Christmas Night Bear (Silvertip Shifters Books 7)

by J. K Harper

  Wyatt saw Brynna peel her lips apart in a grin that probably wasn't common to natural-born reindeer as she again called out her own happy reindeer cry into the dark. Aw, hell, yeah. This was fun. Really fun.

  Best of all, he could tell Bryn was loving it. Really and truly loving doing what a reindeer shifter did on Christmas Eve. She'd been missing out on this particular holiday joy for way too long, but that didn't matter anymore.

  She'd found her place here. So had Wyatt.

  Together, they were home.

  Kicking out at the sky, his cute mate did yet another little buck in the traces, tossing her head again and again just to hear the bells shivering with little tinkles.

  “Seriously, Brynna, you're being such a newbie at this!” But Alina's tone was playful, sounding as happy as Wyatt felt.

  He laughed. To his surprise, his voice sounded deeper than usual. Huh, that was weird. But sort of neat at the same time. He tried it again.

  “Ha ha ha ha!” His voice echoed into the night, drifting over the cozy houses below.

  “Nah, man,” Thor said. “It goes like this. Ho ho ho!” he boomed, startling Wyatt. The sound of it lingered in the sky, accompanied by the whispering bells on the sleigh as they flew through the night. “It’s Christmas night magic,” Thor said, flashing a grin over his white beard. “You try now.”

  Wyatt felt silly for maybe half a second. But all the reindeer chimed in, encouraging him. Especially Brynna, his sweet, pretty, sexy mate.

  “Come on, Santa! Let's hear it,” she giggled, sounding happier than he'd ever heard her.

  Taking a deep breath, Wyatt did it. “Ho ho ho! HO HO HO!” he bellowed out, getting the hang of it.

  “Yes!” Brynna chortled, excitedly bucking so hard that the sleigh dipped from side to side and her mother scolded her. But they were all laughing, both bear Santas and all the little reindeer.

  Wyatt’s heart practically burst with joy, filled with the certainty that right here in Deep Hollow was exactly where he belonged, side by side with his beautiful mate, his family, and his friends. He was home for good with Brynna by his side, celebrating the most magical time of the year.

  He let pure exultation fill his voice with the joyful magic of the holiday and his wonderful life as he cried out, “HO HO HO! A Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

  * * *

  Thank you for reading this story! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  Want another sweet holiday tale in the Silvertip Shifters series? Grab MOUNTAIN BEAR’S BABY: SHANE. Read on for a sneak peek of it!

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  Be sure to read more Silvertip Shifters:

  Hunter’s Moon: Quentin - Quentin & Abby

  Mountain Bear’s Baby: Shane - Shane & Jessie

  Taming Her Bear: Beckett - Beckett & Pix

  Rescue Bear: Cortez - Cortez & Haley

  Ranger Bear: Riley - Riley & Marisa

  Firefighter Bear: Slade - Slade & Everly

  Superstar Bear: Bodhi - Bodhi & McKenna

  Christmas Night Bear: Wyatt - Wyatt & Brynna

  Turn the page for a sneak peek of MOUNTAIN BEAR’S BABY.

  Sneak Peek! Mountain Bear’s Baby: Shane

  Lips pursed, eyes slightly narrowed in critical assessment, Jessica McMillan reached forward to touch a gentle finger to the shining star on the tree. Almost holding her breath, she pushed it just the tiniest bit to the left. It snuggled perfectly into place at the very top.

  There. Letting out a huge breath of relief, she turned to her friend Livy. "I think it's just right now. What do you think?"

  Livy's shiny dark hair bounced on her shoulders as she nodded. "Definitely perfect. In fact, I think that's the best Christmas tree I've ever seen in my entire life. Without a doubt." She gave another decisive nod. "Absolutely."

  Jessie awarded her friend a sharp look. Livy had never been one for a good poker face. Dissolving into more giggles, she neatly sidestepped Jessie's playful swipe at her shoulder. "Don't mess with me," Jessie protested, although she let herself smile as well. "It's my first Christmas tree in my own place. Like, ever. It's a solemn moment."

