Christmas in Lucky Harbor

by Jill Shalvis

  Obeying the slight pressure he applied, she slid off the stool and then, of her own accord, stepped between his legs, dropping a hand to his thigh. When her chest bumped his, she let out a soft sigh. “You touch me a lot.”

  “I like to touch you. That’s not what’s making you unhappy.”

  She shook her head. “This is still a bad idea.” She looked at him then. “Just so we’re clear. We are, right? Clear?”

  He didn’t take his eyes off hers. “Crystal.”

  She nodded, then backed away from him. “Then I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.”

  “Yes, you will.” He snagged her wrist. “Maddie—”

  “Listen, I’m not trying to be coy, or play a game, I promise. It’s me. I’m just…” She shook her head. “It’s me,” she repeated softly. “I’m just trying hard to be who I want to be, that’s all. I’m okay, though. Really.”

  “Good.” He slid his hand to hers and stroked his thumb over her palm. “One more thing.”

  “What?”

  He covered her mouth with his. He kissed her until his headache vanished and so did his bad mood. He kissed her until he felt her melt into him, until she was gripping his sweatshirt like a lifeline and kissing him back with enough passion that he forgot what the hell he thought he was doing.

  Lifting his head, he ran his thumb over her slightly swollen, wet lower lip and struggled to put his brain into gear. “Saying that this isn’t going anywhere doesn’t change the chemistry problem we have. Just wanted to make that clear, as well.”

  Eyes huge on his, she licked her lips and made him want to groan. “Crystal,” she whispered breathlessly and pulled free. This time she didn’t stumble into a table—instead she plowed over some poor sap at the door. Apologizing profusely, she vanished into the night.

  “Always in a hurry,” Ford said conversationally, leaning on the bar.

  “Always,” Jax murmured.

  “Ah, so you do still have a tongue. For a minute there, I thought maybe she sucked it out.”

  “Fuck you, Ford.”

  “You keep saying that, but you’re not my type. And do you realize you’re still looking at the door?”

  “Just reminding myself to keep my distance,” Jax said. “Distance is good.”

  “Yeah, that was some nice distance you had going there a minute ago.”

  Jax opened his mouth, but Ford held up a hand. “I know, fuck me, right? So tell me this, is keeping your ‘distance’ why you bid the inn renovation? Or why you stopped by the hardware store earlier to what, chat with Anderson? Because I heard you set him up on a date with Jeanne’s cousin. Smooth, by the way. Real smooth.”

  “Okay, so the distance thing has gone out the window,” Jax admitted. “I don’t know when or why, but it has.”

  Ford laughed, easily vaulted over the bar, and clapped a hand on Jax’s shoulder. “Maybe because she’s hot and sweet? Or because you two have enough chemistry to light up this entire town? Because karma’s a bitch?”

  Jax shoved him off. “This isn’t funny.”

  “Yeah, it is. Come on, I’m starving. You can brood over a burger.”

  Five minutes later, they walked into Eat Me Café to grab burgers. Maddie was at a semicircular booth with her sisters, the three of them bent over a stack of paperwork. Jax looked at her frown and figured they were going over the inn’s outstanding bills and the refinancing forms.

  Jax stopped, fighting the urge to yet again hint that she should approach her current note holder, but she hadn’t asked his opinion and probably wouldn’t.

  Tara sat on Maddie’s left, facing Jax and Ford. Her eyes locked on Ford, then widened right before they darkened. If looks could kill, Ford would be six feet under. Then, smooth as silk, she cleared her face until it was blank, got up from the table, and headed in the opposite direction, slipping into the restroom.

  Jax looked over at Ford, who was watching Tara go with a tight look to his mouth, eyes shuttered.

  What the hell?

  He was unable to ask Ford about it, because they were now even with Maddie’s table. Jax greeted her and then introduced Ford to Chloe.

  While Maddie and Chloe made casual pleasantries with Ford, Jax took in the paperwork on their table.

  Yeah, bills. And by the looks of things, lots of them.

  The waitress came by to seat Jax and Ford, and they ended up on the other side of the café. Tara came out of the restroom, and Ford followed her with his eyes.

