by Naima Simone
Shaking his head, he paused next to the front desk and hauled the wreaths up in his arms and headed toward the kitchen. Christmas was one of Kinsale Inn’s busiest seasons. And that meant a seemingly endless list of tasks filled his and his family’s days. Along with Wolf’s own carpentry business, his time was rarely his own. So as much as the inn’s newest guests might prick his curiosity, they were...complicated. He’d done complicated before. And complicated had led to failure that had left others scarred, traumatized...gone.
So no, he didn’t do complicated. Not anymore. And never again.
Unbidden, an image of thick, brown, wavy hair with a closely shaved undercut and a fathomless but guarded dark gaze wavered in front of his eyes. A flicker of heat ignited low in Wolf’s belly, the flame licking at him. This woman with her Madonna face and Lolita mouth sent lust weaving through him like a fucked-up frat boy on a pub crawl. An inconvenient and unwanted lust.
Yeah. He especially didn’t need the kind of complication Nessa Hunt brought with her.
Clenching his jaw, he settled the stack of greenery near the back door. As he reached for the handle, the door swung open, permitting the cold and his mother inside.
“Good Lord,” she gasped, kicking the panel shut behind her and plopping her oversize purse down on the small table just inside the entrance. Grasping the ends of her yellow-and-black-striped Hufflepuff scarf, she unwrapped the woolen length from around her neck. “It’s getting colder than a witch’s tit out there. I know better than to wear a dress outside this time of year.” She tsked, hanging the scarf on the wall hook and shrugging out of her coat. “I swear, that wind slid up my skirt and touched places only your father and my ob-gyn have touched.”
Christ. T-M-fucking-I. Wolf tipped his head back, wincing as he attempted to scrub that particular piece of information from his brain. But Billie Thomasina Dennison was on a roll, and thirty-one years of experience taught him to keep his mouth shut until she ran out of steam. And she would, eventually. Just what damage she’d inflict until then was anyone’s guess.
“God, Moe,” he groaned. When Cole had been a toddler, he couldn’t pronounce Mother, so it’d been Moe. Eventually, it’d stuck, and now, everyone called her by the nickname, even the townspeople. For all of her kids, though, it was synonymous with Mom. “Really? What did I ever do to you to deserve that disturbing visual?”
“Oh grow up. You passed through these lady parts, so I don’t know what you’re so squeamish about. Anyway, as I was saying, I blame that Caroline Jacobs,” his mother continued to grumble, mentioning the owner of the local ballet studio and member of Rose Bend’s town council as he threw up a little in his mouth. Snorting, Moe hung her coat next to her scarf, then strode over to the pantry and threw open the door. “Not for the weather. That’s on God, not her. But Jesus be a muzzle, that woman can talk. I could’ve delivered the muffins for the lighting tonight at the café and been home thirty minutes ago if not for her holding me hostage next to my car with her blabbering about... Shoot, I don’t even know. I tuned her out after the first two minutes. Although I did manage to organize dinner in my head.”
She turned from the cupboard with her arms full of potatoes, onions, flour and some cans. “Shepherd’s pie. With four guests, it’s not going to be a huge dinner, but shepherd’s pie would be perfect on a day like this and before the tree lighting. Everyone will go with full, warm bellies. Speaking of guests,” she said, switching topics with lightning-fast speed as she settled the food on the butcher block island in the middle of the spacious kitchen, “has anyone arrived yet? I noticed an SUV out front. Does it belong to the Calders or the Hunts? And have you seen your sisters? I told Leo and Sinead to make sure the bathrooms were well stocked with toiletries and the gift baskets were in the rooms before the guests arrived.”
Wolf squinted at her.
“Well, son?” She tilted her head, jamming her fists on her narrow hips. “Are you spacing out on me again?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I was making sure you were finished and not just taking a breath.”
“Brat.” The quirk of her lips ruined the irritation in her voice. As did her snicker. “Where’s the respect due me as your mother? I suffered thirteen hours of labor for you. And that big head of yours was no walk in the park,” she muttered.
