by Lisa Childs
Christmas music, something she never expected to hear in the Kendall household, drifted down the hall. And a deep voice was pitched low, rumbling in a one-sided conversation.
She followed the noises to the family room. The Christmas tree rose to the pitch of the cathedral ceiling. Its twinkling lights reflected back from the wall of glass behind it and cast a beautiful glow across the man and the boy who sat on the couch near the tree. She had thought she might find her son here, drawn back to the tree with which he’d been so awed earlier. She’d never expected to find Thad beneath the tree, too. Mark was cuddled up on his lap, their heads bowed close together over the book father read to son.
Caroline’s heart warmed and swelled in her chest. She had to clasp her arms around herself so that she wouldn’t throw her arms around them both and never let go. Mark wasn’t the only one who’d wanted this for Christmas: family.
He had just been the only one hopeful enough to believe Santa could bring him what he wanted. Caroline had stopped believing in Santa long ago. But not as long ago as Thad.
He finished the story with a flourish of affected voices and special effects. Mark giggled in delight. And Caroline clapped.
“Mommy!” Mark exclaimed. “Daddy was just reading me a story.”
“I found him down here by the tree,” Thad explained.
“It’s so pretty,” Mark said with a happy sigh as he snuggled into the corner of the couch where he’d piled pillows and blankets. “Can I sleep down here under it?”
Panic fluttered in her chest again.
“He’s safe,” Thad assured her. “The whole family’s here tonight.”
She was surprised that any of them would want to be here tonight of all nights: the twentieth anniversary of their parents’ murders. But they had been there when she and Mark arrived, and then they’d decided to spend Christmas Eve together.
But for Thad.
“They keep coming down to check on him,” he said, gesturing toward the plate of cookies and milk that had been left on the coffee table for Mark instead of Santa.
“They’re going to spoil him,” she said.
“Is that going to be a problem?” he asked, studying her face with genuine concern that she might not be comfortable with his family embracing Mark so fully.
She glanced at her son, who was already drifting off to sleep as he stared up at the tree. “No. I think it’s wonderful that he got what he wanted for Christmas.”
She leaned down to press a kiss to Mark’s forehead. Then she tapped a finger on the book Thad had been reading. “‘The Night Before Christmas’?”
“Would you rather I read him something else?” he asked, lifting a brow.
“You can read him whatever you want. You saved us tonight,” she said. “And you saved Edward Turner, too.”
“Too many people have already died,” he said with a weary sigh.
She wondered when he’d last slept. She reached for his hand and tugged him to his feet. “It’s Christmas now,” she said, noticing that it was after midnight.
“Did Santa bring you what you wanted?” he asked.
“Not yet.” But she led him down the hall to the stairs and then up to the suite that was his. She’d been shown to this suite earlier but had refused to assume that Thad would want her staying with him. So she and Mark were staying down the hall in a guest suite.
Except now neither of them intended to stay in there. Mark was asleep downstairs. Thad’s family would watch over him. And she intended to sleep here, with Thad. She reached for the buttons on his shirt, sliding them open so that the material parted and fell away from his chest.
“I’m not Mark,” he said, his voice rough as his eyes lit with passion. “I don’t need your help.”
She froze with her hands raised up between them. “I know,” she said. Her son had been the last thing on her mind as she’d bared Thad’s heavily muscled chest. “You don’t need anyone.”
He shook his head, and then he wrapped his hands around her waist, pulling her close to him. “I need you…?.”
She didn’t wait for whatever else he had to say, and he looked as if he intended to say more. She’d heard what she needed, that she was needed. Sliding her arms around his neck, she pressed her mouth against his and kissed him in a way that would leave no doubt that she needed him, too.
Thad’s lips parted on a groan, and he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue into her mouth. Her pulse pounded as desire overwhelmed her. She wasn’t the only one losing control.
Thad’s hands shook as he fumbled with the belt of her robe and pushed the soft fleece from her shoulders. She hadn’t dressed for seduction; as a single mother, she never did. But Thad acted as if her simple cotton nightgown was a see-through negligee. His pupils dilated, his eyes darkening with passion.
“You are so beautiful.” The words came out in a sexy rasp.
And for the first time in a long time, Caroline felt beautiful. Acting the seductress, she slowly released the buttons and parted the fabric so that it slid off her shoulders and fell atop the robe.
Thad sucked in a sharp breath. “So damn beautiful…”
He was the beautiful one with the lamplight gleaming on the hard muscles of his bare chest and arms. She had to open her mouth to breathe as he literally stole her breath away. Then his lips pressed to hers again, kissing her as if he never intended to stop.
She never wanted him to stop. Never wanted him to leave…but tonight was only about tonight. Not tomorrow, even though dawn was beginning to lighten the sky outside his windows. He acted as if he had all night. He took his time taking off the last of their clothes. Took his time touching her…everywhere.
And kissing every inch of her skin. Her knees weak, she dropped onto his bed, and he followed her down. His body covered hers, slick skin sliding over slick skin.
