Rabbit Creek Santa

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  "Come on," he said to her, "There's people on the porch waiting for us." He picked up the diaper bag that had fallen to the ground and started for the house. Lindy was a few steps behind him.

  Damn it to hell! What had he done that was so wrong? Why wouldn't she talk to him? She was fine when he left her that morning. She'd been soft and warm. Now she was cold and hard. What could have happened in two hours' time?

  "Watch your step," he called over his shoulder as he skirted around a slushy spot on the gravel drive.

  "I'm not blind," Lindy snapped.

  "Yes she is," Travis told Joey, who was now content and enjoying the ride. "Blind as a fucking bat."

  "Fuck," Joey said clear as day.

  "Aw shit," Travis muttered as he winced. That's all he'd need, another reason to piss her off. "You can't say that, buddy okay?"

  Joey nodded as if he understood.

  "Sit," he said and grinned.

  Marshall stood on the porch watching his mate's handiwork trudge up the drive. Neither of the pair looked happy. "Looks like there's trouble in paradise," he said to his mate. "I told you this was asking for trouble. We need Travis at the mill. I don't want him runnin' off to where he came from because of your meddlin'."

  Lizzie tucked her hand under Marshall's bicep and pressed her face against it while she squeezed. "They'll be fine."

  "I mean it, Lizzie," he warned in his Alpha voice. "Eugene Begley finding someone with that wolver's skills was pure luck. We'll never find another like him. I won't have you jeopardizing the pack with your games."

  Lizzie looked up at him with a dangerous look in her eye. "Is that what our courtship was to you? A game? Because let me tell you, Mr. High and Mighty Alpha, from my perspective there was a whole lot of unsportsmanlike conduct going on." Then she giggled, her anger gone as quick as it came. "And look how well it turned out. The course of true love never did run smooth," she quoted.

  "Shakespeare's not gonna get you out of a good hidin', you lose me my machinist."

  "Threats, threats," she laughed and nudged him in the ribs, whispering, "If you don't want to lose a machinist, do your part." She turned to the approaching pair. "Hey, Lindy, good to see you. Did you two come together?"

  Daggers shooting from her eyes, Lindy answered, "Yes, Miz Elizabeth," before she marched into the house.

  Lizzie could almost hear the snarl in the girl's voice and no one except the cubs called her by the honorific Miz. She followed her into the house, calling, "Lindy, wait!"

  Marshall raised his eyebrows at Travis.

  "All due respect, Alpha, but next time you need a Santa? Ask someone else."

  "That bad, huh?"

  Travis shrugged.

  Joey said, "Fuck."

  Marshall closed his eyes and started to laugh. He put his arm around Travis and walked him to the door. "I know that didn't come from her mouth. No wonder you're in deep, ah, stuff."

  "She hasn't heard it yet," Travis admitted, "But it doesn't matter. After today, I'm done."

  "Done with her or done with us?"

  "Done with her," Travis said, but then corrected because Marshall was his Alpha, "No, she's done with me."

  It was easy to see the man was angry, but Marshall also saw his misery. Lizzie was going to hear about this. She had to know this wasn't 'no harm done'.

  "Come on out back, Travis. Let me get you a beer and introduce you around."

  Chapter 7

  As often happened at Rabbit Creek gatherings, a group of men had congregated in the barn, sharing a sip of Roy Cramer's latest batch of old fashioned Applejack, a cold weather hobby he'd acquired years back when a container of hard cider accidentally froze on the back porch.

  When the ice was repeatedly scraped away, the cider became concentrated into a type of brandy that normally was too sweet for some tastes, but had become a Christmas tradition.

  After exhausting the subjects of hunting, car troubles, poor luck at poker and solving the current government troubles, the conversation turned, as it sometimes did, to women troubles.

  "Say there, Travis, thought I saw your truck turning into the little widow's place last night," one of the men said.

  "I was running an errand for the Mate," Travis said evasively. He kept glancing out the window of the barn toward the house. Where was Lindy?

  "Musta been some errand. Went by there early this mornin'. Had to pick up Misty's mother so she could see the pups open presents," the man said as an aside. "Didn't see no tracks comin' out."

