Chapter Three

 

 

Snow piled up, quiet and featherlike, on the windowsill of Daisy and Gannon's cabin.

Inside, the cabin was warmly lit with candles and kerosene lamps. Both Daisy and Gannon had—so far—resisted the rest of the clan's offers to have electricity and phone lines put in from the main ranch house to the cabin up the mountain. Daisy thought there might come a time eventually when she would cave to their request. She loved the cabin, but in the middle of winter like this, there were times when it started to feel small and dark and lonely.

But it wasn't lonely, not really. If she needed company, all she had to do was take the very short drive down to the main part of the ranch, where she could visit with whoever was around. And now that Fern had been born, one of the other ranch women came up to the cabin at least once a day to visit, bring her anything she needed, and check on her.

Still, there were times when the cabin felt lonelier than other times.

Daisy jiggled the little girl in her arms as she paced, pausing frequently to look out the window. It was too early to tell if five-month-old Fern would end up with her mother's golden curls or her father's dark hair; at this point, all she had were a few darkish little tufts. Her cloudy blue infant eyes had darkened to her father's brown, although they also had a little green in them.

One part Gannon, one part me, Daisy thought, smiling to herself. And she'd never seen or imagined such a gentle, doting father as Gannon had turned out to be, though she was not surprised in the slightest. Everyone thought the big, scarred mountain man was a fierce fighter, but Daisy had known all along how gentle he could be, and watching him hold his tiny daughter in his big hands made her stomach do happy flips.

I just wish I knew where he was.

The storm was getting worse. It had started with snow drifting down gently, settling over winter-bare trees and piling up on the ground, but now the wind was blowing fiercely. Clouds of snow swirled past the window. And now it was getting dark ...

Daisy knew that Gannon knew these mountains better than anyone. He had a bear's shaggy fur to keep him warm, and a bear's keen sense of smell to find his way home. He wouldn't get lost. His errands were probably taking longer than he'd thought. That was all. Nothing to worry about.

She put another stick of wood on the fire and settled down in the rocking chair beside the stove with Fern in her lap. Her book lay open beside a kerosene lamp on the handmade birch end table. She decided to read another chapter, and then if Gannon still wasn't back, maybe she'd take the truck down to the ranch anyway. They had planned to have Christmas Eve dinner in the big ranch house, hosted by Alec and Charmian, as usual.

Another gust of wind rattled the cabin, and Daisy looked up from her book, trying not to be nervous at the thought of driving the truck through this heavy snow. Oh, she wished Gannon was here. She could almost feel his strong arms wrapping around her, holding her safe from any threatening winter storm. His warm lips on her mouth, on her neck, brushing across the claiming mark just above her collarbone ...

She reached up to touch it gently, and was rewarded, as always, with a little silvery shiver of delight and a distance sense of Gannon's presence. He wasn't here at the moment, but in a way, he always would be. With the claiming mark on her neck, she was never alone.

Sudden headlights strobed across the cabin window through the deepening winter twilight. Daisy jumped to her feet. That wouldn't be Gannon—he'd gone out as a bear; he didn't even have clothes with him, let alone truck keys—but it was definitely someone from the ranch, and right now she appreciated the company more than words could say.

She opened the door, shivering in a gust of wind, just as two bundled figures climbed the steps to the porch, one tall and broad, the other medium height and distinctly curvy under the heavy coat.

"Hi, Daisy," Saffron said, pushing her scarf down. "Want a visitor?" Beside her, her mate Remy gave Daisy one of his easy, cheerful smiles.

"Oh, do I ever. Come on in. There's no coffee right now, but I could make some, or instant cocoa if you prefer."

"No need to go to any trouble," Remy said, stamping off his boots in front of the door. "We figured we'd come up and plow out your road, so you wouldn't have any problems getting down."

"I really appreciate it," Daisy said gratefully. "Where's Baz?" Baz was Saffron and Remy's toddler son.

"Back at the ranch. We left him with Tara, even though he put up a fuss about it because he wanted to come with Ma and Da." Saffron pulled off her hat and ran her hand through her long black hair, brushing the snow out of it. "Is Gannon home?"

"No, and I'm worried." Daisy put Fern against her shoulder and tried not to look as frantic as she felt. "He went out this morning to visit the wild bear clans and check on the cattle, and he's still not back."

"Oh, hon." Saffron gave her a hug, baby and all. "You know Gannon can take care of himself, and he wouldn't get lost. He probably just had to go farther than he thought to meet up with the wild clans, that's all. They're way back in the mountains now, since there are so many more humans around than there used to be."

