a Beautiful Christmas

by Ember-Raine Winters

  I had switched out the BMW for my little Honda earlier in the day before I went on that crazy mission. I knew I shouldn’t have looked.

  I groaned out loud, still attempting to even out my breathing. What the hell I was going to do? Trey was certifiable. What would possibly make him think I am ready for something so permanent? The idea of it made my palms sweat.

  I have to get out of here was the panicked thought I had before taking off down the winding road.

  TREY

  It was getting dark and I was starting to freak out. Kenzie was gone.

  Fuck! She probably found out about the box and did a runner. It would be such a Kenzie thing to do and not answering my phone was another, but I needed to get ahold of her before she got too far.

  I dialed Buck; he was the best at finding people that didn’t want to be found. He and his two buddies Country, and Bubba were mercenaries, well technically anyway. They only took cases that helped people.

  After the third ring I heard, “Hey Trey, what can I do for you?”

  “Kenzie.” I sighed audibly into the speaker.

  “What’d you do, now?”

  “I think I fucked up, can you help me find her?”

  “Depends” was his short answer.

  “It was a big, fat misunderstanding. Can you track her or not,” I grumbled, annoyed at myself and the world that this had gotten so out of hand.

  “Easy there, Buddy. I’ll find her. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know when I got somethin’,” he replied and hung up.

  The next call I made was to Mac, which was even stranger than everything else that was going on.

  “Hello?” he whispered.

  “Why the hell are you whispering?” I asked. “I thought you were watching the kids.”

  “I had to step out for a minute. I found out where the bag is and I have to get it before Marcy does.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? How would Tink know where it is?” I was confused and freaking the hell out.

  “I can’t talk right now. I’ll call you once I stash the bag.”

  “What?” I said but he already hung up the phone. I shook my head in dismay. What the fuck is going on?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MARCY

  Mac was acting weird. We hung out on Griffin’s couch for awhile before his phone buzzed in his pocket and he left, distracted. He barely remembered to give me a kiss goodbye before he bolted out the door.

  I knew stuff like that happened sometimes, but it just seemed weird. He occasionally had cases pop up out of nowhere and he had to leave quickly, but with everyone at the hospital except Trey… Trey! Shit, I hoped like crazy he hadn’t figured out what we did. Dialing Kenzie, I waited.

  “Hello?” she asked. Her voice sounded panicked.

  “What’s going on Kenzie? Did Trey figure it out?”

  “What? No… I don’t know. I did something stupid and I’m freaking out right now.”

  Dread filled my belly. I really didn’t want to know what she did, but I had a feeling it wasn’t good. “What did you do?”

  “I looked in the bag.”

  “Shit. You saw it? Fuck. Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”

  “Wait, you knew? How could you? How could you take it knowing that was in there?”

  “Whoa, slow down. I only found out this afternoon. Bob called me after you tried to get in. Wait, how did you get in there?” I asked her suspiciously.

  “Bob really needs to change his alarm codes,” she offered.

  “Really, Kenzie? You broke in?”

  “I needed to know what was so important and now I wish I hadn’t. I’m not ready for this, Pix.”

  “Calm down, where are you? I’ll call Kaylee’s sister-in-law Tara to help with the kids. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  She rattled off the name of the hotel and room number before we hung up and I dialed Tara.

  “Hey Marcy, everything okay?”

  “Yes, but something came up. Can you come watch the kids?”

  “Sure, I’ll be there in ten.”

  MAC

  As I was sitting on the couch with Marcy, the call I had been waiting for came in and I bolted for the door without a second thought.

  “Bob, is there anyone at the house?”

  “I’m going to strangle those girls for dragging me into this mess.” He sighed. “Yes, I have a guy there watching the house.”

  “I need the bag. Marcy is planning on going in the morning, and I have to get it before she does,” I said with desperation coating my voice.

  “I’ll call him and let him know you’re coming to get it. You kids need to stop with the juvenile pranks,” he admonished and hung up abruptly.

  The drive up to the hills was a long one and I flinched when I came around the bend where we had our accident all those months ago. Slowing the car down so I didn’t fly off a cliff again, it had taken months of physical therapy to get me back to my old self and there was no way I wanted that to happen again.

  I still made it to Bob’s in record time. As I walked up the landscaped path to the front door, a large bald man opened it and looked at me warily. “Someone’s been in the house.”

  “What? How?” I stuttered.

  “I don’t know, but the office is not how I left it. It looks like someone got into the safe.”

  It occurred to me then what Trey had been talking about earlier and I cursed. “Kenzie. Dammit, she had Bob’s alarm code.”

  The man looked at me like I had grown a second head, but led me to the office. There was a bookshelf pulled out from the wall with the interior safe positioned inside the wall. The man walked over and put in the code before opening the safe. The box Trey had been talking about lay on top of the bag like it had been thrown there haphazardly.

  “Shit, she really did bolt,” I said to myself.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  TWITCH

  I only ever saw Griffin drive that fast two other times in my life. Once when our friend killed himself, and the other when we thought Leanne was kidnapped by Kaylee’s ex over a year earlier.

