They were all staring at Claire, and she was staring right back.
“What’s going on here?”
Sawyer was the first to speak. “You must be Claire. We spoke on the phone. I believe you know my brother Liam?”
Claire blinked, first at Sawyer, then at everything else. She turned a slow circle while they all stood there, as quiet as the Chase family had ever been, at least in congregated form.
Liam followed her gaze, and even he was stunned by what they’d managed to pull together. The decorated room was almost identical to the pictures she’d shown him. The vintage ornaments Estelle, Kelsie, and Rue had gathered were stunning, covering every inch of the tree. Most were probably reproductions, judging by their shiny packaging, but it hadn’t mattered. The effect was like going back in time, or so he hoped.
The place looked like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. And while he’d hoped to get it all decorated before Claire returned, the look on her face wasn’t one he’d miss. Not for anything.
“It’s Christmas Eve,” she managed to say. “What are you doing here?” She glanced around the room, taking in what he considered to be a spectacular decorating job. “Do I smell ham?”
“You do smell ham,” Liam’s mom said. “And I need to check on that. I’m Alice Chase, by the way. It’s lovely to meet you, dear.”
“It’s…nice…to…”
Claire didn’t have much of chance to say anything before his mom disappeared down the hall. Liam stared after her then turned around.
“You cleaned,” he said. “It looks great.”
“You decorated. Liam, I don’t know what to say.”
“Just don’t throw us out without food,” Sawyer said. “I’m not kidding when I say our entire Christmas dinner is in your kitchen.”
“You really brought food?” Claire asked.
“Of course Alice Chase brought food,” Sawyer said. “She brings food everywhere.”
Kelsie, Sawyer’s wife, grinned. “I don’t think this group does anything without food. That’s the Chase family motto.”
Liam looked at her. “We have a motto?”
“Yeah,” Estelle said, laughing. “Eat. That’s the motto. Eat.”
His mother appeared in the doorway, white-faced. “There’s a problem in the kitchen.”
“I didn’t touch a thing,” Kelsie said. She was a notoriously bad cook, though with his mother’s guidance, Kelsie managed to not ruin everything she touched. He’d actually be a little sad if she ever found her way around the kitchen. Pretty much everyone in the family had a thing, and Kelsie’s was death by chocolate.
His mom pressed a hand to her chest. “No, I mean…there’s a raccoon.”
“That’s Stanley,” Claire said quickly. “I wanted to name him Bandit, but Liam insisted it had been done before.”
“Stanley probably hasn’t been done before,” Ethan conceded. He and Rue were stringing popcorn. Liam didn’t know where they were going to put it. The entire room was bursting with decorations, the tree so full, the green was barely visible.
“You have a raccoon together?” Crosby asked. “I guess that explains why Ethan had me pitch in to buy a stuffed animal.”
“You did that without an explanation?” Liam asked.
“You have a raccoon?” Alice said. If the woman wore pearls, she’d probably be clutching them. Raising four boys wasn’t for the faint of heart, but apparently even she had her limits.
“That’s incredibly romantic,” Rue said.
“Only you would think that,” Ethan replied, but in a gooey saccharine way that made Liam want to brush his teeth.
“Says the man with the skinny hippopotamus sleeping at the foot of his bed,” Sawyer pointed out. Ethan had a rescue dog with more scars than hair. She did indeed resemble a skinny hippopotamus.
“There’s still a raccoon in the kitchen,” his mom said. “Where’s your father?”
“Chopping firewood,” Crosby said. “I was helping him. I just came in to grab some water.”
“You were chopping firewood?” Claire blinked. “Here?”
“For the fire,” Sawyer supplied helpfully.
“Stanley wants food,” Liam told his mother. “You don’t need Dad. Just feed him, and he’ll go away. Kind of like Sawyer.”
“Feed him what?” she asked. “A sandwich?”
“One of your sandwiches might be overkill.” They made the ones Liam and Claire had shared by the fire look like something out of a kid’s meal.
At the same time, Claire said, “He likes bananas. There are some in there.”
“I’ve got to see this,” Rue said. And just like that, the entire family not so subtly headed down the hall, leaving Liam standing there with Claire, who looked like she’d been hit by a truck, assuming someone could be stunningly gorgeous despite having been run over.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “In my head, this was more of a covert operation.”
“I’m pretty sure nothing happens covertly with that group.”
“Not with my mom bringing in Christmas dinner,” he admitted.
“The lodge looks…beautiful. Thank you. All of you. Or them when they come back, at least.” She was stammering. That might be a good thing. A little bit of hope bloomed.
“If you want us all to leave,” Liam said, “we’ll go. I just wanted to give you back the stockings and things just went a little crazy from there.”
“The stockings.” Her eyes filled with tears. “How did you do that?”
“That day in town, I mailed them to my mom. She fixed them and didn’t think highly of my idea to send them back to you via the postal service. This was Plan B.”
“This is delivering stockings?”
“This is delivering an old-fashioned Christmas. Maybe not quite like you remembered,” he admitted, “and minus the most important guests, but maybe it’s close enough for now.”
