by Lynn Hagen
“I can take her,” Johnny said. “Please.”
Hawk sighed. “Fine.”
Johnny smiled and gave Hawk a kiss on his cheek—after Hawk bent in half to meet his mate’s lips. “Thank you.”
A spark flared in Johnny’s blue-gray eyes, which told Hawk he would be rewarded later for caving in.
Yep, he was a sucker for that smile and would give his little guy anything he asked for just as long as he never stopped looking at him that way.
* * * *
Johnny led North to the kitchen where George was already making breakfast. But he wasn’t the only one in the room. Cecil and Blair sat at the island, eating some snacks. When Johnny walked in, Cecil turned and eyed North.
“Don’t tell me we found another kid in the snow.”
Johnny beamed as he waved a hand at North as though she were on display. “This is North Star. She’s gonna be staying with me and Hawk on account of her parents not being home and her house being spooky.”
“Spooky?” One of Blair’s brows arched. “Like in a haunted house?”
Johnny led North to a stool and helped her climb onto it. He petted her hair and gave her a warm smile before he narrowed his eyes at Cecil. “No getting her into trouble.”
Cecil widened his eyes as he pressed his hands against his chest. “Why am I always the bad guy?”
“Because you’re always the bad guy,” Blair mumbled. He tucked strands of his hair behind his ear as he smiled at North and held up a cookie from the plate in front of him. “Want one?”
North shook her head and looked around the kitchen, and then her gaze landed on George. Johnny saw her tiny nostrils flare as she inhaled the savory scents in the kitchen. She had to be hungry. Snacks at the center were all she’d had yesterday, and it was the next morning. As soon as they’d brought her home last evening, North had complained of a stomachache. Johnny had taken her to a guest bedroom and she’d slept through the night. He was glad she was feeling better or he would’ve taken her upstairs to the resident doctor.
No one liked going to the doctor, even if one lived with them.
“She doesn’t talk much,” Johnny said. “And don’t try and make her. She’s a really sweet girl, and I don’t want her to be scared.”
All three jumped when the plate of cookies magically slid toward North. No one had pushed them or picked them up and handed them to her. The plate had slid on its own.
“Did you do that?” Johnny asked.
North picked up a cookie and began to munch on it. She smiled at him. “Can I have something to drink?”
“Isn’t she one of your students?” Cecil asked as he eyed her.
“Her mom and dad didn’t pick her up when the center closed for the storm.” Johnny went to the fridge and grabbed a container of juice. “We tried to take her home, but no one was there.”
“Sounds mighty mysterious to me.” George crossed the room and stuck out his hand. North simply stared at it. “Hey, cutie.” He let his hand fall away. “Don’t go eatin’ a bunch of cookies. They’ll spoil yer appetite.”
“Is anyone going to address the fact that she just slid those cookies to her?” Blair asked. “What kind of nonhuman is she?”
Johnny looked her over. As far as he knew, she was just a little girl. She’d never shown any powers before. He glanced at her ears but didn’t see any points at the end of them, so she wasn’t an elf. He didn’t know any shifters who could use their mind to move things. As far as he knew, vampires couldn’t do that, either.
At least his friend Gabby hadn’t been able to do that neat trick.
Could she be a demon? Johnny knew from his time in the demon realm that demons had special powers. Maybe that was what she was.
“Stop interrogatin’ her.” George slapped Blair on the arm with his spatula. “She’s just a kid, that’s all.”
“Okay.” Blair rubbed his arm. “No need to get violent.”
“My mate’s getting violent?” Tank asked as he strode into the kitchen, snatching a beefy paw full of cookies from the plate. “What’d you do to deserve that?”
“I asked a simple question,” Blair said, defending himself.
Tank looked North over. “Hey, you’re from Johnny’s art class, right?”
“Her name is North Star,” Johnny said proudly. He really did love that name now.
North slid from her stool and stood in front of him, her head all the way back so she could stare up at him. Tank hunched down, but that still made him tall as heck. When Tank held out his hand, North shook it.
