Rabbit Creek Santa Read online

  It's Christmas…

  Things are going well in Rabbit Creek. Elizabeth has taken her duties as the Alpha's Mate to heart and as the story opens, that heart is breaking for the loneliness and isolation of one of her pack. It's Christmas Eve and no one should be lonely at Christmas.

  Lindy doesn't feel like she has much to celebrate. After two years of widowhood, she can barely make ends meet without the aid of her pack and while her inner wolf is ready to move on, Lindy isn't sure she can let go of the past.

  New to the pack, Travis had party plans for the Holidays, but he ends up playing Santa to a pretty little widow and her pup. She's not what he was looking for, but she's exactly what he wants and his inner wolf agrees. Now all he has to do is convince Lindy that Christmas gifts aren't always the ones you find under the tree.

  RABBIT CREEK SANTA

  A Wolver Christmas Novella

  By

  Jacqueline Rhoades

  Kindle Edition

  Copyrighted 2013 by Jacqueline Rhoades

  Cover design: E-Covers by Georgi

  Please take note:

  This ebook is for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use, then please go to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  My Thanks

  To my Beta Readers

  Dianne and Karen

  Your friendship

  Like your comments and corrections

  Are invaluable.

  Merry Christmas!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Lindy sat on the sofa in the small living room and watched her son crawling over the threadbare carpet pushing a plastic dump truck ahead of him with one hand while balancing on the other.

  "Vroom, vroom, vroom," he mimicked the engine in his tiny toddler voice.

  His attempt to make the deep sounds of the engine made Lindy smile since his normal fifteen month old voice was usually a high pitched squeal. She wondered, not for the first time, how it was this son of hers could be so attracted to the more masculine toys. It wasn't as if he had an example to follow. He spent his days surrounded by women.

  It wasn't because he was a wolver, either. It didn't matter that he would one day go over the moon and become the wolf who was, even now, sleeping inside him. The only child rearing books available were written by those who were fully human and Lindy had read them all when she became pregnant with her first pup.

  Some said it was a matter of environment, nurture over nature, and she should offer her son stuffed animals and dolls and other toys traditionally meant for girls. Others reluctantly admitted that nature often won out. Give a boy and girl the same truck and the girl was likely to give her stuffed animal rides while the boy crashed it into walls making the appropriate sounds to go with it.

  She liked to think little Joey inherited the trait from his father, who'd never lost his childhood fascination with trucks and grew up to drive one for a living; an eighteen wheeler that he owned along with the bank. Being an independent trucker gave him more control over where he'd be when the moon was full.

  Joe wanted to be home, here in Rabbit Creek. He wanted to run as a wolf with his friends and family. He loved this place. He loved her and was overjoyed to hear the news when she announced to him, over the phone, that they were expecting their first pup.

  Sometimes she wished she had never made that call. When she was feeling particularly low, as she was these last few weeks, she wondered if her announcement had been the underlying cause of his death. Was Joe's mind so focused on his coming fatherhood that he didn't react in time to avoid the car careening up the off-ramp of the highway? Other times, she was comforted by the knowledge that he died knowing he'd left something wonderful behind.

  Lindy and Joe had a good mating; not a mating of their souls perhaps, but certainly of their minds and hearts. Her wolf was content if not elated and Joe's wolf was the same. They were compatible in so many ways, sharing the same backgrounds and dreams. She missed him and she was lonely.

  It was one of the drawbacks of the Wolver culture in which everyone knew their place. Lindy no longer felt as if she had one.

  In the fully human world, unmarried women of varying ages had carved out a place for themselves at all stages of life and the choice to marry or to bear children was theirs to make. Single mothers were common. Lindy sometimes envied that world.

  In Lindy's world, the wolver world, there was an innate need in every adult female to mate and bear young. The call was so strong it could wreak havoc with a woman's mind and body and unmated females were regularly warned not to let their wolf rule their human, particularly when they were in estrus and the moon was full.

  Female adults, therefore, tended to congregate in three separate groups; the unmated, the young mated, and the matrons, mated with older cubs or cubs already grown. There were other widows, of course, but these were generally older women who lost their mates through old age.

  Lindy fit into none of these groups. She was neither fish nor fowl, nor good red meat, as her Grandma used to say. Adding to that, her body was fully recovered from Joey's birth and her wolf was beginning to stir after its long, mournful sleep and it made for a lonely and frustrating life.

  What made it worse was that it was Christmas, a time for love and celebration. Coming so soon after Joey's birth and still in the throes of getting her financial feet under her, Lindy hadn't bothered with a tree or other holiday decorations last year. Generous friends and neighbors had supplied Joey with everything he needed to start his new life. There was no need for Christmas presents, too.

  This year, she hadn't the heart to put up a tree or even hang a wreath on the door. Not long after the accident, she'd lost Joe's damaged truck to the bank that owned most of it anyway. There was no life insurance because wolvers had a hard time obtaining anything that required a physical.

