by T. S. Joyce
“Why?”
“Because I don’t really like Christmas.”
Trigger crept to a stop in front of a house that was all done up from the roof to the towering trees in front. White, gold, green, red, and blue lights lit up the entire yard, and three inflatable snowmen sat in front, holding hymn books like they were caroling. “Why don’t you like the holiday?”
“You know why.”
Trig sighed and squeezed her hand. “I like Christmas.”
“What?” she asked, completely shocked. “You were always so stoic. I didn’t think sentimental holidays would be on your radar.”
“Every year, me and my dad would make each other a present. Just one, that was the first rule, and the second rule was that we couldn’t buy it…we had to make it. And we would make this huge meal. I mean…turkey, stuffing, gravy, ham, Cornish game hens, vegetables, rolls, biscuits, casseroles, mountains of desserts—you name it, we made it. Spent half the damn day in the kitchen, eating as we went. He always joked I was going to eat him out of house and home, but he was a bear shifter, too. He ate just as much as me, and on Christmas day, we would binge eat and watch the parade on TV, then old football games after that. I have good memories.”
“And after he passed away? Did you still like it?”
Trigger shrugged up one shoulder and leaned his head back on the headrest. “It was different, but I didn’t hate it. I wanted to keep the holiday so I could honor his memory.”
Ava felt like crying, but she couldn’t explain why. Her heart hurt around this time of year. It had since high school. Since she was sixteen. “I had good memories too, but I think Colton was mostly to thank for them now that I look back. There’s these little flashbacks…things that click into place now. Catching Colton wrapping dad’s presents to me. Or baking holiday cookies with Colton while Dad sat on the couch drinking and staring at a blank TV screen. Or Dad standing us up for the town parade almost every year, but Colton was always there, making some excuse why Dad had to be late. I used to love everything about the season, and then…”
“Then what?”
“You know what. I remember now. You were there, standing on the edge of the yard, watching us while my Dad pulled away in that old suburban he used to drive, with all our belongings strapped in the back. I was so confused why he’d taken all our stuff, but now I think he took as much as he could pack so he could sell it for gambling.”
“Yep,” Trig said in a dead voice.
“You think so, too?”
“I know so. I tracked his ass down a month later.”
“Wait, you did?” she asked, sitting up straighter. “You saw him?”
“That’s one way to put it.” His voice had gone hard as stone. “You didn’t know it, but I was staying nights at your place while Colton was working those late shifts at the bar. I came in and slept on the floor in your Dad’s old room after I thought you were asleep, just to make sure nothing happened to you while Colt was at work. And then I would leave when he got home. Only some nights when I came in, you were in your room, but you weren’t asleep yet. I could hear you.”
“Hear me what?” she whispered.
“Crying. Your dad did that by leaving, so I went to go find him to drag his ass back. Only when I did find him, I figured out you and Colt were better off without him. He was so far into whatever lifestyle he’d got into, he smelled like the inside of a whiskey barrel and was begging change to go to the races. Beggin’ it, Ava. Let that soak in. Your dad didn’t care that I was trying to get him to come home and man up and be a father to you. He was worried about how many dollar bills I had in my wallet so he could get another fix on them ponies.”
“So you just left him there?”
“No. I waited until he was out of alcohol and sober, then I beat the shit out of him, and then I came home. And before you give me crap for whoopin’ that old bastard’s ass, you should know how hard it was for me to lay on the floor of Colt’s room night after night and listen to you crying. All I wanted to do was go in there and scoop you up and fix everything. Fix your life. I wanted to comfort you and take away all that pain, but I had to keep my bear away from you. And it was torture, Ava. Torture, you hear? I loved you then already, and when you have to hear someone you love crying like that? When you can physically hear their heart breaking? Well, it did awful things to my insides, and your dad deserved a fist for every tear you cried over his sorry ass.”
Completely shocked, Ava sat there shaking her head, unblinking. “But you didn’t kill him…right?”
“No, I didn’t kill him. He was spitting a tooth and laughing like a psycho when I left. Said something like, ‘They’ll be just fine if they have you as their guard dog.’ My bear literally wanted to Change and eat him. I probably woulda choked on his gristly ass though, so I decided not to.”
Ava snorted, but then she covered her hand over her mouth. This wasn’t supposed to be funny. It was wrong to laugh at her mate beating up her dad.
Trigger was biting back a smile now. “It’s not funny. I’ve never been so pissed in my whole life.” But his smile twitched bigger.
Ava pursed her lips and stared at him with wide eyes, trying not to laugh.
“Stop,” he murmured.
“You beat up my dad for me.”
“Yeah, so chivalrous.”
“Like you tracked him down and beat him up. Trig, you beat up everyone.”
“Well, I can’t help it! I don’t start it. Well, that one I started, but I mean in general, I don’t start the fights.” He glanced at her and away. “Not many of them anyway.”
“You really like the holiday?” she asked.
“Yeah. And the selfish part of me wants you to like it, too. Not because I want you to make things easy on me during December, but because I like it best when you’re happy. I’m addicted to your smiles. They give me boners. I want to get boners all month long.”
