14. Joy
JOY
Joy was still holding the note and gazing at it when Leah limped in using one crutch and a hand on the wall, as she often did when moving around indoors.
“Now what?” Leah asked. She leaned over to look at the note. “Okay, what fresh hell, seriously.”
“I need to go down and see what he wants.”
“No, you don’t actually.”
“I do,” Joy said, more sharply than she meant to.
“Wow,” Leah said. She sat heavily on the end of Joy’s bed and laid her crutch down. “Okay, sis. Time for real talk.”
“I don’t know if I can handle taking relationship advice from my kid sister,” Joy said, but she sat on the other side of the bed. “You haven’t even ever had a serious boyfriend.”
“Yet!” Leah said, her voice escalating. “Rude much?”
“Sorry.” Joy looked down at the note in her hands. “Leah, it’s just—I gotta do this. I think I’ll regret it forever if I don’t go for it with Bar.”
“I know,” Leah sighed.
There was a whole world of weary resignation in her voice, making Joy look up.
“What’s that all about?”
“I’ve been able to see it from the beginning,” Leah said. She met her sister’s eyes. “He’s rich and rude and awful, but you—you look at him like I’ve never seen you look at anyone. You’re right, I don’t know much about romance, but I know you . I can see the way you light up around him. He makes you happy. I didn’t even know you weren’t happy until?—”
“I am happy!” Joy protested. Just not for the last few hours.
“Let Dr. Shrew finish.” But it took Leah a minute to get going again. She picked at a loose thread on her tights, not looking at Joy. “It’s been just you and me for so long that I guess it was easy to forget it wouldn’t be you and me forever. And then you saw him , and that was it. I could tell.”
“Leah ...” Joy had recognized that her sister was jealous of Bar; she just hadn’t realized how deeply insecure Leah was about it. “I’m not leaving you. You know that, right? I’m never leaving you.”
“But you’re supposed to,” Leah said, looking up quickly. “I’m a grownup now. We’re supposed to have our own lives. I mean, I should probably have gone to college already, if we could’ve afforded it. It’s not gonna stay the same, and I just—I—I hope you don’t forget me while you’re being very happy with Bar!” she burst out.
Joy scooted over and dragged Leah into a tight hug.
“You goose,” she said into Leah’s hair. “For the last time, I’m not going to forget you, I’m not going to abandon you, and even if Bar and I stay together, which really depends on whatever he’s got planned for me downstairs, I’m probably not even going to move out for a good long while yet.” She pushed Leah back, gripping her by the shoulders. “So yeah, things are going to change, but they’ll change slowly and we’ll have time to adjust to it. Okay?”
Leah huffed out a little sigh. Although she wasn’t quite crying, she wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “You ought to go see what stupid thing he’s done this time.” She smiled hesitantly. “If nothing else, if you and Bar stay serious, I will have lots of things to laugh about. Mostly at his expense. Marley’s ghost isn’t off the table, you know.”
Joy could feel herself on the verge of cracking up. “Marley’s ghost had better stay off the table and all the other furniture,” she said as sternly as she could manage. Getting a grip on herself, she went on, “I’m going down in a minute, but first I need to tell you something. You’re the first person I’ve told.”
Leah clutched her heart theatrically. “Are you pregnant? Am I going to be an aunt?”
“No! What? How fast do you think people get pregnant? Good grief, was the sex ed in your school really that bad?”
“I’ve heard shifters can tell,” Leah said.
“Not after four hours, you ninny. Are you going to let me finish?”
Leah mimed zipping her lips and throwing away a key.
“He’s my mate,” Joy said. “My fated mate. The true, real one.”
Leah rolled her eyes. “Well, of course he is. I mean, you could still do better, but—what?”
Joy was glaring at her. “How do you know? Did you hear us talking?”
“No, it’s just that if mates are a thing, he’s got to be yours. There’s no way he could not be.” Leah threw her hands in the air. “So okay, I guess I’ve been fighting you and destiny all this time. Can’t stop a girl from trying. You know a shrew will fight something a hundred times its size. I can’t help it. It’s in my nature.”
Joy firmly stifled a grin. “Well, I’m glad you know. I’m going downstairs now, but I’ll come back up and finish our game soon.”
“No, no. Go talk to your mate. We’ve had Sistermas Eve already. If you want backup?—”
“I do not,” Joy said, “want backup.” She smiled. “I think this time I need to go alone. Are you sure you don’t want me to come back?—”
“No, I do not. I’ll read my new book and do your gem kit.”
“Hands off my gem kit!”
“Okay, but I’d better not see you before morning, and I stand ready to commit shrew mayhem if he’s not perfectly well behaved.”
“Duly noted,” Joy said. “See you—well, tomorrow, I guess, if all goes well. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas. Go go, be happy, let me know if I need to come down there and give him a beatdown.”
