Bear (Via Daemonia Motorcycle Club Book 2)

Chapter 1

Bear was starting to hate blonde-haired women. In the four months since his single night with Tessa, a part of him had never stopped searching for her. Every blonde head with short hair was, for a millisecond, Tessa before she turned and Bear saw her face. He was starting to lose hope. Except for the day directly after their one-night stand, Bear hadn’t actively been looking for her. It was just a part of his brain that did so subconsciously. It wasn’t until the disappointment hit him that it wasn’t Tessa that he would realize what he’d been doing.

He was aggravated with himself, and it was starting to show externally. If only he’d woken her up to tell her he was just running out to get them breakfast, or left her a note saying he’d be back soon, or waited to see if she even wanted breakfast… He’d been so stupid to leave. She probably thought he’d left to avoid the awkwardness of the morning-after. She had no idea he’d been coming back because he’d stupidly left without telling her he was.

Bear didn’t blame her. He blamed himself.

He hadn’t gotten her last name, her phone number, or even her hometown. She’d been at a bar in Pittsburgh, but that had been for a party. She could have flown in from Seattle for all he knew.

Others had noticed his increased aggravation. His club brothers likely thought it had to do with their recent visit by cartel boss Juan Castillo. None of them had been happy when Gus, the prospect who’d been guarding the entrance gate to the clubhouse property, had called to announce that a Juan Castillo was at the gate to see Steel, the Via Daemonia’s President.

It had been a Sunday, so the entire club was present for their weekly post-club run barbecue. The cartel boss had come in with only two bodyguards, like he hadn’t had a care in the world.

Lucky, Bear’s best friend and the club’s Vice President, was engaged to Harper Hannigan, the daughter and sister of the men who owed Juan Castillo’s brother three hundred large. As soon as Gus had called over who was at the gate, Lucky had rushed his kids and fiancée out of the clubhouse and into their recently built house on club property.

Bulldog, the club’s Sergeant at Arms, had flanked Steel in Lucky’s place. Bear, who was the largest brother, had taken up Bulldog’s position. Even if Castillo took the time to read their officer positions on their cuts, Lucky’s absence wouldn’t be automatically noticed.

The remaining of the brothers, their family members, and the Honeys had stayed outside under the pavilion. Castillo and his two bodyguards along with Steel, Bulldog, and Bear had gone into the clubhouse.

To Bear’s surprise, he liked Juan Castillo. He didn’t like what the man stood for or how he made his money, but he thought the man had an honest way about him that was rare in today’s world and even rarer for a criminal. Juan was open with Steel, explaining that he’d been unaware of his brother’s involvement with starting a human trafficking ring. He claimed he would take care of it now that he was aware. He’d even gone as far as to thank Steel for sending him the bodies of Marcos (last name unknown) and Mark Connelly as proof of Mateo’s involvement.

Scar, the club’s Enforcer, had been gone for three weeks around the time Bear had traveled to Pittsburgh to see Ali Carson. He’d been delivering three bodies to the Castillo brothers. Richard Hannigan, Harper’s brother and the cause of the trafficking ring touching southern Pennsylvania, had been abducting women to pay back his gambling debt to Mateo Castillo. Before he’d died, he’d admitted to raping one woman to prove his loyalty to Castillo. All of the women he’d abducted, thirteen in total, had ended up at slave auctions—or had intended to be if the MC hadn’t gotten involved. Scar had delivered Richard’s body to the younger Castillo brother in Detroit with the message that the man’s debt was paid. It was unlikely Castillo would let three hundred thousand go since he hadn’t gotten paid yet for the women Richard had abducted. Thanks to the MC, they had been set free. Bear and his fellow officers were brainstorming ideas on how Castillo might try to still get compensation, the most likely options were from Richard’s parents, his widow, or his sister.

The other two bodies, Marcos and Connelly, Scar had delivered to the elder Castillo with a list of Mateo’s crimes. No one had expected Juan to show up at their doorstep almost six weeks later.

