Husband Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire #1)(3)

It was here, in the back corner of the darkest room, that he pulled the envelope from his inside jacket pocket. The thick, heavy packet had been burning a hole against his chest. Or so it felt because the entire way here, he’d craved to take it out and stare at the woman’s picture again. This hibernation had apparently made him lose his damned mind.

The server was friendly, a local he’d seen before, and she only hesitated a moment when he ordered one of everything on the menu.

Galena, Alaska the paperwork read—the last place Cole McCall had been seen. That would be one helluva flight for a warm-up, but anything was doable for his old red and white Cessna 182. He’d get her up and running and probably get there by tomorrow, depending on how many places he needed to stop for fuel and food.

He frowned at the photo of the woman again. It was hard to tell in the grainy picture, but it looked like her lip was split. Ian swallowed a snarl that started deep in his chest, and tried to convince himself that the growl was about being hungry and not his protective instincts kicking up. He had no claim on this woman, and it came as zero shock if McCall had mishandled her. Asshole. Ian shoved Elyse Abram’s picture to the back of the stack and tried to concentrate through the rage that was boiling his blood.

“Are you okay, sir?” the waitress asked in a concerned tone.

She’d put plates of food all over the table, and he hadn’t even noticed her working beside him. Shit. Focus.

“Yeah,” he rasped out. It had been a long time since he’d used his voice, so he cleared it and tried again. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Smile. More genuinely. “Thanks.”

He read as he ate. McCall had been on a tear for the last month. Two trapper attacks, one fatal, but that wasn’t the worst of it. That wasn’t what got Cole hunted by someone like Ian. It was the picture of the little six-year-old girl. Dark hair and dark inquisitive eyes, probably Alaska Native. She’d been attacked right outside of Kaltag by a single, unprovoked wolf with McCall’s dark gray saddle back markings.

“Mother f*cker,” Ian rumbled, more growl than words.

He read faster. The girl had been care-flighted to Anchorage. The doctors were hopeful for her to survive, but as of last week, she was still in the ICU, listed in critical condition. When the hell had Clayton dropped this packet off? Ian searched for a date, but all of the printed numbers in the top left corner of each page were a week old. Cole was probably in the wind by now and would be harder to track.

Ian huffed an angry sigh and relaxed into the seat cushion as he stared out the window, his thoughts racing. A little girl. The food in his stomach turned to a block of cement. A little innocent girl, and Cole went after her. Why? Because that was what McCalls did. They should’ve done the world a favor and let their line die off generations ago, but no, they just kept procreating with unknowing humans. All the pups were males because female offspring didn’t live past childbirth, and all male McCalls grew up just as crazy as their ancestors. There was poison in their bloodline, and now the present-day pack was apparently old enough to start letting the madness in.

A week. What if Cole had gone after Elyse while Clayton was waiting for Ian to wake up? He swallowed hard. Elyse Abram. Best to keep her name formal in his mind since his heart started pounding every time he thought of her. It was dangerous to imagine himself attached to anyone. He had a better moral compass than to pass his bear shifter shit onto an innocent.

He needed to get it together. Eat, find a hotel, and scrub himself clean until he felt like a human again, charge his long-dead cell phone, check and prep his plane, and head to Galena to track down that psycho sonofabitch that would split a woman’s lip and harm a little girl just as easily as armed trappers.

Cole McCall had hell coming for him, and the damning fire that was about to engulf him had a name.

Ian Silver’s hunt started now.





Chapter Two


Elyse wiped sweat from her brow and pulled another bunch of rotten potatoes from the wooden box in the root cellar. She was so desperately low on food that each one felt like a slash to her stomach. Each represented another meal she wouldn’t eat because stupid Cole had stolen half her danged vegetables and most of their meat as well, just to pilfer off to his no-account brothers. She wasn’t totally off the grid, but there was no money for red meat. Red meat was hunted during the warm season and rationed, and if someone in the community needed help, people helped, knowing they would do the same for them if they could. But the way the McCalls did things was stealing. They never repaid anyone, and when she and Cole had started dating, the mooching had begun early. And the last couple months, when Cole was out drinking and kicking up some awful rumors with a couple of townie girls, his two brothers, Miller and Lincoln, had become aggressive with their freeloading.

She’d fought it, but Cole never defended her from their treatment and yelled at her for resisting his brothers. “They’re family,” he said, as if that gave them an excuse to abuse her hard work. Well, they were no relation to her. She’d worked her ass off to gather enough food to last the winter for her and Cole, and he’d just thrown it away, as if his no-good brothers were more important than her. So many red flags she’d ignored because she’d loved him. Or thought she did, but thinking back, perhaps she was just so desperate not to be alone through the long winters that she mistook companionship for love. Being with someone and still feeling completely alone was the worst feeling in the world.