  “What’s going on?” Jax asked him.

  “What? Nothing.”

  “You’re staring at Maddie’s sister.”

  “Maybe Tara’s staring at me.”

  Jax leaned back and studied his oldest friend. “I never said which sister, and I sure as hell didn’t say her name, either. And I was under the impression you didn’t know any of them.”

  “I’m a bartender. I know everyone.”

  “You’re an athlete who happens to own half a bar. Cut the shit, Ford. What’s going on?”

  Ford just shook his head, silent. Since Jax had given up destroying souls for a living, he’d admittedly become more easygoing and laid-back, but even so, Ford was just about catatonic in comparison. He was so chill that sometimes Jax felt like checking him for a pulse.

  But nothing about Ford looked chill now. His mouth was grim, his eyes inscrutable, and he seemed shaken.

  Except nothing shook Ford. Nothing. “What the hell’s up with you? You bleeding from where her eyes stabbed daggers into your sorry ass?”

  Instead of smiling, Ford shook his head. Thing was, if Ford didn’t want to talk about something, then Jax would have better luck getting answers out of a rock. He looked at the table where the three sisters sat, Tara on one side of Maddie, looking tense enough to shatter, Chloe on the other, slouched back, a little distant, a little bored, and clearly frustrated.

  Between them, Maddie was talking, probably trying to make everyone happy. Ever the peacemaker. Even as he watched, Maddie looked at Tara, then over at Ford.

  She’d noticed the tension, too.

  Ford slumped in the booth a little, face turned to the window.

  “Ford.”

  “Let it go, Jax.”

  “I will if you will.”

  Ford was silent a long moment. “You ever make a stupid mistake, one you think you can run from, only no matter how fast and far you run, it’s still right there in front of you?”

  “You know I have.”

  Ford let out a long, shuddery breath. “Well, chalk it up to that. One I don’t want to talk about now, maybe not ever.” The door to the café opened, and a uniformed sheriff strode in. He was built almost deceptively lean. Deceptive because Jax knew that the guy could take down just about anything that got in his path. He’d seen him do it. Actually, he’d seen him do it to Ford.

  And okay, also himself. The guy was a one-man wrecking crew when he wanted to be, and the three of them had gone a few rounds with each other over the years.

  Sawyer, the third musketeer.

  He made his way directly to their table and sprawled out in the chair Ford kicked his way. “Shit, what a day.” He turned down the radio at his hip and looked around. “I’m starving.”

  The guy had been born starving. He ate like he had a tapeworm, and he eyed the burgers lined up on the kitchen bar, waiting to be served. Both Jax and Ford gave him space. You didn’t want to get any key body parts, like, say, a hand, in between Sawyer and grub when he was hungry.

  Jax waved over their waitress, and between the three of them, they ordered enough for a small army. Sawyer didn’t speak again until he’d put away two double doubles. Finally, content, he sighed and leaned back. “So. Why are we staring at the sisters?”

  Not much got by Sawyer.

  “What do you know about them?” Ford asked him.

  “Other than Jax going at it with the middle one on the pier the other night? Which, by the way—nice, man.”

  Jax let out a long breath and felt
a muscle bunch in his jaw. “People need to mind their own business.”

  Sawyer flashed a rare grin and helped himself to Jax’s fries. “Not going to happen in this town. As for the other sisters, I know the oldest has a sweet ass to go with her sweet-ass accent when she’s pissed, and she was pissed earlier at the post office when she found out that we don’t have guaranteed overnight from here. And the youngest, she might be hot, but she’s also crazy. I clocked her at seventy-six on a fucking Vespa 250. When I pulled her over and wrote her up a ticket, she said I was committing highway robbery because there was no way she’d been going a single mile per hour over sixty-five. She chewed out me, my radar gun, and my mama, and I gotta tell you, that girl has a mouth on her. Oh, and apparently I need some sort of guava shit facial because my skin is dry in my ‘P’ zone. Like I care about my P zone. She’s going to be trouble, big trouble.”

  “I think it’s a ‘T’ zone,” Ford said, pointing to his own.