"I know, but ..." She didn't want to go into all the things she'd thought of that could have gone wrong, from a hunter's bullet to ice breaking on a frozen pond and plunging Gannon into the cold water.

"Listen, how about this?" Remy said. "After we get back to the ranch house, Alec and I can shift and go out to look for him."

Daisy brightened immediately. "Would you? That'd be great!"

Saffron gave her mate a quick kiss. "Just don't get yourself lost. You're mostly down in town these days. You don't spend as much time in the hills as everybody else does."

"I'll have Alec with me, and nobody knows the clan territory like the alpha," Remy pointed out cheerfully. "Okay, let's head down to the ranch before the storm gets worse." When Daisy blinked at him, he added, "Oh come on, Gannon would tear me a new one if I left you up here to drive down by yourself in this weather."

"You can leave a note for Gannon letting him know where you went," Saffron told Daisy, seeing her torn look. "You know he wouldn't want you to be up here by yourself all day on Christmas Eve. He'd be happy to know you're down at the ranch house with us."

"You might want to bring some overnight things," Remy suggested. "Once it gets dark, driving up this winding mountain road is going to be—well, I wouldn't want to do it, especially not with a baby."

"On a motorcycle, on the other hand, it's perfectly safe?" Saffron teased.

"Hey, I do have some common sense." He gave her another kiss. "I'm a responsible dad now."

"You are definitely a dad, I will grant you that." She winked at Daisy. "Want me to hold Fern while you put an overnight bag together?"

"Oh, that would be great, thank you. I need to pack Fern's things. Having a baby certainly puts a damper on your ability to go anywhere spontaneously."

"That it does," Saffron agreed, taking the baby from Daisy's arms. "Oh, Remy, look how tiny she is! Can you believe Baz was ever this tiny?"

"I don't think Baz ever was that tiny," Remy said with a snort of laughter. He tickled Fern around the edges of her pajama top, coaxing out a giggle and a smile. "Maybe when he was in his Ma's tummy."

Daisy stuffed her pajamas and a clean sweater into a bag, along with the seemingly endless pile of things for Fern. After dressing Fern warmly and tucking her into her carrier, she scribbled a note for Gannon, banked the stove thoroughly so it wouldn't need attention overnight, and blew out the candles and lamps, one by one. "Okay, ready to roll."

It was almost completely dark outside now. Saffron helped secure the baby's carrier/car seat in the backseat of the plow truck—it didn't have a full extended cab, but it had a second set of seats behind the front row—and then they pulled out of the yard. Daisy glanced back at the dark cabin as the truck turned away. Without electricity, they hadn't been able to put up Christmas lights, but it was decorated anyway, with a handmade wreath on the door and their own little tree inside. Gannon was handy at making wooden ornaments and braiding garlands. In years to come, when Fern was older, their house at the holidays would ring with children's voices and fill up with smells of cinnamon and gingerbread.

But for now, since it was still just the two of them and Fern, she was looking forward to having a true family Christmas down the hill, with the rest of the clan.

It was a short ride down the hill to the main part of the ranch, where a circle of houses and barns cast the glow of their lights into the winter darkness. A lot more light than usual, right now. Daisy could see at a glance, as soon as they broke out of the trees in the upper pasture, that the Christmas light competitiveness had really gotten out of hand this year.

Nobody would admit who had started it. All Daisy knew was that the different households on the ranch (okay, to be honest, the male members of the different households, though it wasn't like their mates didn't egg them on) just had to be the one to put up the biggest and best Christmas light display.

From up the hill, as they drove down toward the cluster of ranch houses, it looked like a fairyland vision of a North Pole Christmas village. As they drove into the yard, she started noticing the tackier elements of the displays, such as the much larger than life-size glowing Santa in front of Tara and Axl's house, or the giant light-up snowman on the roof of Remy and Saffron's cottage.

Every house, and even the barns, dribbled sparkly colored lights, glowing icicles, and other signs of festive holiday cheer. The lights on Alec and Charmian's house were blinking rhythmically. Daisy thought at first it was just her eyes, on account of the truck's jolting. But when they parked in front of Remy and Saffron's house and Remy opened his door, the strains of "Deck the Halls" rolled into the truck cab, and she realized that Alec's lights were cycling in time to the music that was blasting from a stereo on his porch. (If "blasting" was a word that could be applied to Christmas carols. Though, in this case, she thought it probably could.)

"What in the hell!" Remy burst out. "He waited 'til we were away from the ranch to turn that on!" He stared at the cycling lights on Alec's house for a moment, fists lodged firmly on his hips. "Always gotta beat the rest of us, huh? He knew if I saw it sooner, I'd have a chance to figure out how he did it. Saffron, honey, there's still a lot of Christmas Eve left, right?"