After kissing her lips, his mouth slid down her cheek, into the hollow below her jaw. She shivered at the delicious sensation. But he moved lower, sliding his lips across her collarbone and over the slope of her breasts. She arched, silently begging him for more. He gave her more, his lips closing over the nipple.
She whimpered as the passion intensified and pressure built inside her. Then his fingers were there, sliding into her, and she arched against his hand. But it wasn’t enough, even as she came, to release the most intense pressure.
She reached for him, closing her hands around the length of him. He pulsed and shuddered in her grasp. “Caroline…”
“Take me, Thad…?.” She was already his. She had always been his.
“I—I don’t have any protection.”
She didn’t care. He had given her the most precious gift the last time he’d left her; she would be blessed if he left her another.
She parted her legs and arched her hips and guided him to her core. As if his control snapped, he thrust inside her, joining their bodies. Caroline clung to him, wrapping her legs tight around his waist and her arms tight around his shoulders.
Muscles strained along his neck and in his shoulders and arms as he braced himself above her. He stared down at her, his eyes full of awe and something more.
Something she dared not trust in case she was only imagining it. So she closed her eyes and clutched him close. She met his every thrust, taking him deeper and deeper into her body and her heart. Every time she’d thought she couldn’t love him any more, she learned to love him more.
The pressure wound tighter, the exquisite pain of it nearly tearing her apart before she shattered. Pleasure, even more intense than the pressure, overwhelmed her. She had never known anything as powerful or as profound.
Thad tensed and joined her in ecstasy, her name on his lips as he buried his face in her neck and his body deep in hers. He clutched her close, keeping them joined, as he rolled to his side and carried her with him, tight in his arms. As if he never intended to let her go.
As if he never intended to leave.
“Caroline,” he began, as if he was comin
g back to all those words she’d seen earlier in his gaze as he’d stared at her.
But she was too much a coward to hear them now, when she was more vulnerable and more in love than she had ever been with him, so she closed her eyes. And she pretended to sleep.
When Christmas came, she would learn if Santa had brought her what she wanted…or if he intended to take it—and Thad—away from her again.
Chapter Eighteen
She was gone.
And Thad had only himself to blame for waking up to an empty bed. He should have told her what she deserved to hear, what she had deserved to hear from him four years ago.
That he loved her. That he couldn’t leave her and Mark ever again.
He had dressed and rushed downstairs to tell her those words and had found the house full of people, everyone who mattered to him, except for her.
“She’s coming back,” Aunt Angela said as she pressed a mug of coffee into his hand. “She only went to check on her friend’s husband.”
“You saw her?”
Aunt Angela smiled. “This morning, when she left. You were still sleeping.” And from the twinkle in his aunt’s eyes, she knew how Caroline had known he was still sleeping.
She’d been in his arms all night, or what had been left of the night when he’d finally fallen asleep.
“You had to know she was coming back,” his aunt persisted as she pointed to the little boy who sat on Uncle Craig’s lap. “She would never leave him here.”
He grinned at his son. “No, she wouldn’t.”
“She was going to stop off to get his gifts from their house and bring them back here,” Ash said as he and Rachel joined Thad and Aunt Angela. “She couldn’t bring them yesterday and risk him finding out the truth about Santa.”
Rachel patted his hands, which as always, covered her belly. “I’d say Santa is very real this year.”
“Santa Claus brought you something, Daddy!” Mark exclaimed, wriggling out of Craig’s lap to run over to where Santa stood by the tree.
At the sight of former navy SEAL Grayson Scott in a Santa suit complete with padded belly and snowy-white beard, Thad choked on his sip of coffee laughing. Gray was a great addition to the Kendall family, so loving and protective of Natalie that he would do anything for her. Anything.
Just as Thad would do for Caroline, if the stubborn woman would give him the chance to prove it to her. He glanced toward the door to see if she’d returned. But Mark grabbed his hand and pressed the package into it.
“Maybe you should wait for Caroline,” Aunt Angela suggested, “if she got you that present.”
Thad shook his head. “It’s definitely not her handwriting. She writes like an elementary school teacher.” Not like an impatient man, which was what the scrawl of his name reminded Thad.
“That handwriting doesn’t belong to either of your brothers,” Aunt Angela remarked. “Gray—I mean, Santa?”
He shook his head. “Not mine. If you don’t recognize it, Thad, maybe you shouldn’t open it.”
Thad wasn’t surprised where the navy SEAL’s thoughts had gone. His forayed there, too, wondering yet if his true identity had been revealed after he’d walked off that last mission to come home. But when he inspected the gold-foil-wrapped package, he realized it was a book.
“The Great Gatsby. It looks old.”
He glanced inside. “First edition.”
Ed Turner hadn’t just ransacked his suite the day he’d broken into the estate. He’d left him a gift under the tree, one he’d probably thought he would have no further use for if he’d managed to manipulate Thad into killing him.
“Who’s it from?” Ash asked as he studied his face.
Thad shook his head, unwilling to ruin the first happy Christmas morning the Kendalls had had in twenty years. The gift didn’t bother him, but it might bother the others. “Just an old acquaintance.”
