Chapter Eleven
Ragnar
I hadn’t been keeping an eye on the road condition reports as much as I normally would have.
It was selfish of me, but I didn’t want Aspen to leave, and if I didn’t know they were open, then he’d be staying.
But this morning, when I went to make breakfast, it was woefully obvious that it was time for some groceries.
Sure, there was plenty where we could make do, but some of the things that I really wanted weren’t there—like fresh milk. So I called a friend in town, and, sure enough, the roads were open, but they were shit.
I found Aspen looking out the window.
Some birds were eating the discarded bread we had thrown out there the day before. It had seen better days and it was a tradition my grandfather had started that I wanted to keep going. He loved to watch the birds all year long, but especially during the winter.
They were beautiful. I’d been thinking of putting up some bird feeders come spring, maybe the kind that attached to the window so we could watch from inside. I could see us sitting on our bed and watching them as we talked about our plans for the day.
There I was again, already deciding Aspen was staying here forever. I needed to be careful about getting too far ahead of myself. We’d talked about mating and what that meant, but the details of what that would look like for us? We still needed to have that talk.
Ideally he would live here with me. But if that wasn’t what he wanted, I’d pack this place up and start my new life where he wanted to be. He was mine, and I was his. I couldn’t picture moving forward with life without him by my side.
“Morning.” I wrapped my arms around him from the back, resting my chin on his shoulder. “They’re something, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, I didn’t expect there to be birds. I thought they all went south.”
“A lot do, but some stick around, and they tend to like freebie food.” I chuckled, rubbing my cheek against his neck, loving the way he shivered right down his spine. “My grandfather loved the birds. You’d have liked him.”
“It sounds like.” He turned his head enough to give me a quick peck on the cheek.
“The roads are better. Ish.”
He froze beneath my touch. “Understood. I can be out today.”
Aspen very much did not understand. He missed the ish part completely. I wasn’t kicking him out.
“Better ish, as in they’re not good, but useable to an extent. Your car wouldn’t make it a half a mile, even if it did have heat, which it doesn’t. So there’s that.” The thought of him riding anywhere without heat had my alpha instincts kicking in.
He leaned back into me. “Oh,” was all that he said.
“But I have a truck here with chains on the wheels. It’s not optimal, but around here, it’s pretty necessary. Why don’t we go into town? I’d like some more milk. I was thinking of making a banana cream pie.”
“You bake?”
“I bake with a side of ish. I need a box or a very easy recipe to have half a chance, but banana cream pie is one of my specialties, and we have some bananas that are perfect for it.” I brought my lips to his ear and whispered, “I buy the crust.”
His chuckle wrapped around me like a hug. “Then I’d love to go into town with you.”
He was going to be a little disappointed when he saw what “town” entailed.
There was a general store, which was as close as we came to a grocery store and a hardware store and a clothing store all combined.
A gas station with an attached garage where I was hoping to eventually get his car so that he could be up and running with actual heat.
And there was a diner slash bakery slash coffee shop.
That was pretty much it. We didn’t even have a town hall, just a town office above the diner and next to Thomas’s, the diner’s owner’s, apartment.
It wasn’t far to get to someplace bigger if we needed more, but not in this weather. We took the roads very slowly and didn’t see another vehicle the entire way.
“This must take some getting used to,” Aspen said. “Being stuck home all winter.”
It wasn’t all winter, but he had a point.
He held onto my leg tightly, as if it would protect him from any truck slippage. I rested my hand on his.
“The chains are good, and I’m going slow. And, yeah, it does take some getting used to, I suppose. When I was a kid, I loved it, it meant I got to spend more time with my grandfather.”
“He sounds like he was a pretty awesome guy.”
“He was. He was the best.”
When we reached the actual town area, the roads were a little bit better, which meant that we were able to get a decent parking spot, my only real worry about the trip. There was only street parking and, when roads weren’t plowed, that didn’t exist.
I helped Aspen out of the truck and took his hand. “Is this okay?”
“Very.”
I gave it a squeeze, and we walked inside, each of us grabbing a basket.
“Anything you want that I don’t have, grab it.”
“Okay,” he said. But we went through the entire produce aisle, and he selected nothing. And then we went to the deli and the same thing.
“Please put something in the baskets. It’ll make me feel better.”
He looked me in the eye, holding my gaze for a solid half minute before saying, “I think I’m gonna go get some turkey from the deli.”
I don’t know what he saw in my eyes, but whatever it was, he was now putting items inside his basket to the point where we almost needed to get a third one.
Groceries acquired, along with a pack of light bulbs that worked in the pantry and nowhere else in the house, and we loaded everything into the truck.
“Did you hear that?” Aspen asked.
I listened. There was the crunching of snow, a car pulling up beside us, the door opening, and someone coming out with their groceries.
“Meh, nothing unusual.”
“I don’t think so. I think it came from back there.”
And before I could ask for clarification, he was already walking around the side of the building. I followed him and caught up to him just as he squatted down.
“What do you see?”
“There’s a puppy here.” He scooped him up and said, “I don’t feel good leaving him here. Let’s see if he has a collar.”
He didn’t.
“Maybe he has one of those microchips,” Aspen offered.
“Not likely around here. They’d be helpful, but I doubt that the eighty-year-old vet in town has invested in that kind of technology.”
We went back in the general store and asked if anybody recognized the puppy. No one did. And we did the same thing at the diner and at the gas station.
“We can’t leave him here.” Aspen had him snuggled in close.
“I agree.”
We went back to the general store and bought every single kind of dog-related item there was.
We had snacks, we had food, we had a collar, a leash, and toys…
Oh, so many toys. They even had a book on how to care for a puppy.
It looked like it was geared to children, but my knowledge about dogs was equivalent to what a small child might have.
But they were cute and fun, and that was it, so the book was perfect for me.
We talked about checking online to see if anybody reported him missing, but from the looks of it, he’d been dumped.
“Some people shouldn’t be allowed to have pets,” Aspen grumbled under his breath and I couldn’t agree with him more.
“What do you think we should name him?”
Aspen put his face head-to-head with the puppy. “What should we call you? It was pretty frosty and cold today. What do you think? Are you a Frosty?”
And because puppies lick, the pup stuck out his tongue and swiped it across my mate’s chin.
“I’m gonna take that as a yes. Ragnar, I want to introduce you to Frosty.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Frosty. Would you like to come hang out at Santa’s Lodge?”
I couldn’t promise him a home there—there was a possibility he already had one—but every second I spent with him had me hoping that he’d stay with us, that he’d be the mascot for Santa’s Lodge.
If that cute little face didn’t bring in business, I didn’t know what would.