by M. S. Parker
A Hunter Brothers Christmas
M. S. Parker
Belmonte Publishing, LLC
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 Belmonte Publishing LLC
Published by Belmonte Publishing LLC
Contents
Reading Order
1. Chester “CT” Hunter
2. Abigail Slade
3. Jax Hunter
4. Syll Reeve Hunter
5. Jax
6. Ct
7. Abigail
8. Cai
9. Addison
10. Cai
11. Ct
12. Abigail
13. Slade
14. Cheyenne
15. Slade
16. Ct
17. Abigail
18. Blake
19. Brea
20. Blake
21. Ct
22. Abigail
23. Jax
24. Cai
25. Slade
26. Blake
Also by M. S. Parker
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Reading Order
Thank you so much for reading A Hunter Brothers Christmas. All books in the Hunter Brothers series can be read stand-alone, but if you’d like to read the complete series, I recommend reading them in this order:
1. His Obsession
2. His Control
3. His Hunger
4. His Secret
A Hunter Brothers Christmas
One
Chester “CT” Hunter
December 23rd, 1984
New York City
I trudged through the gray slush, head bent against the freezing rain, mentally cursing myself for not hailing a cab. I didn’t mind taking the subway, but I hated the walk from the station to my office on days like today.
Things were supposed to clear up in a couple hours and the temperature would even out, which meant my after-work walk wouldn’t be nearly so miserable, but even that thought couldn’t coax a smile. I normally loved this time of year, but for some reason, I wasn’t looking forward to Christmas the way I usually did.
A sigh escaped as I reached The New York Times building. I’d wanted to work here from the time I was old enough to realize what it meant to be a reporter. Granted, I was only an intern, but my double BA in communication and English from NYU had given me the status of being a paid intern. I planned on working my ass off with the goal of being a junior reporter by this time next year.
At Thanksgiving, my father had asked how things were going at work. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve thought he had a genuine interest. Although, I guess, technically, his interest in my answer was genuine, just not for the reasons I wished.
Manfred Hunter was the only child of an only child from one of Boston’s finest and oldest families. He wasn’t simply old money though. He had the same business savvy that had allowed our ancestors to weather the ups and downs of the economy successfully. I’d never asked how much we were worth because I’d never wanted to know. Knowing would have only increased the pressure on me to follow in my father’s footsteps and head up the family business.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped into the warm lobby and stomped my feet on the rug. One of my fellow interns came in just behind me, shivering from head to toe despite the massive coat hanging on his lanky frame. A scarf was wrapped almost completely around his face, but I knew who it was all the same. Only one guy at the office bundled up like that when it wasn’t below zero.
“Looking good, Finn,” I said as I waited for him to remove his scarf and dig through the layers to find his ID. “I have to ask, what do you plan on doing when the wind chill’s low enough to freeze the snot on your face?”
“That’s disgusting,” Argus Finn said, his voice surprisingly delicate as he scrunched his nose. “You don’t understand. You grew up in Boston. I’m a Southern gentleman.” He drawled the last few words, as if his Georgian heritage was in any doubt.
I shook my head, laughing. I got along with most of the staff, but Finn and I had really hit it off when he started at the paper a month after me. Though he hadn’t come out and said anything specific to me, I knew he was gay. A lot of the people at the paper did too, but no one made it into a thing. They didn’t go overboard to welcome him either though. Maybe that was why the two of us got along so well. Not that I was gay, but because my co-workers treated me differently because of who my family was and where I came from. The moment they’d figured it out, everyone had suddenly become painfully polite. Finn, however, matched me word for sarcastic word.
We both flashed our IDs at the security guard who barely glanced at them before waving us through. One day, I was going to swap IDs with someone and see if the guard noticed. The way the world was going, security measures would soon become tighter, not more lax.
“Were you serious about how cold it was going to get?” Finn asked as we got onto the elevators. “Seriously, dude, will it?”
“Did you just ‘seriously, dude’ me?” I laughed. “And yes, it’s going to get that cold. Didn’t you bother to check what the weather was like before moving here?”
“It’s the New York Times. It’s been my first pick since I realized I wanted to be a journalist. I would’ve gone to Alaska if it meant I could write for them.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “I love being able to say that I work for the Times.”
“Even if work is all you do?” Finn asked as we stepped off the elevator.
Interns and junior reporters had their own desks on this floor, even if we were crammed in like sardines. We didn’t get our own computers, of course, especially not the interns, but a couple of the financial guys said there was a good chance that the cost of computers would keep coming down until it was common for everyone to have them. As it was, we had a few for us to share if we weren’t working with a specific senior reporter on a story. Personally, I preferred an old-fashioned notebook.
