Winter's Wonder: Pine Point, Book 2

by Allie Boniface

  “Really?” That did sound reasonable. She hedged. Their vet tech was working full days again, and she had two volunteers plus Julito and Kevin coming in later. “Okay,” she said as she pulled on her hat and coat. “One hour. Can you pick me up? Meet me there at noon?”

  Ella waved her fingers in the air. “Of course. I don’t have anything else going on today.”

  Becca thought about that comment about twenty times that morning. “I don’t have anything else going on today.” How had she and Ella grown up in the same home, with the same parents, and turned out so different? By nine o’clock, she was covered in cat vomit, thanks to a raging virus that had taken down half the cats in one room. By ten, she’d turned her sweatshirt inside out in a vain effort to mask the other odors attached to it, which ranged from bleach to dog snot to grime to dish detergent.

  “Please bring me a change of clothes when you come,” she texted her sister, imagining Ella still lounged on her bed, feet up, nose in a fashion magazine.

  By the time noon rolled around, Becca had managed to settle down two new pups back in the kennel, go over website updates with Shirley and talk to their tech about Toodles’s tooth infection. “I think he needs those back ones taken out,” she said with a sad look at the thirteen-year-old tabby who slept in the office.

  “He’ll be just fine without them,” the tech said. “Tell you what, I’d be happy if all I had to do was mush on good food all day long. Chewing is overrated.” She gathered Toodles into her arms as the front door whooshed open. Cold air filled the foyer and the office, along with Ella, who’d changed into a bright blue ski jacket, black print leggings and over-the-knee boots. Her hair was curled into ringlets and it looked to Becca like she’d applied long, false eyelashes.

  Again, how the hell do we come from the same place?

  Ella wrinkled her nose and held out a shirt and jeans to Becca. “It stinks in here.”

  “Hello to you too.” Becca pulled off her sweatshirt. “We just finished cleaning.”

  Ella didn’t bother to answer. Instead, she inspected the Christmas tree standing in the foyer. “This is cute.”

  “Thanks.” The other day, in one rare slow afternoon, she and Shirley had decorated it with leftover gold and silver balls from Shirley’s basement. Becca had gift wrapped a few spare boxes and set them under the tree, so it looked as though Santa had visited the shelter early. “Zane brought it,” she added.

  Ella turned, brows lifted. “Seriously?” She clicked her tongue a few times. “Don’t take this wrong, Bec, but I can’t believe he’s into you.”

  Only the fact that Becca knew every last secret about her older sister, along with the fact that Ella never, ever thought before speaking, kept the comment from being a raging insult. In fact, if Becca weren’t floating along on such a high these last few days, she probably would have agreed.

  “I just mean,” Ella added, “he’s like…not your type at all. Is he?”

  Becca smoothed her shirt, taking a good long inhale of its clean scent, and then ducked into the corner to change her jeans. “Not really, I guess.” They both knew her type was the quiet, studious kind, like the few guys she’d dated at college. Not built like Mack trucks. Not former bad boys who’d dropped out of high school and reappeared after years away with rumors dogging their heels.

  “I just don’t want you to get hurt,” Ella said as she fingered one of the ornaments. “I mean, you’ve heard what he’s like. You know from back in school.”

  “High school was a long time ago.”

  “True. But he’s been with a few women since he’s been back in town, and I just…he’s not looking to settle down or anything. You know that, right?’

  “Of course. Neither am I.” But her face grew hot. Was she just the latest in a string of good times for Zane? He’d never answered the question of why he’d asked her to dinner in the first place. He’d only kissed her brains out and let his hands promise things that had kept her up nights. “Don’t worry about it. I can take care of myself.” But she tucked Ella’s words of warning away in the back of her mind all the same.

  “You deserve someone great, Bec, someone who thinks the sun rises and sets on you.” Ella looked around. “Kind of like how you feel about these animals.”

