The Reindeer's New Year Love (Reindeer Holidays Book 7)
Page 13
Honestly, all the training he had as a hunter, and diaper changing was harder than anything he had ever done.
“For now,” retorted Carrie ominously.
They didn’t bother to change out of pajamas and just wandered into the kitchen. Mal looked at him, but it wasn’t the scowl that had been present a few days ago, so things were getting better. Riker never had a sister, but he knew what it was to be protective over family members, and he didn’t blame Mal for his fury. Riker just wished he had managed to protect his mother half as well.
Riker put Mikey into his chair, and he and Carrie took a seat on either side of him so they could feed him together.
Ariel bustled around the kitchen making waffles in between a flurry of phone calls she was making and receiving. Mal was pretty calm. In between eating the waffles, he was sending text messages, but mostly, he was watching Riker, Carrie, and Mikey. He seemed… interested, rather than annoyed as he had been the past few mornings. His irritation about Carrie sleeping with him in the den also appeared to have abated.
“How come you’re still here?” asked Carrie when Ariel was between calls.
Usually, Ariel was gone before 9 am, and was off to do a million different things. She seemed like a nice female, but Riker was glad Carrie was much more laidback than her.
Ariel grinned. “Have you forgotten what day it is?”
Carrie frowned. “It’s Christmas Eve, right? Sorry, I keep forgetting what day of the week it is.”
“Not just that,” prompted Ariel.
Carrie shrugged and Mal snorted in amusement and said, “The wedding – today, all of Teena’s ex-boyfriends and all the single males of the herd will breathe a sigh of relief as she gets married.”
Ariel giggled and slapped his shoulder playfully.
“Oh, I forgot,” said Carrie with a wince.
“You forgot the wedding of the century?” teased Ariel. “Teena would be livid to hear it.”
“I’ve kind of been distracted the last few days,” she said with a flush as she looked at Riker shyly.
Riker gave her a crooked smile in return.
“Well, over the last few days Teena has been a little bit… ummm…”
“Psychotic,” supplied Mal.
Ariel winced and then agreed that was accurate. “It has probably been a good idea to stay out of her way. But, the good news is that your bridesmaid dress is here.”
Carrie froze with a mouth full of waffles. Her eyes took on a horrified glint.
“You’re a bridesmaid, babe?” asked Riker in amusement.
She swallowed and nodded. “I was going to be a bridesmaid when this was supposed to be Ariel and Mal’s day, but now that it’s Teena’s day… she never said she wanted me to be a bridesmaid for her.”
“I’m afraid she does,” said Ariel sympathetically. “And me and her sisters; I’m afraid we can’t get out of it.”
“What’s the problem?” said Riker, mildly mystified.
He hadn’t been to a wedding in absolutely years, but he had some idea of what happened there. Weren’t bridesmaids just females who followed the bride down the aisle? What was the big deal?
Mal appeared to be trying to hold back a burst of laughter.
“There’s no problem, really,” said Ariel slowly.
“There is a problem,” grumbled Carrie, “and it’s the dresses she wants us to wear.”
“I’m afraid Teena chose the bridesmaid dresses – even when it was supposed to be my wedding day,” explained Ariel, “and I never got a chance to send them back or tell her how… how… they look…”
“Psychotic,” supplied Mal again, trying to contain his mirth.
“What is that? Word of the day?” groused Carrie, throwing a strawberry at him.
“I was going to say… colorful, but Mal might have a point,” said Ariel. “Plus, we are supposed to be pushing her down the aisle in a large swan-shaped cart.”
“Oh, hell,” moaned Carrie. “What happened to the reindeer and sled idea?”
Ariel winced. “Teena was worried they would do their business on the aisle and it would be a bit smelly.”
“I can see why you opted for a small ceremony,” chuckled Riker, and Mal grinned at him for the first time in days.
“I don’t know why you’re grinning, you’re still a groomsman,” said Ariel to Mal, “and you know what that means.”
“No!” howled Mal.
“I’m afraid so.”
“What does that mean?” frowned Carrie.
