by Aly Martinez
And he did, so I sucked in a shaky breath and let it go.
Then I made him the biggest, best chicken masala he’d ever tasted that night for dinner.
It was a double win because Heath hated Elisabeth’s food. It wasn’t that her food was necessarily bad, but she was such a picky eater that she put odd flairs on every dish. Meatloaf with mustard. Pot roast with weird white gravy, and gyros made with beef instead of lamb. I was more of a traditionalist, and not to brag, but there were never leftovers.
I tried to help Elisabeth as much as I could. I’d spent hours weeding, pruning, and trimming her flowerbeds to get them back into decent shape. And I’d promised her that, as soon as spring came, I’d help her plant flowers. I also did my best to earn my keep when it came to the house. While we were relatively neat people, nine of us were living under one roof if you included Alex, Devon, Jude, and Ethan, who often rotated through. Quarters got cramped sometimes, but no one had killed anyone yet. I chalked that up as a success.
“Do you think we have enough wrapping paper?” I asked him, lifting my mug to my lips for that first glorious sip of coffee.
His attention remained on the frying pan as he replied, “I think we have enough paper to wrap the state of Georgia. An entire rainforest will be crying in the morning.”
I giggled, and he aimed a panty-drenching grin in my direction, some of his hair falling over his forehead and into his eyes.
“You need a haircut. Want me to do it? I bet Roman has some clippers or something. I could clean up the sides.”
He twisted his lips and flipped the bacon in the pan. “You saying my hair looks like shit?”
“No. I’m offering to do you a favor. Considering you’ve kind of weighted your side of the scales, I owe you at least a million favors by now.”
He scowled at me. “There are no scales with us.”
I set my coffee on the counter and slid up behind him, looping my arms around his hips and resting my cheek between his shoulder blades. “There are always scales, Heath. A haircut won’t even them, but it’ll be a start.”
He shoved the bacon off the burner. Then he turned in my arms and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. “You know how to cut hair?”
“Yep. I grew up poor and in a shitty trailer park—not to be confused with the good trailer park.” I grinned. “When I was twelve, I got my dad’s clippers and started offering five-dollar haircuts to make some money…to, ya know, eat. Well, the good thing about being poor in a shitty trailer park is that everyone’s poor. Five dollars a pop was a steal. I had to start taking appointments.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You any good?”
“I am now. I was shit at first. But hey, it was five bucks. No one complained.”
His lips twitched, but he didn’t smile. “You said you were a waitress when you met Noir. Why weren’t you doing hair if you’re so good?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t have the money for school. I only graduated high school because it was free and it kept me busy. I had to get out and get a job. Higher education wasn’t a luxury I could afford.”
His hand glided up my back, squeezing the back of my neck as he asked, “Did you like it? Cutting hair, I mean.”
I squinted one eye and looked over his shoulder, trying to remember what seemed like a lifetime ago. “Ummm…I liked the money. I liked that I was good at it. I liked that I was able to give people something they normally wouldn’t have been able to afford. But no, I don’t think I necessarily liked doing it.”
He gave my neck another squeeze. “And what do you think you would have enjoyed doing?”
“I don’t know. When I was a kid, I always wanted to open a little garden shop. Nothing big, but one where little old ladies could pop in and talk about what flowers were in season while their husbands bought hoses and ugly gnomes.”
I got another lip twitch, but this time, it was followed by a lip touch.
He glanced up at Tessa before allowing his hand to slide down to my ass. “That’s how you balance the scales, Clare. You open that sexy mouth and use it to tell me about yourself. I don’t need favors. I need you.”
Oh. My. God.
Heath’s blanket of warmth didn’t just wrap around me.
It enveloped me.
Head to toe.
Mind and soul.
My vision swam, and he brought his lips back down for another lip touch. “No crying. Your Christmas bacon’s ready.”
“I’m scared,” I admitted.
His hands flinched. “Why?”
“Because, if you keep being this sweet, there is a really good chance I’m going to fall in love with you.” I was only half joking. I was already in love with Heath; that falling crap was history.
He chuckled. “It’s about damn time you caught up.”
“Caught up?” I squeaked.
His shoulders shook as he dragged me into his chest. “Babe, I’ve been falling in love with you for months. It’s not exactly a secret. Tomlinson threatened to fire me over it last week.”
My heart came to a screeching halt. And not because Heath was going to get fired for being with me.
But because Heath had been falling in love—with me.
For months.
Plural.
Misreading my reaction, he stroked up and down my back. “Don’t worry, babe. I assured him we weren’t sleeping together. Which, technically, we aren’t, considering you sleep with Tessa every night and I sleep across the hall.” He winked. “But, with that said, I should probably reevaluate my career choices sooner rather than later. At this point, I got one foot in the grave with you.”
“Death isn’t romantic,” I informed him because it was either cry or be a smartass.
He laughed and kissed the top of my head. “It is when I’m ninety years old and doing it after spending fifty-plus years with you.”
