A Shifter Under the Christmas Tree

by M. L. Briers

  “Did you ever take that as a hint that I don’t want you here?” Mark growled.

  “Sure, and then I dismissed it because of your warm and welcoming attitude whenever I come over.” Cameron grinned to himself when the alpha muttered obscenities under his breath.

  Then the alpha reached for two beers from the coffee table in front of him and tossed one to the vampire who caught it like a pro. “I like you better when you don’t speak,” he growled.

  “I could say the same to you…” he stopped when the alpha snapped a glare at him. “But I’m not that rude.”

  ~

  Kaylee heard the sound of a meaty engine drawing closer to the cabin, and her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t need to look out the window to know whose pickup truck that was coming towards the cabin, and with Jackson still outside, running off the sugar rush from the cookies he’d devoured, the excited shouts from the boy only reinforced her suspicions.

  When she found herself smoothing the long sweater down over her hips, she admonished herself – what next, touching up her makeup? Yes, he was drop-dead as sexy-as-hell but didn’t seem to know or acknowledge it like city men did, but being good looking and having a killer body didn’t mean that she was going to lose her mind and fall for him.

  At least, that wasn’t on her to-do this holiday season.

  They’d left the city for a good reason, and they had only stopped because Jackson wanted a real Christmas. It was kind of hard to have a real Christmas, including the tree, dinner, and subsequent food coma on the road.

  Once Christmas was out of the way, the plan was to keep moving – to where she didn’t know – but onward and upwards away and away from her troubles.

  By the time she got to the front door the engine was silent, but Jackson wasn’t – something was ‘cool’, and his laughter was heartfelt, and she was curious to see what all the fuss was about.

  When she opened the front door, she couldn’t believe her eyes – snow was falling thick and fast, in great big globs that had already started to settle on the ground. She hadn’t really considered the fact that she was out in the middle of nowhere and town suddenly seemed so far away as the road disappeared under the weight of the white stuff.

  “Oh … poop!” she muttered to herself.

  It wasn’t like she drove a big pickup truck, her little car was suitable for the city and an occasional trip on good roads – it had even struggled over what was basically a dirt track between the cabin and the road. Damn, she was in trouble now.

  The sight of Max working to get the Christmas tree down drew her attention. Even with his back to her, that sight was something to behold. Her heart smacked her ribs and thundered away, stupid butterflies danced inside of her, and she felt decidedly warm, considering the outside world looked like the inside of a giant snow globe.

  But that warmth, those feelings; that was the mating pull, she told herself and tried to dismiss it, but it didn’t want to be dismissed.

  As he hauled the tree from the truck and slung it over one broad shoulder Kaylee didn’t need to wonder what Santa had got her for Christmas; there was a shifter under her Christmas tree now.

  But when he turned to face her – oh, dear Goddess – her eyes went wide, a smile burst across her lips, and she almost peed her panties laughing at him. Even over the sound of her laughter ringing in her ears, she could still hear the hardy growl and saw his lips move in a grumble as he stalked towards her.

  “What did you do?” Kaylee asked, spluttering laughter behind her hand, but Jackson wasn’t so subtle, the child was practically rolling around in the settling snow, laughing his butt off.

  “My sister thought it was a good idea,” Max growled, and he shot her a sideways look, but it was the green makeup that covered his face and turned him into a poor excuse for the Hulk, as Jackson had requested, that made her sound like Mutley, the cartoon dog as she tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help herself. “Not funny!”

  “Have you looked in the mirror?” she demanded in a moment of seriousness, but a moment was all she could muster, and she was back to chuckling once more.

  “I caught sight of myself in the truck’s mirror…”

  “And?”

  Max stopped beside her and rolled his eyes like a petulant child that didn’t want to admit he’d been stupid. “It’s …” He pressed his lips together.

  “Green?” Kaylee offered, trying to look innocent, but unable to keep the smile from her lips.

  “I can’t say I hadn’t noticed,” he grumbled.

  “Nice shade, you match the tree – were you going for camouflage?” she snickered.

  Max dropped his head on his neck and gave a little shake as he groaned. “Go ahead, get it out of your system,” he grumbled.

  “I don’t think I can,” Kaylee chuckled harder. “I think this image is going to stay with me until my dying day – even if I was cursed with old-timers or something – I’d still remember this one moment.” She shrugged, and he groaned.

  “Where do you want the tree?” he grumbled.

  “Same place everybody else puts a tree, inside,” she teased. He grunted before starting for the front door. “Umm, don’t Hulk-smash anything on your way, will you?”

  Max grumbled and groaned his way to the front door, and Jackson grinned hard as he watched him go. “He’s so cool,” he said, to no one in particular, and then set off after him.

  “That’s not the words I’d use to describe him,” Kaylee muttered to herself as she turned in the snow and headed after them.

  Things were going from bad to worse – he’d greened up like the Hulk for Jackson, and like it or not, and she didn’t, that showed he had a soft side behind that big, man-mountain exterior.

  That sucked.

  She’d much rather think of him as one giant male chauvinistic, pain-in-the-butt, mountain-man that grunted and moaned his way through life – because that would be easier to dismiss.

