows who she
can trust… Even on vacation, Lexi has a hard time trying to relax. And for good
reason—the paparazzi are dogging her, and so is someone else with evil intent.
Then Lexi meets bodyguard and
gray wolf shifter Ryder Gallagher, who’s also vacationing at Redwood National
Park. When the two run into each other on the hiking trails, and then
serendipitously rescue two bear cubs, Lexi feels safe for the first time in she
can’t remember when. But secrets have a way of surfacing… With the danger
around Lexi escalating, Ryder will do whatever it takes to stay by her side…
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Friendship
is fine. Mating for life is a whole other story.” Lexi had never checked into
their backgrounds, something she would definitely have done if one of the
wolves had really moved her.
“I
agree with you there.”
The
rain-saturated breeze switched, and Lexi smelled the scent of a male wolf and a
black bear that had passed through there recently.
“The
wolf has to be a lupus garou like us,” Kate said, “since no one has
reported any sightings of wolves in the area. Maybe the wolf was the one who
left the message?”
“I
don’t believe so.” Lexi didn’t think her father would ask another wolf to get
involved in this. The fewer people who knew about it, the better. “And there’s
a female black bear, by the smell of her, roaming the area. Keep your eyes
peeled and continue to make noise. We need to head on back before the rain
starts anyway. We can check the other location later. It will take us about an
hour to reach the cabin.”
Kate
laughed. “How often does the weatherman get it right?”
Lexi
saw a fairy ring of mushrooms and took another picture. “Yeah, I know. But you
know me. I always try to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Light
rain began to fall, and then the drops grew bigger. Lexi hurried to put away
her camera, and both laughing, they pulled out their ponchos. They were already
soaked by the time they got the ponchos on. Still, they’d be protected somewhat
from the continuing rainfall.
A
couple of young bear cubs cried out somewhere in the distance, and Lexi’s
adrenaline surged. “Do you hear that?”
“Yeah,
they’re close by. It sounds like danger to me.”
“They’re
crying for their mother. They have to be in trouble. I’ll see if the park
rangers can rescue them.” Lexi hurried to get her phone out and called the
ranger service. “Hi, my friend and I were hiking, and we heard the distress
calls of a couple of bear cubs.”
“We’ve
got our hands full with a family of hikers who have lost their way, including
one who’s badly injured. And a search party is looking for another missing
hiker. We can look into the cubs’ situation after we’ve taken care of the
hikers in distress.”
“Thanks.”
Lexi ended the call.
“You
didn’t tell them where the bear cubs are.”
“The
park rangers are too busy with human distress calls. You’re my bodyguard. You
can protect me.” Lexi left the designated trail, which she wouldn’t normally do
as a human because she didn’t want to trample the vegetation. The bear cubs’
cries guiding her, she raced through the forest as best she could, trying not
to stumble over tree branches and fall into the ferns filling the understory.
Kate
trailed close behind her. “This is a dangerous idea. Where there are cubs,
there’s a mother bear nearby. The female bear we smelled, I betcha.”
“Unless
something has happened to her. And then we need to rescue them.”
“What
do you propose we do? Take them home with you?”
Lexi
was sure Kate wasn’t being serious. Wolves raising bear cubs at her oceanside
home? No way.
“Once
we rescue them, I’ll call the park rangers to pick up the cubs and take care of
them if the mother doesn’t come for them. The rangers can find a home for them.
As young as the cubs’ cries sounded, they wouldn’t be able to make it on their own.”
Lexi
and Kate continued to move quickly through the underbrush in the direction of
the cliffs. Lexi’s skin prickled with unease, her stomach twisting in knots.
From the sound of the cubs’ cries, they were way down below the cliffs, and the
only way to reach them quickly would be climbing down there. That terrified
her. Worse, her fearful scent would clue Kate in.
No
way had Lexi wanted anyone to know what had happened to make her fear cliffs.
She prided herself on keeping her secret. But even now, she suffered a
flashback: gasping as a wolf as the soil and rocks at the edge of the cliff
gave way, free-falling toward the rocky ground, praying some of the tree
branches would help to break her fall. They did, scraping and bruising her, but
she still landed badly on the rocks below and broke her left hind leg. Just
from the memory, she felt a shock of phantom pain shoot up her left leg. That
would be the last time she’d fight with a boyfriend and take off on her own
without telling anyone where she’d be.
It
had been a stupid thing to do, something she had seen others do in videos on I
Shouldn’t Be Alive—in other words, going alone, not telling anyone where
she’d be, not having a satellite phone in remote areas, and not having water
with her—though as a wolf, that was understandable. She’d sworn she’d never do
anything that dumb herself. Worse, she’d been in her wolf form and couldn’t
climb to safety with a broken leg, so she’d had to shift into her human naked
form before help arrived.
She
and Kate finally reached a steep cliff and Lexi hesitated, not wanting to get
near the edge that, according to forest ranger reports on the area, were known
to crumble. Chills raced down her bare arms and legs. She had to force herself
to move toward the cliff’s edge. Slowly, so she wouldn’t end up falling and
breaking a leg like she’d done before.
“Are
you okay?” Kate asked.
“Yeah,
sure. The cliff face is unstable. I’m just being careful.” But it was a lot
more than that.
“Okay,
yeah, you’re smart to do that. I guess I can’t talk you out of taking this
dangerous route and looking for a safer way to get down there instead.”
“I
don’t want to risk delaying the rescue.” Lexi finally reached the edge. She
observed the rocky cliff, looking for the best way to climb down, terrified she
would fall. The mewling cries were coming from the base of the cliff near a
couple of trees.
“This
is not what I had in mind when I signed up to… Holy shit,” Kate said, peering
over the edge of the cliff.
Lexi
looked down at the swollen creek rushing along the banks of the cliff. “The
creek’s risen because of all the rain. The cubs are crying in a den down below.
They could drown. We have to save them.” Lexi started down the cliff, grabbing
whatever she could—rocks, tree roots, vines—to keep from falling to her death
or breaking a leg or more. She grabbed what looked like a stable rock, but as
soon as she tried to hold it and move her right foot to another rock, the one
in her left hand pulled free. She fell and cried out, grabbing for anything that
could stop her fall. She grasped a tree root and hung on for dear life, her
breath coming out in harried puffs.
“Oh
God, hang on, Lexi. I really didn’t sign up for this.” Kate waited to
descend so she didn’t cause an avalanche of rocks and dirt to collapse on Lexi.
“You
don’t have to do it.”
“Are
you kidding? Then you’d be able to take all the glory!”
Lexi
smiled, then frowned. If the mother bear attacked them, there wouldn’t be much
glory in that.
***
Excerpted from Night of the Billionaire Wolf by Terry Spear. © 2020 by Terry Spear. Used with
permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks
Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.
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About the author:
USA Today bestselling author TERRY
SPEAR has written over forty paranormal romances. Heart of the Wolf was
named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and Billionaire in
Wolf’s Clothing was a Romantic Times Top Pick. A retired officer of the
U.S. Army Reserves, Terry also creates award-winning teddy bears. She lives in
Spring, Texas.
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