“You’ll see,” replied Ariel peaceably. “It’s just one day, and it’s for Teena, and if we don’t do it for her, just remember that not only will she be upset, but she will put you on her enemies list – and that is not a good place to be.”
Riker scoffed, and on seeing that none of them were joking, laughed even harder.
“And also,” added Ariel, “she’ll go out of her way to help you when you get… ummm…” Ariel flushed as Riker and Carrie looked at her. “Not that I’m saying you are going to get… ah… obviously, it’s none of my business… but… Oh, thank goodness!” she exclaimed as her phone rang and she ran out of the room to answer it.
Mal excused himself as his phone rang too, leaving Carrie, Riker, and Mikey alone. Mikey was quiet apart from the sounds of him trying to eat his whole body weight in breakfast foods.
Riker looked at Carrie for her reaction, but she didn’t seem embarrassed or annoyed. Would Carrie consider marrying him? Did he want that? He wanted Carrie and Mikey, so surely marriage was the next step, but he wasn’t sure it was a good thing to jump into it.
“You know Mal has a couple of suits, I’m sure you can borrow one for the wedding,” said Carrie, skipping over the marriage question.
“I have a suit.”
Carrie raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Really?”
“Don’t look so shocked,” he teased. “Yeah, sometimes on hunts I have to go into fancy places, and jeans just won’t cut it.”
“Good. I mean, if you didn’t want to go to the wedding you don’t have to – I have to be there and so does Mikey because we’re herd, but…”
“Why wouldn’t I want to?” he asked in interest.
Carrie hunched her shoulders. “I wasn’t sure that you’d be interested in going to a wedding.”
Riker didn’t reply to that; there was a question in her statement to which he wasn’t sure he had the right answer.
“I’ll need to borrow a tie though. Lost mine when I was on a hunt.” He grinned at the amusing memory. “I was hunting a lynx shifter – she was some female who had killed her boyfriend, and I had her cuffed but the damn cat kept trying to bite me. I had to gag her with my tie. There was no lasting damage but she managed to bite me so many times I was spurting blood everywhere.”
Rather than laughing, Carrie seemed mildly upset by the story, and he realized he had perhaps misjudged his audience.
Riker cleared his throat. “Yeah, the suit is in my luggage.”
Carrie forced herself to smile. “I’ll raid Mal’s wardrobe for a tie. Can you help Mikey finish breakfast and then maybe we can bathe him together.”
“Sounds good, babe.”
He beamed at her as she left the room, but as soon as she did his wolf grumbled uneasily. They hadn’t talked much about his life as a hunter over the past few days, but now he was starting to think that was because Carrie was uneasy with it, and he was starting to see that being a hunter might be a big roadblock to him being with her and Mikey.
*
“Oh, it’s James Bond,” murmured Carrie as Riker appeared from the den. Her reindeer hooted in approval. “You look wonderful.”
As if her fluttering heart needed another reason to adore him. He really did look wonderful. He was always sexy and handsome in her eyes, but in that suit he looked like he was ready to sip martinis and seduce sexy female spies.
“Sure.” Riker grunted with laughter before focusing on her dress. His mouth dropped open.
“It’s certainly eye catching,” murmured Riker with a surprising amount of diplomacy.
Yes, that was one way to describe it. It had pink poofy sleeves, a sweetheart neckline, a bodice decorated with hearts, and a fluffy skirt that was every color of the rainbow. Eye catching was putting it mildly – it could be seen from space.
Ariel, who was wearing a matching dress, smiled. “Teena has quite an eye for color.”
Carrie snorted as she fought to keep the fluffy skirt down. “Yes, and she didn’t want to leave a single one out of the bridesmaid dresses. I think she just chose these monstrosities to make sure no one else upstaged her.”
“Well, a bride certainly doesn’t want anyone else looking more beautiful than her on her wedding day,” said Ariel mildly.
Riker’s lips curled slightly as he looked Carrie up and down. “Perhaps you should stay home,” he rumbled.
Carrie grunted. “So I don’t embarrass myself? Because seriously, I look like a clown!”
