Jake Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Foreword

  Chapter One – Jake

  Chapter Two – Lana

  Chapter Three – Jake

  Chapter Four – Lana

  Chapter Five – Jake

  Chapter Six – Lana

  Chapter Seven – Jake

  Chapter Eight – Lana

  Chapter Nine – Jake

  Chapter Ten – Lana

  Chapter Eleven – Jake

  Chapter Twelve – Lana

  Chapter Thirteen – Lana

  Chapter Fourteen – Jake

  Chapter Fifteen – Lana

  Chapter Sixteen – Jake

  Chapter Seventeen – Lana

  Chapter Eighteen – Lana

  Chapter Nineteen – Jake

  Chapter Twenty - Lana

  Chapter Twenty-One - Jake

  Chapter Twenty-Two – Lana

  Chapter Twenty-Three – Jake

  Chapter Twenty-Four – Lana

  Epilogue

  Also By Harmony Raines

  Get In Touch

  Jake

  Three Silverback Bears and a Baby

  Book Three

  ***

  All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written consent of the author or publisher.

  This is a work of fiction and is intended for mature audiences only. All characters within are eighteen years of age or older. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, actual events or places is purely coincidental.

  © 2019 Harmony Raines

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  Jake

  Three Silverback Bears and a Baby

  Book Three

  A silverback seasoned shifters romance

  He’d nearly given up hope of ever finding his mate. But fate unexpectedly brought them together.

  Can he win her heart and live the happy ever after they both deserve?

  Jake Harrison has fought for his family from the day his parents died. He fought to keep his brothers together. Now he has a new fight on his hands. One he must win. Or risk losing his mate forever.

  Lana Ross has lost her daughter, Kiki. It’s as if she just disappeared into thin air, leaving Lana to raise her granddaughter alone. Deep down, she knows her Kiki would never abandon her family. However, Lana has no clue as to what happened to her daughter or why she didn’t come home—and it’s eating Lana up inside.

  So, when Lana’s editor shows her a photograph containing a shadowy reflection of Kiki, she travels to Bear Creek in the hope of finding the answers she desperately needs.

  What she doesn’t expect to find if Jake Harrison, a man who stirs a deep, long forgotten, need in Lana.

  Can Lana trust him help solve the puzzle of her missing daughter? Or is Jake deeply involved in the tangled web of secrets and lies surrounding his adopted daughter, Milly?

  Chapter One – Jake

  “So, I wondered if you would have dinner with me.” Jake handed a cuddly toy to the girl he loved most in the world. “I thought after we’ve eaten, we could take in a tour of the mountains. Of course, I’ll pay and even carry you on my back.” Tonight was Jake’s turn to look after Milly. He would never admit it to his brothers, but those nights were the highlight of his week.

  “Sounds like a fun date.” Heather grinned at him as she swept into the kitchen, grabbed her car keys and headed back out of the room. However, she paused, half in and half out of the kitchen. “I could set you up on a real date. Or Tad and I are having a quiet family meal, you and Milly can come over and join us. You know you are always welcome.”

  A mask of gratitude slid across his face at Heather’s offer. “Thanks, but…”

  Heather glanced at the hallway, the car keys dangling off her right index finger as she turned around and walked toward Jake and Milly. “But you don’t date anymore…”

  Jake let his mask slip and his bottom lip quivered. Soon he’d be competing with Milly as to who was the biggest baby. “I’m concentrating on being the best daddy I can be to Milly.” He recovered his composure and looked up at Heather. “I have to try harder than Tad and Max, it doesn’t come as naturally to me.”

  Heather placed her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it lightly. “That’s what makes you special, Jake. That you have to try harder. And you step up and do it. Just like you stepped up when your parents died and your brothers needed you.”

  “That’s the most frustrating thing about fated mates. You can’t step up and do anything. You can’t search harder, or be nicer, you just have to wait.” He took a ragged breath and then let it go. “Which is why I am blessed to have Milly as my daughter.” He cast an apologetic look in Heather’s direction. “We are blessed to have Milly as our daughter. All of us.”

  “It’s okay, I know what you meant.” Heather jangled the car keys in her hand. “I have to go.”

  “Then go.” Jake stood up from the chair and started to clear the breakfast things from the table. He needed to get a move on, or he would be late for work. Not that work appealed to him anymore. Since Milly had come into his life, he’d lost his drive and ambition. “Thank you, Heather. I appreciate your concern.”

  Her mouth tugged up at one corner. “Whoever bags Jake Harrison is a lucky woman.”

  He let out a short laugh. “She might not see it that way.”

  “I believe she will, and I look forward to meeting her, whoever she is.” Heather waved her hand as she backed out of the kitchen. “I’ll see you later. Have a good day.”

  “You, too, Heather.” Jake watched his brother’s mate as she turned and ran out of the door. “Okay, since you have finished your breakfast and have a new stripy zebra friend to play with, why don’t you get down from the table and play while I have one more cup of coffee and wash the dishes?”

  Milly waved the soft toy in Jake’s face. “Zehba.”

