“Anyone ever tell you that you can be damn annoying?”
“You do. Every time you look at me,” she added glibly, before he could dispute her statement. “I’ll be over tonight,” she told him as she got started making her list. “With decorations.”
“I never doubted it for a minute,” he answered without bothering to turn around again.
The door slammed hard as he left.
Lani grinned to herself as she went on writing her list. He wasn’t fooling her. She was wearing him down.
Chapter Seven
“A real Christmas tree?” Ellie asked in amazement that very same afternoon. “With real branches and everything?”
It was hard to miss the way the little girl’s eyes were shining. Still, the big, handsome robot of a sheriff had obviously been completely oblivious to the expression on his niece’s face or the wistful note in her high voice. Lani glanced in his direction, holding her breath, waiting to see if he suddenly voiced any last minute objections to securing a real Christmas tree. He didn’t.
Relieved, Lani told the little girl, “Yes, we’re going to go get ‘a real Christmas tree with real branches and everything.’” Sympathy tugged at her heart. As was her way, she picked up on what wasn’t being said. “Didn’t you have one back where you lived?”
The small shoulders lifted and fell in dismissal. “We had a tree, but it was a fake one,” Ellie told her. Staring down at the toes of the new shoes she’d gotten just last week, she explained solemnly, “My father said there was no reason to buy a real one just to throw it out again in a couple of weeks.”
“Practical,” Lani heard Garrett murmur under his breath.
Now there was his problem in a nutshell, she thought. “Christmas isn’t about being practical,” she told him, determined to bring him around if it was the last thing she ever did. Changing his attitude had become her personal crusade. “Christmas is about magic. Christmas is magic,” she declared. Turning back to Ellie, she bit her tongue to keep from commenting on the girl’s late father’s Scroogelike philosophy. Instead, said, “Out here we have lots of trees to choose from, so we can go pick one out today for ourselves. We can go get our own very special Christmas tree. Can’t we, Uncle Garrett?” she asked, glancing at him over her shoulder, waiting for his confirmation.
Hearing the question directed at him had Garrett looking at her in surprise. Up until this point, he had just assumed that, as with everything else during the last few weeks, Lani was going to commandeer this task. That his live wire of a deputy would be the one to take Ellie to the Christmas tree lot. That Chisholm would select a tree and do the honors herself by cutting it down.
He had no doubts that she could. The woman might be on the small side, but she had already proved to him that she was abnormally strong. She probably spent her off hours bending steel in her bare hands—when she wasn’t leaping over tall buildings in a single bound, he thought.
And then a question hit him. “How would you know about where to get a tree?” he asked her. “This is your first winter in Booth.”
“It might be my first winter here, but I have no intention of spending it like a hermit,” she told him pointedly, then added the simple rule that had always seen her through. “If I don’t know something, I ask questions. Lots and lots of questions,” she added, hugging Ellie to her with one arm. The little girl looked up at her, grinning happily.
Chisholm was spouting a basic, no frills philosophy; why Garrett found it so irritating he didn’t know. But he found everything about this woman to be that way. Like that mouth of hers. Even when it wasn’t moving—which was rare—he found it annoyingly distracting.
And compelling.
Garrett wanted to still her mouth. With his own.
If he was being strictly honest, he’d have to admit to himself that his mind kept straying to thoughts of the overly attractive deputy more and more, usually at the most inopportune moments. And God knew that couldn’t be good.
“I bet you do,” he commented in response to her statement about asking question. She’d certainly heaped enough questions on him, shattering any hopes he had of maintaining silence for more than a couple seconds at a time.
Aware that his niece was currently looking up at him hopefully, he had no recourse; he had to agree to going along on this excursion. So, with a sigh, he said, “Okay, we might as well go now before all the best ones are taken.”
Even though he’d been on the receiving end a couple of times already, he still wasn’t prepared for Ellie’s response. Suddenly, small arms went around his waist in a fierce hug and a little face buried itself in his shirt, just above his belt buckle. “Thank you, Uncle Garrett,” Ellie was exclaiming—rather loudly, since her face was pressed against his middle.
A warmth initially ignited by the heat of Ellie’s breath spread through him. The warmth was ratcheted up a notch when Lani followed his niece’s example and she hugged him as well. Her arms reached up higher. And more securely.
“There’s a decent person in there, after all,” she told him triumphantly as she released him and stepped back. “I just knew it!”
“There’s a decent person on the outside, as well,” he countered.
“True, but he’s a lot more frightening,” she answered, suppressing a grin. “Go get your jacket, Ellie. We are going tree hunting,” she declared triumphantly.
The girl went running off. “I’ll be right back,” she cried, then begged, “Please don’t leave without me!”
Garrett snorted. “As if that would happen. That damn tree wouldn’t be coming into this house if it wasn’t for her.”
Still have my work cut out for me, Lani couldn’t help thinking. And the decorations were only the last part of the equation.
HE REALLY WASN’T SURE just how it happened. Or how he’d gotten roped into any of this, since he had absolutely no intention of joining in anything that remotely had to do with preparing for a holiday that had long since stopped having any meaning for him.
