by Kati Wilde
Shit. I look up. “Did you get Emma?”
Marianne stops fussing with the decorations on the Christmas tree and raises her brows at me. “If I tell you, it’s not a secret Santa.”
“Did you get her name?” Each word drops like a stone.
A lot of people scramble to fall in line when I use that tone. Not Marianne. Her amused gaze skims the table, where the slips of paper are scattered around. “That’s not how you’re supposed to pick a name. You’re supposed to trust in the magic of Christmas.”
I do. But I also trust in the magic of capitalism. “I’ll trade you a crib for Emma’s name.”
Which doesn’t sound like much, except that Marianne knows I’m not talking about a crib that comes out of Babies“R”Us. My dad built a solid cabinetry and furniture business years ago, but in the past decade it’s been my work that’s put us on the map. Any custom piece I design and make, she can eventually sell for a small fortune or give to her kid as an heirloom.
A short battle plays out on her face. Finally she sighs, a sound filled with deep regret. “I can’t trade hers because I got someone else’s name.”
Which leaves only two people who might have gotten Emma’s. “You think she picked out her own?”
And ran off before she even looked at it.
Lips pursed, Marianne regards me silently for a long second—then gives a small shake of her head.
So my dad got Emma’s name. Fuck yeah. I can work with that.
I pocket Marianne’s name and sweep the others back into the hat. And because she looks so damn disappointed, I tell her, “Don’t you give up hope on that crib.”
Especially considering I’ve got a completed nursery set sitting in my workshop at home—a present to Marianne from me and my dad, for putting up with us the past ten years.
Laughing, she wags an admonishing finger at me. “Don’t you ruin my holiday surprise, Logan Crenshaw.”
“I won’t.” But maybe she’ll be willing to trade something else—such as information. “Did Emma say anything that explains why she’s so damn scared of me?”
Marianne doesn’t even blink, or try to claim that Emma isn’t afraid. So she’s noticed it, too. But she shakes her head. “Not a word.”
Fuck.
So what is it, then? Is it my that size terrifies her? I’m a big man, but that’s not going to change anytime soon.
And when I get her tight little body under mine, she’s going to love how big I am.
If I get her under me. Frustrated as hell, I rake a hand through my hair. It’s a bit long. I don’t bother shaving every day so my jaw’s got some scruff. Not enough to scare off a woman, I don’t think. It never has before. But that was then, and none of those women matter now.
Only Emma does.
“Although…” Marianne draws out the word as far as it can go before continuing, “It might be the way you look at her.”
I frown. “How do I look at her?”
“Like you’re a raging bull moose in rutting season.”
That’s pretty fucking accurate. But I didn’t realize it showed.
Marianne isn’t done, though. “And when you look at her, the air around you is combustible. I sometimes think the only reason everyone in the vicinity doesn’t spontaneously become pregnant is because they’re all men. And because my husband already knocked me up.”
Shit. So Emma probably sees that I’m a walking hard-on. But what am I supposed to do different? Not looking at her isn’t an option. Neither is toning it down.
Hell, I thought I was toning it down.
But it doesn’t matter. Failing isn’t an option, either. “All right. Thanks. I’ll work it out.”
“Well, hurry up about it,” is her cheeky reply. “Because I want to see this happen before I’m gone.”
I do, too.
Santa hat in hand, I head outside. The snow’s still falling. Everything’s quiet in parking lot. Only a single set of footprints are visible through the snow. Emma’s. My gaze follows them to the spot by the fence, where she’s been parking her ancient Toyota. Her car should be gone.
It’s not.
The streetlight’s shining through her windshield, giving me a good look inside Emma’s car. She’s leaning forward in the driver’s seat with her elbows braced against her steering wheel and her face buried in her hands.
I know that posture. It’s the universal sign for ‘Why the hell won’t my stupid fucking engine start?’
Bad luck for her. Merry Christmas to me.
Boots crunching in the snow, I stalk across the lot. She doesn’t look up until I rap my knuckles against her window. Her head jerks back and her gaze flies to mine.
And a second later I’m laid out, just fucking laid out. Physically still standing upright, but internally flattened by a one-two punch.
The first blow comes when I see the glitter of tears in her big brown eyes, glistening drops that magnify a soul-deep despair.
But it’s the second blow that’s the hardest. Because in the next moment she blinks and a smile curves her full lips. And although her eyes are still overly bright, there’s barely a sign that anything’s wrong as she begins cranking down the window.
Beautiful though it is, that smile’s all wrong—because she’s never aimed one at me before. And her tears squeeze at my chest, but this brave face she puts up is a kick to my heart. Because that brave face…that’s armor.
This woman’s a fighter. Someone who’s been knocked down—maybe more than once. But who always gets up, straps on her shields, and keeps going.
And I wanted Emma before this moment. From the day I first met her, I wanted her in my bed, and a whole lot more.
Now I’m sure I need her.
She’s still wearing that friendly, bright smile as the window comes down. Her cheeks and nose are pink from the cold or from crying. “Do you need help with something?”
