by Zoe Chant
They’d almost…
She blinked and gave Jackson a hard, questioning look. He gazed back, his eyes warm.
“We’re doing things over, aren’t we?” His voice rumbled against her skin, warm and rough. The truck swayed as he climbed up into the bed and sat down next to her. “This is where it all started. I think it needs another go.”
“Why? This is when—” Olly felt her cheeks go red, and not because of the cold. “When I first thought I could… I might…”
“I did. Already. For months.” Jackson moved closer to her, near enough she could pick out every lash around his dark eyes. “It was the first time I thought you might feel the same way.”
Pain slivered through her heart. “We do have to do it over, don’t we? Because that’s when everything started to go wrong. The hellhounds turned up but none of us knew that yet, just that things kept going wrong, accidents, and I felt so—out of control—and…”
She clapped her hands over her mouth.
Jackson sighed. He turned side-on to her, his back against the truck’s cab, and looked out through the trees. “I did wonder—”
“I’m so sorry. Oh, God, I…” Her mouth went dry.
Jackson took her hand. “I was going to say, I did wonder if that was what made you… make the decision you did.”
“It’s all my fault—”
“And this time it’s going to be my fault.” Jackson tugged on her hand and she closed the gap between them. She shouldn’t have been able to feel any warmth from where her hip pressed against hers, not through half a dozen layers of clothing, so it must have been her imagination that her skin was heating up. “We’re doing over. From the start. And if you try to apologize to me again for doing something you thought was right, and is right, even if it took us both a year to figure it out, I’ll—I’ll…” He tipped his head back and glared at her, mock-severe. “I’ll make us re-do the first time we met, as well.”
“When Lucas got stuck in the stairwell?”
“That’s the one.”
“You’re going to get Lucas shitfaced again and make him climb the stairs?”
“If I have to.” Jackson’s eyes softened. “Won’t be hard to find him, he’s probably still sleeping off Jasper’s party. Getting him moving, on the other hand…”
Olly wriggled closer to him. “I’d better stop whining then.”
Something flashed behind Jackson’s eyes, but he kissed her before she could figure out what it was. His lips brushed against hers, cold at first, then shiveringly warm. “Don’t stop anything,” he murmured. “Just be happy. That’s all I want.”
That’s all I want for you, she told him silently. That flash of something on his face had her worried.
“I’ll try,” she said. “Starting now.”
Jackson hid a smile, then caught her eyes and stopped trying to hide it. He tucked his head down and grinned. “No hellhounds to mess us around this time, at least.”
“Oh they’ll keep messing us around. It’s worse when they’re trying to be helpful. And the Heartwell kids are going to be big enough to make some real trouble soon.”
“That sounds like two problems with one solution. Even two juvenile dragons couldn’t give a whole pack of hellhounds the slip.”
Olly leaned against him. “Meaghan would appreciate them having something to distract them over the next… oh… eighteen years?”
“Hmm?”
Olly explained about Meaghan’s pregnancy and Jackson laughed.
“Twins! I would’ve thought she’d want all the help she can get.”
“I think…” Olly wrinkled her nose. “I think she’ll spend half the time yelling at them all to leave her alone, and the other half yelling at them to come back so she can put them to work. And if the twins are shifters… Oh God. Imagine toddlers who can literally climb the walls. Climb into the walls.”
“They might not be.” Jackson’s voice was light—which was always suspicious.
“Which would be a relief,” she insisted. “And you’re right. Meaghan’s not a shifter and if one parent isn’t, their kids might not be either.”
“Or both parents.” Jackson’s voice was barely audible, a rumble in the very back of his throat. He shook his head, frowning, as though he was trying to get rid of a clinging thought. “My father’s in town.”
Olly unpacked that statement. “Oh. Uh… sorry?”
Jackson snorted. “He’s picked the worst possible time, and dragged his poor assistant along with him, too. Delphine Belgrave—you saw her drop me off, remember?” He waited for Olly to nod. “I suppose it makes sense he’d want to surround himself with other mythic shifters.”
Olly wound her arms around him and squeezed until the line between his eyebrows smoothed away. “You know, I don’t recall talking about hellhounds and child menaces during our summer picnic. I remember eating until I thought I’d explode.”
“Because you thought if you stuffed yourself your owl would stop trying to jump out of you to hunt fireflies.” His eyes were warm, and the expression in them said: I see what you’re doing. Distracting me from wallowing in a grump. Thank you.
She kissed him. “We won’t have that problem this time. My owl isn’t going to try to hunt—wait, what are they?” She prodded the string of fairy lights with the toe of her boot.
She leaned closer. “Are they… Santa Clauses?”
Jackson made a strangled, embarrassed noise. “Got them from Mr. Bell’s.”
“God, they’re… hideous.” Laughter bubbled out of her. The tiny glass Santas looked like they’d been repurposed from Halloween decorations. Their bulbous bodies could have been pumpkins in a past life, and their painted faces got creepier the longer she looked at them.
“He said they were normal lights when I bought them.”
