Chapter Four

 

 

Gloria had never seen anything quite like the drive up to her new friends' ranch. The woods were full of snow, weighing down the branches of the trees and kicking up a white cloud around Charmian's Jeep. The road twisted and turned, going up such steep hills that she didn't know how they could possibly make it to the top, but Charmian fearlessly gunned the engine and somehow, they made it every time.

Crystal didn't seem in the least concerned, leaning forward from the backseat to banter playfully with Charmian in the driver's seat, or ask Gloria questions about herself. Gloria had always thought that people in the north part of the country would be standoffish and cool, from what she'd heard, but so far, everyone was turning out to be just as friendly as the folks back home.

"Your boyfriend cheated on you?" Crystal said sympathetically. "That's awful!"

"Yeah, well, I kicked his cheating tail all the way down the street. Or at least, I pelted him with records." This got curious looks from both of the other women. Gloria tried to smile past the lump in her throat. "He always loved his vintage record collection more than me, so I threw them one by one out of the third-floor apartment window, like Frisbees. You should have seen him running around in the street, trying to catch them all! I even managed to bounce a few off his head."

"Good for you," Charmian remarked with a fierce smile. "From the sound of things, he had it coming."

"I really thought he was going to be 'the one,' but I guess I just have terrible taste in men. Or maybe there really isn't someone out there for everybody." Gloria twisted her hands in her lap. "That's probably just a myth."

"Hon, if you'd asked me about that a few years ago, I would've agreed with you a hundred percent," Charmian said over her shoulder. "But that was before I met Alec. I had to wait a long time and kiss a lot of frogs to find my cranky prince, but it was more than worth it in the end."

"Same here," Crystal said, raising her hand. "I must've dated every single guy in St. Louis—and a few who, as it turned out, weren't. Then I came out here to fix up my old family farm and bam, lightning struck the minute I looked into Cody's eyes."

"You're both lucky," Gloria said quietly. "I hope there's someone out there for me."

"My advice to you is, don't spend the holiday worrying about it," Charmian told her. "Just relax and enjoy yourself. You're not going to be meeting any single guys on the Circle B—they're all comfortably taken. So you can just kick back and have a nice family Christmas ... even if it's not your family, you're still very welcome."

Crystal turned to Charmian. "Oh ... do you think we ought to tell her about the—the thing?"

"Thing?" Charmian asked.

"You know, the—thing." Crystal touched her hand to her neck, brushing the fingers just above the collarbone. This made no sense to Gloria, but it seemed to make the penny drop for Charmian.

"Oh, that thing."

"Thing?" Gloria asked. Now she was nervous.

"It's not that big of a deal," Charmian said. "I should've told you back in town, but I just didn't think of it. You probably won't be able to make it through the holiday without this coming up at least once. So—you know about shifters, right?"

"Sure, I've seen them on TV—" Gloria began. "Wait, are you shifters?"

"Not us," Crystal said. "We're as human as you are. But a lot of the people you're going to meet on the ranch will be shifters." She gestured between herself and Charmian. "Both our husbands are shifters, and their family as well."

"I hope that doesn't make you uncomfortable," Charmian said. Her tone seemed to imply It had better not make you uncomfortable, or I'll make you even more uncomfortable. "They're great guys; well, girls, in Saffron's case. And the kids are shifters too."

"Oh, no, it doesn't bother me at all! I've just never met any shifters before. Well, nobody I knew was a shifter, anyway." Gloria smiled. "I'm looking forward to it."

"Well, I'm glad you're looking forward to it, because—oh—" Charmian downshifted as the Jeep's wheels began to slide on a steep hill with a switchback in the middle. Gloria caught a brief, dizzying glimpse of the ground dropping off steeply on the other side of a handmade wooden railing before the tires caught and the Jeep accelerated up the hill.

"I hate that curve," Charmian muttered as they leveled out. Gloria unclenched her white-knuckled grip on the seat. "Don't ever tell Alec. He's twitchy as heck about that place already. I don't want him to know how much it bothers me. But I always feel like I'm taking my life in my hands on that part of the driveway in the winter."