“We both work crazy hours,” I said as I draped my coat over the back of my chair.
“I work my schedule,” Finn countered, unwrapping himself from his multiple layers. “You come into work even when you don’t have to.”
I shrugged. He wasn’t wrong. My internship paid a meager salary with a set number of hours, and it didn’t make room for overtime. When I came in on my own time, I didn’t get paid for it, but I wasn’t in it for the money. I was proving something. To myself. To the rest of the staff.
To my father.
“Don’t you want to have a life?” Finn asked, taking his seat at the desk next to mine. “I mean, I’m all for being passionate about what you do, but we can’t only live and breathe work.”
“Can’t we?”
Finn rolled his eyes. “You need to have some fun, CT. You do know what fun is, right?”
“I have fun,” I argued. “Just because I don’t go out to bars and–”
“There’s a party tonight,” Finn cut in. “I have a cousin who has a friend in the Hamptons, and they’re throwing a big holiday bash. You should come with me because my cousin is perfect for you.”
I held up a hand. “Whoa. There’s a big difference between a party and a set up.”
“Not a set up,” Finn said, his thin shoulders shrugging up to his ears. “More like a blind date.”
“You want me to go to a party tonight to meet your cousin for a blind date.” I wondered if it sounded as crazy to hear as it did to say.
Finn’s head bobbed up and down. “I think the two of you will really hit it off.”
“That’s what you said about the last girl you tried to fix me up with,” I reminded him. “She wanted to know when I was going to write about her acting career taking off.”
Finn winced. “Veronica was a mistake.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And what about the one before her? Bianca, I think her name was. She grabbed my dick through my pants.”
Finn grinned at me and leaned back in his chair, dark eyes dancing. “That just sounds like a good time to me.”
“We were at a hockey game,” I countered. “There were kids around.”
Finn held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, so maybe I’ve picked a couple bad ones.”
“A couple?” An idea occurred to me. “How about you and I make a deal, Finn? I’ll go with you tonight, meet your cousin, and you promise me that she’s the last one you try to set me up with.”
The front legs of Finn’s chair thumped down on the floor, and he stuck out his hand. “Deal. But if you end up liking my cousin, you give me your next story.”
“All right,” I agreed as I shook his hand.
I didn’t bother to tell him that it wasn’t going to happen. Not because I wouldn’t honor the bet if he won, but because there was no way in hell I’d ever fall for Finn’s cousin. First, because I wasn’t looking for love, and second, because Finn had the shittiest taste in, well, men and women alike.
I’d go tonight and meet Finn’s cousin, and then I’d never have to listen to him nag me about dating again. Not that he wouldn’t nag me about other things, but that was fine with me. I didn’t mind the friendly picking about stupid stuff. I just wanted his hands off my lack of a love life. If I was meant to be with someone, then I’d find them. It was that simple.
Two
Abigail Slade
December 23rd, 1984
New York City
Having lived in Seattle, Washington for years, I was used to the perpetual damp. Portland, Oregon hadn’t exactly been an arid place to grow up either. Neither city could compare to New York when it came to freezing my ass off though. I liked the cold, even when it was slushy and gross. I always had, even when I had to go out in it. There was something about bundling up and walking in the fresh but dreary air that I enjoyed.
I pulled my winter coat more tightly around me and wished I would’ve remembered to bring something warmer than my scrubs to walk home in. Technically, as a volunteer at the hospital, I wasn’t required to wear scrubs, but I was majoring in nursing at NYU and knew that scrubs were the best way to avoid staining regular clothes with blood and other…things. It made the most sense to just start wearing them now.
The walk from the hospital to the subway, then from the subway to my dorm on Broome Street, wasn’t a bad one, and it helped me stay in shape. A lot of people didn’t realize what a physical occupation nursing was.
I sighed as I remembered the last time I’d gone to the gym. Usually, I got at least a couple hours in a week, but my finals this past semester had been brutal as I’d been finishing up some of my non-nursing requirements. Instead of doing some lifting and running, I’d spent most of my time trying to understand The Color Purple and figuring out the connections between the American and French Revolutions. I had an appreciation for history, but no love for being required to memorize it.
“Abigail!” My roommate shouted as she threw open the lobby door. “Get your skinny ass in here! It’s cold as hell!”
I’d never understood that phrase. Wasn’t hell supposed to be hot? If that was the case, how could something be as cold as hell?
“What are you doing down here wearing just that?” I gestured at her pajamas and fuzzy koala slippers. “No wonder you’re cold.” I stepped past her.
“I’ve been waiting for you, like, forever.”