  "It's not what you think." Wouldn't you know it? He'd seen two cars on the way up to Lindy's and one of them had to be this one.

  "Oh, we ain't thinkin' nothing, wolver," George snickered. "We're just glad you're makin' yourself t'home." He toasted Travis with his plastic cup and a few others joined him.

  "Thanks, but you can save your toasts. There's nothing there," Travis told them, hoping that would be the end of it. It wasn't.

  "Then what's with the little feller?"

  Roy pointed to Joey, who was crawling over the barn floor, probably tasting things he shouldn't, but none of the men seemed to mind. Sensing he was being talked about, the pup looked up and grinned.

  "Fuck," he said brightly and when the men laughed, he said it again.

  "Joey, no!" Travis admonished sharply, picking the boy up and brushing the straw from his little red overalls. "One more thing she'll hold against me," Travis muttered.

  "What else does she have against you, son?" This was the Alpha. Travis had no choice but to answer.

  "I wish to hell I knew."

  When Joey grinned from where he was balanced on Travis' hip, Travis raised his finger. "Don't say it, son."

  Joey laid his head against Travis' chest. "Piyo," he whispered in a pitiful baby voice.

  Travis stroke the boy's head and smiled, but he didn't let his amusement filter into his voice. "Yeah, I know. You're a good pup," he said firmly, "but you keep saying those words and you're going to be in trouble right along with me."

  The men were watching this exchange closely. A few nodded.

  "You're treating that pup like he was your own." Roman, who wasn't much of a talker, said what the others were thinking.

  "I feel like he is. I feel like his mama is, too," Travis admitted. "How weird is that? I just met them last night. This morning at breakfast and then watching her play with Joey while he opened his gifts, I felt like I was supposed to be there, like they were mine, like she was mine."

  "That's your wolf talking, son. He knows what he wants when he sees it," Marshall told him. "You can't always act on it, but in this case, I don't see why not."

  "She's why not." Travis tried to explain what happened. "Her wolf is right there with mine. I'm sure of it, but Lindy's running scared and I don't know why. I didn't want to jump her," he said, but when some of the men snickered, he shrugged and laughed. "Okay, I did, but I thought it might scare her off. I was trying to do the right thing, okay? The Mate sent me up there to play Santa, not to… you know."

  Marshall coughed and turned his head away.

  Henry, the Alpha's Second and cousin who also lived in the Alpha's house, sucked in his cheeks. "Maybe she was wanting you to make your move and you didn't. Women can be funny like that. Maybe you should have made your intentions known."

  "Yeah, listen to Henry. It's only taken him what, three, four years to make his intentions known," George laughed. "Hasn't yet, as far as I know."

  "Lucy's agreed to run with me tomorrow night. I'm asking her when we get back," Henry said, turning beet red when the men around him snorted. "It's not easy, you know. I've been looking for a place up here. I can't ask her to move into Marshall's."

  "Don't see why not? She's decorated the whole place. She works at Home Depot," Marshall explained to Travis and then he scratched his chin. "We might be able to solve both your problems." He looked around at the men gathered in the barn. "Anyone mentions this to the Mate and I will personally strip the hide from your wolf." />
  He went to the barn door which was cracked so they all didn't die from Roy's cigar smoke and spied Max on the back porch of the house. He called her over and handed her Joey along with his coat and sent her back to the house.

  "No spies," he said as he closed the door. He turned to Travis. "Just this once, I'm going to break my rule about giving advice to the lovelorn. Lizzie and I almost lost each other because we were each making assumptions that had no basis in fact. I jeopardized this whole damn pack, because I didn't follow my wolf and pin my woman down…" Literally, on the stairs, if he remembered correctly."…and make her tell me what her problem was. Now I'm ordering you as your Alpha, to stop looking out that damned window and go find that girl. Quit pussyfooting around and lay it out. Make her tell you why she's not following her wolf." He clapped Henry on the shoulder. "This works out, we'll have a house available come February first when Travis' lease is up. Lucy'll have a whole new place to decorate."

  Travis stood there, looking at the floor.

  "Move it, wolver. You're wasting precious time," Henry urged.