Wolf laughed, rounding the island to wrap his mother in a hug, lifting her petite frame off the floor. She shrieked, but encircled her strong arms around his back, squeezing hard and damn near choking off his air. He closed his eyes as his mother’s familiar baby-powder-and-lavender scent enveloped him as securely as her embrace. Relief coursed through him. At an even five feet, she’d always been a small woman. But the last two years had been rough on her as she grieved the loss of her son’s family and worried about Cole. And Wolf had been helpless and felt like a failure that he couldn’t ease that burden for her. For any of his family.
But now, with his brother in love, healed and whole again, Moe was more at peace than he’d seen her in a long time. He hugged her extra tight before smacking a loud kiss to her cheek and placing her back on her feet. He moved away from her swatting hands faster than most people believed a man his size could.
He’d learned that growing up in a loud, often chaotic house of nine, too.
“To answer your question, Leo and Sinead came through earlier and took care of the rooms. They’re over at the cottages now, making sure they’re ready for the guests coming in tomorrow,” he said, leaning a hip against the edge of the island. “Flo is at Six Ways to Sundae for her shift and the twins are hanging with Sydney and baby Patience while Cole is handling last-minute festival details downtown,” he said, explaining the whereabouts of the rest of her children. “And the Hunts have arrived, but not the Calders.”
“Huh. Maybe they hit some traffic since they’re coming down from New Hampshire. I’m glad the other two made it, though. I’ll go up and introduce myself later and apologize for not meeting them.” She turned to the industrial-size refrigerator and opened one of the doors. Seconds later, she bumped the door closed and moved back to the counter with a large package of ground beef. “So.” She walked over to the sink and twisted the faucets. Sticking her hands under the gushing water, she glanced at him over her shoulder, eyebrow hiked high. “What were they like? What was your first impression?”
Wolf parted his lips, the “They’re fine” hovering on his tongue. But he couldn’t utter the lie. Frowning, he crossed his arms over his chest and bowed his head, staring at—but not seeing—the blue-and-white tile of the kitchen floor.
Instead, he saw an almost-too-slender, pretty young preteen girl with a chip on her shoulder the size of her own body weight and the loveliest, most haunted eyes he’d ever seen. He unfolded one of his arms, absently rubbing a hand over his chest, as if he could soothe the sharp ping that echoed there. All that anguish and pain contained in that small body... He shook his head. His twin sister and brother were about Ivy Hunt’s age, and the impulse to gather her in his arms and hold her close as he would with his siblings had beat at him like fists. Maybe that’s what he was trying to massage away right now—the bruises from resisting that urge.
But if he’d wanted to comfort Ivy, her older sister, Nessa, stirred a radically different and highly inappropriate need within him, considering she was a guest of the inn. From the moment he’d bumped into her, literally, she’d been the one to knock him on his ass. Even with that silly wreath sitting on top of her head like a crown, she was...beautiful. Frustration twisted inside him. He worked with his hands, creating and building furniture from wood, but he wasn’t a man of flowery words. Yet beautiful seemed wholly insufficient to describe the interesting and fascinating face that was a jigsaw puzzle of strength and vulnerability.
Long, dark brown waves tumbled to one side, brushing a shoulder and falling down her back, and on the other an edgy, close-shaved undercut. High, razor-sharp cheekbones
that would fit right in on a catwalk...or on a warrior queen of old. Oval-shaped, coffee-colored eyes with thoughts—secrets—she guarded closely. An elegantly slanted nose with wide, flared nostrils. Luminous skin that made him want to trek out to his workshop to see if a board of mahogany captured the beauty of her complexion. And then there was that mouth.
Fuck. He bowed his head deeper, turning to grip the edge of the island. If her cheekbones were regal and her nose elegant, that mouth was downright rude. A shade too big, bold and unapologetically carnal. A man looked at those full, lush lips and wondered how they would feel dragging over his bare skin...
