Ava took another long pull of her coffee, which was now ice cold. She made a face of disapproval and went back to organizing the twenty logos she’d come up with for Two Claws Trail Rides. She needed more sleep. Lately, she had been so stressed about getting Trigger and Colton’s business off the ground and balancing her own work, she was only sleeping three or four hours a night. She was a financial adviser, newly moved back to Darby, Montana to be with her mate, Trigger, but it meant a whole lot of work trying to get herself set up online to keep her clients.

And with trying to get to know her big brother again, trying to be the best mate she could be for Trigger, and the work-load, she was feeling the pressure.

The front door creaked open, and she sucked on her coffee again. When she saw her man, the weight in her chest lifted. Maybe it was his smile that eased her tension, or just being around him and feeling safe and loved. He was tall as a mountain and wide in the shoulders, so much bigger than her average-sized frame. He wore his favorite cowboy hat. His go-to blue plaid button-down clung to his broad shoulders, and his worn jeans were sporting a new tear at the left knee. The work boots on his feet were so scuffed she was surprised she didn’t see his socks through a hole yet.

When he took off the hat, she went dumb. It happened a lot. It was his routine to remove the Stetson, hang it on the hook by the truck keys, and run his hands through his hair like he was trying to fix it. But it just made it stand up in this messy, sexy way only Trigger Massey could master. The top button of his shirt was undone, and tattoos painted his skin from his neck down into his shirt. She’d traced those so many times now. Those pictures he’d had someone draw on his body were part of his story. And he had a great story. His newest tattoo was a simple A with two claws on either side. It was done in gray-wash ink, right on the side of his neck. It was her favorite. Trigger was now the alpha of the Two Claws Clan, and she was so damn proud of how he’d stepped up for their little make-shift family.

Out of his jacket and hat, he meandered right to her, his boots clomping loudly on the wood floors. He pulled her head against his rock-hard stomach and ran his fingers through her hair. A soft growl rumbled through him, but she knew him well enough that it didn’t scare her anymore. His bear was purring just to touch her again. “Smells good,” he murmured, looking down at her, his smile easy and sexy on his lips.

“Charmer. I just made toast. I forgot to eat lunch.”

The grin faded from his face in an instant. “Ava, that’s not good. You’ll make yourself sick the way you’re going.”

“Says the rancher whose work is never done.”

“Aw, but when I come in here, when I come home to you, work is done. I’m here. You work all day and into the night. And now you ain’t eatin’? Should I be worried? Because I have to tell you that lately, I’m a little concerned.”

“One last big push, and things will steady out. When you start doing trail rides, I’ll be able to pass the work on to you, other than booking the rides. And I’ll have my website up and running in a few weeks, and—”

“Ava. Baby…” Trigger shook his head. “You ain’t livin’. You see that right? You never stop, never take a break. And I get it. You have big instincts to take care of your people, and you’re working just as hard as me and Colton and Kurt to save this place. You’re trying to get us set up, but we’re okay. We’re holding. Next month we’ll do our first trail ride, and we’ll get into the routine. I’ll hopefully not eat all the tourists, your brother too, and we’ll get this place back on track. But for now? I want to see you happy.”

“I want to see you happy too, and you told me once that saving this place would do that.”

“We will save this place. But I don’t want you working yourself to the bone to get us there.”

“But…I have twenty different logos to choose fr—”

“That one,” he said, jamming his finger at one that looked similar to his tattoo.

“Oh.” She frowned. These had taken her all day to put together, and he’d just made the decision in a millisecond. “Okay, well, we need to choose a template for the website—"

“That one’s good,” he said, pointing to her laptop screen.

“Well…okay, but we need to set up a payment page, and we still need to design brochures to put in the shops in town, take out an ad in the newspaper, get a PO box for the company, and—”

“Woman, put your jacket on.”

“What? No, tonight we’re going to put a dent in the work and—”

“I ain’t askin’,” he said, his dark eyebrows arching up high. His eyes were chocolate brown when he was calm, but right now, they were muddy and had gold around the irises. “Put your warm clothes on before I drag you to my truck.”

She grinned. “Well, that sounds sexy.”

“It won’t be sexy when you’re shivering in my truck and definitely not riding my dick. You’re stressing me out. We need a night away from”—Trig waved his hand around the dining table, which was completely covered with stacks of papers and notes—“this.”

“But…what about Colt?”

