Silver Bells

by Holly Gunn

  “You’re easy to please, darlin’.”

  There’s really nothing to say to that.

  The recipe in my hand is gold, it’s the only treasure I’ve wanted. A family dinner, with family traditions, all with a man I love, who is mine and mine alone.

  Aaron Holmes may not be my destined mate, but no matter what, he’s right. He’s been wooing me for a decade and a half, and I’ve loved him for as long as that.

  We owe it to ourselves to try this, to give it a chance.

  I want his future, and he can have my present.

  However long that lasts.

  CHARLOTTA

  “Systkin, why have we never watched the Thanksgiving Day parade?” Essie dances around, her orange juice in hand. Her eyes back on me and that long sable hair flowing down her back, she shrieks, “Everything is so glittering and pretty!”

  I laugh as I put the finishing touches on the stuffing, the green bean casserole, and the mashed potatoes. Aaron’s turkey, that he prepped last night, is in the oven. He does an early Thanksgiving dinner, so as the end of the parade hits, we’ll watch a movie, then eat, then after that, it’s American football for the rest of the evening.

  We stuffed the turkey last night with some of Rita’s stuffing, but the rest of the stuffing gets Rita’s special treatment—sausage. I’ve learned that while many in America are fiends when it comes to bacon, my sheriff likes his sausage. That sounds dirtier in my head than I mean it to. I just mean that there’s sausage in the stuffing, there’s sausage in the green bean casserole, and we had an egg casserole with lots of sausage, and also freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast.

  “It’s last year’s taping,” Aaron shares sheepishly. “We always tape it and do Full Moon Thanksgiving just like the real thing, so …”

  So we can enjoy it just like everyone else.

  I walk to him and wrap my arms around his middle, setting my cheek against his back. After a moment of embracing him, I lift on my toes and kiss his bearded jaw.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” I say quietly.

  He twists his body so we’re front to front and bends forward to kiss me. His lips touch mine only briefly, but I feel that tart sunshine slide through me.

  “You two are cute,” I hear my sister say as we stare at each other, while relaxing in one another’s arms.

  I turn her way snuggling back to front with Aaron. “We are, but what I want to know is what happened with that boy? Did you say ‘hey’?” I ask with a wink.

  Essie’s eyes narrow, then her lips part and she smiles, just a small smile.

  “I think I need to be alone, find me a little, not get caught up with some boy,” she starts.

  “You didn’t say ‘hey’,” I accuse.

  With a bit of the attitude that I’m starting to get used to, she replies, “He was busy, and the one time I went to their table, he ducked his head.”

  “You’re not the type to care whether someone is busy or not, Essie. What are you really afraid of?”

  She looks stubborn and appears about to give me the silent treatment and brush off the conversation when Aaron asks, “Are you talking about the kid who’s with those two women in town?”

  I glance up at him and nod. “The mysterious young man and our Essie had a moment yesterday, and she thinks she wouldn’t be his type, so she doesn’t want to take the chance.”

  “That’s not—”

  Essie’s cut off by Aaron who says, rather superiorly, “I think that’s a smart decision. Essie doesn’t need to be worrying about boys. She’s free to do what she wants, and she shouldn’t be shackling herself to some guy who, quite honestly, he hangs out with a shifter. We don’t know if he’s trustworthy or not.”

  “You caught her eyes, too?” I ask, then quickly add, “But shifters aren’t dangerous. Don’t you watch the news? They’re just like everyone else.”

  His eyes get darker, and with a grave voice, he says, “Anyone can be dangerous, and in the right situation, they can even be downright deadly.”

  “Well, Ryan isn’t like that!” Essie finally speaks up, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard her speak that way to Aaron. What I’m caught on is that she knows this kid’s name.

  “I thought you said you didn’t say, ‘hey’?” I question.

  She sputters then plops her ass on the couch.

  I touch Aaron’s arm around my waist, and he lets me go.

