The Bear's Rescued Guest
(2026)(The second book in the Bearstone Lodge Fated Mates series)
A Story by Ciera Knox
She came to say goodbye. He made her want to stay.
Naomi
I came to honor my grandmother on the mountain she loved.
I didn't plan on the quiet man at the check-in desk. The one no one seems to notice. The one who reads in the same corner I do, who appears beside me on trails without being asked, who sees every single thing about me that I thought I'd hidden.
Hudson Calloway watches me like every detail matters. Like I'm worth the careful attention.
I've been strong for months. Holding emotion at arm's length because I'm afraid if to let it in.
He doesn't push. He doesn't fix. He just stays. Like I'm the most important thing he's ever been trusted with.
Hudson
Nobody sees below the surface, asks how I am.
I run the books, the schedules, the contracts. I fix problems no one realized existed. I'm the brother you forget to thank.
Then she walks in — quiet, carrying something heavy, smelling like old books and rain — and my bear doesn't go still. It focuses. Like a lens I didn't know was blurred suddenly clicking into place.
She sits next to me without asking. She sees what I do. She looks at me like I'm not invisible.
I've stopped expecting to be chosen. But she didn't choose me because I was the obvious one.
She chose me because I'm the right one.
Bearstone Lodge Book 2 is a cozy, high-heat bear shifter novelette featuring quiet devastation, a hero who notices everything and says almost nothing, and a heroine who discovers that letting go of grief doesn't mean letting go of love.
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Naomi
I came to honor my grandmother on the mountain she loved.
I didn't plan on the quiet man at the check-in desk. The one no one seems to notice. The one who reads in the same corner I do, who appears beside me on trails without being asked, who sees every single thing about me that I thought I'd hidden.
Hudson Calloway watches me like every detail matters. Like I'm worth the careful attention.
I've been strong for months. Holding emotion at arm's length because I'm afraid if to let it in.
He doesn't push. He doesn't fix. He just stays. Like I'm the most important thing he's ever been trusted with.
Hudson
Nobody sees below the surface, asks how I am.
I run the books, the schedules, the contracts. I fix problems no one realized existed. I'm the brother you forget to thank.
Then she walks in — quiet, carrying something heavy, smelling like old books and rain — and my bear doesn't go still. It focuses. Like a lens I didn't know was blurred suddenly clicking into place.
She sits next to me without asking. She sees what I do. She looks at me like I'm not invisible.
I've stopped expecting to be chosen. But she didn't choose me because I was the obvious one.
She chose me because I'm the right one.
Bearstone Lodge Book 2 is a cozy, high-heat bear shifter novelette featuring quiet devastation, a hero who notices everything and says almost nothing, and a heroine who discovers that letting go of grief doesn't mean letting go of love.
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Used availability for Ciera Knox's The Bear's Rescued Guest