Shifters in the Snow: Bundle of Joy: Seventeen Paranormal Romances of Winter Wolves, Merry Bears, and Holiday Spirits

by J. K Harper

  Sighing, she flicked open the lid of her laptop and killed the porn with her first click. She wasn’t exactly in the mood for it anymore, anyway.

  Snuggling under the blanket, she took a sip of the tea and scrolled through her newsfeeds on social media one last time – as if anything had changed in the last five minutes since she’d been gone – and found absolutely nothing interesting. Not that she’d expected to find anything.

  It was past midnight, which would have been nothing to Marley before Deon was born, as she’d been a night owl. Now, though, she cherished her sleep as any single mother did.

  “You gotta go to sleep, Marley,” she reminded herself, feeling her eyelids droop a little.

  But she didn’t. Glancing at the clock, she counted minutes in her head since she’d put Deon down for the night again, absently rubbing her legs together. She’d have to wait until at least twenty minutes had passed before she’d even attempt to catch some Zs of her own.

  She knew that kid too damn well to trust him this early in his attempts to rest. He was practically notorious for creeping out of his bed around a quarter of an hour into his supposed sleep cycle.

  Clicking through the many, many tabs open on her laptop, she did what every self-respecting mother of a fussy child does at an ungodly hour, knowing she has to be up at the asscrack of dawn to get everything done for the day. She browsed some more, drinking her tea and clenching and unclenching her thighs.

  He has excellent timing, I have to give him that, she thought, wistfully looking at that folder in her favorites marked ‘Knitting’, despite the fact that she’d never knitted in her life.

  It was better than calling it what it was, her frustrated porn links. She wasn’t proud to admit it, but considering that the last guy she’d slept with was the father of the child presumably sleeping in the other room, she’d amassed a steady collection of favorite videos. Marley would break them out on nights not too different from this one.

  Curiously enough, the guy was the same in each and every one of them. And he looked a little like Daelan.

  He’d left her life as abruptly as he’d appeared in it. On a rare night when Marley had been out with the radio gang instead of working late, he’d appeared by her side at a corner bar, and swept her off her feet. The weekend they’d spent together was more in bed than out of it, but it had been just like he was – fun, wild, and unpredictable.

  So when she woke up on Monday morning to find him nowhere around, it wasn’t like she’d been that surprised. Well, maybe a little.

  You’re kidding yourself if you think that was anything but a weekend fling for him.

  Pursing her lips, Marley put that thought out of her head. Bygones were bygones. The sex had been great, yes — absolutely fantastic, in fact — but what had really struck her was the connection she felt they’d had. They could talk for hours about anything and everything, laugh and tease and then fall into serious topics on the drop of a dime. It was like nothing she’d ever had before.

  Groaning at her own sudden penchant for heading down memory lane, a place that was never wise to traipse down, Marley set the mug aside on the table again.

  “Right. Sleep-time,” she announced to no one in particular, checking the clock and finding it confirming that she’d waited twenty-one minutes on the nose.

  Her hand was already hovering over the power button when a notification on her e-mail tab caught her eye. Frowning slightly, Marley tapped it open, finding an e-mail from SassyDate of all places.

  Holy hell. I still have an account on that thing?

  She hadn’t looked at it in forever. At least a year, if she had to put a timeline on it. That had to be it – she’d stopped frequenting the shifter-human dating site after she spent that weekend with Daelan, and definitely not since she found out she was pregnant with Deon.

  The e-mail told her that she had a new message on the site. With that confused frown ever present on her expression, Marley typed in the address and logged into her SassyDate account. It took a few tries before she got her password right — not too surprisingly, most of her passwords had changed to include some variation of her baby boy’s name in it since she’d given birth — but she finally did it.

  With her throat getting curiously dry, she tapped on the notifications button on the SassyDate website, bringing up her inbox. There it was, one new message. Completely unexpected.