"Would it be possible to straighten out that stretch of the road?" Crystal asked. "I keep wondering about that, since Cody and I have been making improvements to our farm road. There used to be a really steep part when I first moved out there, that bit right on the other side of the creek, and we flattened it out with the neighbors' backhoe. Maybe you could do something like that here. Move the driveway away from the cliff, at least."

"Cliff?" Gloria said faintly, but just then they drove into something that looked like a Christmas theme park, with a snow-covered cow pasture on the far side.

"Good Lord," Crystal said. "I haven't seen the final displays yet this year. This is ... something else, all right."

The sky was completely dark now, but there was no darkness here, not when every inch of every house was lit up with blue and silver, red and gold, green and purple. Long multi-colored shadows stretched across the white fields in every direction, and when Gloria stepped out of Charmian's Jeep, she discovered there was music as well. "Deck the Halls" boomed at her from the porch of the biggest house; the lights blinked on and off in sync to it.

She would never forget this moment, she thought, staring around her at the houses blazing with lights, the cattle leaning over the pasture fence like props from a Nativity scene that had come to life and wandered off, the snow settling gently over everything. It was like a scene from a movie, or a page from a Christmas calendar.

Both Charmian and Crystal seemed much less enchanted. "I told Alec he could deafen everyone until I got home, and not a moment longer," Charmian announced at the top of her lungs over the blaring carol, marching up the steps onto the porch. The music cut out suddenly, leaving Gloria's ears ringing.

The door slammed open a moment later. "Dammit, woman," growled the enormous man looming in the doorway. "How am I supposed to—"

"—prove how much more manly you are than everyone on the ranch without blowing our eardrums out? I have no idea, Alec. All I know is, I have been listening to Christmas music 24/7 in every single business in town for the last two months, on every station on the radio, and in every room of the clinic. I enjoy the holiday, I truly do—Oh, hi, Daisy!" she added abruptly, shifting to a much more cheerful tone and leaning around Alec to wave into the brightly lit room behind him. "And I don't mind carols playing quietly. Playing 'Deck the Halls' on a constant loop—"

Just then she was drowned out by the deafening jangle of sleigh bells blasting from the porch of the house across the yard, segueing an instant later into "Jingle Bells" blaring at a volume that Gloria was amazed hadn't blown out the speakers.

The cows retreated behind the barn. Gloria didn't blame them. Crystal put her gloved hands over her ears.

"Oh, is that right?" Alec shouted across the yard.

A large male figure appeared on the opposite porch for a moment, raised both fists in a victorious pumping gesture, then vanished again; an instant later, half the lights on that house suddenly blinked out, leaving it shrouded in darkness.

Alec stabbed the button on his stereo, and "Deck the Halls" blasted out again, struggling to compete with "Jingle Bells" in sheer volume.

Charmian threw her hands in the air and marched down the steps. She gestured to Crystal and Gloria; Gloria just barely had the presence of mind to grab her suitcase from the backseat. She followed Charmian and Crystal through a door at the side of the house, which admitted them to a small entryway dense with coats hanging on hooks on the walls, and beyond that, a cozy kitchen full of baking smells and racks of cooling gingerbread.

It was a lot quieter in here, though the competing carols were still audible through the wall.

"I suppose there's no choice but to let those idiots have their fun," Charmian said. "They'll shut it off once the kids' bedtime rolls around, anyway."

"I need to go call Cody and see when he's driving over," Crystal said, brushing snow out of her hair. "If it keeps coming down like this, he might have trouble making it through the road between the two ranches."

She left the room. Gloria, meanwhile, was starting to realize just how out of her depth she was. Somehow she'd gotten invited along to someone else's family Christmas, and now here she was, dripping melted snow on their kitchen floor and holding her suitcase clutched in her hands. She didn't know a single person here except for Charmian and Crystal, and she'd only met them less than an hour ago.

She couldn't help feeling very young and alone, and very far from home.

"Here," Charmian said briskly, reaching for the suitcase. "We'll just put this with the coats for now, until we get the sleeping arrangements worked out and figure out where you're going to be staying. I'm sure Daisy and Gannon will stay the night, with all this snow, and Cody and Crystal probably will too. There's more than enough room, between the three houses; it's just a matter of figuring out where everyone's going to spend the night."

