by Lynn Hagen
The boys rushed to do as Hawk said.
When Hawk exited the gym, he gave Johnny a quick kiss. “Ready to go, pretty baby?”
“Stop making me feel all warm and fuzzy in front of everyone.” Johnny felt himself blush as he stared into his mate’s pretty green eyes. “And we have to take North home first.”
Hawk got to his knees, although he still towered over her. North hid behind Johnny’s leg but peeked around at Hawk as if her curiosity overrode her fear.
“Hi, North,” Hawk said. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Johnny. You’re as cute as a button.”
North wrinkled her nose. “Buttons aren’t cute,” she said. “They’re just buttons.”
Johnny snickered. “She got you there.”
Hawk rose to his full height. “Let’s get going before the snow hits.”
Johnny hated that North wore such a thin coat. He’d already gotten her a doll for Christmas, but maybe he could hurry to the mall later and get her a thicker coat.
“Is the truck still warm?” Johnny asked.
As if Hawk was able to read his mind, he nodded as he looked down at North. “It’s still toasty, pretty baby.”
“I’ll see you later,” Johnny said to Velius, who stood by the door, a toddler in his arms and Amy Beth at his side. Velius volunteered in the daycare room at the rec center where all the babies were. Johnny never went in that room. He was too afraid he’d break one of the babies if he tried to hold them. His friend Kyle used to work in that room until Kyle mated Mack Fargo, one of the town doctors. That had been a year ago, and Johnny still sometimes missed Kyle.
He tapped Amy Beth on her nose. “I’ll see you when you get back so you can finish your picture.”
She smiled up at him. “Okay.”
Still holding North’s hand, Johnny hurried from the center and tucked her into the interior of the truck.
Chapter Two
The snow started to fall in heavier flakes as Hawk drove to North’s house. Johnny could hardly see out the window as his mate navigated the truck over the snow-packed road. He would’ve worried about the driving conditions, but Hawk was the best when it came to driving, so Johnny wasn’t scared.
Not much. There were a few times Hawk had to slow down, but North seemed unfazed by the danger. She sat there quietly, clutching a granola bar Hawk had given her as she stared at all the glowing buttons on the dashboard.
Johnny knew how she felt. Every time he saw them he wanted to press everything. That was one reason Hawk never let him drive. He said Johnny was too distracted by shiny, sparkling, or glowing things.
Hawk made the turn into a short driveway and came to a stop. Johnny squinted at the house that was half-hidden by all the overgrown shrubbery. North’s home was in a sad state, but Johnny wasn’t one to judge. Not everyone was fortunate enough to live in a mansion like he did.
It wasn’t technically his home, though. Maverick owned it. Johnny just lived there with his mate and about forty other guys—including his best friends Keata, Gabby, and Nero.
“We have to walk her to the door,” Johnny said. “We can’t just leave her on the porch like a baby in a basket with a note pinned to her.”
He didn’t want to leave her here at all, but what choice did he have? The house might look like it needed to be condemned, but for all Johnny knew, her parents were the best. He would have preferred living here over living with his brother, Sean, when he was growing up.
For Johnny, it wasn’t the house that made a kid happy. It was the people raising that kid.
“Let’s get you inside.” Hawk unbuckled his seat belt. He opened the door and got out then waited for North to join him. Johnny unfastened her seat belt, wishing she’d been in a booster seat instead. He was all about baby safety, though she wasn’t a baby. Any five–year-old worth their salt would argue that point.
Amy Beth constantly reminded Johnny she was six and three quarters. Not just six. Bobby always said he was seventy-two months. Who counted in months once they hit two? He definitely had “special” kids in his class.
Johnny hopped out, his pink sparkly boots hitting the snow as he closed the door and looked around. This place was very isolated. Did North have friends to play with, or did she have to play by herself? If she didn’t have friends, Johnny was going to the mall and buying her an entire doll collection, along with a tea set.
A little girl couldn’t have baby dolls without a tea set. That was some cosmic rule. He was sure of it. Even though he didn’t know much about girls.
