by J. K Harper
“Raising hell as usual. So how are you?”
“Freezing cold and bitchy,” I deadpanned. I was not about to give Landon too much more air time. The man had been hoping to add my name to his never-ending list of one-night stands since high school. I didn’t give a damn that he was a doctor. I wasn’t interested. “You?”
He smiled, blatantly checking out my legs and exposed behind. After a beat, he straightened up and lifted a hand to his square, grizzled chin. “In a much better mood since I got off the ski lift, actually.”
I rolled my eyes. “Once a dog always a dog.”
“Relax, will you? I was checking out your board. Is that the new K2 CarveAir?”
“K2 yes, but it’s a Bottle Rocket.”
“Nice, but not as much as those legs. Candy stripes really suit you,” he teased.
“Stick a sock in it, Landon. Or is it Doctor Dog now?”
He leaned in close, raising his eyebrows while narrowing his light gray sparkling eyes, which at the moment looked as blue as the dazzling sky. “How about you race me down the trail, and if you win, you can call me whatever you want?”
I took a second to let my eyes trail down his body from head to toe, reminding myself that this tall, ridiculously well-built man with rugged good looks and white blonde hero hair was also an A-grade man-whoring player. He was probably worse now that he could probably get twice as many panties to drop just from adding M.D. after his name. “Haven’t I kicked your ass on this hill enough over the years?” I finally asked.
“Maybe, but this time I plan to enjoy the view as I lose,” he answered, bending forward to clip his boot into his board’s bindings.
I gave Landon a death stare, then I turned to place a foot on my snowboard’s stomp pad. “What if I lose, just for the sake of boosting your massively fragile ego?”
“Then I get you to have a drink with me tonight.” He straightened up to his full height and stretched his arms high above his head. “Deal?”
“Aww hell, no. I’m winning this little bet of yours.”
“We’ll see about that,” he said with mischief in his eyes. “On the count of three?”
“Sure.”
“One…two!” Landon barely got the word ‘two’ out of his mouth when he shoved my shoulders, sending me off-balance just as he took off.
I should have known.
“You low-down cheating bastard!” I shrieked after him, pushing off the edge.
Bending my knees, I ducked down to make my body small so I could speed up, and also to shield my half-naked body from the strong winds at this elevation. Landon was moving like lightning below me on the mountain. The son of a bitch was already way ahead of me. That didn’t faze me. There was still time to catch up, and I never backed away from a challenge, especially one that would potentially save me from subjecting myself to more time with him. Within less than half a minute, I had caught up to Landon. We wound down the slope, just as competitive as we used to be as teenagers. I would inch forward a bit, then Doctor Dog would take advantage of his broader, muscular physique to pass me again.
“Admit it,” he shouted at one point, turning his head in my general direction. “You love this.”
I did not reply to the ass-clown, but sure, being on the slopes for the first time in years was exhilarating. And maybe I enjoyed it a teeny tiny bit more because someone familiar was around, but even that didn’t make up for the fact that my ass was damn close to being frostbitten.
We were close to the bottom of the trail when I realized the distracted doctor was headed straight for the base of a ski lift support tower.
“Landon! Look out!” I yelled to warn him.
He snapped his head forward, catching sight of the pole just in time to adjust his board, and narrowly missed it.
“Thanks!” he called out.
His little slip up put me ahead of him with less than a hundred yards to the base. Raising my arms to the air, I kicked off an early celebration of my win, mostly to stick it to Landon. Just then, right where the hill leveled off, a kid no more than five or six years old ran into my path.
Shit.
I swerved, skidding the board to one side and was able to avoid the little one-piece ski suit clad tike. But dammit, I overcorrected on the turn and my frigging Santa’s helper suit and I wiped out, crashing into an outcropping of miniature pine trees, and allowing the sexy doctor bastard to slip right past and beat me.
Landon doubled back and came to my side, helping me to my feet with a smug grin on his proud face. “You all right?” he asked.
