Home for the Holidays

by Terry Spear

  Peter let out his breath. “Okay, you could be right. Then I’ll have some closure too.”

  Unless Oliver wouldn’t admit he was wrong in what he did. Meghan imagined that was the only way he could get closure.

  “Come on. The house is demolished, and it’ll probably take a day or so to finish the cleanup,” Peter said. “Let’s eat and resolve the rest of this business, if we can.”

  * * *

  Peter and Meghan returned to her home—now their home—and they fixed ham-and-cheese omelets and hot apple cider, then took off for the mine, wanting to arrive before Jessup did.

  Peter absolutely dreaded seeing Oliver. Or not really seeing him, but hearing Meghan ask him about Peter’s late wife and Oliver’s conduct. He didn’t know what Oliver would say to her, and he really didn’t want her to have to hear it. But at this point, Peter was ready to get this business over with.

  When they reached the mine, they were surprised to see Jessup’s car already there.

  “Well, so much for us getting here earlier than the dad,” Meghan said.

  “It’s got to be said, no matter what,” Peter said.

  Meghan agreed, and they climbed down into the mine and headed for where Oliver seemed to be hanging out.

  Peter couldn’t believe it when he heard Clementine’s voice deep in the tunnel where they were headed. He glanced at Meghan, and she seemed just as surprised but took his hand as they made their way to Oliver’s location.

  “I scratched Rollins’s face! Okay? He came to tell me Oliver deserved to die for what he wanted to do to him. If you hadn’t come out with your shotgun, I don’t know what he would have done. But he didn’t say he’d murdered Oliver and the other miners. I swear it.”

  Peter frowned at Meghan. He couldn’t believe Clementine, or Jessup, for that matter, hadn’t told anyone that they’d seen Rollins before the alert went out.

  “How could I know there’d be a manhunt for him later? We were told about all that after he left, including that he’d been in prison. And had escaped from prison!”

  Before Peter and Meghan walked much farther, Clementine shut up. Peter figured they’d heard him and Meghan approaching. When they reached them, Jessup was looking ashamed and Clementine had her arms folded across her chest, her chin tilted up in a haughty way.

  Meghan greeted both of them and said, “Oliver is here.”

  Before she could say anything further, Peter needed to get everything off his chest, and maybe it would be the key to helping Oliver leave here. “I know you still loved Lena.”

  Meghan jerked her head around to stare at Peter, and he guessed he should have given her a heads-up first. But he’d only decided to do this once he was down here. “I don’t care if you were sleeping with her.”

  “How could you accuse him of such a thing?” Clementine said, horrified.

  But she sounded like she was horrified he was bringing it up, not that she hadn’t known about it all along.

  “Oliver’s listening,” Meghan said, encouraging Peter to continue. She gave Clementine an annoyed look, though.

  Glad Oliver and Meghan seemed to think he was handling this well enough, Peter continued. “After Lena and I talked everything over, she went in peace. There’s no reason why you and I can’t bury the hatchet. You need to make your peace with me so you can move on. Hell, I forgive your transgressions. If our roles had been reversed, I know I wouldn’t have been seeing her behind your back, but in my heart, I wouldn’t be able to let her go. I understand that. I’ve moved on and mated Meghan, whom I truly love with all my heart, and the past is the past.”

  With tears in her eyes, Meghan reached over and took hold of Peter’s hand. She nodded at him.

  “Don’t go,” Clementine said in the direction of her son.

  Peter frowned at her. So did Meghan.

  “Oliver says he’s sorry for what he did,” Meghan said. “That he was wrong to see Lena. But her parents keeping them apart had been wrong too.”

  “If it’s any consolation to you, she told me she only mated me because her dad had threatened to disinherit her if she’d married you,” Peter said to Oliver.

  Meghan relayed to Peter, “No, she didn’t tell me that. Hell, I must not have been worthy enough either, or she would have kissed her inheritance goodbye.”