  She would have lost the house too, if Marshall, the Alpha of her pack, hadn't held the mortgage on it. It was Marshall she also suspected, who conveniently arranged for an increase in hours at her part-time bookkeeping job at the Mill soon after Joey's birth.

  It was enough to pay the bills and feed them, but it didn't go much further than that and she refused to ask for anything more from this kind and generous pack. Max McGregor already watched Joey for nothing, laughingly saying he helped keep her own little Bitsy busy and out from under her Mama's feet. Max's mate, GW, stopped by so often to fix little household problems for her that Lindy had stopped complaining to Max about them. The kitchen sink was dripping now. She'd laid a cloth in the bucket underneath to keep the constant plink, plink from driving her crazy.

  Maggie and Roy Cramer, who'd become surrogate grandparents to Joey, had invited them to Christmas dinner tomorrow and would have a gift or two waiting for Joey under their tree. At his age, that was all he needed.

  "Joey is taken care of," she whispered to herself as she wiped away the tear that rolled down her cheek. "That's all that matters. He's fine. We're fine. I'm fine."

  It had become Lindy's mantra. She knew it wasn't true, but maybe if she repeated it often enough, she'd begin to believe it.

  The wolf wh
o lived inside her growled softly at the foolishness of her human.

  *****

  In the short trip up the mountain, the snow had changed from a light and gentle fall that shimmered in the lights to a heavy shower of white that clumped along the wipers and stuck to the side view mirrors. Vision was condensed to the beam of the headlights like a stage spotlight with pitch darkness to either side and a curtain of white as a backdrop.

  Merry fucking Christmas Eve. He'd bet a lot of parties would be shutting down early because of the weather and several down below in the larger towns would use the excuse of the heavy snowfall to continue partying through the night and into Christmas Day.

  No cop was going to cite a bar for serving after hours on Christmas Eve in a snowstorm. They'd be busy enough keeping track of the dumbass drivers who thought their two and a half tons of vehicle would stop on the same dime as it did on warm, dry roads. Surprise!

  Travis thought of several places he would rather be than driving through a snowstorm on narrow mountain roads in a big old delivery truck. All of those places were bars where the snowed-in party would last all night unless, of course, he could talk some lovely lady into taking him home to her place where they could have a private party of their own.

  It wouldn't be hard to find a partner for the night. The place would be filled with people who had nowhere else to go for the holiday, no family or friends to share some Christmas cheer; people just like him… or almost like him.

  They would be human, and that would give him an edge over the competition who'd also be there trolling for some private party entertainment. He was a wolver, and it was true what they said about animal magnetism, so he had that going for him and a little bit more.

  He was good looking, no sense being modest about it. Women said so all the time. Tall, broad shouldered and narrow hipped, he apparently had an ass worth admiring, too, as one half-drunk woman put it just last night when he turned at her call.

  "My, my, my, honey, you look as fine comin' as you do goin'. Why don't you come over here 'n set a spell, say hey to me and my friends?"

  She was late middle-aged with dyed blonde hair and wore too much perfume, but she had a friendly smile and was out on the town with her middle-aged friends. She and her friends were well on their way to martini merriment when he'd taken a seat and plunked his beer bottle on the table. To a ripple of drunken giggles from her friends, she'd asked him, point blank.

  "You work on that ass, sweet cheeks, or are you just naturally delicious?"

  "The only workout I get is between the sheets," he'd answered with a wink and laughed with the ladies as they giggled some more.

  It was a slow night at the bar and he was bored. He ended up spending two hours with the ladies, flirting and laughing and taking sips of the god-awful concoctions they called cocktails. They were enjoying themselves after a day of last minute Christmas shopping. They weren't looking for anything beyond entertainment and he happily provided it. He had a good time.

  While he was helping them on with their coats, one of the ladies handed him a business card.

  "My niece," she whispered. "I think you'd like her. She's very pretty and lots of fun. Her number's on the back." She held his hand and patted it affectionately. "A nice young man like you shouldn't be looking for dates in places like this."

  Holy shit! Now he not only had his mother and sisters trying to mate him off, he had strangers and human ones at that. He wondered what the woman would say if he told her he turned into a wolf at every full moon.

  Travis made the turn and searched for the fluorescent orange mailbox that would tell him his Alpha's lane was a little ahead on the right. The snow was so heavy; he was almost past before he saw it.

  The Mate had the house decorated from top to bottom with white lights running across the ridge and blue ones circling the windows. More white lights wrapped the porch rails and wreaths hung at each post, smaller versions of the giant one that hung on the door. Elizabeth was a good woman and as far as he could tell, a good Mate, but she was one of those matchy-matchy women who wanted everything just so.

  Marshall was coming across the yard from the barn as Travis pulled the delivery truck up to the porch and Elizabeth stepped out to greet him. Two little heads poked out to either side of her hips, a boy and a girl with blond hair and their father's blue eyes. The boy pointed at his father and giggled.

