Sugar, Spice, and Shifters: A Touch of Holiday Magic

by Élianne Adams

  “Your house, Grandpa! Your house!”

  He tilted his head at the geometric patterns on the page.

  Tana pointed. “And there we are visiting you! Me and Mommy and Daddy and Tyler…”

  He traced the drawing with his eyes, then a finger. Ran his thumb along the edge of the page. Pursed his lips and stayed on the page a very long time before solemnly turning to the next masterpiece, where he spent another couple of quiet minutes. Then he turned back to the beginning and did it all over again while the kids narrated a dozen details to him.

  “There’s a cloud, and there’s the mesa…”

  “And Maxie! Do you see Maxie? He’s barking…”

  The black smudge didn’t look anything like the dog, but who cared when Holly was so excited about the result?

  “Isn’t it nice?” Tana prompted.

  The old man was a veteran of a hundred shifter battles. A man who’d invested blood and sweat—but never, ever a tear—into making Twin Moon Ranch what it was. A man who led his pack with iron resolve and never stopped to smell the flowers or to pat someone on the pack.

  “It’s beautiful,” he murmured.

  Carly drew in a slow breath, etching the moment into her mind.

  Her father went back to the cover, which had one handprint from each grandchild. He nodded and spoke again in that same hushed tone. “Beautiful.”

  Tana leaned in and kissed his scruffy cheek. “Merry Christmas, Grandpa!”

  “Merry Christmas,” he rumbled, brushing Tana’s ruddy cheek.

  Holly patted his back exactly the way she rubbed Maxie’s. “Merry Christmas, Grandpa!”

  “Merry Christmas, sweetie.”

  Carly’s heart climbed a rung higher in her throat. And when her dad’s heavily lined eyes rose to hers, it climbed again.

  He cleared his throat gruffly, then murmured, “Merry Christmas, Carly.”

  She gulped and whispered back, “Merry Christmas, Dad.”

  ABOUT

  Twin Moon Ranch

  This tale is all holiday sweetness, but the tales of how each couple got together are full of danger, action, and sizzling hot romance. Come check out the full series by Anna Lowe! There’s more than meets the eye on Twin Moon Ranch, home to a pack of shapeshifting wolves willing to battle for life and love.

  Amazon — Website

  Anna Lowe

  Anna Lowe loves putting the “hero” back into heroine and letting location ignite a passionate romance. She is a middle school teacher who loves dogs, sports, and travel – and letting those inspire her fiction. On any given weekend, you might find her hiking in the mountains or hunched over her laptop, working on her latest story. Either way, the day will end with a chunk of dark chocolate and a good read.

  Newsletter — Facebook — Twitter — Website

  Maker

  Norseton Wolves #5

  Holley Trent

  Finn Stilton doesn’t want to wreck a good thing. A nomad for much of the past ten years, he’s finally got a safe place to live and he’d like to stay in Norseton. In spite of objections from his packmates, he can’t leave smart, beautiful Graciella alone. She’s got magic that can soothe his antsy inner wolf, and unlike so many other people in his life, she seeks out his company rather than avoiding it. She may be the one woman on Earth who refuses to throw him away. How could he possibly keep her, though, if her being with a man like him means she’s destined to not achieve anything more than being a werewolf’s mate?

  ONE

  Graciella Modesto wasn’t stalking Finn Stilton, but she seemed to have a knack for turning up at the same places as him, at the same time. Norseton, New Mexico was a small, insular community, populated by several thousand decedents of Vikings—the Afótama—who happened to have some unusual supernatural abilities. The Norseton Wolfpack, which Graciella had recently transferred to thanks to her sister Lisa’s creative hustling, lived on the fringes of the desert subdivision. The men provided security services to the highest-ups in the Afótama community, and the women did a bit of this and that around town.

  Graciella worked in the greenhouses, tending to baby plants when she wasn’t boring herself to tears with online college coursework, and it seemed no matter what time she went to work, she ran into Finn.