Though Richard Hannigan had abducted thirteen women around the United States, there had been thirty-four women in the shipping container the VDMC had intercepted, plus a nine-year-old girl and a seventeen-year-old girl. Others had obviously been abducting women on Castillo’s behalf. Though the Feds were now investigating, Keys, the club’s computer genius, was also on the case. He was spending countless hours tracking down the women, where they were from, how they’d been taken… He was looking for patterns, ways to link other missing women’s cases to Castillo’s trafficking ring.

So far, what he’d found was horrifying.

Juan Castillo vowed that his brother would be stopped. Steel had told him, if Juan didn’t, the MC would. Juan seemed to be okay with that and even gave Steel a number he could reach Juan directly if anything else happened involving Mateo.

In a way, it had been a pleasant meeting. There’d been no threats or posturing. Juan had been almost jovial, despite the heinousness of the topic of conversation. It had not been how Bear had envisioned the meeting going.

Carlos, Bulldog’s brother and the deputy sheriff of Mount Grove, had been the officer to report the trafficking ring to the Feds. He’d been kept in the loop but wasn’t sharing information with the club. He was aware of the murders the club had committed in retribution, and he didn’t approve of their actions.

Bear wasn’t a murderer. He’d spent ten years as a Marine. He’d killed, and he wasn’t happy about it. There was a senselessness to the killing of war, especially modern warfare that was so often fought at a distance. But there were some crimes Bear believed were so despicable that they didn’t deserve a trial or jailtime. They deserved a bullet and a six-foot deep grave.

He was aware that the club had not been on the right side of the law. What they had done did fall under vigilantism and murder. But even Carlos admitted there were flaws to the justice system.

A man who raped, abducted, and sold women to become unwilling sex slaves was not a man and did not deserve to sit in a jail cell for a couple of years before getting out to do it all over again.

That wasn’t justice for the victims. The man’s jail sentence would end. The woman’s nightmare and terror may never end.

Bear wasn’t a woman. He was a six-six man with a large physique. There wasn’t much in this world that could hurt him or that scared him. He couldn’t imagine going through life wondering if you were going to become a statistic. One out of four women… That was a terrible reality to face.

Bear’s father, an equally large man, had raised him with strict values. Women were to be protected at all costs. Not because they were the weaker sex, but because they were valued.

The entire club had been shocked and horrified when they’d discovered it hadn’t been drugs in that shipping container but women and girls. So, it was understandable to his brothers how Bear’s irritation had increased in recent months. It took a sick and twisted man to do such unspeakable things.

None of his brothers, not even Lucky, knew about Tessa. Lucky had a lot going on in his life. He was newly engaged, his daughter had just graduated college and was considering moving to New York City, his son had Down Syndrome and was still getting used to his new service dog Spot, and he’d just moved into a new house because his old one had burned down. Bear would never forget the terror he’d felt when he’d gotten that phone call.

Lucky, Harper, Scotty, Steel, and Steel’s wife and ol’ lady Jenna had been inside Lucky’s house when Harper’s brother had thrown a Molotov cocktail through the living room window. Steel and Jenna had gotten trapped, and Lucky had gone back inside to get them. He’d saved their lives, but at a cost. The bottoms of Lucky’s feet had been badly burned. Though he was walking once more, the nerve damage had been extensive. His mother had been a drug addict. As a result, Lucky refused to use any opioids once he’d been discharged from the hospital.

As a hospice nurse, Bear had been able to treat and care for Lucky’s wounds at home. At that time, Harper had still had an active lease on her apartment since she hadn’t officially moved into Lucky’s house yet, and the couple had had little choice for living arrangements after the fire. Since then, Lucky had bought and built a modular home on club property by Steel and Jenna’s house.

