Home for the Holidays

by Terry Spear

  When a gray-haired woman answered the door, she narrowed her clear gray eyes at them. “We heard about this Rollins character. We told CJ we’d call if we saw any sign of him.” She cast Meghan an annoyed look. “Rollins would never have been here causing trouble if someone hadn’t sent him to prison in the first place when—”

  “We’re here about your son,” Meghan said, interrupting her, but her voice was calm and professional.

  The woman’s irritated expression turned to shock. Peter didn’t have the heart to tell her Rollins had murdered her son in cold blood. Maybe then she’d feel differently about it.

  “I can see…spirits,” Meghan said.

  The woman’s face drained of color, and Peter grabbed her arm before she passed out. “Can we come inside?”

  Clementine continued to scowl at Meghan but nodded to Peter.

  Peter hadn’t expected Meghan to be so blunt, but he suspected that was because of Clementine being so antagonistic. Meghan was feeling defensive. He didn’t blame her. Yet even so, she’d been businesslike and calm, not sounding annoyed.

  He helped Clementine into the house. If he hadn’t been afraid Clementine would collapse on them, he would have reached out to reassure Meghan he stood by her in this.

  “Peter, I don’t know why you brought this woman here. You’re one of the most sensible people I know and not subject to whimsy and fantasy,” Clementine scolded him. “No throwing snowballs in a snowball fight. No tackling a she-wolf in the snow.” She gave Meghan another withering look.

  “We’re lupus garous,” Meghan reminded her, though her cheeks were stained red at Clementine’s mention of them frolicking in the snow. “We are the stuff of fantasy.”

  Clementine harrumphed as Peter helped her sit down on the couch.

  Her husband suddenly walked into the living room with a beer bottle in his hand. “Peter, what brings you here? We heard about this Rollins issue already.”

  “Her,” Clementine said, pointing an accusing finger at Meghan.

  “I’m here about your son,” Meghan said before Clementine mentioned Rollins again.

  “You run the inn,” Jessup said, frowning. “What has that to do with our son?”

  “She’s one of those self-professed ghost seers,” Clementine said with a sneer. “You’ve heard all the rumors.”

  Jessup eyes rounded. “You’ve seen him?” Jessup sounded more open-minded about it, for which Peter was grateful.

  Meghan seemed to relax a little too, pulling her hands out of her pockets and unclenching them.

  Peter realized just how much it bothered him when other wolves didn’t believe in her abilities.

  “Can we go now to see him? Um, speak with him?” Jessup asked, sounding eager to make contact with his son.

  “If it’s all right with Peter,” Meghan said, and he appreciated that she included him in the decision-making.

  “Yeah, sure.” Peter just hoped Oliver would be there when they arrived at the mine. Not having him there would ruin Meghan’s chance at credibility with Clementine for sure.

  “He was in one part of the mine, but when we arrive, we might not be able to… Well, I might not be able to see him. Ghosts aren’t on any schedule, and making contact with them can be iffy. He might have moved off for the time being.”

  “Ha! First you say you can see him, and now you’re waffling about it?” Clementine turned to her husband. “You can’t be serious about seeing our son’s ghost. He’s gone. It took us years to move on, and now you’re going to dig up all the old hurt again?”

  “If there’s a chance I can communicate with him through Meghan, I want to try. He was gone, honey, before we could tell him how much we loved him.” Jessup said to Meghan, “If his spirit is in the mine, it’s because he hasn’t found a way to leave our world, isn’t that true?”

  “Yes. He wants to leave the mine, just like Alvin did,” Meghan said.

  “Alvin too?” Jessup sounded a bit choked up.

  Peter suspected he hadn’t imagined any of the deceased miners had left their spirits behind. Jessup had worked and socialized with the men, so he knew them personally.

  “Uh, yeah, but Alvin has moved on.”

  “Because of Meghan’s help,” Peter explained.