  Moving the cursor to hover over the message title (reading ‘Only for the brave’) she paused for a moment. The notion of dating seemed so foreign to her all of a sudden. Sure, the thought had crossed her mind a couple of times, when she’d been on the verge of browsing through her ‘knitting’ again, but she’d discarded it quickly enough.

  She didn’t have time for a relationship. Not with Deon being so young, and her job being so strenuous, and her family all the way back on Arkansas, and… Well, there was always an excuse.

  But I have been lonely lately, a little voice in the back of her mind told her.

  The frown cleared from her face, her pale complexion looking blue in the glow of the screen. Her hand went automatically to the pendant around her neck, touching the cool stone with the tips of her fingers.

  It was a dark, obsidian stone, set in simple silver filigree. Sometimes when she looked at it, it seemed to almost swallow light, for how dark it was. It was the only thing she had left from Daelan, other than Deon of course. The morning she’d found him missing from her bed, the pendant had been there on the pillow next to her.

  “We’re being brave.”

  Marley suppressed a groan at her own corniness, the whole talking out loud thing starting to strike her as a tiny bit weird. But if she was about to tell herself something else, the words never got out of her throat, because she opened the message and read it from top to bottom three times.

  You might not remember me, but I remember you. And this is going to sound crazy, but trust me, it isn’t. That’s why this message is for you only if you’re brave.

  If you think you know who this is, or if you’re curious to find out, then there are two tickets waiting for you in the Boston Logan International for a week from now. They’ll take you to Idaho for two weeks. That means you’d be back in Boston by Christmas. I hear it’s nice there around then.

  I can’t tell you much, but I will, once you come here. I’ll meet you at the airport. Bring a friend if you think it’s needed. If you’re the woman I know, you have all the vacation days saved up that you could need.

  Take a chance.

  -Someone that you used to know

  After reading the message over and over again, with her stomach in knots, Marley clicked on the sender’s profile. He’d marked his name as Quietest and his SassyDate profile was practically blank, save for one image. An image of a jawline that didn’t tell her much, but which made her heart leap in her chest because of how familiar it was.

  Daelan? she questioned in her head. No… It can’t be him…

  Without noticing, Marley had brought a hand to her mouth and her eyes were brimming with bitter tears. It wasn’t happiness that was blossoming in her chest, but surprise and pain that she had never known was there. Before she could do anything about it, a rustling noise at the door made her look up sharply.

  Deon was standing there, dressed in his blue and red jammies, holding Toothless by one paw and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

  “Mommy, you’re sad,” he stated flatly, as if he had just discovered that the world is round and decided that everyone should know about it.

  “No, honey, I’m not,” Marley said, wiping the makings of tears out of her eyes and jumping out of bed.

  “You are,” Deon said matter-of-factly, yawning in the middle of the words. “I know you are.”

  Marley scooped him up in her arms and cradled him against her chest as she walked back to the bed. He dropped his head on her shoulder immediately, his body heavy with sleep.

  “Did you wake up because you thought I was sad, Deon?” she as
ked softly.

  She climbed back into bed and pushed the laptop aside as she tucked in under the covers, Deon still in her arms. He snuggled against her, one hand still clutching the plushy.

  “I know you are,” he said again, stubbornly and sleepily, with the last syllables disappearing as soon as his head hit the pillow again.

  Quietly, Marley closed the lid of the laptop and put an arm around her baby boy, biting her lip for good measure. She couldn’t hide a thing from a shifter child, so how was she supposed to face his father without unraveling into a mess of emotions?

  And why the hell was he getting in touch with her now? How did he even find her? And on SassyDate of all places!

  Deon stirred in his sleep, a grumpy frown going over his face. Letting out a breath, Marley put those thoughts forcefully out of her head and closed her eyes. Deon settled immediately.

  I’ll think about it tomorrow, she decided.

  But try as she might, sleep didn’t come to her all night.

