The Keepers: Christmas in Salem: Do You Fear What I Fear?The Fright Before ChristmasUnholy NightStalking in a Winter Wonderland (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Heather Graham

  She shivered, unsure whether it was from the weather or her dread of never attaining her dream with Jett. “I’m cold.”

  He pulled the seal skin from his shoulders and draped the pelt over the sleeping bag. With the selkie coat as a cover over their heads, the sleeping bag grew toasty warm. “Now, before I die from longing, kiss me.”

  Unable to resist the man who’d stolen her heart all those years ago, Katie Sue wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body against him.

  “Happy birthday and Merry Christmas, Jett,” she whispered, choking back tears.

  “Ah, Katie Sue...”

  He began kissing her once more, only he’d switched gears from ravenous hunger to a slow, devouring determination, shifting her scarf out of the way, then planting kisses along her jawline, down her neck to the soft skin exposed above the top of her cardigan. He exhaled. The heat of his breath against her skin ignited a fire deep within her soul.

  Jett took one tiny pearl button on the sweater in his teeth.

  “Do you remember how to unfasten buttons?” Katie Sue whispered, teasing, while inside she ached for this magical man who she would not deny—at least not tonight.

  His low laugh rumbled from his chest. “If I remember correctly, buttons work this way....”

  He slid his hand underneath the sweater hem, molding his hot, strong, slightly webbed fingers to her skin as they explored from her stomach upward over her breasts to reach the top button from underneath.

  He hummed in satisfaction. “You’re not wearing a bra.”

  She’d felt deliciously decadent. She’d also touched Jett’s favorite perfume behind her ears. Succumbing to his allure, she grinned, sure that he could see her. “I’m afraid my desire for you outweighs my good sense.”

  “Ah, sweet. What you do for me...”

  Although she couldn’t see him in the darkness, she knew he was keenly watching her face. His knowing fingers caressed her belly, lightly teased her breasts, all the while pressing the length of his need against her.

  Jett’s talent at arousing her was one of the memories that had carried her through all those lonely nights. Feeling him for real once more sent a thrill through her. “Jett...”

  One by one, he released her buttons. With the palms of his hands he peeled her cardigan open. “Shush. Kiss me now. I’m aching for my gift.”

  * * *

  Jett could not believe Katie Sue was wrapped in his arms again. Finally. Her scent strong in his awareness, he’d swum toward this beach—toward her—nonstop for two days. From the moment his feet had left the shore seven years before, he had longed for this hour to arrive. Now here she was, her body against him in this tight cocoon of down, her lips parted, eyes half-closed with need. He didn’t miss the tremor of desire that ran through her now. For the past seven years he’d lived on the memories of how her body reacted to his. How could he continue to miss her for what seemed a lifetime and would only feel worse as the years wore on? While he felt devoted to his heritage, his selkie tribe and their life at sea, since leaving Katie Sue he’d lived simply to return to her embrace once more. Now he was on fire for her and she was talking about leaving him.

  Not on his watch.

  Not ever.

  She was his. He’d claimed her when they were kids. She’d loved him since laying eyes on him. He knew it.

  He knew it.

  All he had to do was remind her of what he meant to her one more time and she would forget the silly notion of leaving him. When she breathed his name, his control slipped another notch. His eyes devoured her beautiful, creamy skin beneath the open cardigan, the tightened pink buds of her nipples crowning those perfect breasts. Resisting the urge to taste the sweetness of her skin, he plundered her mouth. He would kiss those words of doubt right out of her mind.

  A sigh of abandon rose in her throat. He kissed her more deeply, his hands roaming over her familiar beloved body, driving him to want to possess her completely.

  He broke the kiss. “Katie Sue, leaving me is never an option.”

  “Jett...don’t. Just love me. I don’t want to think.”