  “It is a zebra. Good girl. You are going to be a veterinarian, I’m sure, since you are so good at naming animals.” As he placed Milly down on the floor, he held her hands for a moment as she balanced on two legs. A wave of love hit him as if he’d been punched in the stomach. Milly was growing up before their eyes. She’d gone from crawling to wobbly walking, so fast it made his head spin.

  “Mamma Beh.” Milly swung her head around and overbalanced, her small feet tangling up as she looked toward the back door.

  “You have really good shifter senses,” Jake told his adopted daughter as the back door opened and Josephine came into the kitchen. “You’re early.”

  Color rose in Josephine’s cheeks. “I figured I’d come over early. Max is out on the mountain. He started early today so we can go to dinner tonight.” His brother’s mate crossed the kitchen and stood next to Jake who was watching Milly as she stood up and took a couple of steps forward.

  “Milly and I thought we’d go out to dinner tonight.” Jake took the breakfast dishes over to the sink.

  “Morning, sweetheart.” She leaned down and opened her arms for Milly, but the young girl had other ideas and ran off around the kitchen giggling like a crazy thing. “I’m going to get you!”

  Jake laughed as Milly scooted around the table, spun around and ran back the other way with Josephine snapping her arms together. “I’m not sure who has more fun. Us or Milly?”

  “We all have all the fun. Got you!” Josephine grabbed hold of a wiggling Milly and swung her into her arms before raining kissing down o
n her cheek. “I thought we could make some heart cookies and take them over to the craft barn.”

  “So you and Heather can discuss my love life, or lack of it?” Jake side-eyed Josephine. “Is she responsible for your early arrival?”

  Josephine linked arms with her brother-in-law and rested her head on his shoulder. Milly reached out for her daddy and cuddled him, too. “We love you and want you to be happy. I think it hurts us all that we can’t do anything to help you find your mate.”

  “I’m fine.” He wasn’t. Jake hadn’t been fine for a while now. It was as if part of him was curling up and dying. The part that had lived in hope for over fifty years. Hope that he would one day find his mate and share his world, and everything he’d created, with her.

  “You deserve to be more than fine,” Josephine told him as she let go of Jake and walked around the kitchen and collected the rest of the breakfast things from the table while jiggling Milly on her hip. The young girl cuddled her mamma beh, the name she affectionately called Josephine, even though Josephine wasn’t a shifter.

  “I’m sure my competitors think I deserve much more than fine,” Jake joked as he went to the sink and switched on the faucet. As the hot water filled the sink, he added dish soap and waited for the suds to multiply.

  “You’re good at what you do.” Josephine placed a couple of coffee cups on the counter as Jake started washing up the breakfast dishes. “Max says you always act with integrity.”

  “That might be open to interpretation,” Jake admitted. “I have a clear conscience but some of the things I’ve done might be seen as…aggressive.”

  “Aggressive?” Josephine’s eyes widened. “I’m intrigued.”

  “Maybe aggressive is too strong a word.” Jake turned to face Josephine. “When I started out, I had to earn money. I had to support us and that meant I needed to be aggressive. There are some things that, with hindsight, I could have handled differently.”

  “But you were young and desperate.” Josephine sighed and took hold of Milly’s hand. “Most people would do whatever they had to do for the people they love.”

  “They would.” Jake’s eyes lingered on Milly. “I would do it all over again. And more.”

  “Well, luckily, you shouldn’t have to.” Josephine kissed Milly’s cheek and then let the young toddler slide to the floor. She stood on wobbly legs for a moment, her fingers curled around Josephine’s pants before she took a couple of steps forward and transferred her hold to the kitchen cupboards.

  With a sigh of satisfaction, she tilted her head back to look up at two of her parents and gave them a toothy grin before she lost balance and sat down hard on her diaper-clad bottom. However, Milly was not about to be beaten. Crawling back toward Josephine, she clawed her way to a standing position before trying the maneuver again.

  With much focus on staying upright, Milly leaned back to look at her parents and this time kept her balance. Confident in her own abilities, Milly took another step sideways and then another before she turned around and trotted off around the kitchen.

  “She’s a lot like you,” Josephine told him. “She doesn’t give up.”

  “That character trait is not exclusively mine. Tad never gave up on his sculptures and Max never gives up on anyone in trouble on the mountain.” Jake finished washing the dishes and dried his hands. “I have to go.”

  “Maybe fate will decide that today is the day Jake Harrison finally meets his mate.” Josephine wagged her finger at Jake as he rolled his eyes. “What? I can’t help it if I’m a romantic at heart.”

  “I’m glad you can’t help it,” Jake told her. “Your optimism is one of the many things I love about you.”

  She gave him a bashful smile. “You say the sweetest things. And you know that the three women in your life might not be your mates, but we do love you.”

  “You’re gonna make me cry.” Jake faked wiping tears from his eyes to cover up his true emotions. Emotions were a sign of weakness. He’d learned that one-true-fact during his first year in business. And he could never afford to be weak. Not in his private or professional life.

  “You put those barriers up, Jake Harrison.” Josephine wagged a finger at him. “But one day, and I hope it’s one day soon, someone is going to come along and break them down. And then you’ll be as vulnerable as a baby.”

