An Unexpected Christmas

by Shannon Richard

God, this was so damn confusing. Her head and heart were already all over the place, and adding Jace to the mix was making everything worse. So much worse. How, oh how, was she going to get through the next few days without doing something monumentally stupid?

  Apparently not wanting to dawdle during this particular potty break, Katie made quick work of relieving herself before she was bounding up the porch steps and eagerly waiting to get back inside and into the warmth. Except it was way too hot in there what with Mr. I’m Too Sexy For Myself and his newfound boycott on shirts. Because really, he’d sat there all through lunch eating hot stew bare-chested. That was just downright reckless if you asked her. And dangerous for her sanity which was ever so slowly dwindling down to nothing.

  Taking one last deep breath of cold air, she grabbed the handle and turned it, pushing the door open and heading back inside for whatever was to come next.

  This time it was Jace in the kitchen, just finishing loading up the dishwasher with all of the dirty dishes. He looked up as she gave Katie a good rub down with the towel.

  “That was quick,” he said as he started to wipe down the counters.

  “It’s starting to get really nasty out there.” No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the lights flickered and went out. Even with the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room, the cabin was plunged into semi-darkness.

  “Well, clearly.” Jace’s voice floated across to her in the silence. But the silence didn’t last long as the backup generator kicked on, powering up the refrigerator and the deep freezer in the laundry room. “Okay, can you get the flashlights and candles? I’ll get the fire going.” Neither of them had bothered with it that morning, so it was very much dead at the moment.

  “Yeah.” Adele fumbled around to hang the towel back up before heading for the laundry room where the emergency kit was stored. She passed Jace in the kitchen as he headed for the living room, Katie on his heels, as she no doubt was about to go and burrow under a stack of blankets.

  This trip was just getting better and better. There was no telling how long it was going to take for the power to get back up, what with this storm blowing around them. Luckily there was enough propane in the generator to last two weeks. That particular thought had her pausing in her tracks. Because, good Lord. There might be enough power, food, and water to last them that long, but two weeks in this cabin with Jace would surely be the death of her.

  At this point, she wasn’t even sure if she’d be able to last the night.

  Pulling out the big plastic box from the cabinet next to the washing machine, Adele riffled around for a minute, grabbing two flashlights, a pack of batteries, and a box of candles. She carried her loot back to the kitchen, setting it all down on the counter.

  Her focus moved to the living room where Jace knelt in front of the fireplace. He’d already grabbed a number of logs from the pile in the corner and was stacking them up. But Adele wasn’t really focusing on what he was doing so much as him in general. The dim light was just enough for her to see the muscles in his back bunch and flex. Maybe his current state of undress wasn’t the worst thing. Now that there was no TV bingeing on the docket, she at least had something to watch.

  Once the logs were stacked, and the kindling laid, the click of the lighter hit her ears. Jace moved the little flame around, getting the edges and corners of the old newspaper going. He sat there for a couple of minutes, poking and prodding until a good, strong blaze was going. Then he pulled the wire mesh closed and stood up.

  Before he could turn around and catch her staring—again—she looked down and started loading the flashlights with batteries. Once they were both good to go, she grabbed the box of votive candles and peeled off the plastic packaging.

  “So, I’m thinking that we won’t be spending the afternoon with Mary Berry while she judges desserts. Any thoughts on what to do?”

  Adele pulled a couple of candles out of the box and set them on the counter before she looked up at him. “Cards?”

  “Gin rummy?”

  “Perfect.” She agreed.

  “I’ll get the cards. You get the pen and paper.” Jace headed for the hallway where the game closet was, bypassing the kitchen island and snatching one of the flashlights from the counter.

  Adele opened the catchall drawer next to her, rummaging around for a notebook and something to write with. Once she had both, she headed for the living room, figuring they might as well enjoy the fire—and all of its warmth and light—that Jace had just built. She grabbed one of the thicker blankets from the chest in the corner and spread it over the piled rug. Then she took a few pillows from the sofas and threw those on the floor as well.

  Picking up another blanket, she unfolded it before wrapping it around her shoulders and sitting down to get comfortable. She put a pillow against the side of the trunk coffee table and braced her back against it. As it was heavier and harder to move, she gave Jace the sofa to lean against.

  He walked out of the hallway a moment later, pulling a long-sleeved T-shirt over his head.

  “You get chilly?” she asked before she could stop herself.

  “I’m sorry, did my bare chest bother you?” He tossed her the cards.

  She caught the box in the air. “Not at all.” She shrugged her shoulders, lying through her teeth.

  “I just figured what with our fair trade agreement, you deserved a little show after the one I got this morning.”

  “Hahaha. You’re so hilarious. Except not.” Adele pulled the cards from the box and started shuffling. “Also, that’s a banned topic.”

  “So many banned topics. But besides that point, I needed more layers in the off chance that we turn this into strip gin.”

  Adele stopped mid-shuffle and looked up at him. “We are not playing strip gin.”

  “You’re no fun,” he said as he headed to the stocked bar at the end of the kitchen. “I know how to change that.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making you that whiskey sour that was promised.”