  “Oliver wants to see you both. To tell you he loves you. It’s possible he will find resolution when he’s able to see you one last time. But it’s never a sure thing. He may be so glad to see you, he’ll want to see more of you. There’s no way for me to know.” Meghan slipped her hands back into her pockets.

  Clementine shook her head. “There’s no way any of this is true. This is all a grand hoax.”

  “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t true. What good would it do either of us to make up a story about this?” Meghan asked. “I certainly have no stake in it.”

  “Why did you go into the mine in the first place?” Jessup asked.

  “She was looking for where men had died so she could pretend to speak to them and ‘prove’ she has these abilities, because we’ve been saying all along it’s all a bunch of hooey,” Clementine said.

  Meghan glanced at Peter as if she was asking his permission to tell the whole story. He inclined his head. The Frasers, and everyone else, would soon learn the truth about what Rollins had done. There was no reason to try to sugarcoat it.

  After she explained everything, Jessup sat down on the couch beside his wife, his jaw dropped in horror, and Clementine’s eyes filled with tears.

  Meghan said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you all this, but the whole pack is being told about it and needs to be on the lookout for your former pack member.” She directed the comment to Clementine.

  “All right. Well, if we can give him peace, I want to do this. Let’s go,” Jessup said, ignoring his wife’s glower.

  “You’re as crazy as she is.”

  Peter thought Clementine might get up off the couch and stomp off, but she just continued to scowl at them and watched them go.

  Peter figured the couple were bound to argue about this later. He was glad at least Jessup seemed eager to speak with his son if he could. Peter just hoped that Meghan could locate Oliver again.

  As soon as Jessup got into his car, Peter and Meghan led the way in his vehicle.

  “I’m sorry about getting a little testy with Clementine,” Meghan apologized to Peter, sounding truly repentant.

  “You were fine. Clementine might have issues with what you did to send Rollins to prison, but that’s her problem. After all that we’ve learned about him, I’m sure everyone who hadn’t supported your decision would now. As much as I hate that he might be here to kill you, at least he could still be in our territory, and everyone will be ready to eliminate the bastard.

  “As to the business of ghosts, well, not everyone believes in them. Plus, it has to be a touchy subject since I’m sure she didn’t imagine she’d have to resurrect the pain of losing Oliver all over again.”

  Meghan let out her breath. “I agree. Still, he has needs too. I just wanted to get her off the topic of Rollins. I’m usually a lot more sensitive to the feelings of someone who has lost a loved one. I didn’t handle it well at all. I wasn’t sure about telling them the rest, but I assumed they’d learn about it soon enough. When Jessup asked me why I was down there, I felt I really had no choice but to tell them everything.”

  “I agree, and I don’t blame you. I thought they might already have learned about Rollins. Clementine has her ups and downs. She’s the kind of wolf who has to think about something for a while. She might fight the notion you can communicate with her deceased son, but depending on what happens between you, Jessup, and Oliver, she might come around. As to the business with Rollins, you better believe if Clementine was wearing her wolf coat and she came upon him as a human, she’d kill him. No longer is it an issue of you ‘bringing’ him into our ter
ritory; he was part of the pack all along and deliberately murdered her son and needs to be eliminated.”

  “I still want to make it up to her somehow. I don’t know her, except for seeing her at social functions. She’s never been overtly friendly. I sort of blew it with making friends with her now.”

  “I believe that’s because of you and your sisters’ abilities to communicate with spirits.”

  “And we have Irish accents. And we weren’t born and raised here.”

  Peter smiled. “Yeah. We need new blood in the pack, but a few of the older wolves like the status quo and don’t like to see changes. But after another decade, she’ll be more used to you.”

  Meghan laughed, and Peter was glad he could lighten the mood for her.

  “And the frolicking in the snow?” she asked.

  Peter laughed. “I don’t think anyone’s ever seen me playing with a she-wolf in public before.”

  She smiled and patted his leg. “As long as no one took a video of it and shared it with everyone in the pack.”

  “Have you checked your phone?”