  Becca blinked back surprising tears and stuffed her dirty clothes into the laundry bag. That was about the nicest thing her sister had said to her in a long time. “Let’s go, okay? Let’s find me something rockin’ to wear tonight.”

  Chapter Ten

  Zane had to fight to keep his tongue in his mouth and his hands at his sides when Becca answered the door. For a second, he thought he was looking at Ella. But, no, those eyes and that figure belonged to Becca alone. Still—

  “Yowza, doll,” he said. He satisfied himself with a quick kiss on her cheek. “You look amazing.”

  She took a glance down at her black leather pants and a form-fitting silver sweater that clung to every last curve. Sexy black stilettos brought her four inches closer to his height. A necklace, one he’d noticed before, lay nestled between two sweet, creamy breasts. He reached out and touched it. “Nice paw print.”

  She lifted one shoulder coyly. “Thanks.”

  “Well, hello there,” purred Ella. She emerged from the kitchen wearing pink sweatpants and a tight black T-shirt with an angel on the front. Not like Ella Ericksen was an angel, not from what Zane remembered from high school. “Take care of my little sister tonight.”

  Oh, he’d like to do just that. Wicked, wild thoughts zinged through his brain. I didn’t ask Becca out just to get laid, he wanted to say, but he’d be lying if he said it wouldn’t be the way he’d like to end the night, and everyone in the room knew it.

  “You ready?” he asked instead.

  Becca teetered a little in her heels, and that broke the tension circling the room. He offered her his arm, and she took it with a grateful smile. She grabbed her coat and a bright red scarf and wrapped herself up as they descended the stairs. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

  No, he hadn’t, because part of him was afraid she’d back out. “I thought I’d cook for you. If that’s okay.” Outside, their breath turned to cool white streams in the air.

  She stopped on the sidewalk, brows lifted in surprise. “At your place?”

  “I do my best cooking there,” he said with a grin. Wasn’t the most upscale place in the world, but he hoped Becca wouldn’t mind. He’d seen her surrounded by cat puke and dog shit, after all. Even his tiny trailer would be a step up from the shelter.

  Down the block, a cluster of teens stood outside the fire station singing Christmas carols. Thin and clear, the words floated down Main Street. “Deck the halls with boughs of holly…”

  Becca took his hand as she hoisted herself up into the cab of his truck. “Kind of magical, isn’t it?”

  He jogged around the truck to his own side. He didn’t put much stock in the traditions of the season, but it was hard to be a Scrooge in a town like Pine Point, where mistletoe and holly decorated every last storefront and the neighborhood kids sang Christmas songs on Main Street. “A regular Norman Rockwell scene,” he said as he turned the key and the V-10 engine roared to life.

  “Exactly what I was thinking.” She smiled, and he couldn’t help but lean over and steal another kiss, not on her cheek this time. When they broke apart, her eyes went wide.

  He pulled away and kept his own eyes on the road. Damn, but she tempted him—and it was more than the way she’d dressed tonight or the way she kissed him. It was the whole package.

  They passed Mountain Glen a few minutes later, all lit up against the night sky. He slowed out of habit and scanned both sides of the road, but he hadn’t seen the dog in almost three days. The food in the dish continued to disappear in back of the maintenance shed though, so unless they had another homeless animal hanging around, the do
g was still there.

  He turned at the private road, and the truck bumped along to his driveway. He’d spent the better part of the afternoon cleaning up inside and out. Still, when he led Becca up to the door, a funny feeling squeezed tight in his chest. Hope she likes it all right.

  She stepped inside and took a long look around. He’d bought some cinnamon candles for the bathroom, and though he hadn’t lit them, their scent filled the small space. She slipped off her coat and laid it over the back of the couch. “Cozy,” she finally said.

  It wasn’t much to look at, with the worn furniture and the plain blue curtains hanging over the windows. But it was home. It was his.

  “Drink?” he asked to busy himself. “I have beer and wine.” He paused. “Although I’m not sure I have a corkscrew, come to think of it.” Damn. He’d picked up a bottle of red and a bottle of white at the local liquor store, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually opened anything with a cork.

