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T rixie and Hunter moved in on Christmas Eve.

They didn’t have more furniture than a mattress on the floor in the master bedroom, but the kitchen was done and stocked with ingredients for a big holiday dinner.

The room that would be Trixie’s shop was full of unopened boxes, from Hunter’s home in Colorado and from Trixie’s apartment in Fairbanks.

It had been a joy to pick colors and finishes to her own taste, instead of staying to a bland, marketable beige or indulging a client, and Trixie loved the bright tiles in the bathrooms and kitchen, and the warm wood trim.

Most of the floors were heavy-duty vinyl, tough enough for kids or claws. Even bear claws.

“There’s so much rooooom in this kitchen,” Trixie sang, making her hot Tang with rum and all but waltzing from end to end. They had already eaten several meals in the house, and broken in the mattress recreationally, but this was their first night sleeping there.

Hunter was sitting in a lawn chair facing the front windows.

A tool box acted as a coffee table, and a second lawn chair cozied up next to it.

Trixie handed Hunter his cup. It was dark outside; they saw more of their own reflections than what was on the other side of the glass, but hadn’t hung curtains yet.

Winter solstice had come and gone, and although the days were getting longer again, it was hard to tell.

“Thank you, Mrs. Talon,” Hunter said, collecting a kiss with his cup.

Trixie had kept her name—more because she hated how much paperwork it would be to change it than from any feminist independence—and she refused to wear a ring. “I’d lose it,” she said. “It would come off in work gloves or snag on a tool and take my finger with it.”

Trixie was getting better at reading his expressions now, and although he glowered, she didn’t think he minded either of those choices. She settled into the other lawn chair and gazed fondly at their reflections.

They had married quietly in Colorado, so that his family could easily attend, taken a weekend to honeymoon in Aspen, and returned to Alaska to get right back to work.

Trixie had hired a few of the crew for big tasks—blowing insulation into the rafters and hanging the drywall—but most of it she did with just Hunter.

She took intense personal pride in the project, and enjoyed the solid partnership most of all.

Hunter did consultation for his family’s security business, and worked closely with the local trooper now.

The trooper’s talk of retirement was more serious now, and Hunter was looking into the education that it would take to qualify for his job.

Trixie thought he’d be a perfect small town cop.

He was strong, not prone to drama, and unfailingly fair. Being a shifter certainly didn’t hurt.

Trixie had a few jobs lined up after the new year already; a kitchen remodel and finishing a basement. The Tok locals had accepted her as one of their own, and she had already done several small repair jobs on the side in return for salmon and moose to fill her new freezer.

Hunter was looking at her face in the window reflection, a sly little smile at his mouth behind his beard.

“What are you grinning about?” Trixie asked, taking a spicy sip of her Tang.

“I’m thinking about your Christmas present,” Hunter said.

“I thought the house was my Christmas present,” Trixie protested. “We said no gifts!”

“We said no expensive gifts,” Hunter chuckled. “This was very cheap.”

“Oh good,” Trixie said, wiping her brow dramatically. “Mine for you is, too. Do we get them now or do we have to wait until tomorrow?”

“Have you been naughty or nice?” Hunter teased her.

“I’ve been very, very good,” Trixie promised.

Hunter downed the last of his Tang and stood up, the lawn chair creaking in relief as he rose. “Come see,” he said mysteriously.

He bundled up and gestured to Trixie to do the same, then led her out to the back of the house.

“You made me a dog sled?” Trixie knew that Hunter had been researching woodworking that went beyond the housebuilding that she’d been teaching him, but this puzzled her. “We don’t have any dogs.”

Hunter held up an enormous harness, far too big for the biggest dog she’d ever seen. “It’s a bear sled.”

Trixie laughed so hard that she fell over in the snow holding her sides. “I love it!” she declared, when Hunter pulled her back up to her feet. “I love it!” She kissed him soundly. “I can’t wait to take you for a spin.”

The second kiss was slower and lingering, and Trixie sighed into Hunter’s warm embrace. “I still have to give you your gift,” she reminded him.

That required dragging him back into the house, out of their winter gear, and upstairs. (There were actual stairs now, with wrought-iron railings.)

She handed him a box and Hunter eagerly opened it and pawed through the tissue paper. “There’s nothing in here,” he said in confusion.

“That’s because I’m wearing it,” Trixie told him, and his eyes lit up.

“Are you sure this wasn’t expensive?” he teased, when he’d slipped her shirt off over her head to admire the lingerie.

“Per inch it was pretty spendy, but there aren’t very many inches of it,” Trixie laughed.

It didn’t stay on very long at all.