“What am I, chopped liver?” George grinned. “My mate always has a way with the ladies.”
Johnny snickered, but his smile fell when Tank lifted North off her feet and planted her on his shoulders. “Careful!”
“I ain’t gonna drop her,” Tank said. “I’m just giving her a ride.”
Johnny squeaked when Tank walked from the kitchen, stopping long enough to duck down when they reached the kitchen door. He took off after them, terrified North would fall to her death.
Tank was six feet seven, after all. What if she couldn’t get enough oxygen up there? “You have to put her down.”
Tank stopped in the hallway, his large hands holding on to her tiny legs. “Do you want down, North?”
“Me next!” Keata said as he hurried toward them and jumped up and down. “I wanna ride, too!”
Any other time, Johnny would be just as excited to get a ride on Tank’s massive shoulders, but North looked so dang tiny up there.
She shook her head, and Johnny’s heart melted when she smiled. “I like it up here.”
“No fair.” Keata stomped his foot. “I wanna ride.”
“Later, kitten.” Tank ruffled Keata’s hair. “North is new here, so we have to make her feel welcomed.”
“By having her fall to her death?” Johnny circled Tank, his arms out, ready to catch her if she fell from those great heights. As tall as Tank was, there should’ve been clouds around his head.
“What’s all the ruckus?” Maverick asked as he sauntered toward them. His light gray eyes lit up when he looked at North. “Well, aren’t you a pretty one. I’ve been hearing all kinds of things about you.”
Johnny stabbed a finger at Tank. “Make him put her down.”
“But she doesn’t want to get down,” Tank argued. “Five more minutes, Ma.”
Johnny scowled as he folded his arms over his chest. Where was Hawk when he needed him? He was tempted to kick Tank in his leg, but he didn’t want Tank dropping her.
Maverick gently squeezed Johnny’s shoulder. “She looks like she’s having fun.”
Johnny stuck out his lower lip. “But I’m the one supposed to be giving her the fun.”
He was a bit jealous that Tank had been able to make her smile while Johnny had struggled just to be friends with her. She’d barely spoken a word in art class, yet she was giggling while riding Tank’s shoulders.
“I swear I’m not gonna drop her,” Tank said right before he rushed up the steps to the second floor, North squealing with delight while Johnny felt a heart attack coming on.
Keata took off after them, clearly wanting a ride when North was done. Johnny groaned and stomped after them, ready to use his godfather skills to whack Tank if he didn’t give North back.
* * * *
“She’s fitting right in,” Lewis said as he joined Maverick at the base of the steps. “I think Johnny’s gonna smother Tank in his sleep if he doesn’t give her back.”
Maverick turned to face Lewis, worried Johnny would suffer a nuclear meltdown when North had to finally go home. “Did you find out anything?”
Lewis had an iPad in his hand. Maverick remembered when police work involved writing things in a small notebook, but now everything was electronic technology. There were times when he missed the simplicity of the old days before electronics had taken over everyone’s lives.
Unless he played games on his phone or did some online ordering. Then he wa
s glad for it.
“It’s the oddest thing.” Lewis looked the tablet over. “I can’t find any residents with the last name Star. North isn’t in the school system, but that might not be a cause for alarm. She’s only, what, five? Maybe she starts kindergarten next fall, but still, there should be a record of her somewhere. I even checked with the clinic, and Dr. Sheehan said he doesn’t have a file on anyone named North Star, and the guy has a file on everyone in this town. She should at least have an immunization record.”
“What about her parents?” Maverick walked toward his office, Lewis right beside him.
“I can’t find anything on them, either. It’s as though they don’t exist.” Lewis took a seat when he entered, placing the tablet on his lap while crossing his legs. “Their names might help my search. Can you get them from her?”
Maverick kicked his booted feet onto his desk as he leaned back, entwining his fingers together before he rested them against his stomach. “But a property search should’ve given you their names, unless they’re renting.”
He didn’t like where this was going. Everyone had parents, even if those parents were dead or no longer in the picture. North didn’t just drop out of the sky. Then again, in the world they lived in, anything was possible.