  “We told you she was leading you down a path of ruination!” Clementine said to him. “But you wouldn’t listen! She wasn’t good enough for you! She—”

  “Oliver’s leaving now. Thanking you, Peter, for forgiving him. He’s gone.”

  “What did you do that for?” Clementine asked, highly agitated. “I hadn’t said my piece with him.”

  “You said enough. More than enough. You always have,” Jessup said, then turned to Peter and Meghan. “Thanks to both of you.”

  Peter nodded, and Meghan turned and pulled Peter out of the tunnel toward the ladder.

  Clementine was still spouting off to Jessup behind them as they followed them out.

  “You had your say. Be glad you’re still alive,” Jessup said to Clementine.

  Clementine continued her tirade, her loud voice echoing off the tunnel walls. “I can’t believe he was still seeing her. As much as we told him to quit it before he ruined our good family name.”

  Once they were out of the mine, they said their good-byes, Jessup shaking Peter’s hand and thanking him for forgiving his son. “I’m not sure I could have been man enough to do it, had I been in your shoes.”

  “You’re not going to say a word about this to anyone, are you?” Clementine asked, as if she realized her son couldn’t cause them any more grief over Lena, but Peter could. Meghan too.

  “Not that I ever plan to discuss it with anyone. I wouldn’t have now if I hadn’t thought it might help Oliver move on. But if it has any important bearing on anything with the pack, I won’t keep it buried any longer.”

  Clementine glowered at him, but he said it like it was. He wasn’t going to hide from the past any longer.

  Then Jessup nodded. “We understand. Come on, dear.” He led Clementine to their car, and Peter and Meghan climbed into his and headed back to his place to move things over to her home.

  “I take it Clementine could see and speak to Oliver,” Peter said.

  “Yeah, what a shock. I guess when we first heard her talking in the tunnel before we reached him, she was rebuking her son, not Jessup,” Meghan said, finally settling back against the seat. “Oliver appeared grateful we had arrived, because it stopped her from berating him any further. For a few minutes anyway. Peter, I so love you. You are such a good person to have forgiven him. I’m not sure I could have done so easily if I’d been in your shoes.”

  “I had my own selfish reasons.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I didn’t want you to have to return to the mine, and if it helped send Oliver on his way, I was willing to forgive him.”

  She smiled. “You are the only one for me.”

  He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Listen, I’ve been thinking. If I have a murder case—”

  “You want me to see if a ghost can tell me what happened?”

  “If it wouldn’t be too upsetting for you. Maybe he or she could give you a description of the assailant, if the ghost didn’t already know who it was, and I could draw a sketch of the perp.”

  “What a brilliant idea. Here’s hoping you never have another murder case to investigate, but if you do, I’ll help you out in any way that I can.”

  “Thanks, Meghan, for everything.” And Peter sincerely meant it. She was everything to him.

  “Hey, do you want to get some help to move what you need over to my house?”

  “I believe we can do it ourselves.”

  “Nah, it would take too long.”

  He chuckled. “Sounds like you have some other ideas in
mind.”

  “Yeah, plus I want to see the Christmas lights all over town. I want to know who wins this year’s lighting competition.”

  “You’ve got a deal.”

  Then Meghan got a call. “Yeah, Laurel? Woo-hoo! Yes! Talk later. We’re going to Peter’s house now. Both the miners have found peace.” She smiled. “Yes, right before Christmas.” Then they ended the call and Meghan told Peter, “Our gingerbread hotel came in first place! Your outhouses got honorable mention for cleverness. Apparently, several of the judges remembered the old outhouses they had used when they were younger and loved the gingerbread memory. Oh, and Laurel said she’s sending some guys over to help us move your things. Apparently, a ton of guys have been waiting to help you move, but they also wanted to harass you about not giving me up.”

  Peter laughed. He was ready for anything.

  Chapter 27

  Peter and Meghan spent the rest of the morning and afternoon moving stuff from Peter’s house to her place. The rest he planned to sell or give away the week after Christmas. The bachelor males were all haranguing him in a good-natured way for mating her. She got a kick out of them and was glad they made short work of the move.