Bored with the book, Mark went back to the couch and the game Uncle Craig had been playing with him. He crawled into his lap as naturally as if he’d known the man his entire life.
Aunt Angela squeezed Thad’s hand. “He’s such a sweet boy and exactly what we’ve needed around here again. Children.”
“We know what we’re having,” Ash said, raising his voice to draw everyone’s attention.
Aunt Angela’s eyes lit with excitement. To her, news like this was far more thrilling than opening any present. “Really?”
“We’re going to have a baby boy,” Rachel announced.
Mark clapped. “Good! Boys rule. Girls drool.”
“You’re lucky your mother isn’t here to hear that,” Thad warned his son, but he couldn’t keep the smile from his face. He slapped his brother’s back. “That’s great, you two. Congratulations.”
Ash nodded, his green eyes bright. He reached out for Aunt Angela, catching her hands in both of his now. “We’re going to name him Connor.”
For the son she and Uncle Craig had lost way too young.
Tears glimmered in her warm brown eyes, and Uncle Craig hugged Mark tight. “That’s wonderful,” he said. “A beautiful gift…just like children are.”
Thad gazed around the room at his family. He had never seen them as happy on any other Christmas, not even the ones before his parents had been killed. Only he, missing Caroline, and Natalie, were not completely happy.
He joined his sister where she stood by the windows, staring out onto the snow-covered patio. “Hey, Nat…” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “What are you doing over here by yourself?”
Santa had been watching her, too, his gaze full of concern. He started across the room, but Aunt Angela caught him, thrusting a tray of cookies at him. He was already family, but their aunt was giving the siblings a moment like so many they’d stolen over the years as Devin and Ash joined them.
“What’s going on, little sister?” Devin asked. He must have also noticed how she’d distanced herself from them, as if she was now an outsider.
“I’m sorry,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Mark, who jumped up and down next to Gray, trying to reach a cookie. Her fiancé lifted the boy easily and held him as naturally as if he was already a father himself. “It’s my fault all these horrible things happened.”
“It damn well isn’t!” Devin corrected her.
“I caused it,” she said. “It all happened because of me.” She turned to Thad. “That’s why your son was kidnapped.” She shuddered. “What if you hadn’t been able to save him and Caroline? How much different would today be?”
“Miserable,” he admitted. “But I still wouldn’t blame you for any of it. It would be like my blaming Mark for what happened. You had no control over what our mother did, or what Ed Turner did.”
She sucked in a deep breath and nodded. “I know that. I do.” She lifted her shoulders as if finally relieving herself of the burden of guilt she’d carried needlessly. “He’s not my father, you know.”
“We know,” Ash assured her. “You are one hundred percent our sister. You always have been and you always will be a Kendall.”
Her quick grin flashed. “Well, at least until I become Mrs. Grayson Scott in a few months.”
Thad reached into his pocket for the gift he hadn’t yet placed under the tree because the person he wanted to give it to wasn’t there. But then he turned away from the window and caught sight of her across the room.
She had returned, carrying her own bag of gifts as if she were Santa Claus. But there was nothing masculine about her red sweater, black skirt and tall leather boots, or all the generous curves he’d kissed and caressed just hours ago.
Their gazes met and held, and his temperature rose at just the memory of her touch, of her taste. He started forward to close the distance between them.
But Uncle Craig stood up and clinked a champagne flute with a spoon. Instead of passing out cookies, Aunt Angela was now moving around with a tray of drinks.
The siblings moved back to the middle of the room and gathered
around the man who’d been their rock for so many years. Each accepted a glass of champagne, ready to celebrate whatever he deemed worthy of celebration, which, today, was so much.
“I have an announcement to make,” he said. He stopped Aunt Angela, taking the tray from her and pressing a drink into her hand. “It’s your present, actually.”
“My present?” She lifted her fingers to the diamond pendant he’d bought her.
“Not that,” he said. “Your real present, if you think you can handle it.”
She narrowed her eyes with suspicion. “What are you talking about?”
“Time,” he said. “After everything we’ve been through the past four months, I’ve realized how little of it we actually have. So I don’t want to waste another minute apart from you, my sweet wife.”
She blinked back tears at his compliment and the depth of love for her on his face.
He turned toward the rest of them now. “I’m officially announcing my retirement from Kendall Communications.”
Devin lifted his glass. “I understand your reasons,” he said as he glanced down at his fiancée, whose hand he held in his free one. “But I don’t think I can run the company alone.”
Uncle Craig laughed. “We both know that’s not true. You’ve done more with that company than I have, and you can take it even further on your own.”
Devin shook his head. “Not on my own.” He turned to Thad now. “I need help to take it in the direction I want to go. Are you interested in a job, little brother?”
“I need him at SLPD,” Ash interrupted, as if their little brother was a toy the two former rivals used to fight over.
Thad suspected he could do more good at Kendall Communications. But before he could answer, he had to ask a question of his own.
CAROLINE HELD HER BREATH, waiting for Thad’s answer just like the rest of his family did. Was he going to stay? Would he give up being a spy to become part of his family’s company?