  When a tear slipped down her cheek, Jett’s chest tightened. Perhaps she thought he couldn’t see her crying, but she knew better. Didn’t she understand? Love was supposed to be wonderful, not cause pain. He would show her the difference. Sliding his hand behind her head, he buried his fingers in her hair. “I love your hair. I love your face, your eyes, your lips.” He kissed her forehead, each eyelid, her cheeks, her chin and softly teased her lips with his own.

  Her scent urged him on. She’d cropped her beautiful hair, but he didn’t mind. The lingering aroma of cinnamon and sugar caught in those honey strands cemented the fact that the season of love was upon them. All the more reason to give each other the gift of themselves as they’d promised to do every time they met. He wanted her naked, like him, as fast as possible. He couldn’t wait a moment longer. He covered her body with his, methodically finishing undressing her in the awkward confines of the sleeping bag, transferring warmth from his skin to hers while the frigid night pressed in on them outside their down cocoon. His kisses trailed down the soft column of her neck. He lingered against her velvet skin long enough to inhale her perfume, only to have the scent drive his mouth back to hers while his body demanded more. Ah, Poseidon, she fit him perfectly.

  While they kissed, the steam of their passion rose, heating their faces and igniting their need even further. She shifted her body closer, wrapping her legs around him, pressing herself fully against him. The heat of her essence, the feel of her thighs, the flat plain of her smooth belly, her breasts and hardened nipples grazing his skin, were more than he could bear. They had been apart for too long. When she caressed his face in the dark and brought his mouth to hers once more, he kissed her with all the passion that was in him.

  She loved him so much that seven long years later, not even the freezing winter evening had kept her from waiting for him, bringing him warmth so they could make love in the cold before greeting any of the others.

  Katie Sue sighed. “Jett, I love you more than I can say.”

  Capturing her hips with both hands as he gently urged her to mate with him, he breathed against her lips, “Then show me how much, Katie Sue. Show me now....”

  Chapter 2

  A gust of wind startled Katie Sue awake. She blinked against the pitch black to get her bearings. She felt so drugged from their lovemaking that it took a moment for her to remember that she and Jett were ensconced within the sleeping bag on the beach. She couldn’t guess the time.

  Jett rose on one elbow. “Why are you shivering? My coat is impervious to the cold, so it should block...”

  He stopped speaking and reached outside the sleeping bag. Alarm filled his voice. “Katie. My coat. Can you feel it?”

  She hurriedly unzipped the sleeping bag and they both scrambled from the down cocoon. Naked, on hands and knees in the cold, they felt around for the precious skin that under any other circumstances Jett would have guarded with his life.

  His selkie coat was gone. Stolen.

  How on earth had someone managed to come so close unnoticed?

  He’d been careless with his precious coat because of her. She’d driven him to distraction with her pleas. Her need. Without his pelt he could never return to the sea. The guilt weighed like lead on her chest. “Oh, God, Jett. It’s not here.”

  He didn’t answer, just quickly dressed in the jeans and fisherman-knit sweater she’d brought, his movements agitated.

  She shimmied into her clothes in the freezing air, aching for the passion they’d shared only moments ago. When she and Jett had met again as teenagers, she’d begged him to stay with her forever. He’d told her how his mother, Miranda, had given her selkie coat to his father as a pledge of her love. Katie’s hopes had risen, only to be cruelly dashed as he shared the rest of his mother’s story. Years later, his father had died unexpectedly without telling Miranda where he’d hidden her skin. She
died of a broken heart from losing her lover and her only way back to the sea, forcing Jett to promise he would never make the same mistake. What a fool she’d been now to hope he might break that promise.

  “Can you light the lantern?”

  He spoke calmly, but she knew he was racked with turmoil. Within seconds the small area around them was illuminated.

  No selkie skin anywhere.

  “What the Devil?” He raised his face into the air. “Do you smell that?”

  Katie Sue took a breath, noticing sand, seaweed and salt water. “All I smell is ocean.”

  “No. Wood smoke. Pepper. Flint.” He sniffed some more. “Leather.”

  Their gazes locked in the lamplight. As a Keeper, she had an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach, because she knew what Other possessed that scent, but she didn’t dare say the word out loud.

