Michelle answered, "We haven't set an exact date yet, but probably mid to late May."
"Before fire season begins," Carl added. "We want to have the wedding at my family's ranch in Alaska. Michelle and I will pay for your plane tickets, and my parents offered to host you at the ranch. They have some nice cabins, if you want privacy, or you can stay in a guest bedroom at the main house."
"I'd love to come to your wedding," Mamá said. Then she paused and asked, "Alaska? Are you two planning to move there?"
"Yes. Before the wedding."
Michelle took a deep breath and prepared for the argument of her life. It had always been her job to look out for her little brother. She fully expected Mamá to try her utmost to manipulate her into agreeing to take Beto with her to the new ranch.
But her mother shocked her once again.
Instead of a flood of guilt-inducing tears or a torrent of angry accusations, Mamá only gave her a sad smile. "I guess that's for the best. I'll miss you, but I'm looking forward to visiting you."
Michelle blinked. "What—what about Beto?" she asked, hesitantly, unable to believe that her mother was taking the news so well.
Mamá shrugged. "Well, I'll ask him if he wants to move home to help me, but Beto's a grown man now, isn't he? I suppose it's time for him to sink or swim on his own."
Then she looked directly into the camera and smiled at Michelle. "I wish you both all of the happiness I never had," she said. "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you with your wedding or the move."
Epilogue
Home for the Holidays
Jensen Ranch
Palmer, Alaska
Christmas Day
Christmas dinner with the Palmer Pack was an eye-opening experience for Michelle.
It had been an extremely busy autumn for Michelle and Carl as they wrapped up their affairs in Colorado, planned their wedding, and prepared for their big move to Alaska in the spring.
Dennis Dooley had been arraigned on multiple counts of arson, theft, assault, and attempted murder. His nephew had been slapped with a host of lesser charges.
Dennis was still in jail, awaiting trial. Given the severity of the charges against him, the judge had denied bail, much to Michelle's relief. She still had occasional nightmares of a giant bear-thing pursuing her through her house, unrelenting and unstoppable.
Beto had unexpectedly matured in the wake of their ordeal. He had approached Michelle and offered to run the Colorado ranch for her, with the option to buy it once he turned twenty-five and received his share of his inheritance.
Happy at the possibility of keeping her beloved ranch in the family, she had agreed, and then used the equity in the property, along with her insurance payout, some creative financing, and a generous loan from Carl's parents to buy the Kramer Ranch just down the road from the Jensen Ranch.
She strongly suspected that Carl had suggested the extremely generous engagement gift of four young musk oxen from Bob and Evie. She was looking forward to exploring the possibilities of adding qiviut when she revived her mail-order wool business this spring.
Her goats, along with Alfred and the alpaca girls, and Cookie and Biscuit, were all still back at the Colorado ranch under Beto's care. Come spring, all of her animals would be making the long journey north to their new home.
She and Carl had flown to Alaska twice in November to purchase her new ranch and had shared a quiet family Thanksgiving with Carl's immediate family.
Christmas Day was one of the traditional times for a pack gathering, and Carl's extended family proved to be bigger than she had imagined.
As the afternoon proceeded, carload after carload of wolf shifters arrived, until the huge Jensen ranch house was crowded with extremely fit people of all ages.
To Michelle's relief, everyone was very friendly and welcoming to her as Carl's mate. Despite his assurances, she had been apprehensive about the prospect of being seen as an intruder, especially since she was just an ordinary human.
Michelle and Carl had spent the day so far in the ranch house's restaurant-sized kitchen, helping Bob, Evie, and Carl's two older sisters Angie and Cindy prepare and cook a princely feast of free-range turkeys, smoked whole hams, elk backstrap filets, and beef prime rib roasts with all of the fixings.
Michelle, who confessed that she wasn't a great cook, willingly took over vegetable prep.
She found herself seated comfortably on a stool at the big kitchen island, a mug of hot tea at her elbow and a big wooden cutting board in front of her, enjoying the music and conversation as she scrubbed and peeled mountains of potatoes; chopped fresh herbs, celery, carrots and onions for turkey stuffing; and prepared enormous bowls of tossed green salad.
It was a lot of work, but Carl's family made it fun too, and she welcomed the chance to get to know them better, especially his sisters, who lived in Anchorage.
