Holiday Encounters Books 1-3 Omnibus

by Amy Lamont

  “Give me a break.” His lips curled into a sneer, definitely not as attractive as his earlier hint of a smile. “I know what you and your family thought of me.”

  “Um, by your tone, I’m going to go ahead and assume that whatever you’re thinking, you couldn’t be farther from the truth.” And thank God. If he knew exactly the thoughts I’d had about him over the years, there wouldn’t be a hole deep enough for me to climb into to hide from my humiliation.

  “Katelyn, it was obvious your parents didn’t want me within ten miles of you.”

  “Well,” I shrugged, “duh.”

  His body went rigid and he turned his full attention on me.

  I swallowed before I went on. “But just me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Since he wasn’t looking at me like a bug under a magnifying glass anymore, I relaxed a little. “My parents didn’t have anything against you being around my family. They had something against you being around me.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”

  I huffed out a breath at his terse order. I’d forgotten over the years that he could be like this. Way too much like my bossy older brother.

  “Hunter, you rode a motorcycle and so did all your friends, you got a tattoo before you were eighteen, you looked old enough to buy beer way, way before you hit twenty-one, and Logan loved to tell tales of your exploits with girls over the dinner table. You were the nightmare of every parent of a teenage girl.”

  He snorted, but I noticed some tension left his jaw.

  “But,” I went on, “that doesn’t mean they felt that way about you being around Logan.”

  “Right.”

  The skeptical tone shocked me. I realized now I’d always looked at him through my awestruck teenage gaze. It never occurred to me when I was sixteen that Hunter Lawson might have even a moment of doubt about himself. But I could definitely fix this now.

  “Hunter, seriously. My parents were… I don’t know, thrilled doesn’t even begin to cover how happy they were when you and Logan got so close. I was always the good, nice, well-behaved one. And Logan was the wild child. My parents worried about him all the time. But then you moved in next door.”

  I stopped, remembering the day his family moved in. When Logan walked in the door with Hunter the first time, I’d almost melted into a puddle at his feet. I’d fallen in love on the spot and knew he’d never give my gangly, awkward eleven-year-old self a second glance.

  “Katelyn?”

  “Sorry. Took a little side trip down memory lane there for a second. Actually, now that I think about it, as many times as I heard my parents ask Logan why he couldn’t be more like you, I’m sort of surprised you guys were such close friends. You would think Logan would have taken a swing or two at you by now.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  From the look on his face, this was news to him. But it had been common knowledge in my house that as long as he didn’t come near me, Hunter Lawson could do no wrong in my parents’ eyes. “No. You had good grades, and you always knew what you wanted to do and went after it. I think they were afraid Logan was going to just drift through life and never have any direction. Or worse. I’ve never seen them as proud as they were the day Logan said he was going to follow in your footsteps and enlist in the Army.”

  “But you didn’t share their high opinion of me.” He jumped out of his seat and picked up the fire poker, using it to shift a log.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  He replaced the poker and stood over me, his gaze sharp. “You never said more than two words to me. You tagged along with us when we were kids, but when we got older, you made it perfectly clear you wanted nothing to do with me.”

  Shock made me shoot up from my spot. I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at him, my mouth opening once and then closing again. My gaze raked his face, watching as the firelight threw shadows over it, while I searched my brain for a way to respond to him.

  “Hunter,” I finally said in a voice little above a whisper, “do you really think I avoided you because I didn’t…what, approve of you?”

  “Saw the guys you dated in high school, Katelyn. Straight arrows, preppy, a couple from wealthy families. I got that I wasn’t your type. But the way you looked at me, it was like you agreed with everything my old man used to yell when he’d gotten a few drinks under his belt.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut tight. My heart had always clenched in pain for Hunter in those moments, but Hunter just seemed to let the words slide off his back so I’d never managed to find the nerve to talk to him about it. The only time I’d ever reacted was when Hunter and Mr. Lawson argued over the motorcycle.

  But obviously the fact I’d kept silent had bothered him way more than I realized. And with the perspective of an adult and a social worker, I knew, of course, having a parent say those words could leave scars. His father really hurt him. And all this time he’d thought I felt the same way his father did.

  I shook my head and tried to speak a couple of times before I managed to pass a sound from between my suddenly dry lips.

  “No,” I whispered.

  His shoulders stiffened, but other than that, he didn’t react. He turned his attention back to the fire.

  I cleared my throat and this time managed to speak much louder, my single word full of emotion. “No.”

  Once again he picked up the poker and stirred the fire. He didn’t look at me or show that he’d even heard me.

  “Hunter.” My voice came out hoarse, as if my throat were clogged with tears. Maybe it was. At the moment, I didn’t know exactly what I was feeling, but I knew I needed him to look at me.

  He gave me a quick, narrow look, barely shifting his head my way. But something about my tone must have caught his attention because he didn’t look away again.

  Shit. Now I was going to have to actually speak. Was there any way to make him believe I never thought he was beneath me without revealing my feelings to him?

  The answer came clearly from deep within me.

  No.

