He tilted his head, his eyes locked on her. “What do you mean?”
“We all lose people eventually, right? So there will always be risk. Always. You can either choose to accept that risk or you can choose to be alone.”
He nodded, his hands coming out of his pockets. “That’s very true.”
“But I didn’t want to put my feelings ahead of your career. I still don’t.” She smiled, twisting her hands into a knot. “You looked at home in that uniform. It’s part of you even if you ran away from it for a year. You’d be miserable in the long run if you couldn’t do what you loved.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I thought I could give it up but it’s...right. This is what I’m meant to do.” He sighed. “So where does that leave us?”
“It leaves us with one important factor.”
“Which is?”
She walked toward him, her body humming with desire and love and all the things she’d desperately wished for as a young girl.
“It leaves us with how much we love each other.” She touched her hands to his chest. “With how much I love you, Max. I want to take that risk on us.”
He brought his hands to her face, cupping her cheeks as though she were the most precious diamond in all the world. “Will you stay here with me?”
She nodded. “I bought a one-way ticket because I was hoping you still loved me.”
“I could move to an entirely different planet and still be haunted by how much I love you every single day. That’s never going to change.” A crease formed in the center of his forehead. “But what about your work? Don’t you need to live in a major fashion hub?”
Rose laughed and wrapped her arms around his waist. “People still buy jewelry in Australia, I’m pretty sure, and I can travel for the fashion shows. Plus, I’ve been working on a website, which means I can sell my jewelry from anywhere—just in case you do want to move to another planet.”
“I’m perfectly happy right here with you.” He brought his lips down to hers and tasted her with all the need she felt in her heart. “It’s not lost on me that you arrived here on Christmas Eve.”
“It seems to be my thing.” She pressed her lips to his neck, inhaling the scent of him.
“Does this mean you’re open to replacing some of those bad memories with good ones?”
“Yep. You never know. I might even make Santa’s nice list this year.” She grabbed his hand, pulling him toward the bed.
“If this is going where I think it is, you’re going to land us both on the naughty list.” Max grinned and lifted her into his arms, crushing his mouth down to hers. “Permanently.”
“Doesn’t bother me. You’ve given me all the Christmas cheer I’ll ever need.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE MIGHTY QUINNS: MAC by Kate Hoffmann.
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The Mighty Quinns: Mac
by Kate Hoffmann
Prologue
“WHAT’S YOUR NAME, SON?”
Lukas sat on the edge of the gurney, his gaze darting around the exam room. He was trapped by a pale green curtain on three sides, and he fought the impulse to run. It would only make him look more suspicious and he was unsure of what was waiting on the other side.
The police officer pulled up a stool and sat down, resting his hand on Luke’s knee. “Do you know where your parents are? They were with you ten days ago when you checked into the motel. What happened?”
Tears welled in the corners of his eyes. How long had it been? He’d lost count of the days since the fight. It had been a particularly violent argument between his mother and father, and, as usual, he’d locked himself in the bathroom, covering his ears against the bitter words they’d flung at each other.
But this fight had been different. The next morning, when he’d woken up, they were gone. He’d found himself alone, his meager belongings scattered around the motel room. He’d waited, certain they’d return for him. As the days passed and he’d been forced to search the trash cans for food, Luke realized that he was twelve years old and he was on his own.
“Do you have any relatives we can call?” the officer asked.
It had always been just the three of them, as long as he could remember. They’d moved around a lot, sometimes staying in motels for weeks on end, other times settling into a house or an apartment when his father found work. Luke would enroll in school and life would seem almost normal.
Then, something would happen and they’d be off again, slipping away in the dark of night, leaving behind anything that couldn’t fit in the car.
He couldn’t remember when life wasn’t like this, when his father wasn’t angry and abusive and when his mother wasn’t terrified. They were running from something—or someone—dangerous. Whoever or whatever it was, it was always just a few steps behind them.
“I—I’m not sure where they are,” Luke murmured.
He knew just one truth. They were gone and he was all alone in the world—all alone against some invisible threat that still stalked him. They’d left St. Louis two days ago, on the run again. He wasn’t even sure where they were now. Colorado? Utah? They’d been headed to Oregon, but that’s all he’d been told.