  I, too, then plop my butt down on the couch and pull my sister in close.

  She grumbles something, so I kiss the top of her head.

  “You met him. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “He leaves tomorrow.”

  Huh.

  “For where?”

  She turns sideways, sits cross-legged, and starts to play with the frayed knee of her jeans. They aren’t frayed from use. In fact, I’m wearing the same exact brand and type myself. You can buy torn jeans. I know, it’s crazy.

  She barely meets my eyes when she confesses, “L.A. He’s from L.A.”

  I nod, unable to say anything, not because I don’t have words, but because I can’t believe the words I’m about to say.

  “If you connected with this boy, go with him.”

  “She doesn’t even know him, Lotta!” Aaron calls out from the kitchen at the same time my sister says, “Lotta, I don’t even know him. He could be a serial mermaid killer for all I know!”

  Well, don’t I feel ganged-up on.

  This is too important, though.

  My legs crossed, I stop her hand that’s playing with the frayed bits with one of my own, taking it into mine.

  “He’s not a serial mermaid killer. He seems rather close with a shifter actually, and the way they were acting at breakfast, they’re not alone.” And, I add, with a smile and a know-it-all-look, “Don’t you recognize the women he’s with?”

  My sister glances up at me and nods. “I didn’t at first, but they introduced themselves at the diner.”

  “Shifter tribe queens,” I say with a wink. “You think queens hang out with serial mermaid killers?”

  Essie giggles. “I think queens hang out with a lot of different people, systkin. Maybe even serial killers.”

  “Okay …” I continue, “but do you think I didn’t Google him yesterday after we saw them and I realized later in the day who they were?”

  “You know how to Google?” Essie asks sassily, and I lightly slap her hand.

  “Your sister’s not just a pretty face, sweetheart.”

  Essie smiles, then ducks her head shyly and replies, “I know who he is.”

  “He’s her brother. And he’s more than that.”

  Essie’s head lifts and she gives me a quizzical glance.

  “Some things are only meant to be found out by getting to know a person,” I tell her.

  “I could just Google him too,” Essie replies snottily, and I smirk.

  “You could, but you won’t. Now that I gave you an adventure.”

  She purses her lips, and for a second, I see Aaron there. She’s known him since she woke up in the lake with me twenty-five years ago, and while she’s aged, she was only twelve when we were cursed. For all intents and purposes, she’s lived out her teen years in this town, learning from Rickard and from Aaron how a man should be and learning from Rita, Breezy, and I how a woman should be.

  But there are some things about me I don’t want her to be.

  Angling forward, I quietly offer, “Aaron’s right, you know. We don’t know this boy, but I know you, Essie. You always find your feet. And you’ve wanted adventure since the second you stepped on land twenty-five years ago. You’re ready, sweetheart. You’re ready to find your feet, little mermaid. And L.A., with its beautiful oceans and shiny objects, might be just the place to find what you’ve been looking for. Even if Ryan isn’t the one for you. Someone is. But I think, systkin, you’re not wrong either, although you were trying to be casual when you said it. And that’s the fact that you need to find out who you are, not as a
part of the mermaids or this small town, although you’re welcome here for eternity and you know it. But I think you need that adventure, sweetheart, and I don’t want you to regret not chasing your dreams.”

  She’s quiet for a moment, and I notice that there’s no longer shuffling and movement in the kitchen.

  I wait, holding my breath, for her to tell me she’s packing her bags and leaving tomorrow. It would be just like her in some ways. But because I’m here, it would also be antithetical to who she is. She and I have always been a pair, since the day she was born. Even when I would go off on my own adventures, I wasn’t gone for long, and when I came back, Móðir would joke that it was like she didn’t exist.

  When she truly was no longer with us, we felt that together.

  And when Faðir started to change, we got through that together as well.

  The two of us.

  “It’s always been the two of us against the world,” she says, mirroring my thoughts so astutely, I reel with the fact that she’s feeling it too, this change in our life.