  But who could dismiss a man who had done something stupid, but oh, so thoughtful, for a child? She hoped she could, but feared she couldn’t.

  Yep, that sucked.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ~

  “Can I see your bear?” Jackson asked when Max stalked back in the front door carrying the base he’d brought for the tree to sit in and a box of decorations that his mother had sent to finish off the tree.

  The boy’s words almost wrong-footed him, but he stopped in his tracks and shot a look at Kaylee who was standing by the picture window with her arms folded and her backside resting against the windowsill. She shrugged.

  For a long moment, Max felt like the world had tipped on its axis and was trying to throw him off. It wasn’t normal for a human to say those words, to know what he was, but evidently Kaylee had chosen to tell him.

  “Not really a good idea in here,” Max said, mumbling as he tried to climb back into normality but deep down knowing that things would never really be normal again.

  Max went to take a step, but Jackson moved in front of him, blocking his way. “Can I see your bear outside then?” he asked as if it was an everyday occurrence for either of them.

  Max loved how children just accepted the world and the people in it for what they were. They didn’t see differences until someone pointed them out, and when they did see it, they didn’t judge.

  He kind of wished that children ruled the world, but then, every day would be Christmas, there would be no school, and the grown-ups would still be doing all the work.

  Max looked at the boy’s expectant stare and shook his head. “Not a good idea…”

  “If it’s not a good idea in here, and it’s not a good idea out there, when do you let your bear out to play?” Jackson asked, and Max shot Kaylee a questioning look.

  “Hey,” she said and held her hands up in mock surrender. “These are the questions that try us when we have a kid around, just be grateful you didn’t know him during his ‘why’ stage.”

  Max didn’t know what to say to
either of them. It was as if he was in a dream where humans just knew and accepted him for what he was. It was surreal.

  He’d had those dreams a lot growing up and having to hide his true nature and learn not to growl at people had been his biggest problem, but he’d gotten through it. “Why stage?” he said thoughtfully. “Nothing seems to have changed except the word – now he has more of them,” Max said, and she couldn’t help but laugh at that.

  It was true, the older Jackson got, the more curious he became, and everything was one big adventure to him. Even during their impromptu road trip, she thought he saw that as one big opportunity to question everything in the world.

  “Enjoy,” she said, choosing not to get involved.

  Max frowned and then thrust the box of decorations at Jackson who took it with open arms. “You deal with this, and I’ll deal with the tree, and Aunt Kaylee can make some hot chocolate while we men do our work.”

  “Sexist,” Kaylee muttered, and he’d caught it with his sensitive hearing, but she had a smile on her lips and was already walking towards the kitchen, so he didn’t think he was in the doghouse just yet.

  Kaylee had a secret weapon in the fight against being wooed – Jackson. If she let them have enough time together, then Max might just hightail it out of there of his own accord.

  When the sound of laughter reached her ears she grimaced. Of course, on the other hand they might just bond over man things.

  While she knew what a mama bear was like with her cubs, she had no clue what a male bear was like with kids in general. She snapped on the kettle, snatched up her mobile, and set to finding out some answers about male bear shifters on the DWW, the dark witch web had answers to most things, and she doubted she’d be the first witch to pose the question.

  It was better to know too much than not enough.

  ~

  Shauna walked up behind her mother as she stood at the bay window looking out on the snow and leaned in over her shoulder to share the pretty view. “My bear’s itching for that to become deep and thick and even,” she said, and her mother chuckled.

  “Why? You spend enough time over winter hibernating in your room as it is…”

  “Yes, but now I’ll have a good reason,” she chuckled.

  Her bear liked the first few snows of winter and then it was done with the winter wonderland and itched for spring. Spring was great, not too hot and not too cold, and she liked that just fine.

  Tanya sighed. “I hope this doesn’t stop Kaylee and Jackson from coming to dinner…”

  “Again.”

  “Yeah,” Tanya said, but she missed the little guy already.

  It had been too long since she’d had a bundle of fun and curiosity in the house, and she much preferred it to the stroppy teenage stage or the newfound adult phase. She guessed she might have been broody in a strange sort of way, not that it did her any good – her time had come and gone where having cubs was concerned.

  Still, time to enjoy the grandchildren lay ahead of her, if her three children would only comply and get moving. But then, if Max wooed his mate, she’d sort of have a ready-made grandchild in Jackson.

  “Look on the bright side. If they get snowed in, we won’t have to put up with Max, and he might stand a better chance of wooing his mate than if she could just up and run away from him.”

  Shauna didn’t wait for a reply, she just turned and walked away, and Tanya did chuckle to herself, but she also rolled her eyes.

  Max wasn’t that bad, not deep down – a mother knew her son, and when that boy opened up then he was a sweetheart.

  She just hoped Kaylee hadn’t already killed him by then.

  ~

  “It’s a little dangerous taking him out in this, don’t you think?”

  Max felt the rush of disappointment, but there was also an element of relief. He’d never thought that dinner with his family was a good idea. Hell, he wanted to make a good impression and his father’s sarcasm, his brother’s annoying ways, Shauna acting like a Princess, and his mother being – well, his mother – might just have been enough to send her screaming for another country.

