Mated for Christmas (White Wolf #5)

Chapter 1

Two weeks before Christmas, private investigator Sheri Whitmore was at her office at the White Wolf Investigative Services in Ely, Minnesota, hoping she’d find a missing pilot and that he was alive and well—the best Christmas gift she could give to his wife, Sheri’s client.

Sheri opened the blinds on her office window to view the reception area so she could see the sparkling lights on the Christmas tree. She’d even had fun decorating the aquarium for Christmas with Santa wearing scuba gear while in his sleigh pulled by seahorses.

She was about to make a call on her missing-person’s case—another possible lead that she needed to check on before she went on a dinner date with Slade White, an Arctic wolf like her—when Betty Connolly got in touch with her first.

“Hello, Betty. I haven’t been able to locate your husband yet, but I have a clue as to where to look for him next and was going to check on it—” Sheri said, but was quickly interrupted.

“He’s home. Don’t worry about it. I’ll drop by your office and pay you what I owe you for your services.”

“He’s home?” Sheri was so surprised that she was totally taken aback. This was the first big case she was working solo on and she hadn’t expected it to be resolved on its own.

“Yes. So we don’t need your services any longer.” Betty Connolly spoke to her so abruptly that Sheri figured she had no intention of telling her where her husband, Gerard, a local pilot, had been for the last two weeks.

Sheri loved to have some closure in a case, but if she were in Betty’s shoes, she might feel the same way if her husband had been off with another woman like Betty had thought. Betty sounded afraid that Sheri would look into the case further and learn the truth about his disappearance. Maybe she was embarrassed.

“I’m on my way over there now. In fact, I am nearly there,” Betty said.

Boy, Betty really did want to end Sheri’s investigation into the matter immediately. “Okay, sure, that’s great. I’m certain you’re thrilled Gerard turned up safe and sound.”

“Yes. I’m pulling into your parking lot. I’ll be inside in a minute.” Betty didn’t sound thrilled in the least—more angry with a mixture of anxiety.

The case had been a priority for Sheri and now that it was done, she wouldn’t have to worry about locating Gerard. Tonight’s dinner with Slade and the office Christmas party tomorrow would be her next priorities.

Slade was showing up in a few minutes and she couldn’t wait to see him. Since he was a pilot like Gerard, Sheri had even asked him if he could think of anywhere else that she could look to find Gerard. Slade had given her a few tips and she was so glad he could be her expert advisor in the matter. She truly was grateful Gerard was home and now she could tell Slade that. Even though he wasn’t a PI, he had the same interest in her solving her cases, which pleased her.

“Case done,” she told her fellow private investigators, Cameron MacPherson, Owen Nottingham, and David Davis, who were in their offices, their doors open to the reception area.

They were running a little short on PIs because Sheri’s best friend, Elizabeth, and her mate, David, were both PIs, mated, and expecting twin boys in March. Elizabeth had begun to do some of the employment agency background checks and other investigations from home so she could rest more but still help out. Slade’s twin sister, Amelia, and her mate, Gavin, had a set of twins who were only two weeks old, so Gavin, another PI, was taking some time off to help with the babies.

“Was it a good outcome?” Cameron asked Sheri, looking concerned. She knew he didn’t want to give her cases that might have bad resolutions for her first missions.

“Yes! For Christmas, it couldn’t be better news. Gerard is home.”

“That’s terrific.”

A Jaguar pulled up into the office parking lot—a brand-new bright-red one—and Betty hurried out of it, looking a bit frazzled. As soon as she walked into the office lobby, she hurried to join Sheri. “Here’s your payment. That’s all there is to it, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

Betty could have just paid for the transaction online and wouldn’t have had to come in at all. Though Betty knew that, for whatever reason, she had wanted to pay in cash. That didn’t happen very often. The sixty-year-old blond woman had beautiful features and she looked half her age—cosmetic surgery, Sheri assumed. Her curly hair was shoulder length and she usually looked like she’d just walked out of a beauty salon the few times Sheri had talked to her in person. But tonight, her hair was in disarray, uncombed and tangled. She had smudges of mascara under her eyes. Her eyes appeared a little red, like she’d been crying. She didn’t look like a woman who had just welcomed her long-lost husband home. On the other hand, maybe she had wept for his return and her makeup had smudged.

“Thank you. If we can ever be of any other service to you, feel free to call us,” Sheri said cheerfully, trying to make the moment more upbeat.