He inhaled a ragged breath, forcing himself to shift away from thoughts he had no business thinking in front of his mother. Besides, that walking wet dream of a body had been clothed in a black puffy coat that smelled of cold weather and colder attitude, a soft-looking black sweater that molded to the high thrust of small breasts, dark blue jeans that encased sweet, thick thighs, and sexy-as-hell knee-length black boots. Real leather boots, if he wasn’t mistaken.
All of it added up to Big City.
And Big City looked down on small towns like Rose Bend. Big City felt strangled by the faces that never changed, people who were always in their business, the lack of entertainment other than festivals, picnics and movies at the local two-screen movie theater, the limited opportunities...
The stagnation.
Big City slowly died in small towns. In Rose Bend.
He clenched his jaw, forcibly beating back the words, the memories they conjured.
Yeah, it didn’t matter how gorgeous Nessa Hunt might be, or that his first instinct had been to kick in the walls guarding those eyes. Not only was she a guest—which dropped her firmly in the “don’t shit where you eat” category—but she was only in Rose Bend for a matter of weeks before she returned home. He, more than anyone, understood the havoc a woman seeking a one-way ticket out of his hometown could wreak. He’d passed that class with honors, and he had zero intention of being teacher’s pet again.
“Wolf?” His mother laid a hand over the fingers curled around the edge of the island. “What’s wrong, honey?”
He lifted his head, and the warmth and comfort that had always been a mainstay in his life reached him, shoving back the dark ghosts of the past. “I’m good, Moe,” he said, summoning up a smile. He flipped his hand and encircled hers with his. “No worries. Just thinking of the work I still have to get done today.”
“I’m excited to see what the gazebo is going to look like. I’m sure it’s going to be beautiful just like everything you do,” she said, then cleared her throat. “I saw Regina Allen while I was in town.”
A twinge spasmed in his chest at the name, but he shut it down. Schooling his features, he replied, “Yeah? How is she doing?”
“Fine.” She studied him with the green gaze he’d inherited from her. “She told me Olivia might be coming home for Christmas.”
He hated the sympathy that crept into his mother’s voice. Hated more that she believed he needed it.
When Olivia Allen had broken off their engagement and left Rose Bend three years ago, she’d not only shattered his heart; she’d shattered him. Olivia had longed for more than what Rose Bend offered her—a job in a city with a population over five thousand; people who hadn’t known her since she’d been in diapers; more entertainment than a two-screen theater and a motorcycle rally. She’d wanted that more than him, more than a future with him.
Olivia had been his best friend, the woman he’d loved, his fiancée. Then she’d been gone, leaving him an emotional amputee. He’d learned to live without that limb, and no way in hell would he give her—or anyone—the opportunity to take more from him.
“I’m glad for Regina. I know her and Gerald will be thrilled to finally have Olivia back home for a while,” he said, careful to keep his voice neutral. To snuff out the embers of anger that kindled in his chest.
After several seconds, his mother arched a dark eyebrow. “I should put you out of my kitchen for trying to bullshit me,” she drawled. “Just ’cause you got some hair on your chin and balls doesn’t mean I can’t pop those knuckles with my wooden spoon.” And to prove her point, she waltzed over to the sink, snagged the large Spoon of Mass Destruction—Wolf and Cole had engraved the title on it for Mother’s Day several years ago—off the hook and slapped it against her palm.
He laughed, holding up his hands. If he had a quarter for every time she’d threatened to rap one of them with that goddamn spoon, he’d hire Jay-Z’s butler. Moe had yet to follow through with the warning, but that didn’t mean he’d tempt her.
“First, can we agree to never discuss the state of my balls ever again?” He barked out another crack of laughter when she lifted the spoon in the air. “Moe, seriously, I’m good.” He was, dammit. “Actually, I was thinking of Nessa and Ivy Hunt,” he said, the humor ebbing. Propping his crossed arms on the island, he couldn’t decide where to begin. Finally, he shook his head and went with the thing that bothered him most. “When I met them, the youngest one, Ivy, introduced them as half sisters.”
Surprise and then sympathy flashed across his mother’s expressive face. She set the spoon on the counter and glanced toward the kitchen entrance as if the pair stood there. “Well, that says a lot, doesn’t it?” she said, more to herself than to him. Her eyes softened further, and she whispered, “Those poor girls.”