“So you don’t upset the bride.” He moved to her and placed his hand on her shoulder; his thumb caressed her collarbone. “Even in that clown dress you’ll still be the most beautiful woman there. You’re the most beautiful woman wherever you go.”
“Oh,” Carrie whimpered. Her reindeer pawed the ground in delight.
“Oh, that was so lovely,” said Ariel sweetly.
Their sweet moment lasted until Mal stomped into the room wearing a kilt. He was holding Mikey – who was also in a mini-kilt and seemed about as pleased as Mal was.
Neither Riker nor Carrie bothered to hold back their laughter, though they did coo over how cute Mikey looked. Ariel, meanwhile, went a little gaga over her mate in the kilt, and suggested he might like to keep it after the wedding… for private reasons. Then there was some talk about a marching band uniform and Carrie decided not to listen to that, and instead replayed Riker’s words over and over in her head.
Chapter Nineteen
The wedding went off without a hitch – unless anyone counted Teena’s sisters wrestling one another for the bouquet, and eventually just wrestling after they had torn the bouquet apart. But anyone who knew them had been expecting it. Mal had complained about his kilt, but Ariel was so complimentary and taken with it that he soon mellowed and just enjoyed himself.
Christmas Day had been a very joyous day. Everyone went overboard in buying presents for Mikey – who seemed completely disinterested in general, and spent the day alternately trying to eat his teddy bear or ripping apart the boxes his toys came in. He would never remember his first Christmas, but Carrie certainly would. Having Riker there made it wonderful, and she was so grateful he had stayed.
He amazed her by even producing a gift for her. He admitted he had Ariel get it for him, but Ariel assured her that he had chosen the item – a locket with a picture of Mikey in it.
They ate Christmas dinner at Ariel’s family home, as they had been planning to do before Riker arrived. Carrie had been a little worried about the alpha family’s reaction to him, but she needn’t have been. Ariel’s brothers had been a little standoffish, but they soon warmed to him, as they had to Mal when he first joined the herd.
Everything had been wonderful – they had felt like a real family. The thought that Riker would leave soon to rejoin the hunters lingered in the back of her mind, but she tried not to think about it.
The day after Christmas, Ariel and Mal were set to leave on their honeymoon.
“We don’t have to go if you need us,” whispered Ariel as she gave Carrie a hug.
“We’ll be fine,” murmured Carrie, “I want you both to enjoy yourselves and finally have a little alone time.”
Truthfully, she wouldn’t mind a little alone time with Riker too.
When Mal came to hug her goodbye, Carrie was quick to reassure him. “You don’t need to worry about us.”
“I know,” he chuckled.
Carrie pulled back and smiled. “You know?”
Mal rolled a shoulder. “You’ve got Riker and you’ve got the herd – I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“Is this just pre-honeymoon happiness, or are you actually starting to warm up to Riker and me being together?”
Mal canted his head. “I have to admit, he’s surprised me. He’s different around you, a lot happier, and a lot more relaxed. I think I might have been wrong about him not wanting to stick around.”
Hoot! Carrie warmed to hear it.
“Plus, I’m glad to see you happy.”
“Thank you,” she whispered and Mal squeezed her shoulder.
They said goodbye to Riker and soon they were waving them goodbye. It was still only 5 am, they were catching an early flight, and Mikey was still in bed.
“So,” started Carrie innocently, “since we have the house to ourselves, and our little guy is still sleeping, what do you want to do?”
Riker grinned wolfishly and she beamed as he pulled her into his arms.
*
“Smells good.”
Carrie quivered as Riker pressed against her back and rubbed his chin on her neck. Increasingly, he touched her more and more – small, intimate touches, a caress here, a kiss there, and every time he did, her heart skipped a beat. If he did it any more she might actually start to worry about her heart.
“It’s just chicken soup for lunch,” said Carrie as she stirred the pot.
“Yeah, that smells good too,” he rumbled in her ear before nipping her earlobe.
Carrie giggled in delight. “Did Mikey go down all right?”
“Yeah, no problem,” said Riker with a chuckle. “I think we wore him out.”
