by Terry Spear
She knew he was a bit reluctant, the way she had to drag him, but she was certain it had to do with him being the pack’s sheriff and a guy and not willing to let down his hair in front of everyone else.
“Are you sure?” he asked, looking at all the kids lined up.
“Yeah, it’ll be fun.” They each received a candy cane from Jake’s mate, Alicia, and she smiled to see them lining up.
“We’re the only adults doing this,” Peter said, sounding a little intimidated by the idea. That was a new side of him she’d never seen. She thought he was cute.
“They don’t know how to have fun,” Meghan said.
But as soon as Meghan said that, Silva pulled Sam out to line up with them. Since they were the tavern owners, they often supervised the food and drinks at the big events, but Meghan knew everything was already set up inside. Everyone would just browse at the tables, not sit down for a dinner. That way, everyone could participate in the games and dance and eat whenever they wanted to.
Then Laurel dragged CJ to play the game. “We can’t beat the kids,” Laurel said to Meghan, “but you need the competition.”
CJ said, “Peter’s my boss.”
Everyone laughed.
And then the jingle bells were rung, and everyone took off, each couple having to keep the crooks of their candy canes connected without breaking them as they ran to the finish line. The adults had to run a lot further, though no one had expected any adults to play in the game. Everyone was cheering the runners on.
CJ tripped in the snow and fell, breaking his candy-cane connection with Laurel. “You did that on purpose,” she said, laughing.
Sam and Silva were neck and neck with Peter and Meghan, but Meghan wasn’t quite as tall as Silva, so she wasn’t running as fast. Peter reached around Meghan, lifting her against him, and ran the rest of the way as she wrapped her legs tight around his body, laughing.
She was gripping him around the shoulders with her free arm, keeping the connection with their candy canes as he sprinted across the finish line. Meghan swore Silva and Sam slowed down at the end on purpose, but the next thing she knew, Sam was carrying Silva, because Silva was always running around in high-heeled boots and had sprained her ankle in the snow.
“You should have won,” Meghan said to Sam and Silva.
“No way,” Silva said. “Any man who would carry his girlfriend across the finish line, while keeping their candy canes connected, deserves to win.”
Meghan laughed, and when Peter put her down, she kissed him. “Thanks for being a good sport.”
“That was fun.”
“Good. Let’s see what else we can do.”
Peter looked like he had asked for that.
Jake’s wife came over to give them a big bag of candy canes. “You’re the winners of the adult contestants.”
“Thanks, Alicia,” Meghan said. “We can use them to make peppermint cocoa at the inn.” To Peter she said, “Come on, this will be less vigorous. You need to save your strength for dancing.” She pointed to where Lelandi was setting up bottles of colored water so anyone who wanted to could do snow art.
Peter groaned. “I’m not an artist.”
“No problem. Neither am I. We can make crazy abstract art.”
It didn’t take them long to create a yellow sun, green grass, and blue flowers, which was totally a team effort. They’d decided abstract art wasn’t for them. Before she could see what else they could do, Peter was glancing around. She immediately thought of Bill, which was too bad because she hadn’t thought of him once while she was having fun with Peter. Instead, Peter pointed to a mini-snowman contest. “What about that? Want to give it a try?”
She grabbed his hand and ran for the mini-snowman contest before they went in to eat. Unless there was something else fun to do first. She was having a ball, and she was glad she hadn’t let Bill’s being here ruin it for her. She was also glad Peter was beginning to loosen up and wanted to do more things with her.
Some of the kids were playing chase with the grown-ups in the snow, but the smaller ones soon wore out and the parents took them inside to warm up and feed them. Some of the bachelor males were wearing their wolf coats, and she knew that meant they weren’t there to party, but to be on guard detail for any trouble. She hadn’t even seen Bill, not that she was looking too hard. She wondered if he was inside while she was outside.
Because she and Peter had the candy canes from their win, they broke up some for the arms and broke off a small piece for the nose for their mini snowman. That made their snowman perfectly unique.
Dr. Weber won the adult contest when he used some of his bandages to create a snowman with a casted leg. The snowman was just too cute, and everyone took pictures of Doc’s creation for posterity’s sake. Brett was capturing it in a shot for the newspaper. Meghan wondered if he’d taken a picture of her and Peter crossing the finish line in the candy-cane race.
For another game, kids were making tracks in the snow, and other kids had to guess what animal made them. Most of the kids were good at guessing the animals that made them. As wolves, they were keen on tracking. On the other hand, it would have been a lot easier if they could have smelled the animal that would have made the tracks.
“Is there anything else you want to try?” Peter asked.
Beanbags, made in the shape of Christmas presents, were being tossed into Santa’s bag, a game of ring toss where kids were throwing the ring on a snowman’s carrot nose was set up nearby, and a three-legged race had already started. Then Meghan saw a snowball relay race being organized. “Come on, let’s do that, and then we’ll go inside.”
They hurried over to join opposite teams—she insisted. They had to grab a snowball from a stack and start a new stack of snowballs across the field. And then they had to race back to tag the next runner. The first team to move all their snowballs to the other side won.