“Poor girls?” he echoed on a snort, drawing her attention back to him. “One of those ‘girls’ is a grown woman.”
“Like age matters when your heart’s been bruised and left to scar.”
“Moe, how could you possibly decide that when you haven’t even met them yet?” Wolf gently teased. His mother’s heart had always been big, soft and as open as 7-Eleven.
“If you asked Flo how many brothers and sisters she had, what would she say?” she demanded, narrowing her eyes on him.
“Six,” he answered without hesitation.
“How many adopted brothers and sisters would she claim to have?” Moe volleyed back.
“None,” he said, voice soft.
“Because she’s a Dennison as much as you are, maybe not by birth but definitely by love.”
“I know,” he murmured. “But they’re not Flo. Or the twins. They’re guests who are just here for the holidays, not kids for you to adopt. Or try and heal.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” she scoffed, moving to the sink to grab her chopping board that hung over it. Turning back to him, she spread her hands wide, the board almost smacking the refrigerator door handle. “It’s Christmas, honey. What better time to find healing and family than now? It’s the season of miracles, after all.”
Amusement tugged the corner of his mouth. “Right, I’m sure—”
“Um, excuse me.”
He and Moe jerked toward the kitchen doorway to find Nessa Hunt hovering there.
Well, hell.
How much had she overheard?
Three
“YOU MUST BE Nessa Hunt.” The petite older woman with gray-sprinkled dark hair and Wolf’s eyes circled the island and approached Nessa, arms outstretched.
Nessa braced herself for the imminent hug; she read it all over this woman. From the wide, welcoming smile to the warm sparkle in her green eyes to the long bohemian skirt of her dress, everything about this woman screamed hugger. But she drew to a halt in front of Nessa and cupped Nessa’s hands, giving them a friendly squeeze. Nessa smothered a sigh of relief. Not that she had a thing against getting close to people—as an ER nurse, she couldn’t. But that was her job. Off the clock, she preferred her personal space.
Does it really matter that I’m leaving, Nessa? You’ve never let me in anyway.0
Her ex’s accusation rang in her head like an indictment. An image of him throwing that allegation at her as he’d announced his decision to take a
job offer at another hospital over a thousand miles away wavered in her head. It’d been five months since his defection, and those careless, cold words still stung like ice shards to her heart.
Because they hadn’t been true.
She’d let Jeremy in as much as she’d allowed anyone else. More than anyone else, other than her mom.
So for him to still pack up and leave her must’ve meant he hadn’t liked who he’d seen once she’d lowered her guard. Hadn’t seen that person worthy of his love...worthy of staying.
And that had almost destroyed her.
It had definitely reinforced those shields to titanium strength.
Unbidden, she slid a glance at the man who’d been trying to convince his mother that Nessa and Ivy were guests and not in need of any Christmas miracles when she’d interrupted their conversation.
She’d only spent minutes in Wolfgang Dennison’s company, yet she sensed he wouldn’t stand for a woman setting intentional distance between them. She imagined he would use those big bare hands to tear down those barriers and forge ahead, leaving no part of her untouched, unclaimed. Her scrutiny dipped to that beard.
Leaving no part of her unabraded.
Heat licked at the underside of her belly, even as her brain reminded her that one, her tastes in men ran toward the clean-shaven, Gucci-loafers-and-slick-Armani-suits-when-not-in-scrubs type, and two, Wolf’s mother stood right there.
Totally inappropriate.
Nessa’s gaze flicked upward and snagged on his. A dark brow arched high, and for the second time in an afternoon, warmth stained her cheeks. This from a woman who hadn’t blinked an eye when a naked couple had been wheeled in on a gurney, his Prince Albert penis piercing snagged on her IUD birth control. But there was something about the...familiarity in those eyes. A familiarity that whispered of knowing, of seeing.
Yeah, Wolf Dennison might be hot as hell in his I-launch-axes-at-trees-for-fun way, but she didn’t like him and his intrusive, rude stares.