“Thanks.” Then Betty hurried out of the building, got into her Jaguar, and peeled out of the parking lot.

Owen raised his brows. Yeah, he’d seen Betty before, but looking like a beauty queen, not like this. “I would venture to guess she has something to hide,” Owen said, having finished a call on his own case about a grocery store missing expensive bottles of wine every time a particular couple of employees worked at the store.

“I think so too.” She was dying to know what had really happened.

She heard Slade park his SUV and smiled at him as he came inside, but he looked as frazzled as Betty. His dark-brown hair was always windswept and in disorder, which appealed to her, making her think of him as wild and untamable. He was wearing his favorite dark-brown genuine lamb’s leather bomber jacket with a fur collar, just like the one Tom Cruise wore in Top Gun , but without all the patches, and it just suited him. To her, he looked like a war hero. His blue eyes were beautifully inquisitive, and when he saw her, he smiled broadly. “Wow, who was that in the Jaguar?”

“The woman who hired me to look into her husband’s disappearance. She said he just showed up at their home.”

“Gerard Connolly? Nice wheels.”

“Yeah, that’s the case I asked you about because her husband is a pilot too.”

“Man, I need some of his business,” Slade said, and gave Sheri a brief kiss because she knew he didn’t want to be too amorous in the office.

But they didn’t have any clients in the office right now, so she kissed him back a lot more passionately and he seemed to be thrilled by it, smiling back and kissing her with just as much enthusiasm. She loved doing that to him, kissing him more deeply when he wasn’t expecting it and then him going right along with the move. Her PI partners wouldn’t mind. The other mated couples hoped they would mate each other because they always seemed to be so into each other.

“So are we ready to go to dinner?” she asked.

“Uh, there’s a change of plans. I’m sorry.”

Sheri tried not to show her disappointment. She had really been looking forward to dinner with him all week. “Okay, no problem.”

“I just got a Pilots N Paws mission, but you can come with me, and we’ll fly Cupcake, Mischief, and Brutus to their owners now.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” It didn’t matter about the dinner plans as much as that Slade still wanted to spend the time with her. She loved that he volunteered to fly shelter dogs needing a home to new families when he could.

“Okay, I know it’s not the restaurant I planned to take you to, but we could grab something to eat after we drop the dogs off.”

“Yeah, that would be fun.” She was easy. She loved flying with him, and taking pets to meet their families made precious memories for her. Slade was so good with the dogs, and she loved them too.

Slade glanced at Owen, David, and Cameron, who had left their offices to grab some water from the water dispenser. “Hey, guys. See you at the office party tomorrow.”

“Sure thing,” they said.

She swore they had been ready to come to her aid if she had been really upset about the missed dinner date and invite her to dine with them instead. But she was getting used to Slade’s emergency plane trips and they were always really important, so she certainly wasn’t dismayed about it. There were times when she had job issues where she also had to cancel on dates with him and he was just as accommodating.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yeah, let’s go.” Sheri grabbed the winter-white wool dress coat she wore on the job and pulled it on, then wrapped her favorite red-and-green-plaid cashmere scarf around her neck. She slipped her red angora hat on her head, seized her purse, and was ready to go.

After they said their goodbyes to Owen and Cameron, Sheri and Slade went outside to Slade’s SUV and climbed inside. Then he drove her to the airport where his mother, Lolita, had readied the three dogs for the trip. They were already in a large crate with a nice soft pad covering the bottom of it, enough room for the dogs to stay together. Lolita had also packed bottled water, in case they got thirsty. She gave Sheri a warm hug.

“I’m so sorry your dinner date was put on hold. Amelia would have gone in his place, but with the young babies, she can’t,” Lolita said. She wouldn’t be able to come either, since the family-run piloting business needed her to schedule flights and take care of other duties.

“We’ll make it up for sure,” Slade promised.

“I know we will.” Sheri checked on the dogs. “Oh my, they’re adorable. Aww, two are puppies. You’ll have to tell me the reason we’re taking the dogs to new homes.”

“Absolutely,” Slade said.

Then they took off in the plane and were on their way to Moorhead, Minnesota. “Okay, so Cupcake and her pups are cockapoos and were at an animal shelter. They needed to find a home pronto.”

“How come they had ended up at a shelter?”