  Or maybe it’s the other way around.

  “Bags didn’t break. No points for you.” Finn bent and picked up the fallen bags of poinsettia potting mix. Graciella had been hauling them off the delivery truck and accidentally sent a few of the heavy sacks sliding off their stack.

  “Finn, that’s all right. I’ll—”

  He spun around and walked backward with the bags on his shoulders, his gray eyes locking on nothing in particular, but they never did. He was always scanning, never still.

  He made people nervous, but not Graciella.

  “Where do ya want them?” he asked.

  “Oh, don’t worry.” She grabbed one bag from the bed of the truck, groaned under the heavy weight, and carried it toward the largest greenhouse where she and the other staff tended the more mature plants. “This is part of my job. I’ll get them off.”

  “Faster if I help. Where do they go?”

  “Um…” Shouldn’t he be on security duty? The wolves worked pretty tight shifts and didn’t have much downtime during the day, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Her back was killing her. Five minutes of assistance would be a huge help since she was working alone.

  She canted her head toward a long, wooden bench at the left of the entrance. “Over there is fine. There’s where I’m going to be potting today.”

  “Easy.” He let the bags fall and strode to the truck, picking up two more before Graciella had managed to even set down her first one.

  Of course he was strong, though. He was a born werewolf, just like her. The difference between them, though, was that being male, he could shapeshift. She wouldn’t be able to until she had her mate’s bite, and as she’d only turned eighteen a few months ago, she didn’t anticipate that happening anytime soon. Her sister Lisa—who’d brought her to Norseton to free Graciella from a premature, arranged mate match—wanted Graciella and their younger sister, Leticia, to put off serious relationships as long as they could. Lisa was twenty-eight when she’d taken a mate’s bite, and that had worked out well for her. She had the perfect mate for her Type A personality, which basically meant Colt let her do whatever she wanted within the confines of their own home. For the moment, Graciella lived with them, and she tried to ignore the noises coming from the master bedroom. She didn’t believe her sister should be chaste—not by any stretch of the imagination—but at the same time, she didn’t necessarily want nightly evidence that Lisa wasn’t.

  Graciella grabbed another bag of dirt, and Finn whooshed past her again.

  “How many ya have to pot?” he called back.

  It took her brain a moment to break down the question and understand his words. He spoke so quickly, and sometimes that Appalachian accent of his was downright indecipherable.

  “Today, I think around a hundred. The plan is to get a plant to everyone in the community who wants one.” She dropped a second bag onto the bench as Finn returned with his fifth and sixth ones.

  “Wolves, too?” he asked.

  “Yeah. They’re poisonous to dogs, though, so we probably shouldn’t eat them.” She laughed at the silly joke her boss had made, and then rolled her eyes at herself. Her sense of humor could use some upgrading.

  “Ain’t too fond of vegetables, no way.” He shrugged and trooped out the door again.

  She followed. “Really, Finn, you don’t have to unload this thing. The driver went to have lunch, and I told him I’d be done by the time he got back. I’ve got at least an hour to get it done, and I don’t think it’s an hour’s work.”

  “I’ll do it in five minutes.” He passed her again with two more bags.

  “You don’t have to, though. It was my fault those few fell.”

  “I scar
ed ya.”

  “Yes, you frightened me a little, but—”

  Zoom. He passed her again. She’d already lost count of how many bags he’d carried.

  “I had my ear buds in,” she finished, even if he wasn’t in earshot.

  Groaning, she stomped into the greenhouse and pulled the wheelbarrow out of one of the back corners. This ought to speed things along so he can get back to work. She appreciated the help, but didn’t want to get him in trouble with their alpha. Adam Carbone was the go-between for the wolves and the Afótama, as far as their security jobs were concerned.

  “Smart,” Finn said as she pushed the wheelbarrow out. Then he took over steering it the rest of the way.

  “Uh, Finn, I can—”

  “Y’all got white poinsettias, too?”