  “I wish you were right, Josephine. But I believe any luck we brothers had in the finding-a-mate department has been used up on Max and Tad.” He held up his hand before she could protest. “I’m okay with that. Seeing you all so happy.” He patted his chest. “Makes me happy.”

  “And now you’ve made me cry.” Josephine’s eyes misted with tears and she turned away. Grateful for the chance to compose himself, Jake inhaled deeply and thought of work and his busy schedule. Anything to distract him from the gaping hole in his soul that only grew bigger the more he saw how happy his brothers were with their mates. It wasn’t a gaping hole of bitterness or resentment. If he had to describe it, he’d say it resembled a black hole, filled with nothingness. The empty feeling of knowing you will never know true, real love.

  Not that he would ever describe it. Not to anyone, least of all his brothers.

  They worried about him enough. It was there in their looks and expressions, in the way they played down their happiness when they were around him as if he might crack if he saw too much.

  Maybe they are right, his bear told him.

  Jake dismissed his bear’s fears. I’ve lived for over fifty years without my mate. I… But he couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “I need to get to work or my boss might fire me.” He circled around the kitchen and jumped out on Milly shouting, “Boo!”

  Milly jumped before she giggled so hard, she lost her balance and sat down on the tiled floor. “Dada!” She held her arms out to Jake and he lifted her up, finding comfort in her small, warm body. The hole in his soul shrank just a little, his love for the child he’d promised to care for and protect warded off his loneliness in a way nothing, or no one else, did.

  “Are you going to be a good girl for Mama Bear?” Jake asked, kissing her round cherub cheek.

  “We really need to stop calling me that,” Josephine told him.

  Jake hugged Milly tighter, before handing her over to Mama Bear, a name Milly had made up herself. “I like it, it’s cute and describes you perfectly.”

  “Big, round and hairy?” Josephine asked as she walked Jake to the front door.

  “Loyal, loving and fierce.” He grasped Milly’s toes and tickled them, eliciting more giggles. “You would do whatever it takes to keep this little one safe.”

  “She’s family. You are family.” Josephine arched an eyebrow at him. “You know I’d do whatever it takes to keep any member of this family safe.”

  “I know.” Jake fished his car keys out of his pocket and unlocked the car door.

  “That includes you!” she called as he slipped behind the wheel of his sleek black car, which he was going to trade in next month for something more…child-friendly. Or so he’d been saying since they’d adopted Milly but had never quite gotten around to.

  “I can look after myself,” Jake told her. “But it makes me feel all warm and snuggly inside to know you care.”

  Josephine laughed and shook her head. “Have a good day, Jake.”

  “You, too, ladies.” He turned the key in the ignition and the engine sparked into life and the radio blasted out Led Zeppelin. As he drove away, he glanced in the rearview mirror at Josephine and Milly, a smile spread across his face.

  They were happy. And that made him happy.

  Somehow, if he never found his mate, that would have to be enough.

  Chapter Two – Lana

  “Hey, kiddo. We have to get to kindergarten.” Lana wedged Ursula’s apple into her lunch bag and zipped it up, accompanied by the sound of little feet running down the stairs.

  Breathless. A lump formed in Lana’s throat threatening to rob her of air. She had to breat
he through it, she didn’t have a choice, curling up in a corner and dying of a broken heart was not an option.

  “I’m ready!” Ursula star-jumped off the last stair and stood in the hallway with a smile on her face and her favorite toy, a battered old unicorn, in her hand.

  The unicorn had once belonged to Ursula’s mother, Kiki. Pain stabbed at Lana’s heart. The small child standing at the bottom of the stairs was almost the exact double of her mom at this age. Full of hope, full of life.

  Lana turned back to the lunch bag and added a small cereal bar. “Have you brushed your teeth?”

  “I have. Uni watched me.” Ursula held up the unicorn and nodded its head as she spoke in a high nasally voice, “Sula brushed her teeth for a whole two minutes.”

  Lana’s mouth tugged up at the corners as she grabbed her purse and car keys. Ursula was like sunshine on a rainy day. She warded off the black hole of grief that was waiting to consume Lana if she let it. “Okay! Let’s go. We don’t want to be late.”

  Ursula grabbed her unicorn backpack, yes, there was a theme going here, and raced to the front door with Lana in tow, hastily checking her smartphone for new messages. None.

  Shoving her phone in her pocket, she hid her frustration as she yanked open the door and paused. Looking right and then left, she hesitated for a couple of moments before she stepped out of the house. Ursula followed, sticking to her side as she pulled the front door closed and locked it. Double-checking that it was secure, Lana turned around to face the world.

  A world that had become a different place, since her daughter had gone missing and Lana had taken too long a glimpse at the underbelly of society.

  Ursula threaded her small fingers into Lana’s hand and together they walked to the car. Pressing the button on the key, the sound of the car unlocking seemed too loud in the quiet suburban street.

  Should there be more noise? Lana looked around. There was no one out in their front yard, no one out in the street. But that wasn’t unusual. She was thinking too much. Seeing things that weren’t there.