“And you trusted him?” Everyone knew Mr. Bell valued a sale now over a return customer later.
“I was focusing on these.”
He pulled out a bag from under one of the cushions and opened it. More thermoses. Olly’s eyes widened.
“The chocolate—”
“It all melted anyway the last time, didn’t it?” Jackson placed the thermoses one by one on the bed in front of them.
“Little cups of goo instead of truffles. They were still tasty, thought. And I could tell what they all were anyway.”
“So you claimed.”
“I could!”
“Well.” Jackson kissed her. “This time we can really put it to the test.”
He unscrewed one flask and poured an inch of steaming hot chocolate into the cap. Olly watched his eyes. He was quietly pleased with himself, and probably didn’t even know he was showing it. It was adorable.
“What do you think this one is?”
Olly breathed in the vapor from the hot chocolate. “You got these all from Mr. Bell’s place?”
“Perhaps.”
“Ooh, that’s not fair…”
She knew all the brands Mr. Bell stocked. This time of year, it was all Christmassy flavors, which wasn’t as limited a variety as you might think. She’d already tried the cinnamon and pepper while they were driving, and this was similar, but…
“Nutmeg,” she declared.
“Hmmph.” Jackson confiscated the cap and opened another flask. “What about this one?”
“Mint. Obviously.”
“What sort?”
“There’s sorts?”
Jackson gave her a look that gave nothing away except how much fun he was having. She narrowed her eyes at him as she sipped the hot chocolate.
“Peppermint.” She took another sip. “Wait! No. Spearmint and … cinnamon again?”
“Bad?”
“Interesting.” She tried it again and it stayed… interesting. “How am I doing so far?”
“Hmm.”
“That’s not an answer!” she complained as he offered her another capful of hot chocolate. All the flavors were mixing together in her palate – sweet and spicy
and…
“Jackson, this is just rum.”
“Not just rum.”
“Fine. Rum and that stuff Hannah drinks? Alcohol… cream… stuff. Is there even any chocolate in here? Wait.” She drained the cap. “No.”
“I’ll tell Mr. Bell to keep those ones out of the kids’ pick and mix.”
“How am I going then?”
“No idea.”
“But you said…”
“I forgot to mark the bottles.”
Olly stared at him. Laughter bubbled up and escaped. “You forgot—”
“I’ve got all the labels still. I just don’t know which ones they match up to.” He fumbled in his pocket, gloved hands clumsy, and Olly laughed and pushed him over.
She clambered on top of him, the same as she’d done the night before. A thrill went through her.
“Why don’t you try?” she suggested, and kissed him.
He mumbled something against her lips. She hummed a question back and he repeated: “Irish cream.”
“What?”
“Rum and Irish cream.”
She fumbled for one of the other thermoses and took a sip. “And this one?”
Another kiss. Long and lingering. Her toes curled inside her boots and her fingers curled around the thermos, aching to touch him instead.
“Peppermint.”
“And?”
“You know I’m not as good at this sort of thing as you, Olly.”
“I only said it a minute ago!”
“Maybe I need another taste to be sure.”
This time she couldn’t stop herself. She peeled her gloves off. The cold air bit at her hands and then she thrust them under his hat, curling them into his hair so she could kiss him properly.
“Cinnamon,” he said eventually.
“Is it?”
“You tell me! You bought them.”
“I’m finding myself somewhat distracted…”
The look in his eyes heated her from the inside out.
“Distracted?” she murmured. “Like last time?”
“We didn’t get this far last time.” Jackson’s lips twitched. “Too much food and too little courage.”
Too little courage. She was the one who was being cowardly, now. Not telling him how afraid she was that she was going to ruin this, hurt him, again.
“What about now?” she whispered.
Jackson pulled off his gloves and lifted one hand to caress her cheek. “Now I know I love you. I know there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here with you. And I know that if I mess this up for the second time you’ll never let me hear the end of it.”
Olly smiled and he cocked his head. “You’re smiling.”
“Never is a long time.”
“Not long enough.”
“What would be, then?”
Jackson kissed her, his lips warm and soft. “Forever.”
He hunted for something in his jacket pocket. The heat rushing through Olly’s veins suddenly went very hot and very cold at the same time. “Jackson, what are you—what is—wait, what is that?”
He pulled his hand out. Something glittered in it, but not what she’d expected.
“I thought you were going to—” she began.
“It’s a ring sizer,” he said at the same time.
Olly froze. Her owl turned its head around very, very slowly.
A ring sizer? it asked.
For rings, she explained, uselessly.
What about the ring I found?
We have to give that back, she thought, and then: Oh, God, I really have to remember not to leave it behind this time—
Tell me more about the ring sizer, her owl insisted.
Olly’s lips twitched into a smile. Warmth bubbled inside her. It’s for my ring, she told it, and it perked up.
Good!
She licked her lips. “So you were,” she began, “this is… you’re… how was I meant to see this coming?”
The last words came out as a squeak.
Jackson half-sat up and she stayed on his lap. Even if she wasn’t completely sure of what was happening, some part of her—probably owlish—wanted to keep him pinned down until she had a better grip on the situation.