“It might be close enough,” she admitted.
“It might be too much,” he acknowledged. “Just say the word, and I’ll throw them all out. Myself included, if that’s what you want.”
“Is that what you want?” She seemed to be teasing him, but she was probably overwhelmed. They were an overwhelming bunch, even without covering every square inch of the main room of the lodge with Christmas decorations.
“Any other day, I’d love to get rid of them,” he said. “But I couldn’t have done this without them, and my mom did bring her entire dinner. I’m not kidding when I say that SUV of hers was packed.”
“If she plans on feeding all of these people, I don’t doubt it. And I don’t think you should throw anyone out—not if they did all this. I’d love to get to know them.”
He took a deep breath. “What about me?” What he really meant was what about us.
She sobered a notch, and he hated that he’d put that sadness there. “I know you,” she said. “And I went to you. All the way to the city, and you didn’t want to take a chance.”
“And I’m an idiot, and every single person in this house had told me that at least once.”
She looked around the room again, wiping a stray tear. “I understand you don’t want to risk the business.”
He touched her chin. “And my own mother informed me that the happiness of her boys, however ridiculously blind they were at times, mattered more to her than the phone ringing off the hook. Plus, I had an idea and I should probably confess before you find out some other way.”
A flash of uncertainty touched her eyes. He hated that. Hated it so much, but this plan was good. He hoped.
“But before you hear my idea, I want you to go look in that stocking with your name on it.”
He walked with her. At first she just ran her fingertips over the fabric, and when the first tear fell, he knew it wouldn’t be the last. Not by a long shot. But he’d have to get used to that. “These are so beautiful,” she said.
“You can thank my mother for that.”
“Well, we’ve already esta
blished she didn’t take them from the attic herself, so clearly she’s not the only one.”
“Fine,” he conceded. “You’re welcome. Now look inside.”
She took down the stocking and reached inside. “There’s nothing in here.”
“You’re looking for an invisible plastic bag. It’s in there.”
After a moment, she came up with the plastic bag. She gave him a curious glance and looked closer. “This is just like the one my mom gave me,” she said. “Or tried to. How did you know?”
“Actually, it is the one your mom gave you. My mom found it stuck in a hole in the lining.”
Before he finished talking, fresh tears were rolling down her face “Oh my God, Liam. This is hers?”
He wiped away a tear, but it was useless. Another one waited to take its place. “No, sweetheart. It’s yours. I’m sure she’d be thrilled to know you have it now.”
“I just want you to know,” she said through her tears. “I’m probably going to remember later why I was still mad at you when I woke up this morning, and we’re going to have to talk about that. But right now I really don’t care.”
“That’s good,” he said, “because I really don’t want you to care right now, although I should warn you there will be an upcoming story in People magazine. They’d like pictures of us together, but I told them that was up to you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “A story about what?”
“About what an amazing woman you are for standing up for and respecting yourself, and how much I admire you for that, and how everyone should.”
She gaped. “You went to a magazine?”
He walked over to the backpack that had once carried sticks from their skiing trip and withdrew a folder. His heart stumbled and skipped with the knowledge that he could have really blown it with her, but what he’d done was important to him. He just prayed it mattered to her, too, and in a good way, but her expression as he returned to the spot to which she stood rooted didn’t bode well.
“Tell me you actually didn’t go to a magazine.”
He handed her the folder, pained by the way her hand shook as she accepted it. Or maybe that was him. “It’s just a mockup of the article,” he said, “but it gives you an idea.”
“You went to a magazine, and there’s an article?”
“People magazine,” he reminded her.
Wordlessly, she shifted a blank gaze from him to the contents of the folder. He’d memorized every word of that story, and now he watched the play of her expression and imagined he knew what she read and when, but the truth was he knew nothing. Nothing more than he felt like his life hinged on what she thought of that article.
He’d been relieved to find the reporter who met with him to be warm and seemingly genuine. He’d had enough of not feeling in control of his own life, but more than that, he hadn’t wanted to make Claire’s more difficult.
He’d just wanted to counteract that stupid press tour by the blogger who was clearly a pompous, arrogant ass who knew nothing of the woman Claire was.
He’d wanted her, and the world, to know how he felt, and to prove those feelings weren’t contingent on what she might say when he saw her again.
Going public had freed him. He didn’t feel awkward, and he didn’t stumble over words. He’d just told the reporter, and effectively the world, how strong Claire was for standing up for herself. For walking away from men who clearly didn’t respect her. He kept the details to himself, but made it clear her strength was the kind that should be admired, not ridiculed.
By the time the interview was over, the asshole blogger looked like the biggest douche to ever touch a keyboard, and Liam hadn’t had to exaggerate.
At least, that’s how it had appeared to him.
He waited for Claire to look up, hoping, really hoping, that she agreed.
When she finally did, tears filled her eyes. “You destroyed him.”
The blogger, he realized. Not her, but the blogger. That was something. “He destroyed himself. He looks like a pompous ass because he is one. And for what it’s worth, if his air conditioning ever breaks, he’ll be hard pressed to find anyone in New York City to fix it. Even Fusion’s longest-standing rivals were happy to agree to that.”