“Their family was moving overseas, and they didn’t want to deal with the trouble with putting them in quarantine, the vaccinations, and other restrictions, so we found a family who are thrilled not only to have the young mother, but also her two sons. They normally have a couple of rescue cockapoos living with them at one time. But their last one passed away and the whole family was heartbroken, until they learned of the three cockapoos needing a home.”

“Then you’re doing an early Santa gig.”

Slade laughed.

“Have you gotten your Santa suit for the kids’ toy giveaway already?” She thought it was so neat that his parents decided to have a Santa Seaplane Toy Drop, where businesses around Ely would donate gifts for children who wouldn’t have much of a Christmas this year. Slade would pilot the plane and land in a field to give the presents out to the children—a beautiful cause for this time of year, the gifts delivered in a unique way.

“I sure do, and I also have the fake white beard.”

“The belly?” She looked at his beautiful physique.

“I had just gone on a low-cookie diet and have been working out since last year, so I might not have the belly by the time of the presents delivery.”

She loved his sense of humor. “Do you think you’ll do it again next year?”

“Yeah, Dad and Mom have had such a wonderful response from businesses donating toys and our pack members gathering them from all the sources and wrapping them. Businesses are providing candy canes, marshmallows, and cocoa too, and are eager to do it again. That means we’re all in to do this annually.”

“That’s wonderful. The kids will be glad to get something nice for Christmas. I think it’s great that you do so much that is above and beyond your regular job.”

“I love placing animals needing homes with families and the Santa job is just another way to give back to the community.”

“For sure. So, my brother is getting excited about staying at the cabin with you in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in a couple of days,” she said.

“Oh, yeah. As soon as you all moved here, Hans and I talked about going to a cabin this winter and made the reservation right then and there. They book up really fast.”

“Well, you guys will have a great time.”

“We will.”

When they finally landed at the airport in Moorhead, the family was there to pick up their dogs. They were wearing Christmas sweaters, blue jeans, and Santa hats to greet their new furry extended family, all of them beaming broadly.

Cupcake and her pups were overjoyed to meet the family, the pups jumping all over the kids. The dad picked up Cupcake and held her while she licked his face in happiness. The kids sat down to let the pups climb all over their laps.

Sheri took a picture of the happy family and asked for their email so she could send it to them.

“We thank you with all our hearts.” The wife gave Sheri, then Slade a hug.

The husband wasn’t letting go of Cupcake, and her pups were weaned, so she wasn’t worried about them playing with the kids. He shook Slade’s hand, and then Sheri’s and thanked them also.

“Merry Christmas,” Sheri said.

“It truly is,” the dad said. Then he and the kids, holding a puppy each, and the mom headed to the parking garage, while the dad continued to carry Cupcake. It looked like the cockapoo family had their forever home and would get lots of loving, and they wouldn’t end up in a shelter again.

“Okay, well, they actually have a lot of nice restaurants in Moorhead,” Slade said to Sheri.

“This is really fun. We could have eaten in Ely any old time, but flying to Moorhead for dinner? Now that’s a real date. What appeals to you?”

“It’s your choice.” He pulled up some recommended restaurants in the area, and she chose the Irish pub restaurant that looked good. He made arrangements to have an Uber pick them up and they were on their way.

This was going to be even fancier than the restaurant they were planning to go to in Ely. She couldn’t have been more thrilled. A fun flight, a chance to give the dogs a good home, but also for the family to have an even better Christmas, and then dinner with the wolf Sheri was totally hooked on? Yeah, this was wonderful.

The car dropped them off at the Irish pub and Slade took her hand as they walked inside. It was nice and dark, perfect ambience for a date at a pub. The place was decorated with Santas in kilts and Irish wolfhounds wearing plaid bows, and the Christmas tree was covered in plaid bows and ornaments and colorful lights, adding to the joyful atmosphere.

Once they found a table to sit at, he helped remove her coat and pulled off his jacket while she took off her scarf and hat and they ordered their meals. Slade got fish and chips and she ordered corned beef and creamed cabbage. Both had sweetened raspberry tea.

She couldn’t believe how well things had turned out for their date. This was just delightful.

***

“I’m sorry for the change of plans,” Slade said, but he was glad he was dating such an agreeable wolf. As usual, her pretty blond hair was tucked up in a chignon. She was wearing a winter-white outfit: slacks, sweater, and even her long dressy coat were white. She made him think of a sugary sweet treat, pure, and delicious, her pretty blue eyes smiling as she sat next to him.