  Jett did. “A shapeshifter.”

  Shapeshifters were one of the few paranormal species that posed a danger to selkies. Selkie pelts could be used to create powerful potions to enhance shifter abilities. While universal law stated that shifters would not prey on selkies, the occasional renegade broke the law, damning a selkie to an abbreviated life. In almost all cases, unless a selkie had a binding emotional tie to a human, a selkie stranded on land against his or her will perished from heartbreak. That made stealing a selkie skin tantamount to murder.

  Katie Sue slipped into her coat, but that didn’t stop Jett from wrapping them both in the sleeping bag. “I can smell his trail. Let’s find the bastard before it’s too late.”

  “Jett, he’s a shapeshifter.”

  “He can hide himself, but not my skin. The wind is picking up. Hurry, or I’ll lose the scent.”

  She matched his pace across the beach. Without so much as a star to light the night sky, and lacking his dark-adapted vision, she moved blindly within the small circle of light from the lantern.

  She whispered, “A shapeshifter hasn’t violated a selkie here in decades.”

  Ignoring her, he said, “What is with this blasted blackness?”

  The curse was beginning to affect him now, too. She wanted to help him understand how the darkness could turn one’s thoughts to turmoil. “The darkness may have spurred the shapeshifter to steal your coat.”

  “Whether it did or didn’t, I’m not going to let my coat become ashes so some shifter can create a potion.” He led the way toward a path into the woods on a low cliff above the beach. “This way.” Then he stopped abruptly, facing the breeze. “He’s gone. I lost the scent.”

  He turned to her and for the first time absolute horror filled his eyes. “If he burns my coat...”

  He would be stranded. Human forever. Hers.

  And nothing but torment reflected on his face.

  Her heart sank in more than just sympathy for the only man she would ever love. His look said it all. He would never abandon the sea. She had to let him go. He would never be completely hers. The call of the sea was too great.

  She laid a hand on his chest, determined to aid her lover despite her own pain. As a Keeper, she was obligated to do what was right for Jett. She could cry a woman’s tears later. “Let’s get back to the house. We’ll call my cousin June. She’ll know if a new shifter has settled in Salem.”

  Once at her home, she sat Jett before the roaring fire in the hearth, but his shivers increased. She wrapped her arms tight around his waist and tried to swallow the knot in her throat. His warm, strong arm draped over her shoulder with such familiar comfort that tears threatened once more. She swallowed hard. With his words earlier and his reaction now, Jett had given her the answer she sought. She would never be his first choice. It had been foolhardy to indulge hope for a life with Jett, since she’d always known his lineage would take precedence. They could part as friends, and he would never be the wiser as to how completely her heart was breaking.

  Part of her believed she should be glad that Jett might be stranded. With no skin, he couldn’t leave. But that knowledge left her empty. If he stayed with her, she would know for the rest of her life that he was only there because he had lost his way back to the ocean. That knowledge would slowly decay the precious love binding them. She pushed the thought from her mind. This horrible situation needed to be resolved. Her own dreams didn’t matter at this moment. Jett’s happiness did. After her husband had died, his mother had perished quickly without access to her selkie skin. With all her love for Jett, Katie could never want the same for him.

  Oblivious to Jett and Katie’s crisis, the boys who lived in Montgomery Home were busy preparing for the Christmas Eve celebration at Sam’s. Katie Sue’s cousin Samantha Mycroft, who was the unofficial Keeper of the Keepers in Salem, held a traditional Christmas Eve party at her family’s colonial home every year. Bridgette, the housekeeper and cook for Montgomery Home, scurried behind the boys, barking orders with an Irish brogue that made even her sternest command sound pleasant.

  Katie Sue’s brother, Kenny, in a fisherman sweater and buff-colored suede jeans and boots, his long brown hair tied back, joined them at the fire. His frown reflected his concern. Their father had passed away several years ago and Kenny took his role as patriarch seriously. That included Jett. The two men had grown up together and felt a strong brotherly affection.

