The Christmas Tree Bear: A Bear Shifter Paranormal Holiday Romance (4 page)

Charlie quickly typed in her name and her cell.  “Giving you my number.”  She offered the phone back and tried to be smooth.  “You could text me.  If you like doing that.”

“...yeah, I’d like that.”  

They were leaning close together, smiling at each other.  Charlie shook her head and turned to go.  

“I should--” she started.

“Hey, wait.”

Willis hooked two fingers in the back belt loop of her jeans and tugged her back.  Charlie let out a startled laugh.  He pulled her back against his chest then slid an arm around her waist.  He tipped her head back against his shoulder so she had to look up at him.

“I know I should wait for an actual date before I do this, but--”  

She closed her eyes as he leaned down to kiss her.  It was… soft but so intense.  They kissed with closed mouths, touching and tasting each other’s lips.  That warm shiver that had gone up her spine before happened again, then settled all warm in her stomach.  Charlie grabbed on to Willis’ wrist as he tipped her head with his hand to pull her closer.  

Willis pulled away slightly.  Charlie opened her eyes and met his big, brown ones.  He shook his head, then leaned in again, pulling her even tighter into the curve of his body.  He pressed hot kisses against the corner of her mouth, her neck, even her ears.  Charlie breathed out and couldn’t help but whimper, and that was all the consent Willis needed to charge back and plunder her mouth.  

Charlie found herself pressed against the side of the tractor with her fingers twisted up in Willis’ short hair as they kissed, and kissed, and kissed.  He kept his hands on her waist, his fingers flexing on the edge of her shirt across her lower back.  She wanted nothing more than to jump up and wrap her legs around his waist.

He pulled back with great reluctance.  “You need to go home,” he told her with a groan, “or I’m going to introduce you to the hayloft.”

“Yeah,” she agreed and gulped for air.

They parted reluctantly.  Charlie bit her lip before leaning up and rubbing her lipstick off Willis’ face with her thumb.  He looked confused until she showed him her hand, then just laughed.

“You should try to miss my mom,” he told her.  “You look like you’ve been making out with a horny boy.”

“Wasn’t that what I was doing?” she teased.

“Hope I at least rate suave older gentleman.”

Charlie giggled, then leaned up to kiss his pouting lips.  “You’re only a few years older than me.  How about mysterious farm man?”

He took the kiss but was still frowning.  “What about cowboy?”

“You don’t even own any horses!”  She laughed as she escaped his arms.  She walked backwards out of the barn.  “How about we discuss this more on Friday?”

“I’ll have a list!”  he shouted.

Charlie turned back around and bit down on her lower lip as she walked back to her car.  Maybe this wasn’t the smartest thing she had ever done, but it was fun.  

As she slid into her car and checked her phone, she found a new text message.  “Brilliant cowboy farm poet?-W,” it read.  It made her smile.

Chapter 5

“Charlie, are you sure you want to go over to the farm tonight?” her mother Brenda, shouted up the stairs.  

Charlie paused comparing earrings against her outfit, a plain black off-shoulder top she could cover with a cardigan.  “It’s fine, Mama!”

“Are you sure?  Dad says the weather--” Brenda started.

“--the weatherman says we might get an inch of ice before it switches off to snow!  They think we might get six inches of snow!”  her father Bobby shouted.  

Charlie rolled her eyes.  “Thanks for the update, Daddy!”

“I will keep you all informed!” he shouted back.  The corgis, Mork and Mindy, barked in time with him, then skittered after her father as he went back down into his man-cave in the basement.

Her mother appeared in her doorway.  “Charlie, I think you should stay home.  You know Jolie would entirely understand.”

“I’ll be fine, Mama.”

Brenda watched her as Charlie got ready, throwing her favorite cardigan over the tight jeans and off-shoulder top.  “You look nice,” her mother told her.

“Thanks.”  Charlie smiled.  She touched her flipped-up hair self-consciously.  “Lynne and I were thinking of going out tonight.”

Her mother wrinkled her nose.  “I think that plan might be out the window, baby.”

“I know, I know.  But I’m still going out to Christmas Tree Town.  I promised Jolie I’d come tonight, and I don’t want to leave her to run the place herself.”

Her mother trailed after her down the stairs to the main part of the house.  Mork and Mindy bounded up the stairs, their little claws clicking on the tile, and danced in glee around Charlie’s ankles.  

“Hey hey, babies!” she greeted them, and scratched their ears.

“Well, call before you leave the farm, okay?  Otherwise, we’ll worry.”  

“Yes, mama,” Charlie agreed.  She grabbed up her bag as she was heading out the door, scooting the corgis back so they couldn’t follow.  “I’m staying at Lynne’s this weekend, remember?  I’ll see you guys on Tuesday!” she shouted over her shoulder. 

She had not told her parents about trying out the whole roommates thing with Lynne yet.  She had told them she would be staying off and on with her this month, then thought they would have the conversation after the holidays.  It seemed less stressful for her parents – and her, she could admit to herself.

Her mother waved at her from the screen door, the corgis whining about her heels, as Charlie got in her car and pulled away.  

If she let on to her mother that she had a date, she would want to know everything and try to convince her to have Willis over to the house instead.  Bless her mother.  

She glanced at her phone again to Willis’ text message.  “Excited for tonight.  Snow can’t scare me off.”  He had even put a smiley face.  A guy comfortable enough with his masculinity to use emojis.  She
liked
him.  Which was still stupid and wasn’t in any of her plans, but there it was.  She liked this guy.  She wanted to talk to him, sit with him, and she sure as hell wanted more of those intense kisses from him.

So, why did the weather hate her?

What was normally a twenty minute drive out to the the farm took less than ten.  There was no one out on the roads.  She pulled up the dirt driveway to the main area of Christmas Tree Farm, and she could hear the frozen ground crunch under her little car’s tires.  There were no cars in the blocked-off area the Barnetts used as a parking lot.  

Willis met her as she was getting out of her car.  He looked dangerously sexy in wrangler jeans, boots, a leather jacket, and a sweater.  

“Hey,” he greeted her, and didn’t hesitate to lean down and press a kiss to the corner of her mouth.  

“You look like a sexy secret agent.”  After a slight hesitation, Charlie tucked her cold hands under Willis’ coat against his sides.  The sweater was snuggly soft, and he was incredibly warm.  “A warm sexy secret agent,” she added.

“I run hot,” he explained.  He tugged her close, and they hugged in the faint afternoon light.  He was tall enough that he could rest his cheek on the top of her head.  It felt so nice as they quietly held on to each other.  Eventually, they pulled apart, but Willis kept a hand on her waist.  “I think our plans for tonight might need a rain check.”

Charlie eyed the empty parking lot, then the greying sky.  “Yeah, I am getting that feeling.”  She sighed.  “Well, let me at least check in with Jolie.  Maybe she wants me to stick around for a bit.”

Willis walked with her back toward Christmas Tree Town.  Their fingers kept brushing together, and she felt him start to grab for her fingers more than once, then hold himself back.  This boy was going to be very dangerous for her:  not even on the first date, and he wanted to hold her hand.  

Jolie was standing next to Bill Poole by Santa’s throne.  Bill was only in his Santa’s pants and a heavy parka, and Jolie had not bothered to put on her elf costume.

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.