Chapter 11
“You know, the last few years, we had to move a few times until we settled down here and found the perfect pack to be with. But we always decided on things as a family. Amelia and I were fully grown, but as wolves, we wanted to stay close to each other.” Slade wanted to make sure Sheri felt the same way since someday he hoped they would have more of a family with each other.
“Of course, that’s totally understandable.” Sheri took a sip of her wine and set her glass down. “You have always had a family-run seaplane business and you’re there for each other.”
“Until we came here and had even more support,” Slade said.
“True. We also are a great support to the newly turned wolves of the pack who can use our help. It’s hard for me to explain to anyone who wasn’t part of that pack in Yellowknife how things really were. Kintail was a tyrant. His henchmen were as well. No one in their right mind went against what he dictated. My parents went along with it because what other choice did we have? They belonged to the only Arctic wolf pack up there. We felt safety in numbers. And unless anyone ousted Kintail, nothing was going to ever change. Elizabeth was like my sister. I saw my chance to escape, but then worried that I’d brought Kintail down on everyone’s heads in this wolf pack. Once my parents knew I wasn’t going back, they were all in with staying with us too. I think they realized it was their way out too.
“Hans was stubborn, but he knew family was more important and saw that not all wolf packs were ruled with an iron fist. So we might not have all made the decision to leave there and come here at the same time, but believe me, if I hadn’t slipped away with Elizabeth on your plane, my parents and brother would never have chanced leaving Yellowknife.” She lifted a french fry off her plate and waved it at Slade. “You know, I would have tried everything in my power to change my parents’ and brother’s minds about coming down here to stay if they hadn’t already decided it for themselves. They knew that if I mated, I would most likely have kids and they wanted to have grandchildren to love on. Hans wants a nephew or niece or two to dote on.”
That was all Slade needed to hear. “Speaking of kids, how many do you think you want?”
“Well, since our kind often have multiple births, we’ll probably have more than one. But if I had only one, maybe take a chance and try again?”
He smiled. “Absolutely.”
“Well? What about you?”
“That sounds right to me. Being a twin, I can’t imagine not having another sibling to play and fight with.”
“Boy do I agree with you there.”
Then they finished eating and cleaned up.
“I’ll see what kind of board games they have here.” He looked through several, then found the perfect one. He pulled it from the bookshelf in the living room and set it on the table. “How about this one? It’s a Christmas Monopoly game.”
“Oh, that looks like fun. Perfect for Christmas. I’ll make us some hot cocoa if you would like while you’re setting up the game.”
“Sure, that sounds good.” Slade opened the box and began to set things up. “Which player piece do you want to use? The candy cane, train, teddy bear, reindeer, Scrooge, or a lump of black coal?”
“Oh, the teddy bear.”
“Okay, I’ll be—”
“Not the Scrooge.”
He smiled at her.
“Or the lump of black coal. You’re too sweet for that.”
“I can be a really growly wolf.”
“But not for a board game.”
“You never know—not when I want to win.”
She laughed and once the cocoa was ready, she brought their mugs into the living room.
“I’ll be the reindeer,” he said.
“Aww, okay, I love it.” She leaned down and kissed him, then sat opposite him to start playing the game.
They both drank from their mugs of cocoa as they began tossing the dice and moving their reindeer and teddy bear forward, buying properties and buying presents to purchase Christmas trees, until Sheri ended up blowing a fuse in the game. “Oh no!”
Slade laughed, until he got run over by a reindeer. “Hey, I’m a reindeer. They should be running with me, not running over me. Okay, so while we’re buying properties on the board, what would you say about us having a house built? I mean, your dad’s a builder. He could build a house for us on the lake near the other families’ homes. Cameron and the others bought all that land around part of the lake so that more of the members of the pack, should it expand, could live there too.”
Sheri had just tossed the dice and overthrew them, and they rolled off the table and landed on the floor. “What?” She sounded shocked to hear him make the suggestion after all this time.
“Yeah. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for us to make the commitment to join households.” He retrieved her dice for her and handed them to her.
“Do you want to mate?” Her beautiful blue eyes were wide.
He smiled. “Yeah. But your dad said I had to wait until I was sure that you didn’t feel like you were being forced to mate me.”
Sheri’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“Uh, yeah. Don’t get mad at him. He and your mom felt guilty that they were trying to push you to mate with Bentley when you still lived in Yellowknife.” Slade didn’t want her to be annoyed with her father over it. He knew her father had just worried about her not having a say in her life if Slade had been too alpha with her.
“Yeah, my parents thought I just couldn’t make up my mind about Bentley, but the thing is I hated how controlling he was. He wasn’t the one for me.”
“They just didn’t want you to fall into the same situation again.” Slade was trying to smooth things over with her in case she was really irritated with her dad over this.
She let out her breath. “I can’t believe my dad would tell you to hold off on mating me.”
“I think we need to get serious about some other matters though too.”
“Oh?” Sheri was surprised Slade would bring up a mating over a Christmas Monopoly game, but she knew he wanted to discuss more business before they really agreed to do this, and she was glad.
“Yeah. I’ve been dating a she-wolf for seven months and you know our kind normally don’t wait that long to mate.”
“When I asked you if you minded if I went with you when my brother couldn’t, you laughed.” She’d wondered what was up with that!
Slade smiled. “Your brother kept telling me I needed to take you instead of him. When he became sick all of a sudden, I thought he was faking it. But not when we went to his apartment.”
“Ahh, okay. Cameron laughed about it too when I called to say I was going with you if he didn’t need me at work for the week.”