Mal and Ariel were on their honeymoon, leaving Riker, Carrie and Mikey alone. Not that it made much of a difference, though it was a little quieter in the house, and since Mal was gone, Carrie felt more uninhibited knowing that Mal couldn’t hear everything that was going on in the den.
At Carrie’s suggestion, they had visited the aquarium. She hadn’t thought that Riker would be interested, but he had seemed rather keen on the idea of a ‘family outing’ that didn’t involve shopping or a wedding. But, in spite of her concerns that he would be bored, Riker had diligently carried Mikey around the aquarium – since their pup was determined not to go in his stroller, and only wanted to be carried by Daddy – and he had seemed happy and carefree the whole time. Now, she was preparing a late lunch while Mikey napped.
Riker placed his hands on her hips and kissed her neck. She could feel his arousal swelling against her back, and a frisson of desire shot through her body. Oh, she wasn’t sure that a pack of fifty ‘things’ really was going to be enough.
“By the way, your phone beeped a couple of times,” said Carrie nonchalantly.
“Yeah?”
His hands slipped around to her stomach and he rubbed his chin over her shoulder.
“Quite a few times, actually. Could be important,” she said pointedly.
She might have also glanced at his screen and, because she loved torturing herself, she noticed the texts were from someone called Bee, and they were asking him what time he was coming to the bar. So now her beast was all itchy and twitchy because a woman called Bee wanted him to come to a bar.
“Could be.”
Carrie gasped as his hands cupped her breasts. “And ummm, what if, ummm,” she gulped, finding it hard to talk when his hands were massaging her flesh, “what if it’s work, what if they need you?”
His hands stilled. “Do you want it to be work or something? You getting sick of me being around?”
His tone was light and joking, but she noticed a crisp edge to it. Carrie dropped the spoon into the soup and rubbed her back against him.
“No, but I… okay, so I may have glanced at your phone and saw that some woman called Bee wants you to go to a bar. I’m sorry, I was just a bit… ummm…”
“Jealous?” rumbled a frankly delighted voice in her ear.
Okay, everything she was saying wasn’t making her sound any less jealous.
Carrie sagged against him. “I’m so sorry I looked at your phone. I’m not usually so nosy. I promise I won’t do it again, I don’t want to get you into trouble with the hunters for seeing something I shouldn’t.”
Riker chuckled gently. “Babe, my work phone is encrypted and locked in the garage with my weapons. I wouldn’t leave it lying around for Mikey to chew on – I’ve seen what he does to stuffed toys. That phone is one I just keep for personal use – not that I use it much, never really have anyone to call. You can look at that all you want, nothing secret on there.”
Riker moved away and grabbed his phone, holding it out to her. She waved her hand dismissively, already uneasy about how quickly she had started falling into jealous spouse mode. He shrugged before scrolling through his texts. She walked over and leaned on the counter, waiting for him to say something.
His face betrayed nothing. He seemed neither pleased nor annoyed to receive the texts, just unconcerned.
“Fellow hunter’s retiring,” he said flatly. “His girlfriend’s pregnant so they’re mating and settling down. Any hunters nearby are getting together for a drink. They’re in Chicago and Bee heard I was here.”
“Oh that’s…” she faltered. “Isn’t that good news?”
“I doubt he thinks so.”
Carrie raised her eyebrows and he grunted.
“He’s a wolf shifter. His name’s Lucky, well, that’s his nickname, I can’t remember what his real name is. Got that from his first hunt when he was stabbed six times with a silver knife.”
“Oh my god!” Carrie’s hand flew to her mouth. “Did he die? Oh no, of course he didn’t – ignore me.”
“He was sloppy in his hunt – he was not one that I trained,” Riker said severely, “but he survived, so we call him Lucky. I don’t think he’s ever been on a hunt when he didn’t get injured. The guy’s pretty foolhardy about safety.”
Carrie licked her lips, remembering the fresh bruises and scars that Riker sported when they first met. Was he always so battered and bruised when he returned from a hunt? Her reindeer mewled in worry. Mal assured her he was a good hunter – the best according to him – but even the best could be injured.