  Chapter 4

  Marley

  “This is insanity. Pure and utter insanity,” Marley muttered to herself, hushing Deon in her lap.

  “What’s that, hon?” the pilot asked, craning his neck in the tiny plane.

  “Nothing! Keep your eyes on the…er, clouds!” she stuttered quickly, shooing Slate away.

  He chuckled, shaking his head, as if dealing with nervous and antsy females was something he found great amusement in. Maybe he did. Though Marley couldn’t imagine that he could get a lot of customers like she was – on their way to meet a man they might not even know!

  You’re losing your mind, Marley.

  “Are we far?” she asked after the plane hit a tiny bit of turbulence.

  Instead of having Deon fussing and crying in her arms as she expected him to be – he hated confinement, even if it was on someone’s lap – he was being the perfect angel. Clutching his plushy, Deon just kept staring out of the window with wide eyes, like he’d just seen the Promised Land. Every speck of turbulence and rougher weather gave him joy, and he seemed to like the tiny airplane they’d caught from Idaho Falls a lot more than the bigger one.

  For a moment, Marley suspected it might be because the small airplane felt the turbulence more than the larger one they’d taken from Boston. It had been a long day of travelling, but her little man had refused to take a nap, except for in the airport on their layover. Even then, his sleep hadn’t been calm – like he was worried he was missing something awesome.

  “Clouds!” Deon announced with obvious self-satisfaction, hiking up his toy a little so it too could see out of the window.

  “Yup, that’s a lot of clouds,” Slate confirmed, apparently catching Deon’s mumblings even over the roar of the twin engines. “We’re about to start our descent into the airport, so we’ll be right there. Meeting anyone special?”

  Slate gave her a crooked, but entirely friendly smile over his shoulder. He had the kind of face that you couldn’t help but like and trust. The airs of a good, decent man were all over him. Even though Marley’s heart was pounding out of her chest, she met his smile.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You going to Shifter Grove?”

  “I don’t know, to be honest.”

  That earned her a quick, curious glance from Slate. She answered it with a shrug of her shoulders.

  “There are not a lot of other options, to be honest. And, well, if you’re meeting anyone from Shifter Grove, they all tend to be special, one way or another.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’ll see,” Slate said cryptically, turning his bright eyes back to the skies.

  Marley felt the slight lurch as he turned the nose downward and started maneuvering them toward the small airport. When they came down from the cover of the clouds and Marley could see the airport itself, she had to stifle a gasp. It was the tiniest damn thing she’d ever seen!

  The runway barely looked long enough for the airplane, and considering that there was a helicopter parked to the side of it, too, she was getting worried.

  I don’t want to die in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, she thought urgently, clutching her baby boy a little tighter.

  Deon protested immediately, making her loosen up her grip a little. He looked up at her with that judgmental pout of his, his little brow all smushed up.

  “Okay, honey, I get it. No squishing you.”

  “No squishing,” he agreed, returning his green gaze to stare out of the window.

  Stifling a sigh, Marley closed her eyes and let her head fall back. The fact that she was here to begin with was the height of insanity in her opinion and she wasn’t quite sure how she’d talked herself into it. Who was insane enough to pick up tickets and just head across the country after one questionable message?

  Even if it could have come from the father of her child?

  That actually makes it worse, she thought, falling back into the patterns of thought she’d been roiling through over the past week.

  If it really was Daelan sending her these tickets and the message, then why couldn’t he just show up in Boston and meet her face to face? Why did she have to skip across the country? Did he know about Deon? Was that why he sent the two tickets? Even though she hadn’t needed the other, because the baby was still small enough to travel in her lap, the thought had crossed her mind.

  There were too many open-ended questions and she didn’t like it one bit. Marley’d never really been the kind of woman to ‘go with the flow’, even if her dream job was running a radio show. She could spit-ball with the best of them, but everything she did in life was usually strictly planned and regulated.