Joy pictured her slight, crutch-bound sister going ballistic on Bar, who was at least half again her weight. It was not an implausible image. “I’ll keep you posted. Bye!”
Once she was out of the suite, it was as if a weight that had been holding her back fell away. Her sister was happy for her. Joy had to stop herself from running to the top of the stairs.
Below, the lights were unexpectedly dim. As Joy started down the stairs, she began to notice a few things.
First of all, with the lobby lights down, the firelight was visible flickering on the wall. But there was more than that. As she descended the stairs, lights began to swirl on the walls. It was one of those LED light shows, she thought, although she couldn’t tell where the light projector was—or maybe more than one, because blue and silver snowflakes danced around her, all over the walls and the stairs and her skin. It was like being inside a snowglobe.
By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, she felt as if she had walked into a winter wonderland, and looking around made her realize that it wasn’t just the lights. The decoration game had been stepped up a notch. There were snowflakes absolutely everywhere, dangling from the ceiling and sparkling in the rotating light show, and artificial snow had been laid around heavily.
It was the most festive thing she had ever seen, and with most of the light coming from the flickering fire and the slowly rotating blue and white LED lights, it was beautiful beyond words.
Chrismanukkah , she thought, and wanted to laugh, if it wouldn’t have made her cry.
“I thought about playing music too, but I didn’t know what you like,” came Bar’s deep, quiet voice. “Or what the right tradition was. I don’t even know if there’s Hanukkah music.”
She hadn’t even seen him sitting on a couch in front of the fireplace. Now he got up. He was wearing a dark brown sweater that immediately made her want to run her fingers over it, and his hair was slicked down as if it had been wet. That must have been Bar she’d seen going by under the window, she realized.
“I have come to the understanding that I’ve been an idiot,” Bar said. He was approaching her, the lights dancing across his sweater, his hair, his face. “I wasn’t sure if you’d come down, and I would deserve it if you didn’t.”
“My sister threatened to give you a resounding beatdown,” Joy said. She was captivated by the play of light on his face.
“I deserve that too, probably.” He took her in his arms, and Joy all but melted against him. “Does she have a huge, terrifying shift form?”
“She turns into a shrew.”
“Ah.”
“Just in case you didn’t know, shrews are one of the most aggressive animals on the planet. They’ll fight, kill, and eat creatures several times their size. Leah says a hundred times, but I’m pretty sure she’s exaggerating. Probably.”
“I consider myself suitably intimidated.” Bar looked down at her, holding her in his arms while the lights whirled across both of them. “Joy, an apology won’t exactly fix things, but I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. I reacted about as badly as I possibly could have, and I apologize for it. I’ll grovel if you want me to.”
Joy almost choked on a laugh. “I don’t think groveling is necessary. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure I know what groveling looks like. I just don’t know what happened. Everything was fine, and then all those accusations—what did I do?”
“It’s not what you did. It’s what other people did. And I took it out on you, and you didn’t deserve that.” Bar led her toward the couch by the fire. She came willingly. “I told you that Mom married Dad for his money, and made no secret of it. My whole life, people have been trying to get to me for my money. I’ve always been afraid of making the same mistake my dad made, mistaking something fake for something real. But I’ve realized that I made a far worse one, which was mistaking the real for the fake. I made accusations you may never be able to forgive me for.”
“I—I think it’s a little early to talk about never forgiving anyone,” Joy said faintly. Between the warmth of the fire, the slowly revolving lights, and Bar’s arm gently guiding her down to the couch, she felt pleasantly dizzy. “I can understand why it happened.”
“It won’t happen again. But I’m doing more than just promising you.” Bar took both her hands in his. “I want to give you something, Joy, that I could never have dreamed of giving anyone else. You are my future and my heart, and I want everything that I have to be yours. Including my ancestral lands.”
“What?” Joy asked faintly. The spinning feeling was more intense.
“This land is yours—or it will be, once the holiday is over and I’m able to get the proper deeds and quitclaims filed. Just as well I haven’t got Hester’s signature yet, because the paperwork is going to be completely different. I talked to my lawyer tonight, so it’s a go if you’re interested. And after that, you can do what you want with it.”
“What I want?” She knew she was echoing him, but it was hard to think.
Bar gripped her hands tightly. “The idea of giving away my land was unthinkable to me, until I realized I could give it to you. And I want to. As it turns out, my dragon loves the idea of giving you the land as a courting gift. After that, you can do whatever you want with it. You can give some of it to Hester and Mauro for the lodge, if you like. You can turn the entire place into a pine tree preserve if you want.”
“I—I think the pine trees are doing fine without our help,” Joy said faintly, and Bar laughed. His wonderful laugh, for her alone. “I really ... don’t think it’s enough to say that I appreciate it, although I truly do, but maybe that’s like ‘sorry’ isn’t enough. We just have to live it.”
