“Two weeks till Christmas,” Stephanie moaned as she pulled more cookie dough out of the mixer and proceeded to make more logs that would allow for her employees to slice and bake during the next last busy days of the season.
“And?” Cassie asked, swiping the spoon she was using and walking to the far side of the kitchen where she licked the thing clean.
“Really, Cass? After all this time, you still don’t care about raw eggs!” Stephanie shouted in exasperation.
Damn.
She was totally losing her cool. What was she thinking? Selling her house, her business, and moving back here? And at Christmas time! It was the most stressful time of year.
She should know better. Especially at her age! Stephanie sighed and used the back of her hand to pat her forehead. If only she could get a certain too-young-for-her Werewolf out of her mind. Fantasizing about Nick Winters was getting to be a real distraction.
What was the use, anyway? He would be like all the other Shifters she’d ever met. They only wanted one thing, and she was too old not to know better.
Double damn.
“Mom? Tell me what’s bothering you. Maybe I can help.” Cassie cocked her head to the side.
Her stepdaughter only called her that when something was really wrong, but this time, it was not Cassie who had the problem. This time it was her.
Shit, oh shit.
Before she could speak, the bell she had hung over the side door jingled, and in walked the bane of her existence. Moving sideways to fit his massive shoulder through the doorframe, Nicholas Winters made his way into the barn store kitchen.
“Morning,” he said, nodding at her first, then Cassie.
His sapphire eyes glittered at her, and he grinned like he did every day. Like he was privy to a secret she’d been dying to learn. The man was so mischievous, and so damn hot, she was sure he knew what he was doing to her. Wearing those thick denim jeans that molded to his superb buttocks, and that soft plaid shirt that only seemed to emphasize his muscles.
Cassie cleared her throat and Stephanie looked back down at the lump of cookie dough that no longer resembled a log. As she rolled it, she couldn’t help but think of another thick, length she was desperate to get her hands on.
OMG! Is this what I’ve been reduced to?
“Can I help you with something?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at the man.
“Just filling up my thermos,” he replied. “How are you doing Cassie?”
“Fine, Nick. I loved meeting Clara at the pup club the other day. She has a lovely singing voice,” Cassie said, to Stephanie’s astonishment.
“Clara?”
“Yes, my daughter,” Nick said, turning his gaze back to hers. He seemed to wait for something, judgement, maybe, but Stephanie loved kids. She smiled softly.
“I wasn’t aware you had one. You should bring her by sometime.”
“I was planning to actually,” he said and nodded, seeming to breathe easier at her acceptance.
So odd she’d never noticed he had a daughter. Then again, she never asked him about himself. In fact, their whole relationship over the past couple of weeks had been little more than stilted conversations and rushed partings. Mostly hers.
He’d seemed interested. Most Wolves did. They were a randy lot. Not that they could help it. Sex was, simply put, a natural, healthy expression of desire, an expression of joy, and a celebration of life.
She believed all those things, but Stephanie was not promiscuous. Almost fifty, and she’d only ever been with two men, one of whom she was married to. Yes, she’d heard the stories of fated mates, and while she loved her late husband, it was different now. This thing she felt sizzling between her and Nick.
She was so wrapped up in her thoughts, she barely noticed him leaving. Hell. That was a lie. She always seemed to notice when he was there or not. But her mind was moving a mile a minute.
“Stephie? Um, Steph? Yo! Mom!”
“Huh? What is it, Cassie?”
“You realize you are making a big cookie dick, don’t you?”
That was when she finally looked down. OMFG! Cassie was right. So wrapped up in her thoughts and fantasies of Nicholas Winters, Stephanie had molded a giant cookie dough dick with her hands.
“Cassie! Shame on you!” She scolded, then gasped.
“Shame on me? I’m not the one molding a giant cookie phallus,” her stepdaughter mocked.
“I need help,” Stephanie moaned, quickly cutting the edges of the cookie-dick, and creating a simple log, like all the others she’d made.
Stephanie was not a great chef or baker, but she made a mean cookie dough. Her double chocolate peppermint fudge cookies were her bestsellers. She sure as heck couldn’t stop eating them. And no, it had nothing to do with the fact the flavor reminded her of the scent of a certain redheaded Wolf.
Does so, her Wolf growled.
Does not, she told her inner beyotch.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt, snarked the Wolf back.
Grrr.
“Yes, you need help, Stephie. And I believe sexy Santa out there is the one to give it to you,” Cassie said.
Her currently least favorite, if only, daughter motioned out the big window where Nicholas was tugging his little velvet hat in place. Both women watched him walk by the crowds with cheerful waves and gusty ho ho hos for the tots.