With so much going on in his life, Bear didn’t want to bother Lucky with Bear’s measly sob story about how his one-night stand had run out on him. What was Lucky to say anyway? “Sorry, man. Shit happens.” Lucky couldn’t fix anything and he certainly couldn’t track Tessa down, so there’d been no point in telling him.

Plus, and Bear was only grudgingly willing to admit this to himself, he was hurt that Tessa had left so. Even if she did believe he’d left for good, she could have left a note just in case, or waited around five more minutes. He hadn’t been gone that long.

Long enough, though.

Telling Lucky would change nothing. Bear had considered going to Keys. If anyone could find Tessa on nothing more than her first name and where she’d been on a specific night, it was Keys. But again, Keys had more important things to deal with than tracking down Bear’s wayward one-night stand. Like tracking down human traffickers and abducted women.

Bear just needed to accept it wasn’t meant to be. He needed to move on. He needed to stop thinking about her.

It was the Honeys who’d noticed something was off with Bear and, unfortunately, one or more had gone to Steel. Steel, who did not like to be bothered in regard to the Honeys, had called Bear into his office to ask him if his dick was broken. When Bear had replied that it wasn’t, Steel had told him he was glad to hear it but, if any of the Honeys come to complain about his lack of attention towards them again, he’d castrate Bear himself. With a dull spoon. Bear had fought the urge to cup himself as he’d left Steel’s office.

The Honeys, as the club referred to them, were women employed by the club to clean, cook, and do laundry. Though it is not part of their job description, they did sleep with the brothers. Openly and often.

Bear was no stranger to hooking up with the Honeys. He was a single red-blooded male, after all. He’d been with all of them more than once and wasn’t shy about it. He liked them and appreciated their company, but they weren’t his friends and they weren’t his girlfriends. They had no business going to Steel because, apparently, he’d stopped sleeping with them.

That conversation with Steel had gotten him thinking, though. He hadn’t had sex since Tessa. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d gone four months without sex. It was definitely during his deployment days.

Maybe the way to move on from Tessa and get her out of his head was to sleep with someone else. Not one of the Honeys, though. They’d pissed him off when they’d gone to Steel because he’d stopped showing them affection. Childish and immature is what that was. Just as the Honeys weren’t required to sleep with the club brothers, the club brothers weren’t required to sleep with them. It was a two-way street. He was allowed to say ‘no’ as much as they were. Just because they were unhappy that, according to them, he’d been withholding his cock from them, did not give them a right to go to Steel about it.

A part of Bear wanted to return to that roadhouse bar in Pittsburgh. He knew she wouldn’t be there, but there was this thought in the back of his mind that, if they were meant to be, she would be. Like that movie, Serendipity.

Which was stupid.

Bear wasn’t a romantic guy. Not anymore anyway. There’d been a time when he’d wined and dined his women…until Bonnie had broken his heart. He’d come home from deployment to find their apartment empty of all her things and a Dear John note on the table next to the engagement ring he’d bought her.

Frustrated and not in the mood to go to Demon on the Rocks, the club’s bar, Bear took his sled out. For his fortieth birthday, he’d traded in his used Fat Boy for a new Harley-Davidson Road Glide. He loved his birthday gift to himself.

He knew it was foolish to go to Pittsburgh. He told himself he wasn’t going to go to Pittsburgh.

And yet, he found himself headed north out of town. Amish country surrounded most of Mount Grove. Most of the town’s produce came from the Amish. Tourists generally visited the area for the small-town America atmosphere and the Amish sold goods.

The land owned by the Amish went on for miles. There were no roads north out of Mount Grove without passing by their fields.

It was dark. Bear hadn’t been paying attention to what time, but most bars stayed open until two or three in the morning. He needed to find a hookup—not a blonde one—to get his mind off of Tessa. That was his goal.

Headlights interrupted his mindless driving. He wasn’t far out of town, maybe fifteen miles or so, but still within Mount Grove County. What had caught his attention wasn’t the fact that this was the first car he’d passed, but the erratic way the driver was driving. The car was speeding too. That wasn’t uncommon around these parts with the long open roads, but even this seemed excessive.