"The entire evening, dear," Saffron said patiently, helping Daisy unbuckle Fern's carrier.

"Right. If he thinks I can't reverse engineer his light display in another—" He glanced at the clock in the truck. "—seven hours, he's got another think coming. Hell, I'll work on it all the way up to Christmas morning if I gotta."

"Knock yourself out, dear," Saffron said. She picked up Daisy's overnight bag and gave Remy a kiss on the cheek. "We're going over to the main house. Don't work too hard. Give us a shout if you need someone to hold a ladder for you."

They left Remy studying his own light display critically, and walked across the yard as the booming strains of "Deck the Halls" reached the end of the final verse and cycled back to the beginning again. A winding path lined with glowing candy canes and knee-high light-up snowflakes led up to the porch of the main ranch house.

"They aren't really angry at each other, are they?" Daisy asked anxiously.

"Oh, heavens, no. I look upon it as a blessing. It keeps them out from underfoot. And they all have fun planning their displays in advance and trying to keep them secret from each other."

The last words were shouted over the teeth-rattling music booming from the speakers. Saffron didn't bother going up on the porch; instead she went to the kitchen entrance and let herself in without knocking. Daisy followed shyly. She didn't spend enough time on the main part of the ranch to quite have gotten used to casually going in and out of other people's houses the way the other bears' mates did.

The kitchen was brightly lit and filled with spicy, nose-tickling baking smells. Alec turned around from the stove. Daisy choked on a laugh at the sight of the Circle B clan's big, intense, dark-haired alpha wearing a holiday apron (it had appliquéd gingham reindeer on it) and red-and-green checked oven mitts, holding a baking tray with gingerbread cookies on it.

"Welcome, Daisy. Merry Christmas," he said with his usual quiet dignity. "Like the lights?"

The music was less deafening inside, through the thick walls of the ranch house—more like a festive background accompaniment to the cheerful holiday atmosphere than its dominant component.

"It's really amazing," Daisy said with total honesty.

"Remy's out there trying to figure out how you did it so he can set his up the same way," Saffron reported. She shrugged out of her coat and leaned back into the kitchen entryway to hang it on a peg by the door.

"He can try all he likes. I've been working on this since August."

"I figured you had, but don't sell my mate short." Saffron held out her hand for Daisy's coat. "Remy's not good with animals like the rest of you, but his specialty is working with machines. Just you wait. I wouldn't be surprised if we look out there in an hour or two and our house is blinking like anything."

Alec gave her a wry smile as he turned the cookies out onto a cooling rack. "He can certainly try. Daisy, have some eggnog if you like. There's spiked and unspiked."

"I'll take the unspiked, please. I'm still breast-feeding Fern."

She looked around for glasses, but Saffron shooed her into the living room. "Go, go, sit! I'll fetch it for you. Want a drink, Tara?" she called.

"Oh, please!" Redheaded Tara was down on the floor with the kids, Saffron's Baz and her own Lexie, helping them set up a toddler-level model train set. Toy track snaked all over the room. Daisy had to step over it carefully, trying to find a place to put her sock feet. "Deck the Halls" was somewhat louder in here, since it was playing right outside the door.

"I take it that means you want the kind with booze," Saffron called from the kitchen.

"Yes, booze. Booze, please. All the booze. Any booze."

Daisy moved aside some cardboard train boxes so she could sit on the couch and take Fern out of her carrier. The inside of the ranch house was almost as glittery as the outside, although the tinsel was carefully hung out of the reach of small fingers and there was a baby fence around the densely decorated Christmas tree that dominated one end of the room.

"Hi?" she ventured, since Tara didn't seem to have noticed her.

"Oh! Daisy! Hi!" Tara sat back on her heels and flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. "Look what Uncle Alec got for the kids. Of course, you'll also notice good ol' Uncle Alec is hiding out in the kitchen and not helping put it together."

"It's lovely," Daisy said, settling a drowsing Fern against her shoulder. "We had one just like it when I was a kid."

Tara broke out in a wide grin. "You did? Me too! I used to set it up all over the floor of our condo. Train track on the windowsill, track in the bathroom—no, honey, don't throw that at your cousin!" She swooped in to rescue one of the chunky wooden train cars from Lexie, replacing it with a squishy rubber toy in a swift, well-practiced maneuver.

Saffron came in from the kitchen with glasses of eggnog, handing one to Daisy and the other to Tara, who took it with the look of a woman clutching at a life preserver. "Oh, Tara, by the way," Saffron said, "it looks like Axl is back. I just saw his truck pull up outside."

