The Bear's Bossy Guest
(2026)(The first book in the Bearstone Lodge Fated Mates series)
A Story by Ciera Knox
She came to manage everyone else. He's the first person who's ever managed her.
Olivia
I don't need rescuing. I need a functioning team, a reliable Wi-Fi signal, and for the mountain man running wilderness expeditions to stop looking at me like I'm the only thing worth tracking. I'm here to run a corporate retreat. The kind of controlled chaos I excel at.
What I don't excel at: the way my entire nervous system exhales when he's near. The way his hands — massive, steady, impossibly warm — make me forget I have a checklist. The way he says my name like it's the only word he's ever meant.
Liam Calloway is a mountain. Quiet. Immovable. Everything I should avoid when I'm trying to hold my career together.
But when my plans collapse — when I finally stop holding everything — he's the one who catches me.
And what he's offering isn't temporary.
Liam
I've carried this family since I was twelve. I don't know how to put the weight down.
Then she steps out of that van, all competence and fire and a scent that stops my bear dead — cool water and sun-warmed stone — and everything I thought was settled inside me cracks wide open.
She's leaving Friday.
She doesn't need me.
She doesn't need anyone.
But when her walls come down and mine come with them, I realize: I don't want to be her anchor. I want to be her home.
Bearstone Lodge Book 1 is a cozy, high-heat bear shifter novelette featuring a fated mate bond, a hero who's stronger than stone and softer than he'll ever admit, and a heroine who finally learns that letting go isn't losing control — it's finding where she belongs.
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Olivia
I don't need rescuing. I need a functioning team, a reliable Wi-Fi signal, and for the mountain man running wilderness expeditions to stop looking at me like I'm the only thing worth tracking. I'm here to run a corporate retreat. The kind of controlled chaos I excel at.
What I don't excel at: the way my entire nervous system exhales when he's near. The way his hands — massive, steady, impossibly warm — make me forget I have a checklist. The way he says my name like it's the only word he's ever meant.
Liam Calloway is a mountain. Quiet. Immovable. Everything I should avoid when I'm trying to hold my career together.
But when my plans collapse — when I finally stop holding everything — he's the one who catches me.
And what he's offering isn't temporary.
Liam
I've carried this family since I was twelve. I don't know how to put the weight down.
Then she steps out of that van, all competence and fire and a scent that stops my bear dead — cool water and sun-warmed stone — and everything I thought was settled inside me cracks wide open.
She's leaving Friday.
She doesn't need me.
She doesn't need anyone.
But when her walls come down and mine come with them, I realize: I don't want to be her anchor. I want to be her home.
Bearstone Lodge Book 1 is a cozy, high-heat bear shifter novelette featuring a fated mate bond, a hero who's stronger than stone and softer than he'll ever admit, and a heroine who finally learns that letting go isn't losing control — it's finding where she belongs.
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Used availability for Ciera Knox's The Bear's Bossy Guest