  "Now he's in a hurry," someone said.

  "What if there's another wolver in the picture," Travis said, ignoring the laughter. "She keeps talking about some wolver named of GW, who keeps coming by when he has time." He sneered the last words. "If he loved her, he'd make time."

  "You got that right, son," Marshall said with a straight face, "You need to make sure she knows it, too."

  "Why I heard he's parkin' his shoes under some other woman's bed," Roy added. "It's a shame him treatin' a good woman like that. You go show her who's the better wolver."

  "You go on now, Travis. Show her what your wolf is made of."

  Travis nodded and headed out the door.

  "That was plum mean," Roman said, laughing. "Poor GW's takin' the blame for something he didn't do. Any of that Applejack left?"

  "GW can take it," Marshall said. "It's for a good cause. Pass that jug, will ya?"

  *****

  Lindy searched the house for Maggie and finally found her in the kitchen with a half dozen other women around her kitchen table. The table along with every available inch of counter space was loaded with plastic bowls and foil covered platters awaiting their turn at the already overflowing dining room table.

  "Thank you for inviting us, Maggie, but we can't stay," she said quickly.

  "Well now, looks to me like you just got here. Ain't had time to get your coat off and you look like you could spit nails. Sit yourself down here and tell me who in my house said something to set you off like that." Maggie nodded at the empty chair one of the women had just vacated. "Come on now. Take your coat off and set a spell. Tell us all about it."

  "I can't, Maggie, please. I just want to go home. I - I need a ride."

  "How'd you get here? You sure didn't walk in them high heeled shoes." Maggie turned to another young woman at the table. "Don't know how you get along in them shoes without breakin' an ankle."

  Gwenna, who hailed from a pack in Wyoming, stuck a long shapely leg out to show off her four inch heels. "George says they're a nice change from my cowgirl boots."

  "I'll just bet he does," Ruby laughed and wiggled her grey eyebrows. "He ask you to wear 'em when…"

  "Will you get your mind out of the gutter and pay attention to the subject at hand?" Maggie said in her no-nonsense voice.

  Lindy saw Gwenna nudge Ruby with her elbow. She winked and nodded.

  Ruby slapped the table. "I knew it! I gotsta get me some of them."

  "Ruby Taylor, you're as old as Methuselah. Ain't nobody goin' to notice you in them high heeled shoes 'cept to call you a damn fool," Maggie sputtered and then she laughed. "Besides, everyone knows once Burt takes them glasses of his off, he can't see worth nothin'. You'd be wastin' good money." She turned back to Lindy. "Well? Who brung ya?"

  "Travis McCormick," Lindy said, giving up and handing over her coat.

  "He's that new wolver come to work at the Mill," another woman said.

  "We all know that Harmony."

  "He brung ya, he's the one to take you home," Maggie told her and the other women nodded in agreement until she added, "Lessin' he done somethin' he hadn't ought."

  How could she answer that? He shouldn't have made her heart beat again? That was her wolf, not him. He should have refused the Mate, who probably had the Alpha backing her up? Lindy shook her head.

  "Well, then…" Maggie began.

  "What happened," Elizabeth interrupted quietly from the door. As she wended her way through the house in her search for Lindy, a dozen wolvers had stopped her to wish her a Merry Christmas.

  "You happened," Lindy snapped, forgetting who she was talking to. "How could you? How could you order him to do that to me?"

  "To do what?" Elizabeth asked, looking confused.

  "Don't you dare deny you sent him. Don't you dare!" Lindy cried. This was where the real blame lay, not with Travis, but with this woman. "Who do you think you are?"

  "That's your Mate. That's who that is and you'd best not forget it," Maggie said, and if Lindy hadn't been so concerned with her own pain and hurt she would have heard the steel in the old woman's voice.

  "A good Mate wouldn't do that!" Lindy turned on Elizabeth. "I'm not some charity case!"

  Elizabeth looked stricken. What had the wolver said or done to this girl? She only sent him to deliver gifts, hoping they'd get to know one another.

  "Sweetie," she started to say, but Maggie's hands slamming down on the metal kitchen table drowned her out and made everyone jump.

