Christmas Box Set

by Nella Tyler

  I sat back down in my seat, unable to pull my gaze from his wide green eyes. He looked a little hazy, and I knew that was the painkillers.

  “Are you in any pain?” I asked. “I can call a nurse.”

  “No, I feel okay. A little bit like I’m floating.” He gave another small smile, his eyes drifting closed for a second before opening again. “I guess I’m probably on quite a few drugs.” He breathed in deeply and let the air out again. “How bad am I hurt?”

  I explained his injuries, not going too deeply into detail, but not lying to him either.

  He considered my words in silence as I laid a hand on his arm, just needing to touch him. I swallowed back the tears of relief that wanted to come. Now wasn’t the time. I could cry after he was asleep. The last thing I wanted to do was upset him.

  “Did anyone else get hurt?” he asked. “Or die?”

  I shook my head, a tiny smile springing to my lips. “No one was killed. A few other people were hospitalized, but everyone will recover, including the woman your team saved.”

  He looked sleepy, but pleased.

  “I was really scared after I heard about the fire. They mentioned you on the news and said you were trapped inside that building.” I swallowed again, blinking my eyes to keep the burning tears back as I forced myself to smile again. “But I’m so proud of you, Blaze. You saved so many lives today. I can’t express how honored I am to even know you, let alone be lucky enough to be engaged to you.”

  His eyes widened a little, the green in them so intense against the pale and bruised skin of his face. “I’m lucky, too, Sami.”

  “Well, you’re my hero. I can’t wait to marry you and start our lives together.” I squeezed his arm, just a little, not wanting to hurt him if this was a sore spot.

  He grinned again, a little bigger this time, casting some of that sleepiness out of his eyes. “Maybe we should wait a few weeks. At least when I can actually stand up again.”

  I laughed, and so did he, though it made him wince a little.

  “I love you so much,” I said after we calmed down again. “You don’t know how happy it makes me just to have your eyes on me again.”

  “I love you, too, Sami. There’s no one I’d rather see after regaining consciousness.”

  I grinned and stood to kiss him again, a little deeper this time.

  Blaze

  Mid-June

  Sami held my leg steady while I stretched it. I’d gotten my full range of motion back, but it had been a slow, painful process. We’d moved all the way in together after the accident, putting my place on the market immediately while we looked for a house that would be the setting for our lives together. It had sold quickly, and I socked the profit into an account to use on our dream house. Once we found it, Sami meant to put her small place up for sale, as well.

  It took me a few hours every day to complete my exercises and endurance training, but I’d recovered surprisingly well, considering the extent of my injuries. I still couldn’t believe I’d jumped through a fucking second story window. But every time I caught Sami looking at me with love shining in her eyes, I was damned glad I had. We had a future together thanks to my momentary lapse in judgment.

  “You’re a pro at these exercises now,” she said, standing back as I rose from the ground.

  I grinned. “I don’t know about that, but I do feel like I’m finally back to normal.”

  “Are you ready for lunch?”

  I nodded, sitting down on the couch to rest. “Oh yeah, I’ve been ready for about an hour.”

  She went into the kitchen to bring out a few sandwiches she’d picked up after showing some clients several houses this morning. She handed me a plate and sat down next to me with her own.

  I took a big bite and finished chewing before I gave her my news. I’d been to see the doctor that morning while she was at work and had gotten some news that was good for me, but might not be good for her.

  “How was your appointment this morning?” she asked, as though reading my mind. She was good at that.

  “I’m all healed and ready to go,” I replied, smiling carefully when she beamed at me. “The doctor said I’d be ready to go back to limited duty at the station in less than a month.”

  She glanced away from me, looking hard at her sandwich, her lips pressed into a tight line. After a second she said, “That’s great, Blaze.” She lifted her eyes to mine again, lips twitching into a small smile. “I mean it.”

  “Is that really how you feel?” I asked her. “I know how scared you were after what happened at the plant. And, firefighting is dangerous. Any call could be my last.”

  She swallowed hard, her dark eyes widening. She’d cut her hair shorter, just below her shoulders, and it was pulled back in a ponytail, exposing her ears and the smooth, clean lines of her face. She’d put on bright red lipstick this morning, but not much else, her cheeks and eyes naked the way I loved them, letting her natural beauty shine through.

  “I thought seriously about asking you not to return to the department,” she said. “I don’t want something like what happened a few months ago to happen again, or worse. Every time you leave the house, it could be the last time.”

  I nodded when she paused, but didn’t speak. I wanted to hear her honest opinion. And though I wanted more than anything to return to the department, I knew I’d quit if she asked me to. My new reason for living was her, not firefighting. I wanted our lives together, even if that meant giving up what I’d been doing since I graduated from college.

  “But I’ve watched you and the guys together in the time it’s taken you to heal. You’re so happy when you’re with them. The work you do formed a real brotherhood. I could never take that away from you. It’s part of who you are, which is why I fell in love with you in the first place.”