“By the looks of it, I’m not the one who needs help.” My voice is rougher than I intend, but this woman just knocked something loose in me. Though I’m dying to know what’s hurting her—dying to fix it and take that hurt away—she obviously doesn’t want to expose her vulnerabilities. Demanding answers might make her more scared of me than she already is. “Did you leave your headlights on?”
“No. My battery just doesn’t like the cold.” As if the gesture’s part of the explanation, she waves a hand toward the passenger side, where a pair of jumper cables lies coiled on the seat.
I frown. That’s not where people usually store their jumper cables. “This happens often?”
She shrugs. “I usually just have to get a jump from my neighbor in the mornings. Then in the afternoon it starts okay. Except for today.”
Because the temperature dropped. But it’s not getting warmer anytime soon. “Sounds like you need a new battery.”
“I guess I do.” Her smile becomes brighter, tighter—as if she’s putting up another layer of armor between me and whatever put those tears of despair in her eyes earlier. “Do you mind giving me a jump so I can get to the bank before it closes?”
“I could, but unless you’re driving for a while, a jump will only get you as far as the next time you turn off the car.”
“That’s fine. The bank has a drive-thru. I won’t need to stop until I get home.”
“And if your engine stalls? You’ll be sitting dead. So I’ve got a better idea.” One that’ll keep her near me for a while. “I’ll get Patrick out here to hook up the battery charger that’s sitting in the shop, then I’ll give you a ride to the bank in my rig. By the time we come back, you should have enough juice for a couple of starts.”
Tonight, at least. Most likely it’ll be dead again by morning. But I’ll take care of that soon enough.
She hesitates, her gaze searching my face before looking past me—toward the office. Weighing her fear of me against the fear of making a bad impression at her new job, I’m guessing.
Neither my dad nor Marianne would give a shit if she did
n’t make that deposit until Monday. I won’t point that out, though.
“You don’t mind?” she finally asks.
Mind helping her out? That doesn’t even merit an answer.
“Pop your hood so Patrick can connect the charger,” I tell her. “I’ll bring my truck around.”
A few minutes later, I’ve got Emma Williams sitting in my cab, holding out her ungloved hands to the blast of the heater. She’s withdrawn into herself again, avoiding my eyes—maybe afraid that I’ll drag her across the bench seat and fuck her hard and deep.
But I won’t do that. I’m just thinking it.
The doing can come later.
“Thank you again,” she says softly.
“Yup.”
A short answer, but I’m trying hard not to fall into rutting bull moose mode. Not easy, considering that my cock’s a steel spike lodged behind my zipper—and considering that Emma’s only an arm’s length away, eyes bright and her armor in place. Christ, but she’s a sight. That long, just-been-fucked blond hair. Those big brown eyes and a sweet short nose over succulent pink lips that have featured in every fantasy since I’ve met her. Those lips and those legs. They’re a mile-fucking-long, though she’s not that tall. Average height, maybe. She’s wearing jeans now, denim hugging her sweet thighs and calves and cupping her ass the way I’d love to. First time I saw her, she was wearing a short pleated skirt over dark tights, and I’ve been picturing those leanly muscled legs wrapped around my waist ever since.
Around my waist, or around my head. Don’t much care as long as her thighs are squeezing me tight as she comes.
But I keep the rutting bull reined in, even though I can feel her stealing glances in my direction. I’m guessing she won’t look at me if I’m looking back so I keep my eyes on the road, instead.
But it’s killing me not to see her pretty face. At the first intersection, I glance over. She’s watching me, her plump bottom lip trapped between her teeth as if she’s got something to ask but uncertain whether she should.
Emma Williams shouldn’t ever feel uncertain around me.
I narrow my eyes. “What?”
Maybe that was too blunt, because her hesitation seems to deepen. But only for a second.
Then her eyes narrow right back. “Did you really drop out of high school when you were fifteen?”
There’s no question where she got that. “You read that piece in Northwest Quarterly?”
A regional magazine, which currently has my face staring out from the cover in the checkout aisle of every local grocery store. It’s not the first time I’ve been featured in industry and small business magazines, and probably won’t be the last. Because as much as I hate those interviews, they’re good for the company. In this latest one, the photographer posed me in front of a black walnut armoire I’d just finished, then caught me grinning at some point during the shoot, and the overall effect could be called Smug Dickhead in a Flannel Shirt. Then the headline reads, “At fifteen, he’s a high school dropout; at twenty six, he’s schooling the woodworking masters.”
Which is bullshit. I’ve done well for the company, made a name for myself. But I’m sure as hell not schooling any masters.
It’s all right if Emma thinks I am, though. And I especially like the thought of her being curious enough to read about me. God knows if she was on the cover of a magazine, I’d snatch up any information I could about her.
Then stroke my cock raw while looking at her photo.
But she shakes her head. “I only saw the cover when I was at the library. Someone else was reading the magazine, though, so I didn’t get a chance to look at the article.”
“Ask Dad or Marianne for a copy. There should be a couple lying around.” Because my dad bought a whole stack of them when the edition first came out in November—and the more Emma knows about me, the faster she’ll realize she doesn’t need to be afraid. And I still haven’t answered her question. “Anyway, it’s true. I left school early. But what the article doesn’t say is that it was done with state approval, as kind of a homeschool arrangement. I spent the next year in apprenticeships and got my GED as soon as I could test for it. Those write-ups always use the dropout angle, though.”
