Chapter 11 Wyndham
WYNDHAM
I was on the floor playing with Tinsel and Mistletoe when a truck traveling along the road broke the silence of the woods. Glancing up, I caught Ambrose’s eye before he moved to the window.
“That’ll be Jeffrey and his friend.”
I should have been thankful that I was about to go home and sleep in my own bed.
I should have. But I wasn’t. Leaving the cabin and my mate because I had an empty house waiting for me wasn’t the Christmas present I was hoping for.
But we were mated, and we had the marks to prove it, though we hadn’t figured out what our future looked like.
Ambrose was my present and future, and the strength of the mating bond made it impossible for me to leave him. Not that I wanted to. This wasn’t the universe tugging my chain. It was me being head over heels in love with my reindeer shifter.
I rubbed my hand over the mating mark on the shoulder. It grounded me, reassuring me that no matter where I lay my head this evening, Ambrose and I would be together forever.
“Something bothering you?” Ambrose squatted on the rug, and Mistletoe tried to bite his butt, but he picked her up and held her to his chest.
“It’s just that… This is going to sound weird.”
He smirked. “More weird than meeting a reindeer in the woods at night who turned out to be your one and only?”
Hmmm, when he put it like that, nope. That night trumped everything else.
My mate plonked himself on the floor and skimmed his butt next to mine.
“They’re getting the car out. That’s it.”
“I know. But it’s what that represents.”
Ambrose cocked his head. “Let’s see.” He tapped his lips. “Ummm, you’ll have a vehicle that may or may not be roadworthy.”
I didn’t give a damn about the car.
“No, if the car can be driven, I’ll be behind the wheel, and every yard and every mile I drive will take me away from you.”
My mate placed his lips on my ear, and his warm breath lowered my stress. “Says who? Who’s making those rules?” He kissed the top of my head. “We stick together.”
My breath came out in a rush. In my mind, I imagined the stress that wrapped itself around my insides released with the air.
“You think?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. Of course, no one was the boss of me, except my work boss, and I had free will.
A knock at the door interrupted the thoughts tangling in my head, and my mate got up to answer it. I swallowed a whimper or maybe a cry when he moved away.
Two men stood at the door bundled in winter gear. One had to be Ambrose’s brother. They could almost be twins because they were similar in height and build, and they both had dark eyes. I suspected his brother’s reindeer looked much like Ambrose’s.
“It’s out.” Jeffrey didn’t come in, and neither did his friend. “It has a few dings, but you can drive it. But a mechanic should check it over.”
I got up and stood at my mate’s side. Jeffrey narrowed his eyes and sniffed. Oh, maybe he’d picked up the mating bond. There was a lot I didn’t know about shifters.
“Thank you. I appreciate you coming out and helping me in this weather.”
“No problem. Glad we could help.” He glanced between me and Ambrose. “I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of one another.”
There was an awkward silence, and I wondered if I should have paid them. But my mate agreed he would, and with a wave and a wink from Jeffrey, they left.
“I can leave.” I just put it out there.
“You could, or we could get your things and we could spend Christmas together.”
I put up my hand. “I choose that option. The staying-here one.”
He took me in his arms and kissed me. “You’re my mate, and I never want us to be parted.”
Tinsel chased Mistletoe around the Christmas tree, and Ambrose and I moved as one to rescue the tree before they tried to climb or fight it. We each picked up a kitten, and they tried to attack one another with their tiny paws.
“We need to get these two toys and better kitty litter and beds.” Though if they made kitty boxing gloves, I’d buy those too.
Ambrose turned his nose up at the word litter. “My beast isn’t fond of animals pooping and peeing in the house, and that stuff we have now is bad.”
I explained about self-cleaning litter boxes, and he told me his reindeer cheered up on hearing the news.
“We can stop at the pet store first.” Getting the kittens kitted out was more important than me getting clean socks or my shaving gear.
Deciding not to chance driving my car, we took Ambrose’s truck, and two excited kittens accompanied us.
I’d placed them in a box on my lap, but that was useless, so I had to clutch them all the way to the store where the first item on the list wasn’t kitty litter but cat carriers.
These two had to be contained while we were in the car.
When I wasn’t wrangling kittens, I looked out the window at the snow. As I wasn’t the one driving and it was daytime and Ambrose was familiar with the roads, I was able to appreciate the beauty of the snow-covered forest.
But too soon, the trees gave way to houses, then businesses, followed by tall buildings and traffic lights, along with noise and lots of people.
The night of the infamous Christmas party, I hadn’t wanted to leave the city, and now I made a note of everything that wasn’t the countryside.
I didn’t want to be here and longed to be back in the cabin with my mate and our furry kids.
Reaching over, I placed one hand over my mate’s as he rested it on the armrest. He grinned, but the kittens wanted to get close to Ambrose too, and I grappled with them. I’d been in one car accident; I didn’t need our family to be in a second.
The pet store I chose was a family-run place, not one that was part of a big chain. The owner welcomed us, and when Ambrose and I struggled to contain the kittens, he showed us two cat carriers.
“We’ll take them.”
But as we browsed the store and ticked off items on our list, our fur babies were indignant at being trapped. They whacked the carrier walls, mewled, and scratched until we got them out, and the owner said they could run around.
Tinsel launched himself at a display of cat toys, and we bought ten and gave them to the pair. That got their interest for a few minutes until they turned into fur-covered tornadoes, knocking over displays and climbing into a litter box and kicking litter everywhere.
The owner laughed and said they were choosing what to buy.
Before we left, we had two beds—Tinsel curled up in one, and we had to carry him out in it—self-cleaning litter boxes, toys they’d played with, food, and bowls. If we'd forgotten anything, we would have to buy it next time because Ambrose appeared to be as exhausted as I was.
I joked to my mate that our purchase probably cost more than my car repairs.
“It’s worth it.”
The kittens slept on the drive to my house.
It was in a quiet neighborhood, though not as peaceful as the cabin.
Walking through the door, I’d always gotten the sense the house welcomed me, but today, there was nothing.
It was four walls and a roof, and it contained stuff.
There was no emotion, or regret that the house probably wouldn’t be our permanent home.
Ambrose appeared with the sleeping kittens, who were not in their carrier.
“That’s home,” I said.
“What is?” he asked, confused.
“You and the kittens, along with the woods and the cabin.”
“And work?”
I shrugged because I had two weeks off, and I’d think about my job tomorrow or the next day or perhaps the next. The house would have to be rented or sold, but I’d put that in a realtor’s hands.
I closed the door, not just to the house but to my former life.
“Let’s go home.”