by Terry Spear
"Skis or snowshoes on our hike this morning?" Edward asked Robyn.
"Well, we could see more of the park on skis. But we couldn't cuddle. And that’s what I want to do."
Edward smiled. "We just could return to the room after breakfast." She'd been so amorous all night long, he figured she was trying to make up for lost time. Not that he wasn't eager to fulfill her needs just as much as he needed to satisfy his own. He suspected that she was a little worried they couldn’t be as free to make love when they were at home with the boys. But they would find a way.
By the time they were finished with breakfast, the sun had started to rise, a golden blush sweeping across the pristine white snow. This far north, the sun hung low in the sky for as long as it was up, making for a soft light, rather than harsh sunlight on bright snow further south. Photographers on their tours always mentioned how much they loved the natural lighting as if the golden hour of photography existed for the whole four and a half hours that the sun was in the sky.
Wearing snowsuits and carrying backpacks with bottled water, snacks, and snowshoes, they headed out to the shuttle that would take them from the resort to Denali National Park. The road was closed further into the park due to the snow conditions, but at least the shuttle could take them to the entrance of the park. No one else came out to use the shuttle and the driver finally left to drop Robyn and Edward off at the park.
Once they had exited the shuttle, they put on their snowshoes and began to walk along a trail, the upper crust of snow crunching under their footfalls. The noticed a couple of moose were eating branches and twigs of willow trees nearby.
Edward and Robyn kept out of their path to avoid confrontation, keeping trees between them and the hungry and unpredictable moose. Edward’s arm was around Robyn’s waist and they'd walked about a mile when he whispered to her, “Kind of nice coming here in winter. It’s so quiet because hardly any humans are visiting the park.”
“It’s just so peaceful and beautiful.”
They were quiet then, watching for signs of any other animals when they saw a couple of white ermine chasing mice through the snow.
They observed the hunt and then the mice and ermine disappeared from sight.
Way ahead on the trail, they saw two men walking and Edward swore they were a couple of the grizzly shifters who lived in White Bear. Hearing Edward and Robyn, the men turned to look to see who was following them, so reminiscent of shifters who could hear better than humans. They smiled and Edward waved as the men waited up for them. Edward was happy to introduce them to his wife. "Robyn, this is Josh and Jeremy Black, and guys, this is my wife, Robyn."
"Robyn Conibear, right," Josh said, frowning. "Well, congratulations, you finally got the girl, Edward."
Jeremy nodded. "Yeah, that was quick."
Edward didn't think six years was quick, but he knew what Jeremy meant. "It was past time." He didn't think the grizzlies knew Robyn from sight but had most likely heard what had happened. Any interesting news traveled quickly through a sleuth. Maybe his aunt had even invited them to the wedding, but they hadn't been able to attend on such short notice.
"She was worth waiting for," Josh said. "Care to join us on the walk?"
"They're honeymooners, can't you tell?" Jeremy asked his twin brother.
"We'd love to," Robyn said, before Edward made sure it was all right with her. "So you're from White Bear? I don't remember seeing you before."
"Yeah, we’re from there. We own the White Bear Gift Shop. We sell a lot of merchandise to gift stores in Alaska, and also online to shops all over the world. We even personalize some of the gifts we carry," Josh said, then he changed the subject. "We heard what happened when you left White Bear the first time, Robyn, because of how bad a shape Edward had been in after fighting your brother."
"Yes, well, I hadn't wanted to leave, but I had to, or the rest of my kin would have wanted Edward's blood."
"That's what we told Edward," Jeremy said.
"What are you doing here?" Edward asked, surprised to see the grizzlies here at this time of year.
"Delivering orders in the surrounding towns. We dropped off some gifts at the chalet gift shop and took some more orders even. Whenever we come out this way, we always drop by the park for a hike, no matter the time of year. But we're also looking for a cousin of ours, Lisa Black, and we'd heard she was staying at the resort. We wanted to make sure she spent Christmas with us, if we could convince her to come home with us. If we hadn't had appointments with stores in this area already though, we would have gone to your wedding to show our support. Genevieve had sent us the invite, but we had to decline the invitation. But we'll be sending a gift as soon as we have time."
