A SEAL Wolf Christmas

As if considering her choices, she folded her arms and looked at the table again. “Maybe we’re not done. We could use a set of red Christmas plates. They’d be perfect for Valentine’s Day, too. We can add blue and white decorations when it comes to Memorial Day, Flag Day, and Fourth of July celebrations.”

Bjornolf suspected Anna had never celebrated any of those holidays. Her enthusiasm was contagious and he was doubly glad she was a quick shopper. He looked forward to sharing every one of those holidays with her next year, and making up some of their own.

They were out of there in no time.

“Can we stop at a drugstore on the way back to the cottage?” Anna asked.

“Sure,” Bjornolf said.

When they pulled into the strip mall, both Bjornolf and Nathan were going to join her, but she said she’d be just a minute. Nathan sank against the car seat, looking relieved.

They parked in front of the drugstore situated at the end of a small strip mall of four shops: a card shop, a dress store, and a bookstore, in addition to the drugstore. In silence, Bjornolf and Nathan studied the drugstore display windows filled with Christmas decorations and a clutter of advertisements as the door closed behind Anna, and she disappeared from view.

Nathan cleared his throat. “She’s getting a pregnancy test for Jessica. Isn’t she?”

“I suspect so. Jessica needs to know if she is pregnant as soon as possible. She has to realize she’s got us for backup. She has to have a support system now.”

“I really screwed up, didn’t I?”

Bjornolf had been there. His own messes had seemed insurmountable at the time, but somehow he’d managed to muddle through.

“Some lessons are harder to learn than others. You really do care for her, don’t you?” Bjornolf didn’t mean to sound so judgmental, but he hoped Nathan truly loved her because they’d be together for a very long time, and there was no undoing what they had done.

Nathan nodded. “Yeah. I do. Ever lie awake at night thinking of the day you spent with someone special, and you want to repeat the day over and over again?”

Yeah, he did. Anna had stolen his thoughts more times than he wanted to admit.

Nathan glanced at Bjornolf. “Like with you and Anna?”

Bjornolf fought a smile. No one ever questioned him about his relationships with women. He assumed Nathan needed confirmation more than anything. “Hell, yeah. You know you have it bad when you’re thinking about nothing at all, doing something, and suddenly out of the blue you’re thinking of her. Like driving the car, then there she is taking up space in my brain again. Bright as day.”

Nathan shook his head. “That’s just like me. I’ll be cutting a tree for a customer, and all of a sudden, I’ll think of the way she smiled at me earlier in the day and offered me a cup of hot chocolate. I mean, it’s more than that. I can’t wait to see her, to be with her again.”

“So you ran because…?”

“I was confused. She was raised by humans. I thought she was human. What Anna said was right. We can’t turn people just because we want to. I was using Hunter’s situation as a crutch to fall back on. He did it and it turned out okay, so I could, too. Except he’s not a teen. And he’s the pack leader. I thought… I thought if I saw Sarah, I would change my mind about wanting Jessica.”

Concerned, Bjornolf frowned. “With Sarah, you didn’t…”

“No.” Nathan gave him a get-real look. “I knew she was a wolf.”

Bjornolf breathed in a sigh of relief. Sarah’s father would have killed Nathan. Bjornolf tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel.

Nathan sat morosely staring out the windshield. Soft, white snowflakes began to flutter down from the heavens.

“If she’s a wolf and pregnant and your mate, she should come to our open house tomorrow. It’s a pack gathering. Everyone should get to know her. It would be the perfect time to make her feel welcome. Give her a network of wolf families to fall back on,” Bjornolf said.

“If she wants. She might be too overwhelmed with the whole thing.” Nathan paused. “What are we going to do when you and Anna leave?”

Bjornolf took a deep breath. “Anna and I haven’t even decided where we’re going to be living beyond this mission.”

Nathan studied him carefully, then quietly said, “I hope you both decide to stay here.”

Bjornolf smiled at him. “I don’t think anyone has ever told me that before.”

Nathan looked skeptical for a moment, then seeing Bjornolf was serious, he grinned. “Well, I have.”

“I’ll have to talk with Anna. But we’ll see.” Bjornolf looked back at the drugstore.

“You’re worried about her.” Nathan looked from the windshield to Bjornolf.

“Yeah,” he said. “She’s taking too long. Not her style. Let’s go.”

The two of them headed for the drugstore as an elderly lady and man using walkers tried to get through the door. Barely able to suppress the urgent need to dash into the store and ignore the older couple’s troubles, Bjornolf held the door open for them.

Once the elderly couple had made it outside, Bjornolf and Nathan rushed inside, following Anna’s scent. They found she’d lingered in front of a display of boxes of dark chocolate thin mints. Not what he’d expected. They headed for the aisle where the pregnancy tests were shelved.

“She was here,” Nathan said, anxious. “But then she moved right on past as if she didn’t linger.”

“It’s okay. We would have seen her leave the store. She must have thought of something else we needed for dinner tonight or decorations or something.”

“I’ll go that way,” Nathan said, motioning to the right, “and you take the other half of the store.”

Bjornolf didn’t argue about who was in charge, just nodded, seeing something of himself in the kid and approving. With his long stride, Bjornolf ate up the drugstore’s linoleum tiles, avoiding the aisles she hadn’t walked down. He soon spied Nathan headed in the same direction he was. The employees’ back-door entrance.

Shit. Not only must she have left the building this way, but she’d been with one hulking brute of a man named Everton. From the scent she’d left behind, Bjornolf could tell she had been angry, and so was Everton. Bjornolf’s heart was pounding furiously. He and Nathan burst outside, letting the door slam behind them. They quickly surveyed the parking lot for any sign of movement.

“What would Roger Everton want with Anna?” Nathan said, hurrying with Bjornolf to search the employee parking lot to the strip mall.

There was no sign of Anna or any vehicle that Nathan recognized as belonging to the Everton family or any of their staff work trucks. No movement at all.

“He thought she discovered something at the tree farm?” Bjornolf said, racing with Nathan around the strip mall because the employee door was locked and they couldn’t get back in without a key. How had Everton gotten the upper hand with Anna? Bjornolf knew she’d be armed. She had tons of tricks to use on a man who tried to take her hostage.

His blood cold with worry, Bjornolf was already on his cell phone to Hunter before they reached the Land Rover. “Roger Everton abducted Anna at Riley’s Drugstore. We’re not sure where they’ve gone, but we’re heading to the Christmas tree farm. He’s the same man that said he was Everton when he caught us investigating the farm.”

“I’ll send the troops, Bjornolf. We’ll get her back.”

Yeah, but alive and in one piece? Or dead like the wolf DEA agents? Bjornolf floored the Land Rover.

When Bjornolf got off the phone with Hunter, he heard what he assumed was Nathan talking to Jessica on his phone.

“I don’t know what’s going on with your dad, but he just abducted my aunt.” Nathan sounded both worried and hot with anger.

Bjornolf had nearly forgotten their cover in all of this madness.

“Let me know if you see your dad return home. My uncle and I are headed for the tree farm. Some friends of his are also. Okay, Jessica?”

There was silence for a moment, then Nathan said, “I love you, too.” He sounded almost embarrassed to declare such a thing in front of Bjornolf, and when he ended the conversation, he quickly looked at Bjornolf to see