Dad spewed his water all over the place and it was even coming out of his nose.
“What was so funny about that?” Palo asked.
“I just remembered what Nolan wears to bed! He had on footie pajamas with the drop spot in the back over his behind.” He couldn’t keep talking he was laughing so hard.
I took over for him. “On the front of his jammies it said, “Santa, I have been a good boy all year long.” We all laughed again. “But on the back, that flap over his butt, it said, “Kick me, I have been a bad boy this year in Spanish! Nolan doesn’t speak Spanish, so he didn’t know what it said!”
The entire table was laughing with us at that point. My mom added, “His wife, Adelaide, made it for him, so he felt he had to wear it. She told him the back said something like, ‘Stay clear, powerful exhaust.’ Nolan is always passing gas and trying to make a game of it when it’s just the boys around. So he thought it was funny. Until Santa kicked him!” Everyone’s forks hit their plates and made a loud clanging noise to join the raucous laughter.
Palo was laughing so hard he had tears forming in his eye. “Oh, I hope his son is half as fun! This next year will be a blast!”
“We actually have quite a few jokesters here in our pack. I think you might like it.” I winked at him. He was due to be hazed soon. The guys must have been thinking of a way to “welcome” their new Santa. I hoped I was around to see it.
After dinner I was helping to clear the table, until my dad walked into the kitchen. “Sweetie, why don’t you take Palo for a run? Your sisters and I can clean the dishes.”
“Thanks dad!” I kissed his cheek and ran out of the kitchen.
“Palo, you ready for that run?” I asked when I found him.
“Yes! Where are we going?”
“Just to some caves that are not far from here. I think you’ll like it.” We went outside and shifted.
We both howled our excitement and joy as we ran through the trees under the protective dome. While we couldn’t speak, we could communicate via the howls and how we ran. We both kept each other’s pace and stayed extremely close to one another. Soon, we would be able to communicate mentally. He just needed to join our pack! Oh wow! Why hadn’t we thought of that yet?
During the rest of the run that was all I could think of. I came up with a perfect plan! All I had to do was get Palo to agree.
We arrived at my favorite place way too soon. The time got away from me, and I realized as we approached the cave that I didn’t allow myself the time to enjoy the wind blowing through my fur, the hard packed snow beneath my feet that felt more like pillows than snow, and my mate running closely beside me. I made a mental promise to myself to think only of him and the run when we went home later.
After we shifted and changed into our clothes Palo walked up to me and grabbed me by the waist. “Finally, we are alone.”
Then he kissed me, and he kissed me good! My toes curled and I could have sworn there were fireworks again. His strong arms held me tight to his sculpted body. My entire body started to tingle and warmth flooded my heart and moved throughout my arms and legs.
Both of us were breathing hard, and it wasn’t from the run. When he finally broke our kiss, cuz I wasn’t going to be the one to do that, I almost whimpered. My lips were screaming at me to get his back, and pronto!
“Do that again.” I moaned.
I could feel his smile as he lips grazed mine. “I can’t wait to kiss you more. But first, I want to see this cave and maybe get a fire going. Do you have any animal skins or blankets to lay on in front of a fire?”
“Mm hm.” I said between little kisses to his lips, his firm chin, and those warm cheeks. He must have shaved sometime between getting home and leaving with me since his skin was so soft.
Chuckling, he said, “Do I need to break away from you first?”
After I kissed his lips some more, I pulled back. “Alright. If you must see the inside of the cave. It isn’t much, but it is a fun spot to hang out with friends and have a small bonfire.”
He followed me inside of the cave which opened up to a large, rounded room. It almost looked like someone had chiseled away at the inside of the rock. There weren’t any rough edges at all. Over the years, the sides had been worn smooth with people leaning against them, but no one had actually chiseled the place. At least not that any of us knew.
There was a fire pit in the middle that could house a pretty big fire. Sometimes we would bring in wooden crates and set them up teepee style and light them on fire. Maybe it was the fire that had smoothed the rough ceiling over the years.
At some point, someone had brought in several chairs and a couple of sofas. They weren’t very clean, but we kept clean blankets on them. When I was younger, my friends and I used to have sleepovers here in the cave. It was right on the edge of the protective dome so most parents didn’t like us doing that until we were at least fourteen. Most kids ended up bringing older siblings to watch out for us. It was a pretty fun place to hang out away from the adults.
“Here, we keep a chest full of clean blankets and each year the incoming thirteen-year olds get to bring them home and clean them as part of our hazing rituals. Not very dangerous, but it is fun. For those who had already gone through it!” We might have hazed the incoming kids, but we never tried anything too dangerous for a wolf shifter.
I pulled out a couple of blankets and a polar bear hide for us to sit on. “Palo, why don’t you start the fire. In that box over there,” I pointed to a small box along the far wall, “are matches, kindling, and a few logs. We can go outside and cut down a tree if we need more wood.”
“Cool, you guys really have a great setup here. Do you have food too?”
“Nah, we learned long ago that if we kept food in here, the local animals would get it. Even though we have claimed this as our territory, they still came and took food when no one was here.”