Suddenly the car swerved, making a U-turn right in front of Bear. He hit his brakes to avoid a collision. It was when the vehicle was perpendicular to him that he saw it wasn’t a car but a paneled van with blackened windows.

The side door flew open and something was thrown out onto the road. It rolled mere inches past where Bear’s sled was skidding to a halt. The van fishtailed, almost landing itself in the ditch. Then Bear could only see brake lights as it sped away.

His heart was hammering in his chest at the near miss.

Bear looked for what had been thrown out of the van. He’d expected to see a dog—and was horrified to find, instead, the body of a child. Knowing he’d need the light from his hog, he drove the small distance to where she lay crumbled in the street.

Bear put down his kickstand but left the sled running. He rushed to the girl, pulling out his phone as he did.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

Bear gave his location to the best of his ability. “I’m an off-duty RN,” he informed the dispatcher. “I have an approximately twelve-year-old female who was just thrown from a moving vehicle into the road. She is unconscious.” He peeled her eyelids open and moved his phone light in front of them. “Pupils are responsive.” He glanced down her body. “She’s been sexually assaulted,” he said with acid in his voice. “Evidence of vaginal bleeding.” There was more blood coming from elsewhere though. He just needed to find the bleeder. He placed the phone down on the road. “She’s got an active bleed. I’ve placed you on speaker so I can find it. Can you hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” the dispatcher said. “EMTs and police are on their way. ETA four minutes.”

“Fuck,” Bear said as he found the bleeder. He rolled her onto her side, sliding his knees under her back to keep her in the position he needed. “Tell them to hurry. She’s got an anterior spinal arterial bleed.” He said a silent apology to the girl as he plunged his fingers into the wound. “Almost there… Got it! I’ve got it pinched off, but now I’m stationary. I can’t examine her further.”

“Did you find any identification on her?”

“Ma’am,” Bear said vehemently, “she doesn’t have anything on her. She’s completely naked.”

“Sir, please repeat. Did you say she is naked?”

“Yes,” Bear snapped. “They fucking threw a nakedtwelve-year-old girl out of their van into the middle of oncoming traffic!”

“Sir, I need you to remain calm?—”

“I am calm. Where are the fucking paramedics?”

“You should see them coming any second. Will they be able to clearly see you?”

“Yeah. Tell them to look for a motorcycle in the middle of the road. If they hit it, they’ve gone too far and owe me a new one.”

Despite the protestsof the paramedics and the police officers, Bear remained with the girl in the ambulance and into the hospital. He could have turned her over to the paramedics, but the exact position of his fingers was the difference between this girl living and her dying. If the paramedics didn’t get a clamp on her fast enough or in the exact right position, she would die.

They didn’t like it, but Bear had higher medical credentials. It was his call. They got her face-down on a backboard, then lifted up onto a stretcher.

When Bear learned they were headed to Mount Grove Memorial, he told the police officers to talk to him there. He hadn’t been paying close enough attention to the cops to see if he knew them. He was familiar with most of the Mount Grove police but was closer to others. As he was climbing into the ambulance with the stretcher, he called over his shoulder to have one of them call Carlos, the Deputy Sheriff and the brother of the VDMC’s Sergeant at Arms, to pick up his Road Glide.

He wasn’t happy about leaving it on the side of the road, but the girl’s life was more important than his sled.

The paramedics had started an IV and to get her vitals. Partway to the hospital, which was only about six minutes, the girl let out a low moan, but didn’t budge.

Bear did not like the fact that, while her fingers and hands occasionally twitched, her legs and toes did not. If her impact with the road had been hard enough to sever her artery, it wasn’t that long of a stretch to assume it had caused nerve damage too.

It was chaos as soon as they entered the hospital. A nurse met them at the door, ordering them to an exam room. Bear followed her instructions automatically. He hadn’t worked in an emergency room in close to a decade. Once he’d found his calling in hospice, he’d never looked back.

