His family was close-knit, too, but since his parents had started doing so much traveling, it had been a while since they’d had a big, traditional family Christmas like the ones they’d had when he was a kid. He didn’t begrudge his parents the chance to see the world, not at all, but he had to admit that he’d missed this a little. It was good to be part of this kind of celebration again, even if he was more on the outskirts of it.
“And you must be Wade,” Mira’s mom said, finally separating herself from her now-disheveled daughter. “I’m Susan. This is my husband, Cliff. It’s very nice to have you with us.”
Her welcome was warm and genuine, but Wade didn’t think he was wrong to detect a note of uncertainty there too. From her point of view, he was a very last-minute addition to her dinner table, and she had to wonder what about him had made Mira fall so quickly.
For a second, all he could see was Boring Wade, with a bottomless drawer full of lumberjack shirts (it wasn’t his fault they went well with all the woodworking) and a history full ofreasonable, responsible decisions. Maybe hewasthe kind of guy a mother would want her daughter to date, but was he the kind of man she could see sweeping that daughter off her feet?
His polar bear reared its head.
Remember what your mate told you, it said, its eyes glittering with a fierceness Wade didn’t see in it very often.
He did remember: the rhythm and the dance. He’d believed her when she’d told him that he had—and needed—both. He was Mira’s choice, and he loved her too much to insult that choice or assume she would pick badly.
He could turn into a polar bear, which was pretty cool. He could work with wood, which was a gift and an art he still loved. He could entertain kidsandsave them from rampaging reindeer. He was done assuming that he was too steady to be interesting, and he was done assuming that steadiness was secretly bad.
He shook Mira’s parents’ hands, one after the other.
Mira looked a lot like her mom, with the same graceful features and wide, dark eyes. But the family ties were just as obvious with her stepfather, just not as biological: they instantly fell into a well-worn joke routine with each other that ended with easy laughter. Everything here felt warm and comfortable and homey.
Wade was happier than ever that Mira’s bonus would come through. Now that he’d actually met her parents, he would hate to think of them struggling or being unhappy.
He followed Susan and Cliff into the living room.
“Brace yourself,” Mira whispered.
In another second, he could see why. After multiple days hip-deep in a Honey Brook Mall Christmas, he would have said that no amount of holiday decorations could possibly surprise him. Nothing could ever feel like overkill again, right?
This ... challenged that assumption.
Multicolored lights bedecked every available surface. They twined around the mantel (weaving in between the already-hung stockings), climbed up the doorframes, framed the TV, and—of course—wrapped around every inch of the tree. Years of Mira’s homemade decorations hung on that, interspersed with red and green and gold bulbs that reflected the light and made it even more dazzling. A tiny porcelain Christmas village was laid out on a gleaming mahogany table, with some of the villagers whirling around on a frosted glass ice rink.
“This was always my favorite part,” Mira said, tugging him over to watch the villagers spin. She lifted one up and showed him the magnet on its feet. “There are different magnetized tracks they spin on, so I would swap them around sometimes so they’d skate in different places.”
Mira ran her thumb over the small, chipped figurine, like it was a beloved pet, and then she gently put it back down to skate away again.
She took a deep breath to steady herself.
Wade thought he understood why she needed it. Even though her parents’ future was settled now and everything had worked out the way it should, this happy ending for the Allenbys still meant enormous changes. Susan and Cliff would sell their house. The home life Mira had grown up with was about to vanish. It wouldn’t take all its memories with it, but he could see why there would be a bittersweet ache to it all the same. After all, he was happy his parents were enjoying their golden years traveling, but hadn’t he just been thinking about how he sort of missed their Christmases together?
He put his arm around Mira and held her a bit, letting her pull herself back together. Luckily, Susan and Cliff had gone to the kitchen to get them drinks, so they had a minute.
“I’m fine,” Mira said, wiping at her eyes. “I’m being silly.”
Wade shook his head. “You’re not. This is hard.”
“But I keep thinking I’d feel better if we knew the Christmas Village would come back.” She let out a short laugh. “See,that’ssilly.”
He shook his head again. He still felt bad about it, too. He hoped their plan for bringing it back next year would work.
Mira continued: “I didn’t realize it until now, but it reminded me of home.” She waved her hand at all the exuberant holiday cheer surrounding them. There was no fake snow or ear-splitting carol-oke, no irritations and no Marsh, but it was still Christmas cranked up until the volume knob came off. “You can see why. I guess some part of me always knew that I’d be losingthis. This move is going to be better for my parents, definitely, and life changes, and you have to deal with it. But in the back of my mind, I must have thought ... well, at least the Christmas Village would still be here.”
Now it wouldn’t be.
And that was because of him. She wasn’t saying it, and Wade knew she wasn’t eventhinkingit. If she was mad at anyone for today’s debacle, it was Marsh—and he did bear the lion’s share of the responsibility.
But if Wade hadn’t been a polar bear shifter, the reindeer wouldn’t have panicked. Just because Mira wasn’t blaming him didn’t mean he wasn’t blaming himself.
“We’ll get it back,” he said. “It’s a local tradition. The Arbogasts will come around.”