Everyone was laughing so hard, and when Meghan’s team won, Peter swore his team’s side had extra snowballs to begin with. That brought on another round of laughter.
Meghan slipped her hands around his waist and smiled up at him. “Want to get warmed up and—”
“Yeah, I’ll warm you up.”
She laughed and pulled him toward the barn. “Let’s go inside, and then we can eat. I hear the band starting up.” And that meant dancing. She’d managed to get only a couple of dances out of Peter during the Victorian Days festivities in the fall because he and CJ were called on to break up a human fight at the ski lodge. This time, she hoped they wouldn’t be interrupted.
The security lights suddenly went on, like they were supposed to do and did for every pack activity that they had here at night, but this time it seemed more ominous to her. As if they had come on to catch a rogue wolf.
As soon as the warm air in the building hit them, she started pulling off her gloves and hat. Peter had already removed his gloves and shoved them in his pockets, then helped her off with her coat. She did the same thing with her gloves and removed her wool scarf. He took off his coat, and they walked over to a long coatrack against one wall and he began hanging their things up together.
“Oh, we forgot our gifts,” she said, noticing the gifts stacked up under the ten-foot-tall Christmas tree that had been decorated by the whole pack. One side had the women’s gifts, the other, the men’s.
“I’ll get them. I’ll take the package of candy canes out there and leave them too.” Peter motioned to Jake, who was drinking cider with his mate.
Jake and Alicia crossed the floor to join them. “I need to run out to get the gifts for the exchange. Can you watch Meghan for me?”
“Sure thing,” both said.
Alicia was a bounty hunter by trade and trained in all kinds of martial arts, so she really did mean what she said.
Meghan glanced around the big hall but didn’t see any sign of Bill. Sh
e wondered if he had been inside and then ushered outside as soon as she headed in. She was just as glad. Then she saw Clementine drinking a glass of wine and talking to a couple of people. When she saw Meghan, she strode across the hall. Meghan didn’t figure this was going to be a good talk, not as growly as the woman looked.
“Looks like Clementine’s got a thorn in her paw,” Alicia said. “Don’t worry about her not liking you because of your ghostly sightings, Meghan. She doesn’t like me because I’m more newly turned.”
Meghan shook her head. The woman was intolerant of everything, it appeared.
“Do you want me to tell her to chill?” Jake asked.
“No, that’s all right. I think I know why she wants to speak with me. I might as well get it over with.” Meghan stiffened for the confrontation, though she was trying to relax. She noticed then Lelandi, as co-pack leader, was watching the whole situation too.
When Clementine drew close enough, she said, “Don’t you dare send any more pack members to coerce me to go to the mine.”
“I didn’t send anyone. I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re full of crap.”
Meghan smiled, but then the smile slipped. “What you want to do about your son is up to you. Maybe you seeing him won’t make any difference. Maybe it all has to do with the woman you tried to force him to mate.”
Clementine’s face turned red, her eyes widening. “For your own sake, you’d better drop that line of questioning.” Then she glanced at Jake as if he knew something about it, turned, and stalked off.
Meghan frowned at Jake. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”
“No. I don’t have any idea why Clementine would think I’d know anything about their family affairs.”
Jake sounded sincere, but Clementine sure seemed to think he knew about it. Alicia hadn’t been in the pack long, so she wouldn’t know what had happened that long ago. Maybe Brett would since he ran the newspaper. Meghan had probably been asking the wrong people. Surely someone in the pack would know and wouldn’t be afraid to tell her. She still felt it might be the key to Oliver’s release, since his mother wasn’t keen about seeing him.
Chapter 19
When Peter returned to the party hall with the packages, he noticed the tension in the air between Meghan and Jake and wondered what had happened.
The music began to play a waltz, and Meghan took his arm. “Let’s dance.”
Alicia took the presents from Peter. “I’ll put these under the tree for the two of you.”
Peter gave Jake one last look, and he shrugged his shoulders, but Peter would need to talk to him to learn what was wrong. Unless Meghan would tell him. But she seemed to want to dance nice and close across the floor, her head resting against his chest, her arms wrapped around his body. He realized they hadn’t had anything to eat, and his stomach was already grumbling. Roast turkey, ham, and duck were set up on the tables, along with a number of other dishes that enticed him. But he wasn’t moving in that direction unless Meghan wanted to eat, because he’d promised to dance every dance with her.
He suspected some of her need to dance with him was because he’d had to leave the dance early during Victorian Days. He loved being with her like this, though whenever he touched her this intimately, she worked him up. Already, his other head was rising to the occasion. “About tonight,” he said.
“You want to come home with me after all this workout?” She rubbed her body against his erection.
“Hell, Meghan,” he said, smiling down at the mischievous minx. “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
“Hmm,” she said and ran her hands over his back. “After we dance every dance?”
“Do you think we could get some eating in?”
“Is that why your stomach is rumbling so?”
He laughed. “I didn’t have time for lunch, and I figured I’d get enough to eat at the party. Then here you are running me ragged in the snow and wanting to dance with me all night long and—”
“You need some energy food for what’s next?”
