by Sasha Winter
Santa Claws
An Online Shifter Dating Agency Romance
© 2016 Sasha Winter
COPYRIGHT
Please respect the work of this author. No part of this book may be reproduced or copied without permission. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any similarities to events or situations is also coincidental.
© 2016 Sasha Winter
All Rights Reserved
Chapter 1
Elise Jackson’s life was pretty good as far as she was concerned, especially around the usually joyous holiday season, as it was right now. A lot of people were alone over Christmas and the New Year period, but she was going to be fine—she had a steady, if rocky, long-term relationship with her boyfriend Tom and a rewarding job that she loved. The archives she worked at were interesting and, for the most part anyway, she liked her colleagues.
Both of those things weren’t so true one particular night, just three weeks before Christmas.
On that particular night, the drive home from work was almost unbearable. Elise’s hands trembled on the steering wheel, clenching so tight that her knuckles turned bone-white, and her chest was tight with anger and humiliation and no small amount of sadness.
She shouldn’t really have been driving, if she was perfectly honest with herself. The sharp burn of tears behind her eyes wasn’t just sadness or just anger, more of an amalgamation of the two, but the effect was the same and there were a few too many close calls for her liking in the trip between work and home. Between the pickup that pulled out in front of her and the two red lights she nearly ran through, she was even more of a mess when she finally pulled into the apartment lot than she had been when she’d left work.
Her best friend Susan’s car was already parked on the street outside when Elise pulled in, and a knot in her stomach loosened just a little at the sight. She wrestled her handbag out of the passenger seat and locked the car. The front door was unlocked when she got there, the smell of Chinese food thick in the air, and she hurried into the kitchen. The thought of food suddenly made her stomach lurch, which fueled her anger even more. She loved Chinese food, and Tom was ruining that too, damn him.
The tears had just begun to fall by the time Susan wrapped her in a fierce hug and guided her into the living area so they could collapse onto the sofa. “I’ve got you,” Susan said. “Get it out, honey, get it all out.”
There weren’t as many tears as Elise expected, nor did the sadness hold as long. The anger won out sooner rather than later and she sat up with a little shudder to shake it off, wiping at her eyes. “Like cheating on me wasn’t enough,” she blurted out angrily. “It just had to be with her of all people, didn’t it? I mean, who even does that? Who cheats on their coworker girlfriend with another coworker? And right before Christmas, too! What a freaking great present for me.”
Susan nodded with a fierce expression. “He’s lower than low, Elise,” she said. “No real man would do that to a woman, especially one as good as you. Adding a mutual coworker to the mess? That's just unprofessional. He's a douche.” She scowled. “Also, I really hated his moustache. Like, really, really hated it.”
The words, although nothing special, soothed a little bit of the burning indignation in Elise’s chest. “It was gross, right? He’s garbage,” she said and felt like she even believed it a little bit. She started replaying all of those small, significant moments throughout their relationship that had planted, watered, and fertilized that seed of doubt that now suddenly bloomed brilliantly. "Ugh. I should have gotten a clue a long time ago, shouldn’t I? He wasn't exactly great from the get go."
"Love makes you blind, deaf, and dumb, honey,” Susan insisted. “Don't beat yourself up over it. After all, you've gotta polish a few turds before you find a diamond."
Susan was wise beyond her years, and Elise felt the knot in her chest release a bit as she choked out a laugh.
Susan clapped her hands decisively and announced, her tone suggesting there would be no arguing, "Right, now we eat. Do you think feel like we should have red or white with Chinese?"
It was a good question, and they debated it intently before deciding on the cheap bottle of red cabernet from the corner cabinet. Susan poured their glasses, full right to the brim, as Elise opened their to-go containers with a deliberate flourish.
The results of the debate wouldn't matter anyway, as they finished off the bottle of red and didn't hesitate to open the next bottle in line.
“You know, if you really don’t want to be alone over Christmas, you should sign up,” Susan said when they were halfway through the kung pao chicken and their second bottle of wine.
Elise looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Sign up?” she asked after she swallowed her mouthful of rice. “Sign up for what?”
“That dating site I’ve been telling you about,” Susan said and punctuated the words with a stabbing motion with her chopstick. “The big cat shifter one, PurrfectMates.com. I really think you’ll like it, Elise. I've been talking to three, and one's a tiger, Elise.” She fanned herself with a hand. “A tiger shifter, I mean, how hot is that?”
Elise’s eyes welled up with tears again against her will. She put the carton of rice down and looked at her hands in her lap.
Susan put her own food aside and hugged her around the shoulders after a moment of hesitation. “Come on, honey,” she said gently. “You knew this was coming. Maybe you didn’t think Tom was going to pull something like this, but you definitely knew it was going to end.”
Elise sighed, filled with a righteous anger at the sound of his name. Grabbing her wine glass, she tipped it up to empty it. “I know,” she admitted past a small hiccup when it was empty. “I’m just mad he had to go and sleep with her instead of breaking up with me first.”
