by Jill Shalvis
Her second boyfriend had bailed even faster.
It’d left her leery of revealing too much of herself, naked or otherwise. The funny thing was, in spite of everything, she still felt whole. Or mostly, anyway. But while she was okay with her body just how it was, she couldn’t expect anyone else to be. “It’s residual nerve damage from an old injury when I was fourteen.”
“What happened?” Lucas asked.
“I was stupid.” She pointed out the windshield. “If you turn here instead of at the next light, it’s faster.”
Lucas looked frustrated at the subject change but didn’t comment further as he made the turn. He parked in front of an apartment building that looked like its heyday had long ago come and gone. “Which apartment?”
“It’s 105, bottom floor.” She got out of the car, not at all surprised when Lucas moved fast enough to come around and offer her a hand. He didn’t say anything when she straightened her leg and gave it a minute before trusting it to hold all her weight. Soon as she nodded, he stepped back.
They headed up the walk of the apartment complex, a steep set of stairs that left her in the unhappy position of dragging her leg where it didn’t want to go. She could tell Lucas had set his pace to hers which piqued her pride, but facts were facts. It was a bad nerve day, it happened, and she’d long ago learned to deal with it. She was still working on accepting it.
Night had fallen, and while there were lights on the street, the building itself seemed dark. She glanced around, trying to be aware of her surroundings, but felt grateful to have Lucas with her. “Seems a little sketch.”
“The whole street is sketch.” He took her hand, walking very slightly ahead of her, clearly in protector mode. Fine by her, she wasn’t going to ever be the stupid chick in the horror flick.
“Let’s walk around back,” he murmured, leading the way along the side of the building. In the back was an alley and a few dark windows and one lit.
The lit window was suddenly raised and a woman stuck her head out. She was a hundred years old if she was a day, and had a been-smoking-for-six-decades voice. “What are you two up to?”
“We’re here to visit a friend but he’s not home,” Lucas said smoothly. “In 105.”
“St. Nick?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Molly said. “You know him?”
“I play bingo at the village, even though I have yet to win, that fucker. Now’s not a real good time to catch him. He’s probably sleeping. He’s nocturnal, you know. And he had a long night last night with his latest girl.”
“Long night?” Lucas asked.
“Yeah, and either he’s great in bed or he just likes her to agree with him. A lot.”
Lucas grimaced, thanked the woman, and walked silently with Molly back to the car.
“I’m not sure what it says about me that a sixty-year-old Santa is getting more than I am,” she said.
“Money or sex?”
“Probably both.”
Lucas was wise enough not to comment as he drove but she sensed amusement. When his phone buzzed an incoming call, he glanced at the screen and blew out a breath. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to take this one too. Brace yourself.”
Before she could ask why, he’d connected the call. “Hey, mom. You’re on speaker.”
“Don’t you hey me. And you’re on speaker too.”
“Hi, Lucas,” came another female voice.
“Sis,” Lucas said.
“Where are you?” his mother asked. “And don’t say at work!”
“Okay, I won’t say.”
“You suck,” his sister said. “I’d say worse, but your nephew’s asleep on me right now and he has tender ears.”
“Laura,” Lucas’s mom admonished and Molly caught a very pleasing to the ears hint of her Portuguese accent “And I know you haven’t forgotten that it’s game night,” she said to Lucas. “Tell me the truth. Did you take on another case just to avoid it?”
Lucas nodded his head yes to Molly but to his mom, he said, “of course not.”
“Fine,” she said. “I get it. You hate game night. But Laura says you still have the Cards Against Humanity game in your trunk from when she borrowed your car a few week ago. Drop it by?”
“You have other games. A whole cabinet of them.”
“We want that one.”
“Or this is a trick and you just want to see me.”
“Are you calling your mama a liar?” she asked sweetly.
Lucas blew out a breath. “Fine. But I can’t stay.”
“Baby, you have to eat dinner.”
“No can do tonight, sorry.”
“I made cozido a portuguesa.”
Lucas groaned. “The big guns.”
“No, the big gun is the bolo de bolacha I made for dessert. And if you don’t come by, I’m going to let Laura and my grandbaby take them all home.”
“You’re evil to the bone.”
“And don’t forget it. You love me anyway.”
“I do.” Lucas glanced Molly’s way and she did her best to look like she hadn’t been very busy eavesdropping. “I’m five minutes out, but I can’t stay, I really am on a job.” He disconnected and blew out a breath.
“Don’t not stay on my account,” Molly said. “I don’t know what it was she was cooking, but it sounded amazing.”
“Portuguese stew and cookie cake.”
Her mouth watered. “Well, far be it for me to be the reason you miss out.”
Molly could cook. If she had to. But she didn’t enjoy it at all and tried very hard not to do it unless she had no other choice, such as it was the end of the month and she was low on funds or if there was a zombie apocalypse. Joe cooked, but only because he’d discovered women thought a man in the kitchen was sexy. Molly had inherited her dislike of cooking from her dad, whose idea of cooking was opening a can of Chef Boyardee. “Sounds like you’ve got a nice, normal family.”