  She smiled playfully, though the worry was still in her eyes the way I’d seen in it in Juanita’s eyes sometimes when she looked at Hector. That kind of worry wouldn’t go away until we retired from the department. I didn’t like laying that on the woman I loved, but if she was willing to accept me for who I was, she would find a way to accept that, too. Juanita had accepted that with Hector, and their relationship was rock solid. I just wanted the same thing for Sami and me. But if this life was a deal breaker for her, I was ready to do whatever was necessary to keep her with me.

  “How could I strip being a firefighter away from a man with a name like Blaze Simmers?” she asked, eyes sparkling with that playful light I loved so much. “You had no choice but to be a hero with a name like that.”

  I smiled, but hadn’t yet relaxed. I didn’t just want her to put on a brave face. I wanted her to be okay with this. Because there would be a lot of days away from her and any kids we had, a lot of close calls. I saw the toll it took on Juanita, but I also saw how she was Hector’s rock. He’d be the first to admit that he couldn’t have done any of this without her.

  “Are you really okay with this? I know how worried you were on that last call.”

  “I thought you were dead,” she corrected, smile fading from her face.

  “I know.”

  “I was scared to death.”

  I nodded. “I know that, too.”

  Her face softened again, but not into a smile. “I’m always going to worry about you when you leave for a shift at the station, but I love the man that you are. Being a firefighter is part of that.” She smiled again warmly. “I’ve actually had a few great conversations with Juanita Alvarez about this. You guys have your brotherhood. We have our sisterhood. My love for you will get me through the worry. I want you to be happy, Blaze, and I know how much being a firefighter means to you.”

  I reached to take her hand. “I love you so much, Sami. I’m still in shock that I somehow managed to get a woman like you to fall in love with me. I don’t want to wait until next year to get married like we planned. Life’s too short for that. I want us to officially start our lives together sooner rather than later.”

 
Her grin widened as she squeezed my fingers with her tiny hand. “What do you have in mind?”

  “What about August?” I asked. “I’ll be fully recovered and can give you the fireworks on our wedding night that you deserve.”

  She giggled, her dark eyes flashing at me, so I laughed, too. “I think that sounds like an amazing idea.”

  We leaned to kiss each other, our sandwiches momentarily forgotten in our laps as our lips touched.

  Epilogue

  Blaze

  Late Summer, A Few Years Later

  We walked around the side of Hector and Juanita’s house, following the sounds of laughter and conversation to the barbecue in back. Hector was at the grill, flipping burgers and roasting hotdogs. Juanita was setting down a bowl of fruit salad onto the picnic table. She grinned when she saw us, crossing the yard to give us each a hug.

  Johnny was there too along with Sami’s friend Amy, who he’d been dating for a solid three years. Something had shifted in him after my accident at that plant. He said it had changed the way he looked at the world and at life. He realized the people he cared about were what mattered, and he wanted a woman in his life that would be there for the long haul. Conveniently, Sami had told me that she wanted to set him up with Amy. The rest was history. I couldn’t help but notice the engagement ring on Amy’s finger, the diamond blinding when it caught the sunshine the right way.

  Sami followed Juanita across to the grass to where Amy was sitting at the picnic table, and I wandered over to the grill where Hector and Johnny were standing. The kids were running around the yard with water guns, spraying each other and laughing like crazy. All of a sudden, my little namesake made a beeline for me, crashing into my legs, still giggling. She glanced up at me, her dark eyes sparkling underneath a mess of crazy black curls.

  I scooped her up, which got her laughing again, and curled her tiny body around my hip.

  “Hi, Uncle Blaze!” she said, grinning. It tickled her pink that we had the same name. She was due to turn four in a few months and was whip smart for her age.

  “Hi, munchkin,” I said, drawing another laugh from her.

  “Burgers are done,” Hector announced, but I kept my eyes on little Bee, which is what everyone called her.

  “I got a secret,” she whispered, bringing her round face close to mine, her brown eyes suddenly serious.

  “What is it?” I asked, matching her whisper.

  “I wanna be a firegirl when I grow up. Like you and Daddy.”

  I smiled down at her. “You’ve got the right name for it, kid.” She was getting wiggly, so I set her down. “Show me how you’d put out a fire with your water gun.”

  She scooped her water gun off the ground and sprayed at some nearby bushes, hitting them right in the middle.

  “Spray at the bottom, Bee,” I instructed, and she shifted the stream of water she was shooting. “That’s how you put out a fire.”

  She kept spraying it, her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth the way I’d seen Hector’s do whenever he was focusing hard on something.

  “I did it!” Bee exclaimed, looking up at me with a huge grin on her face.

  “High five!” I said and leaned down to give her one.

  “Time to eat, kids!” Juanita called, and Bee ran off towards the picnic table, followed by her brother and sister.