  “Beer’s fine,” she said. She leaned on the kitchen counter. “And dinner smells delicious.”

  He popped the tops off two light beers and then slid teriyaki pork chops and rolls into the oven and checked in the refrigerator on the salads he’d already made.

  “I have to say, I didn’t think this was where we’d be eating,” she said. “Didn’t peg you as a cook.”

  “Learned to make a few things when I was living down south.” He leaned against the counter beside her, close enough that the heat from her hip seeped into his.

  “Yeah?” She turned. “Tell me about that.”

  He took a long drink, letting the cool beer slide down his throat. “Want to sit down?”

  Rather than answer, she tiptoed her way to the couch and collapsed at one end. “I thought you’d never ask.” She pulled off her shoes and tossed them aside. “These things are killing me.”

  He laughed. “I can imagine.” Another long drink. Another appreciative look at the woman sitting at the other end of his couch. “Why the getup, anyway? I mean—” Shit, he sounded like an idiot. “Don’t get me wrong, Becca. That is a very, very sexy outfit, and a lesser man than I would already be getting you out of it.”

  She turned three shades of red.

  “But it’s so not you,” he finished.

  She crossed one leg over the other and shook her hair over her shoulders. “Is that a bad thing?”

  Then he realized what she was doing, why she looked all dolled up like her sister, why she was playing coy and batting her lashes like the housewives over in Mountain Glen. He set down his beer and wrapped both hands around one knee. “That’s not why I asked you here. It’s not why I asked you out the first time, or why I came to the school yesterday.”

  The tight little smile around her lips vanished.

  “I like you. I like your company. You’re…” different, he wanted to say, but he didn’t know if that would come out wrong. “You’re cool,” he said instead.

  She bit her bottom lip. “I like you too.” But the word but hung over the end of her words, and he couldn’t blame her.

  “Listen, I know what this town is like, what people say… I was a shitload of no good when I left eight years ago, and back then, yeah, I was pretty much down for drinking and screwing and having a good time with whoever would go to bed with me.” The words came out almost before he could stop them. Huh. Hadn’t planned on a confessional tell-all tonight, but the simple honesty in the way she looked at him kept him talking.

  “I’m not the same guy I was back then. I left because I was screwing up everything I had here, which wasn’t much to begin with. But down in Georgia, I got it together. Not right away, but eventually. Got my GED and held down a job for the first time in my life.

  “And I didn’t ask you out because I wanted to sleep with you.” He cocked his head. “Though I won’t argue if that’s what you’re in the mood for.”

  She shook her head with a smile. “Why did you come back to Pine Point?”

  He cleared his throat. “Missed my roots, to be honest.” He pointed one finger at her. “Don’t tell anyone that.”

  She smiled and crossed her finger over her heart. “I promise.”

  “Wasn’t just that anyway. I was renting a room at my mom’s place, but then she got a new boyfriend, and he didn’t want me living in the house. My sister was shacked up with a guy, and I didn’t really have the money to rent a regular place on my own. I’d kept in touch with a couple buddies up here, and one of ’em told me about the security job at the Glen, and—” he spread both palms wide, “—here I am.”

  Her glance moved across the room, but he didn’t expect her next words. “You don’t have a single Christmas decoration in here.”

  He laughed in spite of himself. “Ah, doll, Christmas has never been one of my favorite holidays.”

  “Why not?”

  He jumped up as the timer on the oven beeped. Because that was the day dear old dad walked out on us when I was eight. Rather than answer, he placed the rolls in a basket, settled the pork chops on a serving platter and motioned to the tiny table he’d set for two.

  “Dinner’s ready.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Becca might actually have tasted the chops, and the rolls, and whatever else was on the table, if Zane hadn’t kept looking at her with those steady eyes. That half-grin. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that beer. Her head spun, but if it was the man and not the alcohol as she imagined, she was in a whole lot of trouble.