He glanced over at her and caught her looking at him. A small smile touched his lips as he turned his attention back to the road. When she didn’t say anything more, he glanced over again. “Was that a personal question?”
Was it? “No.” Liar . . . “Maybe.”
“Well for starters, I wouldn’t exactly use ‘normal’ to describe my family,” he said. “They love loud, but also fight loud. At any given moment, my mom could throw her shoe at you or hug you. It’s always a calculated risk to let her get too close until you know if you’re in good standing.”
Molly smiled. “Sounds nice.”
Again he looked over at her. “You and Joe are close.”
She shrugged.
“I’ve seen you smack him upside the back of his head so hard that he nearly swallowed his tongue,” Lucas said. “I’ve also seen the look on your face when he’s hurt. Like on that job last year when he took a bat to the skull, you lost it. Understandably, of course.”
It’d been one of the scariest moments in her life, and that was saying something. He’d fully recovered, but there for a while it’d been touch and go, and the memory of that, the gut-clenching, heart-wrenching fear that her brother might die and leave her alone in this world with no one but her dad, had terrified her to the bone. “Yeah, we’re close,” she said. “But it’s a different kind of close. It’s like we’ve had to be in order to survive.”
He glanced over at her. “I get that. More than you might think.”
It was her turn to look at him, but he was concentrating on the road. He made a few quick turns and ended up on a street that was well lit and lined with older Victorian homes, well lived in but all extremely well taken care of, many of them decorated for the holidays in holly and garland and twinkling lights.
Lucas stopped in front of a house that was lit up from top to bottom, complete with reindeer cutouts on the grass. The driveway held six cars. Two more were parked on the lawn with the reindeer. The street was filled with cars.
“Holy cow,” Molly said.
Lucas squeez
ed in between the reindeer and the cars. “Family game night’s pretty popular.”
She stared at all the vehicles. “How many people are in your family? All of San Francisco?”
“Not quite, but still way too many.” He looked over her. “I’ll be two seconds, tops.”
The message was clear. Stay here. Instead, she got out with him.
He grimaced. “Listen, you heard my mom and sister on the phone. My entire family is like that. Certifiable, really. It’s too late for me, but save yourself and wait here.”
“Not a chance,” she said as he grabbed the game from the trunk.
The front door opened and people spilled out. A woman in her fifties was the leader of the pack, looking a lot like Lucas with his dark eyes and dark hair, though hers was sprinkled through with gray. Two younger women flanked her, also dark hair and dark eyes.
“My mom, my sister, Laura, and cousin Sami,” Lucas said to her. “Brace yourself.”
“What for—” Before she could finish the sentence, Lucas’s mom had bounded down the walk and engulfed him in a hug. The other two women each hugged Molly in turn, smiling and saying how nice it was to meet her.
Then the Knight women all switched spots and it was Lucas’s mom’s turn to hug Molly while his sister and cousin pounced him. An arm full of each, he turned to catch his mom hugging Molly. “Mom, stop abusing my coworker’s space bubble.”
“Oh.” His mom looked so disappointed as she pulled back from Molly. “I was hoping she was your girlfriend.”
Lucas blew out a breath, grabbed Molly’s hand and rescued her from his mom. “We work together.”
“Is there a policy at Hunt that forbids coworkers from dating?”
“Don’t answer that,” Lucas told Molly when she opened her mouth. “Trust me.”
“There’s not!” his mom said gleefully.
Laura and Sami both laughed.
“It’s because we’re both married, you see,” Laura said to Molly. “And I’ve even provided a grandchild.” She waved a baby monitor, which presumably would lead to a sleeping kid. “Now Mom’s luckily focused in on Lucas to provide more grandchildren.”
“Do you like children?” his mom asked Molly. “Are you single?”
“We’ve talked about this, Mom,” Lucas said. “You were going to stop accosting strangers and trying to recruit them to marry me.”
“Well, Molly’s not a stranger now, is she? She’s your coworker.” She smiled at Molly. “Lovely to meet you. You’re also Joe’s sister.”
“Yes,” Molly said. “You’ve met Joe?”
“Only briefly when I made Lucas stop by a few months ago and Joe was with him. I fed him. He appreciated my food.” She shot a mock glare at Lucas. “Unlike some people.”
“Mom, I appreciate your food so much I have to run four miles every morning.”
Lucas’s mom slipped an arm around Molly and turned her toward the front door. “You’re chilled. Come in with me, I have—”
“Mom,” Lucas said. “Back away from her. We’re working.”
“Well you have to eat.”
“We’re not hungry.” He handed his mom the game and then wrapped his arms around her in a very warm, loving hug, brushing a kiss to her temple. “Love you, you crazy person.”
Her arms squeezed him tight. “Someday I’m going to be dead and you’re going to be sorry you were so mean to me.”
Lucas just laughed and kissed her again. He hugged Laura and Sami, gently patted Sami’s baby belly and then took Molly by the hand. “Good night,” he said firmly.
They headed back to the car, Molly deep in thought. Her family wasn’t anything like Lucas’s warm, loving one. She and Joe had been raised by a single dad who suffered from war PTSD. He hadn’t been able to hold a job for long, which left them perpetually scrambling for a roof and food. Safety and security had been in short supply. She’d learned early to count on herself and no one else.