Hawk and North came around the hood of the truck, and Johnny smiled when he saw North was holding Hawk’s hand. But his smile fell when he saw the look in her big blue eyes. She looked scared, like she didn’t want to be here.
Johnny bit his lip and twisted his hands, seconds away from begging Hawk to take her to the Den with them.
Hawk climbed the rickety porch and knocked on the door. The frame seemed to rattle as his knuckles banged against the wood. Johnny hurried to catch up to them. This house was eerie, and he didn’t want to stand by the truck all alone.
“Okay, no one is home. We should take her with us.” Johnny headed for the steps.
“It’s been five seconds,” Hawk argued. “Give her parents a minute to answer the door.”
With a grunt of frustration, Johnny pivoted on his heel and faced the house. As he stood there freezing his butt off, he looked around. There were sheets hanging in the window, and a large gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. The wind gusted past him, and he imagined North lying in her bed shivering.
You just want to take her home. Stop making everything out to be so bad. Johnny couldn’t help it. He had a soft spot for any child who lived in less-than-desirable conditions. If it was up to him, he’d build a big mansion for all the kids in town and let them live there.
He’d actually talked to Maverick about that once, but the alpha had shot down his idea, saying it wasn’t practical. Whatever that meant.
Hawk knocked again.
Johnny hunched down and rubbed his hands up and down North’s arms. “Are you cold?”
She nodded as she clutched the granola bar harder in her red hands.
“This is ridiculous,” Johnny said. “She’s freezing. We should take her home, warm her up, and then bring her back after Christmas.” Christmas next year if Johnny had his way.
Hawk tried the doorknob, and the door swung open. Oh, that wasn’t good. Johnny was ready to grab North and run to the truck. He didn’t like how creepy this felt.
“Hello?” Hawk called out as he stepped inside.
The only reason Johnny followed was to get out of the biting wind. He grabbed North’s cold hand and went inside. The outside of the house might’ve been bad, but the inside seemed cozy.
He shut the door behind him and noticed something nailed to the bottom of the door to keep the draft out. Okay, so North’s living conditions weren’t that bad.
There was a worn, but comfortable-looking couch in the living room, along with a recliner and a coffee table, and an old tube television sitting on a stand. What struck Johnny as odd was the lack of family pictures on the wall. Everyone had family pictures on the wall, right? Also, the dining room table had only two chairs. Where was North’s chair? There was also a lack of toys scattered around.
Johnny’s heart thumped wildly when North clutched his hand tightly, her gaze darting around. What was she so afraid of?
“I don’t like this,” Hawk murmured. He scented the air as his canines descended. “Stay right there, pretty baby.”
Hawk didn’t have to tell him twice. Johnny pulled North closer to him as his mate walked into what Johnny assumed was the kitchen. If the bogeyman jumped out, he was so out of there, and he was taking North with him.
“We have to go,” North whispered to him. “They’ll come back.”
“Who?” Johnny looked from North to the kitchen door. “Who’re you afraid of?”
North pressed her lips to
gether as they stood there and waited. His nerves were wound so tight he felt like the springs in his body were gonna break free at any second. Johnny didn’t hear Hawk say anything. He couldn’t even hear his mate move around.
Worse, the wind outside was getting stronger, rattling the house and making boards creaks. Tree limbs slapped against the roof, but in Johnny’s mind, it was one of Bobby’s robots coming to kill them with pink, sparkly laser beam eyes.
“H-Hawk?” Johnny took a step forward, but North shook her head, her waterfall of inky-black hair fanning around her shoulders.
“You can’t go in there,” she whispered.
“But Hawk might need my help.” He really, really didn’t want to go into the kitchen. Right about now he wished his friends were here. Keata would know what to do. Gabby would scare away the bad guys—if there were any—and Nero would sanitize the entire house, including any ghosts that might be haunting this place.
Wait. That was Halloween. Wrong holiday.
Okay, he would sanitize any eight-foot snowmen that might’ve come to life.