  “So tell me more about Georgia,” she said, searching for conversation. Good Lord, they had to at least get through dinner without her crawling across the table and into his arms.

  “It’s hot. And humid.” He chuckled and helped himself to another pork chop and two more beers for them both.

  “No, I mean…how did you end up there?” She only meant geographically speaking, but his expression sobered.

  “I dropped out of high school after junior year—guess you know that.”

  She nodded. She’d heard about a hundred reasons why too, but she wasn’t about to ask.

  “I got arrested a bunch of times up here for stupid shit. Shoplifting, trespassing, drinking, speeding…my mom figured the best thing would be to move and get a fresh start.”

  Becca didn’t know a whole lot about getting arrested, but she did understand fresh starts. Feral cats came into the shelter battered and ferocious and scratching anything they could reach, but they just needed a quiet room and a wide berth until they realized everyone in the world wasn’t out to hurt them. She wondered what had hurt Zane, why he’d ended up feral and ferocious too.

  He met her gaze and then looked away. “I was such a messed-up kid. My dad took off when I was eight and my sister was ten, and—” he stopped, a pained expression on his face. His fingers tightened around his spoon almost imperceptibly. His tongue worked inside his mouth, like he was trying to figure out words. “This is funny, actually, that I’m sitting here with you.”

  A pain knifed through her. Funny?

  “Just because you’re so in love with animals. I told myself when he left, on Christmas Eve by the way, that I’d never get attached to one again. ’Cause when he left, he took our dog.” His eyes clouded. “Goldie. Shit. It sounds so stupid now, but I loved that dog. She slept on my bed every night. I fed her every day when I got home from school.”

  “And he took her from you?”

  “Looking back, I think it was to spite my mom, because she’d brought Goldie home when the dog was just a puppy.” He shrugged. “He ended up spiting me more than anything else, not like he ever knew that. I never saw the dog or my dad again.”

  Silence washed over them. Becca’s heart hurt. What kind of father did that to his son? Or to his own pet? She could only imagine Goldie whining for Zane, or the kids waking up Christmas morning without their father and their canine best friend.<
br />
  He resumed eating. “Anyway, I think that was when it started. I closed up, just stopped caring and set my mind to having a good time, no matter the consequences. By the time I was seventeen, my mom figured moving was the only way to get my head straight.”

  Becca nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “Like I said, I didn’t really clean up my act right away. But after a couple years down there, bouncing around from stupid job to stupid job, I finally woke up. Realized my life was going downhill unless I did something about it.”

  “You seem pretty put together now,” she said.

  He crooked that smile again, the one that went straight under her skin and made her heart flip. “Ah, doll, I’m trying. Can’t say my halo is entirely straight, but—” he winked, “—my idea of a good time is a lot more legal these days.”

  She smiled too. She couldn’t help it. His teasing confidence, his slow, sultry smile—and, okay, the body too—but mostly the way Zane told her his shit straight out made her like him even more.

  “What are you thinking right now?” he asked. Empty plates sat on the table between them, and he reached over and took her hand. His fingers stroked her palm.

  “That you aren’t like any guy I’ve ever been with,” she blurted. Oh hell, Bec. Why couldn’t she ever say something smooth and fun and flirty? You sound like you’ve spent your adult years living as a nun.

  He just smiled. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

  “You should.”

  In the next instant, he’d gotten up and rounded the table, and before she knew it, he’d pulled her into his arms.

  Those arms…

  One hand lifted her chin, and his lips met hers in another kiss. Hot. Sweet. Dangerous in the way it had the power to knock her off her feet. Somehow, they made it from the kitchen back into the living room. He never stopped kissing her. She never stopped touching him. Every nerve ending, from her lips to her palms to her bare toes, hummed with want. Cinnamon mixed with butter and the smell of wood smoke and Zane’s faint, spiced aftershave sent her senses reeling. When he slipped one hand beneath her sweater, she nearly jumped.