  But on the other hand, that just put the pressure on him to actually fill the silence between them until she booted him out in the snow – or maybe, the snow could work to his advantage as well.

  Would she really boot him out to get stuck in the middle of nowhere in a snowstorm?

  “I guess you’ll want to make haste?” She had a hopeful look on her face as she motioned to the door, and Max sighed to himself – he guessed she would boot him out after all.

  “In this?” Max asked, looking out of the window.

  “Are you a bear or a…?”

  “If it’s too snowy for us to go out,” Jackson said, and she felt her heart lurch to a stop. “Then it’s too snowy for Max to go out.”

  Kaylee could have kicked her heart across the floor like she was trying for a goal kick. Didn’t kids just say the darnedest things and usually when you least expected it?

  Kaylee eyed Max, and she was sure that he was trying not to grin. The corners of his lips were pulling and quirking, and his eyebrows were doing the cutest dance over his warm chocolate eyes.

  Hmm, she had his number. He might have won that battle, but he hadn’t won the war, and it would be war if he tried to woo her.

  “Jackson has a point,” Max said like he hated to admit it, but he was smiling on the inside.

  Oh yeah, she had his number alright.

  “Can’t you just shift into your bear and…?”

  “Bears can’t drive, Aunt Kaylee,” Jackson said with a small chuckle as he opened the pack of lights and allowed them to spill out into a mess at his feet. “Oops.”

  “Bears can’t drive,” Max said, now openly looking pleased with himself.

  Even with that stupid green makeup on his face, she found herself attracted to him, pulled by a force that was bigger than either of them. “Fine,” she said and narrowed her eyes on him. “But if I have to cook, then you have to do the tree with Jackson.” She thought that was a fair trade-off.

  “Deal,” he said as if it was water off a duck’s back.

  “Really?” she asked frowning. She’d expected a different answer.

  “Really,” Max said, turning to note Jackson opening the second pack of lights, and give the boy his due, this time he tried to catch them before they escaped – but failed.

  He winced as the boy scooped up both sets in his hands and just knew that they’d spend the first twenty minutes unwinding them. But if it got him in her good books, which he doubted, then he was up for the task of tree decorator. “Not a problem.”

  “Good,” Kaylee said and went to turn away when she thought better of it. “And take that stupid green off your face,” she muttered before turning away with a grin.

  “Because you prefer to see the real me,” he asked, and the smooth, velvety deep tones of his voice seemed to hang in the air all around her as she rolled her eyes to the ceiling and kept on going to the kitchen without looking back.

  “No, it just looks like you sneezed all over yourself,” she said and used her magic to tickle his nose until he violently sneezed.

  Jackson chuckled as Max eyed her with suspicion. That certainly wasn’t a coincidence, but he wasn’t going to call her on it.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ~

  Tanya placed the bowl of creamed potatoes in the middle of the table and sighed. “That was Max,” she informed the others as she put the phone down next to her. “He’s not coming.”

  Mark snorted in amusement. “No table manners required then,” he grinned.

  “I didn’t know you knew what manners were,” Cameron said, offering him a smug look.

  “You can leave now,” Mark said and motioned to the door.

  “You’d throw me out in the snow?”

  “It’s not like you’re going to freeze to death…”

  “Technically, I could…”

  “Yes, but you�
�d bounce right back up again like the bloodsucking leech that you are,” Mark said while reaching for the plate of meat.

  “I’m not leaving,” Cameron announced. “You have plenty of spare rooms; I may never leave…”

  “Oh, you’ll leave,” Mark assured him.

  “After dinner,” Cameron said, shooting a glance at Tanya who was smiling at their antics. “Maybe.”

  “What’s wrong with him staying the night?” she asked, and her mate screwed up his face at the thought of it.

  “We don’t have a coffin,” he informed her.

  “That’s so stereotypical,” Cameron said, rolling his eyes. “I’m sure you have a beam I can hang by my feet from?” His dry tone made Shauna chuckle.

  Mark snapped his finger. “Perfect, you can stay in the barn like the other bats.”

  “Tanya, what did you see in him?” Cameron asked.

  “He’s my mate, I had little choice in the matter,” she offered back.

  Mark grunted again. “Go ahead, take the vampire’s side,” he teased. “It’s not hurtful to my feelings…”

  “You have – feelings?” Cameron asked.

  “No, that’s why it’s not hurtful to them,” Mark tossed back with a grin, forking a pile of meat onto his plate.

  “I walked right into that one,” he grumbled.

  “Just like you’re going to walk into the barn where batboys belong,” Mark said and held out the plate. “Second best?” he offered, and the vampire raised his eyebrows.

  “That’s how you describe your mate’s cooking?” Cameron asked.

  He noted the way that the alpha stopped dead as if time had stood still as his mind clicked through what came next and just how much trouble he could be in with his mate. “I was talking about you, not the food,” Mark rushed out to the sound of a low-level growl from Tanya.

  “Reverse ferret,” Cameron said with glee. “I think Tanya’s cooking is second to none…”