  “Now? It isn’t even two in the afternoon.”

  “Might as well be two at night with this.” He waved a hand in the air. “Do you want one or not?”

  No. Don’t do it, Del. Bad, bad choice. You’ve already had wine with lunch. Drinking whiskey right now isn’t going to lead to good things.

  “Yes.” Clearly she was going to ignore all of her better judgment that day.

  A shit-eating grin split Jace’s mouth, and no longer wanting to look at said smugness, Adele returned her focus to the cards and started shuffling again.

  “So what are we playing to?” She asked as the clink of glasses filled the room.

  “One hundred.”

  Adele split the deck in half and snapped them back together in another shuffle. “Aces are high and low?” She looked up as Jace walked to the fridge in the kitchen and filled the ice bucket.

  “Yes, but negative eleven if left in your hand.”

  “And the winner gets?” The question was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. Dammit. She really shouldn’t have put that particular ball in his court.

  He thought for a second, grabbing two lemons from the bowl of fruit on the island before heading back to the bar. “How about loser has to take a shot?” He set everything down on the counter of the bar before holding up the bottle of whiskey.

  Well, this sounded like it was going to be trouble. But she could not show weakness. Balking at his suggestion would imply she was scared of losing, which she soooooo was not.

  So she didn’t hesitate.

  “That works,” she agreed as she dealt them each ten cards.

  It was time to play.

  Over the next two hours, it got darker and darker outside. It might’ve been just after four in the afternoon, but it looked like it was the dead of night. In Jace’s opinion, even though it was cold and dreary outside, it was rather cozy sitting next to the blazing fire with Adele. Not only that, but she’d lit a number o
f candles in the living room and kitchen, the flickering flames adding to the ambiance. An ambiance that wasn’t diminished in the slightest by the light snores from Katie who was burrowed beneath a pile of blankets on the sofa.

  They’d both finished two whiskey sours and were three shots into the afternoon. The first and second wins had gone to Jace, the third to Adele. They were about to start their fifth hand on the fourth round, and Adele was currently leading on points.

  But Jace didn’t care about winning as much as getting her comfortable enough to where she’d really start talking. Sure they’d kept up a convo while they’d played, much like how they usually talked. They’d discussed the most recent season of Game of Thrones and predicted who they thought would end up on the Iron Throne. Adele was all about Daenerys, while Jace was pretty confident it would be Jon Snow.

  “You know nothing,” Adele had joked.

  They’d also discussed the most recent Thor movie (Jace’s favorite Avenger was hands down the Norse god), but no matter how good it was Adele was still a Captain America fan through and through.

  They talked about the NHL lockout, and how negotiations still seemed to be going nowhere fast. Another potential deal was supposed to be submitted before the end of that day, but who knew if it would go anywhere. None of the other ones had.

  The whole thing was just beyond frustrating for him. He’d shrugged at her question of how he was doing, as if the gesture seemed to say it wasn’t a big deal, except it was a huge fucking deal.

  For him, not getting to play was comparable to missing a limb. Adele knew this and called him on his shit immediately. Nothing new or different there, she’d always called him out.

  She’d also wanted to know how he was keeping busy. There’d been a lot of time spent at the Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville visiting the sick kids with other players (it was something that the guys had started doing a few years ago). He also volunteered with a local kids’ mentoring group in the summers, teaching boys and girls from the ages of ten to eighteen how to surf. He was a licensed surf instructor, after all. Might as well put it to good use. But as it was now too cold to go out in the ocean, he’d continued to spend time with them playing other sports.

  Jace knew full well what it was like to grow up without his parents around, so he tried to give back in a way that he knew mattered.

  These were all things that Adele usually would’ve known already. Over the last six years, they’d always been in and out of each other’s lives. But as she hadn’t really been around lately—what with the jackass and then filming the movie in Scotland—they hadn’t exactly been keeping up with each other.

  So, since they were taking the opportunity to catch up now, he might as well try to slip in a few questions. Questions that would lead to more questions.

  He wanted answers…wanted to get in her head…wanted to figure out what was going on in there. It was a place that was becoming more and more fascinating to him, and he very much wanted to explore.

  Like, how did she feel about Troy now? How much had he gotten into her heart? How much had he broken it? Had she loved him? And how did she feel about Jace? What was with this vibe he was feeling between them? Did she want to see where it led? Or was everything all just going on in his head? And when had she gotten that new tattoo?

  He’d just been biding his time the last couple of hours…waiting for the perfect opportunity…and for her to get a shot or two in her system.

  Still mulling things over, he took a sip of his third whiskey sour before setting his glass down. Grabbing the freshly dealt stack of cards, he started organizing them while Adele did the same thing with hers.

  King and jack of hearts; the ten and three of spades; nine of diamonds; seven of diamonds and hearts; six of clubs; and the ace of diamonds and clubs. Two aces in his hand…well, if that wasn’t a sign of good luck he didn’t know what was.

  Adele flipped over the first card revealing the seven of spades, which Jace immediately picked up.

  He discarded the nine of diamonds as he finally decided on what to ask. “I know it’s supposed to be an embargoed subject in more ways than one, but how does Troy die?”