I slapped his hand away and dusted off the clumps of snow mixed in with pine needles that caught on my dress. “You only won because you cheated right from the start,” I grumbled.
“It was a joke. Chill out.” He took off his sleek, black winter jacket and put it over my shoulders. “Here. You must be freezing.”
“Ya think?”
“I believe ‘thank you’ is the phrase you were looking for.”
“Yeah. That.”
“You’re welcome, Robin,” he answered.
I pulled the cozy warmth of his jacket tighter around me. A hint of a woodsy floral scent from his cologne on the jacket rose up into my nose.
Landon’s cologne.
Mmmm. So good.
I may have pressed my eyes shut and breathed in more deeply, but I got over that moment real fast. Detaching from my snowboard, I held it at my side and headed toward the main lodge of the resort, with Landon not far behind me. It was good that he had shared his coat. In addition to the warmth, it did an excellent job of covering me up. Considering he was well over six feet tall, compared to my five-foot-nothing height, the extra layer hung almost to my knees.
“So, what’s the plan for the rest of the day?” he asked once he caught up to me.
“Four more hours at Santa’s Workshop in this get-up.”
“That’s too bad. You really should let me buy you drinks later.”
I gave him a sideways glance. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
“I don’t get how you can know me for over ten years and still be so afraid of me.”
“Fear is not exactly the word I’d use, bud.” I stopped outside the main lodge. “Anyway, duty calls,” I told him, removing his jacket. “Thanks for the warm-up.”
“I’m not letting you off the hook so easy this time.” He turned and headed back toward the ski lift entrance. “Later, Robin.”
As I watched him leave, that lusty little voice at the back of my head had already piped up. It didn’t want Landon giving up so quickly this time either.
Chapter 2
Landon
I left the hospital trauma room and dragged my mask down my face. It was the end of an unplanned twelve-hour shift that had turned into eighteen hours on account of a slew of post-holiday party DUI motor vehicle accidents. This was supposed to be my two-week vacation. Filling in during the busy times was not part of my holiday plan. The only reason I went through this was that I happened to be the only ER doctor on my hospital’s roster who took Christmas vacation in Reno, less than an hour from work. If I didn’t leave in the next five minutes, I’d end up here for another six hours at least.
I was exhausted, but still wired for sound. There was only one way to help take the edge off.
Get to my pack.
Release my wolf.
Sure, I could have had my pick of cute nursing or hospital administrative staff, but banging my fellow colleagues was starting to get old. At the moment, I was wound up tight after almost two weeks without shifting. Deciding that a trip to the Sunhawk Valley backcountry with one or more of my brothers would do the trick, I sent my brother, Leo, a quick text from the doctors’ changing room.
‘Where you boys at?’ I typed in, then I changed out of my scrubs.
Leo was pretty quick. By the time I got into my Dodge Ram, my phone was buzzing.
‘About to get wild.’
That was code for shifting. I texted him back wit
h, ‘On my way.’
Turning over the engine, I left work and got started on my drive to the Sunhawk main junction. To shave thirty or so minutes off the trip to our snow-covered mountain meeting spot, I picked up one of our family snowmobiles at the base of the hill, then powered along the west ridge. Just being up here with the cold air on my face made a difference. Every mile I rode chipped away at more and more of the tension. Seeing my pack and shifting to wolf form would take care of the rest.
I made it to the large outcropping of hemlock trees and parked the snowmobile beside Leo, Lawrence and Logan’s trucks. The three of them were leaned up against the back of Lawrence’s GMC Canyon, all knocking back beers.
“What’s doing?” I asked.
“It took you long enough,” my oldest brother, Logan, grumbled. “I thought you were off work for the holidays.”
“I thought so too, man,” I huffed out. “You guys waiting for anyone else?”
Logan shook his head. “Nope. Leland and Lucas are at their firm’s holiday shindig.”
