Geek Bear Read online

  The last five hundred words she’d written sat on the word processor in front of her, reminding her how off her game she was.

  Willow slid her hands across her touchpad and highlighted everything she’d just written.

  With a deep sigh, she hit the delete key.

  “I guess today was a wash,” she said.

  Willow stared at the empty screen, her brain feeling as burned as that pot of coffee. The hero of her story had left the heroine because he wasn’t ready for love. She’d written the heroine’s reaction, but the character’s response was uncharacteristically tepid.

  The heroine should be angry, right? She looked at her notes and character sketches. It was all wrong. She’d made the hero hurt her heroine so badly, just the thought of it made Willow want to cry. But for the life of her, she couldn’t make her heroine care.

  Why was the heroine so unmoved? Did she even really love the hero? If she didn’t love him, then there was no story. Willow would have to start all over, and there wasn’t time for that now.

  She remembered the detective telling her to have her boyfriend stay over to protect her from the stalker. But Willow didn’t have a boyfriend. She hadn’t had a boyfriend in god knows how long.

  Willow growled at herself, clicking away from her manuscript to browse the internet. As a writer, surfing the internet during work time was a cardinal sin. One of her writer friends always called writers professional procrastinators. Willow had never had trouble with a deadline before. That’s why the publishing company had put her on Sandra Collins over two years ago. She’d written a dozen novels for Sandra since. Every one had been a bestseller.

  When Willow thought about all the money those books made, that she wasn’t making, it almost made her a little queasy. She tried not to think about it most of the time.

  Willow checked her emails and saw a message from a dating site pop up in her inbox. Just then, her phone pinged with a new message from the very same site.

  “Mate.com? When did I sign up for that?” she asked herself, clicking on the text message on her phone.

  Then she remembered. Mate.com was a shifter/human dating site. She’d signed up months ago when she was doing some research for a book she’d been writing at the time. The hero had been a shifter and the heroine a human.

  Ever since shifters had become so popular in the media, shifter romances had become just as hot. The Sandra Collins marketing division had decided against publishing shifter books, so Willow’s shifter book had gone to another name. Willow hadn’t been assigned another shifter book since. It was really too bad; she’d loved writing about fated mates.

  When the message from the dating app came up on her phone, she didn’t quite know what to think.

  “Congratulations. You’ve been matched with your fated mate!”

  “My fated mate?”

  Her heart started to pound and she bit her lip.

  Willow knew that shifters had one special someone who they knew instinctively was the one. Once fated mates found each other, nature took its course. A powerful pheromone was emitted by the shifter, and his mate was powerless against it. The shifter was powerless against his mate as well. The instinct to mate was overpowering.

  Now she’d been matched with one. From what she’ learned about shifters, she knew this guy would want her no matter what. He’d want to provide for her, protect her, and would probably want to start a family as soon as possible. That’s what shifter guys were like. The idea of having her own fated mate lit a fire inside her she hadn’t expected to ever feel. She was warm and flushed all over, thinking of a man wanting her like that.

  Willow clicked on the screen and brought up her match’s photo on Mate.com. She was struck instantly with how handsome he was. Shifters were all handsome. They were bigger, stronger, had keener senses, and were preternaturally good-looking.

  But it wasn’t that. There was something else. This guy wore glasses, which was odd for a shifter. But the eyes behind those glasses were what caught her attention.

  She could see the depths of his soul in those brown eyes.

  She blinked, pushing away her fanciful idea.

  “You’ve been in your romance novels too long, Willow. Things don’t happen like that in the real world. Not for you anyway.”

  Still, she couldn’t help but linger on his photo for a long time before scrolling down to read his profile.

  Like most young male shifters, he’d served during the war. He was a computer programmer by trade and lived in a small town called Fate Mountain Village where he served on the search and rescue team.

  Smart, courageous, and he volunteered. What could be hotter than that?

  Apparently, he lived in a small cabin at Fate Mountain Lodge where he worked for himself. The profile said he was looking for someone to make his life complete.

  Just as she was about to blow the whole thing off and try to get back to work, a message came up on her phone.

  “Hello, Willow. It’s me, Corey, your fated mate.”

  “Hi,” she replied, still a bit in shock.

  “I really want to meet you.”

  “Okay,” she typed, not knowing what else to say.

  “I’ve arranged for you to stay at Fate Mountain Lodge for the next week, free of charge. Everything is included. You just have to get here.”

  “Wow.”

  “That way, we can get to know each other.”

  “This is a little sudden. I’ll have to think about it.”

  “I’m awaiting your reply.”

  Willow read the conversation over a few times. With everything going on in her life, how was she supposed to deal with this? Shifters were known for their whirlwind relationships with their fated mates. Willow was so not ready for that right now. Was she?

  She had a half-finished book to write. A stalker to shake off. And a serious case of writer’s block. Of course she couldn’t get involved.

  She clicked back to her word processor and stared at the blinking cursor.