  Then she adds, “I’ll wait.”

  “Essie, you should go and see the world. What are you wait—”

  I don’t finish. This time, it’s her hand on mine. “I’ll wait until I know you can visit, Lotta.”

  A gut kick, like the ones the boys used to give me when I was training to go on raids. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt one, but I’ve never felt the psychic pain of one.

  She’s still protecting me, just as I will always protect her.

  As seems to be the way recently, I’m torn about how I feel. At once prideful that I had a hand in raising such an honorable and pure woman, and also saddened that she is giving of herself in that way.

  But I’m seeing she’s becoming a woman, and I won’t make the decision for her. That does not mean I won’t add my two cents.

  I glance toward the kitchen and see Aaron leaning against one of the beams that lies to one side of the open-floor plan near the kitchen, right before it breaks into the living area.

  To Essie I quietly offer, “I understand what you’re saying, sweetheart, and it’s your decision of course, but Aaron and I have decided that whether he’s my destined mate or not, we’re giving this a try.”

  “Of course you are!” she replies indignantly, and I hear his chuckle.

  I smile.

  “But that means I may not be able to visit L.A., and it means I may never visit L.A. I’ve only …” My voice trails at the honesty I’m about to impart to her, but also because it’s for Aaron as well. I take a deep breath and clear my throat. “You said I was sleeping beauty, like I call you little mermaid. Twenty-five years ago, I just knew when a certain man returned to town that it was my time to wake up.” I hear his footsteps coming closer. But I don’t look his way, I keep my gaze steady on Essie. “When I say I won’t be coming to L.A., I’m saying that whether it’s too soon to say it or not, there won’t be any more men after Aaron. So, if he doesn’t see my mark, that’s it, Essie. I don’t want anyone else. And I’m not saying this to make you feel terrible or make you second guess yourself. I’m saying this out of joy with every good thing in my being, and I’m telling you to go out there, and find something like that for yourself. I’d have kept us asleep for another thousand years, but I woke up for a reason. Since the day you woke, you’ve been obsessed with shiny things. Find your own shine, my girl, and don’t settle until you do, whether fate decrees it or not.”

  Essie has tear tracks down her face, and I know I do as well. We’re a mess, and it’s a beautiful mess. Because in her eyes, I see my words won’t change her mind. She will still wait, but only until I know for sure about Aaron and I. Soon, she’ll be leaving.

  And that is a bitter sweet I can live with.

  The front door bangs open and a male voice enters first, with a female voice I’ve known a long time, following.

  Essie wipes her face clean and commands Aaron, “Go help this one get cleaned up.” Then, running toward the front door, she cries, “Irina!”

  Aaron doesn’t say a word. He guides me down the hall and into the addition of the house where the master bedroom is. I step inside it for the first time, and the first thing I say is, “This is exactly how I pictured it.”

  But I don’t have a moment to say anything else, because my back is to the bedpost and his hands are on me, his mouth on mine, his body pressed close.

  I’m near dizzy when his tongue leaves me with a small lick to my parted lips.

  “What was that for?” I ask, breathily.

  He shakes his head as though something is funny.

  “What was that for?” he repeats my question.

  “Well, yes,” I say, still dizzy and also warm, in very intimate places.

  Still shaking his head in apparent humor, he bends forward, one hand weaving its way through my blonde hair, fingers massaging my scalp, and his other hand above my head on the bedpost.

  I try not to get ideas, but what red-blooded woman wouldn’t in a bedroom like this with its California king, ornately crafted, thick bedposts, hunter greens, and blues, and reds contrasting and making me feel the full spectrum of color this man has to offer.

  His breath is against my ear when he answers. “I never thought about it before, but I should have because you’ve told me that was your first full moon awake since you’d been cursed.”

  That’s when I get what that kiss was for.

  My eyes lift in time to feel and see him kiss my jaw, my lips, the tip of my nose, and then end by resting his warm mouth against my forehead.