He let the paramedics relay the girl’s stats as she was transferred from the gurney onto a hospital bed. His fingers were starting to cramp, and he needed a surgeon in here now to take over for him.

“Page Surgery,” a familiar voice called out as she walked into the room. “We need to get her in the OR, stat!”

Bear looked up just as the doctor did. Their eyes met and shock registered in both of them as recognition struck.

Then his eyes went down. To her rounded baby bump.

Tessa couldn’t believethat Bear, her only one-night stand in her entire life and the father of her unborn child, was standing in her hospital with his fingers pinching off an arterial bleed. When dispatch had called ahead to say an ambulance was coming in with a Good Samaritan, who was also a registered nurse, Tessa had automatically assumed a woman. She should know better. People assumed “Dr. Fisher” was a man until told otherwise.

But man or woman, she hadn’t been expecting Bear. Nope. Never. Wasn’t even in her top one hundred possibilities of whom she would find in her ER.

His eyes were very clearly on her baby bump. At nineteen weeks, Tessa’s bump was just starting to show. She wasn’t huge in the stereotypical pregnancy sense. Her stomach had definition and a roundness to it that it never had before. Much to her annoyance, she was a petite woman. At five foot-two and a hundred and fifteen pounds, her belly was more pronounced than if she was a taller or larger woman. With her lab coat open, her bump was obvious beneath her scrubs.

“Doctor, the OR is ready.” Melissa, one of the nurses, said from behind Tessa. When Tessa just stood there, she repeated, worriedly, “Doctor?”

Tessa jumped into action, her training taking over. She’d already been in the process of putting on gloves when she’d walked into the examination room to find Bear. Papa Bear, as she’d started to think of him in her mind.

She rushed forward. “Clamps!”

It only took a few seconds for her to clamp off the bleed. Bear released his hand, withdrawing from the patient. The man was a bloody mess, but it appeared none of it was his.

“Show him where he can get cleaned up,” Tessa said to Melissa. “Duncan, she’s ready. Go.” The surgical resident student came forward and ran the gurney to the OR.

Now standing alone in an empty bloody room, Tessa leaned back against the counter and sighed. Holy crap. Bear was in her hospital. Suddenly, she looked around frantic. She shouldn’t have let him out of her sight. What had she been thinking? He was a proven flight risk. He obviously knew about the baby. Would he run again?

Tessa took off her bloody gloves and threw them in the biohazard trash can. Within a week of conceiving, her nose had been sensitive to the smell of blood. At first it had made her nauseous, to the point that it made her job very uncomfortable. Now it was just a very coppery note in the air.

Her morning sickness had thankfully been mostly in the mornings, which was after all a myth. She worked nights at Mount Grove Memorial, so only the occasional vomit triggered by smell or food had disrupted her work.

Tessa washed up and exited the room. A janitorial orderly was waiting to enter and start cleaning. The smell of bleach seemed to permeate off the man, but that was just her oversensitive nose.

Bear was walking very fast down the hallway towards her. Or the exit behind her.

She stepped in front of him, blocking his exit in case he intended to keep on walking past her. “We need to talk.”

“Fuck yeah, we do.”

Good. At least he wasn’t running. A baby was a big responsibility. She had every intention of keeping her baby and raising him or her without their father if needed. Bear had a right to know about the baby, though, and to have a chance to be in his or her life.

Tessa led him towards the doctor’s break room. Other than the trauma victim, it had been a slow night. She knew better than to think that or say it out loud though. She would not be the nightly jinx that set the ER aflame.

Thankfully, no one else was in the break room. Dr. Bennett was taking a nap and Dr. Miller was in his office.

“You’re pregnant,” Bear said as soon as the door was closed.

“Yes, nineteen weeks.”

“It’s mine.”

