Jingle Bell Wolf by Terry Spear

Chapter 7

Early Sunday morning, Gabrielle woke, stretched, glanced at the time, realized it was much later than she’d planned to get up, and jumped out of bed. She had a swimming date with Landon—before the pool opened—and she hadn’t wanted to be this late!

She tore off her night T-shirt and hurried to put on her bikini. She even debated wearing the string bikini. Was she crazy or what? But she left it in the drawer, not intending to bring it out again now that she was swimming with a hot wolf.

She finished getting ready, grabbed her room key and shoved it into her cover-up pocket, slipped on her flip-flops, and headed out the door. She had barely made it to the lobby when Blake met her and smiled. Rosco jumped up from his bed near the fireplace and hurried to greet her too.

“I swear Landon thought you were going to stand him up. He’s been pacing across the lobby for an hour.” Blake appeared amused.

“Oh, uh, we didn’t set a time. I…overslept.” She hadn’t meant to upset Landon. She reached down and petted Rosco.

“Here he comes,” Blake said.

But at the same time, a dark-haired woman caught Gabrielle’s eye. Something about her seemed familiar. Her face. She was wearing jeans, snow boots, and a wool sweater and didn’t look like she was going skiing, but she headed for the check-in counter. Then another wolf headed straight for Gabrielle, stealing her attention, and she couldn’t believe who she was seeing. Brando Redfern.

She’d gone out with him a couple of times when he was in Daytona Beach on vacation. He was okay. Nothing to write home about. He was living with a wolf pack in Georgia, and he and two of his male wolf friends had come to Daytona Beach on a three-day weekend outing. He wasn’t the least bit interested in moving to Daytona Beach, and he’d only walked with her on the beach and taken her out to dinner and then to a movie the next night. His friends showed up at the seafood restaurant to harass him good-naturedly, as if she and he were an item. Which they hadn’t been. She guessed he was interested in saying hi because she was someone he had met before. She figured he wasn’t here alone either and would have some friends along.

Landon was looking in a different direction, but when he saw Gabrielle talking to Blake and petting Rosco, he smiled openly. She loved how seeing her seemed to brighten his morning. She didn’t remember a time when a wolf had acted that way when he saw her and really meant it. It couldn’t help but make her feel special.

“I’ll leave you two to it,” Blake said. “He’s all yours for the rest of the day and tomorrow. We’ll see you for breakfast in a bit.” Then smiling, he shook his head at Landon and headed for the check-in counter.

“So you’re all mine for the next two days, your brother said.” Gabrielle took hold of Landon’s hand and headed for the pool while Rosco returned to his bed by the fire. She saw right away that Landon had already put out the private party sign.

“I’m glad about that. Tonight, if you would like, I’ll take you to the Silver Town Tavern for dinner.”

“Sure. Is their food as good as it is here?”

“It sure is.”

She sighed. “But you would have to pay for it.” As if the family wasn’t already paying for the food at their own bar and grill. She could offer to pay, but she loved to tease him about it. A wolf without a sense of humor wouldn’t be the one for her.

Landon chuckled. “Of course. That was the plan.”

Brando had stopped to speak to a couple of guys—the men Gabrielle had seen him with at Daytona Beach. He quickly spoke to them, then turned and hurried to intercept her and Landon on their way to the pool. She thought he would realize she was with someone and butt out. Instead, he pulled her into a hug, and she felt her face heat with embarrassment. She quickly pulled away from him and put distance between them, frowning at him for being so forward. He wasn’t her boyfriend or anything else to her, for heaven’s sake.

“What are you doing here?” Brando was all smiles, like they were the best of friends and had known each other forever.

“I’m here skiing, but I’m going swimming first.” She turned to Landon, who looked like he was ready to trounce the wolf, his eyes narrowed, his expression grim.

Even though she wasn’t Landon’s mate, he still had the territorial wolf behavior down pat.

“This is Brando Redfern from Georgia. I met him once on the beach back home. Brando, this is Landon Wolff”—a real wolf, and one she had more of a time keeping her hands off, not this guy—“who is part owner of the lodge and restaurant.”

“Swimming. That sounds like a winner. I’ll go get my trunks and join you.” Brando either didn’t get the point or he was ignoring it.

“The pool is closed,” Landon said. “It’s only open to staff.”

“You work here? As a vet?” Brando asked Gabrielle, as if he really thought they would have a vet clinic at the lodge. He was being facetious, and it certainly wasn’t a way to win anyone over, as if he’d had any real interest in getting her attention and keeping it.

“She’s an invited guest,” Landon said, his voice terse.

“Oh, well, then you could invite me, since I’m a friend of hers.” Brando’s insinuation was that there was more to their relationship than she was letting on, and that irritated her.

“Sorry, it’s a private party.” She wanted him to just go away. Of all the times to run into someone she knew who had just been passing through Daytona Beach and had never spoken to her again. That’s why she knew he wasn’t someone she could be interested in. If so, he would have gotten ahold of her at some time or another and told her what a great time he’d had and how he wanted to see her again. “Enjoy your ski vacation.”

“Yeah, I’ll get together with you later then.”

As if.She smiled lamely at him. “Let’s go swimming, Landon.” She walked with him into the pool area and stopped next to one of the chaise lounges, dropping her towel on the chair and kicking her flip-flops off.

Landon pulled off his shirt and removed his sandals. “So about this Brando…”

“I went out to dinner with him once when he was vacationing in Daytona Beach with his friends and then to a movie the next night. I never saw or heard from him again.”

