Stranded together in a snowstorm, a take-charge alpha and a tough-minded midwife will either work out their differences in a steamy collision or blow up both their worlds!

"The trouble is, we get really high winds up in these mountains." The vibration of Alec's voice shivered through Charmian as he spoke. "Storms come screaming down out of the heights, and tear up or blow away anything that's not nailed down tight enough. We're always having to fix the roofs and patch up the sheds. So the trick is finding something lightweight enough to spin easily, but durable enough to stand up to the wear and tear."

"Resilient but tough," Charmian murmured. Like you, was her first thought, but then she thought of all the ranch families she dealt with in the course of doing her job. Single widows holding together their husbands' ranches all by themselves. Tough farm wives and the men they loved. Sheriff's deputies and tow truck drivers had to go out in screaming blizzards to rescue stranded motorists.

They were a tough breed, the people who lived in this rural country. They had to be. And especially people like Alec, running a cattle ranch in the back end of nowhere.

She admired that kind of backbone and strength. Admired it—hell, might as well admit that she found it drop-dead sexy. It took one hell of a guy to do what he did every day, and do it well. And she could tell from the way he talked about the windmill, and about the ranch, how much he loved it—how committed he was to making it work.

She admired that, too.

She tipped her head back to look up at him, intending to say ...

No, she wasn't sure what she meant to say, because one thing she did know about guys like Alec was that you couldn't go feeding their ego too much. Instead, she found him looking down at her, which meant his face was suddenly much too close for comfort.

Or not close enough.

This close, she couldn't help cataloguing all the little details of his features: the dusting of five o'clock shadow on his chiseled jaw, the soft-looking lips in utter contrast to the hard planes of the rest of his face. Those blue eyes, so intense and so interested in her...

She couldn't get her breath. In that moment, she wanted him more than she had ever wanted anyone or anything in her life.

And she saw the exact moment when his control over his wilder side snapped, and he gave in to it.

A complete HEA small-town bear shifter romance!