“God, you’re ridiculous. You’re sales-pitching me right now, aren’t you?”
Trig blinked a few times and pulled an innocent face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but look how pretty those lights are on that house.”
Ava heaved a sigh. “If I pretend to be festive this year, will you go easier on me next year? I mean, if I still feel that I just want this month to be over, will you let me be my normal non-elf-self next year? If I try for you this year?”
“Yes.”
“Pinky swear?”
Trig put up his pinky, but jerked it away right as she was about to hook hers onto his. “On one condition.”
“Seriously? You’re going to negotiate?”
“Mmm hmm,” he said with a firm nod. “No complaining when we do holiday stuff.”
“No complaining to you out loud,” she countered. Because she was sure-as-shit going to be complaining in her head, and to Colton, and probably Kurt when Trig wasn’t paying attention. And maybe to the wishing squirrel, the cows, the horses, any passing birds, and the fence out back.
Trigger grinned and squeezed her pinky with his. “I’m gonna make you love Christmas again.”
“Good luck with that,” she muttered, feeling irritated as she frowned at the hideous display of gaudy lights on the house across the street. She would never put lights on their cabin. It was a waste of time, and when she was a kid, she was always the one who had to take them all down. It was the least fun chore ever.
Trigger was barking up the wrong tree, in the wrong orchard, on the wrong planet.
Christmas wasn’t her thing, and never would be.
Chapter Three
Downtown Darby was decorated in lights, and with the fresh snow on the ground, it was picturesque. It brought back so many memories of her childhood, some uncomfortable, some not, but she’d learned over the last month with Trigger that forgetting the past didn’t work. It didn’t help not to deal with the uncomfortable parts. They were something she needed to think about, to feel, and to move on from so she could be lighter.
“I helped put up the lights and holiday decorations all down Main Street one time,” she muttered as they walked slowly up the icy sidewalk toward Petty’s Pizzeria.
“I didn’t know that,” Trigger said, drawing her mitten clad hand into the crook of his elbow.
“It was for community service hours for college applications.”
“Of course it was. Nerd.”
She giggled and said, “The outlaw and the nerd. We make quite the pair.”
“Our cubs are going to be so confused by their family.”
“What? No way, we’re awesome.”
“A nerd for a mom, and savage monster for a dad, Colt and all his weirdness for an uncle, his damn rabid pet squirrel, and if I can get them to stick around, Kurt and Gunner, two mountain lion shifters in a clan of bears, both of whom live in a barn.”
“I see nothing weird about our clan. If we weren’t a little dysfunctional, we would be boring. I kind of like that we’re always on our toes. Chaos is the spice of life.”
Trig snorted and shook his head. “You’ve been working too much. Your brain cells are shutting down.”
Ava shoved him, but he barely moved, the brute, so instead she ended up hurting her wrist. That was the downfall to being mated to a brick house. “Anyway, I stood on a ladder and put up the garland and red ribbons on the street lights.”
“That just made me so hard.”
“Stop.”
“Christmas boner.”
Ava caught the giggles and shoved him again, only this time he gave way on account of the ice, and she went with him. With a yelp, she fell face-first toward the ground, but Trig yanked her to him at the last second, and twisted them, protecting her from the fall. She bounced off his stony chest as he landed on his back in the snowy grass next to the sidewalk. There was a second of silence, and then he started cracking up. “A nerd and clumsy. I want a refund. I need a better mate.”
“Trigger!” She bit his throat and made chomping sounds. “If I can’t have you, no one can.” Chomp, chomp, chomp.
Trigger was wiggling underneath her from laughing so hard, straight from his belly. He pulled her hair to lift her face away from his throat. She snapped her teeth once. Snap.
His dark beard hadn’t been shaved in a while, and it was thicker than usual, but his smile looked so bright and white surrounded by all the dark. “God, I love you, woman,” he said in a growly voice.
And right there she had a moment—lying on her favorite person, looking directly into his soft brown eyes that danced only for her, listening to the honesty in his voice as he reminded her he loved her. Thousands and thousands of holiday lights were illuminating the snowy, quaint downtown around them and throwing his face into highlights and shadows. Her handsome man. Her monstrous man. Her outlaw. Her everything.
“I love you back,” she whispered, in awe of her life.
His hand went gentle in the back of her hair, and he leaned up and kissed her lips. It was a soft sip that led straight into him pushing his tongue past her lips, over and over in a gentle rhythm. She didn’t know how long they lay like that for everyone to see, just…making out like teenagers in first love, but she didn’t care. Lately, all she wanted was to heal from everything that had made her chronically angry, and to be happy. Trigger made her want better for her life, so she would be good for him, like he was trying to be for her.
“Get a room,” Cooper, the local prop plane pilot, growled from above them. “You’re on a fuckin’ sidewalk, not a Motel 6.”
Smack went her and Trigger’s lips as they ended the kiss. With a sigh, Ava rolled off Trigger and onto her back in the snow. “Mr. Cooper, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“Yeah, we were only making snow angels,” Trigger finished.
