Buck Me... For Christmas: BBW Mail-Order Bride Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (Shifter Grove Brides Book 7)

by Anya Nowlan

  It almost dragged both of them under, but with Blitz’s arm around the ribcage of his unlikely acquaintance, he kicked upwards. It was a woman – that much he could tell – and her body against his shot a sudden jolt of electricity through him. It was the oddest feeling. Like someone had given him a shot of vodka to the veins, he felt an almost impossible, indescribable fire travel through him. It would have taken his breath away, hadn’t he been holding it to begin with.

  They bobbed up on the surface, coughing and spluttering. She was clawing at his arm desperately, but he wouldn’t let go as he swam to the edge of the ice.

  “It’s okay, I got you,” he said, putting authority in his voice in the hopes of calming her down.

  “I can swim!” she yelped as Blitz made their way through broken slabs of ice and towards the steadier border of ice hidden under the snow.

  “Yeah, well, I can dive but I don’t want to do that again,” he said sternly.

  They finally made it to a point where the ice held enough so that they could clamber out. Blitz pushed her up the ice and waited for her to crawl a few feet further before he followed, lest they both fall back in again. Without her in his arms, he felt surprisingly hollow for a moment.

  Frostbite, he told himself grimly, pushing away any other possible explanation. You’re going into hypothermia.

  Always the rationalist, he heaved himself onto the relatively steady ground and grabbed his jacket, stepping into his boots, dripping wet and freezing as he was. Blitz pulled the mystery woman who had almost gotten herself killed up, draped his jacket around her and picked her up like she didn’t weigh a thing. Of course to him, she didn’t.

  “Hey! I can walk!” she squealed, mortified.

  “Don’t start with me again,” Blitz huffed, looking around for a moment and then taking the shortest path he could think of towards his cabin.

  He cradled her against him and, spirits above, she felt exquisite. Big green eyes stared up at him as if he were some sort of savior incarnate and he couldn’t help but keep his fingers clutching onto her perhaps a little too tight. All the cold he had been feeling, and that he should still have been feeling, seemed like a distant memory and, frankly, a nonissue when she was in his arms. He had never felt warmer.

  “No, honestly, I can,” she said, but her voice was quieter now. Blitz looked down at her round face, the faint edge of a blush – or cold damage, either-or – lighting her cheeks and her full lips shuddering as her teeth clattered together.

  She was shivering like a leaf in her wet clothes and it was obvious that he would have to get her warm and safe as fast as he could before she caught pneumonia or something worse. A very sarcastic part of him was not at all surprised at how his evening had turned out – saving an unsuspecting damsel from certain death in the middle of nowhere, Idaho. Another, much larger part of him, was prancing around like a damn foal, reveling in the presence of this gorgeous creature.

  She had long red hair that currently stuck limply to her face and neck, but he could imagine that it had plenty of bounce and life to it otherwise. She had freckles and her skin was fair – the kind of shimmery perfection that looked good even when it was, well, ashen as it currently was. And her body! Damn it. He had not needed a distraction like her. Especially not before…

  Clearing his voice, Blitz put his eyes on the path towards his cabin again, marching through the snow like he’d spent his whole life trudging through banks of fresh powder with princesses in his arms. Didn’t sound like a bad life, to be honest.

  “You almost drowned in a lake in the middle of a snow storm. If you think I’m going to trust you with walking on your own, you’re in for a rude surprise,” he said stiffly, trying his hardest to keep his eyes on the proverbial road and not on her.

  Damn it, she even smelled good.

  There was a small pause before she spoke up and he could hear the clattering of her teeth between the words. “Thank you. I’m Riley.”

  “Blitz. You’re welcome.”

  Pressing his lips into a thin line and furrowing his brow with determination, he marched onward, never faltering or tiring. It was a couple of miles to the cottage and he pretty much jogged through the snow and woods, kicking the fluff around in his urgency to get her to warmth. The knowledge that she would have certainly been dead had he not been where he was hit him heavily and his heart skipped a beat.

