by T. S. Joyce
“What are you going to do?”
“I need to Change. What happened at the Gut Shot last night riled up the bear, and he’s been loud all night. I don’t like when people threaten you, or call you names. I don’t like it when they test us. I’ll Change while you sleep, and then I’ll gather the Clan and we’ll find a tree when you’re ready.”
“Trig?” she asked as he made his way to the door.
Moonlight streamed through the window, highlighting his naked body in blue shadows. “Yeah, Ava?”
“I don’t like that you have to Change alone. Sometimes I wish I was a bear shifter too, so I could be in the woods with you.”
She could hear him swallow hard. “If you saw what I did to Colton, and what he went through, you wouldn’t wish for the bear. Sleep, Ava. I’ll be back soon.”
Ava lay in the dark, under the warm blankets, in the breeze from the heater, until the front door clicked closed. And then she slid from bed and made her way to the window. The sky was clear, and the half moon and stars illuminated the yard.
Trig tromped in the ankle-deep snow until he reached the tree line, and then he turned toward her as if he could feel her watching him. He stood tall and proud, muscles rippling, the tattoos on his shoulders, arms, and torso stark against his pale skin, his breath frozen in front of him, his eyes so bright she could see them glowing from here. Beautiful monster.
She knew what he would do before he even started breaking. He was going to show her what the bear did. Show her the pain on his face. He was going to remind her it was a curse to be a shifter.
And as his body ripped apart and reshaped into a massive brown bear with a roar so loud it shook the house, she blew a breath on the window, then drew a heart for him and colored it in with the tip of her finger.
Because man or beast, he owned her heart.
And no matter what, he always would.
Chapter Six
“Now?” Gunner asked in his little, squeaky three-year-old voice.
“Son, you’ve asked that a dozen times, and the answer is still no. She ain’t ready yet. Girls take longer to—”
“I’m ready!” Ava called, bustling down the front porch stairs with the basket of warm, buttered blueberry muffins. “I was making breakfast for us.”
Trig, Colt, and Kurt stared at her like she’d grown a triple head.
“What?” she asked as she leaned down to give Gunner one. He was a bundle of excitement and currently touching every muffin, trying to pick one.
“You cooked for us,” Colton said suspiciously. “But you hate this time of year. I thought you were going to stand us up, but you made muffins like Suzy Homemaker. Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”
“In the traditions with Dad, I never made us muffins for breakfast. He was allergic to blueberries. We’re doing this one different.”
Trigger was grinning from ear to ear with an ax thrown over his shoulder, looking like a hot, tattooed Paul Bunyan. Kurt was frowning at his son, Gunner, who was still picking up muffins and putting them back to choose the one with the most blueberries, and Colton was now on his tiptoes, looking hopefully into the basket of pastries.
“Miss Ava, I have to tell you something!” Gunner yelled at an uncomfortable volume.
The boys all hunched their shoulders, and Ava thanked the heavens she didn’t have their sensitive hearing.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Mr. Colton teached me to draw a picture.”
“A picture of what?” Kurt asked.
Gunner pointed to a snow pile near the cabin. Squinting, Ava walked over to the drift and yep, that was a little yellow pecker he’d drawn while peeing. Fantastic.
“Goddammit, Colt,” Kurt groused.
“Okay, bright side,” Ava said, because she loved bright sides and could find them in just about any situation. “Gunner’s picture is way better than Colton’s big one,” she said, pointing to the shaky, giant pee-nis her stupid brother had drawn beside Gunner’s.
“Where are you going?” Trig yelled out.
Ava turned around just in time to see Gunner the Runner disappear into the trees. Kurt shoved Colton so hard he almost fell. “Never talk to my kid again, you delinquent asshole.” And then he went jogging after his son.
“What did I do?” Colt called after him.
Trig walked toward the tree line, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like “the cubs of this Clan are gonna be so screwed up.”
But she was human and didn’t have that good of hearing, so she was probably mistaken.
