The Christmas Tree Bear: A Bear Shifter Paranormal Holiday Romance Page 4

  She gave Charlie a hug as they got closer. “Oh, honey, bless you! I’m sorry you came out today. I’ll make sure you get paid for the whole day’s hours.”

  “No Santa time today?”

  “Doesn’t seem so.” Bill Poole rubbed at his bald head. “The Baptist church cancelled their group coming for Santa pictures about twenty minutes ago, and that was the only big group we had coming tonight, right?”

  “I had two other families cancel their appointments, and I doubt we’ll be getting any walk-ons tonight.” Jolie sighed. “Damn. Two Fridays before Christmas, and we have a whole weekend lost to a freak snow storm.”

  “And ice,” Charlie added. “My dad was giving me updates every ten minutes at home.”

  Bill nodded in approval. “I’ve got my youngest texting me any changes he finds on the net.” He waved his ancient flip phone at them. “Home from college, got to make him earn his keep.” The phone made a loud noise and Bill promptly dropped it. “Whoops! There he is again!”

  “Maybe we should just lock up, mom.” Willis put his arm around his mother’s shoulders. “Why don’t you go get Elvis and head over to the big house?”

  “But the reindeer! And I need to close up everything. Put a message on the phone line, the website--”

  “I’ll handle that. Well, the phone and the physical things here. You get Elvis and head out. I’ll stay in the cabin here to make sure the reindeer are okay.”

  “Oh boy, we are in for it, people!” Bill suddenly shouted. He snapped his phone shut. “My boy is telling me that the weather people think the ice is going to start in the next half hour. Everything is shut down for four counties. They think we’re going to have one historical winter storm.”

  “Fuck,” Charlie said for all of them. “I’ll grab the cameras!”

  They all frantically set to work getting as much of the delicate electronics and cloth banners of Christmas Tree Town inside as they could. Jolie ran down to the barn, and they could all hear her shouting at her nephew Elvis to muck faster. Willis disappeared to batten down the hatches in other areas of the farm as much as they could in such a short window.

  “You sure you don’t want to head out?” Bill asked her as they dragged Santa’s throne inside the storage shed. “I’ve got a big truck that can drive through anything.”

  “It’s fine!” Charlie shouted. The wind was starting to pick up. “My friend’s place is just down the road. We were planning a girl’s night anyway!” Which was half true. They had planned a late night girl’s debrief after her date with Willis. Ice cream and boy gossip with shitty dance movies, the best kind of night.

  They all met by the barn. Charlie got to finally set her eyes on the infamous Elvis. He was a gangly guy, obviously going to be as big as Willis once he grew into himself. He hunched down in his hoodie and wouldn’t really make eye contact with anyone else. Willis ruffled the teen’s hair through his hoodie even as the kid tried to duck away from his hand.

  “You take care of Aunt J tonight, all right?” Willis was telling his cousin.

  The teen muttered something into his hair that Charlie assumed was an affirmative.

  “We best all get out of here,” Bill told them.

  Bits of ice and snow were just starting to come down. Charlie turned up the collar of jacket. “Anything else that needs doing?”

  “Not by you!” Willis told her. “Everyone, in their cars. I’ll follow you guys down with the truck and lock up.”

  Once they were in the parking lot, Bill waved at everyone before hauling down the road and off the farm. Jolie bickered with Elvis while Willis made sure they both got in the beatup range rover.

  “It’ll be fine, mom,” Willis promised. “Everything will be all white and Christmas-card perfect by tomorrow, and we’ll make up all the lost business.”

  “Or it will be a mud farm,” she told him. Still, she patted his cheek once before rolling up her window and heading out.

  Willis eyed her hatchback as Charlie climbed into her car. “Maybe I should drive you home.”

  “It’ll be fine, I promise.” Charlie mimicked his mother and petted his cheek, then leaned in and kissed him once. “I’m going down to my friend Lynne’s. She's just down the road a few miles. Straight shot.”

  Willis still frowned. “Call me when you get in? Not to badger you, only--”

  “No, I understand. I’ll call you right after I call my mom, all right?” She leaned up and kissed him again. Then, again, when the big guy followed her through the open car door and sucked on her lower lip.

  “Okay, you have got to go home,” he growled at her as he pulled away, “or you are staying here with me.”

  “Now you’re just tempting me,” she teased. But she leaned back and pulled her car door shut before they both made her even later getting on the road.

  The tiny bits of sleet and snow were starting to come down hard and fast. It was barely four in the afternoon, but Charlie had her brights on and her windshield wipers on their max setting as she bounced back down the dirt road toward the main highway. Willis was following behind her in the truck.

  She paused just outside the gate while Willis popped out to lock it behind her. She texted Lynne and her mother one-handed: “leaving now, be there soon!”. She waited until Willis got back in the truck, just to be sure. He honked at her, and Charlie turned back onto the main road.

