***
Jack and Casey rang the doorbell in early afternoon on Christmas Day.
By that point, the pile of gifts under the tree had been turned into drifts of wrapping paper scattered across the patio in front of the rain-streaked windows. The older children were off in their rooms to enjoy their fresh spoils, and the younger kids were asleep in a literal puppy-pile on the couch, worn out by the morning's flurry of activity. Ashley was upstairs in Erin and Tim's bedroom taking a nap. Nicole curled on the end of the couch, half-napping with a book on her chest, and Avery sat on the floor with his back to the couch, resting against her, where she could play sleepily with his hair. A brand new murder mystery was in his hands; both of them had been given books for Christmas.
Occasionally Avery looked up to see the amber necklace resting against Nicole's collarbone like drops of honey. She kept raising a hand to touch it.
When the doorbell rang, the puppies' heads went up as one. Erin appeared out of her favorite home-office workspace under the eucalyptus trees, and darted light-footed up the steps and through the baby gate. "Don't get up," she told Avery and Nicole, who were struggling up off the couch. "I'm on it."
A moment later she reappeared from the front hallway with Jack and Casey in tow. "Hi, all," Jack said cheerily. He bore a bottle of wine with a bow on it; Casey was carrying a shopping bag. "Happy Christmas and all of that."
Nicole got up on her knees on the couch to give him a quick hug over the back of it. "I'm glad you guys could come."
"Wouldn't miss it. Oh, here." As if it was an afterthought, Jack passed a small, wrapped package into her hands, and tossed another over the back of the couch to Avery.
"Sneaky jerk," Avery remarked. "Good thing we've got something for you two as well, which I'm too lazy to get up and fetch at the moment."
"We also brought Die Hard," Casey said, holding up a DVD. "And a fruit salad, on the general principle that we could probably all use something healthy at this stage of the holiday season."
She set down the bag in the kitchen and peeled off her coat to reveal a holiday sweater covered in glittery ice-skating penguins. It was so completely unlike her that for a moment Avery could only stare.
"Did you lose a bet?"
Casey blushed faintly. "No, we're twins today. It was his idea." She pointed at Jack, who opened his leather jacket to reveal the same sweater in a larger size.
"That's your brilliant Christmas present?" Avery said to Jack. "Why does she put up with you, again?"
"This was the pre-Christmas present, thank you very much," Jack said. "The actual present is something else."
"He's taking me to the gun store to pick out a better sidearm for my field agent work," Casey confided.
"They're made for each other," Nicole said, grinning at Avery.
Erin popped the cork out of the wine bottle. "I know it's only one p.m., but it's a holiday and we've all been up since six anyway. If this doesn't appeal, check out the liquor cabinet. We've got several different fruit wines, a couple of whites, and the makings for rum toddies. Or just spiked coffee, if you prefer."
"Ohhhh man, on a day like today, coffee with a shot of rum sounds amazing." Casey rubbed a hand across her damp, dark hair. Outside the tall windows behind the Christmas tree, rain was still lightly falling, as it had been all day.
"Hang on, I'll make a fresh pot."
"You need any help with dinner prep?" Jack asked.
Erin shook her head as she filled the coffeepot under the tap. "No, the ham's in the oven, everything else is ready, and as soon as I get the coffeepot perking, I plan to come in there and watch Die Hard with you guys."
"Is it too violent for the kids, do you think?" Nicole asked. Two of the puppies had crawled into her lap, while the others bounded over to greet Jack and Casey.
"When ours were this age, we didn't really worry about it," Erin said. She turned on the coffeemaker and then poured herself a glass of wine. "They can't follow the plot yet. Hannah's still a bit young for R-rated stuff, so we might revisit this if she comes downstairs, but right now I think I need to clear my palate of fluffy cartoon reindeer with some good old-fashioned explosions."
They'd just started the movie when the doorbell rang again. Avery was already on his feet, topping off two cups of coffee for himself and Nicole with rum from the bottle on the counter. "On it," he called, and limped down the hall to open the door.
"Oh God, why didn't I go to California," Jen Cho lamented, crowding inside as soon as the door opened. "It hasn't stopped raining all day. I want a sunlamp and a terrarium, stat."
"You brought a date," Avery remarked, discovering that she wasn't alone. Agent Noah Easton gave a little wave and a grin from behind her. His sleek red Camaro gleamed at the curb, glistening in the rain. "Hey, Easton, I thought you were going home for the holidays."
"I was, but there's a huge snowstorm all over the East Coast. My flight was delayed, my connecting flight was cancelled, and I figured I'd give up and spend the holidays here." Noah brushed jewels of rainwater off his close-cropped hair and the shoulders of his leather jacket. "Hope you guys don't mind one extra. I come bearing gifts—Uncle Tolya's pirozhki." He held up a covered dish.
"Food is good. We like food around here." Avery took the plate and peeked under the foil to snag one of the golden-brown pastries. "You have a Russian side of your family? I didn't know that."
"He's an honorary uncle. Long story, tell you later."
"Well, I hope you like booze too, because I brought some," Jen put in. "Have you ever had a chocolate peppermint stick cocktail? Creme de cacao and peppermint schnapps—with a candy cane in the glass, of course."
"Sounds like a great recipe for a hangover."
She punched him in the arm. "It's not the holidays without hangovers, Hollen."
"I'm starting to remember why inviting you to parties is a mistake."
"And you must be the rest of Avery and Nicole's friends," Erin greeted them cheerfully in the kitchen, and looked with interest into the large paper bag Jen handed her. "Oh Lord, creme de cacao. I haven't had this since uni."
"Do not let Jen mix the drinks," Noah said. "Just a warning." He held out a hand. "Noah Easton."
