The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

It was afternoon and the sky was leaden and gleaming and the rain never let up. But he was used to this now and had come to see it as part of the winter charm of his new existence.

He’d spent the morning in the town of Nideck with Felix, as Felix made arrangements to have the entire main street decorated for Christmas with greenery and lights. Every tree would be wrapped and twinkling, and Felix would finance the lighting and trimming of every storefront, as long as the owners went along with it, which they very cheerfully did. He wrote a check to the innkeeper for special decorations in the main room, and conferred with a number of residents eager to decorate their houses as well.

More merchants had been found for the old empty stores on the main street—a dealer in special soaps and shampoos, a vintage-clothing merchant, and a specialist in laces, both antique and modern. Felix had bought the one and only old motion-picture theater, and was having it renovated but for what he was not certain.

Reuben had to smile at all of this ultra-gentrification. But Felix had not neglected more practical aspects of Nideck. He’d been in contact with two retired contractors who wanted to open a variety hardware store and fix-it shop, and several people were interested in the idea of a café and newsstand. Nideck had some 300 people, and 142 households. It couldn’t support the businesses that were coming in, but Felix could, and would until the place became a quaint and charming and popular destination. He had already sold off four lots to people who would be building appropriately designed homes within walking distance of downtown.

The elderly mayor, Johnny Cronin, was in ecstasy. Felix had offered him some sort of financial grant to quit his “miserable job” sixty miles away in an insurance office.

It was agreed there would be a Sunday Christmas festival soon to which handicraft people of all sorts would be invited, ads would be taken in the various local papers, and Felix and the mayor were still talking over a late lunch in the main dining room of the Inn when Reuben decided he had to break away.

Even if Laura was not ready to discuss her decision one way or the other, he had to see her, had to steal whatever embrace he could from her. Hell, if she wasn’t home, he would be happy just to sit in her little living room for a while, or maybe stretch out and nap on her bed.

Maybe it wasn’t fair to her for him to do this, but maybe again it was. He loved her, loved her more than he had ever loved any girlfriend or lover before her. He couldn’t stand being without her, and maybe he ought to say so. Why shouldn’t he say so? What could he lose? He wouldn’t make or break her decision for her by what he did. And he had to stop being fearful as to what he would think or feel about whatever she chose to do.

It was just getting dark when he pulled into her drive.

Another urgent message came in on his iPhone from Celeste. He ignored it.

The little steep-roofed house in the woods was warmly lighted against the great dark gulf of the forest, and he could smell the oak fire. It struck him suddenly that he should have brought a little gift with him, flowers perhaps, or even maybe … a ring. He hadn’t thought of this before, and he was suddenly crushed.

And what if she had company, a man of whom he knew nothing? What if she didn’t come to the door?

Well, she did come to the door. She opened it for him.

And the moment he set eyes on her he wanted to make love to her, and nothing else. She was in faded jeans and an old gray sweater that made her eyes look all the more smoky and dark, and she wore no makeup, looking quietly splendid, with her hair free on her shoulders.

“Come here to me, you monster,” she said at once, in a low teasing voice, hugging him tightly, kissing him all over his face and neck. “Look at this dark hair, hmmm, and these blue eyes. I was beginning to think I dreamed every minute of you.”

He held her so tightly he must have been hurting her. He wanted a moment of nothing but holding her.

She drew him towards the back bedroom. She was rosy-cheeked and radiant, her hair beautifully mussed and fuller than he’d remembered, certainly more blond than he’d remembered, full of sunlight, it seemed to him, and her expression struck him as sly and deliciously intimate.

There was a comforting blaze in the black-iron Franklin stove. And a couple of little glass-shade lamps lighted on either side of the oak bed with its soft lumpy faded quilts and lace-trimmed pillows.

She pulled the covers down and helped him take off his shirt and jacket and pants. The air was warm and dry and sweet, as it always was in her house, her little lair.

He was weak with relief, but that lasted only a few seconds, and then he was kissing her as if they’d never been separated. Not too fast, not too fast, he kept telling himself, but it didn’t do any good. This was hotter, all this, more exuberant and divinely rough.

They lay together after, dozing, as the rain trickled down the panes. He woke with a start, and turned to see her with her eyes open looking at the ceiling. The only light came from the kitchen. And food was cooking there. He could smell it. Roast chicken and red wine. He knew that fragrance well enough and he was suddenly too hungry to think of anything else.

They had dinner together at the round oak table, Reuben in a terry-cloth robe she’d found for him, and Laura in one of those lovely white flannel gowns she so loved. This one was trimmed with a bit of blue embroidery and blue ribbon on the collar and cuffs and placket, and it had blue buttons, a flattering complement to her dazzled, confidential smile, and her glowing skin.

They said nothing as they ate the meal, Reuben devouring everything as always, and Laura to his surprise actually eating her food rather than pushing it around on her plate.

A stillness fell over them when they’d finished. The fire was snapping and rustling in the living room fireplace. And the whole little house seemed safe and strong against the rain that hammered on the roof and the panes. What had it been like to grow up under this roof? He couldn’t imagine. Morphenkind or not, he realized, the great woods still represented for him a wilderness.

This was something he loved, that they did not make small talk, that they could go hours without talking, that they talked without talking, but what were they saying to one another, without words, just now?

She sat motionless in the oak chair with only her left hand on the table, her right hand in her lap. It seemed she’d been watching him as he cleaned the plate, and he sensed it now and sensed something particularly enticing about her, about the fullness of her lips and the mass of her hair that framed her face.

Then it came over him, came over him like a chill stealing over his face and neck. Why in the world hadn’t he realized immediately.