She was always so flexible when plans changed. He’d dated other wolves who had hated when he messed up their plans. They had shared with their friends how they were going out with him, and he thought that was the reason they were so miffed when he had to cancel things.

“Oh no, this is even better. I love it. I think you really planned it all along to make it extra special for us.” She leaned over and kissed him.

He kissed her back. “Yeah, I was hoping you would see it that way.”

A piper wearing an Irish kilt played music on his bagpipes as he serenaded patrons throughout the pub and then their meals were delivered to their table.

Sheri ate a bite of her corned beef. “Well, this is great food.”

“The company is the best too.”

“I’ll second that. About the dogs’ adoption—it looked like the family that took in Cupcake and her pups would give them a good home,” she said.

“I agree. One year, I had flown a puppy to a couple who were so upset afterward because it peed on the floor all the time. They had no clue how to housebreak him and so they wanted him returned because he was unteachable.”

“No. How long had they had him?”

“Two days.”

She shook her head.

“So now we always ask a number of questions about a potential homeowner’s past history of taking care of dogs, if they’ve ever had any experience housebreaking them, et cetera.”

“What happened to the dog?” Sheri asked.

“Thankfully, I was able to coordinate with another family who lived in the same area who had an aging dog, and they were excited to take a puppy in. Their older dog would teach the pup right away where he was supposed to go. But puppies need constant watching so that you can take them out when they have to go. They don’t know any better.”

“Yeah, my parents had two Alaskan malamute puppies when I was ten and I was responsible for housebreaking them. I would put them on a chair while I attached their leashes. They wouldn’t do anything until I could take them outside. We didn’t have a fenced-in yard, so I had to walk them out on leash. I took them out after feeding them, after they got up from a nap, before bedtime, and after they drank any water.”

“Exactly. It takes time and persistence and keeping an eye on them. That’s all. I figured if the couple didn’t have the patience with a puppy, it was good that he found another home where the family didn’t find any issue with him. He needed a good family that loved him and was willing to work with him.”

“And? Did you ever get any updates?”

“Yeah, he’s five years old now and serves as a therapy dog. His owners take him into nursing homes all the time. After growing up with them, he has never had an accident,” Slade said, then ate another of his fries.

“Then he found the best home ever for him, but that must have been frustrating to take the dog on a flight like that, thinking that was his forever home, and it lasted only two days.”

“Yeah, but it changed our way of making sure the family would be suitable for the pet. At least in my experience, I haven’t had any issue with another dog being rejected like that. Everyone’s so happy to bring a new fur baby into the home.”

“That’s good.”

They finished their dinner, and they bundled up and got an Uber back to the airport to fly home. Once they were in Slade’s plane, they finally had approval to take off and they were on their way. “When I get back from the trip with your brother, I’ll take you out to dinner.”

“I’m always up for another.”

“Good. Are you ready for the Christmas party tomorrow?” This would be the first year Slade would see Sheri at the Christmas party, so he was looking forward to it.

“Yeah. Are you?”

“I am. Cameron’s kids wanted me to play Santa for them.”

Sheri laughed. “Are you going to?”

“No, I want to just enjoy the party.”

“Good. That’s what you need to do.”

They just flew for a while in silence after that. He finally glanced over at her to see if she was watching out the windows, hoping she wasn’t bored but was enjoying the trip. She’d fallen fast asleep, looking peaceful, comfortable, angelic.

He smiled. He had decided that he wanted to mate her more than anything else in the world, and if he hadn’t already invited Hans to the cabin, he would have taken Sheri there instead to propose to her. They’d been dating since she had moved to Minnesota, and they really enjoyed being with each other. More than that—he knew they were made for each other.

Seven months was a long time for wolves to date, and he was beyond ready to mate her. Before the new year, before Christmas even. He wanted to wake up with her on Christmas Day, enjoying the holiday as a newly mated couple. But her father, Fred, had been adamant that Slade shouldn’t try to convince her of a mating because her former boyfriend, Bentley, had controlled her so much. She never had a say in their relationship, which was why she kept telling Bentley she wasn’t interested in mating him. Her parents had felt bad that they had encouraged their mating and didn’t want to do that again with her where any other male wolf was concerned. Otherwise, her parents were excited to welcome Slade into the family.

But Slade just didn’t want to wait any longer!