My goal for this coming year is to learn how to make tamales, so that I can bring them to next year's pack Christmas dinner, Michelle vowed as she watched Carl basting a turkey with a mixture of white wine and butter. It didn't really feel like Christmas without this beloved traditional holiday dish from her childhood.
After a round of appetizers and drinks, and just before dinner, the entire pack pitched in to move furniture out of the way in the ranch house's impressive Great Room. Long folding banquet tables and dozens of folding chairs were hauled out of the basement, along with piles of table linens and boxes of nice china, and the pack's kids were put to work setting the tables.
Once the poultry and meats had had a chance to rest, and the side dishes came out of the ranch's multiple large ovens, everyone sat down together to eat and drink.
Wine, beer, and hot spiced apple cider flowed freely for the next couple of hours, as everyone talked loudly and laughed a lot, and the giant serving platters of food were reduced to clean bones and puddles of sauce.
Outside the Great Room's floor-to-ceiling windows, an early twilight fell over the snowy landscape, making the spectacular mountains glow gold and red. Inside, a pile of logs blazed in the enormous stone fireplace, candles glowed on every surface, and all was merry and bright in the ranch house.
Bob Jensen rose, his mate Evie at his side, and tapped his wine glass with his knife.
The long tables gradually fell silent as the clear chimes of the crystal rang out. Everyone waited to hear what he had to say.
"Before we take our post-prandial stroll and try to work up an appetite for dessert," Bob began, and was interrupted by raucous laughter and a brief chant of "Apple pie! Apple pie!" from the youngsters at the kids' table.
Michelle had been forewarned that the after-dinner hike would be a fairly long one, shifter stamina being what it was, and that many of the guests would choose to do it in their wolf shapes. But she still wanted to go. After two years of living on her mountain ranch, her legs were in excellent shape, and the Jensen Ranch was positively flatland compared to her Colorado place.
Bob continued, "I wanted to formally welcome our pack's newest member, my daughter-in-law and my son Carl's mate, Michelle Hernandez from Colorado!"
Feeling self-conscious, Michelle pushed back her chair and rose. Carl rose from his seat as well and put his arm around her. She slipped her arm around his waist in return.
Everyone in the room whooped and applauded. Michelle's face heated. A sideways glance at her fiancé and mate showed that his cheeks were turning red too.
"Thank you for the warm welcome, everyone," she said, when the noise died down. "I'm really looking forward to moving here and getting to know all of you. And thank you for accepting me into your pack. I may not be a shapeshifter, but I'll do my best to be a good pack member in every other way."
That triggered another round of applause. At Carl's urging, she remained standing until the clapping died away.
Then Carl placed his hand over her still-flat belly, his face alight with pride and happiness. "And Michelle and I have a very special announcement to make
tonight. We'll be welcoming a new pack member sometime in early summer, a few weeks after our wedding."
The applause this time was nearly deafening.
Looking around at the happy people crowded into this house, and at the glowing face of her mate, Michelle knew that she had found her forever home among the wolves.
The End
Thank you so much for reading my book. Did you know that this book and the Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters series are also available as audiobooks?
I'm currently working on the second book in this series, which will feature Kara LaTrans and Michael Nakano. It's tentatively titled Jump Point.
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Books by Ophelia Sexton
Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters:
Heat (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 1)
Smolder (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 2)
Ignite (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 3)
Flame (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 4)
Burn (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 5)
Ash (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 6)
Smoke (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 7)
Blaze (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 8)
Ember (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 9)
Inferno (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 10)
Rocky Mountain Smokejumpers
Hard Landing (Rocky Mountain Smokejumpers Book 1)
Jump Point (Rocky Mountain Smokejumpers Book 2) – coming soon!
Beast Warriors (co-authored with Bliss Devlin)
Fugitive: A Werebear + BBW Paranormal Romance (Beast Warriors Book 1)
by Bliss Devlin and Ophelia Sexton
Hunter: A Werebear + BBW Paranormal Romance (Beast Warriors Book 2)
by Bliss Devlin and Ophelia Sexton
Leader: A Werebear + Dragon Shifter Paranormal Romance (Beast Warriors Book 3) – coming soon!
Hard Landing Page 21
