A Christmas Home

  Evernight Publishing ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2015 April Zyon

  ISBN: 978-1-77233-635-1

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Jessica Ruth

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  ToCh Moira, thank you for being my very best friend in the world. You are my rock. Through thick and thin we've been friends for years and it will never stop. Love ya, babe!

  To Ravenna, I'm thankful to have you as another of my best friends. I'm blessed that you are in my life.

  A CHRISTMAS HOME

  Shifters-Match.com, 1

  April Zyon

  Copyright © 2015

  Chapter One

  Pushing the limits of the snowmobile she was on, Ophelia Lambros laughed as she spun around on the cold white snow. The sensation of flying was just another reason she loved snowmobiling. Yes, she was out in the middle of nowhere on her own, but she absolutely loved it. She loved the feeling of the snowmobile under her body, the power of it completely under her control. It was freeing, the ability to let all control go and enjoy herself. This was exactly what she had needed when she came to Shifter Falls.

  She twisted the handle of the snowmobile to get it to go where she wanted and killed the engine. She pulled off her goggles and put them on the handle, then turned around. Resting her head on the handle, she looked up. It was beautiful here this time of the day. The sky seemed to go on forever, the brilliant blue and white starting to burst in an explosion of pinks, reds, and oranges. It was utterly amazing, the joy she got from watching the sun go down at this place.

  She moved so that she had her legs crossed and snorted. It was nearly impossible to believe that just a month earlier she’d been going through the motions of living and hiding that innate part of her very core with normality. She wasn’t normal, not now and not ever. She couldn’t be normal if she tried, not with the power that simmered under her skin. She kicked one snow boot on the other to knock the loose snow off and shifted again on the wide and long seat so that she could get comfortable.

  Sighing, she finished watching the sun as it slowly streaked across the sky. “Goodnight, old friend,” she whispered to the sun, then rose so that she was sitting once more on the back of the snowmobile. Revving up the engine, she turned on the headlight and started back across the snow and toward the lodge she was staying at.

  The lodge was a beautiful place that looked like something out of a story book. She had needed to recharge her batteries, so to speak, and actually find herself, so that’s exactly what she was doing. When company downsizing had cost her her job with the accounting firm she had worked for since she was fourteen, she’d figured—after the initial panic—that it was time for a change. She still thought very fondly of the firm she had worked for. The owner had taken her on after her cousin had pulled some strings. She had been thankful because it took her out of the home she hated to be in. Her parents were always fighting and it had been nice to be able to be out of the house and working with her cousin.

  God she hated to think about her parents. They were now both going their own separate ways and they were very happy to not talk to their daughter just as she was happy not to talk to them. Growing up, she had always felt like she was an intruder in their lives, something they made clear to her in their actions. She had to shake herself out of her revelry and with a deep breath she shoved away the thoughts of her parents.

  Thanks to her rather hefty severance package she had been able to take some much-needed time off. One thing that had slightly derailed her time off, however, was for the man she’d been engaged to, Eric Boston, to cut off their engagement literally hours after she was fired and a mere five days before they were to be married. As much as it hurt her self-esteem, she refused to allow his hurtful parting words to end her being. No, she was better than that. She was more than that and refused to allow herself to submit to the will and desires of others.

  “Bastard.” She muttered the word aloud as she drove over the snow. Ophelia didn’t race over the white powder now like she had earlier. She couldn’t with the darkness falling so quickly. She wondered briefly how her cat was doing. She had forked out several hundred dollars for him to be placed in a swanky cat resort, aka kennel.

  She lifted just a bit as she passed over a bump, taking the impact and motion with her whole body instead of tightening up like most people would. Once she was over the roughest area, it left her to her thoughts, dangerous thoughts of when she had been dumped, for lack of a better word.

  ****

  One month earlier...

  “Lia,” Eric called through her home when he let himself in. “Lia, it's Eric.”

  She came bounding down the stairs, her honey-blonde hair bouncing in thick curls behind her. “No kidding, as if it could be anyone else?” she had asked him with a forced smile. She hated when he called her Lia. Her nickname was Phi, not Lia. She’d spent the last three hours prior to him showing up creating a resume, something she’d never had before since she accepted her job before she was even out of high school. She was excited to see him, content to have him there because at least he cared for her. She told herself once again that she would one day grow to love him. They were friends and wasn’t that the best relationship builder?

  “Well, one never knows,” Eric told her and stepped back from her touch when she reached out to him.

  “Eric?” she asked with a small frown. “What’s wrong?”

  “Lia, we are over,” he stated bluntly, so much so that Phi was sure she misheard him.

  “What?” she asked stupidly.

  “You are a filthy, dirty cow. I dated you because I had been told that you were some kind of heiress or something, but you aren’t, are you? I can’t tie my life to yours. Being my luck, you would outlive me and then where would I be? Dead after living an unhappy life.”