"Do you have any of your products with you that you haven't already sold?" Robyn asked.
Josh and Jeremy smiled.
"I need to do some Christmas shopping."
"Oh," Josh said. "Sure. We were thinking you might want to pick out a wedding gift, but we'll do something special for that."
Edward really didn't want Robyn to feel that she had to buy anything for anyone, not even to try and make friends with business owners she didn't know. But then he realized she probably hoped to help her own business along, and he was glad she wanted to be part of the business community. Even though he and his brother and Casey did well in their business, he knew it meant a lot to her to help contribute to the family funds. And she seemed to love to do it too.
"You probably know some of the merchandise Edward's family have purchased and so I won't be buying any duplicates of anything."
"We can sure look up the items on our computer when we return to the resort." Josh appeared eager to make some more sales.
Jeremy was smiling too, and Edward knew she'd instantly won the brothers over. She was a good business woman, but he knew she still felt she needed to give gifts to the family for all they'd done for her.
"We…understand you and Edward have a couple of sons," Josh said as they continued to walk along the trail.
"Yes. Bryan and Garrett. They're nearly five-years-old," Robyn said.
"That's a great age," Josh said. “Are you up for it, Daddy?”
Edward smiled at him. “Yeah, I sure am.”
"We've heard that you've already had some difficulties. Seems it follows Edward and his brother around wherever they go." Jeremy sighed. "But, Edward, at least you both ended up with lovely mates, so it's all turned out well in the end. Gary told us what had happened, by the way."
Edward had wondered. But then the bears all kept each other apprised of news that might affect them.
Josh agreed as they continued to stroll through the woods. "If only we were so lucky. We're really sorry that we missed the wedding."
"That's totally understandable," Robyn said. "I was surprised so many showed up, despite having such short notice."
Jeremy pulled a snow-covered branch aside. "We all try to show each other our support in the community."
"Do you have a picture of Lisa? If we see her, we could let her know you're looking for her," Robyn said.
Edward already knew what she looked like. He'd forgotten Robyn didn't.
"Yeah, sure, thanks." Josh pulled out his phone and showed the picture of a redhead with blue eyes and a pretty smile. "If you see her, tell her we'll be in the area for a couple of more days and then we'll have to head back to White Bear for Christmas. We'd hoped we could take her with us."
"Do you know for sure that she's here?" Edward asked.
"She told our mom she was going to be. She writes articles for different sources. She was doing a story in the area. She's all alone now and we know she's feeling blue about it. It’s the first year for her without her parents at Christmastime. She needs to return to White Bear and be with the rest of her family."
"We'll tell her if we see her. If you leave before us, we'll try and convince her to return home with us," Edward said.
"You're honeymooners. We couldn't ask you to do that," Josh said.<
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"We'll be headed back home. It'll be no difficulty at all," Robyn said. "Are you going to run as bears while you're here? Though if anyone sees you, they'll wonder why you aren't hibernating."
The brothers laughed.
"We haven't smelled Lisa’s scent out here, or we would have done so to see if we could locate her as bears. What about you? Are you going to run as polar bears?” Josh asked.
“Maybe tomorrow,” Robyn said. “There are so few visitors in the winter at the park, we could probably get away with it without being spotted. But if we were seen, talk about a shock to visitors. Of course, if they reported it and they didn’t capture a picture of us, no one would ever believe it. Or if they did, I can just see droves of people invading the winter wonderland to search for the two polar bears that had somehow found their way down here. So maybe we won’t take a run on the wild side.”
“We heard that you make marketing videos. We'll have to check them out when you get started on your business in White Bear," Jeremy said.