"Okay," Gloria agreed meekly. She still felt dazed and unhappy, but at least she could turn over the decision-making to someone else.

Charmian took her coat and the suitcase, and vanished into the entryway to hang up the coat, leaving Gloria standing alone in the kitchen. She could hear children's laughter and adult voices coming from the living room, and she was just trying to work up her courage to go in and introduce herself when there was a sudden shriek, and a moment later, a red-haired woman burst into the kitchen. "Charmian! Where are your towels? We just had a bit of an—Oh, hi! Who are you?"

"I'm Gloria. I had car trouble in town and your—uh—" She realized that she had no idea how this woman was related to either Charmian or Crystal (none of them looked the slightest bit alike). "—uh, Charmian and Crystal invited me up to spend Christmas with you." As Tara gathered a handful of dish towels, Gloria offered shyly, "Can I help?"

"Sure, the more the merrier. We just spilled a glass of eggnog on the kids' brand-new train set."

"It was me, I did it," said a black-haired woman sitting on the floor, as they came into the living room. "Just hand it over here, Tara—oh, who's this?"

Gloria introduced herself, and was introduced around in turn. The redhead was Tara, the black-haired woman was Saffron, and a third woman, a blonde sitting on the couch with a baby in her arms, was called Daisy. Between the three of them, the women seemed to be wrangling two toddlers, a boy and girl, who were playing with the train set. Gloria nodded obediently as the women told her whose kids they were, but she knew she wasn't going to be able to repeat it back. (Was the boy Saffron's and the girl Tara's, or was it the other way around?)

"You know, I thought if anyone was going to spill something, it would be the kids," Tara said in a playfully teasing voice, crouching next to Saffron to help her mop off a wooden train car. "Maybe you should lay off the booze. I'm just saying."

"Hey, I'll have you know it was the virgin eggnog I was drinking."

"Come here and sit down," Daisy said to Gloria, patting the couch beside her. "You look a little overwhelmed."

"More than a little," Gloria admitted with a shaky laugh, taking the offered seat. She looked around the living room. A small wood stove was pumping out heat, and the floor-to-ceiling Christmas tree in the opposite corner glittered with lights. There was a whole row of stockings hanging on the banister, and garlands dangling from the mantel. With the kids playing with the train set on the floor, this place looked like it could be a picture of a family Christmas from a magazine.

"I don't think this family realizes how overwhelming they are," Daisy said. She had a soft, pleasant voice, and Gloria liked her immediately. "They come on a little strong sometimes, but they're really great people. You'll like them once you get to know them."

She shifted the baby in her arms. Gloria was captivated. She'd always liked kids, but she lived too far away from her brother's family to know their children well.

"Would you like to hold her?" Daisy asked.

"Is it all right?" Gloria asked anxiously. The baby was so tiny.

"Sure. You'll give me a chance to get up and stretch my legs. Her name is Fern, by the way." Daisy gently transferred the baby to Gloria's arms and showed her how to support the little round head. "Can I bring you anything while I'm up? Eggnog, a beer, something like that? We'll be eating a little later, once everyone is here, but there are about a million different kinds of cookies and other snacks if you'd like something like that."

"Um ... I think I'm good for now." Her voice came out on a whispered breath. She was captivated by the baby in her arms. She hadn't gotten to hold her brother's kids when they were this small. She had never seen something so precious and tiny.

She was so enthralled by the baby that she hardly even noticed the door opening until a blast of cold air swept over her. Gloria quickly turned her body to shield the infant and looked up as someone else came in, tall and male, stamping snow off his boots and carrying an armful of firewood.

"Here, Miss Tara, ma'am, I've brought some—" he began, and then he looked up and his eyes met Gloria's.

Crystal had spoken of love as a lightning strike. Now Gloria understood what she meant. She had never seen this man before, but as soon as he walked in, it was as if he was the only thing in the room.

