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Nathan scrambled to get it. He fought her over it and socked her in the jaw, apologizing as he did: “My mother taught me never to hit a woman, but if you go for the gun again, I’m going to have to forget that lesson. ”
“Don’t get up,” Anna ordered Helen, as she pinned her to the floor. Anna held her arm against her back, threatening to break it if she moved. “Everything’s under control down here!” she shouted up to Bjornolf, hoping he was all right.
“We’re good up here!” Bjornolf answered from the front porch.
Anna let out her breath with relief.
“I don’t understand why my parents had to die. ” Jessica raced down the stairs and glowered at Helen.
“A long time ago, I overheard William talking to Jeff about a new find in the Amazon that they’d gotten from some people in Oregon,” Helen said. “Shortly thereafter, Dottie and Roger moved to the Christmas tree farm and had a new baby. I didn’t think anything of it. I never connected the dots. Not until the trip to the Amazon, the so-called kidnapping, and then Roger’s arrest. ”
The Silverstones were only trying to find a werewolf cure, Anna thought grimly.
“What about the DEA agents?” Anna asked.
“They had been snooping around William’s businesses for some months. He swore he wasn’t doing anything illegal. I believed him. Or… at least I wanted to. They must have visited Roger to learn if he knew anything about William. Big mistake. ” Helen let out a breath. “Dottie had to be in on it. She wanted the baby. ”
“I was not,” Dottie screamed at her, but she was seated again on the couch.
Nathan watched her closely with the gun in his hand. “Why wreck the Christmas decorations? That’s what I don’t get. ”
Dottie pointed at Anna. “She and that man were trying to take Jessica away from me. ”
Well they did do that, but not for a reason Dottie could ever guess. As a she-wolf, Jessica had to be with a pack.
Vehicles roared into the parking area next to the house and Anna sighed. The cavalry was a little late, but they had arrived.
***
“I’ve decided,” Jessica said as she and Anna, Bjornolf, and Nathan sat down for their reheated Christmas Eve dinner. “I don’t want to do the kind of work Anna does. It nearly killed me to see her standing on the stairs. I can’t believe they didn’t hear my muffled shriek. I was so afraid Helen would shoot Anna before she was able to disarm her. ”
Nathan shook his head. “Amen to that. ”
Except for a few bruises, Anna was fine. She was satisfied with the way things had gone down.
“So why was William at the house?” Nathan poked the serving fork into another yam and loaded it onto his plate.
“He really did care about Dottie and had planned to come to her rescue,” Anna said. “Helen thought we’d believe the kids had a flat tire while they took care of it. ”
“Only we wouldn’t have made it home,” Nathan said.
“No,” Jessica said. “Helen would have killed everyone if she could have. She was furious with her two-timing husband and Dottie. If William had made it down the stairs, he would have shot us to get rid of all the witnesses. ”
Nathan selected another yam. “If Dottie had gotten hold of the gun, William and Helen would have been dead. ” He looked over at Jessica. “I don’t know about us. ”
Jessica shook her head. “She wouldn’t have shot us. I don’t think. I think she truly did love me. I was the child who replaced the one she lost. I think my… Roger really loved me, too. Maybe he knew Dottie had the child with William. Maybe he felt sorry for my parents being murdered and he wanted to protect me. Maybe William really killed my parents. ”
They all sat in awkward silence for a bit. Then wanting to lighten the mood and share in some Christmas spirit, Anna said, “Did anyone want some dessert?”
“I’m full,” Jessica said.
“I’ll pass until later,” Bjornolf said.
Nathan grinned. “I guess I’ll wait. ”
Anna nodded. “It’s Christmas Eve, and I’ve never had one before so let’s have some fun after we put the food away. ”
Nathan squeezed Jessica’s hand and smiled at her. She smiled back at him. It was their first Christmas Eve together, too.
Jessica and Anna put away the leftover food while Bjornolf and Nathan set up a board game.
“Thank you for coming to our rescue. ” Jessica put down the platter of ham and crossed the floor to give Anna a hug. “Thank you for everything. ”
“We knew you kids were too responsible, and it wasn’t your fault when you didn’t come home on time for Christmas Eve dinner. ”
Jessica’s face flushed a little.
Anna studied her and smiled. “You… went to the farm to spend some alone time together?”