“I did a property search,” Lewis said. “Even if they were renting, the records show that shack belongs to a guy who died fifty years ago. How do you rent from a dead guy?”
“Shack?” Maverick sat forward. Things weren’t adding up, and he didn’t like it. “Hawk said it was a house.”
“It’s a ten-by-twenty shed.” Lewis turned the tablet and showed Maverick what he was looking at. Sure enough, the property was listed as ten-by-twenty. He lowered the tablet. “So how did someone build on that land without permits? How does this family exist without any record of them?”
Maverick turned in his chair and looked out the window. Taking a drive to see if the property was really a shack or a house wasn’t worth the risk in this storm. They’d have to wait until it blew over. It had subsided last night, but now it was back, blowing like crazy outside his office window.
“What do you want me to do?” Lewis asked.
Maverick hadn’t a clue, but he had his suspicions. It seemed every year the North Pole liked to play pranks on them. He wasn’t sure why, either, but if North was a part of that prank, Maverick was gonna gut some elves. Inserting a precious little girl into Johnny’s life, only to rip her away, was cruel in ways he didn’t want to imagine.
But none of the elves—last year it had been a reindeer who could shift into a human—had ever played a cruel prank. There had always been a Christmas-worthy payout afterward.
“Maverick?”
He spun and placed his arms on his desk. “For now, do nothing. When the storm blows over, I’ll do a bit of investigating myself.” Because Maverick wanted to be the one who wrung the shit out of whoever was behind this. Nobody messed with his family and got away with it.
Lewis nodded as he stood, tucking the tablet under his arm. “Copy that.”
When Lewis left his office, Maverick dialed Hawk. “Come to my office.”
Moments later, Hawk appeared in his doorway. “What’s up?”
Maverick explained his suspicions. Hawk cursed. “I’m getting real tired of those bastards. Can Ruttford see if they’re up to something?”
Ruttford was one of the men mated to Maverick’s daughter. He’d played games on them a while back, only to reveal who he truly was. Maverick had damn near killed the prick when he found out Ruttford was Melonee’s mate. “He’s been cut off from the North Pole since he mated Melonee,” Maverick said. “He won’t be of any help.”
“I’ll keep an eye on things,” Hawk said. “If they’re fucking with my pretty baby, they’ll pay in ways that’ll make them beg for death.”
Maverick pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing as he readied himself for another Christmas debacle.
Chapter Six
“Your folks tell me you ran off to Tampa to follow your dreams.” Harmon gathered the breakfast dishes and took them to the sink.
Brady sat there stunned. Harmon had completely ignored the fact that Brady had just offered himself sexually to the lug. Now he wanted to talk about a job Brady never had to begin with?
As soon as Brady stood, ready to tell Harmon he wasn’t joking around about being taken advantage of, his phone rang. With a grunt at the interruption, Brady pulled his phone out expecting to see Ronny calling him.
It was his dad. “Hello.”
“Mind telling me why you spent the night at Harmon’s house?” his dad said in a not-to-friendly tone. “Why couldn’t you have come back here last night or had Harmon drive you here? In fact, why on earth were you hanging with him at a bar in the first place?”
“Well, good morning to you, too.” Brady walked out of the kitchen as Harmon rinsed their dishes. Normally he would’ve helped, because that was the kind of guy he was, but had to deal with his dad first.
“Answer me, Brady,” his father insisted.
Brady truly loved his parents, but he didn’t necessarily get along with them. It was true that he’d missed them, until he was reminded just now why he’d taken off in the first place. His dad had refused to accept the fact that Brady was gay. But it wasn’t just that. Arnold Tryniski felt as though he had to run every aspect of Brady’s life.
Like he was trying to do now.
“Dad, we can talk about this when I get back there.” Brady wasn’t going to talk about it at all. He wanted to tell his father that his personal life was none of the guy’s business, but Brady didn’t feel like getting into a shouting match with him.