I shook my head remembering the five pounds of homemade beef jerky from my cousin in Barrow that was pilfered by a polar bear. It was probably payback for someone who had killed his cousin or something. The jerky was really spicy, and I hoped his digestion system couldn’t handle it.
Palo sat down after he created a small fire. “Come here and sit next to me.”
I sat down and leaned against his firm torso. If he didn’t kiss me soon, I wouldn’t be able to hold myself back from attacking him. My body was going crazy with desire. I felt all tingly just thinking about the kiss I knew was coming my way.
He leaned down and kissed my temple. Then he gently laid me down on the rug and looked into my eyes. “You are so beautiful, I can’t believe how lucky I am to be chosen for you.” He moved the hair away from my cheeks and leaned in and started peppering my face with kisses.
I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I am the lucky one, Palo. If I hadn’t met you, I would be preparing to marry Rock. We certainly wouldn’t be here in this cave, all alone, kissing like there was no tomorrow.” I kissed him deeply to show him how much I wanted him to be my husband and soon!
After returning my kiss for who knew how long, he pulled back. “Are you sure you don’t want Rock?”
I slapped his shoulder. “How could I, when I have you? I never once had romantic feelings for him. And I doubt he ever did for me either. Truly, you have nothing to worry about with him. We both fought our parents on this until I met you. Well, me more than him, but that was only because he felt he was doing his duty to the legend of Santa. Rock never wanted that role. He spent his entire life training to be Beta and loving every minute of it.”
“I know. I just wanted to give you an out if you desired.” He stopped talking nonsense when I pulled his mouth down to mine.
He gently laid next to me and continued to kiss me until we were both out of breath. “Wait, I have something for you.” Palo said as he moved away from me toward his pack. When we first came into the cave we both took off our packs and put them on the couch.
I noticed him pull out someth
ing from the pack and put it in his pocket. From my angle, I couldn’t see what it was.
Palo walked to me and put out his hand. “Come on, I want to tell you something but closer to the fire.”
I arched an eyebrow wondering what he was up to while I stood up and took his hand. “What is going on?”
“We haven’t had much time alone and I need to tell you a few things before we can move forward.” He cleared his throat.
We stood hand in hand next to the fire. “When I lost my pack, I thought I lost everything. Including who I was. That was partly why I went to LA. I knew that I could get lost in the city. The only thing I had was the pack’s money. We did keep it in a bank. There was a decent amount when they… when they were murdered. Enough to keep me going for the next thirty to forty years, easily. But as soon as I made it to LA, the Magic led me down a different path. I wanted to hang out on the beach and just be a warm human for a change.”
“Wait, what? You wanted to be a beach bum? But wouldn’t you miss the snow? And the trees?” How could anyone want to leave the trees behind for an asphalt jungle?
He chuckled. “Yes, well there is a mountain range not too far. When my wolf needed to run, I had plans. However, within a few days, I knew my plans had changed. Although, I never dreamed I would meet you. Well, you know what I mean.”
We both chuckled because he did, in fact, dream about meeting me.
“Well, let me rephrase. I didn’t think I would actually meet the woman who starred in my dreams every night. I thought I would go on dreaming of you and playing Secret Santa. You have no idea how excited I was when we first met.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek.
“I was pretty excited, too. The Magic knew just where I needed to be.”
“Of course it did. Christmas always knows what we need.” He squeezed my hand and reached into his pocket.
He couldn’t, how could he? There was no time for him to get one. This must be something else. My mind was going crazy with thoughts of proposals.
“Lizzie, I don’t know how it happened, but I have fallen completely and totally in love with you. I want nothing more than to spend every minute of every day with you. When we aren’t together, you are constantly on my mind. I can think of no one else I would want to spend my life with, even if we weren’t destined to be the next Claus family.”
I couldn’t believe he was doing this! My eyes teared up, and I wanted to wipe them away, but I didn’t want to take my hands out of his. So I blinked them away and allowed them to trail down my cheeks.
He kneeled down onto his right knee and held my left hand. In his other hand he held a small box. “Lizzie, would you do me the honor of becoming my Mrs. Claus for now and forever?”
I couldn’t see what was in the box due to the fact that I couldn’t take my eyes off of his. “Yes, oh yes, I will! I exclaimed.
He stood up and took me in his arms and gave me another kiss to curl my toes, in a good way. Once he finally set me down, he showed me the ring in the box.
“That was my great-grandmother’s ring. How did you get it?” I furrowed my brow as confusion took center stage.
He put the ring on my ring finger. “Earlier, when your dad called for me. He wanted to know if a lack of ring was keeping me from asking you to marry me. I told him yes, so he offered up this ring. He said it had been in the family for a very long time.”
“It has. I always wanted this to be my wedding ring. Most girls want extremely large diamond rings. That was never what I wanted. This ruby and diamond setting had always been the prettiest in my mind. It is also the perfect size for wearing every day.” I held my hand out to admire the ring, and the tears began to fall again as I smiled.
“I can’t tell you how perfect this is. Christmas Magic has made this the best year ever!” I wrapped my arm around him and kissed him again and again.
He pulled back from me. “What was that?”
“Hm? I didn’t say anything.”