  I went around the table and sat down next to Sami.

  “You look ready for kids of your own,” Hector remarked with a grin. He’d been harping on me about this for months, even though he and Juanita didn’t get started having kids right away after they were married.

  I smiled over at Sami. “I think we should have several kids and name them all Blaze. I don’t care how many we have or whether they’re boys or girls.”

  “That would be epic,” Johnny agreed. Amy giggled and pushed him a little at the same time Sami pushed me.

  “We’re not having any juniors,” she said. “I can’t stand that.”

  “Oh, I agree,” Juanita said. “My brother is a fourth. It’s terrible.”

  “And, who says I even want to reproduce with you,” Sami said, giving me some side eye. Everyone at the table started laughing.

  “We’d have some pretty babies,” I said.

  She seemed to be thinking about it. “That’s true, we would.”

  The other two couples at the table were watching us with interest. What had started off playfully now felt extremely serious. I knew that, somehow, we were really deciding all of this in front of our best friends.

  Sami’s eyes were glowing in the bright sunlight, that healthy color high in her cheeks. She hadn’t put on a stitch of makeup today, and I’d never seen her look prettier.

  “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do that have a child with you,” she said, and I leaned to kiss her as the table erupted in cheers.

  “We can get started as soon as we get home,” I murmured, just to her.

  She grinned and kissed me again.

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  STEPBROTHER CHRISTMAS

  STEPBROTHER CHRISTMAS

  By Nella Tyler

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Nella Tyler

  Carter

  Afternoon, Early December

  I took a sip from the mug next to my keyboard, but the coffee had long since gone cold. I looked at the time. Just past one, meaning I’d poured the cup five hours earlier.

  I’d been working on a string of difficult code since first thing this morning without an end in sight. I planned to eat lunch at my desk today just to get this done. Warming up my coffee would be good, too – but that would mean leaving my cubicle, and I didn’t want to do that until I finished this task, even if that meant staying here until well past five o’clock.

  “Did I tell you about my date last night?” Jason asked, his voice cutting into the calculations rapid firing in my head. He sat in the desk behind me, making us cubemates. Both of us had started at Addotec right out of college several months earlier, stunned by the hefty paychecks and steady stream of work. We were single and childless, so even though we were living in one of the most expensive areas in the country, the money stretched far enough to enjoy ourselves after the workday ended.

  Sighing, I twisted in my chair to look back at him. I really needed to keep working on this, but if I didn’t look away from my computer screen for a moment, my eyes were going to cross and stay that way. Jason was leaning back in his own chair and running a hand through his short brown hair as he pointed his cockeyed smile at me.

  We’d been chatting off and on throughout the morning as we usually did, going on about our projects and what we had in store for the following weekend, but he always brought the conversation around to his nonstop hunt for women. Neither of us were from San Francisco, so we were still learning the landscape and trying to get our footing. For Jason, footing meant finding a girlfriend…or several girlfriends. For me, it meant finding a handful of decent restaurants and a few low-traffic areas to go jogging in the morning before work and on the weekends. I was making decent progress on the latter, but there were just too damned many places to eat with excellent reviews on Yelp. I was trying a new place every night, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  “Not yet,” I said, sitting up straighter in my ergonomic chair to stretch the bunched muscles in my back. I bent my head one way and rolled it around to the other, working the muscles in my neck at the same time with my fingers, kneading hard.

  I’d never spent this much focused time at my computer. It was difficult to get used to after living through such an active childhood and adolescence full of sports, bike riding, and running. I often felt like just jumping up and raci
ng around the office to work off the nerves that built up in my muscles after three or four hours of inertia in front of the computer screen. This was real adulthood, I guessed, not the pseudo adulthood I’d experienced over the last four years of living on campus. Jogging in the morning helped, and in the months I’d lived here, I’d increased my run from six to ten miles, even going as long as sixteen on the weekend. Still, I felt jittery and full of shivering energy at the end of the day.

  “I met her through one of the guys I know out here,” Jason explained. He was the type who made friends wherever he went and so always had something going on that he dragged me to — parties, barbecues, club openings, an acquaintance’s wedding that was guaranteed to be packed full of hot, available women. It was good, even if it sometimes felt tortuous as the event was going on. If left to my own devices, I’d be at home in my one-bedroom apartment reading or out on the street running in an ongoing attempt to get my bearings in this strange city.

  Making friends didn’t come naturally to me. I’d grown up in the same town from birth to senior year of high school and had never really needed to learn those skills. Jason, on the other hand, had grown up a military brat, moving every couple years and giving him a resilience I would kill to have a quarter of. He had an ease about him when he met new people, like it was no big deal.

  The only reason we spoke to each other was because we’d started on the same day and so went through the day long HR briefing sitting side by side. By lunchtime, we were cracking jokes and making plans to meet up and look for girls over the weekend.