Chasing Christmas Eve

by Jill Shalvis

  She shut him up with her mouth in another kiss so hot he was surprised smoke wasn’t curling from their bodies.

  “You’re a good kisser,” she whispered against his lips. “Which you probably already know from previous relationships.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not like my life has lent itself to many relationships,” he admitted. “And the ones I’ve had have all gone bad over time.”

  She looked at him for a minute and then gave a small smile. “Good thing that time is the one thing we don’t have,” she said. “So no one can read too much into this, right?”

  He stilled and met her gaze. “You heard me say that to Eddie. Listen, I didn’t mean—”

  “No, I get it. And you’re right.” Her stomach growled and she pressed her hands to it, changing the subject. “The beast is hungry, apparently.”

  “Colbie—”

  “Didn’t you say something about dinner?” she asked.

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’m starving, Spence.”

  He looked at her for a second, trying to ascertain if she really wanted to change the subject. She did, so he nodded. “I’ve got you.” And once again he reached for his old duffle bag.

  “Did you really cook?” she asked.

  “Sort of,” he said.

  “Did you burn water?”

  “Funny.” Relieved to hear the laughter in her voice, he took her hand in his, brought it up to his mouth, and playfully nipped at her fingers. “I put together a picnic.”

  “Ingenious,” she said. “Also cheating.”

  He had to laugh. He’d totally cheated, even more than she knew because he’d had Trudy put it all together for him. “We’ve got wine, cheddar cheese, salami, crackers, grapes, and chocolate chip cookies,” he said, citing the list he’d given Trudy. “Because everything goes better with chocolate chip cookies.” He pulled out the goods and Colbie stared down at it all and laughed. She laughed so hard she tipped over.

  “Can’t wait to hear how you explain this,” she finally managed, swiping a tear of mirth from her cheek.

  He’d unloaded Gouda cheese, a beef stick, red apples, a still warm foil-wrapped loaf of garlic bread, and sugar cookies. He shook his head.

  “You did get the drink right,” she said, nudging the bottle of wine. “So, who did this for you?”

  “Trudy, my housekeeper.” He gestured at the garlic bread. “Why would she add garlic bread?”

  “Because it’s delicious?”

  “Yeah, but . . .” He scratched his jaw, thinking it might hinder any further kissing action, and he’d definitely planned on more kissing action.

  Colbie grinned. “I think it’s okay if we both eat it.”

  He locked eyes with her, liking the look on her face, the one that said she was remembering exactly what it felt like when they kissed, and that she liked the memory very much. “Maybe we should test that theory,” he said, and leaning over her, he brushed his lips along her jawline.

  And then the side of her neck.

  She moaned and tilted her head in invitation, which he took, rolling with her, pushing her to her back, his hands pressed on the canvas on either side of her head.

  She sucked in a breath, and it assured him that she liked the move. As did the way her legs shifted, making room for him between them.

  Her hair was spread out over his hands and forearms like a halo as she whispered his name.

  Another invitation that he gladly took, along with her mouth. She kissed him back eagerly, the kind of kiss that pretty much guaranteed a guy was about to get laid and it was going to rock his world.

  Except they were still on the boat. With Pru, who probably couldn’t see them from where she was controlling the boat but knew they were there. With regret, he broke the kiss and lifted his head.

  Colbie’s eyes were filled with straight-up lust and she was breathing just as hard as he was. She smoothed out the nail marks from where she’d been clutching his jacket. “I think we’re supposed to actually eat the bread first,” she said on a rough laugh as Spence’s phone went off.

  Looking pained, he pulled the phone from his pocket.

  Pru:

  Coming up on Alcatraz, under a full moon. Rare sight. If you’re lip-locked, might want to lift your head. And if you’re not lip-locked, do you need pointers?

  Spence shook his head and put the phone away.

  “Emergency?” Colbie asked.

  “Nope. No arterial bleeds,” he said, and together they took in the sight of Alcatraz lit by the full moon. It was both spooky and stunning, and Colbie seemed transfixed by the sight.