  For some reason, the thought of living in a world without Riley suddenly seemed… impossible.

  Blitz took a calming breath as the cabin came into view, lit brightly with Christmas lights and smoke still billowing up from the chimney, though the fire had to have been almost out. The Frost brothers didn’t keep a lot of things, but their parents’ old cottage was almost on the level of a family heirloom. They’d expanded it after the parents’ deaths because of how many of them there were – hard to fit nine grown-up shifter males into a household, even if it was a rare, rare occurrence that they took time off at the same time.

  Still, every time he saw the homey place, especially in winter, his heart swelled happily.

  “We’re here,” he said softly.

  Riley had been quiet for most of the walk and, aside from checking on her every now and then to make sure she wasn’t falling asleep – a bad idea when you’re shuddering with cold and have recently taken a dip in a lake with freezing temperatures – he’d let her be for fear of what he might say if they got into a conversation. Pushing the door open and stepping in, he wondered if he could even construct a sentence around her without sounding like a smitten fool.

  Blitz slammed the door shut behind him with a backwards kick of his heel and marched straight into his bedroom, setting her down on the edge of the bed.

  “Um, what’s going on?” Riley asked as Blitz tossed through the drawers of the big oak dresser in one corner of the room.

  He didn’t reply, fishing out a big t-shirt with a rather conspicuous Christmas theme on it and a big red towel. He tossed them both on the bed next to Riley and then went into the adjacent bathroom, starting the water for a hot bath. When he finally emerged, hands crossed over his chest, he was far too aware that he was running out of things to do to keep him from talking to her.

  He stopped at the door and those big doe eyes looked at him, innocent and shaken. All he wanted to do was to go to her, pull her into his arms and kiss the breath out of her.

  Snap out of it.

  “I’m drawing you a bath. You’re going to take off those wet clothes, leave them behind the door and take the bath. Then, you’re going to come out and we’re going to talk about why you were trying to get yourself killed before Christmas. That understood?”

  “I wasn’t trying to kill myself!” she bristled.

  “Nu-uh. Bath first, objections later.”

  He nodded towards the bathroom and then stalked past her, every step away from her more difficult than the last. When he shut the door behind him, he had to take a big, deep breath.

  The hell’s gotten into you. This is no time to lose your cool.

  But what’s a buck to do when the right kind of doe prances into his life, right?

  CHAPTER THREE

  Riley

  Riley was feeling sheepish to say the least.

  She’d barely spoken to her savior and the thought of holding a conversation with him sort of scared the living daylights out of her. The water had been nice and hot and though a part of her was completely disinterested in getting into any water ever again, she was quickly won over by the warmth and ended up soaking in it until her skin crinkled. A big part of it might have been the fact that she really didn’t want to face Blitz’s deep, chestnut eyes and explain to him what exactly had happened.

  Finally, she got out of the bathtub with an audible sigh and dried herself. She scuffed the fluffy towel through her hair a few times and pulled on the shirt Blitz had left her. It smelled like him, all masculinity and pinewoods and… cinnamon, which was weird, but sort of delicious.

  She g
ave herself a hard look in the big mirror in the bathroom before tilting up her jaw and deciding to go and face the music, or the mysterious stranger, as it were.

  Clad only in the shirt, she padded softly across the hardwood floor and pushed down on the door handle, peeking out of the bedroom as if she expected someone to pop up at any second and tell her that she’d just been having a very elaborate dream. Whether it was a daydream or a nightmare was anyone’s guess at this point. The space outside of the bedroom opened into a big hallway and she entered it gingerly, moving towards the sound of a gramophone playing It’s Cold Outside.

  When she entered the open space living room and kitchen, Riley’s mouth fell open. It was huge! High ceilings through two stories, floor to ceiling windows, an absolutely gigantic Christmas tree decked with gold, silver and red charms and ornaments… It was breathtaking! And in the middle of it all, Blitz, his brow slightly furrowed as he fussed around in the kitchen.