  Sawyer sent him a look of banality. “Is there something you want to tell us?”

  “Yeah, I’m fucking gay.” Ford shook his head, confident in his sexuality. “And all women are trouble, man. Every last one.”

  At this, Sawyer raised a brow. Ford loved women. Always. Period. Sawyer looked at Jax for answers.

  Jax shrugged. “It’s a sucky day in Mayberry,” he said and took another look at the table of sisters.

  Tara was saying something through tight lips to her sisters. Chloe downed her drink and raised her hand for another.

  Maddie shoved the stack of papers aside and reached into her purse, pulling out two knitting needles and a bright red skein of yarn. Jax wondered if it was the same one he’d seen wrapped around her the other morning.

  Biting her lower lip between her teeth, she slowly and awkwardly worked the knitting needles, murmuring to herself as she did, clearly talking her way through each stitch with heartbreaking meticulousness. It got him right in the gut.

  She got him right in the gut.

  “Earth to pussy-whipped Jax.”

  Jax slid Ford a long look. “Pussy-whipped?”

  “I thought you gave up that shit when you ran away from Seattle.”

  He hadn’t run away from Seattle. He’d walked. Fast.

  Sawyer was looking like he’d found a bright spot to his day. “So exactly how many women do you figure have thrown themselves at you since you’ve been back in Lucky Harbor?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “All of them,” Sawyer said. “But this is the only one to hold your interest, and don’t even try to tell me I’m full of shit.” He hitched his chin to indicate Maddie. “So basically, it’s Murphy’s Law now. Sheer odds say you’re about to make an ass of yourself.” He said this as if it was Christmas morning and Santa Claus had delivered.

  “And this makes you happy?” Jax asked in disbelief.

  “Oh, fuck, yeah.”

  Jax took another look at the sisters. The three of them were talking, but Tara was looking at her watch. Chloe was now making eyes at the busboy’s ass. Maddie still had her brow furrowed in fierce concentration as she carefully talked herself through another stitch.

  “Christ, you have it bad,” Ford said in disgust.

  It was entirely possible that for once, he was right.

  Chapter 12

  “You’re as happy as you make up

  your mind to be.”

  PHOEBE TRAEGER

  For the third morning in a row, Chloe whipped the blanket off Tara. Maddie knew this because Tara’s distinct screech echoed in the small bedroom they’d been sharing in the cottage.

  Where there was only one bed.

  At least it was a queen-sized, and it’d been cold enough that they hadn’t minded being packed in like a litter of kittens. Well, they minded Chloe talking in her sleep, because it was usually things like “harder, Zach, harder,” which both Tara and Maddie could do without hearing.

  Tara was still complaining about being woken up, her drawl thick and sweet as molasses. This was in direct opposition to the words she was saying, something about Chloe’s questionable heritage and the turnip truck she rode in on.

  Cocooned in between the wall and a pillow, Maddie snickered and burrowed deeper into her own warmth. And then the blanket was rudely ripped off her, as well. “Goddammit!”

  Looking disgustingly cheerful and put together in black, hip-hugging yoga pants and an eye-popping pink sports bra, Chloe smacked Maddie’s ass. “Get up.”

  “Touch my ass,” Tara said, sitting up and pointing at her, “and die.”

  Chloe grinned. “Two minutes.”

  When she’d left the room, Tara gritted her teeth and rolled out of bed, wearing only a cami and boxers, looking annoyingly fabulous with her hair only slightly mussed. “I intensely dislike her.”

  “You seem to intensely dislike a lot of people. Like Ford, for instance—who I didn’t realize you knew.”

  Tara stiffened. “I don’t.”

  “Your accent definitely thickens when you lie. You might want to work on that.”

  Tara let out a long, shaky breath. “What do you think of him?”

  “Ford?” She thought of him standing behind his bar, tall and sexy, that easy grin charming anyone in its path. “I like him. What’s going on, Tara?”

  “Nothing.”

