There weren’t.

  I spent the remainder of the night pretending to be Santa. Leaping from terrace to terrace so wide-eyed children wouldn’t be able to trace the path I’d traveled in the morning. Scent-marking toys for tots, then, after teenagers collapsed in the wee hours, delivering new cell phones and gaming consoles to those too old to buy into Solstice magic. Perhaps, for just one moment, they’d believe again when they woke up.

  The first hint of light was already glimmering ever-so-faintly on the horizon when I finished delivering adult gifts. It had been a stretch finding something personal for each of our guests, but they’d fled from their home with only the most basic of belongings, which left lots of needs to cater to. And Maya was a pro at ferreting out wishes from young and old alike, so eventually we’d gotten every single person in the canyon covered.

  I’d left my sister for last. Not because I struggled to come up with a gift for her—I’d whittled the pair of frolicking wolves out of saguaro cactus ribs weeks ago. No, I left her for last because I figured I’d be running late enough that my final giftee might catch me in the act.

  I was right. Maya waited at her kitchen table, a plate of Ari’s cookies in front of her, as I slipped through her front door. “Donovan’s in the shower,” she murmured, keeping her voice low in deference for sleeping neighbors. “You can turn on the light if you want.”

  I didn’t. Just settled into the guest spot at a table barely large enough for three, leaving the wide open side for Donovan’s wheelchair. “Pups will be up soon,” I observed.

  A shriek entirely different from the one I’d heard last night proved the first pup was awake already. If I didn’t miss my guess, that was Isabella cuddling the kitten she’d demanded by painting its face onto her alpha’s arm.

  Maya smiled, but she didn’t let herself become sidetracked. “How are your bees?”

  “Asleep at the moment. The same way I’d like to be.” Not that I’d be sleeping anytime soon. The pups would want to show off their bounty and our guests needed to be integrated more fully into our lives if they were going to be an asset rather than a series of tattoo-like problems. Plus, the Solstice required even more celebration than its eve, and none of our old traditions would suffice this year.

  Still, I didn’t push my way to my feet. I didn’t even start running through ideas for the upcoming festivities in my head. Just picked up the last of Ari’s cookies and nibbled the moon from a perfect globe into a crescent shape.

  Solstice, I was willing to admit, at least tasted pretty darn good.

  “You need a king-sized bed in your hermit cave,” Maya said, as if there hadn’t been twenty-three hours between this moment and what I’d thought was the end of her intrusion into my sleeping arrangements.

  “Wouldn’t hurt,” I agreed. “That’ll make it easier for the pups to cuddle up together if worst comes to worst.”

  “Not what I meant,” Maya countered.

  But she let me sidetrack her with my carvings. Didn’t gloat when her Solstice gift of stealth planter boxes to slip into place along the canyon walls provided a non-lupine way for me to quiet the bees while still being present for my pack that spring. Didn’t even say I told you so when my visits to the bunker lengthened each time I left the canyon and found everything still operational upon my return.

  That breathing space worked miracles. Gradually, over the course of the next six months, I found my footing. Clan mates who’d initially reserved judgment fully accepted me as alpha. We folded Becca and her pack mates into our midst as if they’d never been strangers.

  And when electricity in the air preceded the most unlikely woman turning up on our doorstep that summer, I had space in my life for her. Space on the mattress in my hermit cave, also, which turned out to be more than big enough for two.

  It was either Maya’s manipulations leading to that wonder or the desert magic that swirled around me each time I trotted across the sand after letting children tattoo me with henna. Sisterly love or Solstice magic? I wasn’t sure which to blame for the changes, but I very much appreciated the result.

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  Aimee Easterling, Paws & Claus

 

 

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