  Dirty cow? “What do you mean, dirty cow?” She wasn’t a size zero, but she didn’t think that a size sixteen was large, not with as active as she typically was. No, she wasn’t going to be running a marathon anytime soon but she also wouldn’t get out of breath if she walked up and down several stories of stairs either.

  “I mean exactly what I said. You aren’t as clean as you should be,” he pointed out by flipping one of the magazines that had been open on the chair arm over, then looked down in disdain at her cat. “And that filthy mongrel. How can you allow that nasty animal on your counters? You make food there.”

  “He’s been in my life for nine years. He’s set in his ways. He’s been my friend through thick and thin. And what do you mean, you thought I was an heiress?” She never discussed money, with anyone. It was her business and hers alone. She had never asked him to pay for anything, never done anything that would suggest she was loaded, either, so what in the world he was talking about she had no idea.

  “Exactly, you are a nasty, filthy cow and that mongrel is a nightmare. I fucking hate cats.” He tossed the key to her home on the table. “So thanks for wasting my time. You should have said something to me last year that you were fucking broke, you idiot. I was told by Todd Harrington at your office that you only worked because you were bored. He showed me your banking records that you thought you had shredded and they showed that you had millions. Then that fucking assweed told
me last night that he had made them up. The bastard and his cohorts were getting off on the fact that I was fucking someone like you.”

  Those were the last words he said to her before he turned on his heels and walked out of the house. She was stunned. She was so shocked that she didn’t say a single word to stop him. Once he was gone, she sat down hard on the stair step. “We were going to be married in two days,” she said to her cat that jumped up onto her lap. She took a deep breath. “Well, it looks like it's time for me to cancel everything…”

  ****

  That had been the hardest part of everything, canceling wedding plans last minute, listening to her friends telling her that they had never liked Eric and they were happy it was over.

  Well she had been happy someone found a good part of the pain she was going through. She certainly didn’t.

  On and on it went until it was time for her to cancel her reservations at the lodge in Shifter Falls. When she called, she spoke with an older woman who told her that she would be able to turn her deluxe three-week for two in for a six-week for one regular accommodation but they couldn’t refund her money. That’s when she decided to take it. She had lost her job and her fiancé in one fell swoop, so why not take six weeks and try to find herself?

  She shook her head and cleared the fog of the past, focusing once more on the sharp twist and turn of the path she was on. Arriving back at the lodge, she pulled her snowmobile into the garage for them and cleaned it off, filling it up with the fuel that was there in cans. She then took the keys so that she could hang them up on her way into the lodge. She was humming lightly, a smile on her face as she walked blindly into the bright lights of the lodge. She was happy. She knew now she was better off without Eric and she also knew that somehow losing her job wasn’t going to be the nightmare she had been so certain it would have been. She had enough money tucked away that she could do pretty much what she wanted, when she wanted, at least for a time.

  It was while she was wool gathering and walking that it happened. As she walked into the lodge, she bumped into a very large male. Holy balls, the man was like a mountain, she realized as she all but bounced away from his massive, muscular chest.

  Chapter Two

  Throwing the wrench down onto the tool pad, Jagger scrubbed a hand down his face. There were days he loved being a mechanic. Then there were days like today where he knew he should have listened to his mother and gotten into something else. Not that he’d ever tell the woman, even if he was still speaking to her. She already thought too highly of her own opinions. Gods only knew where the woman was today. At least she wasn’t in Shifter Falls giving him even more trouble.

  He grabbed the bottle of water he’d been working on and took a long haul while staring at the engine in question. He was missing something, and it was really starting to piss him off that he couldn’t figure it out.

  For the last ten years, he’d been head mechanic at the only automotive shop in Shifter Falls. They were the only one there because they only hired the best and did the best work. Competitors didn’t stand a hope in hell. A few other places had tried to start up in the Falls. But they’d all shut down within a year because they hadn’t had what it took to work in such a closely knit town. That and they’d been outsiders, something that didn’t go over well with the very private residents who ran the town.

  Founded by a shifter pack more than two hundred years prior, the town was home to six different types of shifters. Only through harsh laws and firm hands at the helm of each pack did it work. Especially considering the mix the Falls had running around.

  There were plenty of humans living and working there, too, but the majority of the population was other. Sometimes there were problems. Sometimes there were all-out fights, but in the end they all knew they had to live together so things had better damn well work out. Which they usually did, eventually.

  Moving to the open door of the bay he was working in, he stared out at the snow. The weatherman had predicted another couple of inches throughout the day, and more overnight. Great for all the tourists currently running around Shifter Falls in search of as many wintertime activities as they could find. It also had its perks for the business. It was amazing how many out-of-state tourists had no idea how to handle driving in snow.