  Maddie understood that sentiment. She had a lot of stuff that she didn’t want to talk about, either. She sat up in bed and patted her hair, knowing it resembled something from the wild animal kingdom. She sighed and staggered off the bed. By day, they’d been doing their own thing. She’d been going through the “office” in the marina, trying to make sense of the wacky accounting system—which seemed to be one step above a shoebox. Tara had been cleaning. Chloe couldn’t do either. She’d decided she was going to create a line of skin care products with the inn’s name and give away baskets to their customers when the time came. And when they sold the inn, she hoped the new owners would want the line.

  It was a great idea, unique and perfectly suited for a small, cozy beachside inn—assuming they got customers.

  When Chloe wasn’t working on that, she spent her time looking for trouble—and, given the two speeding tickets she’d already racked up, she’d found it.

  At night, they ate as a family, which meant they fought. Maddie had discovered that it didn’t matter what subject they tackled. Tara and Chloe could argue about the sky being blue.

  Mostly they fought over the inn. Tara wanted a commitment from her sisters to sell. Maddie wanted a commitment to give the place a fair shot. Chloe wanted… well, no one really knew. But one thing was certain, she still didn’t want to take sides.

  So the tension mounted and manifested itself in stupid little disagreements. Like over yoga.

  “Sixty seconds!” Chloe yelled from the living room.

  Maddie tied back her hair. “Coming!”

  “Liar!”

  For being such a tiny thing, Chloe was a purebred pit bull. Maddie staggered to the living room, where Tara was already sitting obediently, legs crossed.

  As they’d learned the hard way for three mornings running, Chloe took her yoga seriously. For the next forty-five minutes she chided, bossed, demanded, and bullied myriad poses out of them until Maddie was dripping sweat and barely standing on muscles that were quivering. “I need food,” Maddie gasped.

  “Eat me?” Chloe asked.

  “If I have to eat one more greased up, heart-attack-on-a-plate meal from that place,” Tara said from flat on her back, “I’m going to kill myself. I’m cooking.”

  “Finally,” Chloe said with relief. “What took so long?”

  “I don’t do it for people I don’t like.”

  “But sugar, you don’t like anyone.”

  Maddie shook her head at Chloe, then looked at Tara.

  “It’s more that I’ve decided I don’t not like you,” Tara said.

  Even flat on her back and sweaty, Tara exuded confidence. Maddie flopped
down and sighed. She’d been working on her own confidence, but even faking it, it was still hard to go toe-to-toe with her sisters.

  Half an hour later, Tara had food spread in front of her sisters that blew Maddie’s mind. Blueberry wheat pancakes, egg-white omelets, turkey bacon, and fresh orange juice.

  “Not a river of grease in sight,” Tara said. “Chloe, stop wrinkling your brow or your face will stick like that.”

  “I don’t like wheat pancakes—they taste like dirt.” But she took a bite, chewed, then shrugged. “Okay, never mind. These don’t taste like dirt.”

  “I don’t give a flip,” Tara said, mixing up more batter.

  “Well, flip this,” Chloe said and gave her oldest sister a middle finger.

  “No, that’s what I call them—‘I Don’t Give a Flip’ Pancakes. I could make peace on earth with those pancakes.”

  “You should really work on that self-esteem issue you have,” Chloe said dryly, gathering ingredients of her own into a bowl—almonds, jojoba oil. “Making a cracked-heel treatment today. Because Maddie’s feet need help.”

  “Hey,” Maddie said.

  “You keep rubbing those babies against my legs at night, and it hurts. And,” Chloe said, looking at Maddie’s plate and the way she’d carefully arranged her food, nothing touching, “you’re a freak.”

  Maddie looked at her large plate of food and tried not to get defensive and failed. “I’m hungry. I just burned a million calories doing yoga.”

  “The way you do it? Not quite. And I was talking about how you’re trying to keep your syrup off your eggs, not about how much food you have on your plate.”

  “I don’t like my foods touching.”

  “Like I said… freak.”

  “Hey, I don’t mock you.”

  “What’s to mock? I’m normal.” Chloe began whisking up the ingredients in her bowl for her balm, or whatever it was. “Oh, and I know I told you I was leaving tomorrow, but good news. I’m not leaving for two days, because my thing got pushed back.”

  “Yay for us,” Tara said dryly.