Munching on a muffin as she went, Ava made her way after the boys and hoped they waited for her near the tree line. She’d tried to keep up with them in the woods for about ten minutes on their first hike, then gave up. They all had speed and agility on their side, and long legs, even little Gunner, while she, the puny human, was clumsy and tripped every thirty seconds and got stuck in the snow drifts. She was training them to go slower and wait for her. So far it wasn’t going that well, but someday she would have them whooped into shape. Probably.
She ate three muffins before she found the rest of her clan. It wasn’t that hard because they were all yelling at each other about a hundred yards away from the house, each arguing they’d found the perfect tree.
“This one is tall and full,” Colt argued.
Looking nonplussed, Kurt cocked his head and insulted it. “It’s skinny as a bean pole.”
“Well, the cabin is kind of small,” Trig said, staring at the emaciated pine tree thoughtfully.
“I like that one!” Gunner said, pointing to a short, squatty tree with full branches. It would take up most of the living room with girth like that.
“That has my vote, too,” Kurt said, trying to snatch the ax from Trig’s hand.
Her mate yanked the handled blade away and pointed it at Ava. “She’s Queen of Christmas this year. Ava picks.”
“Well, I like that one,” she said, pointing to the winner. It was the most pitiful tree she’d ever seen, even more so than the one in the Gut Shot. The branches were bare in patches, making it look like it had mange, half the needles were brown, and the tree had taken damage to the top half of it at some point and was now growing at an angle.
“That is the saddest tree I’ve ever seen,” Kurt muttered.
“Don’t be mean to it! I think it’s cute. I’m going to name it Kevin.”
“Well Kevin is hideous.” Colt jammed his finger at it. “You’re gonna take the choice away from a little three-year-old kid for that?”
“I don’t think he minds,” Trig deadpanned. “Gunner’s too busy eating a snowball.”
Kurt looked down at his hungry son and snorted.
“Thirsty,” Gunner said around a bite of the white stuff.
“Why this one?” Colt asked.
“Because we used to spend hours searching for the perfect tree with Dad, and I want to do our traditions different. I want to pick the trees no one else would. It reminds me of us. Outcasts. None of this town would bet on us, but we’re still here, and I think we’re pretty cool.”
Colt blinked slowly. “You just compared us to an ugly tree.”
But Trig had already pulled the ax back to slam it into the trunk, and Ava just smiled. Of course, he would understand. Trig always had her back, just like she had his.
He made quick work of it and then took her hand as he started dragging it toward the house like it weighed nothing at all. Kurt and Gunner had a snowball fight while Colt complained about everything—the tree, the snowball that hit him in the ballsack, the cold weather, how Trigger’s horse had escaped again, about how he would never let a girl tell him which tree to chop down, and about how he’d eaten all the rest of the muffins and was still hungry—basically life in general. Her brother had never been much of a morning person.
And as for Ava…well, her nose might have been hurting from the chill in the air, but her cheeks hurt from smiling. She wouldn’t say it out loud to
them, but she loved these crazies. And this morning had been fun. Humming under his breath, Trig wasn’t even showing any soreness from his Change, and he smiled every time he looked down at her, which was often. He kept looking at her lips, like he was just as enamored with her smile as she was with his.
And once they were in the house, they decorated that misshapen little tree with a box of old scuffed-up ornaments that Trig had dug out of the back of the bedroom closet. It was loud the whole time, mostly with arguing, and some with Gunner’s excited yelling. But Ava just absorbed it all. She didn’t mind the chaos this morning. Why? Because this was the first time she was decorating a tree in a decade, and it wasn’t horrible. It was fun because of the people she was with. Because of the Clan, her little make-shift family. Because of Trigger.
And oh, that tree wasn’t cute. Trig had to superglue a cardboard cut-out star to the crooked top because the old store-bought star-topper wouldn’t stay on and Colt had broken it in three pieces trying to force it anyway.
But so what? Kevin looked as good as a little outcast tree could look.
He was perfectly pathetic.
And somehow, someway, as she looked around at her little rag-tag crew…this place felt even more like home.