He held the ring sizer between them, holding it awkwardly. “We’re doing things over,” he said gruffly. “Last night you gave me a ring that didn’t fit. I’d better get you one that does.”
She felt his eyes on her. It didn’t make her itch like other people looking at her did, but it felt… expectant.
She lifted her own eyes to meet his gaze.
“Marry me, Olive Lockey.”
One heartbeat. “Yes.”
The corners of Jackson’s eyes creased. “As fast as that? You don’t want to think about it? Examine it from all angles?”
“No!” Olly’s breath stuck in her throat. She gestured haphazardly while she waited for it to come unstuck and Jackson’s eyebrows went up. Her heart felt so big there was no room for her lungs. At last she gave up and just laughed, and that seemed to free everything up. “Of course I don’t need to think about it. I wasn’t expecting it but it’s perfect. It’s exactly what I want.”
“I didn’t get you a ring. I thought you’d want to choose your own. There’s that jeweler in town with the coffee shop opposite, you could scope it out as long as you liked. And you can use this to know what size you need in advance so once you know the style you want, we can swoop in…”
She kissed him to shut him up. It didn’t work.
“The way it works is you try on the different ring blanks here, then slip them on the stick and read where it fits to—”
Olly wrestled the sizer off him and thrust it into her pocket, then got back to kissing him.
This time, it worked.
20
Jackson
Christmas Eve
Jackson wasn’t awake yet. He knew he wasn’t awake, because he could feel the warm weight of another body in bed next to him, soft and smooth-skinned. Olly. The woman of his dreams and so this had to be a dream. How many times would he have to pull himself out of this imagined paradise and wake up into the real world—
Wait.
Jackson’s body tried to sit up. He forced himself to lie still. Sitting up right now would make him the biggest idiot in the world because this wasn’t a dream, Olly was there, lying against his side, her breasts pressed against his ribs and one arm lying possessively across his chest. Her hand was palm-down over his heart, the touch of her fingertips feather-light.
The ring sizer was tucked under her fingers against his chest.
His heart thundered in his ears. It wasn’t a dream. None of it was a dream.
Olly had agreed to marry him, to be with him for as long as they both lived, and sitting up right now and spilling her out of bed would be the worst thing he could possibly do.
They were back at the cottage near the Puppy Express. After their … experiences in the cabin, Jackson hadn’t been able to handle the idea of going to his cold, locked-up house, the one he hadn’t been to in a year. The house meant nothing to him. The cabin did. And they were rentals for vacationers, right? So he had rented this one. His old house was just a house, but this place … this felt like theirs.
His breath caught as he looked at Olly. And it stayed caught as his eyes roved over her body, soaking in every detail of her. The light hairs on her arms. The way her waist curved down to her hips, and on to her muscular thighs. The thatch of blond hair pressed hard against his leg. All of her pressed hard against him, as though even asleep she refused to let him go.
Something welled up inside him, bright and triumphant. His ribs ached with it, as though his body wasn’t enough to contain all of this—all of—
A crease formed between Olly’s eyebrows. She murmured something sleepy and disgruntled and he let out his breath and remembered to take another one, this time.
Jackson huffed out a soft laugh so sudden it surprised him. “I’m not allowed to stop breathing, huh?�
�� he whispered to her. He placed his hand over hers on his heart. “I should have had you around six months ago.”
Shouldn’t have left twelve months ago and gotten myself into that trouble in the first place. Jackson sighed. This was apparently as acceptable to the slumbering Olly as his laughter had been, because she didn’t so much as flicker an eyelash.
He rubbed his forehead, brushing lightly over the scar. It didn’t hurt as much as it had done even a few days ago, he realized. And the tightness in his chest was gone, too, replaced by that triumphant sunrise-feeling. It surged again as he thought about it, as though reacting to his attention, and he forced it down. He was half-worried that if he let the feeling out, he’d end up whooping with joy, or something equally likely to ruin Olly’s sleep.
He wanted to lie with her like this forever, safe in this half-awake moment before the real world took hold again.
That moment ended too soon. A certain bodily urgency made itself known; the real world making itself known in the least dignified way possible. Jackson thudded down from his cloud with a groan.
He muttered an apology to Olly and tried to ease her off him. She clung on stubbornly.
“I need to use the bathroom,” he murmured, and she let him go with a reluctant groan.
“Come back quickly.”
Her voice lit up that cloud-feeling inside him again, but he had other things on his mind now. He grabbed his boxers from the floor and made his way quickly downstairs.
Bathroom first, then breakfast in bed for the woman of his dreams. He’d stocked the fridge and pantry after his shopping trip the day before. He had everything he needed to make Olly a delicious breakfast that even her owl wouldn’t disapprove of.
For the first time in his life, everything was going right.
He used the toilet, washed his hands and gave his underarms a test sniff.
New plan: bathroom, shower, then breakfast in bed.
He turned on the shower and hunted out a towel as steam started to fill the room. He’d bought toiletries as well, but what the hell had he done with them? Where was the soap?