Oh. My. God. I could not handle this conversation. Like, at all. I was in love with Heath, unquestionably. But I was struggling to see why he was falling for me. My redeeming qualities at the moment were spending his money to buy my daughter, who coincidentally wasn’t even mine, Christmas presents all while he spent his days making sure my current husband didn’t kill me or, worse, him.
I cleared the lump from my throat and said, “I think I need that reindeer bacon now.”
He squeezed me tight and murmured, “Okay, babe. Whatever you need.”
But what he failed to see was that I really needed a time machine so I could go back in time and track him down before all of this mess started. But I didn’t figure he had one handy or he would have already used it to do the same.
“Pass the red paper,” I said to Clare as we sat on the living room floor, wrapping presents.
The house was dark, Tessa was asleep upstairs, and Roman and Elisabeth had called it a night after they’d dumped an entire toy store of flawlessly wrapped gifts under the tree. And that was on top of the half of a toy store I’d already bought, which were definitely not flawlessly wrapped. Clare had keeled over laughing when I’d wrapped the first one and used only one piece of tape. But Tessa was a kid. I was banking on the fact that she didn’t give a damn how they looked as long as there was something pink and glittery inside.
“I feel like we need to donate half of this stuff,” she replied, passing both the tape and the wrapping paper.
I cocked an eyebrow and picked up the twenty-seventh, yet somehow different, baby doll I’d wrapped that evening. “Only half?”
She giggled, cutting into one of the boxes strewn across the floor and pulled out a small, black, velvet box. “What’s this?”
I shrugged. “No clue. Open it up and see.”
Her cheeks pinked as she smiled, peeking up at me through her lashes, a flirty shimmer of excitement dancing in her eyes. “Right. You don’t know.”
But I honestly didn’t. I figured it had to have been something of Roman’s that had gotten mixed in with our stuff.
I peered over the mountain of presen
ts as she pried the top up.
I’d barely made out the glint of a diamond before it went sailing across the room, slamming into the wall before dropping to the floor.
“No!” she shrieked, but she was already searching through the brown packing paper until she found another box. “No,” she whispered, slapping a hand over her mouth and staring down like she’d seen a ghost.
“Talk,” I ordered, shooting to my feet and then closing in on her.
“He knows where we are,” she breathed, her wild gaze bouncing to me then back to the box in her hand.
There was no need for her to explain who the “he” was.
Molten lava surged in my veins as I snatched it from her hand and pulled the top open.
A tiny, gold bracelet with a heart charm that read Daddy’s girl sat within, but that was all I could observe before it was suddenly gone from my hand.
“No!” she yelled, racing to the front door and yanking it wide. “He does not get to do this.”
I marched after her just as she sent it flying through the chilly night air. The sensor lights flashed on, illuminating the darkness.
“Fuck you!” she screamed manically.
I hooked her around the waist, but she frantically spun, racing past me through the living room to the first box she’d opened. She snatched it off the floor then, rushing back to the door and hurling it out to join the bracelet. A guttural, “No!” tore from her throat as she watched it sail through the air.
“Clare,” I called cautiously. I braced for her to fall apart and prepared myself for another breakdown the likes of when she’d checked out on me after the DNA results. “Come here, babe,” I urged, staring at her back.
Her shoulders were rising and falling with her heavy breaths, and her fists opened and closed at her sides.
I prowled toward her, only to stop dead in my tracks as she slammed the door and pivoted on a heel to face me.
Not a tear in sight.
Her back was straight.
Her shoulders square.
Her jaw clinched.
Rage radiating off her.
And that subtle flicker of fear she wore so often when it came to Walt was gone completely.
“You okay?” I asked warily.
It was safe to assume she was not as she seethed, “It’s Christmas for God’s sake. He does not get to do that. Not today. Not fucking ever.”
I caught sight of Roman and Devon storming down the hall toward us. But I lifted a hand to halt them, shaking my head as I assured them, “We’re good.”
Clare spun to see who I was talking to, but she was nowhere near done with her rant. “We are not good. We are fucking great!”
Roman cocked his head to the side, but he had the good sense to mutter an apology and back away.
With the hall empty, Clare turned her anger back on me. “I swear to God. I’m finally fucking happy for the first time in my entire goddamn life. He does not get to take that away from me!”
It made me an asshole, but a huge smile spread across my face, pride swelling my chest.
“What do you need, Clare?” I asked, fighting the urge to sweep her off her feet.
“To kill him,” she replied without missing a beat.
Weeks ago, she would have crumbled, overwhelmed with fear and panic. She would have lost it at the thought of Walt knowing where she was.
Weeks ago, it had been, “He’ll kill me.”
Today, a beast emerged from within her.
Today, it was, “To kill him.”
I smirked. “While that’s not exactly legal, I wouldn’t stop you.”
She stomped past me, plucked the cardboard box the gift had been delivered in, and slung it across the room. “Why haven’t they been able to find him?” she snapped. “It’s been over a fucking month. I refuse to believe he’s hiding in an underground bunker. He’s out there, Heath. Shopping at a goddamn mall for Christmas presents while I’m locked up here, hiding like a fucking coward.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and continued to smile at her.
She continued with the bitchy little attitude that had me fighting a hard-on. “Why are you smiling?”