Leo finished his beer and threw the bottle in the back of the truck. “Let’s go. Marie’s already giving me a hard time that I left her home alone with the kids on one of the few evenings I’m off this week.” He looked over at me. “Oh hey bro, you’re off tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“The kids have been hounding me about when they’ll see their favorite uncle Landon again. It’s been ages since you’ve hung out with them.”
“I just had them over at my place two nights ago, Leo.”
“Yes, but you know how they are. Two days is a long time for the little runts.”
I knew exactly what that meant. Leo was looking for free babysitting again. Not that I minded helping him out that much. His three kids were awesome—full of energy and a blast to spend time with. The only complaint I had was that taking them off his hands for three hours usually meant an overnighter at my place.
But hell, it was the holidays.
“Sure. Bring them by. Any time after eleven works.”
“Sweet. Uh, can you come pick them up? I’ve got to make an early turkey run to Truckee for Ma. She won’t buy a goddamned bird from anywhere else.”
“No problem.”
“Great. Oh yes…one more thing. Can you take them to get a picture with the Santa up at the ski resort? I was supposed to do that with them days ago, but it’s been busy, man.”
That question got me thinking about Robin. Specifically, my fantasy of Robin in her tight little outfit, with no panties underneath.
Bent over the side of my bed.
Or stretched out naked on my mattress.
Calling my name.
I had been fixing to see her again, but this unexpected shift at work got in the way. Hooking up with her had been a long time coming, and judging from our last run-in on the slopes, I was betting she was just about ready to come around.
“All right,” I told him. “I’ll get them at eleven.”
“Dudes. Can you two make your nanny arrangements later on or something?” Lawrence asked gruffly. “I got a thing later on tonight.”
Leo spun his head to look closely at him. “Tina’s letting you off your leash? She must be in one hell of a good mood.”
“Shut it,” Lawrence answered, ignoring his doppelganger. He headed over to the passenger side of the truck. “We’re leaving now,” he said to someone who I only just noticed had been sitting there this whole time.
Out came Zeke Mulligan, Lawrence’s long-time friend who also happened to be a tech genius, an avid conspiracy theorist of all things shifters, the only gorilla shifter we knew, and one of just three turned shifters we were aware of. My brothers and I were born shifters. So were the rest of the wolves in our pack. Our mother did tell us stories that our great grandfather was turned by some mystical witch in the early nineteen hundreds. In any case, Zeke was born human and later turned into a shifter. According to him, he was turned by some witch who saved him after an accident. All three guys who had been turned had a similar story. Which was strange, and another reason I didn’t trust them.
Especially not Zeke.
“Who the hell invited the primate?” I shouted.
Zeke raked his hand through his long, dark hair, pulling it back from the sides of his face. He opened his winter jacket and pointed at the lettering on his t-shirt underneath. It read, ‘Apes do it better, so back the fuck up.’ He nodded over at me. “Yeah, I missed you too. You ready to get out there or what? It’ll be a Christmas full moon, boys. Let’s make it count!”
Logan shook his head and walked away. We all followed him to the usual spot deep in the woods beside a cluster of pines. After undressing, we placed our clothes on the lower branches of a couple of trees where the snow had not quite settled. The cold air was invigorating, already calling to my wolf. Closing my eyes, I took a breath and welcomed the shift. My wolf was anxious to emerge, and within just seconds, I lowered to the ground, allowing the energy to crack and reform bone, sprout thick gray fur on my body and tail, stretch out my jaw and elongate my teeth, and turn fingernails into claws. Zeke and my brothers did the same, and when their transformations were complete, we bounced around in the snow, acclimatizing to our animal bodies again.
