Chapter 4 Jace
JACE
So this was Christmas Ranch.
Jace stood at the base of a recently plowed driveway, duffel bag slung over his shoulder, gazing at the ranch.
It looked like a postcard. Snow glistened on ranks of pine trees that even Jace’s city-boy eyes could tell were too evenly arranged to be natural.
That must be the FAMILY CHRISTMAS TREE FARM promised on a large hand-painted sign beside the posts that stood on either side of the gate.
The neat rows of pine trees spread out on the right-hand side of the ranch.
A small cluster of buildings stood directly in front of him, a large farmhouse and a barn and some other outbuildings.
Beyond that, a narrow road or a wide driveway curved gently up the hill toward a scatter of Christmas lights, gleaming in brilliant colors against the fresh snow.
Jace shifted from foot to foot. It was cold. His breath huffed out in a cloud of steam.
He had hitched a ride from town with a farmer.
The old guy had looked exactly like Jace’s idea of a farmer (white Santa beard, plaid shirt under a heavy sheepskin coat), and as the truck blasted heat out of its vents, he’d tried engaging Jace in conversation.
Jace knew he was being rude, but all he’d done was grunt back now and then.
The last thing the old guy had said before letting him off was, “You better get you a good coat if you’re gonna be staying out here, son. ”
Now that he was out in the weather, Jace could see why. The wind was going straight through his light town coat, a secondhand special that had seemed like a good bargain for the price.
He wasn’t used to the country. He wasn’t used to winter. He’d grown up in Georgia; the most snow he’d ever seen was a light dusting now and then. Kids who grew up in group homes didn’t do things like go up to Vermont for ski weekends.
This was part of why he had second-guessed coming here in the first place. This place looked perfectly picturesque. He didn’t fit. He felt himself starting to shut down, a feeling he hated and welcomed in equal measure. It was that old coping mechanism of Leave them before they leave you.
The place looked too good for him. Too pretty. People like him didn’t belong here. They were going to throw him out sooner or later; he’d break some rule, or they’d somehow sense the bottomless depths of messed-up in his soul.
So don’t care about it. Laugh at it, maybe. This stupid place with its picture postcard pine trees—what kind of idiots ran a place like this, and let just any old fuck-up stay there for free? It was a free bed, nothing more. Like the shelter, just hopefully with less scratchy blankets.
A horn beeped at him, jolting him out of his gloomy thoughts.
Jace turned, startled, and then stepped aside as a family minivan edged past him in the driveway, its tires swimming around in the slush where the sun had warmed up enough, earlier in the day, to start melting the snow.
Now it was freezing again into a treacherous mix of ice and water.
The sun was winking at him over the hill behind the house.
Even if he wanted to go back to town, give up on the risk of being thrown out of yet another place he could have called home, and spend the night at the shelter, it was getting too late for it.
Unless he hitched a ride with the minivan family, he didn’t have many prospects; it wasn’t like there was a lot of traffic going by on this narrow country road.
Ahead of him, the minivan turned to follow the signs pointing to the Christmas tree farm, crawling up a one-lane driveway curving off to the right between the pine trees.
There were piles of snow on either side.
Jace wondered what would happen if it met another vehicle coming the other way.
Did they have to back up until they got to a wider place?
He took a deep breath of chilly air and started walking toward the main house.
One of the problems he was struggling with was that he had no idea what he was expected to do, and he hated that—not having clear guidelines to follow.
All the worst problems in his life had led from that.
He sometimes felt like there was some kind of book of rules for life that everyone else had access to, but he never did.
Rules for getting good jobs, talking easily with people, charming women.
Jace didn’t know if it went along with being a lone shifter, not associated with a clan or a pack, or if it was something uniquely broken in him. Maybe both.
He would have been a lot more comfortable if there were check-in instructions or something. Instead, it looked like he was going to have to go up to the house and talk to someone.
However, he was in luck. He hadn’t even gotten halfway there before there was a sound of a small, sputtering engine, and a beat-up old ATV came roaring up to him, its knobby tires bouncing over the slushy snow with a lot more aptitude than the minivan. It was pulling a trailer with some hay in it.