“He’s a jerk. Besides, they say the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else,” Susan pointed out with a smirk. “Take a leaf from his book, Elise. I’ll help you set it up. It’ll be worth it, I promise, even if it is just for a fling. Try the shifter dating site. Perhaps Father Shiftmas will bring you a hot man just in time for the merry season.”
Elise resisted well into the night, dancing back and forth between heartbroken and pissed, and it was only when Susan brought out the familiar black and white tub of her favorite chocolate gelato that she finally started to consider. Susan listed off various hypothetical situations, going into incredible detail about the possible hunky shifters waiting to pounce on beautiful young women willing to indulge their animalistic cravings.
"Fine,” Elise agreed finally. “But no pictures! What if I find someone I know on there?”
Susan poured them both another glass of wine, emptying their second bottle before giggling giddily as she typed away furiously on her keyboard. Within twenty minutes, she had filled Elise's profile out and they had started prowling through the profiles of the shifters she had been matched with. They both ended up crashing on the couch, and Elise only remembered messaging two different men when she woke to a reply from one of them.
Unfortunately, she didn't have enough time to reply as she scrambled to pull herself together, working quietly to rush through her morning routine so as not to disturb a sleeping Susan. Elise's head throbbed uncomfortably as a fresh wave of anger expanded in her chest. Work today was going to be terrible enough without showing up late, disheveled, and hungover. It wasn't her fault her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—had cheated on her with a coworker. She was determined to keep her cool and not let their indiscretion make her feel uncomfortable.
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br /> This was, after all, the first job she'd had that she actually enjoyed, and she’d be damned if she let them take that away from her too.
The City Center building was far from the oldest building in town, but it was one of the largest. Although the building housed all of the city departments, Elise kept to the ground and basement floors for her job—an archivist and historian specializing in the recently-developed and quickly-expanding field of shapeshifters. Folklore, historical texts and documents, and archaic and abstract artworks were hers to pore over for hours every day, hunting down any references she could find and hungrily learning everything she could about her field.
Donald, her boss, was far from strict. Still, her guilt drove her straight to his office to apologize for her tardiness. She ended up telling him about her boyfriend—her ex—and expressing her determination not to let his infidelity and their breakup affect her work. Donald, a bit flabbergasted at the whole situation, assured her he wouldn't treat her any differently, and he also assured her he’d take down the decorative mistletoe in the break room which had apparently initially led to Tom kissing their colleague Natalia (which of course led to even more, as Elise had discovered). It turned out she wasn't the very last person in the building to know about the affair, and Elise took some solace in that.
She dived greedily into her work and tried her hardest to stay focused. She nearly worked through her lunch break, though her stomach started protesting loud enough at around two that she hurried up to the cafeteria to grab a quick salad. Crunching through romaine and other diced vegetables, she checked her email on her phone and noticed with intrigue a few emails from PurrfectMates.com.
The two guys she'd messaged the night before had both responded, though one of them had such horrendous grammar that Elise couldn't bring herself to respond. She forwarded the thread to Susan accompanied by a string of amused and disbelieving emojis. The other, though, was enough to ignite her curiosity. Well-spoken and lightly flirty, he was just her speed at that moment. There was no real photo of him—just a muscular guy wearing a Santa hat, low on his head with his face tipped downwards so it wasn’t visible. From what she could see, though, he looked quite handsome.
She replied to him, sharing a few basic facts about herself and returning a few of his questions.
‘Hi. Nice to hear from you, Santa Claws. I work at the City Center,’ she wrote in answer to his question about what she did. ‘I’m a historian and archivist. A lot of people think it’s boring, but I love it.’
Checking the time, she quickly ate the remainder of her salad and hurried back downstairs.
When she returned to the office she donned the gloves she wore when handling some of the more delicate documents and was thumbing through a Native American account of eagle shifters, not to mention thinking about the shifter she'd been talking to, when Donald nearly startled her out of her skin.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Elise! I didn't mean to scare you. I just got a call from a Sheriff Grey from Sawmill Grove up north,” he said. “They were looking for an expert historian on shapeshifters who could help them with an ongoing investigation. He didn't give me much in the way of details, but I recommended you and told him I'd pass the word on.”
Elise was a bit shocked, and it took her more than a moment to realize what Donald had told her. Sure, she'd helped on several public projects, using her knowledge to help raise awareness and support for shifters. To be asked to help on a full-blown police investigation, though? That was more than a little intimidating.
“Wait,” she said when she realized, with a jolt of mixed emotions. “Is this a murder investigation or just criminal activity?”
“Murder,” Donald said sadly. “I guess a boy was found torn apart up there. He seemed pretty sure he needed your professional help, though.”
Elise felt goosebumps rise on her arms. She wasn’t at all sure how she felt about this. How awful for the family, though, to lose a child, especially during the holiday season when families usually came together to celebrate. This year, Christmas Day would only be a painful reminder to the family of what they’d recently lost.
“I'll have to think about it, Donald,” she said. “I mean, I've never done anything like this.”
She ducked her head sheepishly as she finished her sentence.