Robyn smiled and pulled a card from her pocket. "Marketer. I always have business cards on me. The phone number and email address are good."
Josh pulled out their shop card. "Shop owners. We always have a business card on us."
Jeremy chuckled. "Not me this time, brother. Good thing you have one to cover for us. I gave all of mine out. Well, I guess we'll head on back and visit a few more stores. Good to meet you and we'll be returning to the chalet for dinner, if you'd like to see what we have to sell."
"That would be great, thanks," Robyn said.
Before they parted ways, Josh asked her, "What about your family? Have they come to terms with you being mated to Edward?"
"No. They don't know."
"Good to know." Josh gave her a hug.
Then Jeremy did. "We'll be seeing you tonight around six?"
"That would be good," Edward said.
"And we'll have to get back with you about what you offer in the way of marketing also." Jeremy shook Edward's hand, and then Josh did.
She smiled. "Sounds great, thanks. And good luck finding your cousin."
"Thanks," both the brothers said at the same time, then headed back to the chalet.
Robyn and Edward didn't say anything for a while, then Edward sighed, letting his breath out in a frosty fog. "Lisa's parents were killed in a plane crash. She was the only one who escaped, and she felt it was her fault they all died, when she lived."
"But it wasn't," Robyn said. "Though I understand how she feels. When the hunter killed Callahan, I felt it was my fault that I hadn't done enough to keep him alive. I know I couldn’t have done anything more, but still, it gnaws at me sometimes. It didn't help that I knew his parents would have wished that he had returned home with the boys and that I hadn't made it out of that situation alive. If that had happened, I believe Callahan would have brought the boys to see you and told you the truth about you being their father."
Edward wasn't so sure about that, not that any of it mattered now. Robyn had returned to him, bringing the boys with her, and that's all that was important.
She snuggled next to him. "I don't have anything for you for Christmas."
"You and the boys. That's the best Christmas present I could ever receive. It's the gift that keeps giving. Are you ready to go back to the resort and get warmed up?"
"Yeah, if the way you mean to warm me up amounts to more time in bed with you. It'll be different when we're home with the boys."
That's what he was afraid she'd been worried about. "When they go to school, if I'm not on tours with Rob and our partner, Casey, and you're not busy with your marketing, we'll have to be sure to get in some loving. After the boys go to bed, it's our time. Even my brothers and my aunt and uncle will give us the time we need for dates."
"Good. I'm so glad you waited for me, Edward."
"I didn't have a choice. I wasn't marrying just anyone. Once you stole my heart, there was no getting it back. Not until you were mine."
"Thanks for not coming after me. That would have been a sure way to get yourself killed."
"Believe me, I wanted to. I was too injured to fight anyone for a while. And my family convinced me that you needed to be the one to come back to me or I'd get myself killed and they would have retaliated. No telling how many would have been hurt or even killed over it. I truly believed you hated me for killing your brother."
"I hated that he'd died for no good reason, but I didn't blame you. For a couple of months, I called your aunt and asked how you were and kept getting updates on your injuries and progress."
He scoffed. "She never told me. I thought you hated me. I would have done anything I could to make things work out between us."
"It wouldn't have worked. Not back then. Even now, we could still have real problems. But I couldn't keep the boys from you any longer. I did send Callahan's parents gifts. They should arrive tomorrow. I didn't want them to get them too soon, but I did want to send them something."
Edward admired her for it. He wouldn't have given them the time of day, had he been faced with what she had been.
"In the spirit of Christmas," she added.
"You're a more forgiving person than I am."
She shook her head. "Not forgiving. It's more of a peace offering. I doubt they would want to make the trip here to see the kids. If they did travel to White Bear, I'd let them see them, but only with all of us watching the situation. And truly, it would be up to the boys if they wanted to see them. I wouldn't force it on them. I purchased my in-law's presents a couple of weeks back when I knew I was going to have to take the boys and run."
"You should have let me know your plans."