  He spotted a friend and lifted a hand in greeting. Conroy Hayden was the owner of On The Plate, one of four restaurants in Shifter Falls. The guy was a damn connoisseur when it came to flavors. Likely why his restaurant had managed to get rave reviews in several travel and food magazines. Since then people had come to Shifter Falls not only for the events held but in the hopes to get a table in his restaurant.

  “Con, good to see you. I have to admit I didn’t think you’d actually get out during the lunch rush.”

  The large redhead shrugged and shot him a smirk. “Figured I should bring you something to eat or you’d forget. Again.”

  Jagger spotted the bag then and felt his belly rumble. He’d only had a piece of toast and several cups of coffee for breakfast that morning. It was already one in the afternoon and he wasn’t exactly a small guy. Waving Conroy into the bay, he followed behind the man, shooting the troublesome engine a glare. He cleared off a spot on his work table before grabbing a couple stools to set in front. He took one while Conroy unloaded the bag, hitting Jagger with the scent of cooked meat and spices. His stomach let out a hungry snarl that earned him a knowing look. Jagger held his tongue, knowing anything he said would only provide Con with more ammo to use against him at a later date.

  He accepted the plate from his friend and unwrapped it. A huge pile of roast beef he knew was slow cooked, mashed potatoes, and seasonal greens from the greenhouse at the end of town. Con handed him a little container which held gravy, utensils, and a napkin.

  “Thanks,” he said. Cutting off a piece of the beef, Jagger slowly chewed the perfectly cooked meat. It practically melted on his tongue. “Damn this is good,” he practically moaned. Another bite he chewed slowly. He knew better than to shove Con’s food down his throat as fast as possible. The man would beat him silly. And Con was nearly as large as Jagger. They’d both taken boxing as kids, but Jagger had plain meanness on his side. Con was a good soul who wanted to help others, which was why he’d gotten into feeding folks. He said the food was good for the soul and part of why On The Plate did the soup kitchen for those who needed a helping hand.

  After finishing the meal, Jagger wiped his mouth while Con packed up the dishes. The secondary dish caught his attention. “What’s that?”

  “Dessert,” Con told him.

  Accepting the dish, he pulled the top off and inhaled the scent from the hot dessert. It was a crumble of some sort. Rhubarb, for sure, definitely strawberries, but there was something else. He took a bite and let out a moan of pleasure.

  “I’m going to assume you like it.”

  “Dude, this is spectacular. What all’s in here?”

  “The usual, but I threw in some cranberries this time for a more seasonal flavor. Gives it a different taste.”

  He nodded, it did at that. Scraping out the last, he licked off the spoon under Con’s knowing watch and passed it back. Another wipe with his napkin before he tossed it into the garbage closest and leveled a look at his friend. “I guess this wasn’t just your need to feed me, since you usually dump and run. What’s going on?”

  “Don’t know yet but figured I’d give you a heads-up. The sheriff and a couple deputies were in for lunch today and we got to talking. Apparently there are rumblings from the city council about another pack wanting to set up shop here. They’re calling an emergency meeting tomorrow night to discuss it with the alphas and their seconds. You’ll be getting the call soon, but I wanted to let you know before you got it. I know how much you hate surprises.”

  That was an understatement. The last surprise Jagger had received was his parents divorcing, his father leaving the Falls, and his mother hooking up with the first of many younger males to keep her bed warm. Since t
hen he’d managed to avoid being surprised with the help of those he called and considered to be true friends, like Conroy. Without them, he’d have been caught with his pants down more than once. But they looked out for him, and he helped look out for them in turn. They were more his family than his parents ever had been.

  “I’ll be ready, thanks.” Standing, he gave his friend the quintessential man hug and walked him out of the bay. He stayed there a moment longer to watch the comings and goings of the locals and tourists before turning to face his current nemesis. One way or another he was damn well going to get this thing running. Then he could take it over to the hotel and return it to the tourist to which it belonged.

  “All right, you giant hunk of metal, let’s get down to business.”

  ****

  It was nearly seven that night before he made it to the hotel and got the keys returned to the owner. The guy had been so thrilled he’d thrown in a healthy tip for services rendered and for the speed with which Jagger had managed it.

  Since he had some time before he needed to meet with several of the pack for drinks, he stopped in the hotel’s offices to check in with the gang there. It ended up getting him a few more projects, but it was well worth it or would be in the end. The hotel provided some activities for the guests that came to visit. Among them were snowmobile rentals for either tour or for the guests to use at their leisure.

  With the keys in hand to four that were due tune-ups, he made a call to the shop to arrange for one of the boys to bring out the large flatbed truck. They could load them up, take them back to the shop, then start working on them in the morning.

  Distracted as he was, he didn’t see the little female until it was nearly too late. Unfortunately, she didn’t see him at all and ran into him full force. At six foot five inches and nearly three hundred pounds of pure muscle, not much could move him. Especially not someone built as she was. All woman, for sure, but not very tall. Biteable, he thought to himself, with all those luscious curves and soft-looking skin.