Free Bear Pause (BBW / Bear Shifter Romance): A Billionaire Oil Bearons Romance (Bear Fursuits Book 6) by Isadora Montrose

Ramon’s cabin, and Rosa is feeding him twice a day in her own kitchen, and once in ours, so I guess he passed the tight-bed test.”
    Zeke chuckled. “If it’s the same guy, and it sure sounds like it is, I’m not surprised he’s got Rosa eating out of his hand. Sergeant Holden is pretty much a charmer.”
    “Cuts a swathe through women, huh?” Laura said merrily, as if his words didn’t make her heart sink. “A lover in every town?”
    Zeke’s laugh rumbled down the line. “I admit we had some adventures, Laura, and Holden didn’t have any trouble leaving the bar with the prettiest girl. But he’s a good guy to have at your back.” He cleared his throat. “Um, you do realize he’s one of us?”
    “What do you mean, one of us? A Green Beret?”
    “No, no. He’s the same as you and me,” Zeke said obliquely.
    “Oh.”
    “You weren’t thinking of asking Holden to marry you?” Zeke blurted. “Bad idea.”
    “Because of the b-e-a-r thing?”
    “No, because of the decent guy thing.”
    * * *
    Steve roused himself from the cot in the tack room where he had been dozing for the last hour. He checked the blurry monitor. Like all the rest of the crappy security systems at the stud, it was an antique.
    Laura and Carlos had a high-end breeding operation here. But the millions of dollars of horses and equipment were protected by a set of cameras that would have been sub-par outside a rundown gas station. He hadn’t liked the setup even before he and Lance had found the holes in the barn roof. Not that there were even crappy cameras monitoring the barn.
    Every night one of the hands was delegated to spend the night in the tack room to keep an eye on the mares who were due. Once an hour they were supposed to rouse themselves and look at the monitor, and then check on the horses personally if there was trouble. Which would have made more sense if the feed had been crisp, instead of a jerky black and white smudge.
    Right now, the grainy footage showed him that of the three mares who were due to foal, two were lying down, presumably still fast asleep. The third, Bright Star of Fortune, was standing up gazing blankly into the distance. Steve hauled himself up and went to see why Star had gotten to her feet. Mares often stood up because it was more comfortable than lying down with a belly full of almost term foal. But standing was also how they gave birth.
    By the time he got to her stall, Star was crowning. She acknowledged Steve but seemed to be in no distress. Her foal’s nose was barely visible and it would probably be born in the next few minutes. After just seven labors, he was certainly no expert. His instructions were to call Carlos to help with any birth. But the mare seemed to be handling her labor just fine.
    He decided to summon the Boss. Rosa had hinted strongly at breakfast that she thought Carlos should be spending tonight sleeping in his own bed. Since he cherished Rosa Diego’s good opinion, he followed his inclinations and called Laura. He was just holding the foal’s sharp front hooves clear of the mare, as Dr. Freddie had shown him to, when he heard her boots thumping on the concrete floors of the aisle.
    “How’s she doing?” Laura asked quietly.
    Steve grinned at her. She was as excited as he was. “Fine,” he said. “Star doesn’t need either one of us, not really.”
    As Laura shrugged off her parka to give him a hand, he saw that she had dressed in a hurry. She hadn’t bothered with a bra under her shirt. Well, he was a trained observer. And what he observed was that she had the finest pair he ever hoped to see. Which he had certainly suspected, but was nice to have confirmed.
    She stood at his elbow, smelling of ripe woman and bear. As if he had brought her into season. As he was hoping he had. With the staff she was friendly but not familiar. She treated him no differently than she treated Cory or Lance or any of the others. Whereas, he wanted her to respond to him as he always