Hot was her only coherent thought. He was about her age, tall and broad-shouldered, with crew-cut blond hair. His eyes were a soft, melting brown. He was staring at her too, with the same wonderstruck expression that Gloria knew she must be wearing.

It was as if all the bad decisions she'd made, all the mistakes, all the pain and tears had all been leading to this: so she could be here, on this couch at this exact moment, to meet this man.

As if she'd been led here, by something greater than herself, for her own Christmas miracle.

 

***

 

After his initial nervousness, Jaron had begun to settle into the routine of Christmas Eve on the ranch. Everyone was just so gosh-darned nice, and were going out of their way to make him feel at home. That red-headed lady Tara had even given him a hug when he'd asked if there was anything else he could do to help. "You could go feed the chickens," she'd told him, "since the boys are too busy with their dick-measuring contest to do the evening chores, and bring in some firewood when you're done."

He'd seen a new vehicle arrive at the ranch while he was at the barn where she'd pointed him, but he hadn't thought too much about it. There were so many people here, and always more coming and going, keeping his bear restless.

Come to think of it, his bear had been restless ever since he'd gotten to the ranch, like it was waiting for something.

And now, as he walked into the living room and met a pair of fresh green eyes, he knew exactly what had been riling up his bear—because in that instant, the human part of him got on board too.

He'd never seen anything like her. She was human, he could tell because otherwise he'd have sensed her animal looking back at him. But no human had ever captivated him like this. Wide green eyes looked back at him from a heart-shaped face framed by brown curls. She was curvy, and she was cuddling a baby—and right then and there, he knew that he had never seen anything so gorgeous and perfect in all his life.

Our mate, his bear was saying, all but doing a dance inside him. Our mate!

But Jaron didn't need his bear to tell him that. Like all the wild-clan bears, he'd lived close to his animal all his life. Its instincts were his instincts, and now that he saw her, he knew that he must have been drawn here. It was his fate that his mate awaited him in the human world. And now he had found her ... or she had found him.

The sudden silence in the room caught Saffron's attention. Sitting on the floor with the kids, Remy's curvy mate looked up and took in the scene: the two young people staring at each other across the room. A faint smile curved her mouth.

Saffron was a fox shifter herself. She knew what it looked like and felt like, that inescapable instant when a soul found its other half.

Before either Jaron or Gloria could move or speak, the door opened suddenly behind Jaron, and another gust of snow-laden wind swirled into the room along with a discordant wave of competing Christmas carols. Axl stuck his head in the door.

"Hey, Jaron? You mind going out in the storm for a bit, son? We're going out to look for Gannon. Could really use you along; you and the other wild-clan boys know these mountains better than the rest of us put together."

Jaron tore his gaze away from the woman on the couch. He couldn't leave; he'd only just found her!

"We'll be back soon," Axl said, mistaking his hesitancy. "Alec's ready to leave. If you're coming, better go now."

Jaron cast a last tortured glance at the woman on the couch, but she gave him a smile, as if to say, It's all right. I'll still be here when you get back.

He gave her a little nod, touched his forehead in farewell, and followed Axl out into the storm.

Alec had already shifted, a big grizzly standing impatiently at the foot of the steps. Axl began unselfconsciously stripping off his clothes to follow suit. As Jaron began to do likewise, he thought a bit plaintively, I never even learned her name!

 

***

 

Gloria stared after the two men as the door closed behind them.

What ... what just happened?

She was still reeling from the intensity of the stranger's gaze. Now that he was gone and her body was no longer singing from his mere presence, she could start to convince herself that what she'd felt was nothing more than the allure of a pretty face. Not that "pretty" was a good word for that blond stranger; his features were far too masculine for that. Chiseled, rugged, captivating ...

"Who ... who was that man?" she asked dazedly.

"Who?" asked Daisy, sitting down on the couch beside her.

"That was Jaron," Saffron said from her position on the floor. "One of Axl's deputies at the sheriff's office. He's spending Christmas here."

She looked up with a smile that almost seemed knowing. Daisy, however, was too distracted to notice.

"They're going out to look for Gannon," Daisy said. She held out her arms and Gloria gave the baby back. Daisy held her close, as if taking comfort from the child's presence.