“Where do you live?”
“I can’t remember,” he insisted.
“Son, I don’t think—”
“I don’t know,” Luke said. “Can I leave now?”
“No, you can’t leave. We need to find a relative,” the officer said, “or you’re going to have to go into the foster care system. You don’t want to do that, do you?”
In truth, the option sounded good to him. He’d be safe, hidden among strangers. Luke wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to survive on his own. He had no money, nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat. “It’s okay,” he said. “You can send me there.”
“No relatives? No one who might want to take you in?”
Luke shook his head, then slipped off the edge of the gurney. “I’m hungry. Can I get something to eat?”
The officer stood up. “Let me see what I can find,” he murmured.
Luke circled the gurney and found a dark corner where he could think. Up until a few weeks ago, he’d been Lukas Parrish. But since leaving St. Louis he was Lukas MacKenzie. “M-A-C-capital-K-E-N-Z-I-E,” he murmured to himself. His father had made him spell it over and over again until it came naturally. There had been other names in other places. He had no idea which one to use. He knew that Parrish wasn’t his real last name, either. Before Parrish it had been Cartwright, and before that, Phillips. If he thought about it hard enough, he could come up with ten or fifteen different names. Since MacKenzie was the last name his father had told him to use, that was the name he’d given the police.
Pulling his knees up to his chest, he wrapped his arms over his head, wrapping his body into a tight ball. The tears stung his eyes and Luke finally surrendered to his fears. A string of curses burst from his lips and he felt a surge of anger toward his parents. How could they do this to him?
This was all his fault. He should have been brave and convinced his mother to leave his father. He should have kept her safe. They could have made a good life for themselves. But his father w
as a selfish, obsessive man. He hadn’t been happy unless he controlled every facet of his family’s lives. He’d always said it was for their safety, but Luke knew better. His father would never have let his mother go.
He saw a policewoman approach and he avoided her gaze, knowing there would be more questions.
“How are you doing, Luke?” she asked in a kind voice.
“Not so good,” Luke murmured. “Am I going to foster care soon?”
She pulled something out of her pocket and held it out to him. It was the little tin box of treasures that he kept with him. Luke wasn’t sure where the box had come from, but he’d always had it. No matter where they moved, his mother helped him find a proper hiding place for it, a spot that his father wouldn’t find. Luke wasn’t sure why it meant so much them. He assumed that the contents of the box must be important.
“Is this yours?” the officer asked.
Luke nodded and he took the box from her outstretched hand. “Can you find a photo of your mother in there?”
Luke sorted through it and held up a shot of the two of them together taken in a photo booth at a seaside amusement park. He’d been young, but he remembered that day—the warm sand and the salty sea breeze. The gulls that swooped down from the sky to finish the remains of Luke’s and his mother’s sandwiches.
“This is her?” the policewoman asked.
Luke nodded.
“Do you have a picture of your father?”
“He doesn’t like photos.”
She held out a small wallet-sized album. “What about these people? They look older. Are they your grandparents?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure who they are.”
“And these wedding bands? And this watch? Who does this belong to?”
Luke shrugged. “They’ve always been in the box. I don’t know.”
The rest of the treasures were things he’d added—a seashell, a piece of pink quartz, an old Indian head nickel. Had his father known of the box, the contents would have been pawned long ago.
“We’re going to make a copy of this photo and see if we can track down your parents,” she said. “And if you remember anything else, you give me a call, all right?” She handed him a business card. “That’s my home number.”
“I don’t think they want me,” he said. Tears filled his eyes and spilled out onto his cheeks. Though he tried to stop them by sheer force of will, nothing he thought or did seemed to control his grief. She rubbed his back until he stopped crying, then handed him a wad of tissues.
“I can’t believe that’s true,” she said.
Maybe he was wrong. But until he was sure, he’d follow his father’s rules. The rules would keep him safe. His name was Luke MacKenzie. But his friends called him Mac.
Copyright © 2015 by Peggy A. Hoffmann
ISBN-13: 9781460386248
A Dangerously Sexy Christmas
Copyright © 2015 by Stefanie Little
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