  She let out her breath. “No.” She pulled out her phone and checked her emails. Sure enough, there was a video of her throwing a snowball at Peter and him grabbing some snow to ball it up and throw it at her. She was hoping the video hadn’t caught everything, like his tackling her in the snow and kissing her like there was no tomorrow. But yep, there it all was in living color. She groaned, figuring her sisters had seen it already.

  “Well?”

  “It’s all there.”

  Peter laughed. “Who uploaded it?”

  “Six different people.”

  He laughed again. “The wolves like to be kept well informed of all kinds of happenings in the pack. Especially when it comes to courtship.”

  She sighed. “Next time we have a snowball fight? It’s going to be somewhere nobody can see us.”

  He smiled.

  When they arrived at the mine, Tom met with them up top. “There’s been no sign of Rollins, but we’ve got six men down there still looking. CJ’s in charge of them. Brett went back to the newspaper and is in the process of letting everyone know that Rollins, a.k.a. Scrapper, one of our former pack members, is back in the territory, as far as we know, and out for blood.” Tom glanced at the car Jessup was getting out of. He raised his brows at Peter in silent question.

  “Jessup came to see Oliver,” Peter said quietly. “Meghan’s already told him and Clementine why she’s been down in the mine.”

  Tom glanced at Meghan. She nodded. Tom took a deep breath. “All right. Good luck with that.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Oh, I was thinking no one would know what Rollins looked like as a wolf. But many would know.”

  “A black wolf, yeah sure,” Tom said.

  “Black?” She frowned.

  Peter rubbed her arm. “What?”

  “I don’t know. I saw a black wolf watching me before you caught up with me, all growly looking when we ran together in the snow. I didn’t recognize him, but he wasn’t all black. He had gray fur under his chin and belly.”

  Peter let out his breath. “Hell.” He couldn’t believe the wolf had gotten that close to her.

  “But he wasn’t all black,” she said.

  “Some black wolves gray as they age.”

  Then Jessup joined them, looking a little pale but determined to do this.

  Peter gave Meghan a reassuring hug, and then she climbed into the mine shaft first. Jessup climbed in after that. Peter followed them down and hoped all would go well, but the way things were going today, he had his doubts.

  Chapter 13

  Meghan worried she wouldn’t be able to find Oliver again and would upset Jessup. She could just imagine what Clementine would say to that. Meghan knew it had been a risk to offer to bring him down here to see his son, with the chance they might not find him. For Oliver’s sake, and for his dad’s, she’d wanted to try. Since ghosts didn’t seem to relate to time, he might hang around or feel they had been gone for so long they weren’t coming back. She wondered if a ghost’s appearance in more human form took a lot of energy. Maybe when they’d used up their energy, they just vanished. The problem was that ghosts were downright unpredictable. Which was why scientific studies about them were so difficult to conduct. Way too many ghost-hunter shows were frauds, purely for entertainment, and gave real spirit seers a bad name.

  This was the first time Meghan had ever shown this side of herself to Peter. He seemed to be taking the whole situation in stride, for which she was grateful. Most of the men she’d dated hadn’t believed in her abilities. It wasn’t essential that they did to have a loving relationship, but it really helped if her mate believed in her and understood her need to make the connections.

  “He was back down this tunnel,” Meghan told Jessup. She was glad Peter was behind her on this. Not once had he suggested it might be a mistake to try to contact Oliver so she could communicate between him and his father. She had to admit she was disappointed Oliver’s mother hadn’t come, but in a way, it was probably for the best. Especially if she’d come down here and then Meghan hadn’t found Oliver.

  When they finally arrived at the place where she’d seen Oliver, there was no sign of him. Her heart sank. She’d so hoped he would be right here where she’d left him, but she should have known that would most likely not be the case. Unless by some miracle he had already moved on.

  She called out, “Oliver, I’m Meghan, and I’ve returned with your father, Jessup.”

  There was no response, no ghostly apparition, no sounds, just the cold tunnel air surrounding her.