  With appreciable solemnity, both women regarded the two-foot-tall tree nestled into a cushion of red velvet atop the kitchen table that doubled as a writing desk and bill holder in a corner of Jessie's tiny apartment. Carefully, Jessie stepped forward to plug the small string of lights on the tree into the wall socket. With a festive little burst, they twinkled to life amidst the deliciously piney scent of the small, needled branches. She sighed with delight as Livy made admiring noises.

  "See? It is perfect. I have everything I need here."

  As if on cue, a slightly outraged wail punctuated her words. With the blissful rush of love that infused her every time her little angel made a noise, whether it was indecipherable baby babble, a loud burp, a rumbly fart, or even the incredibly loud screams when her sweet darling was really hungry, Jessie turned and took the three short strides to the other end of the room. Grant's chubby little legs, extending from his diapered butt, stood firmly by the low table he clung to. He futilely reached his little hands up in an apparent attempt to scale it. As Jessie reached down to pick him up, he looked at her, a small frown slicing across his brow as he once again let out an irritable string of sound, smacking one uncoordinated hand on the table leg.

  Behind her, Livy said, "Wow. It's such a good thing we got you here when we did. That cute little booger is gonna be such a handful. I am so glad we were already friends, Jess. If you hadn't told me what was going on…"

  Jessie, her arms now full of squirming, sweet smelling, very strong and solid little baby, turned toward her friend as she nestled her face into the top of Grant's head and breathed in his sweet baby smell. Her son. Her world.

  Her own little baby bear shifter. Which was the Craziest. Thing. Ever.

  But which also happened to be true.

  Looking at Livy and her suddenly serious expression, Jessie nodded. "I can't imagine what I would've done if I hadn't known you. If you weren't from here." She waved her hand around, indicating the small, cozy little town of Deep Hollow, blanketed under snow outside her apartment. "What about the women like me out there in the world who don't have friends like you? Friends who know about, uh, shifters? What do they do, if this ever happens to them?"

  Brown eyes slightly troubled, Livy stepped forward so she could cootchie-coo Grant's little belly. He loved Livy. Seeming to forget about his battle to climb the table, he giggled and smiled and shrieked up at her with joy. "That sort of situation is really rare. You and Grant were kind of the exception to the rule."

  Jessie sighed. Quickly, Livy caught herself. "I'm sorry. That was insensitive." She didn't stop tickling Grant, who still giggled and squirmed, but she scrunched up her face in an apologetic expression at Jessie.

  With a reassuring smile, Jessie shrugged. "It's been my reality for over a year now. Well, more like two years if you count from when I found out that I was pregnant. It's okay, Livy,” she said gently to her friend, who looked genuinely contrite at having put her foot in it. "You got me here. I have a new family now. Seriously, who could want anything more?"

  Despite the fact that she had at least a ninety percent conviction in her words, what she didn't say hung in stark relief between them.

  The father of her child. That was the only thing more she could ask for. Well, that was an impossibility that was never, ever going to happen. In her experience, families didn't work. She'd accepted it, and moved on.

  Mostly.

  "Come on," Livy said. She brightened. "Let's get your little bundle of joy here dressed up in that cute outfit his auntie Livy got for him. Didn't she get that for him, oh, yes she did, who's the cutest little thing ever, huh?" Her voice took on the ridiculous baby voice babble adults tended to adopt around adorable little, uh, babies. "Because we have a cookie exchange
to go to, don't we, little Mr. Grant baby bear cutie pie. Huh, don't we? We sure do. Even though you can't have any cookies, my sweet little boy. But your auntie Livy sure can, oh, yes, she can."

  Jessie couldn't help but shake her head and smile at Livy as the two of them bundled Grant into the adorable little purple and gray snowsuit Livy had gotten him. Livy said eventually he wouldn't feel the cold nearly as much as humans did. But until he began to shift into his bear form on his own, which should be happening pretty soon since it usually started right around the time shifter kids were a year to a year and a half old, for now he still needed the warmth of as many outer layers as a human would wear. There'd been an enormous snowstorm last night, and although the roads were plowed, it was still easier to walk to Livy's sister's house, where the holiday cookie exchange was happening.