And God knows, that had certainly stuck with her as she’d gotten older. There’d been lots of bumps along the way and she’d been bruised and scarred, inside and out, literally and figuratively. Her trust issue was a fifteen-foot-thick brick wall around her heart, and not much penetrated.
But Lucas, who also had been bruised and scarred, didn’t seem to have that brick wall, and it wasn’t a comfortable realization.
He cranked over the engine and met her gaze. “You survived that pretty well. Thanks for being so nice about it.”
“Your family,” she murmured, still a little overwhelmed. “They’re . . .”
“Crazy. I know.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. Not even close. She could still feel their warmth, their closeness, their unconditional love. “They’re . . .”
“Nosy, manipulating, pushy . . . ?”
“Stop,” she said on a laugh, knowing he was teasing by his fond tone. He knew what he had, how wonderful they were, and her smile faded. “You’re lucky, Lucas.”
His smile faded too. “I know. I take it you aren’t as lucky?”
“No, I’m lucky too,” she said, thinking of how much Joe and her dad meant to her. “Just in a very different way.”
Chapter 10
#UnderTheMistletoe
Molly took in the sight of the Christmas Village as Lucas pulled into the lot. It had been constructed on a part of a large parking lot at the marina and was lit within an inch of its life with an old-fashioned feel to it. She wasn’t sure if that was on purpose or if the decorations and lights had just been around for half a century.
Lucas parked and turned to her. “We’re going in as paying customers. Just a couple out on the town, having a good time,” he instructed.
She gave him a long look. “You should know, I typically only take alpha orders in bed.” It was a total bluff, of course, pure bravado. And okay, maybe she was trying to goad him into kissing her again.
“Molly.” He took a deep breath. “You can’t say things like that. I’ll take advantage.”
“Promises, promises.”
He shut his eyes and groaned. “Killing me.”
“Am I? Cuz it seems like you’ve resisted pretty easily.”
“Trust me,” he said, voice low and gruff. “Nothing easy about it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Molly, look at me.”
Oh boy. She inhaled a deep breath and turned to face him. They were no longer playing around. His expression was serious, very serious, as he stroked a finger along her temple, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re incredible, and you should know that it’s been a long time since I’ve felt so tempted by someone.”
“Come on,” she said on a scoff. “You don’t expect me to believe that when you went out with that redhead from the pub like two weeks ago.”
“Not the kind of tempted I meant.”
She stared at him, trying hard not to read too much into that statement. “What does that even mean?”
“It means I want you, and I’m tired of resisting. But when I get you naked, it won’t be in an office where anyone can walk in, or in my car, and it sure as hell won’t be something one of us can’t remember.”
All her girlie parts quivered and she ordered them to behave. “You said when, not if,” she murmured.
The fingers he’d just run over her temple sank into her hair. Pulling her face to his, he kissed her long and slow and most definitely not sweet. By the time he pulled back, she’d forgotten what they were talking about. Hell, she’d forgotten her own name.
“When,” he repeated in a voice that made her toes curl. “Definitely when.”
Okay then. With hands and knees shaking a little bit, she got out of the car and headed to the entrance gate of the Christmas Village. They had to pay ten bucks to get in. “Yikes,” Molly said to the older woman staffing the ticket booth dressed in an elf costume complete with pointy shoes, pointy ears, a little green dress made out of a cheap material that couldn’t help but cling, and matching cap
that didn’t quite hide the fact that she was about three decades past looking good in anything little and stretchy. “Ten bucks seems kind of steep for an empty Christmas Village.”
And it was true. The village wasn’t exactly hopping.
“Hence the ten bucks,” the woman said in a bored tone, hand held out for the dough. “Each.”
Lucas handed her a twenty and she winked at him. “Thanks, handsome.”
They stepped inside the village, their senses immediately assaulted by the scent of popcorn, the bright lights stretched across and along the individual stands, and the odd quiet. The temps had dropped and the fog had rolled in, playing peekaboo with the night.
“I feel like we’re in a horror flick,” Molly whispered. “If a clown jumps out at us, you’ll shoot him for me, right?”
“Absolutely.” Lucas took her chilled hand in his warm one and led her across a lane lined with hay towards a popcorn and hot dog stand. It was run by yet another elf. Lucas bought two dogs and two lemonades and gave the woman a flirty smile. “Slow night, huh?”
She smiled back. “Honey, they’re all slow when bingo’s running,” she said. “Everyone’s keeping warm while playing in the big old building at the end of the aisle.”
They ate their hot dogs and popcorn and walked most of the aisles. Or rather, Molly ate popcorn and hot dogs. Lucas strolled along with her, looking casual and laid-back, although he was anything but as his sharp gaze took everything in. “You’re not hungry?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m hungry.”
She looked up from her hot dog and met his hot gaze. His smile was pure sex and she swallowed hard and went back to her food, which felt far safer. Somehow it’d been a whole lot easier to resist him before he’d put his mouth on hers.