  Then again, she really could use some time away from everything. Maybe a trip to the mountains was exactly what she needed right now.

  3

  Corey rolled out of bed with a growly groan. He rubbed his eyes and trudged through the house, glancing at the clock on the stove. It was already past noon. He clicked on his coffee pot to make it brew the grounds already in the basket and walked back to his desk.

  He swished his mouse around, making his screen wake up. The code he’d been working on the night before came to life in front of him. He squinted, realizing he’d forgotten to put on his glasses. Most shifters had excellent eyesight. And so did Corey, in bear form. Unfortunately, he’d spent so much time staring at the computer, he’d grown an astigmatism that didn’t heal and needed glasses in human form.

  He sat in front of his work, forgetting completely about the coffee until almost an hour later. He’d been so lost in his work that he was only brought out of it by the smell of his coffee going bad.

  He growled and pushed himself away from the desk. Now the clock said it was after one in the afternoon. He let out a long groan as he poured his first cup of coffee for the day. He should stop staying up so late, he told himself. But he knew that was a losing battle. He did most of his best work late at night.

  Not that it mattered. The only time anyone ever needed him was when the Rescue Bears were called out on a mission. That only happened a few times a month. The rest of the time, Corey was alone in his cabin with his computers.

  He sat back in front of his multiple screens, focusing on the code in front of him. His fingers itched to type, but he contemplated, drinking his coffee. There was something missing. He knew there was a way to make this algorithm run more smoothly. If he could just pinpoint how.

  His cell phone pinged and he set his coffee cup on the desk to pick it up. It was Levi, asking him if he’d woken up yet.

  He sent a text back that read, “Of course.”

  His crew had been getting on his b
ack lately about finding a mate. Levi thought Corey was becoming too reclusive. But Corey disagreed. He was more than happy to be alone with his work. In Corey’s opinion, there wasn’t anything better.

  The last thing he wanted was a repeat of the way he’d grown up. He knew exactly how much fated mates could hurt each other. When Corey was only a baby, his father had left his mother for the first time. His parents had been fated. They were both shifters. But that didn’t mean that they’d lived happily ever after.

  If his dad had just stayed gone, maybe things would have been different. But he hadn’t. He’d kept coming back. From what his mother had told him, when his dad left, she was penniless and unemployed with a little baby to care for.

  She only made it because of the help of the shifter community in the small town where they’d lived in the Midwest. They’d helped her with food and diapers. Someone had donated an old car, and they’d helped her find a job.

  Their little family had gotten by together for the next few years. Until his dad came back. Corey barely remembered that first time when his father came home. He’d only been four years old.

  She should have refused to see him, told him to rot in hell, as far as Corey was concerned. But that’s not what she did. No. His mother and father were fated mates, and his mother couldn’t resist him.

  The next time his dad came back, when Corey was ten, his little sister had been conceived. His dad left before his mom even knew she was having another baby. The years went by and his mother worked hard to support her kids. Being a grizzly shifter, his mom was family focused and loyal as hell to her cubs.

  But every time his jaguar father came back to town, his mom let the man back in the house and back in her bed. Corey remembered confronting the man when he was fourteen. He asked his father why he didn’t stay.

  His father just told him a bunch of bullshit lies and tried to act like a big man. His mother explained to him later that his father was addicted to gambling, and women. He couldn’t stay home when there were fast horses to bet on and fast women to bed.

  She assured Corey that his father only loved her, but Corey didn’t buy it. He could see how his mother’s loyalty and her own addiction to his father were ruining her life.

  There were other shifter men in the community. Good men who could have been great for his mom. Men who could have taken care of her and her kids. But shifters only dated fated mates. No one else would do. If his mom had just dated a human, it would have been better for all of them. But she refused.

  She always waited for her mate to come home. Sometimes he didn’t come home or contact her for years at a time. Most women would give up on a man like that. But not a woman mated to her fated mate.

  Corey saw his mother wasting her life for that man. He would never let that happen to him or anyone else. He refused to find his fated mate. It was better if they never knew each other.

  As he grew up, it became apparent that there was something special about Corey. He graduated high school two years early and went on to study computer science in college with a scholarship from the Great Shifter Council.

  Since both his parents were out as shifters, it was impossible to pretend to be anything else. He was a geek who spent most of his time behind a computer screen, so most of the haters never really cared what he was doing.

  He’d made his first million dollars before he’d even finished his first year of college from an app he’d developed that was quickly purchased by a major tech company. Over the next several years, the work he did in his spare time ended up netting him quite a pretty penny.

  He graduated college with a net worth that rivaled the biggest tech tycoons of the time. But Corey didn’t care much about the money. He just squirreled it away and invested it in stocks he picked using one of the secret pieces of software he’d developed.

  That was before the war. When the draft was implemented, he was among the first to be drafted. Since both his parents were out as shifters, his name was among the first on the government registry list.

  He’d just finished college, had a few billion in the bank, and was ready for a change. The war taught him a lot of important lessons, and he’d made his best friends for life while fighting for his country.