“I thought you looked a bit shocked when he hugged you.”

She smiled. “You looked a bit growly.”

He chuckled. “Sorry, instinctive wolf genes.”

“No problem. He startled me with his actions. He isn’t somebody that I know well.”

“Not like me.”

“Not at all like you. So, changing the subject, I sure feel the pull in my muscles. You work such different muscles when you’re skiing. I didn’t even know they existed.”

“I agree. Every summer, we use different muscles to hike instead of snow ski, and then in the winter, we’ll be back to skiing and we all feel it. A lot of skiers who just take a vacation at a ski resort once a year or so do too. So you’re not alone.”

“Good. I hate to think I’m the only one who is so out of shape.” She jumped into the pool, and when she came up for air, he jumped in behind her and came up beside her. She was still wondering if her girlfriends would arrive tomorrow night like they said they would or keep calling or texting to tell her they were going to be even later. She suspected that unless the woman gave herself up to Zelda and Odette, they were going to be at this for a while. Oh well, she should live for the moment, and for now Gabrielle was having a ball.

She and Landon swam to the outside part of the pool and then turned and headed back to the other side. When they swam back under the glass divider, she came up for air and saw a family of four removing their sandals and cover-ups, wearing swimsuits and getting ready to swim. Oh, great, more rule breakers. Only this time she was sure Landon would enforce the rules.

Landon came up some way beyond her and saw the family. “Excuse me. The pool isn’t open yet.”

“You’re swimming.” The man sounded aggravated with Landon. “And this doesn’t look like a private party to me.”

Gabrielle waited, treading water, hoping that Landon could resolve this without any trouble.

“I’m one of the owners.”

The man looked disgruntled, his mouth turned down, his brow furrowed.

“The sign’s posted for the owners and staff to swim. It’s the only time we have to do it before we have to be on duty.” Landon tried to sound apologetic, though he still showed he was in charge and the man and his family wouldn’t sway him to allow them in the pool for an early-morning swim.

“Okay, sorry.” But the man didn’t sound sorry at all, more irritated he couldn’t take his family swimming when he’d brought them all down to the pool dressed for it. “Come on, kids. We’ll come later, after we finish skiing today.”

“I told you it was closed.” The woman sounded totally annoyed with the man, her tongue sharp, her face as much of a scowl as his.

The kids looked disappointed, but it was the man’s fault for trying to buck the system and making the family think they could swim when it was posted that they couldn’t. Gabrielle had been the exception—being a single she-wolf in a bikini helped.

As soon as the family left, Gabrielle turned and dove under the water again and swam to the outside end of the pool. She was glad Landon hadn’t kicked her out of the pool the other day and was allowing her to continue to swim—with him, of course. And that was even more fun.

Landon swam with her, just doing laps like they’d done before, back and forth, back and forth.

She was glad. She loved swimming like this and did it at her own swimming pool back home a couple of times a day, once at night after work, and once in the morning before work to keep in shape when she couldn’t run as a wolf. She’d never thought she would be able to swim at the lodge after hours like this—with permission, when there was no one else in the pool. This was so much fun.

But when she was done swimming laps, she chased after Landon, whether he was done swimming his laps or not. She grabbed his foot and he took a gulp of water, laughing. And coughing. She was laughing. He turned around so fast, she didn’t have time to get away from him before he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

What a way to start the morning. If she’d been here with just her friends, she wouldn’t have had half this much fun! Well, fun in a different way. But this was sexy and romantic. Landon kept kissing her and she kept kissing him back. He was keeping them afloat with his legs as she wrapped her legs around his hips.

She sighed. “Hmm, I always love swimming, but this is nothing like what I would have imagined.” Swimming in her own swimming pool back home with a hot wolfish hunk, sure. She’d envisioned it many times. But at a ski resort? Nope.

Landon smiled down at her and kissed her wet cheek. “I’m going to have to tell your friends to keep working, so I can keep seeing you.”

She laughed. “At this rate, they may never arrive.”

“I’ll have to send them a Christmas card thanking them, if they don’t.”

“But can you afford to take that much time off from work?”

“Yeah, I can. I told you. Our guests are important.”

“One guest.”

He kissed her. “Yeah, you bet. Oh, and by the way, we called the guests that had been in your room before you arrived and they said the Secret Santa gift isn’t theirs. So I guess since it was in your room two days after they left, it has to be yours.”

She sighed. “Okay, I’ll have to open it then. Maybe it’s from someone who wants me to stay and be the local vet. But I’ll check it out later. Let’s go get some breakfast. Or we’re bound to end up in my room doing stuff we shouldn’t.”

He let out his breath in an exaggerated sigh. “All right. If that’s the way you want it.”

“Yes. I’m starving, aren’t you?”

“I am.” They swam to the stairs and climbed out, then grabbed their towels and dried off. “I’m still waiting to see you in the other candy-cane bikini again.”

She smiled. “All right. I’ll wear it tonight.” She really hadn’t planned to, but after all he’d done for her, if that’s what he really wanted, she would do it.

“Hot damn. I would howl if I could, but maybe tonight on the run.”

She laughed and pulled on her cover-up. “I’ll run up to my room and get changed and meet you downstairs in a few minutes.” But she picked up the Secret Santa package from the front desk before she went upstairs. Her whole day was looking up as long as she didn’t break a leg skiing.