  Tasha was curled in a ball in my lap. I was murmuring nonsense in her ear, since I didn’t know what else to do. She screamed in pain and curled around her rounded belly.

  “Tasha, breathe honey,” Kaylee was turned around from the front seat trying to calm her down to no avail.

  “Something’s not right, Kay. She shouldn’t be in constant pain,” Griffin whispered as he changed lanes and blasted past a car that was going too slow in front of him. “Shit,” he cursed as red and blue lights lit us up from behind.

  “What are you doing?” I asked in horror as he slowed down and parked on the side of the road.

  “I can’t run from the police, Twitch. We’d have much bigger problems if I did that.”

  “Ahhh,” Tasha yelled. “I need to push. It hurts so bad.”

  The police officer tapped on Griffin’s window and he rolled it down. “Do you have any idea how fast you were going?”

  “No sir, my friend is about to have her baby in my backseat, if I don’t get her to the hospital soon.”

  “Um, Griff? We’re not gonna make it to the hospital,” Kaylee said as she looked at Tasha. “The baby is coming now.”

  “Shit,” the officer said. “I need an ambulance, now,” he yelled into his Walkie attached to his shoulder.

  “Twitch? Can you turn her, so her feet are on the seat?” Kaylee asked and I nodded dumbly before positioning myself behind Tasha. I rubbed her back and continued to whisper, all the while regretting what we’d done before. I knew I shouldn’t have caved. She was in all that pain, and it was all my fault for not having more restraint.

  “Twitch!” Kaylee was yelling at me. She’d somehow gotten herself out of the car, opened the back door, and was standing by Tasha’s feet at the edge of the back seat. “I need you to focus. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I can se
e the baby’s head so I’m pretty sure she needs to push on the next contraction. You need to stabilize her body,” she ordered.

  I couldn’t believe that tiny girl was ordering me around. Wait…yes I could. Kaylee was bossy, but she knew more about this stuff than I did, so I let it slide. As my mind was coming back on the situation at hand, all I could think about was where the hell was the ambulance?

  “Griff, take your shirt off,” Kaylee said never taking her eyes from Tasha.

  “What?” he asked a little embarrassed.

  “Oh my GOD!” Tasha screamed, pushing her back into my chest as I sat behind her, holding her shoulders to me.

  Kaylee looked directly at Tasha, while demanding her orders from Griffin. “I need something to wrap the baby in! Take. Off. Your. Shirt.”

  Griffin did as he was told and Kaylee grabbed Tasha’s legs in support. “Okay honey, push.”

  Tasha screamed again, as she bore down and I lifted her hair up out of her face, pulling it back as sweat drenched her skin.

  “Good. Good. Okay now breathe. One more good push should get the shoulders out and then you can rest.” She smiled at Tasha, and I felt her take a big huge breath.

  TASHA

  I took a huge cleansing breath and pushed again with everything I had. My hand was practically crushing Twitch’s and I’m surprised I didn’t break his fingers. To his credit, he didn’t even flinch. He continued whispering words of encouragement in my ear until finally the pressure was released and I heard the sweetest sound in the entire world. There was a crowd of people around the car when Kaylee held my daughter up smiling from ear to ear. “It’s a boy.”

  “A boy?” I asked confused. “Um, the doctors said it was a girl.”

  “It’s definitely a boy.” Griffin laughed.

  Kaylee handed my son to me and I looked down at the crying infant. He had a shock of dark hair on his head and his little eyes were closed tight as he screamed for all his tiny body was worth. I cradled him to me and noticed Twitch looking at him in awe over my shoulder.

  “You did it,” he whispered. “He’s perfect.”

  “He is,” I agreed and heard a siren wailing in the distance.

  “You never do anything halfway, do you Trix?” Griffin chuckled. “Hey there, little buddy,” he said to my newborn son, “you know if you had waited five more minutes, you wouldn’t have destroyed the backseat of my car.”

  Kaylee reached up and smacked him in the arm. “Be nice; the car can be cleaned.”

  “Actually, call it an early Christmas bonus. It will mean more to the three of you.” He smiled at me.

  The EMTs cleared a path and started checking our vitals and got us in the back of the ambulance. “Go home and get some sleep. We’ll be fine,” I said to Kaylee and Griffin as they wheeled us away.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  GRIFFIN

  Kay refused to go home, wanting to make sure they were okay. We waited for two hours in the maternity ward waiting room before we were able to see them. I turned my phone off because I wasn’t sure if that was still a thing. I didn’t want to screw up anyone’s monitors.

  So, when we left the hospital and I turned my phone back on, I was staggered by the number of missed calls and texts from Trey. I called him back immediately.

  “It’s about time you answered your phone. Everyone has lost their damn minds over this investigation,” he said in frustration.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s going on?” I tried to calm him.

  “The girls took the bag.” He all but yelled in my ear, and I slid a look at Kaylee, who looked at me in confusion.

  “They did? Why would they do that?” I asked looking at her pointedly.

  “Should have known a bunch of girls couldn’t keep a secret,” she grumbled under her breath. That had me groaning.

  “All right, so what’s the deal?” I asked and listened as he relayed all the information he had. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I looked to the ceiling of my car, praying for calm.