He looked amazing, all dressed up in the classic red velvet Santa suit she’d bought before she knew it was for him. Definitely not sexy attire, but there was something about his walk that made her belly go warm and her heart stutter inside her chest. She swallowed as she watched him take his place on the big green Christmas chair.
She’d painted that mammoth wooden beast herself. All for the purpose of offering photos with Santa as part of the Manning Farms Christmas tree experience. No other tree farm had their own Santa, and the news had even made the local papers and social media sites.
Stephanie was aware Nicholas was unattached, but she’d cut off every attempt he’d made at speaking to her with curt replies. She’d only just learned of his daughter because she’d been too afraid to ask him anything about himself.
Why should she? He was her employee. That was all. She saw the throngs of younger women, she-Wolves too, and other supes. Many had come by, sniffing around him like he was some stud on the market.
Grrr.
Her Wolf did not like the visual, even now as she watched Sally Mae, a young she-Wolf and single mother, place her toddler on his lap while she scooched in close to him on the other side. She didn’t have to molest him for a photo, for fuck’s sake! There was plenty of room on the chair.
Grrr.
Shit. She needed to calm down. This was going to go on for two more weeks, and her she-Wolf had never been so out of control.
“So, he does this every day?” Cassie asked.
“Yes, check my site, Cassie. Santa is available every day from one till five PM.”
“What are you paying him?”
“Nothing. He refused a paycheck. Said he was doing it for the Pack.”
“Really? Interesting,” her stepdaughter said.
It really was, but again, Stephanie was not interested. The big, softhearted, hot as heck Wolf man was giving her the I’m-so-hot-and-bothereds something fierce.
Ever since she’d seen the man, her electronic boy toy had been getting a nightly workout, and it still wasn’t good enough. This was nuts. She was too old.
Wasn’t she?
Cassie left to meet her husband and baby at home, having only dropped by to check in on Stephanie, and she’d just finished giving the afternoon’s employees instructions on how many cookies to make should they run out.
Business was booming, even as the temperatures dropped. The sun set early in New Jersey during December, but she had flood lights with gas generators running them to light the closest field of evergreens. The back ones would remain closed until morning.
Of course, they had some pre-cut ones, along with wreathes, garland, and small potted dwarf spruces for sale as well. She’d hired a bunch of teens from the Pack’s Outreach program to work for her, and so far, they’d been amazing.
A few of them, with careful guidance from Tim Jacobs, a Bear Shifter from nearby Barvale, and his wife Jillian, to whom Stephanie had given most of her old florist business, had been making hand-cut wooden and stained-glass ornaments. Stephanie was selling them with all proceeds going back into the program.
Her favorites were the wood carved wolf paws and the stained-glass holly hung with glittery red ribbon. She’d bought dozens of each herself and intended to use them as extra bling when wrapping gifts this year.
“Hello Tim, Jill,” Stephanie called to the older couple who were just tying an eight-foot Norway spruce to the bed of Tim’s pickup truck.
“Hey there, Stephie girl, you are looking mighty fine this evening,” Tim Jacobs winked playfully.
“Well, how do you like that? Married a year and already he’s flirting with other women!” Jill teased, kissing Stephanie on the cheek while her husband snagged her waist from behind and pulled her into his arms.
“Now, no Jilly, you know you’re my best girl.”
“I better be,” she teased back, kissing her mate with her heart in her eyes.
“Whoa! You two better get a room, we got young ones here,” Stephanie replied.
They exchanged a few more pleasantries, then Stephanie waved them goodbye. A fair amount of normals, humans not in the know about the supernatural world, were still milling about, and after glancing at her watch, she saw they would be for another hour or so.
Deciding to use the time to mingle, greet her guests, and check in on the various workstations should eat the time up quickly. Afterwards, she could run off some of that nervous energy in her fur in the woods behind the farmhouse she’d finally finished decorating.
It had taken weeks to repaint, polish, and arrange her furniture, but it was the way she wanted it. Even if she had more rooms than made sense for her. Manning Farms was her birthright, the farmhouse too.
Her feelings for her family were complicated. But Stephanie led a very good life. She’d fallen in love with a man and married him, raised his daughter as her own, and was now a grandma to boot.
Tragedy had taken her husband away too early for her liking, and yes, she’d dated a time or too afterwards, but no one had stood out. Till now, she thought as her eyes slid over to where Nicholas stood sipping his coffee from the huge, red mug she’d gotten specifically for whoever was playing the role of Santa. It fit his large hands perfectly. So did the suit, though, he had to add some stuffing to the belly. Like most Wolves and Shifters, there was not an ounce of fat on the man.