  “Wow,” she whispered, breathlessly. “Tonight’s the best night ever.”

  Spence thought so too.

  Chapter 13

  #Mothertrucker

  After they docked and helped Pru lock things up for the night, Spence took Colbie on a long walk along the Embarcadero. The pylons, the benches, the streetlights . . . everything had been decorated for the holiday and she loved the look of it. It’d rained earlier for long enough that everything felt clean and shimmered with condensation. For the first time in years she was excited for the season, even though she knew she’d be gone by Christmas Day.

  She hoped to bring the holiday cheer home with her. “It’s so beautiful here with all the decorations,” she said, her breath crystalizing in front of her face. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “New York doesn’t do it up for the holidays?”

  “Yes, but I mean . . .” She broke off, not sure what she meant at all. “It just seems . . . nice. Really nice. And like it could all be true. Santa Claus and all that.”

  He smiled. “You don’t believe in Santa?”

  “Well . . . let’s just say I have mixed feelings about the holiday.”

  “A cynic in a sweet package.”

  She rolled her eyes, but he reached for her hand and pulled her into him. “Talk to me,” he said.

  “For as long as I can remember, I’ve been Santa.”

  He looked at her in surprise.

  “I told you my dad left us when I was little,” she said and then paused. “It was on Christmas Eve.”

  “Seriously?” Spence tightened his arm around her. “What the hell’s wrong with him?”

  She shrugged. She didn’t know. “He wasn’t made for being a family man. And actually, he was right. My mom said we were better off and I have to believe that.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “That’s a shitty memory to carry around.”

  Colbie didn’t like to talk about this. Correction: she never talked about this. So why she was suddenly opening up, and to a man who lived three thousand miles away from her, was a big unsolved mystery.

  Or maybe it wasn’t. There was still something about this place and Spence that made her want to be something she’d never been.

  Open and carefree.

  But maybe . . . maybe to be those things, she had to let go of her past. “Not everyone’s cut out to be a parent.”

  “I agree.” He paused. “I got lucky with my parents. My dad didn’t have it easy. My grandpa was a hard-ass but a brilliant inventor, a tough act to follow.” He smiled a little wryly. “So to the everlasting frustration of Grandpa, my dad didn’t even try. He was a family man to the end.”

  The tone of his voice had her heart squeezing. “You lost him,” she said softly.

  He nodded. “A few years ago. Cancer.”

  “It must’ve been hard on your mom.”

  “Very,” Spence said. “But she’s taken up something she couldn’t do when my dad was alive. Traveling.”

  “Why couldn’t she travel with your dad?”

  “They didn’t have the means, but even if they had, he hated flying.” Spence shook his head. “Always said that if people were meant to fly, we’d have been born with wings.”

  She laughed and he smiled at her, bringing their joined hands up to his mouth, where he brushed a kiss to her fingers before taking a
look around them. “You’re right. It is pretty amazing out here. I guess I forgot to see it anymore.”

  “How long have you been here?” she asked.

  “All my life.” He was still looking around as if trying to see the city from her eyes. “I grew up not too far from here, actually.”

  “In Fisherman’s Wharf?” she asked, having studied online maps of San Francisco’s famed neighborhoods. She was dying of curiosity about this man who was so private.

  “The Tenderloin.”

  An area, she now knew, that had once been one of the toughest and most degenerate places in all of San Francisco. “Does your mom still live there?”

  “No, these days she lives on the coast about an hour south of here.”

  He didn’t mention his grandpa again. Maybe he’d passed away too. Or maybe they weren’t close. She didn’t want to pry. Okay, she totally did want to pry but she didn’t want to open it up in a way that would require her to do the same back. She’d told him all she’d planned to. In fact, she’d told him more than she’d planned to. And in any case, she was here to not think.

  He was watching her. “So if there was a Santa Claus, what would you ask him for?” he asked.

  You, she nearly said. She’d want him for Christmas and no take-backs. “I’d like my book to write itself,” she said instead.