  “Griff? Griffin! Did you hang up on me asshole?”

  “No, I’m here. Just… processing,” I said slowly. “You have any idea where Kenzie ran off to?”

  “Buck’s on her trail.”

  “Good, get some sleep. I’ll ask Mac what the deal is when I get home,” I said in frustration and hung up the phone, then turned to Kaylee, who was smiling innocently. “Babe, this stinks of one of your brilliant schemes.”

  “Who me? Never.”

  “Kaylee…” I warned.

  “Fine, it was all my idea. You should have gotten that toy months ago. Plus, you guys were all restless. You needed a chase.”

  “So what, you did this for our own good?”

  “Well, yeah. And to punish you; you’re lucky Trey bought two of those damn things in the first place.”

  She glared at me as though this entire fiasco was actually my fault.

  “Where’s the bag, Kay?” I growled.

  “Marcy’s dad’s place in the hills.”

  “No, it’s not. Mac was just there. He said it was gone.” I watched the color drain from her face. “Trey is freaking out.”

  KAYLEE

  Shit. Fuck. Shit. Shit.

  Curse words chanted through my head as Griffin glared at me. We walked into the house to find Tara asleep on the couch. I did a double take, knowing we had left Marcy and Mac there to watch the kids.

  “Tara? What are you doing here?” I shook her awake.

  “Oh, hey Kaylee. Marcy had something she had to do. Something about Kenzie doing a runner. I don’t know; I’m going back to sleep.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked completely dumbfounded but Tara’s sleepy ass was already back to sleep. Griff was cursing up a storm. “What was in the bag, Griff?”

  “What? You don’t know?”

  “It’s looking like once again I am the last to know everything.” I glared at him and he sighed.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TREY

  Kenzie didn’t come home that night. I didn’t see her the next day either. Marcy called at one point apologizing for not being able to get her to come back, and pretty much everything else that had happened in relation to their little stunt. What was worse, the bag and everything in it were missing for real. I hadn’t heard back from Buck, and I had a feeling he wasn’t having any luck either. There was a knock at the door before Kaylee came busting through it and hugged me tight.

  “I’m so sorry, Trey,” Kaylee mumbled into my chest.

  “For what? Barging into my house?” I chuckled and Griffin rolled his eyes.

  “For everything. It was all my idea and I totally ruined everything.”

  “Nah, you probably saved me some embarrassment actually. I would have been humiliated if I had proposed and she ran off like this. This whole thing just confirms that maybe we aren’t right for each other.”

  “That’s bullshit.” Kay snarled at me, poking her finger in my chest. “You didn’t see her after you got shot. She was a fucking mess. I didn’t know Kenzie well back then, but I could tell she was in love with you.”

  “She’s right, bro. I was there after you stepped in front of that bullet for her. They had to fucking sedate her ass to stop her fucking screaming,” Buck said as he walked through my still open door.

  “No one knows how to knock anymore?” I grumbled.

  “I knocked,” Kaylee replied indignantly.

  “It doesn’t count if you just walk in.” I looked at her pointedly and she stuck her tongue out at me.

  “Look, we’re leaving for our girls’ weekend in a couple of hours, and Kenzie’s going if Tara and I have to stick her ass in the trunk. I’ll talk to her. I’m sure she’s just scared. You know old habits die hard. She’s used to being on her own and never really having anything so… permanent.” She gave me a sad smile.

  “Thanks Kay,” I said scrubbing my hands over my face. “You don’t have to do that.”
<
br />   “I know, but I want to. I gotta go. You boys have fun finding that bag.” She finger-waved at us and walked out the door.

  “She realizes it’s probably a lost cause, right?” I asked Griffin, who just shook his head.

  “It took me and Twitch to drag her out of that hospital room kicking and screaming when you were in a coma. I think she just needs some time to process.”

  I walked into the kitchen and poured some scotch into a glass and downed it in one gulp. Griffin shot me a pitying look, as I placed the glass back down on the counter, studiously looking at the bottle, debating whether or not another would help.

  “Don’t you think it’s a bit early to be drinking?” he asked me carefully.

  “Did you forget about the weekend we have planned?” I grinned, determined to not let Kenzie’s taking off crush me. “It’s never too early to start drinking in Vegas.”

  Griffin groaned as Buck chuckled. “You never told me where we were going, ass.”

  KENZIE

  It took forever for me to get Marcy out of my hotel room. When I finally did, she left one parting shot as she walked out the door. “I think you’re making a mistake. Don’t run off out of fear. I did that and it cost me twelve years away from the man I love.”

  “Okay, Marcy. I’ll think about it,” I said and shut the door.

  I slept horribly and it was way too early when the pounding started at my door, and I freaked thinking Marcy had told him about my hiding spot. Creeping quietly to the door, I looked out the peep hole and sighed with relief.

  “I heard that, open the damn door, Barbie,” Buck yelled at me, clearly not caring one bit about the other people in the hotel trying to get some sleep.

  “What do you want?” I flung the door open.

  “I was hired to drag your ass back to Trey.”

  “Well, you won’t be completing that job.” I turned back around and plopped my ass back on the bed.