  A strange calm overtook me. My pulse slowed and I squared my shoulders. My stomach settled and I dropped my hands to my sides as I turned to fully face him.

  Since the moment I laid eyes on him eleven years ago, my feelings for him have been my most closely guarded secret. Fear made me tuck them away in my heart, longing for him from a distance.

  But if I’d let him know how much I cared about him, how I’d thought he was the most amazing person I’d ever met, would it have made a difference? Even if I got my heart stomped on, maybe I could have made the verbal wounds his father inflicted cut a little less deep.

  Instead I’d made them worse.

  That was the thought that stole the breath from my lungs. I’d wanted nothing more than to make things better for Hunter, but all along he thought I felt like he was trash. Someone not worth my notice.

  So what choice did I have now? I could hold onto my pride and my heart for dear life and let him go on thinking I hated him. Or I could be honest, admit my feelings, and risk…everything.

  Chapter Six

  Well, hell. There was no choice. I might be trying to shed my nice girl reputation, but making the leap from that to heartless bitch in less than a day wasn’t on my agenda. I took a deep breath. Should I just blurt my feelings out? I kept my gaze glued to his profile. Would he even believe me?

  “You asked me before why my friends and I played pranks on your father.”

  He flicked his eyes toward me, but showed not one iota of interest in any other way. My hands clenched at my sides as I braced myself.

  “It was my idea,” I said. “I’d been planning it for a while, but didn’t think I’d ever have the nerve to go through with any of it.”

  He stilled for a long moment and then he put the fireplace poker back in the stand. He turned to face me, crossing his arms over his chest. His expression didn’t give any
thing away. “Did my dad do something to piss you off?”

  I knew what he was asking. He thought I planned it because his dad scolded me for walking on his lawn or throwing a ball over their fence. But I’d play along.

  “Yeah, he did something that pissed me off.” I pulled in a deep breath. “Did you ever hear anything that went on over at our house?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, when you were at home, did you ever hear something like Logan and I screaming at each other or my dad giving Logan hell for leaving his tools all over the garage?”

  Hunter’s brows crinkled and he dropped his arms. For one second, he lost his hard edge and looked so adorably confused, I had to fight the urge to go to him and smooth my fingers over the furrow.

  He shook his head a little, but answered as I expected him to. “Yeah, I guess, sometimes I heard those kinds of things.”

  “Me, too. I mean, with you and your family.” I moved restlessly and folded my arms loosely around my middle. “Sometimes I heard your dad yelling at you.”

  My voice came out as no more than a whisper, but he heard me. His body tensed. Every muscle looked rigid, like he was cut from stone. The only movement he made was a flexing of his jaw.

  “You heard my father yelling at me.” His voice came out gritty and cold like he’d pulled the words from somewhere deep inside.

  I nodded and wrapped my arms more tightly around myself. I wanted to end this right here. I could spare him the embarrassment of knowing all his father’s harshest criticisms carried across our yards, and I could spare myself the humiliation of admitting my feelings and having him stomp on my heart.

  But the look on his face, a combination of anger and something else, made me go on. The last thing I wanted to do was leave him feeling raw and humiliated. Even if it meant I had to feel those things.

  “I always got so angry when I heard your dad yell at you. But I figured it was for the usual stuff.” I shrugged. “You know, leaving your bicycle in the driveway or forgetting to take out the trash.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I got yelled at for both of those things over the years,” he said, his voice icy.

  I nodded. “As we got older, it didn’t seem like your dad needed that much of an excuse to start in on you. He always managed to find something.”

  His eyes flashed, but he didn’t say a word.

  I dropped my gaze to the floor between us, unable to meet his eyes while I admitted the next part. “Anyway, I got more and more angry. I’d lay in bed and hear him and start concocting ways to get revenge for you.”

  “What?” The single word was strangled as if it fought its way out of him.

  My eyes flew to meet his and I swallowed hard. “I never actually had the nerve to do anything. Of course, if I did a few of the things I came up with, I might have been carted off in handcuffs.”

  His arms dropped and he took a step forward. “Katelyn…”

  I shrugged. “He pissed me off. I hated the things he said to you.” I stared into his eyes before I went on fiercely, “And he was wrong. You know that, right? All that shit he spewed about you? I think he was jealous. You were so good at everything and he was just so ordinary. He must have wondered how he managed to have a son like you.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he did,” he said, the sarcasm hard to miss. “One of his favorite themes was how he managed to produce such a fuck up.”

  I shook my head so hard I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear something rattling around in there. “It was so weird. It was like he was jealous or something. It ate at him. You could hear it whenever he started in on you. And did you ever notice it got worse whenever you did something good? Like you’d make the honor roll or bring in the winning goal in a game and the next thing you know, he’d find some reason to go off on you.”

  “You noticed all that?”

  Now that I’d warmed up to my subject it all came spilling out. “I noticed a lot more. And I hated the things he said to you. I can’t even tell you how many times I wanted to run over and tell him off, tell him how wrong he was about you.” I pressed my lips together and gave him a long look. “I wanted you to know those words weren’t true.”