But somehow, he’d been forced to come along on the tree hunt and, as it turned out, he rather than his overbearing deputy had been the one to make the final selection—with the approval of his niece—of the Christmas tree. He was surprised that his opinion was even requested. The only thing that didn’t surprise him was that he was given the job of cutting the selected spruce tree down once it had been paid for.
Together with Lani—and Ellie, because the woman insisted that his niece join in the effort—he managed to hoist the newly cut evergreen up on top of the roof of his 4x4. The man selling the trees, Matt Lockhart, supplied thick ropes to safely anchor it. Garrett wasn’t surprised that Lani took over the job. She made better knots than he did.
With the spruce now immobilized, they transported it to his house.
And then, he discovered much to his dismay—although he’d already had a sneaking suspicious it was going to turn out like this—the real work began.
True to her word, Lani had brought a whole cache of decorations over to his house, some new, others with a long history she had no inhibitions about sharing.
For the sake of peace, he agreed to help decorate the tree he had lugged in through the door and put up. And while he worked, the blonde whirlwind managed to make the rest of his living room look as if a Christmas shop had recently exploded, and there were annoyingly festive decorations everywhere he looked.
By the time the evening was winding down, they were all but finished.
Stepping back, he surveyed his work with a critical eye and caught himself thinking that it hadn’t turned out so badly, after all. And—this part he intended to keep to himself—he’d actually enjoyed decorating with Lani and his niece.
“So, what do you think?” he asked Ellie.
Circling the tree, she nodded with approval. And then she stopped.
“It needs an angel,” she said, suddenly looking wistful and solemn. “Mama always put her special angel right on top of the tree instead of a star.”
“What kind of an angel?” Lani asked, thinking she could probably find one close enough in appearance to please the girl. The emporium had several.
“It was wooden and the angel’s dress was painted a really pretty blue,” Ellie remembered fondly. “The bottom was hollow so Mama could stick it up on the tippy-top when she stood on a chair.” She looked at Lani sadly. “I think the angel flew away in the bus crash, ’cause Mama made sure she packed it with her. She said it was the most special angel in the whole world and she didn’t want to ever lose it.”
Lani noticed that since the girl started talking about the ornament, Garrett had gotten very distant looking again. So much for making giant strides, she thought, once again resigning herself to the fact that making Ellie’s uncle come around was going to take a huge amount of painstakingly slow work.
She knew by now that he wasn’t going to talk to her about what was bothering him, not with his niece there. The only slim hope she had was to get him alone. So she turned toward Ellie and asked, “Honey, can you go wash up now? It’s almost time for bed.”
She bobbed her head, it was clear that at least some of the magic surrounding the season had reentered her life.
“Sure.” And with that, Ellie hurried off.
Once the little girl was out of earshot, Lani turned toward Garrett and said, “Okay, tell me what’s the matter.”
He didn’t disappoint her, but gave her the answer she fully expected. “Nothing.”
Allowing a sigh to escape, she deliberately fell back on the facts. “That’s not what your face is saying. Tell me,” she pressed.
His eyes were flat and distant as he looked at her. She felt a chill go sweeping through her heart. “You’re wasting your talents here. You should be with the FBI,” he told her.
“I’ll apply next month,” she answered cryptically. “Now tell me what’s wrong,” she coaxed again, more insistently this time. And then she realized what he wasn’t saying. “You made that angel for your sister, didn’t you?”
Garrett stared at her for a long moment, his expression frosty, definitely no warmer now than it had been just a moment ago. “Really wasted in a place like Booth,” he repeated.
She tried again. “Talk to me. Please.” She couldn’t bear that look on his face. There was a sadness about it she knew he wasn’t aware of. A feeling that cut deep. “What are you thinking?”
He deliberately avoided looking at her this time. She was probing in an area that she had no business looking into. “That you’re annoying.”
Once more with feeling. It seemed as if for every two steps forward she took with this man, she was always taking one step back. “We’ve already established that. What else?”
A wave of pain swept over him, nearly overwhelming him. Garrett wasn’t even aware that he sighed.
But Lani was.
“That I should have protected her. That maybe if I had, Ellen would still be alive.” And now he did look at Lani. “Still here.”
She saw the pain in his eyes. The pain he couldn’t block or strip away.
“And maybe not,” she pointed out gently. “Women get very stubborn when they think they’re in love. Beating yourself up over what you should or shouldn’t have done in the past doesn’t change anything in the present. You can only go forward from here, Garrett, not back.”
The barriers he’d tried to maintain rose up again. “That belongs in a fortune cookie.”
She knew Garrett was trying to get a rise out of her, to turn this into an argument, but she refused to take the bait. “As long as you read it and promise to take it to heart, doesn’t matter where you see it.”
“Aunt Lani, I’m ready,” Ellie called out.
Lani cocked her head toward the den. Ellie was in bed and waiting to be tucked in. Fingers mentally crossed, Lani looked to see if Garrett would volunteer. But his expression remained stony.
Well, she wasn’t about to give up that easily. “I’m going to go tuck Ellie in. Why don’t you join me?”