  Daelan had been the first person to suggest something wild to her, who she actually took up on his offer. It was definitely not something she usually did, running off with a guy for the weekend and getting lost under the sheets. In fact, after Daelan, it seemed like all her carefully laid plans and plots had been nothing but flotsam.

  Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans, I guess.

  The wheels of the airplane touched down with a jolt and Deon laughed out loud, clapping his free hand together with one of Toothless’s paws.

  “You’ve got a fan,” Marley called out as Slate taxied them to stop next to the helicopter, somehow managing to fit both of the aircrafts on the same tiny runway.

  He really was good at what he did, Marley had to admit that.

  “Yeah? Maybe I’ll take you up with me some day, kid. Get you your pilot’s papers fast and smooth. You look like the kind of ace pilot we need more of around these parts.”

  Slate undid his safety harness and gave Deon a quick wink as he passed by. He opened the latches to the door while Marley fussed with her bag – stuffed full of baby gear – and Deon. Her thoughts about the airport being the tiniest one she’d ever seen were all on point, because it seemed that Slate was not only the pilot and the steward, but also the flight crew, ground crew and welcoming committee.

  He hauled her heavy suitcase out of the cargo compartment and practically jumped out of the airplane, skipping more of the stairs on his way down. Marley could hear him landing with a thud and a happy holler as she shuffled through the narrow path toward the door. Slate’s hand was already waiting for her to help her down, as she was the only passenger as well.

  “I hope you didn’t have to do this flight just for us,” she said somewhat bashfully.

  Slate shook his head with a wide grin, his mop of hair falling freely around his face.

  “Nope, my cargo hold is stock full of gear and groceries for the town. Don’t you worry your head about me none. And even if I didn’t, it would have still been a pleasure. Now, if I’m not mistaken, someone’s here for you.”

  Marley followed Slate’s gaze to the right of her. Suddenly, her world ground to a halt. There, leaning on a slightly beaten up black Camaro, was the man she thought she’d never see again.

  He looked exactly as he had the last, a
nd only time she’d seen him. A little disheveled, a little rough around the edges, and completely and utterly gorgeous. Dressed in black, he struck the same kind of image in her head now that he had the first time she’d laid eyes on him. Everything about him screamed freedom and paving his own path, like he wouldn’t answer to anyone.

  Marley wasn’t the only one staring. Deon, though still clinging to his plushy, was looking at the man as well. His eyes seemed almost wider than they had been when he was looking out of the window at the passing sky, if that was even possible.

  Two things shook Marley out of her daze. One, Slate was pulling up the handle of her suitcase so she could roll it behind her, and two, her cell phone started ringing.

  “Whoa. You better cherish that. This might be the last time you actually get reception in these mountains,” Slate noted, pointing at the ridged mountain range in the distance.

  Fumbling around in the bag, Marley could feel a deep blush creep up her cheeks. She couldn’t find the damn thing and it just kept ringing louder and louder. Holding Deon with one arm and having the bag over her other shoulder, she was practically bending herself into a pretzel to reach it.

  When she did finally manage to pull it out triumphantly, she noticed that Daelan had gotten up from the car and was now walking to her. He moved with that easy, lazy grace, like a man who was both utterly aware of what and who he was, and at the same time had no idea that everyone else knew, too.

  She almost missed answering the call between staring at Daelan and trying to keep Deon from tumbling out of her arms.

  “Let me help you with him,” Daelan said before she could get a word out in her phone call.

  Daelan picked Deon out of her arms and into his instead. The little boy was absolutely gaping at him, his mouth open. The little gold flecks in his eyes had never been so noticeable, and when Marley glanced at Daelan, his own eyes seemed to be far more intense than she remembered as well.

  Not that they hadn’t always been the kind of knee-buckling smoldering that a woman could only dream of.

  “Marley? Hello! Marley? Are you there?” Hank’s voice demanded on the other end of the line, sounding terse and worried at the same time.