“Yeah, you know, everyone is just waiting for me to ask you to mate me.”
Sheri laughed. “But you were afraid I would say no?”
“In the back of my mind, I kept thinking you were still thinking about your ex-boyfriend or might want to return to your home of Yellowknife.”
Ugh. She wished Slade had never known about Bentley. On the other hand, it was probably good that he had. “No way. Not with my family and my best friend being here now and, most of all, you.”
“We have the best sexual chemistry,” Slade said.
“Oh yeah.” That was for sure.
“After sleeping with you overnight, I don’t want it to be any other way. I want to kiss you, hug you, fit you into my life in every possible way.”
She smiled. She felt the same way about him. “Oh?”
“Yeah, I want you every night and every day. I want to be there for you when you need me, and I know you’ll always be there for me.”
She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. “All I need is you. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. You are so strong but so good about giving me a say in what we’re going to do.”
“As it should be,” he said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
She truly loved him for that. “That’s why you’re the right wolf for me. I mean, ever since I met you on the getaway plane that both you and Amelia were taking turns flying, you’ve been there for me—trying to protect me against Bentley and my former pack leader. Family is so important, and I love that your family is as loving to me as you are. You knew flying Elizabeth and me could have caused you and your sister more trouble, but both of you didn’t even give it a second thought.”
“No, it would have been wolves abandoning those in need, and David wouldn’t have let anything come between him and Elizabeth, and we certainly weren’t going to leave Elizabeth’s best friend behind to take the flak from their pack leader for her slipping out of his grasp.”
“Well, I thank you.”
“When I first saw you, I wanted to date you.”
“I was certain it was because I was the only lone she-wolf in the area.” Sheri had felt the attraction to him right away, though she couldn’t imagine how someone who was so sexy and sweet hadn’t settled down already unless it was because there were no she-wolves in the area who were eligible.
“No, I wanted to know if you were single right away and I wanted you to know I was very much available. I was just glad David wanted Elizabeth as his mate, that you were leaving an ex-boyfriend behind, and we hit it off so well. Yeah, I was totally interested in you from the moment I saw you and learned you wanted to stay with your best friend. You were loyal to the core to her from the very beginning. That means a lot.”
“She has always been loyal to me. I have to say that seeing a hotshot pilot in a bomber’s jacket was a total turn-on. I was so surprised when you said you were single.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I wanted you to know that right away.”
“Well, now, soon, you’re not going to be.” She sighed and kissed his mouth. “While living in Yellowknife, I didn’t figure I would ever have someone I could fall in love with and mate. Boy, once I was here, you changed everything for me.”
“I’m glad you came with Elizabeth to make your escape. Amelia told me my tongue was hanging out as soon as I saw you.”
Sheri laughed. “She knows you well. About another important topic, what about finances?”
“I make good money, and you do too. I have enough saved up to build a house for us. I’m amenable to us putting our money together or having separate accounts, or a joint account and separate ones. Whatever you want,” Slade said.
“Let’s have our money all together to simplify things. My parents always had their accounts together.”
“My parents also have all joint accounts,” he said.
“I have money in savings to put into the house too,” she said.
“That sounds good. Both of us have furnished apartments, so we’ll have fun shopping for furniture for our new home after it’s built.”
“Oh, I would love that,” Sheri said. “What about a honeymoon? A wedding?”
“A wedding held locally with all our pack members,” Slade said. “We could have it at the lake.”
“So we could have the wedding in September of next year? That should give us time to have the house finished. My dad really gets to work and sees them built right and in a timely fashion.”
“Yeah, that sounds good. We just need to look at house plans, purchase the land from the wolf pack, and get the permits, have your dad look over everything, and get it done.”
“What about the honeymoon? Where would you like to go?” Sheri asked.
“Hmm, tropical? A ski vacation?”
Sheri thought about it for a moment. “Let’s go skiing. We’ll take a pre-honeymoon trip after the mating—well, after Christmas, instead of after the wedding. That way the ski resort will still have snow.”
“We can take a tropical honeymoon too, after the wedding. For the first, Silver Town is wolf-run, and I’ve heard they have a great ski resort. I’ll make reservations for us at the Wolff Timberline Lodge, if they have anything available.”
“Okay, great. Hopefully they have a room.”
“I’ll make reservations right away. If they don’t have anything, we can find someplace else to go.” Slade immediately got on the satellite phone and called the lodge. “Hi, I would like to make reservations for a room.” He gave Roxie Wolff the dates. “We’re going there for our honeymoon, but we realize it might be too late to get a room.” He smiled at Sheri. “That would be great. We’re excited to enjoy all that Silver Town has to offer. Thanks, Roxie.”
When he ended the call, he hugged Sheri. “Roxie Wolff is part owner of the lodge, and she said that a groom had gotten cold feet at his wedding and canceled his reservation for a honeymoon suite. We’ve got it!”
“Yes!” Sheri was so excited. “Then we’ll just have to let everyone know we need time off for that and hopefully they can do without us. As long as we do it before the full moon when those who are not royal wolves will have difficulties with shifting. So I’ll need to be there for them.”
“Absolutely. Okay, well that’s the plan. Now, we just have to do one more thing.”
Sheri said, “That’s the most fun thing we have to do.”
“And then we tell our families? The pack?” Slade asked.
“Yeah. They’ll be so happy for us.”
“I hope your dad will be.” Slade sounded a little worried.
“Oh, he will be because I’m so happy.”