Page 56 of Wounded Christmas Wolf
She clamped her thighs firmly together. This wasnota suitable frame of mind for picking up her sister and toddler nephew from the airport.
It was a very small airport, and relatively deserted even this close to Christmas, at least by big city standards. Holly didn’t even have to check her phone for her sister’s flight; she just waited by the one carousel that was moving, and finally Noelle appeared at the top of the escalator, hand in hand with a small child.
Noelle had always been the “pretty” one of the Porter sisters, so it was a little startling to see her now, after a long flight with a two-and-a-half-year-old. Her sweeping waves of chestnut hair were tied back in a sloppy ponytail, with part of it pulled out, and she was wearing a pajama top withponies on it. Ever since they were teenagers, she had spent most of her time looking effortlessly put together in a way that Holly had struggled to emulate even with top-of-the-line hairdressers and designer clothes.
“Check out my awesome fashion statement,” Noelle snorted when they got closer. “Kaden spilled orange juice on my top, and this was the only other thing I had in my carry-on bag. I may start a new trend. It’s great to see you, Hols.”
“You too. Oh wow, is this Kaden?” Holly went down to her knees to bring herself to the toddler’s height. Kaden hid his face against his mom’s leg. “Hi, honey. I’m your Aunt Holly. You met me at Christmas last year. I can’t believe how big you’ve grown.”
She had seen him a few times on video calls with her sisters, but it really was astonishing how much he’d changed, from a chubby toddler who was just starting to wobble around on uncertain legs, to this coltish kid who was big enough to press his face against his mom’s thigh, occasionally peeking at Holly with wide blue eyes framed with tear-matted lashes.
“This is Aunt Holly, kiddo,” Noelle told him, petting his curly dark hair. “He’s talking up a storm now. Ask the poor lady in the window seat in my row. He’ll warm up when he gets used to you.” She heaved a sigh. “Right now he’s tired and cranky. I decided not to bring the stroller on this trip and I’m regretting it, because he decided to throw a fit about being carried—he’s getting too heavy anyway—and well, here we are. Do you mind grabbing my bag? It’s there, the flowered blue one. There should be a car seat around here somewhere too. It’s in plastic and I gate-checked it, so I’m not sure where they put it—oh, there it is!”
Noelle was also a talker; Holly had almost forgotten that about her sister. No wonder any kid of hers would be a chatterbox. It was going to be nice to have Noelle’s warmextroversion around the farmhouse for a while. It would help make up for ... other deficiencies.
“How was the flight?” she asked, pulling the roller bag with one hand and hauling a surprisingly heavy car seat with the other. Noelle had both arms full carrying Kaden, who was drooping on her shoulder, and a bright red Paw Patrol backpack.
That guaranteed a topic of conversation out to the truck, where they got Kaden arranged in the car seat in the extended half-cab behind them. He fell asleep as soon as they pulled out on the road.
“This is terrible, because he’s going to be up half the night, but it’s also good because I was about to fling myself out the window of that jet to get some ‘me’ time, and this will give us time to talk,” Noelle said. She leaned across the space between the seats and hugged Holly’s shoulder. “It’ssogood to see you! Have you talked to any of the sibs lately? I’ve been so busy. I know Merry was going to try to come up if she could.”
“I think it’s turning out to be just us,” Holly said. “But we have the tree decorated and the toy village set up. Do you think Kaden is old enough to play with it?”
“With supervision, I hope so. Remember that first year, when Merry kept trying to lick the fake snow because she thought it was made of ice cream?”
Reminiscing about their childhood Christmases filled the cab of the truck with memories and laughter for the rest of their drive back. They stopped on the way to pick up takeout, and Holly hesitated over the order before finally ordering a burger and fries for Jace as well.
“I forgot to tell you, we have a guest. He’s been helping out at the tree farm.”
“Oh, great! Is it one of Dad’s old military buddies?”
“Yeah, sort of,” Holly said, once again pushing down a guilty wave of memory-sparked arousal.
“Oh, that’s nice. It’ll be good to have more people around for the holiday, with all of the—you know, everything.” Noelle accepted the warm, greasy paper sack that her sister passed her from the delivery window.
As Noelle bent her head to get the food settled between their seats, her neck was exposed where her hair was lifted off it, and Holly was startled to see a small scar, a brief glimpse of it between her collar and her chin.
She didn’t remember her sister having a scar there. She probably wouldn’t have noticed or remembered, except it was almost exactly where Jace had left the hickey on her last night.
Noelle was already starting to talk about the changes in town since she was here last. “What happened to your neck?” Holly interrupted.
“Huh?”
“Your neck.” Holly took a hand off the steering wheel to touch her own. She was already regretting asking. She felt terribly self-conscious about it.
“Oh.” Noelle touched her neck. A faint pink flush rose to her cheeks. “Oh, that’s been there for a while. It’s stupid. One of my, uh. One of my exes bit me.”
“Bit you?”
“Yes, during sex. Go on, laugh.”
Holly had never felt less like laughing, and she wouldn’t have put it together, except that Noelle’s gaze flicked very briefly toward the backseat in that instant.
“Kaden’s dad?” Holly asked, disbelieving. “I thought you told me it was a one-night stand and you didn’t remember him.”
“It was!” Noelle said, almost desperate-sounding. “And I don’t remember anything interesting.” She hastily turned hercollar up and looked out the window. “Oh wow, you guys have had so much snow this year. Is it supposed to snow again before Christmas?”
Holly decided to accept the change of subject. It wasn’t like she wanted to explain why she was quizzing her sister on this topic, either. “It’s been snowing a lot. The forecast is all over the place, so who knows.”