  He smiled.

  “And you’d want what?” she asked. “Maybe your project to invent itself?”

  “That would be high on the list.”

  When she yawned, they headed back, stopping for dessert at a cupcake shop.

  “Did you know that once you lick the frosting off a cupcake, it becomes a muffin?” she asked. “And muffins are healthy.” She leaned in and took a lick of his frosting. “You are welcome.”

  He laughed and so did she because she loved the sound of his laugh.

  When a sprinkle got stuck in the stubble of his jaw, she had some fun with him, playfully misdirecting him as he tried to get it.

  “Maybe you should shave,” she teased.

  “You have no idea how lucky girls are that they don’t have to shave every day,” he said. “You’ve all got it easy.”

  She choked on a laugh. “Says the guy who’s never had to navigate a razor around his kneecaps or . . .” she paused “. . . any other specific areas.”

  He laughed.

  “Not funny,” she said. “It’s a suicide mission.”

  He guided her into the cobblestoned courtyard of the Pacific Pier Building. It was midnight and the place looked like a holiday dream with the strings of white lights and each of the potted trees lining the walkway decorated with colorful ornaments.

  “Elle went overboard this year,” he muttered.

  “So she works for you?”

  “More like she allows me to pay her to be bossy.”

  She laughed. “They say friends and business don’t mix.”

  “She’s family,” he said simply.

  She nodded, thinking that sounded . . . lovely. Really lovely. “So what are your holiday plans?” she asked. “Will you spend Christmas with your mom?”

  “Probably not.”

  She glanced up at him, startled. “No?”

  “She went back east to see friends. I’ll probably spend it at the pub with Finn, Elle and Archer, and the others. We’re a sort of misfit ride-or-die self-made family.”

  Coming from a family that was close only because she’d kept them together by sheer force of will, she envied the whole family-by-choice thing in a big way.

  “How about you?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I’ll spend it at home with my brothers and mom, like always. We’ll fight, also like always, but old habits die hard.”

  He cocked his head and studied her. “You do know you’re allowed to do whatever you want, right? It’s the only perk to this whole adulting thing.”

  She let out a small laugh. “Never mind me. Christmas sometimes makes me a little . . .”

  “Hollow?”

  She met his gaze. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Let’s just say I’ve been there.”

  A little off her axis, Colbie looked at the pretty fountain. “Do you really not believe in the legend?”

  He lifted a shoulder.

  She turned to him. “How about love? Do you believe in love?” And for some reason, she held her breath for his answer.

  He paused. “I believe it’s out there for most.”

  “Gee, that’s only a little cryptic.”

  He gave a rough laugh. “Here’s the thing. My family . . . when it comes to work and love, we tend to only do one of them well. Not both. So we choose.”

  She raised her brows. “And you chose . . . work?”

  He shrugged again. “It’s what I do best.”

  “So you’ve tried love before, then,” she said. “And . . . failed?”

  “Big-time.”

  “Do you think you could possibly explain that with more than two words?” she asked.

  A smile touched his lips. “I told you about my grandpa. He was a workaholic. His entire life was the job—to the detriment of his family, which he completely ignored. My dad learned a lesson from that. He chose love. I was raised by two loving, if not a little baffled-by-me, parents who did the best they could. They had each other, if not always the rent money. But I always knew that what they shared wasn’t going to be for me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m shitty at love.” He paused. “And I hated being poor.”

  “You really believe you can only have one or the other?” she asked in disbelief.

  “I know it. In college, women would give me their phone numbers and I’d forget to call.”

  “Forget?”

  “Well, I was sixteen,” he said.

  She raised her brows. “At that age, you’d have been both physically and emotionally behind everyone else.”

  “Yeah. I definitely preferred labs over women, which didn’t help me out any.”

  She grinned. “That seems to have changed.”

  His smile was wry. “Yes, but not by that much. My last girlfriend, Clarissa . . . she was positive she was going to be the one.”

  “And she . . . wasn’t?”

  “We met when I was working for the government,” he said. “She