  It was already icy. “Fuck, shit, fuck,” she whispered to herself as she crawled along at barely a few miles an hour. She didn’t think it was sleeting that hard, but the wind was whipping along. It made her tiny hatchback rock when it hit her dead on. Maybe she should have stayed with Willis back on the farm. Even without taking sexy sleep overs into account, it might have been a smarter idea.

  She had driven through snow before in Ohio, but only a few times. Certainly never through a big snow storm. She hadn't thought it would be this bad: when did serious ice storms happen in down south? There was only one white Christmas she even remembered as a kid.

  She wasn't paying attention like she should have, and the car suddenly skidded on the road as she went around a bend in the road. “Shit, shit!” Charlie tried to turn into the way the car was fish tailing, but it didn’t do any good. The tiny car slid off the icy road and into the snowy rough.

  Charlie swallowed and tried to take stock of everything once the car stopped moving. She didn’t seem hurt, though she knew her arms and neck were going to be sore tomorrow from how tightly she had held herself. The car was still on, so she didn’t think she had ripped out the undercarriage. Putting the car in reverse, she tried to back out back onto the road. The tires squealed but the car didn’t move.

  “Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” became her refrain as she put the car into drive. Same thing: the tires spun on the icy ground but refused to move.

  Popping out of the car, Charlie tried to take stock of the situation, though she was a little cold in her light coat and thin cardigan underneath that. She used her phone to light the back tires and found there was nothing but icy mud. There was no way she was going to get traction there. The front was no better: at least it didn't look like she'd damaged anything when she slid off the road.

  The wind was howling around her. She looked back from the way she came, but it was pitch black. Not too many street lights this far out in the country. She didn’t think it was that far back to the farm.

  Charlie climbed back into the car. She checked her cell: only 20 percent battery. That was not going to be a useful flash light on an icy road.

  Quickly, she hit dial on the last number.

  ***

  Willis had only just walked in the door of the cabin after locking up the reindeer when his cell phone rang. He glanced at it, then smiled as he hit accept.

  “Hey beautiful,” he greeted her. “Home already?”

  “Not exactly,” Charlie told him.

  His ears perked up. She didn’t sound right. “What’s wrong?”

  “Before I tell you, I’m fin
e.”

  “Doesn’t help. Tell me.”

  “My car went off the road. I’m stuck and can’t get it out.” She sighed into the line.

  “Shit.” Willis glanced out the door. The snow was picking up, and there was already at at least an inch on the ground.

  “I think I can walk back to the farm. I’m not far,” Charlie started to say.

  No! his bear cried out. “You are not!” Willis was quick to tell her. “You’ll fall and break your neck if you don’t catch your death out there.” He tugged his heavy coat on one arm, then the other, swapping the phone from hand to hand. “Stay in the car. Let me get the truck, and I’ll be right there.”

  “Willis--”

  “You can’t stay in that tiny car of yours all night. You’ll freeze. Wait in there. I’ll be there soon. Okay? Just hang on.”

  “Okay,” she agreed quietly. “Be careful, but. Can you hurry? The wind is so loud and it’s dark. Kind of creepy.”

  “Be there real quick.” He dug through his pockets one-handed for his keys. “We’ve got raincheck plans, remember? Can’t let you get out of them.”

  Charlie laughed, though it was half hearted. “You’re right.”

  “I’m gonna hang up so I can drive.”

  “Come be my hero, Willis,” she told him seriously.

  He swallowed. “Big sexy hero, coming right up.” He hung up and shoved the phone back in his pocket.

  Making sure his gloves and beanie were on tight, he went out the door. The wind whipped the screen door from his hand. He had to slam the main door shut and force the screen door into place twice. He didn’t bother locking up: if someone found the cabin in this weather, they deserved to hide out with him – and, soon, Charlie.

  Berating himself for not insisting on driving her home, Willis knocked the snow off the front windshield of his truck as best he could. If he shifted, he could run out as a bear to meet Charlie within minutes, but what good would that do her? Riding on his back in the middle of an ice storm wasn’t the best idea. Even if he managed to convince her that it was him, and Willis the bear shifter farmer was just as trustworthy as regular old Willis.

  His bear was growling inside his chest. His mate was in trouble. Big trouble. He had to fix it. It made him jittery and slow. He had to keep gripping the wheel hard to keep the truck from slipping off the dirt track into the fence.

  “Focus!” he reminded himself.

  He got to the main gate in record time. He didn’t even bother shutting the truck door as he hopped out to fight open the gate. The wind ripped the gate from his hands as soon as he took off the chain, the lock lost in the snow. He would get a replacement later. He got back in the truck and slammed on the gas.

  The truck growled and the tires spun in place.

  “You are fucking with me!” he shouted. He changed gears, but it didn’t help. Flipping the truck into reverse, he moved maybe a foot before the truck got stuck again.