She wrapped her arm around Edward tighter. "What could you have done about it? If you had turned up in Yellowknife to help move us, they would have made you disappear for good."
"I could have flown in with Andy and Craig and rescued you."
She smiled up at Edward, and he loved that she wasn't annoyed with him that he'd wanted to be her prince and swoop down and take her away from all of the trouble she'd been in.
"Besides, I didn’t even know if you were mated or were courting someone.” She took a breath. “I want to get you something for Christmas. And a wedding present too."
He smiled. "After-Christmas sales are the best."
She laughed. "All right. But I had an idea. What if I make a marketing video of your family at the tavern for the lunch meal on Christmas Eve? I know they'll be closed for Christmas Eve dinner so we can have our family dinner. But that way I can give it to them for Christmas."
He laughed. "Sure, honey, if you'd like to, we can do that."
She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Though you know you don’t have to do anything for the family. They’re just so glad you are part of our sleuth and a member of the family now.”
A snowshoe hare wearing its white winter coat jumped across their trail, startling them. They laughed.
Edward kissed her cheek and they saw the shuttle arrive with a couple of more people to drop off to hike in the park. "Just in time." He waited for her to board, then followed her into the toasty warm shuttle. "Jingle Bells" was playing overhead.
“Oh, this feels good,” she said, snuggling with Edward on one of the seats as the shuttle driver drove them back to the resort. “We’ll have to return here with the boys next summer. They would love to visit the park and see if they can spy any of the animals that live there. Then again in the summer, you’re probably booked up on tours at the height of the season.”
“We can always arrange for a getaway. There are enough of us who don’t mind lending a hand. When Rob’s babies were due, he took off a whole month, not wanting to be out in some remote area when Alicia had the babies. Aunt Genevieve was over there constantly helping out too, after Rob returned to help with the tours.”
“Okay, good. That would be fun when the kids are out of school. And if you have room on the tour, we’ll come along.”
<
br /> “Absolutely. Maybe the boys will want to be tour guides when they’re older. And you wanted to take some tour videos too. What better way than to show the boys having fun, along with whoever else is on the excursion.”
“Okay, super idea. In fact, I need to do one for every season to showcase what your tours look like any time during the year. When I look up photos for resorts, they often show only the summer scenes. It makes it appear they’re not open for winter.”
“Hell, good point. So you want to show folks who are looking to take a later tour or spring tour what it’s like. I think we’re guilty of showing off only the summer pictures too.”
“Easily remedied once I get to work on it.” Robyn got a text and she pulled out her phone. “Oh. Great. My in-laws. They said I haven’t heard the end of this.”
Edward wrapped his arms around her shoulders and hugged her. He didn’t want her to believe she’d made a mistake in being with him. The one good thing about Yellowknife was that it was a long way from White Bear. “Don’t let them get to you.”
“They were so popular in Yellowknife among our kind, mostly because he’d been the mayor, and she was such a social butterfly, that they could do no wrong. I’m sure they’ve riled up everyone there over this.”
“They still don’t have a leg to stand on. Hopefully, Andy will send Richard all the paperwork proving the boys are ours as soon as he can. Which is probably why your in-laws are angry with you. They thought they could take custody of the boys before you had any say in it. And they might have believed Callahan was named on the birth certificate, though DNA would prove I’m the boys' father.”
"I still wonder if Callahan showed them the boys' birth certificates already."
"He very well could have after Bryan told them they weren't their grandparents and Callahan had to prove it to Martha."
The shuttle parked, and they thanked the driver and got out, hurrying inside the chalet to the warmth of the lobby.
“We still have time until dinner. Why don’t we find something entertaining to do in our room before then.” Edward wondered if she could even afford the gifts she intended to buy. He suspected she wouldn’t want him to pay for them, though he would if he could. If he could surreptitiously contact the brothers and tell them to discount the items and he would pay for the rest of the cost later before they met for dinner, he would.