Pursing her lips against a giant grin, Ava did her best to keep a straight face while she started flapping her arms and legs in the snow. Trigger was doing the same thing beside her, and Cooper, that old codger, was standing above them glaring at them with his arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were glowing silver, the color of his inner mountain lion, but he wouldn’t Change here. Trigger was the most dangerous shifter in these parts, and Cooper was a survivor. He wouldn’t take on a grizzly shifter without the Darby Clan here to back him up.
Cooper spat on the ground and stomped away, his boots making deep indentations in the new snow. He was muttering something, but Ava didn’t have shifter hearing, and thank God for small blessings, because from the narrow-eyed dirty look Trigger was giving to Cooper’s back, he probably wasn’t saying very charitable things.
Ava was watching him go when she got distracted by movement and music down the street. The snow was cold against her cheek as she stared at a towering Christmas tree two blocks down. It was all lit up and wrapped in red and gold ribbon, with shiny red ornaments sparkling all over. There was a crowd around it, chattering and sipping cups of something warm, probably hot chocolate if the little stand peddling the stuff by the tree was anything to go by. There was a group of six—three women, and three men—dressed in old-timey garb and singing a carol. It wasn’t a traditional holiday song they were singing, though. They were singing a three-part harmony of “Hallelujah.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking right now,” Trigger murmured, up on his elbow, looking down at her.
“I’m thinking it’s weird that we’re lying in the snow in the middle of town,” she lied.
Trigger narrowed his eyes and puckered up his lips like he smelled a rat, so she admitted, “That the music doesn’t suck and the Christmas tree isn’t ugly. There. Happy?”
“Getting happier. Come on. I can smell the pizza from here, and I’m starving.”
“You’re always starving,” she said as he stood.
“Not my fault. Blame the bear.” He offered his hand to help her up, and she took it.
As he hoisted her to her feet, she grunted and said, “A bear that didn’t kill Cooper for ruining our make-out session. Trigger Massey, I do declare you are rehabilitated and no longer a monster.”
“I thought of at least thirteen ways to kill him in my head.”
“Well then, never mind, you are still a monster. I want pepperoni and mushrooms.”
“And then hot chocolate by the tree.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “Pass. I would rather go back to your truck and give you a BJ.”
“Dammit, Ava, don’t tease me with that.”
She skated away on the ice and laughed maniacally. “It’s up to you, Trig. Christmas carols or road head.”
“Fuck,” he muttered behind her. “Are you going to use that every time I try to make you like the season?”
“Probably. What’ll it be?”
Trigger sighed loudly and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Road head. The answer will always be road head.”
“Yessss,” Ava hissed, pumping her fist one time. Why? Because Ava: 1, Christmas: 0.
This week was going to be a breeze.
Chapter Four
Dinner had been perfect.
Ava had laughed until her face hurt, and Trig had touched her the entire meal. Sometimes he rested his foot against hers under the table, or rested his hand on her thigh, or put his arm around her shoulders and rubbed her arm with his thumb. Twice he leaned over and kissed her right on her temple like he couldn’t help himself. He’d turned her to utter mush by the time the tiramisu and the check came.
But when they left, he grew quiet, and she had this terrible feeling it had something to do with him looking over at that Christmas tree a block down. He turned away and pulled her hand back to the inside of his elbow and went quiet. The smile fell from his face as they walked toward where he’d parked.
No. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be when they were about to fool around in the truck. She was coming to realize Christmas really meant something to him. Where she’d clung to the bad memories of her dad leaving a few days before the holiday, Trig had dug his claws into the good memories and releas
ed the bad. And now she was going to ruin the rest of his Christmases. That hit her right in the chest.
She didn’t want to make Trigger unhappy. She wanted the opposite. She breathed for his smiles. Her heart soared with every laugh he gave her. The Trigger she’d known as a kid had been quiet and somber, and always, always serious. But with each passing day with her, he’d opened up, and she could see…see…his life turning around for the better. And she liked to think she was part of the reason for that. But right now, in this moment, as he walked beside her, silent and lost in his own thoughts, he reminded her of the Trigger she’d known as a child. She’d done that.
“Trig?” she asked softly.
“Yeah?” he asked, looking down at her. His smile didn’t even come close to reaching his eyes.
“I’m a little thirsty. And a little cold. I could use something to warm me up.”
He stopped walking and squared up to her. “Is this a joke about my dick warming you up?” he asked in the most confused tone she’d ever heard him use.
Well hell, she couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled up the back of her throat. “No, for once, I’m not being a pervert. I mean, I could use some hot chocolate.”
Trig’s eyes lightened to a muddy gold, and his gaze flicked to the giant tree down the street, then back to her. And his slow, answering smile warmed her from the inside out, better than any hot chocolate ever could.
“Okay,” he murmured. When he leaned down, the scruff of his beard scratched her face as he kissed her. She cupped his cheeks and kept him for a few more seconds before she eased away.
A flicker of worry dashed though his eyes. “Does this mean no road head?”
Ava burst out laughing. “Who’s the pervert now?”
“Me. The answer was always me,” he muttered as he followed her toward the tree. “I’m serious. You didn’t answer my question.”
“Depends on how good this hot chocolate you’re about to buy me tastes.”