I shrugged casually. “Oh, maybe because the man you’ve been terrified of since the day I met you sent you a present just to fuck with your head and, instead of allowing him that move, you exploded and threw that shit on the front lawn.”
Her lips thinned, but her resolve stayed strong. “He didn’t send them just to fuck with my head. It’s a warning.”
“How do you figure?”
“The diamonds. Those aren’t new. He gave them to me after he almost killed me on our first anniversary. He thought I was flirting with the waiter. I spent a week in the hospital. It was so bad we had to tell them I was in a car accident.” She sucked in a shaky breath. “We were staying in that cabin I told Tomlinson about. He took me back there every year and made me wear the diamonds as a not-so-subtle reminder.” Her gaze flashed to the floor. “He knows about you.”
For fuck’s sake, I wanted to kill that bastard for ever having laid a finger on her. But, worse, for have mentally manipulated her with fear for so damn long. It was a miracle she wasn’t a head case after everything that son of a bitch had put her through. It was a true testament to her strength.
I closed the gap between us and rested my hands on her hips. “So?”
“So?” she repeated in confusion.
“Why does it matter that he knows? Honestly? I hope that motherfucker lays awake in bed every single night knowing that you’re with me.” I stabbed my thumb at my chest. “Knowing it’s me you chose. Knowing it’s my body you crave. Knowing it’s my name you call when I make you come. I hope that shit eats away at his soul because he knows it’s happening and cannot do one goddamn thing to change it. You aren’t his anymore, Clare.”
A playful grin pulled at the side of her mouth as she whispered, “It’s probably destroying him.”
“I’m sure it is. It used to kill me when you went home to him every night.”
Her smile fell flat. “Oh, Heath.”
“But you’re with me now. And he will never get you back. Those diamonds and that bracelet was his last-ditch effort of getting in your head because he can’t get to you any other way. He doesn’t even deserve your anger. Don’t give him that. Let’s sit back down. Finish playing Santa. And carry the fuck on with our lives.”
Her lips once again curved up. “You’re right.”
I narrowed my eyes and studied her face, searching for the chink in her armor.
But I didn’t even see armor anymore.
I just saw Clare.
My Clare.
The one she gave me when we were alone with Tessa.
The brave woman whose smile could light even the darkest night.
The one who had ensnared me from the moment we’d met.
The one I would protect with my life for no other reason than she was made to be mine.
The one I’d fallen in love with before she had even known my name.
If I hadn’t had to get Walter’s fucking gifts off the front lawn and bag them so the lab could dust them for prints, I would have carried her upstairs and showed her how much it meant to me that she gave me that kind of trust.
I didn’t have that kind of time though. We had a boatload of presents left to wrap and a little girl who was dreaming about Christmas morning upstairs.
But what I did have was forever with her.
Whether she knew it now or not, she would soon enough.
I dipped my head low and brushed my lips across hers as I arrogantly said, “I’m always right, Clare. You should probably get used to that.”
She swayed away and gave me the side-eye. “Except for when you’re playing Wheel of Fortune.”
I groaned and slid a hand down to pinch her ass. “Oh, come on. Let it go already.”
She giggled and pressed up on her toes to kiss the base of my neck. “Sorry, but I’m never letting that go.
You guessed ‘Winter Woman’ on a superhero puzzle. It’s just sad.”
I had to laugh. It was because it was becoming abundantly clear that my Wheel of Fortune abilities were definitely lacking. “Okay, enough out of you, Vanna White. Let’s finish this Santa gig up so we can actually get some sleep before Tessa wakes up.”
“Maggie, this is Clare. Clare, Maggie.”
Clare removed her arm from around my waist and extended it toward my baby sister.
Maggie looked up at me and grumbled, “This is so not fair.”
I grinned. I’d threatened her with all-out retaliation of the law if she embarrassed me when she came over for Christmas. Just to make sure my point was made, she’d started her Christmas morning with a parking ticket on the windshield of her car.
She clasped Clare’s hand and said, “It’s really nice to meet you, but you have to understand it’s against my religion not to give Heath hell. It’s well deserved though. He shut down my senior prom for over an hour because he thought my dress was too skimpy. My entire prom. He told the principal that drugs had been found on the premises. And refused to give the all clear until I put a sweater on.”
I smiled. That wasn’t even the worst thing I’d done to her. But that was what she got for switching dresses after she’d left the house. My dad was worthless when it came to parenting, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have someone to look after her.
“I didn’t break your date’s legs when I caught him feeling you up in the driveway,” I said. “Consider that my apology.”
“He was kissing me goodnight…on the freaking cheek! That’s hardly feeling me up. And he was pulled over and detained by a state trooper on his way home.”
I beamed with pride at the memory. “Yeah, I had to call in some serious favors for that one.”
Her voice took on that crazy monkey squeal that sent dogs into a tailspin as she shrieked, “He refused to speak to me again!”
I smiled wider. “He was touching you, Mags.”
She growled, clenching her teeth as she turned to Clare. “Heath has a collection of Pokémon cards in the top of his closet at home.”
Clare burst out into laughter.