Introductions went around between the Leungs and the newcomers, and they settled in with their drinks and lapfuls of sleeping puppies to watch Bruce Willis rescue people from terrorists. Ashley drifted down a bit later, and stopped, looking startled, at the sight of a lot more people than she'd been expecting. She smiled shyly at the newcomers' friendly waves of greeting, and settled in at one corner of the big couch, next to Tim and Erin.
They made it through half the movie before the kids came downstairs. "Fooooood," Hannah moaned, draping herself over the back of the couch to wrap her arms around her mom's neck.
"Go tell me what the oven timer says." Erin pushed her daughter in the direction of the kitchen. "The ham should be about ready to come out, and then I just need to heat up the rolls."
"Avery!" Nicole gasped, sitting up abruptly and smacking the back of her hand against his chest to get his attention.
"Nggghhh." He'd just been drifting off, with his head in her lap.
But Nicole dumped him ingloriously out of her lap as she hopped off the loveseat. She had everyone's attention now. She unhooked the baby gate and descended to the patio, where she stood looking up at the tall windows. Avery sat up, yawning.
"You guys," Nicole said, "it's snowing."
She was right; the rain that had been lightly falling all day had shifted to fat, wet flakes, settling on the Leungs' fence, the skylights, and the small part of the backyard that wasn't taken up by Erin's indoor eucalyptus forest.
Jen Cho put a pillow over her head. "First rain, now snow. Wake me up when it's spring."
But the others drifted down the stairs, most of them carrying puppies, to gaze out at the white sheen collecting on top of fences and garden tools.
"It'll never last," Erin said quietly, with a sleeping Gael d
raped over her arm like a brown and gray fur muff. "Not at these temperatures. It'll be gone by morning."
"Then I'm getting mittens right now," Hannah declared, and dashed off.
"How do you get out into the backyard?" Casey asked, looking around for a door.
"There's a door in the greenhouse." Nicole grinned. "I'm getting mittens too. And a coat."
One by one, in a ragtag assortment of winter gear hastily flung over their lounging-around clothes, they trooped out into the Leungs' backyard. There was a narrow strip of lawn just behind the greenhouse, bounded by a head-high wooden fence, and a wider swath of yard alongside the greenhouse, with the lights of the Christmas tree twinkling at them from behind the glassed-in patio area.
The excitement and the cold, damp air woke the sleeping puppies, whose handlers set them down on the snow-covered grass. Avery watched them closely to make sure they weren't going to shift, but they seemed too fascinated with the snow to bother. This was probably the first time they'd ever seen it. Ginger, the boldest of the kids, stood on her hind legs to snap at snowflakes. Gael and Sophie rolled around on the grass, worked into a frenzy of excited energy by all this new input, while Hunter, the smallest and shyest of the kids, hid behind Avery's legs.
At first Ashley stayed by the door, hunched into her coat, but Hannah and Forrest began scraping together snow for a tiny, misshapen snowman, and their enticements managed to lure her out into the yard, where she was soon crouched with them and smiling as she helped them push together snow.
"Anyone up for a snowman-building contest?" Jack wanted to know. Casey giggled as he half-dragged her over to the fence, and then began helping him collect up the snow. It hadn't changed back to rain yet; the fluffy flakes were still sifting down from a low gray sky.
"I haven't built a snowman in years," Tim said to his wife, with an arm snugged around her.
"I never have; there wasn't much opportunity in—oh no, the ham!" Erin extricated herself from Tim's arm and dashed off.
"Need help?" Noah asked, following her inside. Their voices faded to an indistinct murmur as the door to the eucalyptus solarium closed behind them.
Nicole leaned against Avery, sliding a hand around his waist, under the edge of his sweater. "Do you want to build a snowman?" she asked, with suppressed laughter in her tone.
"You didn't just."
"I can't help it; I work with kids for a living. I know every song from Frozen by heart now."
"I'll let you handle the singalongs, then. I have no singing voice at all."
"You're a wolf; can't you howl?"
"As a wolf," Avery said. "You don't want to hear me sing as a human."
"I think I'd like anything you do." She leaned into him and kissed the side of his neck, then murmured, "You know, I just had the craziest idea."
"What's that?" Avery asked, snugging her close against his side.
Nicole turned her attention back to Ashley playing on the snow-covered lawn with the puppies. "She needs a place to stay and something to do with herself. And we're going to need someone to watch the kids. Having an au pair would really come in handy. And we know she loves the kids, and they love her ..."
"Huh." At first thought, Nicole was right, the idea was crazy. Who would open their home and entrust their children to someone who'd helped try to kill them?
But Ashley hadn't wanted to. The first chance she got, she tried to do the right thing.
And what were the holidays about, if not redemption and second chances?
Over at the fence, Jack and Casey were arguing, in a friendly kind of way, over the best way to shore up their wet, collapsing snowman. Through the huge picture windows of the Leungs' house, Avery saw Jen, hands wrapped around a cup of something that had a candy cane hooked over the edge, with a blanket tucked around her. Noah descended the steps and sat down beside her with a steaming mug of his own.
Nicole made broad "come out here!" gestures. They both shook their heads.
"Wimps," she muttered, and crouched on the grass, collecting snow in her gloved hands. "Avery, come on. We're falling behind here."
But Avery was barely listening; he tilted his head up to the sky, letting snowflakes settle on his face. Last year, he'd woke up alone, curled up by himself in his usual closet. This year he was with his mate, surrounded by his pack, his people, his family.
Merry Christmas, he thought, and closed his eyes, as the snow settled in a soft blanket over the world.
This is a standalone story in the Shifter Agents universe. The books so far are:
#1 - Handcuffed to the Bear
#2 - Guard Wolf
#3 - Dragon's Luck
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