“I thought I heard you say how perfect this was.” Palo replied.
“It is perfect, but I don’t recall saying it aloud. I did think it. OH, wait!” I thought he might be able to pick up on my thoughts now that we were engaged. “Can you hear me now?” I asked him telepathically.
“Yes, I can. Do you hear me?”
“Oh my gosh! This means you are officially part of our pack and that we can always talk! No matter where you are, we can chat!” I blurted out loud as I jumped around like a giddy kid in a candy store.
“We should head back now and let your dad know. I bet your parents will be excited that I am already a pack member. Will I be able to communicate with everyone in the pack?”
“I think so. If not yet, then very soon. Once we get back you should try reaching out to everyone. Let them know you joined the pack officially.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him one last time for good measure. We weren’t going to have any alone time again for a while.
About an hour later, we shifted back to our wolf forms and started running back home. It was the most exhilarating feeling ever. We could talk as we ran!
I nodded to a knoll that just looked like a snow bank. “That area over there is where I first learned how to sled. I think I was three or four when we did that.”
“I bet it was a lot of fun growing up here. I can’t wait to have kids and see what life here is like for them. I hope we can all do everything you did growing up and maybe find a few new things to do as well.” He gave me a sexy growl.
When we came to clearing, I headed in that direction. “Over there, that is where we used to do our snow angels. Growing up, I created a snow angel sanctuary. No one was allowed to walk on my angles or upset them in any way. Almost every day for six months I came over here to make sure they were alright. When there was a heavy snow, I remade them.”
“I bet you were a very precocious child, weren’t you? My little snow angel.”
“Yes, that’s it! Ok, you have the name for me. One of these days I will come up with a name for you, besides My Santa.” I could see the outside of the village. Our run was coming to end too soon.
“I like it. You can be my angel or snow angel. It’s perfect!” He nudged me just a little before it was time to stop and shift back to human.
We quickly changed and ran inside. “Mom, Dad! Come quick! You have to see what Palo gave me!” Palo came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. I held onto his forearms that were rock hard and making me drool thinking about what a wonderfully, sexy man I had. Then he rested his chin on my shoulder while we waited.
The entire house ran into the living room with bright smiles on. It seemed my dad planned this when he sent us off for the run. “Oh, let me see it. I bet it looks wonderful on your hand,” my mom cooed.
I put my hand out for everyone to see. My sisters squealed with delight. “OH, Lizzie! You got Great-Grandma Claus’ ring! That’s the one you always wanted.” Mandy looked up to Palo and gave him a great big smile. “I know you will treat my sister right. You are going to be the perfect Santa! How could you not be? You already gave your first gift and it was perfect!” Mandy hugged Palo.
The twins kept yelling and screaming. They were still a bit young, only eleven, but they understood the significance of it all.
“Honey, I am so excited for you, and relieved that we don’t have to worry about who is going to replace me. Now we can focus on Christmas and making sure that everything is perfect! Palo, I want you to shadow me every day for the rest of the year.” Dad patted Palo on the shoulder, his guy version of a hug.
“Yes, Sir. Also, we wanted you to know that I am now officially part of the pack! Lizzie and I can communicate telepathically since she accepted my proposal.”
“Oh, Palo! That is wonderful news! Have you tried to reach out to anyone else yet?” My mom asked.
“Not yet, Lizzie and I spoke the entire run home. I was thinking I might try to reach out to Rock tonight. See what he is doing. Maybe even ask him to be my best m
an. Since, in a way, he did make it possible for us to be together. Had he wanted Lizzie, I doubt I would be holding her right now.” Palo nuzzled my neck.
“Nah, I never would have married him. I even considered running away to Southern California when I first learned about it.” I smiled at my dad whose face fell.
“Really? You wouldn’t have married him?”
“Of course not. I knew deep down that he wasn’t my Santa. The Magic was calling me to LA the whole time.”
“Well, now that this is all settled, how about we all grab a slice of my homemade apple pie? I was saving it for tomorrow night, but I think we need to celebrate now, before everyone finds out and you two won’t be given a moment alone.” My mother laughed as she walked back to the kitchen.
Epilogue
A few days later we gathered to celebrate Christmas. Mom was right. The next day news spread like an avalanche, and we didn’t have a moment to ourselves until our family Christmas day. I sat on Palo’s lap in the living room, right in front of the Christmas tree. It was over fifteen feet high and decorated to the nines!
My mom loved to decorate with silver, gold, and red. There were various ornaments from her childhood, as well as some from mine. Each year Mom would get something new to represent the year. They weren’t silly ornaments. Most were quite expensive.
The topper was an angel that lit up with white lights. It had wings made of the softest spun silk I had ever felt.
Each year she changed the garland she used to wrap the tree. This year, she used silver tulle. It was twisted and strategically placed all around the tree.
Last year, she used red tulle and placed various small elves all around. Some hung from the tulle and some were lovingly placed inside the tree. Of course, real elves didn’t look much like what humans thought. They were cute and short, but they didn’t have super rosy cheeks, or sparkles on their faces. Although, I always loved how humans represented our elves.
Miss Claus and the Secret Santa Page 11