  Glancing at herself in the little oval mirror she'd hung by the front door, Jessie sighed again. Well, it didn't matter that she basically looked like a disheveled new mom. It wasn't like there would be any guys at the cookie exchange, for pete's sake. Livy had said it was a girls' thing. Even if there were any men there, they sure wouldn't look twice at a woman toting around a kid. Single moms weren't exactly in vogue in the dating world.

  Fifteen minutes later, they had Grant swaddled in his snowsuit, diaper bag packed, and the batch of cookies each had baked that morning tucked away into containers they took with them. The second they stepped out into the winter wonderland, Jessie couldn't help but take a deep inhale of the air, pulling the crisp cold and the deep forest scents of the Colorado winter into her. The smell was heavenly.

  With Grant tucked securely against her back in the baby carrier that had been one of the many items the local bear clan—wow, did it still feel kind of funny to be thinking about things like that now—had bestowed upon her when she first came here to live in Deep Hollow with her half-shifter son, Jessie stepped through the thick drifts of snow in front of her door to the groomed sidewalk before it. "You are so lucky you grew up with this," she said to Livy, letting soft envy buff her words. "I grew up with the smell of diesel and oil and dirty big city." Just thinking about it made her wrinkle her nose slightly.

  Livy laughed as they walked down the salted sidewalk. "There are plenty of reasons to leave Deep Hollow.” She ticked them off on her gloved fingers. “Jobs. Men I didn't grow up with since kindergarten. Adventure. You know. The sort of opportunities you can only get in a big city."

  Jessie rolled her eyes at Livy. They had diametrically opposed dreams. She knew Livy yearned for more excitement, but as far as Jessie was concerned, cities were ugly and gross and way too noisy. “I can hardly imagine moving away from this adorable little town.” She shrugged. “It already feels so comfortable to me.”

  “Even after barely a week?” Livy teased.

  Jessie nodded. “I can't really explain it,” she said softly. “Deep Hollow just clicked for me. Besides, it's definitely where Grant needs to grow up.” Grant cooed behind Jessie's head in the backpack carrier, one of his hands tightly catching strands of her hair that popped out from beneath her warm hat.

  Livy nodded without answering. That, she understood.

  A friendly silence held them the remaining block to their destination, although it was filled with Grant's endless nonsensical chatter of delight and what, Jessie decided, had to be some sort of running commentary on their surroundings. His voice warbled along in the cooing word-like noises of babies who weren't quite old enough to speak yet, but who grasped enough of language to understand they would be able to communicate that way.

  As they walked, Jessie took in the holiday-filled scene of the little town, sighing with contentment. For the whole ten days she had been calling Deep Hollow her new home, she been utterly charmed by its mountain feel, the genuine friendliness of the residents, and something else she couldn't quite put her finger on.

  Something that indeed felt like home. Even without Grant needing to grow up here, surrounded by his own bear shifter kind and taught by them, she would have loved this place. She felt more soothed here than anywhere she'd ever lived in her life. Like it had called to her.

  Right now, covered in piles of billowy white snow that sparkled in the sunlight of the clear day, it was even more enticing. The old-fashioned lampposts on either side of the lone main drag as they turned down it were festooned with lights and holiday decorations. Pine trees and several of the homes on Main Street were equally decorated, along with the fronts of every single shop on the way.

  Jessie hadn't known she was a mountain girl before she came here, but now she was in love with everything about it. Some of the funny town stories Livy had regaled her with let her in on some of the small, harmless secrets about the locals, making her feel even more like she belonged here. The people she was already beginning to know made her feel welcome. People like the gracious Clara who owned the post office, Lindsay the bartender/server at the local watering hole called The Tank, and Peregrine, the high school kid who was bagging groceries at the town's sole tiny grocery store full-time during his winter break to fund what he had told her with earnest excitement was a new pair of skis for his younger sister's Christmas present. Jessie knew he was a shifter. She'd yet to work up her nerve to ask how a bear shifter could be named after a bird, but she figured there was an interesting story there.