  He grabbed a flashlight off the passenger seat and jumped out again. The ground was covered in ice and snow, and even his heavy wheels were not going to dig up out of this one. He could go back to the main farm on foot and grab some hay, but that might not even work.

  “Shit!” he shouted into the heavy wind and sleet.

  ***

  Charlie shoved her hands into her sleeves. Why did she stupidly not have gloves? Sometimes, she was too much of a southern girl for her own good.

  She had turned off the car, but she kept it in neutral so she could keep the heat on. It wasn’t doing much; her little hatchback barely had functioning air conditioning in the summer.

  It felt like it had been forever since she spoke to Willis, but it had barely been ten minutes. She hoped he was all right. The wind howled outside the car.

  She checked her phone again: ten percent battery, the little wheel bar at the top of the screen spinning frantically as it tried to find signal. She thought about turning it off to save the battery, but what if Willis called her?

  Charlie debated back and forth, but finally decided to call Lynne. At least then someone besides Willis would know what was going on.

  Lynne picked up on the first ring. “Where are you?”

  “Don’t freak out.”

  “Oh my god! You crashed the car! Are you okay? Should I call 911?” Lynne shouted at her.

  “No, no, it’s fine! Breath!” She loved her friend, but Lynne liked to leap to the worst conclusion first. “I’m fine! I did go off the road, but I’m fine. I’m just down the road from the farm, so Willis is coming to get me. I’ll go back with him. There’s a little cabin on the property we can stay in.”

  “Well, thank goodness you aren’t dead in a ditch.” Lynne sighed in relief. “Slutty sleepovers instead of first dates, so wrecking the car might be worth it.”

  “Shut up,” Charlie said. “It’s not like that.”

  “No, but it could be. Maybe the thought of his big man chest keeping you warm through the night will warm you up,” Lynne teased. “Got to think on the bright side of things here!”

  Charlie laughed. She couldn’t help it.

  “There we go!” Lynne said in triumph. “My work here is done!”

  “Thanks.” Charlie rubbed at her cold nose. “That helped.”

  “It’s what best friends are here for: oversharing each other’s sex lives and making stupid jokes about sucky situations.”

  “And sharing ice cream.”

  “Fuck you. This moose tracks is all mine,” Lynne cackled at her.

  “That is not the meaning of friendship!” Charlie shouted.

  They laughed at each other and the conversation petered out.

  “No sexy farm man yet?” Lynne asked.

  “No.” Charlie squinted through the gloom. “Just me and the wind.” Her phone chirped at her. She glanced at the screen: less than five percent battery now. “And my phone is dying.”

  “Go,” Lynne told her. “You told me where you are. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll send the mounties after you.”

  “Thanks, Lynne.”

  “Call me or text me when you can, okay? So I know you’re all right.”

  “Promise!” Charlie told her as she hung up.

  She shoved her phone back in her pocket and huddled down in the driver's seat for warmth. The wind shook the car again and again, and after a while she gave up on using the windshield wipers to clear the snow off the front window. She wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, and though it was killing the battery, she kept the front lights on to help Willis find her.

  It felt like an age before there was a knock on her passenger window. Then the door was wrenched open. Charlie shrieked and went for her umbrella in the back seat to fend off an attacker.

  “Howdy!” Willis shouted at her. He was covered in snow, so much so that he almost had his own Santa Claus beard.

  “Jesus, you crazy man!” Charlie threw her arms about him and squeezed. “You’re soaked!” she shrieked and pulled away. She quickly turned the heat on high. “Why are you soaked?”

  He made a sheepish expression. “The truck might have gotten stuck in the snow a bit back there.”

  “Oh my god.” Charlie buried her face in her hands. “We’re both morons that are going to freeze to death in my shitty car.” Then she punched him in the shoulder. “You’re not allowed to do that again!”

  “Ow, hey. Quit it!” He grabbed her fist before she could do it again. Not that she could have hurt him. It was like he was made of metal under all that flannel. “I’m fine. We’ll be fine.”

  “You should have called the cops,” she told him. “They would have--”

  “Been at least an hour, if not more than that. Most of the time, they call me or Mom when they have a fire way out here. For directions.” He squinted out the windshield. The wind battered the car again and it shook. “We can’t stay here. We’ve got to head back to the farm.”

  “Can you trace your way back?” Charlie asked carefully. She wasn’t sure how he could
in all this blowing snow, even if he knew the area.

  “That’s not a problem.” He turned his eyes to her, all seriousness. “It’s more how am I going to get you back.”

  “What does that mean--”

  Willis reached out and took up Charlie’s hand. His hands were warm, even through the thick leather gloves. He squeezed her fingers, and she hung on.

  “You trust me?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she answered without hesitation. It surprised her that she didn’t have to think about it: she meant it. She trusted him.