  Adele’s eyes had been on her cards but they snapped up at his question. “What?”

  “How does Troy’s character die on Ponce?”

  “How do you know he dies?” She dropped her gaze from his as she reached for the stack of draw cards. Picking up one, she stuck it into her hand before putting the eight of spades onto the discard pile.

  “Because,” Jace said as he picked up the five of spades and promptly got rid of it. “You don’t date people you work with. So if there was any possibility of his character coming back to the show, you wouldn’t have started something with him. Which means, he has to get killed off. So how does it happen?”

  “Jace, you know I can’t talk about that.” She shook her head as she grabbed his five and dropped the eight of hearts.

  Drawing the nine of clubs, he dropped it on the discard pile. “Oh, come on. Cough once if I guess it right.”

  She pursed her lips as her eyebrows climbed up her forehead.

  “Yellow fever?”

  No response.

  “Duel at midnight?”

  She grabbed her drink and took a sip, looking thoroughly unimpressed with this guesses.

  “Shark attack?” Not a terrible guess as the show took place in St. Augustine, which was right on the Atlantic Ocean.

  Adele’s mouth lifted into a half smile, clearly amused as she shook her head.

  “Gonorrhea?”

  This time she let out a laugh. “You aren’t even close.”

  “Hmmmm…” He thought for a second before throwing out another guess. “Hit by a train?”

  She looked at him for a second—facial expression giving nothing away—and then let out a tiny cough before taking another sip. Swallowing her drink, she set her glass down and pointed a finger at him. “Again, you know nothing. Understood.”

  “Your secret is safe with me.” He made a cross over his heart. “Believe me, I know how important it is to love your job…and how much it sucks when you don’t get to do that job.”

  Something flickered in Adele’s eyes as she looked at him, something that looked an awful lot like worry. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that look…it had been a long time since somebody had worried about him. Even with just the firelight illuminating them, he could see that her golden brown eyes had gone all soft.

  “You know, sometimes a person can get so caught up in their own shit they forget to look around at what other people are going through,” she said before picking up a card from the stack and dropping the ace of hearts.

  “I’m fine, Del.” Jace grabbed the ace and got rid of the ten of spades. “Just a bit restless with the lockout and all.”

  She drew a card, looked at it, and immediately discarded it. She had no need for the ten of clubs, and nor did he. “Yeah? Then is the lockout the only reason you came up here for Christmas?”

  Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who had questions.

  Giving himself a second, he took another sip of his drink before setting his glass down and picking up a card from the draw pile. Jack of clubs, another card that was useless to him. He got rid of it before looking at her, deciding to be honest…what better way to get her to open up than by opening up himself.

  “No, not entirely. It just didn’t feel right to be down there with everyone this year. Things are…different…changing. Everyone is moving on, everyone except me.” It was something he’d been feeling for a while now, but it was the first time he’d admitted it out loud. And if he were really honest with himself, something he’d felt since way before this season’s hiatus.

  “What do you mean?” Adele’s brown eyes got even softer.

  God, they were so pretty.

  “Logan and Liam are both married with families, and don’t get me wrong, I adore both of your sisters-in-law, and those kids are everything, but I’ve
become the odd man out. Something that was made even clearer at Thanksgiving, when you were with…what’s his face.”

  Her mouth quirked at the fact that Jace hadn’t said Troy’s name, but that small smile disappeared when she started to talk. “Yeah, well, the difference is, Logan loves Abby, and Liam loves Harper.”

  Well, that opened the door to one of his questions. Opened it wide. “And you didn’t love Troy?”

  Adele paused for just a second, looking at Jace as she really thought about the question. “I thought I did. I really did. He was the first guy in a long time that I believed in the possibility of more.” She sounded so sad as she spoke. “He was patient. Didn’t pressure me. Waited until we stopped filming to start dating me. Waited for other things…” she trailed off as her eyes moved to the side.

  “What other things?”

  Adele’s eyes came back to his as she grabbed her whiskey sour and lifted the glass to her lips. She slowly swallowed before setting her glass back down. Taking her time as if she was deciding whether to answer or not. “We never had sex.”

  Now that was a knowledge bomb just dropped. “Are you serious? You were with him for four months.” He didn’t even attempt to hide the shock from his voice.

  A laugh bubbled out of Adele’s mouth, as she reached for the draw pile and grabbed a card. “And? We didn’t have sex.” Sticking the card in her hand she pulled out the one on the end, dropping the four of hearts. “Just because you don’t wait four hours to sleep with someone, doesn’t mean that everyone else works on the same time schedule as you.”

  “You know, I’m not as much of a manwhore as you make me out to be.” Jace drew the six of hearts, another card that did him no good. Where the hell was the elusive queen of hearts to meld his jack and king?

  “Oh really,” her eyes went big with exaggerated shock. “When was the last time you had sex?” Adele drew and discarded the king of clubs.

  “Five months ago.” He drew the seven of clubs, something he could pair with the six of clubs still in his hand, and got rid of the three of spades.

  “Oh my, you’re practically celibate now.” There was no missing the sarcasm laced in her words as she grabbed the three.