Her attention lingered on him, then flicked back to the paper. He knew what was coming next. He carried a vivid memory of the moment the reporter had given him a long look and asked him if the Hot HVAC Guy had fallen in love with the Runaway Bride.
“You said yes,” she whispered, tears spilling from her eyes. “They asked if you’d fallen in love with me, and you said yes.”
“I said yes.” He didn’t have to pull her into his arms. She was there already, melting into him, and she fit so right and felt so good that he wasn’t sure he was going to let go. Not ever. Not even for dinner. “And it’s crazy,” he added, “considering how long I’ve known you, but nothing has ever felt like this. As much as we tried to fight it, it’s there, and it’s big, and I don’t know what else to call it.”
“I feel it, too,” she admitted. “Even when I want to kill you for making stupid bets about me. If this is crazy, we can be crazy together.”
“I’m all for being crazy together,” he said, kissing her lightly.
“This is beyond crazy, us here like this,” she murmured. “Because I did an awful lot of fantasizing about you before.”
“You stopped?”
She poked him in the stomach.
He laughed, and just as quickly sobered, because there was one thing he had to know and everything in his world depended on it. “So what if someone publicly asked you if Runaway Bride had a thing for Hot HVAC Guy?”
Her sky-blue gaze poured into him. “I’d wager she might.”
“Outside of this lodge, off the mountain. I mean it, Claire. I’m all in.” Saying the words aloud terrified him, but they weren’t awkward, and he didn’t second guess. He knew.
She gave a small smile. “I figured you might be when you had it printed in a national magazine.”
“It’s not there yet,” he said. “I did score final approval of the story before they print it, so by extension, you’ll have the last word. Whatever your blogger friend wants to spew is going to lose some of its luster in the face of the truth, especially if you decide to take up the reporter’s invitation and contribute to the story in your own words.”
“I—really don’t know what to say.”
“You have time,” he said. “Or about a week, anyway. Deadlines being what they are.”
“Not about that,” she said with a watery smile. “Well, sort of about that.”
“I don’t want to think about that,” he said. “I’d rather think about now, and I’d love to see that ring on you.”
She slipped the ring on her finger and held it up to the light. Lord knew there were a thousand of those in there. Firelight, candle light, probably ten-thousand big, old-fashioned bulbs on that truck-wrecking tree. Once she had it situated, she turned to him. “So if I don’t have to forget why I’m mad at you, then what do you want?”
“What I want, Miss Claire mostly-Henley not-so-much-Stevens, is to be the famous-for-no-reason HVAC guy who caught the Runaway Bride.”
“Hot HVAC Guy,” she said, standing on her toes to kiss him. Hard. A salty, tear-stained kiss. Probably one of the best ones ever. “It’s a meme. You don’t get to rename the meme.”
Epilogue
Dry Mountain Lodge
Late Summer
Liam tugged at his collar and cursed whatever genius who decided putting a man in a noose for a special occasion was a good idea. He hated suits, and especially tuxedos. He hated bowties even more. And he hated…waiting.
Waiting for the Runaway Bride.
And not just waiting, but waiting at a makeshift altar for the Runaway Bride.
The late Runaway Bride.
The magazine was just going to love this. They’d published their story to record-breaking sales for that week, and then spent a fortune
on flowers for the wedding and even shelled out for a tropical honeymoon. Liam, inspired by Claire’s comment that night outside his apartment building about sneaking off to a warm, deserted island, had insisted on that last part and hadn’t been able to wait for her to arrive so he could surprise her.
Now he just couldn’t wait for her to get there, period.
“Okay,” Sawyer said. “That thing I said about her not being able to get away from you up here? I was a little bit wrong.”
Liam rolled his eyes. It was a poor substitute for a punch, but considering the number of people who sat facing them, all dressed in their fancy wedding attire, it would have to do. “That was eight months ago. She didn’t get away.”
“To the contrary,” Sawyer said, “she got away with one hell of a nice engagement ring.”
“If she took off with that, then she has both our wives,” Crosby said. “And Ethan’s, too.”
Liam groaned inwardly. Ethan and Rue had gotten married on top of an actively erupting volcano in the South Pacific—one of those that just simmered lava rather than spewing it, as if that was any comfort. No one had been late, including Claire. “She’ll be here,” he said. “I’m not sure about you,” he added, directing a glare toward Sawyer, “but she’ll be here.”
“Hey, don’t kick me out. You wouldn’t have met her if not for me.”
“I almost lost her because of your stupid bet.” Since then, she’d gone back to her job in the city, back to his bed, and she’d hired staff who would run the lodge during ski season.
“You accepted my stupid bet.” Sawyer hesitated. “And I’m sorry for any trouble it caused. I’m happy for you. I’ll be happier when she shows up, and happier still when I can take this thing off my neck, but she’s great. And she’ll show, because for some reason, she loves you.”
The 48 Hour Hookup (Chase Brothers) Page 17