"Oh, honey," Saffron said. "He's fine. A little storm like this wouldn't bother that man at all."

"I know," Daisy said, and then sniffled a bit, as if to bely her brave words.

"Who's Gannon?" Gloria asked. She desperately wanted to ask more questions about Jaron, but she didn't even know what to ask. I only just saw him! I can't believe I'm having thoughts like this about him!

"Gannon is Daisy's mate," Saffron said. "He's a bear shifter, like the rest of them. If you'd just followed the boys out the door, Gloria, you'd have seen them all turn into bears."

"Oh," Gloria said faintly. Her imagination served up sudden, intense images. "Do they ... have to take their clothes off, to do that?"

"Well, they couldn't exactly do it with their clothes on." Saffron's eyes sparkled wickedly. "One thing about shifters, they—we—don't mind nudity much. You get used to seeing naked manflesh running around the ranch, even in winter."

Some part of Gloria's brain shorted out, between the words "naked manflesh" and the sudden, acute awareness that Jaron had been stripping out of his clothes right on the other side of the door.

Tara came in just in time to hear the last part. "What's all this? Am I missing naked manflesh?"

"The boys just shifted and went out to look for Gannon," Daisy said. She sniffled again.

"Awww, sweetie." Tara switched in an instant from teasing to maternal. She squeezed the other woman's shoulder. "It's gonna be okay."

"I know. It's mom hormones, I guess." Daisy cuddled the baby closer to her chest.

"Boy, can we all relate to that," Tara sighed, looking down at Saffron with the kids on the floor.

"Where are Crystal and Charmian?" Saffron asked. "They're here, aren't they?"

"They're here," Tara confirmed. "They went over to my house so Charmian could give Crystal a quick exam in private, make sure the babies are still doing as they should be."

"She's due in February, isn't she?" Daisy asked, perking up. "It's a regular baby boom."

"We're practically going to be able to open our own kindergarten up here," Saffron agreed, laughing. "We may as well be running a day care."

Tara plopped down on the other end of the couch and nudged Gloria's ankle with her toe. "Hey, you look a little shell-shocked. Doing okay?"

"I told her earlier that the bunch of you can come on strong without meaning to," Daisy said, smiling.

"I don't think it's us," Saffron put in. "Ask her about Jaron."

"What about Jaron?" Tara asked. "That nice boy Axl brought home for Christmas?"

"Jaron's a nice name," Gloria said faintly. She was still thinking about naked manflesh right outside the door, framed against the Christmas lights in the yard ...

"Um." Tara looked helplessly at the other women. "Am I missing something?"

Daisy just shrugged, equally baffled.

Saffron grinned. "Gloria and Jaron. Gloria and Jaron. You two weren't here, but you should've seen the looks on their faces when they saw each other."

Gloria finally decided to stand up for herself. "It's not like that! He's just good looking, that's all. I haven't even talked to him yet."

"No, but you want to, don't you?" Saffron said.

"Well, of course," Gloria said defensively. "He's a handsome man, I'm single—" Just recently single, but her terrible ex had never been farther from her mind. "And he's single—er, is he single?" Oh God, I hope he's single. That would be the cruelest joke of all, if Jaron was already attached to one of the women on the ranch.

"Far as I know," Tara said. "What's all this about, Saffron? It's not like you to play matchmaker like this."

Saffron wordlessly reached up and touched a spot on her neck. Gloria glimpsed a small silver scar under her fingertips. It made her think of what Crystal had done in the car.

"Oh," Tara said, eyes wide. It was plain that for both her and Daisy, the penny had dropped immediately.

"Would someone mind telling me what's going on?" Gloria asked, frustrated.

All three women shared a look. Daisy was the one who spoke up in her quiet voice. "It's a shifter thing. But I think Jaron should be the one to explain it to you, when he gets back. I think it will mean more if you hear it from him rather than from us."

"In the meantime," Tara said, winking at her, "why don't you move over here to the chair by the window. That way you can see when the bears get back. You don't want to miss a glimpse of naked manflesh, do you?"