Lawrence and Logan were the first to start digging their noses in the snow. I foraged around but had an eye on Leo. He followed Zeke as he knuckle-walked over to a nearby tall pine. Zeke’s silvery, blue-black fur reflected the pristine snow and bright moonlight peeking through the treetops. Leo stayed on the forest floor, looking up as the gorilla climbed a tall pine, then jumped down to catch the thin tapered top of a hemlock tree. Applying his weight, he pulled the treetop down to the ground. As soon as Logan stepped in its path, Zeke released the branch. It swung into Logan’s direction at high speed, dumping heavy, granular, tightly-packed snow all over him. He took it surprisingly well, shaking off most of the excess, then rolling around on the mound.
After some time exploring the low branches and wrestling one another, I picked up a solid piece of tree bark in my mouth and made a run for it out of the woods toward the nearest backcountry slope. It was time for our favorite mountainside activity—downhill tree bark snow-luge. Wolf shifter style. The rest of them were quickly at my side with their own impromptu boards, waiting for the queue to race down the hill. Dropping the wood in the snow, I stepped my front legs in the middle of the hollowed out log and let out a howl as I pushed off.
It was a rush, swooping down the mountain at such high speeds, navigating the natural contours and dips of the mostly untouched powder on these backcountry slopes while avoiding exposed rocks and random trees as we went. Due to his weight, Zeke made it ahead of me. The crazy gorilla was descending backward on a tiny circle of bark, rear end facing the bottom of the slope, long arms out to his side, and his head up to the sky. I looked on, waiting to see where he would have an unexpected collision, but that didn’t happen. He was somehow able to anticipate everything ahead of us, and even stopped abruptly at the edge of a steep mountain sheer, avoiding the huge drop. We joined him, and stared down at the uninhabited snow-covered valley below. Off in the far distance, outdoor Christmas lights flickered in the darkness, accentuating homes and businesses in town.
After some time, we walked along the ridge to head back to our clothes and vehicles. Zeke must not have gotten enough of a thrill yet. Out of the blue, he stopped in front of Lawrence. Making a thunderous gorilla belch, he pointed at the edge, then streaked off the side of the cliff sheer on his flimsy piece of tree bark. The rest of us looked over the side, staring as he sunk lower and lower, curious to see how he would fare with the crash landing. The gorilla had skills. He was able to whip the board out past the protruding rocks. He and his board disappeared in the overhanging branches of some fir trees, and a second later, he was back on powder, using his long forearms to zigzag down another slope.
Leo and Lawrence glanced back at me. As if they had silently come to an agreement, Leo
hopped on Lawrence’s board and they pushed off the edge with a holler. Before I could check their fall, Logan shoved against my hind quarters, and we both sailed off the cliff sheer on our own boards. I was wide-eyed from the thrill of danger, and did not stop yelping through the free-fall until I hit the cluster of trees. That part didn’t hurt, but getting smacked in the face by a dozen branches which broke my fall, well, that was a bitch.
Eventually, I hit the sloped snow floor, and Logan landed a few feet away. We were both on the move again, gaining speed until we burst out of the trees into the steep, powdery slope again. I adjusted on the board, cranking to one side to regain control as Logan and I closed in on the twins. Finally within a short distance from the bottom, we bounced off our boards and landed in a run the rest of the way. Leo tumbled down the incline end over end, smashing into Zeke, who was sitting in the smooth virgin snow at the bottom.
I was not surprised when Zeke screeched out an order for us to do it again. As thrilling as that last part of the ride was, I was not ready to follow the goon a second time. After assessing our location, I took off, and we headed along the mountain pass for a shorter way back to our clothes. Less than an hour later, we shifted back to our human forms and got dressed.
“Let’s do this again, boys,” Zeke drawled as he returned to Lawrence’s car.
“Y’all just make sure you let me know when this yahoo is coming with, so I can sit it out,” I grumbled, hopping on my snowmobile. “Ape’s got a damned death wish.”
As I headed down to my pickup truck, something about the recollection of being pushed down a cliff against my will made Robin cross my mind. By the time I jumped into the driver’s seat of my truck, I had decided on a detour before going home, and left in the direction of the resort.
I wasn’t ready to call it a night just yet.
Chapter 3