RAND
“Everyone outside for the snowman-building contest!” Willow called. “You, too, Marina. You can’t leave Colton on his own.” She shooed Marina out of the pack lodge kitchen where she and my mom were busy putting together Christmas dinner.
Our group was so big we had to have the holiday feast in the pack lodge. My mom and Marina were going crazy with dinner. They’d arranged several tables in a horseshoe shape and covered them in white linen, topped with evergreen boughs and holly berries.
Shifters didn’t have a particular theology although we leaned more toward pantheism with our honor of nature and fate. Still, most of us practiced the traditions of the humans we lived near, so Christmas dinner wasn’t just for our new human mates although it was made more special because of them.
I grabbed Natalie’s gloved hand and tugged her outside the pack lodge and into the deep Montana snow. It had snowed again the night before, and in the afternoon light, it sparkled and winked, making today the perfect winter wonderland.
“Okay, you’re working in pairs.” Willow stood on the wraparound porch to organize us. She’d stepped easily into her role as alpha female of our pack. I had to say, things were about a million times more fun since we all mated. The new additions brought us all closer together. We were family before, but now we were friends, too.
“You’ll have twenty minutes from the time I start the clock. When I yell, time’s up, you stop wherever you are and come to stand up here on the porch. Then we’ll bring out Rob to try to guess who did each one and award the prizes.”
I reached down and scooped up a snowball, casually packing it to get a head start on our base. I winked at my beautiful mate, whose pale cheeks flushed the prettiest shade of pink in the cold. I tugged her hat lower over her ears. “Warm enough?”
She rolled her eyes and smiled. “I’m still fine.”
Okay, maybe I’d asked her that a few times already, but she was my mate. It was my job to protect her. Even from the cold.
“On your marks, get set, go!” Willow called out.
I grinned at Natalie and rushed to roll my snowball in the snow, building it to about eighteen inches while Natalie rolled her own.
Beside us, Clint and Becky worked far more slowly. Becky held Lily on her hip, narrating what Daddy was doing as he built their snowman. Audrey and Boyd hadn’t even started one because their little one, Lizzie, was screaming and laughing, tossing snow in the air, charming them too much for them to care about the competition.
But Natalie and I had concocted a plan a few minutes ago when Willow sprang the event on us, and we were dead set on finishing our project in the allotted time.
We quickly constructed two snowpeople—one for me and one for her—and then I made a teeny bowling ball sized baby snowman at our feet, finishing it just as Willow called time.
We ran up to the porch to wait for Rob to judge.
When Willow opened the door to call to him, I leaned in behind her. “Mom, Dad, come out here, too,” I shouted. My mom would kill me if she was the last to hear the news.
Already, there were excited gasps from the other contestants as they saw ours.
“The threesome must be Clint’s, Becky’s and Lily’s,” Rob said.
“It’s not.” Clint shot me a look that made my eyes smart. It brimmed with love and joy for me. For us.
“Boyd and Audrey?”
“Nope,” Audrey laughed. “Ours is a little more postmodern.” They’d produced a lumpy midget snowman at the last minute, letting Lizzie help pack.
“Who is having a baby?” my mother squealed, unable to contain her joy. She clapped her hands together, looking between Marina, Charlie and Natalie. “Not Willow, right? She didn’t make a snowman?”
“I didn’t make one,” Willow laughed.
“Oh, just tell us!” my mother begged. “I can’t stand the suspense.”
“You ready for another grandpup?” I asked, unable to make her suffer a moment longer.
My mom squealed and came running for Natalie, smothering her in a hug as everyone else cheered and congratulated us. “When are you due?”
“Mid-June,” I said, unsuccessful in containing my pride and joy. “And the house should be rebuilt just in time for us to move in when the pup arrives.”
“Well, you two sure know how to win the contest, don’t you?” Willow said, taking her turn with the hugs that were going all around.
“Surely Colton’s seven-foot snowman wins?” Natalie asked with a laugh.
“Colton and Marina win biggest. You two win the best surprise,” Rob said, clapping me on the back. “And Charlie and Levi, I’m guessing that’s yours?” Rob indicated the lumpy snow-horse, or perhaps snow-cow. “You definitely win most original.”
“What is it?” Charlie’s grandfather asked. The old man had shuffled out without a coat, but Johnny was right behind him, tossing one over his shoulders. The dog was at his side, as usual.
“It’s Seraphina, the horse that brought us together,” Levi said.
“What about ours?” Clint asked, good-naturedly. He had crafted a sturdy, basic snowman.
“Best decorated,” Rob said, because theirs was the only one that sported a face, made from pinecones and pebbles.
“Now come inside and eat,” Mom said because feeding people was her way of showing love.
“Good, I’m starving,” Natalie said.
“You are?” I asked, alarmed. My poor mate had been alternately nauseated and hungry for the past ten weeks, and it made me nearly go mad with the need to keep her satisfied.
Natalie hip checked me. “I’m fine, silly. I think I can make it two more minutes until the food is on the table.”
I wrapped my arms around her. “You can’t stop me from protecting you. It’s my job.”
She lifted her face and pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “I know. I love you madly for it. You’re going to be the best daddy on Earth. I can’t wait for our baby to meet you.”
My eyes misted again, and I grabbed my mate’s face and kissed her ruthlessly until I felt her lips smiling under mine, and she gently pushed me away. “You’re my everything. You both are.”
“Let’s go inside,” she murmured. “Now I’m getting cold.”
I yelped and picked her up, rushing her inside to join the rest of our family, where we’d eat our Christmas dinner steeped in love.