  “Well, yes.” She jogged to keep up with him. The man was in perpetual motion. “Red ones, white ones, some gold ones, and there are some variegated ones, too.”

  “Variegated. Variegated?” He snapped his fingers rapidly for a few seconds and shifted his weight. “I know that word. I—” He tucked his black hair behind his ears and dropped one bag and then another one into the wheelbarrow. “Colors are different.”

  “Right. They’re kind of spotted.”

  “You like those?”

  “I’m kind of partial to the red ones, to be honest.” She shrugged, and got out of the man’s way.

  He’d climbed up onto the truck bed and was tossing bags down into the wheelbarrow in a fast and furious speed that made her head swim. Then he hopped down and pushed the full cart into the greenhouse.

  She threw a leg onto the tailgate, and cringed at the few remaining bags all the way at the back. He was very nearly done. Five minutes, just like he’d said.

  Returning already with the wheelbarrow emptied, he put his hands gently to her waist and pulled her back from the truck. “Almost done.”

  “Um. Yeah, I just noticed. Finn, really, you don’t have to—”

  “Gotta get rid of energy. Christina said so.”

  “Your sister told you to come haul dirt?”

  “No.” He climbed up into the truck once more and pushed the few remaining bags toward the tailgate. “I was just walkin’. She gives me errands sometimes during my breaks. I was headin’ to get her some diapers. She don’t even have to use ’em, ’cause she uses cloth, mostly.”

  “How’s Cecily doing? Sleeping any better?”

  He snorted. “Nah. She be up all night.”

  Cecily was one of the two newborns in the Norseton Wolfpack, and the two little ones were cousins. The other baby was a little boy named Adam, who happened to belong to the pack alpha’s son. Vic’s first cousin was Anton, Christina’s mate, and he was the guy who kept Finn out of trouble, supposedly.

  Like most of the men in the pack, Finn was inexperienced in social situations because he’d been expelled from his birthpack as a teen. Their new alpha had a habit of taking in wolf ‘rejects.’

  “I won’t keep you from getting the diapers. I can get the rest of these.”

  He ignored her and tossed the remaining bags onto the pile in the wheelbarrow. “You here all alone?”

  “For the moment. There’s a full-time gardener, but he cuts back his hours this time of year, and I don’t mind picking up the slack. It’s nice to have a little spending money. I’m so used to not having any.”

  “Know the feelin’. You ain’t seen recyclin’ until you seen a hillbilly use the same square of tin foil five, six times. Mama woulda knocked us out cold if we’d throwed anything away.”

  Again, it took Graciella’s brain a moment to parse his words and make substitutions where necessary. Christina and her brother had the same accent, but her English was more standard. She’d had more schooling, and according to her, Finn hadn’t attended much even when he’d been enrolled. That was typical where they were from. If wolves weren’t working and earning money to pay dues to their alpha, they weren’t doing their fathers any good.

  “I bet now, you feel like you have more cash than you know what to do with,” she said.

  He grunted. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  Graciella didn’t know how much the wolves earned doing security, but Adam was savvy, and she suspected he wouldn’t negotiate a deal that would have put them in worse straits than they’d been in before they’d arrived the previous year.

  Alpha, his wife—Mrs. Carbone—Vic, Anton, Colt, and fourth wolf named Darius had lived on the road for most of the past two decades. Working with the Afótama had given them an opportunity to finally settle down and establish their own kind of pack—one where being a reject was the norm.

  “I like being able to keep most of it,” he said. “My old alpha—”

  “You don’t even have to say it. I already know. My parents had, like, five or six jobs between the two of them at any given time, and we never had any money, except for what Lisa hid away. They were paying more in dues than they were in taxes, and still somehow managed to end up in pack collections every other month.”

  “It’s a damn racket.”

  “Yep.”

  He pushed the wheelbarrow into the greenhouse yet again, and she followed.

  “What do you think they spend all that dues money on, anyway? As far I could tell, it never trickled back down to the pack.”