Tessa blinked in amazement and disbelief. He said it like he was sure of the fact. Most men, she would assume, in his position would be looking for a way out. The easiest way for that would be a paternity test. But Bear wasn’t questioning the baby’s paternity. He was claiming it. Without argument or hesitation. He wasn’t pointing out that they’d used a condom both times they’d had intercourse. As a nurse, he probably knew better than most that condoms were not a hundred percent effective. His lack of denial was admirable.

“I didn’t know how to find you,” she said in lieu of an answer. “We didn’t exactly exchange numbers that night.” Or last names, though she didn’t say that part out loud. No matter how excited she was for this baby, a part of her still couldn’t believe she’d slept with a man whose legal name she didn’t know.

“Before we get into anything else, I need to clarify something. I was an idiot that morning and I messed up.” Bear had his hands on his hips, but he wasn’t looking at her or the floor. His eyes were fixated on her baby bump, like he was afraid if he looked away the baby would vanish. “I left to get us breakfast. When I came back, you were gone.”

Tessa’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “You what?” He’d been coming back?

He nodded. His dark green eyes finally met hers, open and honest. “I was gone maybe fifteen minutes, but it was obviously too long. You’d left. I get it. You had no way of knowing I was coming back. That’s where the I’m-an-idiot part comes in. I should have left you a note or woken you up to tell you where I was going. I thought I was being sweet and snuck out so you could sleep more. I’m sorry.”

For four months, Tessa had believed that this man had snuck out of that motel room, being quiet and stealthy, because he hadn’t wanted to deal with the morning-after awkwardness of a one-night stand. She’d been awake when he’d left. She’d waited to see if he’d kiss her or leave a note or something. When he’d slipped out the door and she’d heard the roar of his motorcycle, she’d assumed the worst. Shame for, what she’d then referred to as, her slutty actions the night before had her rushing out of that motel bed. Unable to stay in that room a moment longer, she’d gotten dressed and left. Her car had still been parked at the bar across the street. She’d driven away, not knowing he was coming back or that she was pregnant with his baby.

“I’m sorry too,” she admitted. “I thought?—”

“I know what you thought and it’s completely understandable. I wish I could go back and just have left you a damn note. Seems so simple of an action, yet it hadn’t even crossed my mind that morning.” He stepped forward, his dark green eyes still fixated on her stomach. “May I?”

Tessa was glad he’d asked. Since she’d started showing, she’d had a number of co-workers and even patients who’d tried to touch her without asking first. Bear was the one person she felt didn’t need to ask, and yet he’d been the one who had. Since they were alone in the room, Tessa lifted her scrub shirt so he could see her rounded belly.

She’d never forgotten how big he was. She was five foot-two. He was six foot-six. His large hand was able to spread the entirety of her stomach.

Bear went to his knees before her. Even still, the top of his head was just below her chin. He held her stomach between his large hands. There was a reverence to his touch, a marvel. He leaned forward and pressed his ear to her belly. Tessa had the overwhelming urge to run her fingers through his shaggy hair.

She remembered his every touch from that night. How he’d held her, moved her. She’d been worried about his size, but he had been so gentle. Even when he was inside her, moving quickly and intensely, there’d been a softness to him that she hadn’t expected. She’d compared him to a teddy bear in her head that night.

Finally, he looked up at her from his place on the floor. There were tears in his green eyes. “Mama Bear. You’re carrying my cub.”

She smiled down at him, feeling her own eyes tear up. “Even when I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, I started calling you ‘Papa Bear’ in my head.”

“I need to be in my cub’s life, Tessa. Please don’t take this away from me.”

Unable to stop herself, she touched his bearded face. “I never intended to. He’s your baby as much as mine.”

Bear’s eyes lit up at the pronoun. “He?”

Tessa shrugged. “He feels like a he, but I don’t know for sure. I was going to find out at my next appointment.”

“I want to go with you.” Bear stood, clearly frustrated. “Fuck, I can’t believe I missed his first ultrasound.”

