Page 1 of Bear's Heart

Chapter One

Josie Calhoun squintedagainst the late afternoon sunlight, studying the front of the big, beautiful Montana log cabin.

The ranch house, completed four years ago, had been built for a man who had everything.For a man whothoughthe had everything.

The twenty-three-year-old designer-in-training stood at the edge of the sweeping gravel driveway, holding her breath, feeling the awful weight, and truth, of this house.Of what this grand sprawling house represented.It was to have been a celebration of a Montana man’s accomplishments.This was his success story.His reward.It was also a house that had never been lived in until now.

Josie hadn’t been part of the design team that built it, but she’d been aware that her firm had created the luxurious home, turning Bear Anderson’s wish list and dreams into reality.He’d been an integral part of the plans and she’d poured over them in the office because Bear Anderson was huge, a local hero.Everybody knew him, even if they hadn’t met him.For years, the state and local papers faithfully covered his career, keeping the public up to date on his success in the PRCA, and then later on the Professional Bull Rider tour.

It was on the PBR tour that it changed.She, like everyone else in Montana, knew the moment life as he knew it vanished.It had only taken six and a half seconds in Tulsa to destroy a life.

No one thought a catastrophic accident would happen to Braden “Bear” Anderson.The Clyde Park native, a three-time national bull-riding champion, had never even been seriously hurt before—or if he had, he’d kept his injuries to himself, competing as if he was invincible.

And in the public’s mind, he was.Bear was Bear.A legend.He earned his nickname as a skinny freckled faced ten-year-old when he took on a grizzly during a family fishing trip outside West Yellowstone, distracting the bear who’d gotten a little too interested in Braden’s eight-year-old sister.

Montanans loved courage.Bravery.And they loved that one of their own would challenge a grizzly and live to tell about it.

So, Bear became a hero long before he ever won his first big belt buckle.It went without saying, it just about broke everyone’s heart when that rank bull came crashing down on him in Tulsa and wouldn’t let him up.

Folks watching the event that night—whether there at the Bank of Oklahoma Center or home watching live—thought the bull had killed Bear.People wept as he was carried unconscious from the arena and the other PBR cowboys took off their hats, formed a circle and got down on a knee to pray.Please, Lord, don’t take Bear.

God heard.He spared Bear’s life, but Bear was done riding and competing.Done walking, too.No way he could walk, not with what that bull did to his spinal cord.

It’d taken tough, fearless Bear Braden Anderson two and a half years to accept that there was nothing else the medical community could do for him.His bull riding career was behind him.He’d left his place outside Nashville and was returning to Montana, and the luxurious cabin built for him on his Clyde Park ranch with the jagged, snow-capped Crazies for a view.

Josie blinked against the glaring reflection of the summer sun off the long metal ramp.The ramp hid the handsome log cabin’s big front porch.The two-story, five-bedroom home had been built with reclaimed lumber, which had cost a fortune, but Bear hadn’t cared.Bear had been making good money on the circuit and even better money through sponsors and endorsements.Everyone loved a success story, and Bear’s was downright mythical.

Now Bear was back, broken, and as he’d said in a late-night phone call to the design firm’s answering service, he couldn’t even pee in his multimillion-dollar dream home because his wheelchair couldn’t fit through any of the bathroom doors on the main floor.

Which was why Josie was here.To get changes made.Fast.

But before she could even get to the interior modifications, she’d be sure to have something done about the ramp out front, aware that Bear hated it.

The lead architect at the firm had tried explaining to Bear on the phone yesterday that it was just a temporary ramp, quickly constructed so Bear could get into his house, as there were three steps to the front porch, and six at the back, where the property sloped down.But Bear didn’t care that it had been thrown together for his convenience.He hung up on the architect, and then one of the project managers.He refused to speak to the contractor who came out yesterday to meet him, and now Josie was here, not because there was no one else, but because she’d volunteered.

Her brother was in a wheelchair.She’d grown up watching him struggle.Accessibility wasn’t an option.It was necessary.But it didn’t have to be ugly, and she could see how the cheap aluminum ramp in front of his house upset him.

But there was more to it than compassion.Working on his house could fulfil her final design project requirement for her to graduate and, so far, her advisors hadn’t signed off on a project and she was down to six months before graduation, six months to show her advisors—and future employers—what she could do.

Josie sucked in a breath for courage and called Bear.

He didn’t answer.

He could have been sleeping, or he could just be sitting inside ignoring her.

Josie drew another breath and phoned again.It rang and rang, and she was just about to think she’d end up in his voice mail again but suddenly he was there.

“Hello?”he said tersely.

“It is an ugly ramp,” Josie said quickly.“I’m standing outside, in front of your house, and I can see why you hate the ramp.It’s a monstrosity and everyone could have done better.We should have done better, Mr.Anderson.”

“Who is this?”he asked after a moment, his voice deep, hoarse.

“Josie Calhoun.”

“I don’t recognize your name.Were you on my design team?”

“No.”

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