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.