“Are we going in there?” North asked.
Johnny squeezed her hand tightly. Thankfully he had a lousy grip or he might have unintentionally hurt her. “You don’t have any pet snowmen, do you?”
She was the one who lived in a spooky house, yet she looked at him like Johnny was the one with a few loose marbles rolling around in his head. “Ralph didn’t come to life, silly.”
Johnny’s brows shot up. “So you do have a pet snowman?”
She stared intently at him for a long moment and then grinned. “No, I was just fooling you.”
“Okay, fine.” He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We’ll go in there together.”
North ripped her hand free and splayed them in front of herself, shaking them like she was slapping a table with her knuckles. “Are you crazy?” she asked in a loud whisper.
Now Johnny’s curiosity was piqued more than his fear. He had to see what was going on in the kitchen. He just had to.
Too bad Cecil wasn’t here. He would have barged right in, sleeves rolled back and demanding answers. Johnny wished he had a little bit of that bravery right now. He took another deep breath, squared his shoulders, and then marched toward the kitchen.
* * * *
After discovering no one in the kitchen, Hawk looked around and found a door leading to the basement. He couldn’t figure out why North’s parents weren’t home. Maybe they’d headed to the rec center to pick up their daughter when they realized a storm was coming and he’d just missed them on the road.
But no vehicles had passed him.
He stepped through the basement door and hit the wall switch, but no lights came on. Well, this wasn’t the least bit creepy. Hawk had fought all kinds of enemies, from demons to vampires to ghouls and so much more. So why was a darkened basement in a house in the middle of nowhere while a snowstorm raged giving him pause?
He saw perfectly in the dark, so technically he didn’t need the light. Although it would’ve been nice to have.
“Stop being an idiot,” he grumbled to himself. Hawk exuded power and authority, and he was swift and fierce, bringing down pain on his enemies in milliseconds. One dark basement shouldn’t be a problem.
He clomped down the steps and looked around. There was a hot water tank and furnace to his left, a washer and dryer to his right. The walls were made of cinderblock, and large parts of them were moldy and the paint was peeling.
To the right, past the washer and dryer, was a small area that was stacked with tons of boxes, and to the left—beyond the hot water tank—were metal shelves filled with a bunch of junk.
The basement held a dank smell that made Hawk wrinkle his nose. His sense of smell superseded that of a human so the dankness hit him ten times as powerfully.
There were also a lot of bugs down here. He cringed when a centipede crawled near his boot. Okay, so he didn’t like creepy-crawly things. Sue him.
Hawk’s canines descended and his claws slid free when he spotted a shadow past the metal shelving. He moved swiftly around them and grabbed the guy who’d been hiding. “Who are you?” he snarled.
The guy was as short as his mate. His green eyes rounded as he slapped at Hawk’s hand, which was currently curled around the front of the stranger’s shirt.
“I asked you a question,” Hawk snapped. “Who the hell are you?”
The guy squeaked as Hawk rattled him around, trying to get the answer from him.
One minute he’d been holding the guy’s shirt, and the next moment, the stranger vanished into thin air. He simply disappeared. Hawk pivoted on his heel, looking around, but he didn’t see the stranger anywhere.
With a growl he raced up the steps to check on his pretty baby. Hawk burst through the basement door, making Johnny squeal as he pulled North into his arms.
“Don’t do that!” Johnny cried out, his blue-gray eyes wide. “You scared the bejesus out of us!”
Something freaky was definitely going on. Hawk looked around but didn’t see the little guy anywhere, though he noticed some snowy footprints by the back door. “Did you go outside?”
Johnny seemed to recover quickly from his shock. He waved his hand toward the living room. “We just got enough bravery to come into the kitchen.”
“We’re gonna leave a note telling North’s parents where she is.” Hawk looked around for paper and something to write with. No way in hell would he leave her here by herself. Especially with that stranger on the loose. He couldn’t have been her father. North smelled human, and that guy hadn’t.
