Part 23 (2/2)
”Card from Nita,” she said, referring to the former packmate who'd mated with an outside-Pack male not long after his and Tamsyn's mating. ”Her cubs are growing up so fast.”
”So are ours.” He stroked his hand over the curve where her waist flared into her hip. ”G.o.d, I'll have to teach them about women soon.”
She laughed. ”And what do you know about women?”
His reply was a kiss that stole her breath.
THE HOUSE WAS STRANGELY QUIET WHEN THEY WENT DOWN. Tamsyn soon found out why. Lucas and Vaughn were outside playing ball. They'd roped in their own mates and a couple of other sentinels, as well as the kids and several older juveniles.
”See, I told you they'd take care of themselves.” Nate kissed the pulse in her neck as they stood on the back doorstep.
She smiled. ”More like the women decided we needed privacy.” They had been in the kitchen with her when Nate had walked in with the orchids. He did that every year, and every year, she turned to putty in his arms. It was hard not to melt for a man who still saw her as an orchid kind of girl after all these years together.
Her mate's teasing reply was lost in the gleeful cries of their cubs as they spotted their parents. Nate walked out and intercepted the pair, scooping them up and hanging them over his shoulders. In spite of Nate's worries, Roman and Julian were still babies, not even three years old. ”Mommy! Help!” they cried now, between giggles.
Nate threw her a grin and something went hot and tight in her stomach. G.o.d, she loved him. Walking over, she tilted her head to peer at her babies. That knot in her stomach grew tighter. ”I think you look good in that position.”
”Mommy!”
Laughing, she freed a wriggling Roman. He peppered her face with kisses before asking to be put down so he could rejoin the game. Julian was playing with his daddy, but waited to give his mom a kiss before chasing off after his twin. ”They're so tiny,” she whispered, standing in the curve of Nate's arm. ”I can't believe they're ours.”
”My little pistons,” Nate said proudly, watching as Vaughn threw Roman a soft pa.s.s. Instead of running, Roman threw a sneaky pa.s.s to his twin, who shot off down the field. ”See that-a few more years and they'll be pummeling everyone else on the field. So, what about the Christmas tree?”
”I drove out there yesterday.” A living Christmas tree had become a tradition, a happy memory that had survived the turmoil of the bleak years after the ShadowWalkers' attack. ”Our tree is still going strong.”
”Just like the pack,” Nate said, echoing her thoughts.
She wrapped her arm around his waist. ”Just like us.”
He glanced down, a tenderness in his gaze that would have surprised those who saw him only as the most experienced of DarkRiver's dangerous sentinels. ”As if I'd ever let you go.”
”Sweet talker.” She leaned up and kissed him, thinking that her mate was simply getting s.e.xier with age. He now had the darkly sensual beauty of a leopard in the prime of his life, pure hard muscle and a finely honed s.e.xuality that demanded everything she had. She found him irresistible. ”I love you.”
He nibbled at her lower lip and there was smug male pride in his eyes as he said, ”I know.”
She laughed. It had taken her years to get him to that point, where he believed she truly was happy with their life. Never once had she regretted mating at nineteen. She'd been one of the lucky ones-she'd found her mate early.
And then he whispered, ”Always,” and she fell in love with him all over again.
GIFTS OF THE MAGI.
Jean Johnson.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
I'd like to thank Lady Fi for teaching me how to drive. I didn't learn until I was twenty-nine, and she was an excellent instructor. In fact, I pa.s.sed with room to spare...even though it snowed the day I took the test. It is because of her that I chose Iowa for the setting of this tale; she moved to Rolfe this last winter, and I miss her dearly. So here's hoping that your hearthfire never goes out, milady!
-Jean.
Prologue.
THE CAR JOLTED ONTO THE ROAD IN A SOFT GLOW OF LIGHT, sliding a little over the ice-packed snow. Mike gave Bella a dirty look from his position in the front pa.s.senger seat. One of his hands curled around the shoulder strap of his seat belt, dark brown on black, dimly lit by the dashboard lights. ”Do you always have to drive like that?”
”Better a few minor b.u.mps than a speeding ticket, O Lead-Footed One,” Ca.s.sie reminded him from the back seat of the old VW Beetle. ”As I recall, you cost us an hour's delay and just under a hundred dollars, the last time you drove.”
”Whereas you refuse to learn how to drive,” Bella quipped, glancing at her companion through the rearview mirror. Ca.s.sie's fingers were busy with a wad of saffron-orange yarn and a golden crochet hook, her attention on her task and not on the road ahead. She looked over at Mike and smiled. ”Don't worry, Mike. We only have another two miles to go. Besides, cars are much more comfortable than camels. Be grateful we're living in the modern era.”
A light in the distance made Mike crane his head that way. ”Look, a small town. Probably with a motel. Why can't we ever stay at a motel? It's not as if I'm asking for a five-star hotel, you know.”
Ca.s.sie answered him. ”We go where we are needed, we stay where we are welcome, and we do what we must. When you follow the Way, you must follow the path that it dictates.”
”Thank you, Ms. Buddhist,” he quipped. ”You just love to go all Zen on me, don't you?”
The blonde in the backseat merely smiled and flipped her crocheting over, starting on the next row. The three rode in silence for a little while more. Around them, the landscape was lit with an eerie orange-gray glow. It was faint, but the refracted light from that town in the distance was mingling oddly with what little sunlight made it through the thick cloud cover.
Small flakes had already been swirling down out of the sky like granules of sugar on steroids. They now grew to the size of bleached cornflakes, obscuring the vision of the three travelers with disturbing quickness, until it was hard to see more than a hundred feet ahead. The tires slipped on the powder that was acc.u.mulating on the packed snow, sending the car skidding sideways.
Mike yelped and clutched at the handle fastened over the upper edge of his door. ”Prophet, save us! Can't you drive any more carefully than that?”
”Oh, you fuss over nothing,” Ca.s.sie soothed him as Bella corrected the vehicle's skid, her attention firmly on her driving. ”She has it well in hand!”
Mike shook his head, still clutching the panic-grip over the door with one dark-skinned hand. ”To quote Ebenezer Scrooge: 'I am mortal, and liable to fall!'”
”Hah hah, very funny. We're not exactly on a mountainside, Michael, nor staring out a Victorian window,” Bella reminded him, her mouth twisted wryly. Since they were out of danger, she was free to speak again. ”We're in the middle of Iowa. Flat Iowa, no less.”
”Nowhere, Iowa,” he muttered. ”And those ditches are six feet deep, if you haven't noticed.”
”If we were nowhere, then we wouldn't be here, because there wouldn't be a here to be,” Bella stated.
In the backseat, Ca.s.sie pouted and muttered, ”Rats. You beat me to it.”
”And yes, I noticed the depth of the ditches.” Downs.h.i.+fting, Bella carefully turned into a driveway marked by a snow-powdered, ornately carved sign reading ”Bethel's Inn-Welcome!” She smiled as she guided the car up the drive. The snow wasn't packed down on the driveway as it had been on the road; the b.u.mper of the rounded car pushed it up in chunks, broke it to either side, and plowed them a path up to the gingerbread-trimmed farmhouse. ”Well. Here we are. Time to get going.”
”More than get going,” Ca.s.sie said, freeing a hand from her project to point past Mike's shoulder. ”Look.”
Two pickup trucks sat at what looked like hastily parked angles mere feet from the covered front porch. Others had arrived ahead of them. From the way the truck lights were still s.h.i.+ning on the front windows of the house, it didn't look like their owners were the polite type. Indeed, despite the swirling snowstorm hissing its flakes around them, they could hear shouting from somewhere within the farmhouse.
<script>