Tara's exasperated, burned-out-mom look vanished in an instant; she shed weariness and annoyance like a discarded coat, and delighted love blazed up from inside. She scrambled to her feet and set the eggnog glass on the mantelpiece to keep it out of the kids' reach. "Could you two watch the kids for awhile?" she asked over her shoulder as she hurried out of the room.

"Happy to," Saffron said. Just then Baz noticed that his mom had come in, and spread his arms with a squeal of delight. Saffron swooped in to pick him up and hug him.

"Is there any sign of Gannon out there?" Daisy asked.

Saffron looked up from hugging her son. "I saw someone with Axl. I only caught a glimpse, though. Maybe that was him?"

"Oh. I have to go look." She started to get up, then hesitated, Fern cradled in her arms.

"Leave her here," Saffron suggested. She peeled herself off Baz and held out an arm.

Daisy transferred the baby, left her eggnog glass on the mantel with Tara's, and hurried into the kitchen. It was empty now. She stamped into her snow boots in the entryway and peeked out into the yard.

The lights were still brilliant, "Deck the Halls" still boomed from the porch, and a small cluster of men had gathered at the sheriff's vehicle parked in the falling snow. Very aware of her lack of coat, Daisy hurried through the snow, hands tucked under her arms. She didn't see anyone her heart immediately recognized as Gannon, but all the men were wearing coats, and there were four of them. If Cody was still on his farm, then one of them had to be Gannon.

"I can't believe you out-crazied us on the decorations this year, Alec," Axl was saying as Daisy got close; he was easy to recognize even in the falling snow by his wide-brimmed sheriff's hat. "Not for long, though. That's all I've got to say about it."

"Go for it," Alec said, sounding cheerful. He was bareheaded, and snowflakes settled on his dark hair and the shoulders of the sheepskin coat carelessly thrown over his plaid shirt. "You've got about seven or eight hours 'til midnight, I reckon."

"Is there some rule that we have to stop putting up decorations at midnight?" one of the others retorted. Remy: Daisy recognized his voice.

"Yeah, a rule Alec made up, so the rest of us would lose," Axl said.

Axl, Alec, and Remy were all accounted for. Which meant the other one had to be—

But then he turned his head so the light fell across his face, and disappointment bottomed out Daisy's stomach. He was a stranger, handsome and blond-haired, but not at all the person she'd hoped to see.

She stopped, standing coatless in the snow with her shoulders hunched up, and suddenly felt very miserable and alone.

The whole clan was here, but Gannon was out there somewhere in the snow.

It was the stranger who noticed her; the others were too busy arguing about Christmas lights to pay much attention to their surroundings. "Ma'am?" he said, approaching her through the snow. "Are you okay? You look cold."

"I'm fine." She tried to straighten out of her shivering hunch, and then was startled when he pulled his arms out of his coatsleeves and draped the big, warm coat over her shoulders.

He did remind her of Gannon a little bit, even though he was younger and didn't really look much like him. There was something about him, maybe something about the way he stood, or the shyly diffident way he didn't quite look at her, like Gannon was with people he didn't know very well. Strength combined with gentleness.

"Are you from one of the wild mountain clans?" she asked him, only after the words were out of her mouth realizing that he might not be a shifter at all. But she thought he was. Something about him screamed "shifter" to her. Anyway, he was already nodding.

"Yes, ma'am. I am. Are you—" He hesitated. "Are you Gannon's mate?"

Her heart clenched. "How do you know?"

"I can smell him on you, a little bit." He smiled then, shy and crooked. "I'm not supposed to say things like that to people, am I? People think it's weird."

"I don't think it's weird." Daisy smiled at him through her chattering teeth. "Yes, I'm Gannon's mate, Daisy. I came out here thinking you might be him."

"No, I'm just me." He flushed a little; the tip of his nose was already pink in the cold. "I'm called Jaron."

Daisy broke into a smile. "So you're Jaron! Gannon talks about you. He's very proud of you. You're the young man from his clan who wanted to be a cop."

"Yes, ma'am," he said with a grin. "Sheriff Tanner invited me up for Christmas, since I don't have anyone else to spend it with. I've never celebrated Christmas before."

"Really?" she said in surprise. "Don't the wild clans do it?"

"Maybe some of 'em. We weren't really big on human holidays."

"Oh, well, come on inside, then!" She tugged on his arm. Her worry for Gannon wasn't forgotten, but her natural friendliness and hospitality asserted itself; she couldn't just leave a guest standing out in the snow. "We'll have to introduce you to some Christmas traditions. Starting with eggnog. And ... how are you at putting together model train sets?"

"Model train sets?" he repeated, baffled.

"Never mind." She smiled. "We'll teach you."