“Easy,” Tessa soothed. “Yes, you can come with me. You can be as involved or not involved as you want to be.”

An intensity crossed over his face. “I’m involved, Tessa. I’m here for anything and everything, both you and him.”

“We can exchange numbers and I’ll contact you?—”

“Hell no.”

Tessa froze. “What?”

“I’m not leaving.”

“But,” she gestured around them, “I’m at work.”

“And I’m staying with you.”

She was confused. “No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am,” he stated matter of factly. “I worked this ER. I know the crazies that come in here. I am not leaving you and our cub here unprotected.”

Though his words were crazy, his intentions were pure. She actually found it sweet. But still insane.

Tessa reached up and touched his bearded cheek. She recalled running her fingers through it as they made out on his motorcycle outside his motel room before he’d invited her inside. It was just as soft as she remembered. “Bear, I’ll be fine. I?—”

“There you are, Bear!” They both turned to see Deputy Sheriff Carlos Santiago walk into the break room. He was in uniform and holding his wide brimmed hat. “Oh, hey, Tessa,” he said when Bear shifted and Carlos saw she was in the room too.

“Hi, Carlos,” she said with a friendly smile.

Bear looked between the two. There was obvious familiarity, and he didn’t like it.

“How do you know Tessa?” he asked Carlos.

Carlos raised an eyebrow at the hostility in his voice. Tessa did too; Bear was usually easygoing and jovial. “We run into each other when a patient requires police presence. How do you know her?”

“She’s my Mama Bear.”

It took Carlos a moment to piece it together. His eyes widened and then he pointed between the two of them. “Holy shit. Bear’s your baby daddy?”

Tessa nodded. “If I’d known you two knew each other, I would have said something. I thought he lived in Pittsburgh.”

“Fuck,” Carlos murmured. “Small world. I can’t believe you’re going to be a dad?—”

“Papa Bear,” Bear corrected.

“Whatever, man!” Carlos laughed. He stepped forward and gave Bear a hug. “Congrats!”

Bear smiled widely and hugged his friend back. “Don’t say anything to the club yet. I need to tell Lucky first and my parents. Tessa and I still have a lot to figure out and my family is, you know…”

“Large, interfering, opinionated,” Carlos added unhelpfully.

“Yeah, all those.”

“No worries, man. My lips are sealed.” His face went into cop mode. “In all seriousness, though, I need to talk to you about what happened tonight.”

Bear nodded. He knew it was coming. “Can Tessa stay?”

“Of course.”

There was a round table with four chairs behind them. Carlos gestured to it. Bear led Tessa over, placing a hand at the small of her back. Tessa didn’t know why Bear wanted her there, but she stayed regardless. A part of her liked that Bear was so, no pun intended, overbearing.

She also loved how he referred to her as ‘Mama Bear’ instead of ‘Baby Mama’. Gave an air of personal touch and intimacy between them.

They were strangers who’d created a baby together. She didn’t know him and he didn’t know her. But there’d been something beyond chemistry that night between them. It had been the only reason she’d slept with him. She’d shared attraction with guys before, but Bear had been different. More.

It was why she’d been so hurt and disappointed when she thought he’d been sneaking out of the motel room to escape talking with her that morning. In the short time she’d known Bear, she’d really liked him. She didn’t know if they had a future together, but she was pleased he at least wanted to be in their child’s life.

She listened quietly as Bear told Carlos about how he’d found the girl in the road. Tessa was horrified. Who could be so cruel to a little girl?

“Any luck identifying her?” Bear asked.

Carlos shook his head. “We’re going through missing persons files now. She’s a minor so there’s different technicalities and protocols to follow. Once she’s out of surgery and cleaned up, we plan to take fingerprints and DNA samples.”

“She was raped, Carlos.” There was an iciness to his tone that shocked Tessa. It reminded her that this jovial giant had served time in the military and had seen and done things in combat. “Repeatedly if I had to guess. She had dried and fresh vaginal blood on the inside of her thighs. Obviously, I didn’t do an internal exam, but there’s no doubt in my mind. This might not be a recent missing child’s case.”