“Harmon’s the one who called me last night,” his dad said, his tone still irate. “Did he take advantage of you? Is he really…you know…and never told anyone? He was married, for Christ’s sake. He can’t be…you know.”
Jesus Christ on a cracker. His dad couldn’t even say the word gay. Why couldn’t his father get with the times? They lived in a predominantly gay community and his dad was still homophobic. So much for not rocking the boat while he was in town.
Brady ground his teeth. “No one took advantage of me. I had a good night’s sleep and he fed me this morning. That’s the extent of what happened.”
Brady was also towing the line because Harmon and Arnold were friends. He didn’t want to come between them. But the more his dad railed about what was really going on, the more determined Brady was to get laid.
During Brady’s teenage years, his dad had refused to let any of Brady’s boyfriends come over. If they didn’t come around, then his father wouldn’t have to see firsthand that his son was gay.
This was one reason Brady hadn’t brought Ronny home with him. Not that Brady and Ronny had anything going on. They were just best friends, but his dad wouldn’t have believed Brady.
“I want you home, now,” his dad said.
“What am I, five?” Brady argued. “I’m an adult, Dad. I don’t do drugs, don’t hang out with the wrong crowd, and I’m not committing crimes. I got wasted last night, and Harmon was nice enough to look out for me.”
A migraine started in Brady’s skull.
“I never said you were a hoodlum,” his father snarled. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“I’ll see you whenever I come back there.” Brady hung up before his dad could continue to argue with him. At one point it had gotten so bad between them that Brady had lied about a career opportunity in Tampa. He’d fled to get away from this bullshit. His absence also allowed his dad to lie to himself that his son was straight and would meet a woman he could settle down with.
“Everything okay?”
Brady turned to see Harmon standing in the archway to the kitchen, leaning his body against the wall. He was drying his hands on a dishtowel as he studied Brady with those intense blue eyes.
What the hell. It wasn’t as if Brady would continue to see Harmon, and he wanted to get the weight off h
is chest that he’d been carrying around for years. “It’s my dad.” He told Harmon about coming out to Arnold Tryniski, and how horrific that had gone. How his dad denied Brady’s sexuality and how Arnold thought Harmon was taking advantage of Brady.
Harmon looked genuinely stunned. “I had no idea your father was like that. He seemed so down to earth.”
“Very few things rile him.” Brady sat on Harmon’s couch, tucking his hands between his knees. So much for fooling around. His dad’s call had killed Brady’s mood. “But if you really want to see him go ballistic, talk about his gay son. It’s like winding up the Tasmanian Devil and letting him loose.”
“That bad?” Harmon tossed the towel over his shoulder and sat next to Brady.
Brad shrugged. “Most of the time he pretends I never came out, that his only child will marry and give him kids. It’s only when you put the subject right in his face that he loses his shit.” Brady looked over at Harmon. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to lay this on you. No straight guy wants to hear about a gay man’s problem.”
When…no, if Brady went back to his parents’ house, there was gonna be tension, and that was the last thing Brady wanted. He’d been hoping to have a good holiday with his folks, but his dad was as stubborn as ever. Why couldn’t he just accept the fact that his son was gay? What was the big deal? It wasn’t as though his dad went to church and was ashamed of his son for being a sinner. Hell, half the town was gay.
Harmon rubbed his hand on Brady’s shoulder. “Maybe you should go home and patch things up with your old man.”
“Patch things up?” Brady let out a bark of laughter. “The only way to do that is to turn straight, and that’s not happening.” Brady nibbled his lip. “Do you mind if I stay another night? I don’t want to get you in trouble with my dad, but—”
“I can handle Arnold,” Harmon said with conviction. “Like you told him, you’re a grown man.”
Brady’s eyebrows shot up. “You heard me?”
“I might have caught bits of the conversation.” Harmon kept rubbing Brady’s arm, and Brady was getting hard from the attention. He enjoyed the shoulder massage Harmon was giving him. Then Harmon’s hand slid to Brady’s back. He massaged Brady’s nape, making him close his eyes as he sighed.
