Santa Soldier Bear - Meg Ripley Page 0,53

he knew he’d feel naked under her gaze, even if he were fully clothed.

“Don’t be sorry, Harper,” purred the woman to her left, the one who’d initially spoken. She openly eyed Austin’s broad chest without a hint of impropriety showing in her eyes. “If you ask me, this is going to get the Crawford Ranch a five-star review.”

“Oh my god, can we just go?” asked the third woman, shielding her eyes and edging away from the scene. “This is so embarrassing!”

Either Harper simply wasn’t impressed, or she was too cool to let him know. She kept her gaze carefully averted as she edged away. “We’ll go now. We’re looking for someone named Austin.”

“Well, you’ve found him.” Tucking in the corner of his towel, Austin sighed and grabbed his hat, gesturing around the corner of the barn toward the house. “You can head into the lodge and I’ll be there in a moment.” He couldn’t help himself as he stared at the blonde. His inner grizzly was stirring, impatient, eager to get closer to her. He stepped out of the shower, meaning to head toward the back of the house, but he brushed past her on his way.

Austin could hear the other women giggling and arguing as they went around to the front, but he could still feel Harper’s eyes on him.

No doubt, this was going to be a long week.

Her Rancher Bear will be available January 2021!

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Preview of Secret Baby For The Soldier Bear

Have You Read book 1 of the Special Ops Shifters: L.A. Force series? Flip the page for a preview…

1

Gabe Vinson scanned the dusty parking lot just before he stepped into the bar. It was a force of habit that he doubted he’d ever be able to drop. His time with the Delta Force had kept him constantly vigilant. Sure, there didn’t seem to be any threat from this place. Vance wouldn’t have invited him there if that were the case. Gabe smiled, thinking of some of the times they’d shared before Gabe had moved on to Delta and reconsidered. Or maybe he would have…

He found his old friend at the bar and slid onto the stool next to him. He glanced at the chalkboard menu on the wall and the clean tables scattered around the place. “This isn’t quite like the shit holes we used to frequent.”

Vance laughed and took a sip of his beer. “Yeah, it’s a little cleaner than those. And hey, you won’t get any sand in your whiskey here.” He gestured at the barkeeper to pour Gabe a drink. “How are you holding up?”

“Well enough,” Gabe said with a sigh, scratching his fingers through the short beard he’d grown out ever since his medical discharge. “You know how it is. You think when you get out that everything will have stayed the same, but it’s all different. All the girls you used to date have gotten married and had kids. Some of them even married your buddies, so they’re not interested in going out, either. Your family wants you to come visit, but they don’t know how to talk to you anymore. And even though they say they want to hear what you’ve been up to, you can only tell them so much.” He nodded at the bartender for the shot of whiskey and took a sip, enjoying the burn.

“I’m sure it’s even worse for you. The Delta Force doesn’t fuck around with that sort of stuff,” Vance agreed. “I’m mighty glad you made your way back around through Dallas, though. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about. You said you were trying to figure out what to do with yourself now that you’re out.”

“Right.” Gabe knew that Vance was a member of the Special Ops Shifter Force, a group of veteran soldiers with special skills on top of their ability to shift. It was supposed to be a secret, and it still was when it came to the human population, but the more work the Force did, the more word spread about them throughout the shifter community. Right now, they’d essentially achieved rumor status. It sounded like just the kind of work Gabe would enjoy, but it wasn’t as though the Force just stuck a ‘Now Hiring’ sign in the window when they had a vacant spot.

Vance looked casually over his shoulder. The bar was loud, and no one had been rude enough to sit down right