Stephanie always appreciated the Shifter physique, even though she’d married a normal. Of course, life was funny like that. It was Matt’s tenderness and vulnerability that had drawn her to him. His wife gone, his girl tiny, they’d needed her.
Nicholas Winters didn’t need anyone. He was a force to be reckoned with. She knew that just by looking at him. Missing limb or not, he was powerfully built and smart as a tack. She’d watched him help one of her employees with some pretty complicated calculus work that he made look easy as pie.
He was polite, had exquisite manners, and was truly joyful in his expression and treatment of others. Then there was that slow way he had of eyeing her from top to bottom whenever he walked into a room, she happened to be in. Like he was memorizing every inch of her.
The result was usually a pair of damp panties, and more fodder for her nighttime fantasies. The thing of it was, Stephanie had rarely dated other Werewolves. In fact, she’d had a lot of practice ignoring the big, growly brutes.
Being highly sexual was part of their Shifter nature. Something she’d learned the hard way after having her young heart broken by a Wolf way back in high school.
Way way back.
Fuck. She wondered how old Nicholas was when her foolish heart had been broken by Jeremy Smythe in tenth grade? Probably a teething toddler, if that.
Sad whine.
He really is too young for me. I shouldn’t be lusting after this man.
An hour later, and the tree farm was closed for the night. She’d successfully avoided Nicholas, though she suspected he’d tried to wait her out. After some careful examination of station three, where the trees were placed on a shaking platform, to remove old needles, and wrapped in netting before customers carted them off to be tied to rooftops and stuck in truck beds, Stephanie waved off the last of her employees.
Finally, she could go for that run. She quickened her pace, heading for the shed at the end of her property line. The rest of the woods were protected by the Macconwood Pack, part of their territory. It was owned by the Alpha and his family in perpetuity, but sanctioned for use by all Pack members.
She opened the shed door and tore her sweater over her head, oblivious to the increasing cold as she reached for the button on her jeans. The sudden hiss, like someone sucking in air between his or her teeth, stopped her in her tracks.
His teeth, her Wolf injected.
The beast scented him before her human half, and she spun around to find herself face to face with Nicholas Winters.
“Wh-what are you doing here?”
“I always go for a run after work,” he growled in a voice deep and gravely with his animal.
She realized then he was nude, his big, powerful body bare as the day he was born. Managing to keep her eyes level with his was something of a feat, but she managed. Just.
Nick’s sky-blue eyes glowed at her, and she realized he was taller by almost a foot. He moved a step closer, nostrils flaring as he breathed in, and she felt heat radiating from his body.
His Wolf peered through those hypnotic eyes down at her, and Stephanie swallowed involuntarily. She’d never felt like this. So naked and unsure of herself. Hell, of the two of them, she was still clothed in her silk bra and jeans.
“I see,” she replied.
What else could she say? He was entitled to run there, as were any of them. Maybe she should just leave him to it, she thought, and turned back to grab her sweater.
“Run with me.”
“I don’t want to intrude—”
“Is it my foot? Do you think I can’t keep up with you, baby?”
“Baby? I’m fifteen years older than you, at least! I am no baby. And what about your foot?”
Stephanie looked down, noting the prosthetic he wore with interest. Hell, it didn’t matter to her if he had one foot, two, or even three when he wore his skin. Nicholas was so much man, nothing could take away from that.
“The prosthetic. Does it bother you?”
“Bother me? No. Does it bother you?”
“Gotta live with myself as I am, so no, it doesn’t bother me. Not at all. I just want to make sure you are comfortable with it.”
“I don’t know why that would matter,” she lied.
“Yes, you do.”
“Well,” she cleared her throat, and reached for her pants once more. “You were about to run, and so was I. So, what was that about keeping up with me?”
“Anytime, anyplace, baby. You just say when.”
“When,” she replied.
Stephanie saw the gleam in his eyes, and it gave her courage. She bit her lip, feeling a thrill of bravery run through her blood before she finished stripping, and slid into her fur.
Stephanie’s Wolf was as blonde as she was, with pale fur and dark blue eyes. She was small, but wicked fast, and right now, she wanted to run. With him. Even if she had no intention of getting caught.
The sound of Nick’s deep voice reached her sensitive ears, and she took off like lightning. He might be younger, but she’d grown up in those woods.
Nicholas Winters would have no luck catching Stephanie. Not unless she wanted him too, of course.
And that was something she hadn’t quite decided yet.
“Look out, baby. I’m coming for you,” he growled with promise.