ETHAN’S EMBRACE
On Shifter Ranch, the cowboys always claim their mates.
Raising my nephew was never the plan, but after losing my sister, I’m all he has left. Surviving my new role as a parent amid grief isn’t simple, and I can barely keep us above water. When I lose my job, desperation drives me to accept a position on a local ranch. So what if it’s full of shifters? I'm more concerned with proving my sister's death was no accident.
Then I meet Ethan, a mischievous bear shifter who thinks he’s my mate. His protective instincts are strong, and he’s always there when I need help. Which is suspiciously often. But am I really just unlucky, or is something darker at play? As we dig deeper, we uncover a web of lies and a connection that shatters me. My sister’s death looks even more like murder, and someone close to me knows why.
They say nothing’s more dangerous than a shifter protecting his mate, but they never met me. My sister’s killer is still out there, and I’m determined to make them pay. But some secrets are deadly, and justice doesn’t come easy. Can my new family survive the fallout?
Ethan’s Embrace is a short, steamy, instalove romance with fated mates. Featuring a protective and mischievous bear shifter, a fierce new guardian to ayoung boy, and a found family they’ll do anything to protect. Fall in love today with Ethan and Hannah’s story.
ONE
Ethan
I checked my phone under the table again as my older brother, Declan, updated us on the progress being made on the guest cabins for the dude ranch, frowning when my inbox showed no new emails.
“Someone’s not listening,” Austin, another brother, said in a sing-song voice as he threw a wad of paper at my head. My bear shifter reflexes had me catching it and throwing it back, hitting him in the face.
Gabriel snorted but crossed his arms and hid his smile when Declan leveled us all with an annoyed stare. Declan was the most responsible of us six, and the only biological child of our deceased parents. He was the glue that held us together when we lost them, and he’d continued to hold us together as the ranch struggled financially. “The new employee that Mae and Chloe hired will be here later today,” he said. “She’ll stay in the finished cabin and work with Mae on the cooking and cleaning.”
“Her background check okay?” Gabriel asked Mason.
“All clear.”
We didn’t like to hire outside help, especially knowing the person responsible for sabotaging our ranch a few monthsback was still out there, but we couldn’t do everything on our own. Mason had been doing thorough background checks on everyone we hired, from the contractor and his workers building the new cabins to this new employee.
I checked my inbox again. Nothing.
It had been several weeks since I’d heard from my contact. After Declan found his fated mate, Chloe, I’d stepped in to help more in the office, to give him time with her. Days into my new role, I received an email sent to the ranch from someone claiming to be a reporter who was investigating the sabotage. We’d been in contact ever since, trading information as we tried to uncover who’d hired the saboteurs. Last I’d heard, they were onto something big, but there’d been nothing from them since.
I tuned back into the meeting in time to hear more about the newest addition to the ranch.
“Hannah is friends with Chloe.” Declan rested his elbows on his knees. “She’s had a rough time lately, so I’d appreciate it if you all would be on your best behavior.”
“When are we not?” Austin responded with mock outrage, shooting a sideways grin at me.
Declan’s voice was dry, and his gaze stern. “I seem to recall my mate being greeted with a water fight.”
“Ethan started that.” Austin laughed. “And Chloe didn’t mind. She got some great photos before she joined us.”
“We’ll be good.” I nudged Austin and shook my head at him. Declan had become more easy-going since he met Chloe, but he still had his limits, and Austin was pushing them. “We have a lot of work today, anyway. No time for games.”
Declan’s gaze on me was suspicious, and I couldn’t blame him. I was usually the first to start trouble. But lately, thoughts of my investigation had occupied my mind, leaving little room for anything else. There had been no further issues since Chloe’s kidnapping, but I couldn’t help thinking it was only a matter oftime. We still didn’t know who was ultimately responsible, and until we discovered the truth, I would stay on guard.
After the meeting, I headed to the barn with Gabriel and saddled my gray horse, Storm. I’d trained him myself, and despite his sometimes mischievous behavior, he was rock steady. He needed to be, as horses were prey animals and easily spooked by our shifter halves. But I could shift into my bear in front of Storm and he’d hold firm.
Gabriel swung into the saddle of his mount. Boone was an oversized chestnut horse. The size was necessary, as Gabriel was the largest of us brothers: a quiet, sensitive soul, who often went off by himself. He wasn’t as uptight as Declan, though, and would sometimes join in on the games that were instigated by me or Austin. He was also the brother who first made me feel welcome when I arrived at the ranch.
Declan was born on the ranch, but the rest of us joined the family at various ages. I remembered the confusion when I came. I was nine. Old enough to remember my first family. Declan and Mason were teenagers, and they spent more time helping Dad on the ranch, while Luke wasn’t yet adopted. That left Austin, Gabriel, and me. Austin was a joker even then and tended to skip out on chores. So it was Gabriel who taught me to muck out stalls and showed me the best places to hide when I needed time alone.
We rode our horses to the nearest edge of our land. Since discovering the ranch was being sabotaged, we’d made a point of riding the fence line as often as possible. The easiest way to mess with us was to cut the fence wire and encourage our cattle to wander onto a neighboring ranch. We’d decided it was better to be proactive than to have to regularly round up our cattle. It resulted in longer days, as the regular work still needed finishing, but the peace of mind was worth it.
Gabriel stayed quiet for the first hour of our ride, though I could sense his gaze returning to me often. Finally, his deep voice cut through the silence. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t pull that with me. Normally you’d be talking my ear off, cracking jokes and making plans for some prank you want to play.”