  "Mama! Daddy looks like a slowman!"

  "Snowman." She pronounced the word slowly and clearly and then she laughed. "Yes he does, sweetie, and you two are going to look like popsicles if you don't get back in the house."

  Marshall pulled off his glove and held out his hand to Travis. "What the hell are you doing, driving up the mountain in this weather? I figured you'd spend the night down below." He waved toward the house. "Come on in or we'll both be slowmen. Lizzie's got the coffee on and apple pie from supper. You eat?"

  "I'm not staying," Travis protested. "I just wanted to drop off the truck and the check, then head on home." He held up the decorated bag he'd carried from the truck. "I brought a little something for you and the Mate as a thank you for bringing me into the pack and giving me the job."

  "Now you can't leave. Come on." Marshall put a friendly arm around him and steered him toward the steps.

  They waited until the Mate returned from putting her children to bed. She clapped her hands with delight at the contents of the bag. "Wine! Real, honest to goodness not-in-a-box wine." She looked at the label. "Good wine, too, and chocolates! From Belgium." Her head rolled back on her shoulders and she closed her eyes, smiling in epicurean ecstasy while hugging the beribboned box to her chest. "Thank you."

  Marshall laughed. "I thought you said that gift was for the two of us."

  "It is," Travis grinned, "My father always says happy mate, happy man."

  Marshall laughed and clapped him on the back. "I knew you'd be an asset to the pack."

  Travis stayed long enough to be polite, but refused the coffee and pie. "Thanks," he told them, "But I really want to get home while I can."

  "You can spend the night here," Elizabeth offered.

  It was the last thing Travis wanted to do. He didn't want to intrude on his Alpha and Mate and their two little pups. The Alpha's family had little enough time alone and, if he was honest, he didn't want the reminder of the family he left behind.

  "Wel-l-l," Elizabeth said, drawing out the word, "If you insist on going back to your place, could you do me a little favor on the way?"

  "Sure. Name it."

  Marshall bowed his head and rubbed the back of his neck. "Lizzie." He said the word like a warning. "It's snowing like a sonofabitch."

  "I offered him a bed. He said no and he's headed up that way anyway…"

  "It's okay," Travis interrupted. "I don't mind. What do you need me to do?"

  "You can say no," Marshall told him.

  Sure, like any pack member would say no to the Alpha's Mate.

  "Marshall," Elizabeth said firmly, "Either he goes, or you do. That poor pup needs to have a Christmas."

  Marshall looked at Travis and shrugged. "Sorry pal, you're going," he said with a smirk. "I owe you."

  Chapter 2

  "I owe you," Travis muttered to himself as he maneuvered his truck down a slope and around a curve. He thanked God for four wheel drive and continued his muttering. "You bet your ass, Alpha. You owe me big time."

  He used his tongue to dislodge the fake hair that kept getting in his mouth. It only made things worse. He tried the dry spit technique, but that only freed the hair to tickle his nose. The hat slid forward. The white ball at the end of it dangled in front of his nose. He flipped his chin up to send the ball back where it belonged, but the toss went straight up and the ball hit the roof of the cab. When it came back down, it batted him in the eye. The pillow strapped around his middle was shoved up against the steering wheel making steering awkward.

  Once Marshall decided Travis was going, it took the Mate all of sixty seconds t
o transform him into Santa Fucking Claus, or at least it felt that way.

  "Here," she said to her mate and threw him the pillow along with a roll of duct tape. She pulled off Travis' flannel shirt while Marshall went to work.

  The next thing Travis knew, she was saying, "Step, step," and tapping his calves to lift his feet and then she was pulling the red pants up over his hips. He thanked God she left him his jeans. "The coat," she ordered and while Marshall was fastening the suspenders, she was shoving his arms into the sleeves. Beard, wig and hat were in place before he had a chance to protest. He did manage to draw the line at the white gloves.

  "I need a good grip on the wheel."

  "Okay, but don't forget to put them on before you go in." She tucked the gloves into the shiny black belt and patted his chest. "There. No one would know it was you."

  "Right," he muttered to the wipers ineffectively sweeping the snow from the windshield, "because everyone up here drives a brand new, bright blue pickup."

  He passed the narrow drive that led to the four room bungalow he rented and carefully slowed to take the next curve. That's all he'd need, to wind up in a ditch wearing a Santa suit. Even with four wheel drive, he was crawling by the time he found the turnoff. Weeds stuck up through the six inches of snow covering the drive and his wheels dipped and bumped over the uneven surface. Small spruces growing in crooked rows defined the sides of the lane, some planted so close they scraped against the sides of the truck threatening the glossy finish.

  As soon as the headlights illuminated the house, Travis shut them off. No sense advertising his bright blue truck. He parked behind the compact whatever-it-was that was covered with snow.

  After straightening the silly hat as best he could, he tugged on his white gloves and, feeling like an ass, trudged to the front porch. Foot on the first step, he remembered the bag and trudged back to the truck. Damn it!