“He can eat with his damn squirrel. He’s been getting on my nerves all day.”

“Oh. Well, what about Kurt? He’s all alone out there in the barn.”

“You mean the barn that’s been partially converted to a cabin that’s nicer than this one and Colton’s house combined? And he ain’t alone! He’s got Gunner. We can all go one night without eating together. Come on. We’re wastin’ daylight. You look hot as fuck in those little leggings. I want to take you out, walk around, enjoy the night, eat something other than a quick canned meal. I wanna walk around town and grab your ass and hold your hand.”

“It’s romantic how you listed grab my ass before hold my hand.”

He gave her a devilish smile. “I got plans for us.”

“A surprise date?”

Trig eased away from her and made his way back to the coatrack, grabbed his jacket and hat, and flung open the front door. “Meet me in the truck, Ava, before I pry your cute little ass from that chair. Your work day is done.”

Newly invigorated by the prospect of an actual night off, Ava squeaked and bolted for the bedroom. The leggings were staying on, but perhaps the coffee-stained sweatshirt needed to go. She pulled on a fitted brown sweater and her favorite tan snow boots and ran for the front door. Purse, jacket, pink hat and mittens, and she was out the door in under two minutes.

Colton was tramping through the snow with his hands shoved deep in his pockets like he was cold, but that was his own fault. Her brother never wore a coat. “Where are you going?” he asked.

She paused at the bottom of the porch stairs and struggled into her jacket. “Into town for a date!”

“Oh, gross,” he complained, scrunching up his face. “Wait, what about dinner?”

“Trig said you are annoying and to eat with your squirrel,” she called over her shoulder as she jogged to Trig’s old two-tone brown Ford pickup.

From Trig’s shoulder-heaving laughter behind the steering wheel, she figured he heard her just fine. Colton flipped him off, and Trigger shoved his hand out the open window and returned the bird. Then they were off before she even had her seatbelt buckled all the way.

“I honestly can’t tell if you two like each other or hate each other,” she said about him and her brother.

“Both. The answer is both.”

“Hate,” Colton called from behind them. “The answer is hate!”

She would’ve laughed at her brother except Trigger’s face had gone serious and he kept his eyes carefully ahead on the road.

“He doesn’t really hate you,” she murmured, knowing exactly what was on his mind. Trigger Turning Colton into a bear shifter like himself was never far from his thoughts.

“Maybe he should, though,” he said softly.

“If you hadn’t Turned him, we wouldn’t be here. Colton would’ve followed me to Alabama, and I would’ve never had a reason to come back home. And Kurt and his boy would still be with the Darby Clan, miserable, and this—what we’re doing—it wouldn’t exist. Forgive yourself. Colt has.” Probably.

Trig slid his hand over her thigh and squeezed it comfortingly. “You’re one hell of a woman, you know that? You’re the only one who could ever match me.”

Ava snorted and drew her knees to her chest, cradling his hand against her stomach. “No one can match you, Trigger Massey. You are a giant of a man with a colossus of a grizzly you’re trying to control. You fight when you need to defend your honor, you protect the ones you care about, you’re loyal down to your marrow, and you work harder than anyone I know. You’re a great man, Trig. And a great monster, too.” Ava rolled her head against the seat so she could look at his handsome profile. “I’m just trying to keep up.”

“If I’m a good man, it’s because I’m trying to be. For you.”

Well, that slapped a big ol’ mushy grin on her face. What power to have sway over a man like Trigger. He was borderline demigod, and she was human, and he was telling her his focus revolved around her, which made her proud.

Great man, great monster.

She was the lucky one.

But she was also the suspicious one, because Trigger turned into the first neighborhood off the main road to town, and he was just coasting down the streets. After the third street, he pointed to a house decorated in red and green holiday lights and said, “Look at those.”

Ava narrowed her eyes at him. “What are we doing?”

“Looking at Christmas lights like a normal couple, and I don’t want to hear your bellyachin’ either. You can wait on dinner for half an hour more.”

He slowly crawled the truck past a house with lights all over the landscaping and a huge blowup snow globe that was raining Styrofoam snow all over a Santa Clause who was holding a beer. The next house had giant wooden story books with the Grinch painted on one and a bed of kids dreaming of sugarplums painted on the other.

And with each house they passed, the discomfort in the pit of her stomach grew. Because now she was scratching at memories she didn’t want to scratch. “Can we go now?” she asked softly.

“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.