  Ellie was fixing roast-beef sandwiches for everyone, while Laurel was storing Peter’s food items in Meghan’s pantry. Meghan was making those fun white Christmas coconut drinks for everyone. When she brought out a tray of the cocktails and sandwiches to the guys, she saw Peter hanging up his Christmas stocking next to hers on the fireplace mantel. She smiled, realizing they truly were a couple for Christmas, and she couldn’t have been happier.

  Jake chuckled. “He’s been looking for his Christmas stocking for over an hour. Someone tossed it into one of the boxes and buried it.”

  Peter smiled. “If I didn’t find it before Christmas Eve, Santa couldn’t slip any presents into it.”

  Everyone gathered in the living room laughed.

  Once everyone was done with anything that they could do, they decided to take a drive around town and see all the lights since it was already dark by five. Her sisters and their mates would follow Peter’s car, just as extra protection.

  Meghan would have loved to do it with her sisters and their mates anyway, but she hated that she always had to have the protection.

  The Silver Town wolf pack loved contests, so they had to have one for Christmas lighting, too, and everyone voted for the most extravagantly, beautifully lit home and business, with runners-up and honorable mentions for each category. They also had categories for most creative and most humorous.

  Darien and Lelandi’s place won first place for their decorations for the Christmas party. Their house and barn and yard truly looked like a winter wonderland. Silva won the most creative for her tea shop after she created 3-D cups and saucers on top of her roof, teapots decorated in lights and pouring tea.

  And the band they always used for activities had the funniest one where they coordinated lights and did their own vocals in a cancan Christmas song fashion.

  After looking at the beautiful displays of Christmas lights for about an hour, the sisters and their mates stopped at the tavern for dinner and drinks before they went home to belatedly celebrate Meghan and Peter’s mating.

  Laurel reminded them, “You know we still have to build our snow wolves. It’s our last contest to enter.”

  The contest had traditionally been for snowmen, but last year, Laurel and CJ had created a snow wolf. It was such a big hit that they won first place, and the contest was now for snowmen or snow sculptures.

  “We can’t have just one snow wolf this time. It wouldn’t be enough,” Meghan said. “It’s still early.” But what she was about to propose would be a lot of work, and she was thinking if they only created a couple of wolves, that wouldn’t take too long for all of them to make.

  “All six of us,” Peter said, smiling. “Has to be. The three sisters and their mates. The six of us.”

  She loved Peter for being willing to create that many wolves.

  “Hey, let’s get to it,” CJ said.

  The ladies all agreed, and so did Brett. “Six wolves,” Brett said. “We have to win this time.”

  They headed across the street to the inn, parked their cars in back, and then went through the inn to the front yard. Bryce looked up from the horror story he was writing at the check-in counter and smiled. “Looks like you’re up to something.”

  “Snowmen competition.” Meghan smiled.

  “Wolf sculpture,” Bryce said, nodding. “Can’t wait to see it.”

  Soon, each couple was working on the first of their wolves.

  Laurel and CJ were to the left of them, Meghan and Peter in the center, because she was the middle triplet, and Ellie and Brett on their right nearer to the walkway that led to the inn.

  “Our wolves will be facing toward your wolves,” Laurel said. “Ours will be howling.”

  “Ours too,” Ellie said, excited about the prospect. “They’ll be howling about Meghan and Peter’s mating.”

  “And we’ll be nuzzling each other,” Meghan said, “cheeks against each other, looking like two happy wolves.”

  “That’s it,” Peter said, smiling.

  Brett reiterated, “I told you we’d make the winning sculpture this time.”

  CJ agreed.

  They worked for about three hours on the wolves and then added the finishing touches, securing the scarf Meghan had given Peter around the nuzzling wolves to show they were sharing the warmth. The others each used their own scarves to wrap around their wolves’ necks—the ladies’ MacTire wool plaid scarves and Christmas scarves the ladies had given their mates last Christmas.

