Page 57 of Wounded Christmas Wolf
Noelle’s fingers twitched across her collar, settling it. She pulled the tie out of her hair, and Holly abruptly realized why she wouldn’t have noticed the bite scar before; Noelle almost always wore her hair down, teased into silky waves.
“What’s it like being back on the farm after all that time in the city?” Noelle asked, finger-combing her hair, not incidentally covering her neck and shoulders.
“Different,” Holly admitted. “But—nice, I think.”
She thought briefly of Jace. Jace was more than nice. Jace was—wonderful, and hot, and confusing.
“It’s always like a holiday wonderland here when it snows,” Noelle said wistfully.
“It is. And we’re getting the house all ready for Christmas. Uh, that reminds me. It’s really not childproofed at all. Is there anything I need to put away?”
“Let me take a look when we get there. Kaden’s getting old enough that it’s not as much of a big deal as it was when he was first starting to walk.”
Holly realized that she had absolutely no idea what was appropriate for child development levels. It had been so long since her sisters were that age. But the idea of a child’s laughter ringing through the rooms of the old farmhouse at Christmastime felt good to her.
“We can get out the old stockings this year. Remember the stockings, the ones with our names on them? Kaden could use one of?—”
Noelle put a finger to her lips and leaned closer. “Shhh.Santa does that, remember? Santa sent along Kaden’s stocking with me this year, so it’s in my suitcase. But I’d love some help, I mean, Santa would love some help finding things to put in it.”
They turned into the farmhouse driveway just as Kaden started to stir and make sleepy, complaining noises from the backseat. Rocket came bounding out to greet the truck.
Itwasgoing to be a good Christmas, Holly thought. No matter what happened with Jace.
But in spite of herself, she found her gaze straying up the hill to the holiday cottages, and one in particular.
JACE
With everything else,Jace had forgotten that Holly’s sister was arriving today until he saw them come home from his vantage point up on the hill.
Standing and leaning against the woodshed, he gazed down the hill, arms crossed. The sun was unexpectedly warm in late afternoon, though he knew by now that December’s cold would close down hard again, come evening.
He watched the farm truck pull into the yard, and the two people inside it stepped down. Holly was clearly recognizable in her white town coat, although he would have known her anyway, just by the way she moved.
The other person had a head of bright chestnut hair that flashed in the sun. This must be Holly’s sister.
Jace watched as the two women leaned into the cab, and a few moments later, the sister turned away with a child held against her chest. Meanwhile Holly reached into the bed of the truck and took out a suitcase.
Holly’s dad appeared on the porch of the farmhouse. As the family embraced, Jace’s chest ached. He wondered whatHolly would be like with kids. She would be a good aunt, he was sure of it. Probably a good mom as well.
When they all started walking back to the farmhouse, he saw Holly pause a couple of times, looking up the hill. But it was a long way and he was standing with his shoulder against the woodshed. He doubted if she could see him.
When she vanished from view, he squared his shoulders, turned away, and walked back toward the Mistletoe Manor, boots crunching on ice.
He had spent the entire day fighting with his shift animal. If he could just get his wolf to properly come out, or decently go away, he could disprove what the Colonel had said—what he knew, somewhere deep down, to be true. Hedidstruggle to control his wolf. Hewasdangerous to Holly. He’d almost bitten her last night.
In the fields behind the Christmas cottages, he had struggled to shift until his entire body ached and his head throbbed. He hadn’t shifted fully since the fire. His wolf was afraid of flames, in an instinctive animal way. Maybe if he had grown up with a pack, if he understood more about controlling the animal side of him, he could have mastered that fear. Now it had become an insurmountable barrier. The more he tried to pull his wolf out of hiding, the more it fought him.
Finally, aching, hungry, at war with himself inside and out, he’d walked back to the cottages, and from that vantage point, he watched Holly arrive with her sister and her sister’s son. The family was gathering for Christmas, and Jace would be slowly shut out. He’d felt it happen before. Everyone had a place. He didn’t.
Come on, you stupid, stubborn animal. Shift!
There was no response. All he had managed to do was make his hands even more animalistic and clumsy. His feet too, from what he could feel inside the boots.
Half a wolf. Half a man. And not half good enough for Holly.
He entered the Mistletoe cottage and looked around. In the last week, he’d made it feel a little more like his own. He had taken down some of the more over-the-top Christmas decor, and most of the mistletoe, and got out a few of his own things. Holly had given him a stained old dropcloth to cover the table so he could work on his various projects there without getting the nice white tablecloth dirty.
He wondered when all the kitschy Christmas details had started to become more comfortable. He could see, now, the amount of handpicked detail that had gone into every aspect of the decor. This wasn’t a soulless Christmas cash grab. Love had gone into making this place.