“That’s fine, Elise, I told him I'd get back to him later tonight.” Donald smiled kindly. “Don't be afraid to decline if you're not comfortable, dear.”
The rest of the afternoon passed in a bit of a haze. She'd barely kicked off her shoes that night before she told Susan what was going on. From the call from Sawmill Grove to the messages from the mysterious shifter, she debriefed Susan in record time. Susan was intrigued and encouraged her to look up the case online, to try and find out as much information as possible.
Though the body had only been discovered a couple of days before, there were already multiple articles covering the case. From what she could gather, a seventeen-year-old boy had been found murdered by what was either a big cat shifter or an actual big cat, which had been determined during an autopsy by the local medical examiner. Opinion on which had done it—shifter or real-live big cat—seemed mostly evenly split in the sources Elise found.
She discussed it with Susan, and the more Elise thought about it, the more she wanted to go. She took a break from research to eat and then, after dinner, Elise checked her email and saw she had a reply from PurrfectMates.com as well as an email from Donald.
He explained that he'd received two more calls from the sheriff asking for an answer, and that he seemed desperate about her helping with the case. Sighing, she checked the other email. She read through it quickly.
‘Ha, Santa Claws. That’s a good one! You’re funny ;) Your job sounds very interesting. I wonder why other people would think it was boring. By the way, where do you live? Oh, and don’t worry—I don’t have some weird Santa fetish. I work as a Santa at the little department store here in town. Not my usual gig, but the kids love it. Took that photo of myself in the hat as a bit of a gag, really.’
Elise typed out a quick reply to the shifter's question as to her location, as well as his other comments. ‘Oh, that’s cute. I’m sure the kids love that. Which town is that? In answer to your question, I live in Grady Point.’
He responded moments later, letting her know he was from close by, in a town not even two hours away.
‘Oh, yes, I know where your town is. I live in Sawmill Grove. Bit of a drive, but not that far in the grand scheme of things,’ he said.
“Susan,” Elise said and waved at her screen. “Susan, oh my God.”
Moments later, after she’d read the emails, Susan was sure this was fate. “This is the decision basically made for you, honey!” Susan said. “Think about it. What do you have to lose? An exciting new project and a change of scenery. You might get to meet Mr. Mysterious, and isn’t that a distraction all on its own anyway?”
Elise glanced back at the screen of her computer briefly. Her curiosity was piqued and Susan was right. There really was nothing holding her to the town after the breakup and, professional curiosity about the case aside, the idea of meeting the mysterious shifter from PurrfectMates.com was entirely too appealing to resist.
She picked up her cell again and scrolled to Donald's number. He picked up barely three rings after she hit dial. “Elise?”
“I’ll go,” she said, glancing at Susan’s wide smile and enthusiastic nodding. “To help them with the case.”
He made a loud sound of relief. “Oh, thank God. That’s great news, Elise. I'll let them know. A car will be there to pick you up tomorrow morning, is that enough time for you to prepare?”
“Sure,” she agreed.
Susan wrapped her in an enthusiastic hug when she got off the call. “This will be great!” she exclaimed. “You’ll get to solve a crime and maybe meet Mr. Mysterious. It’ll be a big distraction, just what you need. And you said he’s a Santa Claus at a store, right? Maybe you can be naugh
ty and make his list…bedroom list, that is.”
Elise laughed and shushed her friend, and then she immediately replied to the shifter, letting him know she'd be in town tomorrow for a few days on business. She hinted shyly at meeting up, and his response was enthusiastic.
Packing was a nightmare on such short notice, especially when the possibility of meeting and hooking up with a shifter was thrown in the mix. She packed her best lacy negligee, her favorite sheer red bra, and as an afterthought she threw in her cute polka dot mini-dress, her classic little black dress and her very last pair of run-free pantyhose. She nearly dumped her suitcase back out on the bed to start over, but she hurried to take a shower instead.
While having a steady boyfriend, she was well aware that she’d gotten behind on her personal grooming, and nerves were making her fret more over her appearance than ever.
“Quit your stressing, honey! He doesn't even know what you look like, don't set the standards so high for yourself,” Susan called from behind the closed bathroom door as Elise set about shaving her legs for the first time in a week.
Elise rolled her eyes. Of course, Susan was basically a mind-reader. It was easy for someone as pretty and perfect as her to say that. For someone with curves, preparation was key. Cleanly shaven and feeling a little better about herself, Elise crawled into bed for a fitful night of sleep.
Tomorrow would be a better day…especially if that hot Santa-hat-wearing shifter stayed on her radar.
Chapter 2
Small towns where everyone knew everyone else could be a death sentence for the love life of someone who hadn’t found anyone to meet his standards yet. Erik Grey had had his fair share of encounters with the women in the small town where he was the sheriff, and he had always come away from the encounters with a vague sense of disappointment. There were simply no viable options left for him to meet new women in the town, and the only members of the opposite sex who had been near him lately were happily-married mothers and their young children who came to sit in his lap during his moonlighting gig as the town Santa this year.