Keena Bolden hated every single holiday twinkling light and now she had to go into town and be assaulted by the town’s Christmas joy.
She stood in the mudroom of her cabin with one hand resting against the wall while she shoved her boots on. She tried to not think about the garlands that had been draped around the railing outside or the wreath that had been left on her porch the week before.
She’d taken it down the same day and tossed it in the storage bench by the door. One of the pack members had been kind enough to bring her one tohelp make her home holiday-ish, but she just couldn’t stomach the sight of the red ribbon and pinecones on her house.
The cabin was too damn quiet.
She grabbed her coat from the hook by the door and shrugged into it. Outside, the wind moaned through the trees that surrounded her property.
Her cabin sat a few miles outside of town and was tucked deep enough into the woods that she could pretend that Evergreen Hollow and its cheerful holiday madness didn’t exist.
As an enforcer for the White Pine Pack, she didn’t have the luxury of locking herself away until after New Year’s and waiting for the season to pass. She had responsibilities. She had to patrol, check in on pack members, ensure tourists were kept from wandering where they shouldn’t, and ensure the town was well protected.
The holidays always brought more traffic to town, which meant more work for the pack, and more reason for Keena to keep moving.
Staying busy was the only thing that kept her from drowning.
If she slowed down—if she let herself sit too long—her mind would drift back to the night she lost her mate. She’d replay receiving that phone calland then she would fall deep into the grief that had split her open completely.
It had been five years and she was still trying to piece herself together.
Her gaze landed on the wooden plaque that hung near the doorway. It had been carved by one of the White Pine elders and gifted to her. The words were etched deep into the wood in elegant script, surrounded by a border of hand carved pine trees.
The pines remain strong even through the harshest of winters.
So do wolves who survive heartbreak.
Every member of the White Pine Pack knew the saying. It was written in the pack archives, stitched into family histories and murmured by the elders when a loved one passed on to the afterlife.
It was one of the oldest beliefs the pack carried, passed down from ancestors who had crossed the brutal winters and buried loved ones beneath frozen ground, yet kept going because there was no other choice.
When her parents had died, Keena had found comfort in the saying. Her father had died in a wolf attack. He’d been a great enforcer of the pack. There had been an attack from a rival pack and he’d suffered wounds that had been too great toovercome even for a shifter. Months later, her mother had passed away from a broken heart. Keena had been around twenty years old when they had died.
She’d held onto the plaque when it had been presented to her. But now she despised the saying after the death of her mate.
She hated how easily people offered the words as if it fixed everything. As if surviving heartbreak was some noble thing instead of a punishment.
She now understood how her mother passed away. Her heart couldn’t stand the thought of going through life without her fated mate. Shifters could live after their mate’s death, but for some reason her mother’s heart chose to give out.
Keena had tried therapy after Lizzie had died. For a while, she’d made herself go weekly. The therapist had been kind and asked her to talk about her grief, to talk about the good memories she’d shared with Lizzie, and then speak of the future.
Keena had tried. She truly had, but then during one of the sessions, the therapist had smiled sadly and said,“The pines remain strong even through the harshest winters…”
Keena never went back.
Her wolf stirred beneath her skin. She was restless and sensed the turn in Keena’s thoughts. Theanimal never liked when Keena lingered too long in her grief. The wolf prowled constantly these days. She was protective and frustrated as if she too didn’t understand why half of their soul was gone.
“I’m going,” Keena murmured, more to herself than the wolf inside of her.
She grabbed her keys from the small dish on the table and stepped outside. Cold immediately bit her cheeks. The December air was sharp enough to sting and snow crunched under her boots as she crossed the short path to her idling SUV. She congratulated herself on utilizing the remote start to allow it to heat up while she got ready to leave.
Around her, the woods stretched silent and beautiful. The white pines towered high and proud against the snow covered ground. Their branches were dusted in snow and for one brief stupid second Keena remembered the first winter she and Lizzie had spent in the cabin.
Lizzie had stood in the yard with snow in her dark hair and had insisted that they cut their own tree from the back of the property. She’d dragged Keena through the knee-deep snow for an hour before she settled on the most lopsided little pine tree that Keena had ever seen.
“It’s charming,” Lizzie declared. Her hands were onher hips, her cheeks were pink from the cold and her smile was bright.
“It looks like it lost a fight,” Keena chuckled. She tilted her head as she stared at the small tree.