  Hunter snorted out a laugh. He laughed.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny.” I plopped my hands on my hips.

  He took a step closer to me and grinned. “You thought I was one of your wounded birds.”

  “What?”

  “You know. Everyone on the street thought you were like a princess out of a Disney movie. All that blonde hair and the big blue eyes. The fact that you were always nursing some injured bird or stray animal just added to the image.”

  My jaw dropped. I opened my mouth once and closed it before I managed to get a word out. “Is that why you always called me princess?”

  His grin turned into a wide smile. “Yeah, princess.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not the only one feeling a little confused here. I thought you hated me. You were sweet as pie to every single person you ever met. But me, you wouldn’t even look at me.”

  I gnawed on my bottom lip, my eyes skittering over the room, trying to find anything else to focus my attention on.

  “Katelyn.” The one word was a command, demanding my attention.

  I looked at him and shifted my weight from foot to foot under his intense stare.

  “Why did you and your friends start playing those pranks on my father?”

  Shit. He was going to make me admit everything. I twisted my hands together and took a shaky breath, but managed to keep my eyes steady on his. “When you bought your motorcycle…”

  I broke off and dropped my eyes, not wanting to finish that sentence. Shit, shit, shit. There was no way I could finish that sentence without sharing way, way more than I wanted to.

  “I bought my motorcycle and…” he prompted.

  I glanced up at him from under my lashes. “I loved that you bought that bike.” My eyes drifted closed for an instant and a little grin touched my mouth as I remembered him coming home with it, the rumble of the pipes vibrating through the neighborhood. I opened my eyes and smiled up at him. “You looked like you found heaven. I’d watch you ride off, and for the first time since I’d known you, you looked…”

  I shook my head and wracked my brain for the right word.

  Hunter shifted forward a little more. Now only a few inches separated us, and I blinked up at him. His intent gaze was fixed on me, and a small, almost gentle smile touched his lips.

  What was going on here? I was suddenly extremely aware of the heat radiating from the fire. All of me felt hot and a little weak.

  “How did I look, princess?”

  “You looked free,” I whispered. I smiled at him. “Like one of my wounded birds after they’d healed. You remember how they were when I’d let them go when they were ready? I’d open my hands and they’d sit there for a minute, like they didn’t know they were all better. They’d puff their wings a little and then they’d burst off my hands, flying like that moment of freedom was the best thing they’d experienced in their lives.”

  He moved even closer and now he rested his hands on my waist. I could only imagine how startled I must look. How many times had I dreamed of Hunter’s hands on me, that look on his face?

  Maybe that was it. Maybe I fell asleep in front of the fire and slipped into one of my dreams.

  But Hunter gave me a gentle shake and I knew this was no dream. I was standing here in Hunter Lawson’s arms.

  “So what did me and my bike have to do with you and your friends writing dirty words in our lawn?”

  I bit my lip and stared up at him, but all thought fled.

  He gave me another little shake and grinned like he knew exactly the effect he was having on me. “Tell me, Kate.”

  I swallowed and nodded a little. I took a deep breath and held it a second bef
ore slowly letting it out, and I dropped my eyes to his chest. Here went nothing. “I loved watching you on that bike. I can’t tell you how many times I’d watch out the window when I heard you riding out and wished I could go with you.”

  I sneaked a peek up at him to see his reaction.

  His eyebrows furrowed again. “Is that what you meant earlier when you said I had no idea how many times you’d thought about going for a ride on my bike?”

  I nodded before giving a little shrug. “I’ve wanted to do that since I was fifteen-years-old.”

  “You never said anything. You could have just asked for a ride. But you never said two words to me.” He squinted down at me, and I swear I could see the memories playing out in his mind. “In fact, if I remember correctly, you stopped tagging along so much around that time. I figured you looked down on me for buying that bike.”

  I snorted. Nothing could be further from the truth. But looking back now, I could see why it seemed that way. I’d had a pretty harmless crush on him up until that point.

  But the first time I saw him on that bike, something shifted. My fantasies went from having Hunter hold my hand and admit his feelings for me to having Hunter put me on the back of his bike to ride to some secluded spot and then bend me over the back of his bike while he did all manner of naughty things to me.

  My face flamed.

  His hands flexed on my hips and a low chuckle broke from him. “I’d pay good money to know what thought just went through your head.”

  My eyes widened and I couldn’t tear my gaze from his. Was Hunter flirting with me?

  My heart stuttered in my chest and I fought to gather my composure. No easy feat considering he still had his hands on me.

  “Anyway,” I said, “I liked seeing how happy you were riding off on that bike. And Logan told me how you’d saved money for the better part of a year to buy it. But your dad seemed to lose his mind. I swear I heard him yelling at you for a week straight.”

  “That sounds about right,” he said.

  “I couldn’t take it. One night I admitted to my friends how much I wanted to get back at your dad and some of the ideas I’d had over the years.” I shrugged. “That was about all it took. Before I knew it we had a bunch of pranks planned. And you know the rest.”