  Katie Sue told her brother what happened, skimming over why they’d fallen asleep on the beach, wrapped in a sleeping bag. Katie and Jett’s love for one another was no secret in Montgomery Home, even though their relationship wasn’t exactly condoned.

  “I’ll ask Vaughn Griffith to come here instead of us all going to Sam’s. If anyone can track a shapeshifter, Vaughn can. By bringing him here, we won’t have to disturb her guests...yet.” Kenny rubbed his chin, thinking. “We still have time, but not much. You know a shapeshifter has to do a prolonged ritual before actually igniting the coat to create a potion.”

  Jett shook his head, his jaw tight. “If he tattoos the skin with his markings before...”

  Katie hugged him close, sharing her strength. “He won’t. We’ll get it back first.”

  Kenny shot her a concerned look when he saw her pull Jett close. Jett might be his friend, but Katie knew he shared the family’s concern over her attachment to Jett—not only as Keeper of the Selkies but because of the way it had stunted her personal life for so many years.

  Kenny had gone so far as to remind her at breakfast this morning to rethink her commitment to Jett. He, Christina, Sam and June had already discussed whether or not Katie should relinquish her position. No Keeper could show favoritism toward one charge over another. Her love for Jett could sway her decisions in the long run.

  Her family wanted her to be happy, but they weren’t convinced that Jett could give her what she truly needed in a life partner, especially if she forfeited her position as Keeper in order to protect the romance. Katie rebutted their concerns and said that she had no intention of stepping down. She argued that rules could be amended. That her love for Jett would not deter her from attending to the rest of the selkie population, and that with Jett beside her, she would actually have greater insight into the needs of her charges.

  Hearing them give voice to her own fears had simply reinforced her knowledge that she had to make a decision—soon. Now, though, it didn’t matter. Jett would no longer be hers. Once he reclaimed his coat, entered the sea and became a selkie again, he would stay that way forever. She could keep her precious Keeper status with no fear of recrimination. That would have to be enough.

  Chapter 3

  The front door opened. “Bah, humbug! I’d like to get my hands on the idiot who cast this darkness spell.”

  Bridgette’s voice rose from the hallway. “Well, Merry Christmas, Juniper Twist. Why are you frowning while wearing the prettiest green velvet coat I have ever seen?”

  “Oh, stuff it, Bridgette. Where is Katie Sue? And what trouble has she caused now?”

  Bridgette’s voice trailed off as she ascended the stairs. “Well, happy solstice to y
ou, too, Miss Witch.”

  Katie Sue and her brother exchanged glances. Juniper— or June, as everyone called their cousin—had left Salem eight years ago to train as Keeper of the Witches, a role she’d openly expressed she didn’t feel ready to inherit. She’d only been back for two weeks, forced to return after the death of her uncle, who’d been Keeper before her. Though they had all grown up together, Katie suspected that, given the choice, June never would have come back to Salem. She’d been burned in love and had shaken the dust of her hometown from her boots when she left. She’d returned only reluctantly to assume her uncle’s role as Keeper, and to take over the family bookstore in town, Twists & Tales.

  “We’re in the parlor, June,” Katie called.

  June blew into the room looking like a petite fashion model. “Jett. Happy birthday. It’s been a long time. My, you’ve grown.”

  Jett grinned in response to June’s teasing. “I think we were fourteen and I ate all your Christmas pudding.”

  She waved a hand. “Hate the stuff anyway.” She tossed her coat on a chair before sitting down. June’s green dress, inset with fine lace around the neck and bodice, matched her coat, while her black boots looked like something a rock star would wear. Katie admired not only June’s spirit but her style.

  Pushing an errant lock of black hair off her face, June leaned in to speak quietly. “Vaughn told me what’s going on, and I’ve checked with the four shapeshifters registered in Salem. I trust each of them implicitly. None of them would have done you harm, Jett. And none of them know of any other shifter who’s come to town for any reason. What else could it be?”