Bears of Burden

Six Buddies. Six bears. Six Mates. In the southwestern town of Burden, Texas, good ol’ bears Hawthorne, Wyatt, Hutch, Sterling, Sam, and Matt are livin’ easy. Beer flows freely, and pretty women are abundant. The last thing the shifters of Burden are thinking about is finding a mate or settling down. But, fate has its own plan…

Allie is running scared. Not from monsters in the closet, or creepy things under the bed; she's scared of commitment. On the run from a would-be fiancé, she finds a temp job as a barmaid in a small Texas town out in the middle of nowhere. True love is not on the agenda until she meets her big, burly boss, hot-as-hell Thorn Canton, who lights her fires in all the right places. Bear shifter Thorn Canton is a successful tavern owner with no plans whatsoever of getting hitched. In fact, to Thorn, a mate might mean a fate worse than death; literally.

Georgia and Wyatt couldn't be more opposite. Wyatt teaches wilderness survival training. A gruff, simple, outdoorsy type, in a survival situation, what he says goes, or somebody could get hurt. Georgia controls her own life - parties, fundraisers, shopping, and spa days. Men come - men go. When Georgia signs up for Wyatt's survival week, it's obvious she's far outside her comfort zone. Everything that can go wrong, does. Wyatt has found his mate. But, how will he survive Georgia as a mate when he's not sure he'll survive the week?

Hutch is an a-hole. A giant, scary-looking, Harley-riding, a-hole who has long rejected his mate Veronica, the town's introverted librarian. Lately, Veronica has been coming out of her shell. She's dancing on bar tops, hanging out with the party girls, and has turned Thursday nights at the library into a naughty book club! Hutch screwed up. Big time. He should have claimed Veronica when he had the chance. Now that she's being showered with more male attention than she knows what to do with, Hutch is just about at his wit's end!

Sterling Mallory likes fast - fast cars and faster women, anything to keep the ghosts at bay. Living life on the edge catches up to him when he carelessly makes an enemy of Kyle Barns. Who knew that Kyle’s younger sister would turn out to be Sterling’s mate? Now, his mate hates him. Ophelia Barns left her flourishing journalism career in Nashville to come back home to Burden, Texas. Her brother has always been her rock, and now, it’s her turn to be there for him. When someone crosses him, they cross her.

Sam has watched his buddies go through the mate bonding process, and he couldn’t be happier for them. Really. He can’t help the little twinge of jealousy, though. He’s been waiting a long time to find his mate, and he’s more than ready. Presley Gray grew up in an authoritarian household run by her father, a fire and brimstone preacher in the small religious enclave of Macon’s Edge. Now that she’s free, she feels a little like a calf that’s just learning to stand on its own.

Matt has known since puberty that the promise of finding a mate that drove other shifters wasn’t for him. Matt is different. Nature doesn’t provide mates for freaks like him. When Cannon enters his life, his carefully constructed world begins to crumble. Cannon threatens to throw Matt’s entire life and career into jeopardy. But damned if he can stay away from the sexy shifter who is determined to claim him.