Tessa put her hand over her stomach. That girl was someone’s daughter. She had parents, maybe siblings… Someone had to be looking for her. It was rare but there were child abduction cases where the child was kept by their captor for long periods of time. Usually until he or she outgrew the predator’s age preferences. Sick bastards. Every one of them deserved to rot in Hell.

Carlos was writing in his note pad. “We’re considering all options. I’m going to post a deputy outside her room once she’s out of surgery.”

“I’m staying the night,” Bear informed him. “Or for however long Tessa’s shift is.”

Amusement crossed Carlos’s face before it turned serious again. “You carrying?”

Bear shook his head. “Not tonight.”

“Bulldog went to pick up your hog. I think he took it back to the clubhouse, but I can text him to have it brought here.” Carlos pulled a phone out of his pocket. “You left that in the road.”

Relief filled Bear’s face. “Thanks, man. That would have been a pain to replace.”

“Wasn’t looking but Harper called you twice and so did Sissy.”

“Fuck.” Bear unlocked his phone.

Tessa couldn’t see the screen and she was trying hard to resist the urge to look. Who was Sissy and Harper? Did Bear have a girlfriend? A wife? No, that was crazy. She’d asked him if he was married the night they’d met. Still, why were these women calling him so late? What if he’d lied and his Dear John letter sob story was just a line he used to gain sympathy from women he wanted to sleep with?

“Get that jealous look off your face, Mama Bear,” Bear said without even looking at her. He was busy texting. “Sissy is my niece and Harper is my best friend’s fiancée. I don’t know why they’re calling me so late. I’ll let you know once I do.”

“Oh, um,” Tessa cleared her throat, embarrassed. “It’s your business. It’s not… I was just… It’s your business.”

Bear turned an amused face towards her. “I am your business, Tessa Fisher. Or I plan to be. You have every right to know who is in my life because most of them will be in contact with our cub too.”

His statement made sense in regard to the baby. She wasn’t sure why her heart did funny pitter patters when he mentioned him planning on being her business too.

Carlos sat quietly amused as he watched their exchange. “This is going to be fun watching you two navigate whatever this is.” He pointed between them.

Bear looked to his friend. “Do you need anything else from me?”

Carlos turned towards Tessa. “You on a twelve or twenty-four?”

“Twelve,” she said. “They don’t let me do twenty-fours shifts anymore because of the pregnancy.”

“Good,” both Carlos and Bear said at the same time.

She glared at both. While her feet certainly agreed with the hospital’s policy, she did not since it made her schedule different than her co-workers. She didn’t like that it seemed like she was getting special treatment. At the end of her shifts, though, she was grateful for it. She could at least admit that.

Carlos looked back at Bear. “She’s here until seven then. You’re staying that whole time?”

Bear nodded. Tessa noticed Carlos’s eyes glance around the corners of the room. What was he looking for? Then he reached down to his ankle and pulled out a small gun. Tessa’s eyes went wide. She did not like guns. She saw the damage they caused all too often.

Carlos handed Bear the gun under the table. “That’s my personal and I pray you won’t need it. Keep an eye on the girl tonight. Gives me about seven hours to see if you-know-who is involved.”

While Tessa really doubted that Voldemort was responsible for the girl’s condition, she couldn’t help but ask, “Wouldn’t a wand be more effective?”

Bear’s eyes lit with elation. He tucked the gun into his pants at the small of his back and then leaned over to kiss her cheek. “You are one sexy Mama Bear. Fuck, the things I want to do to you.”

“On that note,” Carlos stood, “I’m out of here. Keep your phone on you. Let me know if something happens.”

Tessa watched Carlos leave. She turned back to Bear. “Okay. I have questions. Starting with why a cop just handed you a gun and why he’s leaving you in charge of that girl’s security instead of his own police force.”