The ATV jolted up beside him and stopped, although the engine continued to idle with a puttering sound.
“Hi!” said the driver. The voice was female, and startling in its familiarity even before he saw her face. “Either you’re lost, or you’re Jace, and you’re earl ...”
Her voice died away.
It was the woman from the community center.
Miss kiss-me-under-the-mistletoe.
The woman whose lips he couldn’t stop thinking about. The one who had made his wolf go wild.
Fur still itched on the backs of his hands, under his gloves.
He had kept his gloves on through supper at the shelter last night, ignoring the few funny looks he got.
Now he could feel his claw pressing against the gloves’ worn fingertips, and he jammed his free hand in his pocket.
The other was occupied holding the ragged duffel slung over his shoulder that contained his few possessions, a couple changes of clothes and some worn books from the community center.
Miss Mistletoe was wearing a heavy coat and work gloves, with a knit cap pulled down over her ears, so all he could really see was her face with freckled cheeks bright pink from the cold. Wisps of light brown hair escaped around the edges of the cap. Her green-gold eyes were wide with surprise.
“You got my flyer!” she said.
Jace realized he was staring in return. He jerked his eyes away. He had already been quiet long enough that her warm smile had begun to falter.
“Yeah, guess so,” he said. It came out rough, scratchy. Oh, this was bad.
Miss Mistletoe coughed a little. “You’re ... Jace, right?”
“Yeah.” He took a few steps back from her. That seemed to help a little, at least in terms of the visceral all-over reaction he was having to her. His hands stopped trying to shift, although his palms were wet with sweat.
She frowned, making a cute furrow appear between her brows. “Look, I don’t want this to be weird. I’m super glad you rescued me yesterday. I really appreciate it. I wanted to help you out, return the favor somehow.”
“Okay.” It was all he could think of to say. His mind was full of her nearness, and worse, her smell, light and floral and intensely female.
“Are you all right?” She was frowning with more concern now. “Are you mad at me?”
Before he could manage to answer that, a dog bounded up beside them, white and black with long fur and a graceful profile that Jace vaguely associated with Youtube videos about dogs herding sheep.
Jace reached out a cautious hand for it to sniff.
He had always liked dogs, although animals of any kind could react unpredictably to shifters.
This dog didn’t seem especially bothered by him. After he’d ruffled its soft ears, it allowed him to sink a hand into its thick ruff.
“That’s Rocket,” Miss Mistletoe said. “She’s friendly, but doesn’t really like to be clung to. Border collies are independent dogs. I guess she likes you.”
“Uh-huh,” Jace said, feeling Rocket’s dense fur under his gloved hand. He was unused to a dog being this okay with a shifter it had never met before.
But this dog would be used to shifters. From what Dave had told him, the owner of the place was a shifter. Miss Mistletoe’s gold-flecked eyes made him think of shifter eyes—was she part of that family, then?
This made him worry about what his eyes were doing. He took another step back. Rocket got tired of the non-petting and pranced off on dog business.
“Oh ... kay,” Miss Mistletoe said, almost to herself. “Boy, you really don’t talk a lot. So, um, your cottage is up the hill, where the Christmas lights are. Do you want a ride?”
Absolute horror washed over him. Sitting behind her, on the machine? Arms wrapped around her, legs wrapped around her—”No!” he said.
Miss Mistletoe shut off the machine and got off.
She was much shorter than him. He had noticed that before, how he’d had to lean down to kiss her. But he was aware of it now mainly as an almost palpable presence extending beyond her, as if her spirit was considerably mightier and fiercer than her small frame would suggest.
She had shifter heritage, he was almost sure of it. He could feel himself responding to it, not just the intense female nearness of her, but that inner animalistic nature. She didn’t have a shift animal; at least he didn’t think so. But there was something alpha in her. He sensed it strongly.
“Look,” she said, folding her arms. “I know you’re upset with me, okay?
I took—I took some liberties, I know I did.
But hey, it worked. Rob left me alone, and no one here knows about it, so you and I don’t have to ever talk about it again.
We can just pretend it didn’t happen and start over fresh.
” Her firmly set jaw softened a little, and she smiled at him.
“Hi. I’m Holly.” And she held out one mittened hand.