  They stood back and looked at the four wolves howling, telling the pack of the mating, and the two wolves in the center, looking happy to be mated.

  They heard someone walking on the snow-covered walkway and saw it was Jake with his camera in hand. “I’ve got to take some pictures of this for the newspaper and for an art gallery.”

  They all smiled at him.

  But once he’d taken several pictures with all the Christmas lights casting sparkles of light onto the sculptures, he had each of the couples stand behind their creations to show not only who had made the snow wolves, but which couples they represented in their snow wolf forms. In playful mode for one of the pictures, Laurel pressed a kiss against CJ’s cheek and he was all smiles, Peter and Meghan embraced, lips pressed together in a kiss, and Brett kissed Ellie’s cheek while she offered a brilliant smile.

  “How did you know we were doing this, Jake?” Meghan asked, surprised to see him here.

  “Bryce called me to tell me what you were doing. I’ve been sitting in the tavern across the street with a number of wolves drinking, eating, and watching you the whole time. One reason we were watching was because we have to keep an eye out for trouble with Rollins, but we were having a blast guessing what you were doing this year. At least everyone in the tavern said they were voting for your wolf snow sculpture.”

  The MacTire sisters and their mates gave shouts of excitement, all hugged each other, and then hugged Jake too.

  “Hey, since we’re done here, I think it’s time for me to take Meghan to bed…um, home,” Peter said.

  Meghan felt her face heat and gave him a kiss.

  “Yeah, we know what you mean, Boss.” CJ slapped him on the back, and then they thanked Jake. The sisters and their mates headed through the inn to reach their cars.

  Meghan gave Bryce a thumbs-up.

  “Hey, I had to let Jake know about the artwork you were creating, in case the winds messed some of it up, but he said he was already watching the whole thing.”

  “Thanks, Bryce,” Laurel said.

  “It’s got my vote!” Bryce said.

  Meghan hoped the pack wouldn’t get tired of them winning. Then again, everyone loved wolves.


  * * *

  Once they all said good night to Bryce, and Meghan’s sisters and the Silver brothers walked out to their cars, Peter and Meghan entered her home. He did his usual thing of pulling out his gun and checking over the house to ensure Rollins hadn’t broken in.

  Then he went outside and motioned to the brothers that everything was all clear as they idled their cars, warming them up, and waited for word. They waved back, and Peter shut and locked the door and pulled off his coat, then hung it in the closet beside hers. He was thrilled to think he was now living with her, sharing the space with her, and was not just an invited guest. He pulled off his scarf and hung it on a scarf holder above hers, then closed the closet door.

  “Ohmigod,” Meghan said upstairs in the bedroom.

  Worried something was wrong and his heart thundering, he raced for the stairs, taking them two at a time until he reached the landing. She’d sounded surprised, not scared, though. He hadn’t seen anything that looked bad when he checked for Rollins. Peter reached the bedroom and hurried in to see Meghan looking up at the mistletoe hanging around their curtained bed, over the doorway, and over the bathroom doorway. He glanced in the bathroom and saw one hanging from the shower stall.

  He laughed. “I was so busy looking for any sign of Rollins, I never noticed it. The pack never ceases to amaze me.”

  “Everyone who did this was so cute. Did you know the Druids thought mistletoe chased away evil spirits, but in Norse mythology, it was used as a sign of love and friendship, and that’s where the kissing comes from?” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  “We don’t need any incentive.”

  “Oh, I so agree. But it is a cute touch.”

  They pulled aside the curtains. Several sprigs of mistletoe hung from the canopy. They both laughed.

  “Are you as cold as I am?” he asked.

  “Freezing! After making the snow sculptures for all that time, I can’t get warmed up. I would have been undressed for bed already if I hadn’t been so cold.”

  He kissed her nose. “Your nose is cold.”

  She kissed his and licked his lips. “So is yours.”