Goldie and the Billionaire Bear
A Once Upon a Billionaire Romance
Catelyn Meadows
BOOKS BY CATELYN MEADOWS
ONCE UPON A BILLIONAIRE SERIES
Goldie and the Billionaire Bear
Ella and the Billionaire’s Ball
Alice and the Billionaire's Wonderland
Rosabel and the Billionaire Beast
Hazel and Her Billionaire Tower
Aaliyah and the Billionaire's Lamp
SUDDENLY YOURS SERIES
Suddenly in Love
Don't Kiss the Quarterback
MAGIC VALLEY ROMANCE
Billionaires and Big Deals
CLEAN CHRISTMAS ROMANCE
All I Want for Christmas
Copyright © 2019 Cortney Pearson
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, printing, recording, or otherwise—without the prior permission of the author, except for use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, incidents, or events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Beta Read by Scarlett West
Copy Edited/Proofread by Sara Olds with Salt & Sage Books
Cover Design & Interior Formatting by Qamber Designs and Media
Author Photo by Clayton Photo + Design
www.catelynmeadows.blogspot.com
For my mom. This entire idea would have never happened without you.
CHAPTER ONE
GOLDIE POUNDED HER FIST AGAINST the steering wheel in a moment of desperation. Sunlight glared beneath the line of her visor. She flipped it back into its place and raised her hand, attempting to block out some of the orange blinding her, all while keeping the rest of her attention for some sign on the side of the road that might give her an inkling of where she was.
“Stupid GPS,” she grumbled to the maps app blaring on her phone. It usually was so trusty, so reliable. Good old Siri, telling her where to turn and when. Heaven knew she needed it. Squiggly lines on a map may as well have been a completely different language for all the good they did her. She could never keep her directions straight.
There she’d been, on the freeway between Montana and Idaho, when Siri told her to take some random exit.
So what did she do? She’d followed it. It had made no sense at the time. Why in the world would Siri tell her to turn off when she knew—she knew—she was headed in the right direction?
“I should have followed my gut,” she went on, glowering at the lines and lines of pine trees stacked on either side of the road. The road curved again, and her hands turned the wheel to keep from veering off the asphalt. She couldn’t keep this up. She had to try to find her way back to the freeway again.
Goldie pulled off onto the generous shoulder and checked for bars on her cell phone, but service was MIA out here, and her phone’s internet was being completely stubborn.
Despair began to settle in. It wouldn’t be much longer before the sun’s orange rays sank completely behind the trees, leaving her in darkness. With no cell service, no map, and the line on her gas tank sinking cruelly closer to the little E, she was more lost than she could ever remember being.
She could just hear her mother now. While her dad had always been helpful and encouraging, Goldie’s mom had always found her incompetency with directions irksome.
If someone could tell her to turn left at the bank and stop at the house straight across from the elementary school, she was good to go. But north and south? What were they, other than the title of one of her favorite movies with a great kiss at the end?
Goldie sighed and sank her head against the steering wheel. This was why she never went anywhere. This was why she stayed at home in Baldwin, Wisconsin, a rinky-dink little town where she’d known every landmark from the time she could spell the names.
Until the letter arrived. The letter from a woman claiming to be her mother’s sister.
Goldie couldn’t deny the lure of that letter. Her mom had no siblings—or so Goldie had always thought. Then who was this woman inviting her to meet her halfway across the country? She would have disregarded the letter completely if her mom hadn’t acted so plumb guilty about the thing when Goldie had asked her about it.
“You are absolutely forbidden from going,” her mom had snarled on the phone. Like Goldie was still a teenager under her roof instead of a grown woman living on her own across town.
Her mom’s defensive, angry reaction—and blatant lack of denial about her sister—had the opposite effect she’d clearly meant. It had sparked curiosity in Goldie. Her mom had a sister she’d hidden from her for her entire life? What was that all about?
“So like a fool I’ve followed some crazy, wild goose chase,” Goldie growled. In frustration, she stepped out of the car and into the chilled air. It was so much colder on these winding mountain roads. Why had she ever gotten off the freeway?
Goldie whirled around and rested against the side of her Toyota truck. It was perfect for a girl needing to get back and forth from the grocery store and her job.
A job she’d taken a two-week break from for this.
Two weeks. She was not off to a great start.
The stars twinkled breathlessly above her. She couldn’t deny how enchanting it was. But she didn’t want enchanting. She wanted the peace of mind kind of relief that came with seeing the freeway, dang it. She scraped her hands through her hair and tromped a few feet away, needing to move, to think. To breathe.
That was when she saw it.
Tucked beyond the road, bathed in the last remaining slices of light, was a quaint, log cabin. Hope began to swell inside of her. If someone was there, they could tell her which way to go. They could help her get off this tangled forest road and back where she belonged. Maybe they