  “Spendin’ it on drugs and guns, probably. Or their own houses. I bet they got real fine furniture inside, and two or three trucks in their garages. Hear tell that most of ’em don’t even have driver’s licenses.”

  Graciella shrugged. “They break so many laws, I guess they figure, what’s one more?”

  Finn rubbed his hands together, as if his fingers had suddenly gone stiff and he had to work the circulation back into them. Then he paced a bit in front of the bench, quickly scanning the rows of plants. “Nice and humid in here.”

  “Oh, you noticed that, huh? I come over sometimes when I’m not supposed to be working just for the wet heat. I miss it, with me living out west now. I never thought I’d say that. I used to complain so much about how hot it was, but I think I much prefer oppressive damp to this dry, New Mexican climate.”

  “Christina’s the same way. Always cold.” He scrunched his forehead. “I think she’s low on iron, though. Takes these big ol’ pills every night after supper.”

  He glanced down at his watch, grunted, and walked toward the door.

  “Well, see ya, Finn. And thanks for helping with the dirt. You’re sparing my back an ache come tomorrow.”

  “Mm-hmm. I’ll be right back.”

  “Why?”

  He kept walking. “You said you had to pot a hun’red poinsettias.”

  “I do, but shouldn’t you be working?”

  He waved. “Nah.”

  She scratched her head, then shrugged and giggled.

  Such an unusual wolf.

  And that was probably why she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

  TWO

  Before Finn had been expelled from his birthpack, he’d spent the majority of his free time watching out for Christina and their ma, because nobody else would have. Female wolves were born more rarely than males, but that didn’t mean they were treated all that great. They were things lucky men owned—in the case of wives—or traded—in the case of daughters—and not people they put much value on.

  Finn may not have been the smartest wolf in that holler, but he knew that wasn’t right. Maybe he’d run his stupid mouth about it one time too many, and that was why he got sent away. He’d never know what specific thing it was, but it didn’t matter anymore.

  Christina had found him, got him a job, and put a roof over his head, and now he was in a pack with more women per men than he’d ever seen.

  They were a novelty in some ways, and others, they were just like any other wolf.

  Not the one at the greenhouses, though. She wasn’t like anyone else. She seemed to understand him. Or at least, she pretended well. Most folks didn’t even bother pretendi
ng.

  When he returned an hour later, he found Graciella carrying a potted red poinsettia toward a waiting group of them near the corner.

  “Hey!” she said with a bit of shock in her voice. “You did come back.”

  “You surprised?” He always said what he meant, but he knew not everyone did. He learned that lesson at sixteen when he got tossed from the pack even after being told the day before that his place was secure.

  She notched her hands onto her hips and nodded. “I am, actually. I’m glad you’re back, though. Next time, make a little noise so I can pretend all those sounds coming from the desert are just you.”

  “Don’t let them noises worry you none.” He arranged four empty black pots in a square, lifted an open bag of soil, and poured a little dirt into the bottom of each one. “You’re a werewolf. Ain’t nothin’ gonna hurt you.”

  “I don’t shift. I don’t have a mate.”

  “That don’t matter. You still got a wolf in there. Other animals know.”

  “Really? How do you know?”

  “Just listen to ’em. Real easy to see what they think of you.”

  “You talk to animals? That’s a new one. Some of the wolves here have pretty interesting skill sets—psychic and otherwise—but I haven’t heard that one yet.”

  “Nah, not exactly talking. More like sensing. Hard to explain it. Common where I’m from. We hunt a lot, though. Probably honed the skill better.”

  “By necessity?”

  He grunted and broke up the roots a bit on a poinsettia plant before dropping it into a pot.

  “You’re pretty good at that.”

  “My mama kept a garden. Used to say if we wanted to eat, we had to help. Learned a few things.”

  “If you’re helping me do my work, who’s doing yours?”

  “Alpha sent me home.”

  “Why?”

  “Just the way the schedule worked out this week. He moved us around some, and the thing I was supposed to be doing wasn’t needed no more because the folks I usually guard ain’t here right now.”