He smiled down at her and kissed her head. “Yeah.”
“Okay, two dances, and we’ll get something to eat.”
Four dances later, he finally peeled Meghan away from the dance floor to get something to eat. He was hot and sweaty and aroused and ready to take her home and finish this at her house. She was just as aroused but having too much fun to quit. Once she started eating, she seemed glad she did. The band quit for a break anyway, and Christmas music began to play overhead. In the middle of having wine and eating the food piled up on their plates, Lelandi announced they’d begin the gift exchange.
In years past, they would have the option of stealing a person’s gift one time, but wolves are really possessive, and once they had a gift they wanted, they could get really growly if another wolf tried to take it away from them. Though some would think it was funny, others would hold grudges. So no more stealing gifts. Sometimes, wolves exchanged with others if they were agreeable. Sometimes, a gift that had been given in the past came back for each Christmas after, almost as a joke.
Even though the presents were initially put under the tree as a secret, once the new owner took hold of it, he or she would know who gave the gift because they’d smell their scent.
Alicia received Meghan’s scarf, and she was thrilled. Meghan got a new cutting board, and she was delighted. When it came time for the men’s gifts, Jessup got Peter’s hatchet and thanked him from across the room. Several of the guys were offering their gifts in exchange for his, but he just smiled and wouldn’t let go of it. Peter ended up with the men’s Christmas sweater featuring a Santa with his hot abs bared that had been pawned off every year. But he had every intention of wearing it, as soft as the material was. And hopefully, Meghan would run her hands over his abs while he was wearing the sweater to feel just how hot they were.
“I dare you to wear it,” Meghan said.
They were still handing out Christmas presents when Peter pulled off his sweater and several people who saw him laughed. A she-wolf across the room yelled out, “Take it off. Take it all off.”
He smiled, felt his face flush a bit, and pulled on the Christmas sweater. Meghan was grinning at him. “Now feel those abs, why don’t you,” he said to her.
She quickly obliged, running her hands over his soft sweater. Everyone was watching them, most smiling, and he suspected some of the previous owners wished they had done the same thing with their she-wolves and not passed the sweater off during another Christmas round of gift exchanges. But he was the lucky one.
Some of the pack members clapped, and he realized they were clapping for him. He raised his fists in victory, and Meghan kissed his abs.
Then the gift-giving ended, and he and Meghan finished eating their meal. And they were back to dancing. Except for a bathroom break and one for a drink and dessert, they danced until the party ended.
Peter had never had this much fun at the pack Christmas party. Last year, he’d had to leave early. He was glad there weren’t any interruptions this time. And thankfully, Bill hadn’t created any issues.
“Ready to go home?” Peter asked Meghan, hoping she hadn’t changed her mind about him staying the night with her.
“Yeah, you can chase my nightmares away.”
He frowned down at her.
“I’ve been having them again since I heard Rollins was here.”
“Oh, Meghan, honey, I’m so sorry. You should have told me. I would have stayed with you every night.” He knew Laurel would have comforted her, but he would be right there in bed with Meghan, chasing the nightmares away.
Suddenly, they heard the sound of loud popping and crackling glass. Everyone was inside now, but Peter had told Darien once everyone was inside for the rest of the party, he wanted Bill to be incarcerated at the jailhouse. Some of their othe
r deputized pack members would guard him. Peter was glad no one was outside right now except for some of the men serving as wolf guards.
“Stay here,” Peter told Meghan, and he saw Jake and Tom coming to watch over her. Then Peter, CJ, and more men went outside to find that several of the outer perimeter lights had been shot out. The guard wolves had been searching for Rollins but came back, shaking their heads.
The only person who would do that was Rollins. They examined the glass from the lights, and Peter realized explosives had been attached to the light units so Rollins had used a timer to blow them up. He truly had to have a death wish. But they weren’t going to track him down tonight. That’s what Rollins most likely wanted, and Peter didn’t want any of the men to be led into a trap in the darkness. “Come on, men. Let’s pack it up and go home.” Inside, he told CJ, “I’ll be staying with Meghan tonight.”
“Do you want a guard on the house?”
“Yeah, I think it would be prudent.”
Several cars full of pack members were heading in the same direction, so Peter knew Meghan would be safe on the trip home. They’d have additional backup outside if they needed it.
When they arrived at the house, Peter got a call while he was removing his gloves and Stetson.
“Hey, I’m at the jailhouse, safeguarding Bill, replacing one of our other guys so he could go to the party. I just got a call about the DNA findings on the stuff at your old homestead and at the mine. Rollins left fingerprints on all of it,” Trevor said.
Peter tried to pull off his coat, and Meghan hurried to help him after hanging up her own. “Okay, so we know for sure Rollins was the one who had been at both places. It’s good to get confirmation,” Peter said.
“Uh, yeah, and the other thing is Bill wants to go home.” Trevor sounded like he didn’t want to bring up that bit of news.
Peter frowned. “To St. Augustine?”
Meghan pulled off her boots and set them under the side table resting against a wall. He realized now she often did that to keep anyone from tripping over them.