“Yes.” He squeezed her hands. “Living it is what I want. Together. If you’ll have me.”
“Of course I will. But Bar—are you sure ? About the land?”
“I have never been so sure of anything in my life.” Bar smiled, a sudden brilliant grin that took her breath away. “My dragon’s sure, and I’ve never felt it in quite the same way before. Sure of the land—and sure of you. I’d be a fool not to listen to him.”
He leaned forward cautiously, and Joy rose to meet him. Their kisses were, as always, new and familiar at the same time, each touch of their lips fresh and yet thrumming with something in her soul that seemed to have always known she belonged here.
Mate.
“Mate,” Bar murmured after the kiss broke, gazing into her eyes. “It is real.”
“It is,” she breathed, and threw her arms around his neck.
Bar drew her to her feet, and then swept her up in a bridal carry. “May I take you to my bower?”
“I think if you try to carry me up the stairs, we’re going to be celebrating Christmas in the ER,” she gasped, clutching at his neck as he began very carefully to walk forward.
Bar finally relented, after a few more heated kisses, to let her down at the foot of the stairs. They climbed with many pauses for kisses in between steps.
“I told Leah I wouldn’t be back tonight,” Joy gasped, one of the times she came up for air. “At least I hoped I wouldn’t be.”
“Do I need to worry about a shrew interrupting us in the middle of the good part?”
“We’d better lock the door.”
Kissing led to fervent petting and finally to a luxurious and total enjoyment of the big bed in the honeymoon suite. Afterwards, they lay cuddled together while sleet ticked against the windows and an occasional gust of wind shook the lodge.
“I do think I want to give Hester and Mauro this part of the land,” Joy murmured. “For the lodge to go on being the place that it is.”
“Then do it. It’s yours.” Bar’s gaze turned inward, and she realized with a small thrill that he was consulting his dragon. He smiled with that new flicker of pleasure that always seemed to accompany contact with his inner animal. “It’s a gift. We want you to enjoy it in any way that suits you best.”
“It would make me very happy for Mauro and Hester to have this piece of it. But we’re definitely keeping the rest of it. I think we should restore your old family home. It’ll be a lot of work, and we probably can’t start until spring. But I can see it in my head, a beautiful mountain retreat, just like it used to be when you were a kid.”
“Do you want to live there?” Bar asked, stroking her hair.
“Maybe not full time. We both have busy lives in the city. But for weekends and holidays?—”
She stopped as the ticking of small, hard snowflakes against the windows suddenly gained a different note, more of a soft, abrupt plop .
Joy sat up in bed, clutching the blanket to her chest. She squinted at the window. Yes, that was a suction cup adhered to the bottom of the window—in the glimpse she got of it, before it came off and vanished from sight. From somewhere out in the storm, she thought she heard a furious squeak.
“What’s going on?” Bar asked, sitting up as well.
“Rodentus interruptus. Well, shrews aren’t rodents, but you get the picture. Just a minute, I’ll take care of it.”
Joy swung her bare legs out of bed and grabbed a fluffy red-and-pink throw off the foot of the bed to wrap around herself before she padded over to the window. She unlatched it, pushed it open, and leaned out into the chilly wind.
Directly below her was a hunched figure propped on a crutch, with bare legs and a coat draped over the top of its head, furiously fiddling with something half-hidden from view.
“Leah!” Joy called down, trying to raise her voice enough to be heard without rousing Hester and Mauro.
The hunchback jumped guiltily and then hunched over even more. Joy glimpsed bits of bright-colored plastic being hastily concealed.
“Leah, put the crossbow away. We are fine. Things are good. Backup not needed.”
The hooded lump tilted back to reveal Leah’s face with snowflakes swirling down on her upturned cheeks. “It’s after midnight,” she whispered loudly. “Merry Christmas, properly this time!”
Now that Joy could see her more clearly, there was a pile of clothing at her feet. She was wearing snow boots, her coat, and nothing else, which made sense as she had evidently been a shrew a few minutes ago. A rappelling shrew, apparently. Joy waved off Bar, who was coming over to see what was going on.
“Merry Christmas!” Joy whispered. “Get back inside, and if I see you again before morning, I’m giving the rest of your presents away to needy orphans!”
Leah waved in a way that managed to be somehow mildly derogatory, but she scooped up her clothing and—juggling clothing, purse, and crutches—scuttled off down the path under the lodge’s eaves and vanished from sight. Joy slammed the window and double-checked that it was latched.
“What’s up?” Bar asked, wrapping his arms around her from behind. Joy leaned luxuriously into his touch.
“Just saving us from a shrew incursion. I think she’s back in her room for the night. Just to be on the safe side, I’m going around making sure all the windows are locked.”
“Never a dull moment,” Bar said, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching with evident pleasure as Joy circled the room, trailing pink-and-red afghan ends, checking the windows.
“Tell me about it.”