  The measly VA benefits he’d been given were his cover now. He told everyone he was living off his benefits while he freelanced as a computer programmer.

  Everyone knew he’d created Mate.com. The shifter/human dating site was bringing in seven figures a month, but Corey didn’t tell anyone that. He didn’t want the crew to think differently about him.

  He liked staying in the cabin at Levi’s lodge and didn’t want anything to change. All those zeros in his bank account didn’t mean anything and wouldn’t give him a better life than he had now.

  All he wanted was to be left alone with his work. He didn’t care about the money. He didn’t even care about the outcome. All he cared about was creating something new with his substantial brain power. The need to make breakthroughs in computer programming was what drove him.

  He didn’t want women, or drugs, or rock and roll. He didn’t want money or fame. He wanted knowledge. He wanted to create. Maybe some bears would think he was humble, but Corey was anything but humble.

  The power he felt when he created some amazing new piece of code made him feel like a god. There was nothing better than that in the entire world.

  No matter what Levi thought, Corey loved is work too much to stop. He put his phone back on the desk and started to type on his keyboard. It was hours later when he finally pulled himself away from the computer screen to relieve an overdue call of nature.

  When he passed the mirror leaving the bathroom, he stopped and took a good look at himself. Two days of stubble grew from his chin. He had a mustard stain on his cheek from a hot dog he’d eaten two days ago. How long had he been wearing this shirt? He lifted his arm and took a long sniff.

  Disgusting.

  He realized he hadn’t taken a shower since he’d gone out on the last rescue mission. That had been three days ago.

  He growled at himself and pulled the shirt up over his head and threw it in the corner of the bathroom floor. Maybe the crew was right. He really did need to get out more.

  As he turned on the shower, he rubbed his abs absentmindedly, thinking of ways he could be more social. He took off his glasses and stepped into the shower.

  Maybe he should join the white water rafting club. Or maybe he should take up baking. There was plenty going on in Fate Mountain Village, but Corey had never been interested in any of the clubs or events. He just wanted to be left alone.

  But he was beginning to see how his single-minded focus was having a negative effect on his life. Becoming a serious hermit could eventually hurt his ability to focus on his work. If that happened, it would be bad.

  Corey didn’t know who he was without his work. It meant everything. It was everything. He had to take care of himself so he could do his work. If that meant joining the Rotary Club, then that’s what he was going to do.

  Corey always felt it was important to give back to the community. He’d felt that way ever since he was a kid. His family never would have survived if not for the community organizations who’d supported his mother.

  Maybe what he should do was start a charity. He stepped out of the shower and started to dry off. What kind of charity should an ex-SEAL, grizzly shifter start? There were a lot of shifters on Fate Mountain. Maybe he should start a charity that ensured shifter children got enough to eat. Or maybe he’d start a scholarship for bright young shifters in technology.

  He had so much money stocked away in various bank accounts, he could start any or all of his charity ideas without the slightest financial strain. The problem was, if he started these charities, he’d have to actually run them. That meant leaving his cabin and talking to people.

  He pulled on a clean pair of boxers and wiped the steam off the mirror.

  Slipping on his glasses, he smiled at himself in the m
irror. He could deal with people for the greater good, right?

  4

  Willow spent the rest of the evening trying to write. She just couldn’t figure out how to make her heroine care that the hero had left her. The character had everything she needed, and he hadn’t added anything special to her life. Her character just didn’t feel anything.

  She pressed her period key three times...

  This damn book was a complete rewrite. She had to go back to the beginning and learn who these characters really were or they would never be able to fall in love.

  As she was thinking about her characters, she was reminded that her stalker was still out there. This guy was a twisted sicko. Each letter got more insane. Willow was afraid he was going to eventually hurt her. Detective Johnson was on the same page about the danger level, even if he couldn’t do a thing to help her.

  The stalker’s letters made it clear that he wanted her. Was this what it had come to in her own love life? An anonymous, dangerous stalker was the only man she had to think about?

  She picked up her phone and navigated to Cory’s picture on Mate.com. He had a warm smile and handsome face. From what she could see, she could tell he had the big muscular frame that shifters were known for. She bit her lip and scrolled down the screen to read his profile again. He was really smart. But he worked for himself and lived in a cabin at Fate Mountain Lodge. It was an interesting lifestyle choice, one that Willow could respect. As a writer, she wouldn’t mind living in a cabin by a lake. It actually sounded quite cozy.

  She sighed, thinking about a week vacation to Fate Mountain, Oregon. It wasn’t that far of a drive from Seattle. If she left first thing in the morning, she’d be there by the afternoon.

  The letter from her stalker had really shaken her up. Maybe if she got out of town, it would allow her to relax enough to figure out her story.

  Clicking on Corey’s profile, she took a deep breath and opened the text pad. She let out the air in her lungs and started to type.

  “I’d love to come to Fate Mountain to meet you.”