Chapter Seven
7 Days of Outlaw Christmas
Day 7: Christmas fight with asshole in bar, whiskey in hot chocolate, dance to carol singers. Ava’s smiles today: 38.
Day 6: Chop down tree. Ava picked Kevin, the ugliest tree in existence and compared it to the Two Claws Clan. It’s perfect. Ava’s smiles today: 51
Day 5: Put lights on house. Took me and Kurt and Colt six hours to figure out why the lights weren’t working. It was one stupid bulb that was out. Next year please God let us have enough money to buy new strands of lights. Ava’s smiles today: 59
Day 4: Watch Christmas parade. Two more Christmas fights. Not my fault, for once. The Warmaker aka Colton-who-has-to-get-in-a-fight-over-his-hotdog-not-being-made-correctly started both of them. I finished them. Ava yelled a lot. Colt ate twelve hot dogs and hoarded the candy they threw off the mayor’s float in the parade, and then he pegged two cougar shifters with the candy, got drunk at the Gut Shot, and we had to drive him home in the bed of the truck because he was getting on my damn nerves. Ava’s smiles today: 78.
Day 3: Baked Christmas cookies and decorated them. I made eighteen perfect snowman cookies, and Ava and Colt made twice that many shaped like dicks. They used skin-toned frosting and white sparkle sprinkles at the tips, and now we have to eat them. Dicks. We have to eat dicks. Ava’s smiles today: 89
Day 2: Christmas movie marathon day. I thought this was going to be horrible on account of all three dominant male shifters shoved in my tiny cabin watching chick-flic holiday movies. It was fine though, because Ava didn’t make us watch the mushy shit. She picked a couple funny ones and made us caramel popcorn and apple cider and we ate a dozen of the frosted dick cookies. None of us even Changed in the front yard and bled each other, and I’m counting that as Christmas miracle four-hundred. Today on the couch, I noticed Kurt favoring his injuries though, and when I asked, he wouldn’t show me. He turned on his Clan and killed his alpha to keep Ava safe, but he got bad hurt. I owe him sanctuary, but I don’t think he’s healing right. He wants to leave as soon as he’s able to defend his cub, but truth be told in this journal, where no one will ever read, for Christmas I wish he and Gunner would stay.
Day 1: It’s Christmas eve today. I’m running ragged trying to keep up the ranch and spend the quality time with Ava that she deserves. This morning she said we need to do a work day. She’s falling behind, too, but we only have one life, and I want to live it. She thinks we aren’t doing anything for the holiday today, but I’m meeting up with Cooper for a special delivery, and then I’m coming in at lunch to make her present. I spent almost all the rest of my coffee can savings on the materials. As long as she doesn’t pop into the barn today, I’m in the clear. It’s so much less than she deserves, but I hope she likes it. God, please let her like it.
Trig put the cap back on the pen and closed the journal. He hadn’t written in the thing for years, but he wanted to write it all down so they could do the same again next year.
And the year after.
And the year after that.
Because he could see a change in the woman he loved. It was subtle but steady. Her smiles were growing each day, numbering more and more. He was counting.
She was starting to like Christmas again.
And because of it, the holiday was becoming more special to him, too.
Chapter Eight
Day one, Christmas Eve, and Ava had tricked Trig into having a work day. Muahahaha. She had worked for a few hours, caught up on what she could, and now she was in Colton’s cabin, ignoring his half-rabid wishing squirrel, Genie, who still seemed to hate her. Genie was currently sitting in her cage with her hands wrapped around the bars, glaring at Ava. She hadn’t seen the angry critter blink in a very long time.
Slightly disturbed, Ava forced her gaze away from the poofy-tailed rodent and went back to mashing the clay into the shapes she wanted. She’d really thought this would be easier because she’d taken a sculpting class in college, but making a motorcycle ornament out of clay was quite possibly the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. There were so many tiny pieces. She looked at the picture of the Road Glide she’d taken again. It was Trig’s newest motorcycle, sitting in the storage shed, waiting on warm weather so Trig could hit the open road again. Riding was his freedom. And he’d also said his tradition with his dad had been to make each other a present each year, so here she sat, trying to replicate an ornament of his favorite motorcycle out of children’s clay.