  She got a good look at him without him noticing her at first. He was a tall, hunk of a man – probably 6’4’’, if not more – with those chestnut eyes, yes, and high cheekbones, messy auburn hair and a chiseled, hard jaw. Looking at his wide shoulders and the bulge of his biceps against the moss green material of his tee, she wasn’t at all surprised that he had carried her so easily through the forest, even if she wasn’t the smallest woman. He was, in a word, gorgeous.

  “Like what you see?” he asked, not looking up.

  Riley practically jumped on the spot, putting her hand on her chest.

  Perceptive, isn’t he, she thought, conjuring a small smile on her lips.

  “You have a beautiful home,” she said, deflecting with all the grace and poise of someone who’s taken one too many difficult phone calls while trying to talk people into donating.

  “Thank you. My family owns it,” he said, looking up and casting a glance around the room before stopping his gaze on her. “Eggnog or hot chocolate?” he asked.

  “Hot chocolate,” she said immediately, surprised at how easily that decision had come.

  For someone who was used to hemming and hawing for at least half an hour every morning over what sweater to wear, agreeing to anything that Blitz offered her seemed to be a whole lot simpler.

  “Hot chocolate it is. Take a seat,” he instructed, and she followed his command even before her mind had really processed what he had said.

  Careful, Riley. You don’t know this guy, she chided herself, curling up on the crème couch that faced the fireplace, a cozy fire roaring in it.

  The snow was still falling hard outside and she could faintly hear the wind howl, even if it the safety and warmth of Blitz’s home did make it seem impossibly far. He appeared at her side almost magically, handing her a steaming mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows floating in it and just a pinch of nutmeg. It was perfect.

  Much like him.

  She bit her lip when the thought hit her. That was definitely not the path to taking things slow! The cold water must have caused her inhibition center to freeze over or something, because she was getting herself into all sorts of trouble merely by looking at Blitz. He sipped on his matching cup, giving her an expectant look as he hovered near her. Snapping out of her daze, she tasted the sweet liquid and her eyes lit up brighter than the Christmas tree.

  “Oh my god. This tastes like heaven!”

  “Old family recipe. It’s all about the hand-ground chocolate. Don’t tell anyone,” he said with a wink, skulking back towards the kitchen.

  Great – handsome and charming. You’re so screwed.

  “So, you want to tell me what you were doing in Wolf’s Eye Lake, missy?” he called from the kitchen area, fussing with something that smelled as delicious as the hot chocolate Riley was clinging to and sipping from.

  “I… Uh. It’s a long story,” she said, scrunching up her nose.

  “Girl gets car. Girl ignores safety precautions. Girl veers onto a lake and almost drowns. Pretty short, if you ask me,” he scoffed, quirking his brow at her over the sound of mashing potatoes.

  “Well, I guess if you break it down like that,” she chuckled, shaking her head.

  All she could do was laugh at the situation, really. It was perfect. Exactly the way her year should end – with her phone, lap top and her dearest possessions, along with Claire’s Christmas present, at the bottom of a lake.

  “Humor me, then. Tell me the long version.”

  “How long do you have?” she asked, leaning back on the soft, buttery leather of the couch.

  “Long enough to hear your story, Riley,” he said, his voice so calm and soothing that she damn near swooned.

  “Okay,” she replied, though her nose was busy whiffing the air for food smells. She hadn’t realized how ravenously hungry she was until she’d walked into the living room and smelled everything. “Well, I was on my way to Shifter Grove. I’m going to see a friend of mine and stay with her and her husbands for Christmas.”

  She stopped at that, a deep frown marring her features. Blitz must have felt her staring at him because he looked up from cutting the roast, looking like the picture of domestic bliss with his hair softly falling on his forehead and his lush lips pressed together in concentration.

  “What?”

  “You’re… You’re not a shifter, are you?” she asked, tilting her head a little.

  Riley was sure she’d heard a clatter of hooves before Blitz dove into the water and yanked her out of the car, but she couldn’t be entirely certain. But that made sense, right? How else could he have been there on foot and carried her for miles without even looking a little winded?

  He smirked a boyish smile that twinkled only for a moment before fading again.