  Then of course there was Maddy, Livy's sister and the owner of the bakery café where Livy had set Jessie up with a job. It didn't pay much, but it came with the apartment. Maddy was also perfectly happy for her to bring Grant to work since he was such a well-behaved baby, and everyone instantly fell in love with him.

  As they strolled along Main Street, occasionally waving at people on the other side whom they knew, Jessie felt the familiar sense of amazement that just about everyone in town knew that bear shifters lived among them. Livy had told her, with a deadly earnestness that almost scared her, that in general, telling humankind about the existence of shifters just wasn't done. That was pretty obvious, since Jessie had never heard of them in her entire life. Shifters weren't nearly as common as humans in the world, Livy had confided in her. It was a given that if shifters were ever discovered, they'd be dissected to within an inch of their lives. Studied, examined, spirited away to god-awful labs where who knew what would be done to them.

  Humans were pretty good at being scared of what they didn't know.

  Jessie felt fierce protectiveness wash through her again at the thought of anyone ever daring to want to do such a thing to her son. Jessie had not yet witnessed him turning into a bear. But he definitely was going to. She had seen his tiny claws extending and retracting from his fingertips, dreams in which he growled in a low register that no human would naturally do. Once or twice he'd sleepily blinked his little eyes at her and she could see the shadow of his bear within them, romping around somewhere inside her son.

  Seeing his little claws come out two weeks ago had been what finally sent her lunging for her phone to call Livy, almost desperately accepting her offer of a new place to live. A place where Grant could grow up among his own kind, mentored by them in how to be the bear shifter he was. True to her word, Livy and two strapping male friends of hers had hopped a plane from some local private airstrip and flown to Jessie's latest home in Minneapolis, part of her years-long hop, skip, and jump around the country trying to find a good place to settle herself. They gathered up the rather pitifully small amount of her worldly belongings, threw them all into a rental truck, which they had paid for over her strident protest, and driven everything back to Deep Hollow.

  She felt a tiny shiver slip down her back as she recalled the small demonstration they'd given her right as they arrived in Deep Hollow. Just after they entered the town limits, they'd pulled over in the snowy woods off the winding little mountain road. One of the guys from the local bear clan, whom Livy had introduced as Beckett, cheerfully showed Jessie his ability to shift from his human form into an enormous grizzly bear. She'd been ready for it, since Livy had
been prepping her since before Grant was even born. Even so, to see the guy be human one moment, then a giant creature the next, standing there with them as nonchalantly as any person would, had been a stunning experience.

  He'd opened his giant maw and yawned with an impressive show of gleaming sharp teeth—for which he got his shoulder smacked by Livy, who scolded him that he was going to scare Jessie.

  "Wow," was all Jessie's stumbling brain had been able to come up with.

  After a moment, Livy had gone to the moving truck, took Grant out of his car seat, and walked him over to the giant, humpbacked bruin. Despite herself, Jessie had stiffened and automatically reached for him, a protest rising in her throat. But before she could do or say anything, Grant stared at the giant bear, then chortled with glee and excitement as he reached out his chubby little hands. Beckett the grizzly bear had extended his nose forward very delicately, allowing Grant to feel and slap and tickle him without even moving, though he blinked his furry eyelids several times when Grant landed a fairly good one on his snout.

  "Grant knows what he is, Jessie," Livy had said, throwing an understanding smile her way. "Even though he's half human, trust me. He's going to shift, and it's gonna happen really soon. It's a very good thing that he'll be around his own kind full-time," she'd quietly added.

  They were safe here. Jessie again inhaled the scent of the wild, snow-covered woods as they turned down another street and up the walkway of a large Victorian style house nestled back in the trees. "Livy, this is absolutely the best gift I ever got in my life." She smiled happily as they went up the cleared walkway to the large, ornate door of Maddy's house. "I finally feel like I can relax."