Jessica shrugged. “I wanted to get some more clothes. And we’d just gotten to fooling around when we heard Helen and Dottie come in the front door. We went down to see what was going on. That was a really big mistake. Helen took our phones away. When you started calling, she had to do something. So she tried to get you to stay away. She hoped William would arrive before anyone came looking for us. ”
Anna shuddered and hugged Jessica again. “I’m glad we were there in time. ”
After cleaning up the kitchen, they made hot chocolate and went into the living room, where the guys had set up a murder-mystery board game. “We choose teams and play against each other to solve the murder,” Nathan said, eager to begin.
Her brows raised, Anna looked from the board game to the guys. “You’re kidding, right?” She motioned to the packages under the tree. “Why don’t we each open a gift tonight instead?”
Nathan and Jessica’s eyes lit up, and Anna thought they looked like kids for an instant.
Bjornolf had gotten Anna a fluffy red sweater. It was beautiful and soft and thankfully wasn’t covered in Christmas cheer. She gave him a big hug and kiss.
“It’s really for me,” he said, “because I get to hold all that softness up close and very personal. ”
Jessica was smiling and said to Nathan, “Why don’t you say things like that to me?”
“He’s a SEAL. He can get away with it. ”
Anna watched as Bjornolf opened his present from her. A pair of cobalt Speedos. “They’re for me because I get to enjoy them when you wear them,” she said.
He smiled at her, telling her he was willing to wear them whenever she wanted him to.
Nathan was blushing. Jessica was grinning. “We’re going to learn a lot from the two of you,” Nathan said.
Nathan gave Jessica a new smartphone so that she could give out the number to only those she wanted to. “Thanks, Nathan. Now I can find my way places, too. He knows I get turned around in Portland whenever I go there. ” She handed him his present and waited, smiling.
He opened the envelope and inside was a Christmas card. Inside that was a receipt for a year of martial arts training. He laughed.
“He kept saying he wanted to learn all Bjornolf’s moves, so I was afraid he’d be bugging you to death about it. I got him a year’s worth of martial arts training instead. If he likes it, he can keep it up,” Jessica said. “It cost a lot and took most of my earnings at the Christmas tree farm, so no skipping lessons. ”
“This is great,” Nathan said. “And I can teach you some of this stuff for self-defense. ”
Anna stared dreamily into the fire, then said, “It’s time for bed, kids. You know who will be coming down the chimney soon, and you don’t want to catch him in the act. ”
Everyone looked at the flames shooting up the chimney and chuckled. All the Christmas presents were already under the tree. Santa had already come.
“Yeah, let’s go to bed. ” Nathan helped Jessica up from the couch.
“Ready?” Anna asked Bjornolf.
“Yeah. What I want to know
is, when do you expect me to wear this?” He held the suit against his crotch.
“When you take me to an island somewhere. ”
He smiled. “I’ll have to do that soon. ”
They went to bed and settled down, kissing and snuggling when they heard something on the roof.
Bjornolf slipped on a pair of boxers and was nearly into his jeans when he heard a “Ho-ho-ho!” from the rooftop. He looked at Anna, and she started laughing. “That’s Nathan and his reindeer. I mean, Santa and his reindeer. ”
Bjornolf had to look anyway. The kids weren’t in the guest room, and he saw Nathan and a she-wolf walking across the snow-covered roof. On the patio out back, he saw angel figures made in the snow. He smiled, then went back inside, not recalling ever having done anything so crazy in his life. Well, maybe he had.
“You were right, Anna. ” Bjornolf crawled back into bed.
“Did you put out cookies and milk for Santa, and carrots for his reindeer?”
Bjornolf groaned, shook his head, got back out of bed, put on his boxers, and left the bedroom.
***
Bjornolf and Anna didn’t get up early for Christmas Day. Neither did Nathan or Jessica.
After grabbing some hot tea and coffee, they all sat down on the couches while Jessica handed out gifts with “All I Want for Christmas is You” playing in the background. Every time they all had a present, she sat down to unwrap hers while everyone else opened their own.
Anna couldn’t help it. She was in tears most of the time while she unwrapped one after another of the crocheted sweaters that Bjornolf had given her—black, white, ecru, blue, and purple, and a white fuzzy jacket to replace the one ruined in the mud pit. Nathan and Jessica had bought her a dozen boxes of dark chocolate thin mints.
She smiled at them. “How did you know?”
Nathan looked at Bjornolf, who nodded. “When Roger Everton grabbed you in the drugstore, we found you had touched several boxes of thin mints. ”
Anna smiled through her tears. “I didn’t want you to know that the thin mints had distracted me so much that Everton got the drop on me. ”