  “I’m a buck, yes. A reindeer. But you’re procrastinating. Story first, prying later.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, rolling her eyes good-naturedly.

  That made her heart skip, though. She’d barely even met a shifter before, let alone been around one. And she’d never heard of a reindeer shifter. The discussion was always on the big predators and other shifters barely got a footnote mention in the public’s mind. But one look at Blitz told her that he was as strong and fearsome, if not more, than any bear or wolf she could imagine. The more she looked at him, however, the less she wanted to do anything but look at him. Clearing her throat, she tried to concentrate on the topic at hand again – her little story of woe.

  “That’s the spirit,” he said, loading up two plates and grabbing cutlery on the way to the table.

  A hot plate loaded with veggies, mashed potatoes, slices of roast and gravy were set on the table in front of her and Blitz fell into a big armchair opposite of her, his back to the fire. He handed her a knife and a fork and, for a second, she was overcome with the need to touch his hand. She caught herself before she could do anything silly, accepting the utensils instead.

  “Thank you. Okay, so, Shifter Grove,” she said, getting her mind back on track as she picked at the food in front of her, trying to keep herself from devouring it all in under a minute. “I flew out from Georgia, grabbed a car at the airport – the only one they had that supposedly had four wheel drive – and I set off. The weather kept getting progressively worse and after I got off the highway, it was pretty much downhill from there. Well, not literally.

  But anyway, I could barely see the road and, suddenly, the ground went out from under me, the jeep rolled down the side of the hill and I ended up in the middle of the lake.”

  She shuddered, taking a bite of the food. The mental image of going down with that jeep and dying a lonely, cold death would probably haunt her for a long time to come. Unless she could make a better memory of that evening, maybe? That sounded like a nice idea. She had to hide the grin that wanted to tug at the corners of her mouth at the thought.

  “Why Shifter Grove?” Blitz asked, skipping over the lake and the jeep and all the rest of the horrific things that came with it.

  “Like I said, I have a friend there, Claire.
Maybe you know her? She married Argo Longbrook and Cooper Greymane,” Riley said, looking up only to receive a shake of the head from Blitz.

  Still, sitting so close to him was sort of a weird mix of heaven and hell. She felt giddy and she had to wonder if it was because of the near-death experience, her general shitty year, or if she was losing her mind and getting all googly-eyed at a hot piece of manflesh – as juvenile as that sounded to her. Then again, looking at this particular specimen, was it any surprise? Maybe Riley could excuse herself that slip-up…

  “Okay, let me rephrase. Shifter Grove is a pretty long way from Georgia to come spend Christmas here. Unless you’re visiting family who’d otherwise nag your ears off, that’s some serious commitment. So why this friend and not one closer to, you know, Georgia?”

  “Maybe I wanted to get away from Georgia?” she blurted before she could stop herself.

  “That’s an option. Why?”

  “You ask a lot of questions,” Riley shot back, blushing and concentrating on her food instead of him for a moment.

  “Well, I did just carry you out of a frozen lake, so I think I’ve got some leverage here,” he said with a chuckle.

  God, even his voice was sexy. Unfair. Unfair.

  “If you must know, my boyfriend ran off with a Brazilian lingerie model and all the money we’d collected over the year for the charity I work for. So distance sounded good,” Riley admitted sourly.

  She looked up after Blitz hadn’t said anything for a while and found herself staring into his deep brown eyes and sinking deeper than the lake ever could have been. He stilled for a moment and then nodded, his hair falling on his forehead again in a way that made her want to reach out and brush it aside.

  “Alright. Idaho confirmed as a better option than Georgia,” he said, giving her a slight grin.

  It was boyish and charming and damn did it make her feel like a silly teenager faced with her crush. She dipped her chin lower and concentrated on her food, bathing in the warm, tingly feeling she got when she looked at him or he at her. Hours after almost dying was definitely not the time to think about flirting, but it sort of happened on its own and she wouldn’t be held accountable for what she did around Blitz. Something about him made her act a little silly, and she liked it.