  His words touch there.

  “I’m going to be your destined mate,” he tells me, no question in voice, just surety, like the sheriff he is.

  And for a moment, I believe him.

  I want to believe him.

  I want to believe that not only have I chosen him for myself, but that we’ve always been meant to be.

  I don’t say it aloud, but what I told Essie is true. I won’t ever be with another man. This is it. Fate or no, Aaron is the love of my life. Since he was thirty years old and I woke up still five and thirty, he’s been mine and I’ve been his, even when we couldn’t or didn’t realize we belonged to each other.

  And when he’s gone, if he goes before me, I won’t take another lover.

  It’ll be Aaron and me forever, even when my forever continues and his fades.

  I feel it powering through me, the words that need to be said, but I hold them back and while some might think the words I speak aren’t tamer than what I want to say, they are.

  I reach up, pulling his head down to mine and kiss his bearded jaw, thrilled that when spring comes around, I’ll have the chance to see what I like better, kissing his bearded jaw or kissing his naked skin. I have a feeling I won’t be able to choose.

  After that, I whisper, “I love you.”

  Not tame, those words. But still, they are not all I want to say.

  His hand in my hair tightens, and I swear I hear a growl in his throat before he takes my mouth, pressing me to the bedpost once more and using my hair to pull my head to the side and delve his tongue deeper into my depths.

  Treasure seeking, I think with a smile.

  He feels the smile against his lips and breaks from the kiss with a smirk of his own.

  Serious as can be, though, his lips to my forehead once more, he confesses, “I think, god help me, Lotta, that I’ve loved you since I first saw you. I hate what that says about the kind of man I am, since I was with Diane for seven of those years, but I can’t help it, and I didn’t realize it at the time. I may have been courting you for fifteen years, but I’ve been in love with you for twenty-five, since I first laid eyes on a mermaid disguised as a nymph with the heart of a warrior and the soul of a siren.”

  I feel a trail of one tear sliding free at his words.

  But it’s Full Moon Thanksgiving, and if you’ve ever had a Thanksgiving, you know there’s not a true moment of peace.

&nbs
p; Not a second later, I hear both Irina and Essie call out our names.

  We laugh at the intrusion, of course, because those are our girls.

  And it’s in our nature to want to give them the world.

  So, we don’t keep them waiting even though I think as I walk down the stairs that Irina and Essie are just like Aaron and I. We did raise them. And the way those two young women love, they’ll wait forever for the people they care about, as long as those they love are happy.

  I also mentally remind myself that I’ll have my back against that bedpost if not tonight, then at the next full moon, and that anticipation makes the heart grow fonder—or some other such nonsense.

  Aaron readjusting himself and showing up ten minutes after I get downstairs makes me feel better about the wait.

  He wants me.

  All of me.

  And for a Viking, the thought is rather contradictory, but honestly, it just pops in my head.

  The thought being: I can’t wait to surrender.

  AARON

  The girls are laughing, Bjarke and I are discussing the robbery and watching a Redskins game.

  Lotta, however, has been quiet. I keep an eye on her throughout the meal then afterward, as we are now, sitting in the living room, wine and hot cocoa in our hands, pies being slowly consumed and the plates sitting on the coffee table.

  Right when the Redskins drop the ball, Lotta excuses herself.

  Essie’s eyes follow her sister as she exits the room, but what’s strange is she walks toward the mudroom and front door.

  Snow has come early to Aurora Falls, and when I trail her, the first thing I see is the open door, the snow a thin layer on the November ground, and four carolers.

  I smile. Only in Aurora Falls would a family be caroling out on a snowy night a full month and a half before the day Christmas is traditionally celebrated and a month before the Full Moon Christmas.

  The sweet sound of “Silver Bells” fills the entryway as I feel Bjarke, Irina, and Essie join me.

  I gather Lotta close, and she moves readily into my arms.