  Jessup waited anxiously, his gaze darting around the tunnel, looking for something he probably couldn’t see. Though it was dark down there, between their headlamps and their superior wolf’s night vision, they were able to see fine.

  Peter was crouching nearby, looking at something on the tunnel floor.

  “Do you see something?” she asked.

  “A wrapper from a stick of gum. Same fruity gum that was found in the stolen vehicle.” Peter used a baggie he had in his pocket to pick up the gum wrapper. “None of our men would litter down here, and it’s a new wrapper.”

  Meghan felt a chill sweep across her skin. “Rollins has been down this tunnel too?”

  “Or a human dumped trash down here. But I don’t see anything else. Like bottles or cans or other food wrappers.”

  “Rollins’s scent?”

  “Nothing. No one else’s. Nothing.”

  “Okay.” Meghan started looking at the tunnel floor for any other evidence someone had been here. Then she called Oliver’s name again. She’d asked Chrissy if she ever ignored her when the maid didn’t want to visit with her or her sisters. Chrissy had looked embarrassed, her cheeks coloring a bit, but she’d quickly denied she had ever done that. Meghan figured Chrissy was afraid they’d fire her if they’d known the truth. Poor thing.

  Meghan didn’t think Oliver would ignore her, unless he’d changed his mind about wanting to see his parents.

  But then she saw Oliver coming and she smiled, relieved. She relayed the information to Jessup and Peter.

  “Son?” Jessup said.

  Oliver tried to hug his dad, his eyes tearing up.

  “He just gave you a hug,” Meghan told Jessup.

  Jessup’s eyes filled with tears. “Son, you don’t know how much we’ve missed you.”

  “Same here for me. Where’s Mom?” Oliver asked his dad.

  “She isn’t ready to accept that I can speak with you,” Meghan answered for his dad.

  “Tell her I’m sorry I broke the window in the cabin that time I was tossing a ball when I was around ten years old. I told her a bear must have done it.”

  “I will.” Meghan assumed he was trying to give her a clue about a family secret that w
ould help convince his mother Meghan was really speaking to him. “What would you like to say to your dad?”

  “Tell him I miss fishing with him in the Colorado River and hunting and running as wolves. He really scolded me once when I was about five while we were running together as wolves. I saw a family picnicking, and I wanted to play with the kids. The two boys were about my age, but they weren’t lupus garous. I’d never been around humans before, and Dad was afraid their dad might have a gun and shoot me.”

  “Oh, no.” Meghan could see the whole scenario unfold before her eyes. Wolves and humans wouldn’t mix well in a setting like that. She told Jessup everything his son had shared with her.

  Jessup smiled. “Your mother told me about the bear breaking the window, Oliver. Both of us knew you had done it. There wasn’t any smell of a bear in the area, for one thing. And the ball had splinters of glass on it.”

  Oliver laughed. “You both let on that you believed me the whole time. I guess I could never pull the wool over your eyes.”

  Meghan told Jessup what Oliver had said, and they talked back and forth while Meghan shared Oliver’s comments with his dad. Both dad and son seemed to enjoy talking with each other again, catching up on everything that had happened over the years, and Meghan felt good about that.

  Oliver said, “You know Mom wanted me to mate Gwendolyn, but we weren’t suited to each other.”

  Meghan shared that with Jessup.

  “She had ten children with a wolf from Green Valley,” Jessup said.

  Oliver smiled. “I’m glad she did well. Tell Mom I miss her blueberry pies, but not the pea soup. She probably remembers how much I hated it. I miss her storytelling and her smiles and hugs.” But then he grew serious. “You know I didn’t love Gwendolyn.”

  Oliver was staring hard at his dad. When Oliver didn’t speak any further, Meghan told Jessup all that his son had said. Jessup’s face reddened a bit at the mention of Gwendolyn, and Meghan suspected he had tried to push the issue. Jessup looked down at the ground as if he couldn’t face the accusation.

  “What happened?” Meghan asked, but Oliver just stared at his dad with irritation.