Another wave of nerves took her. She hadn’t done Christmas presents in a long time, and what if he didn’t like this or thought it was lame?
Another half an hour, and she finally scratched onto the back the year and Our First Christmas - T & A. She giggled when she realized their initials could be mistaken for the acronym for titties and ass. Perfect. The ornament needed to be cooked in the oven to set and dry, so she did that. She ignored the fact that her ornament could look like either a motorcycle with handlebars or a dog with its head sticking out the car window with his ears flying back. Surely, Trigger would guess it was a motorcycle. Hopefully.
The door blew open, and in with Colton drifted snow flurries. “Holy hell, it’s cold as balls out there.” Once again, her brother wasn’t wearing a jacket, just a blue jean button-down, a cowboy hat, and a pair of threadbare jeans that were ripped at the knees. His arms were loaded with grocery bags.
“What’s that for?” she asked, pointing to the shopping spree he’d just done.
“My Christmas present to the Clan. I blew all my savings on this, but whatever. I’m cooking for everyone on Christmas day. Trigger told me once that he and his dad used to cook all day and watch football reruns and eat until they almost puked and that sounds a lot like Heaven to me, so…we’re doing this.”
“Aww!”
Colt made a clicking sound behind his teeth as he passed on his way to the kitchen. “Don’t aww me. I’m doing this for selfish reasons. I like to eat.”
“But you picked Trigger’s tradition with his dad to make it special for him. I know you did. Act tough all you want, Colton Nathanial Dorset, but you take care of your people, and Trig is your people.”
“Don’t make it sound weird. You just girled all over something I wanted to do. I got four pounds of bacon, Ava! Don’t tempt me to return this stuff. My damn mouth was watering the whole time I was shopping. Leave your mushy girl shit in your head. It weirds me out.”
She hid her emotional smile by giving him her back and making her way to the oven to removed her little motorcycle ornament. Her brother was tough and funny, but he could also be thoughtful and sweet, and she liked that side of him.
“Hey, Colt?”
“What?” he asked in a grumpy tone as he put entire bag
s of groceries into the fridge like the total bachelor that he was.
Before Ava could change her mind, she strode right up to him and hugged him up tight. She had to stand on her tiptoes to squeeze his neck. “I’m really glad I get to spend Christmas with you.”
Colt had frozen the instant she’d hugged him, but a few moments later, he sighed, expelling the tension, his shoulders relaxing, and he hugged her back. “I’m really glad, too, Sis. I didn’t ever think we would get a second shot at this. We’ll make it good, okay? We’ll take it back.”
“What do you mean, take it back?”
“I mean we gave Dad power for way too long. We let the things he did and the decisions he made affect how we lived our lives. And he don’t care, Ava. He’s not sitting around pining for us, or worrying over what he did. He moved on the second he pulled away from our house. Now it’s our turn to move on. You did really good despite what he did.” He patted her back and lowered his voice, which had gone thick with emotion. “I’m so damn proud of you.”
Tears spilled onto Ava’s cheeks as her face crumpled. God, it felt so good to hear those words from him. She hugged his neck tighter and made water spots on his denim shirt with her crying, but it couldn’t be helped. She wasn’t a crier, but he’d opened the flood gates. It was crazy how kind words could change the path of a life. How having someone who was uplifting in your corner could mean the difference in success or failure.
She had succeeded in school back when she was a kid because Colton had sacrificed more than she would ever be able to understand, just so she could stay steady and make the grades. And now she was succeeding as an adult because her brother supported her in improving the quality of her life. And maybe Colt was right. Maybe it was high time she forgave Dad and took that power back. Not for Dad. Fuck him. The forgiveness was for her. It was an I love you to herself. It was the belief that she deserved better than wrestling with her past for the rest of her life. She did deserve better, and so did Trig, and so did Colt.