  "You are a charity case! You've been our charity case for nigh on two years!" she snapped.

  "I don't want your charity. I don't need your charity. Joey's fine. We're fine. I'm fine." Lindy snapped back.

  "No you ain't. You been holed up in that little house of yourn for two years feelin' sorry for yourself, takin' our charity and givin' nothing back."

  Horrified, Lindy looked around the table and saw no one who disagreed. She looked to the Mate, who shrugged and nodded sadly. "I should have told you this myself."

  "Don't you go taking this all on yourself, Elizabeth, we've all been a part of it," Gwenna said from the corner.

  "B-but you told me. You said that's what this pack does. You make small sacrifices," Lindy stuttered and started to cry.

  "We make small sacrifices for each other. Each other. You seemed to have missed that part, though I've said it each and every time," Maggie said, sounding not quite as angry as she'd been. "Pass that box of tissues over here, Harmony. Lindy's in need of some mopping up."

  Harmony passed the box with a sad, but understanding smile. "I been in that seat you're in. Hurts, but it gets better."

  Lindy didn't see how it could. People she thought were friends hated her.

  "We been waiting for two years for you to give something back," Gwenna said gently.

  "I don't have anything to give," Lindy said. She could barely make her bills. She could say she and Joey were all right all she wanted. They couldn't make it without the kindness of others.

  "You've been comin' to my house once a month for Sunday dinner and I've enjoyed havin' you and that cub of yours is something else and you always say thank you and go on home," Maggie said, "How many times have you invited me up to your place for a cup of tea and a cookie. You pick Joey up from Max's five days a week. You say thanks, but do you ever offer to watch little Bitsy of a Saturday night so she and her mate can go out to a movie? Sally Ann runs you up a pie from the Dizzy Dish every so often. You say thanks, but do you ever open your door and ask her in to share a slice? You don't come to our gatherins'. You don't run when the full moon calls. Small sacrifices include your time and your concern, Lindy, and you don't give nobody the time o' day."

  "I-I don't feel like I fit. I-I'm different," Lindy sniffled.

  "How, sweetie, how are you different?" the Mate asked gently and raised a warning finger when Maggie would have spoken.

  This was something Eliza
beth knew about the young woman, but never understood. She'd asked over and over, but Lindy would always say, 'Joey's fine. We're fine. I'm fine.' Maybe she would tell them now.

  "I'm a young widow. I don't fit with the unmated, because I have Joey," Lindy began and it all came pouring out; how lost and alone she felt, how she no longer knew where her place was in the pack.

  "Well, hell," Ruby laughed when she'd finished. "That's an easy one. You belong with all of us. It's true," she said belligerently when Maggie frowned at her simple answer, "Look around this table. We got old." She flicked her thumb at Maggie. "That's her, not me. We got young. We got some with pups, young and grown. We got some without pups, not now nor in the past." This time she reached for Maggie's hand and squeezed it affectionately. "Harmony here's our widow, though I heard tell she's seeing some bookkeeper from over the mountain." She winked at Harmony.

  "He's an accountant, I'll have you know and it was supposed to be a secret, Ruby."

  "If you wanted it a secret, then you shouldn't have told Ruby," Gwenna laughed.

  "It wouldn't matter anyway. Not in Rabbit Creek," Elizabeth laughed and squeezed Lindy's shoulder. "You're the only one who's managed to keep one from us and it's one you shouldn't have kept.

  "I'm still new at this myself," the Mate went on, "so I can't speak to how it is in other packs, but in Rabbit Creek, you'll find a place if you'll just let us in."

  "You won't fit with all of us all of the time. Gwenna don't ask me and Roy to go dancin' down at the Blue Moon Saloon, but that don't mean we can't talk about what we got in common. We got no room for lone wolves here. Next time someone comes knocking, you answer the door. You hear me?" Maggie beckoned to Gwenna. "Why don't you totter off on them high heeled shoes and get our Lindy here something to eat."

  "I brought cookies," Lindy sniffed. "It's not much and I left them in Travis' truck."

  Maggie passed her another tissue. "There you go. Cookies are always welcome, but they'll not do anybody any good sittin' in Travis' truck."