Right now, Garrett couldn’t look at his sister’s little girl. It would bring up too many memories he just couldn’t deal with. “No, I—”
Lani took his hand in hers and tugged in the direction of the hallway.
“Join me,” she repeated more firmly. There was a smile on her face, but her tone said she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
Chapter Eight
If asked, Garrett couldn’t have said exactly how it happened. One second the petite blonde dictator was tugging on his hand, attempting to drag him to the room she’d managed to cleverly convert into a bedroom for his niece. The next, he was yanking her back, silently taking a stand that he couldn’t be led around like some trained cougar on a leash.
Just how she wound up in his arms, or how his lips wound up being sealed to hers, Garrett didn’t have a clue. All he knew was that she was, and they were, and that what followed would probably remain with him for a very long time, if not the rest of his life.
He’d never touched a live wire before, never been half a breath away from what felt like a possible electrocution, but he was fairly certain this had to be what it felt like. There was no other way to describe the sensation that ripped through him when their lips met in what had to be the most electrifying kiss he had ever experienced.
Maybe it had something to do with the rug beneath their feet, the cold air and static electricity, but if he was honest with himself, he sincerely doubted that was the real cause. That excuse was, at best, a desperate grasp at bent straws. What he really felt like grasping—God help him—was Lani. Grasping her and seeing just how far this kiss could go.
For one tiny glimmer of time, Garrett let go. Released the firm hold on his emotions and allowed himself to get completely, mindlessly lost in the kiss. He allowed himself to savor it, to absorb it. To revel in it.
And then the matter was suddenly out of his hands. He discovered that he really had no choice whatsoever. He’d lost the ability to choose when a wave of passion rose up within him, temporarily blocking even the smallest of coherent thoughts. Garrett couldn’t think at all, really. What he found himself doing instead was celebrating an experience that, looking back on it later, he would have hated like the devil to have missed.
He deepened the kiss. Its very flames singed him. He wanted more.
Lani’s body was soft and giving against his, and for just that instance in time, the consequences of what he was doing faded away. They evaporated without so much as a trace, leaving him free to enjoy the kiss. Free to enjoy her.
And then, suddenly, they were back, crashing over him like lightning leaping out of a bottle, shattering the glass and sending shards through the air so that they pierced his skin.
Reality was back with a vengeance.
What the hell was he doing? he silently demanded of himself in stunned amazement. He’d never lost control over himself before. And this was so much beyond that point, he was nearly at a loss for a way to recover.
“I’m…I’m—” Even his tongue failed him. It felt much too thick in his mouth to maneuver properly.
It wasn’t in his nature to apologize, but then, neither was it in his nature to force himself on someone, and he felt that a meltdown had just occurred. There was no other explanation for why his emotions had gotten the better of him.
But the upshot of it all was that he’d wound up taking advantage of the woman who had been driving him crazy all these months.
A woman who had never been far from his mind since the first moment she’d marched into his domain, brimming with attitude that was evident with every step she took.
“Very, very good,” Lani said quietly, but with feeling, finishing his sentence for him.
It didn’t matter that Garrett probably hadn’t intended to say that. That was what she felt succinctly summarized what had just happened between them. The man’s mouth was nothing short of lethal.
Who knew?
She didn’t want him overthinking what had ju
st occurred between them. A kiss like that was to be enjoyed, to be remembered and quietly taken out to be relived on cold winter nights when life felt its bleakest.
“Aunt Lan-ni!”
She’d almost forgotten about the little girl. A kiss like that could make you forget your name, rank and serial number, not to mention everything else.
Lani’s lips still tingled as she did her best to draw them into a smile. “Your niece is calling.” Taking his hand again, she nodded toward the hall. “Let’s go.”
“She’s calling you,” Garrett pointed out. Damn, how had he let things get so out of control like that? He felt incredibly awkward and at a loss as how to handle the situation. What could he possibly say to her to erase what had just happened?
And how did he get himself to stop wanting it to happen again? Frustration ate away at him, coming from both sides and threatening to meet in the middle.
“That’s only because she thinks you won’t come if she calls you,” Lani told him. “She doesn’t know how to read you yet.”
Garrett connected the dots from what his deputy had just said. His eyes narrowed, pinning her down. “And you do?”
Her impulse was to say yes, that she understood what he was feeling, what was going on in his head—for the most part. But she knew that saying that would only get his back up, so she fudged a little.
“I’m trying to learn. Come,” she coaxed, this time wrapping her fingers around his hand very gently rather than tugging hard. She looked up at him appealingly.
Garrett found it difficult to resist, but he managed to hesitate for a moment longer. Then, with a half shrug, he surrendered and followed her.
They walked together into what was now Ellie’s room. Though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, it felt right.
SHE WAS RUNNING OUT OF time.
They were getting closer and closer to Christmas and there was still no angel at the top of the tree. None, it seemed, was good enough in Ellie’s opinion to perch in the place of honor.
Holiday in a Stetson: The Sheriff Who Found ChristmasA Rancho Diablo Christmas Page 5