They have since the beginning—which was when HGTV produced a season-long show following a celebrity renovating her house. They added segments featuring the architects, the construction crews, and the artisans involved, so when they discovered the actress picked out a dining set that was designed and built by a teenager, they were all over it. We got fifteen minutes of national airtime, complete with a heart-tugging interview with my dad, tears in his eyes and choking up while he talked about how we lost my mom in a car accident when I was eight. By the end of it, they had me looking like a woodworking prodigy who’d arisen from the ashes of tragedy.
As slanted as it all was, I’m not complaining. After that show aired, we could barely keep up with the orders. Now we have two sides to the business: the custom shop, that’s me and the guys. And my dad’s side, which is the production of our catalog items—all off site and basically like a furniture assembly line.
That original story slanted every interview afterward, though, and the dropout label is brought up every time. But I get it. A ‘loser makes good’ headline probably sells more copies than ‘asshole studies his craft and works his ass off—and is lucky enough to sell a piece to a high-profile buyer and capitalize on the wave of publicity that follows—then over the course of ten years takes his dad’s already solid business to the next level.’
Emma’s eyes are alight with interest. “So you didn’t flunk out. It was more like you weren’t going to waste your time doing anything else.”
“That’s exactly what it was like.” I practically grew up in my dad’s shop. Officially I wasn’t an employee until I was sixteen, but I was in there designing and building long before that. I didn’t see any reason to spend more time in school when the stuff I wanted to learn was outside of it.
“You were that sure at fifteen?”
“I was that sure at five.”
Her dark blond eyebrows arch in disbelief.
It’s true, though. “When something’s right for me, I know it,” I tell her.
The same way I know Emma’s right for me.
I don’t think she’s ready to hear that, though. And maybe it’s the way I’m looking at her, but she bites her lip again and averts her face, squirming in her seat as if she’s itching to escape.
So I ease up. “But it wasn’t just me. You’ve probably seen already how my dad always jumps right to the worst, yeah? He worries about everything.” At her nod, I continue, “When I told him that I wanted to leave school, he didn’t have a single doubt. He knew it was right for me, too. And he says I get that certainty from my mom, because she was the same way. She knew exactly what she wanted and she didn’t waste time pursuing it.”
Her career, my dad. My mom proposed to him a week after meeting him, so I’m already trailing behind her. I don’t suppose my dad was afraid of her, though. Not considering that I was born nine months after they met.
Chances are I won’t move as fast as she did with a kid, either. I’d like a few years with Emma to myself.
And although I’m glad she asked about me, I’m ready to talk about her. “What about you?”
She shrugs. “I finished high school.”
Then went to the local community college to study business and accounting, all the while working part time as a bank teller and part time as a file clerk at an accounting firm. She got her associates degree and started a full time job bookkeeping at a construction firm, until it went under a while back.
“I’ve seen your résumé,” I tell her, but I don’t add that I only pulled it out of the filing cabinet after I met her. My dad and Marianne handled the hiring. “I’m asking whether managing an office is always what you wanted to do.”
“Oh.” She blinks. “Yes, it is. I didn’t imagine Crenshaw’s, specifically, but this kind of wo
rk.”
I love that answer. Not sure I believe it, but I love it. Because I don’t want her moving on to another job anytime soon. “Really?”
She nods. “Maybe not the part where I answer phones, but the accounting part of it.”
Marianne’s the opposite. She puts up with the bookkeeping because it’s part of the job. But she loves interacting with people.
“So you like the numbers?”
“Not the numbers themselves, exactly, but the way they add up in a ledger. The way they all make sense.” Her voice softens with a note of utter satisfaction, just as I imagine her sighs might sound when she’s lying against me, sweaty and exhausted and her pussy juices still coating my dick. “I love how the assets and the liabilities equal each other, and that, no matter how many expenses go out and how much income comes in, there’s always a credit for every debit—and a debit for every credit. The way it all fits together just…appeals to me on every level.”
“I’ve never heard anyone talk about accounting like that.” Jesus. It’s sexy as fuck.
So is the blush that climbs her cheeks. “It’s just that balance sheets are simple,” she says, “no matter how complicated the accounting itself gets. And the math is never as complicated as people are.”
“People are simple.”
She gives me a look that says I’m crazy.
“Take me, for example,” I tell her. “All I want out of life is football in the winter, barbecues in the summer—and beer to drink with both. Add in work for my hands and the love of a good woman, and I’m set for life.”
And if I could only have one, I’d take the woman and give up everything else.
But only if that woman is Emma.
A little smile curves her lips. “All right,” she concedes. “Maybe I said it wrong. People can be simple. But the relationships between them usually aren’t.”
I won’t argue with that. Though it makes me wonder how complicated her relationships have been that she takes such pleasure in a balance sheet. It also might explain why she’s so damn scared of me—maybe she senses what I want from her isn’t simple at all.