Griselda Viesturs was nineteen, like me, and also a nursing major, but she wanted to work at a nursing home or assisted living center, so she focused her volunteering on those sorts of places. Not me. I wanted to be either an ER nurse or a nurse in the pediatric ward. I was using my volunteer time to figure out which one was a better fit.
“Forever?” I asked with a sideways look. I headed for the stairs, and Griselda followed.
“Well, fifteen minutes can seem like forever when you’re freezing your tits off.”
We weren’t even to the second flight of stairs, and she was already breathless. The first semester we were roommates, she’d come to the gym with me a couple times before declaring that she intended to gain the freshman fifteen twice. She’d been joking, but that was when I’d seen how much it bothered her when people were rude about her being overweight. She didn’t starve herself, but she ate healthy with the occasional splurge. Not that it was anyone’s business but her own.
“Is there a particular reason you were waiting for me in your PJs even though it’s four o’clock in the afternoon?” I asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m wonderful.” Her lips stretched into an overly wide smile. “I was going to spend the day lounging around, watching sappy holiday movies, but then something totally rad happened.”
Every other day she found something ‘totally rad’ that she just had to tell me about. I was an only child, but I always imagined that having a sister would be a lot like how things were between Griselda and me.
“You’re coming with me,” she declared without any clarification.
“And where, exactly, am I going with you?”
“The Hamptons.”
That stopped me before I could unlock the door to our apartment. “The Hamptons? Who do you know there?”
Griselda grinned, happy that she’d finally gotten my attention. She tossed her thick, raven-black hair over her shoulder. “Do you remember Doug, the guy I dated over the summer?”
“The lifeguard in Cabo?”
“That’s the one.” Her dark green eyes sparkled. “His parents, like, have this house in the Hamptons and they’re letting him have a bonfire tonight.”
“Weren’t you just complaining that it was cold as hell?” I asked as I opened the door. “Why would you want to go somewhere outside?”
“Duh, that’s, like, what the bonfire’s for.” Griselda plopped down on her bed and bounced a couple times. “Besides, do you think I’d let a little thing like cold keep me from, like, scoping out totally smoking rich guys?”
“Sounds like your sort of party.” I pulled off my scrubs and tossed them into my dirty clothes hamper. I needed to do laundry soon.
“It is,” she said, still bouncing. “But, like, it’s going to be your kind of party too. Tonight anyway.”
I shook my head and wondered, not for the first time, if there was a way to get Griselda to stop using the word like in every other sentence. That was one particular fad I hoped died out fast. “I’m going to take a shower, put on something comfortable, and spend the rest of the day in bed reading.”
“No,” Griselda said firmly, crossing her arms over her chest. “You need to, like, get out more.”
I rolled my eyes. “I get out plenty.”
She rolled her eyes right back. “Out to something, like, other than class or volunteering at the hospital.”
Okay, she had me there. I felt myself caving. “Will you be the only person there I’ll know?”
I didn’t mind parties or being social, but I wasn’t fond of being the odd person out. I didn’t know of anyone who did. But she was right that I hadn’t been spending much time with people outside of work.
“I don’t know,” she said before bobbing her eyebrows. “But I do have someone that you should get to know.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Please tell me you aren’t trying to set me up on another blind date.”
“This one is a good guy, I promise.”
“You said that about Patrick Charles,” I reminded her, my face growing warm at the memory.
“How was I supposed to know that he was try
ing to make his girlfriend back home, like, jealous?”
I frowned at her. “You could have asked the same friend who interrupted dinner to tell Patrick that the girlfriend was on the way to dump him.”
She had the grace to look at least a little bit embarrassed. “Okay, that was on me.”
I pointed a finger at her. “And what about Timothy Bozer?”
“Hey, no one knew he was doing drag under the name Kitty Come Get Me. He was the head of the NYU Young Republicans!”
She looked so indignant that I had to laugh, but I still wasn’t going to waste another night on one of her disaster dates.
“This guy’s different,” she insisted. “He’s actually my cousin, so I know he comes from a good family. He’s a couple years older than us, but not like creepy old.”
“Gris–”
“Please, Abigail,” she pleaded, her hands folded under her chin in a prayer. “I promise, if you come with me tonight and meet my cousin, I won’t try to set you up with anyone ever again.”
I snorted. “Yes, you will.”
After a beat, she gave me a sheepish grin. “Yeah, I totally will. But not for a while.”
An idea popped into my head. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll go tonight if you do my laundry and wash up the dishes while I get a shower.”
She sighed. “All right. But you have to promise to stay for at least an hour.”
“It’s a deal,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Now, please let me get a shower. I’m tired of standing here in my bra and panties.”