Johnny dug into his fanny pack and waved a Hello Kitty pen at him. “Here you go.”
The first time Hawk had laid eyes on Johnny, he felt as though his world had righted itself. And that feeling had never faded. He smiled at his pretty baby as he took the pen, grabbed an envelope off the kitchen table, and then scribbled a quick note with their address and Hawk’s phone number.
Using one of the magnets, he pinned the note to the fridge then grabbed Johnny’s hand. “North’ll stay with us until her parents contact me.”
He didn’t like the sparkle in his mate’s eyes. Hawk knew Johnny had wanted a child of his own ever since Cecil had found Khaos. He’d tried to explain to Johnny over a million times that the circumstances had been different and that kids just didn’t drop into your lap.
But Johnny had never listened, and Hawk suspected that was one reason he’d volunteered. To fill a void he felt. And as much as Hawk made his pretty baby happy, he couldn’t give Johnny a child.
It was impossible since they were men. Well, men had given birth, but only because they’d been related to Christian or, in Heaven’s case, experimented on.
He just didn’t want Johnny getting his hopes up where North was concerned. She was a sweet little girl, but she had parents, and she would be returned to them just as soon as Hawk figured out where they were.
* * * *
Snowball looked out the living room window as the wolf shifter pulled away. He could still feel the giant’s claws curled around his shirtfront and could still see the anger in his eyes.
“That was close.” Snowball pivoted around and looked at Peppermint. “You almost ruined our plans.”
“Me?” Peppermint glared at him. “I’m the one who said this was a stupid idea to begin with. I have no idea how you got Santa to agree to this.”
With a twitch of his nose, Snowball produced a white fur chair, which he lounged in. “My plan isn’t dumb. Johnny deserves to be happy. He wanted a child, so we gave him one.”
“Couldn’t we have wrapped her with a bow and stuck her under the tree?” Peppermint placed his hands behind his back as he paced over the worn rug. “Why do you always have to play games?”
“I’m an elf, duh. Games are my specialty. Besides, North has no recollection of her agreement. Just like I planned. She’ll grow up with all the love Johnny can give her. He’ll dote on her.”
&n
bsp; Peppermint had no idea what Snowball had gone through in order to make this happen. Red tape at the North Pole was a nightmare. Once he’d found the perfect person to be Johnny’s little girl, Santa had worked his magic—with North’s written consent—and erased all her memories and given her new ones.
“Yeah, but now cops’ll get involved and an investigation will be conducted,” Peppermint argued.
“And in the end, Johnny gets to keep North. Stop being such a worry wart, you silly goose. I got this covered. Nothing will go wrong. I swear.” He produced a candy cane out of thin air and shoved it into his mouth. “Just sit back and watch my brilliance explode.”
“Or backfire in your face.” Peppermint scowled. “I still say we could’ve gone about this a different way.”
“Like how?” Snowball demanded. “Like leaving her in a snow pile to be found?”
“That wasn’t our doing.”
“I know, but I promise you. My plan will work.” Snowball looked around the house. Before he’d shown up, the place had been nothing more than an empty watershed. He’d had to stop himself from going overboard with the creepy vibe, giving the house just enough to make Hawk and Johnny worry about North’s safety.
“How’s your project coming along?” he asked Peppermint.
“Piece of cake,” he boasted proudly. “I made sure Brady and Harmon’s paths will cross. Now all they have to do is get stuck at Harmon’s house. They’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other.”
In Snowball’s opinion, their assignments had been easy. He simply loved filling Christmas wishes. That was his favorite thing to do. He felt goose bumps race down his arms as he thought of how lucky North would be to have such wonderful parents.
Harmon and Brady also deserved happiness. Harmon had lost his wife and was adrift in life. He needed someone to focus on, someone he could take care of. Harmon was a nurturing bear shifter who felt lost without someone in his life. And Brady? The poor guy. His dad was as homophobic as they came. Brady’s luck with men hadn’t been stellar, and he also deserved to have someone look out for him because that guy’s life was a mess.
