by B. A. Wolfe
Bonus Chapter
A LOUD CRASH OF THUNDER woke me from a dead sleep. Jase stirred next to me and I snuggled closer to him. “It’s storming,” I whispered.
“Are you scared, sweetheart?” He snaked his arm around my waist and a small tingle ran up my spine at the memory of the last storm here.
“Not at all,” I answered.
He brushed his fingers down the side of my stomach, my muscles pulling inward at his touch. “I really like storms,” he said, his voice groggy.
I did too. A gentle sigh rolled through me as the rain pelleted the glass on the window.
“What time is it?” Jase moaned and opened his eyes.
I blinked a few times and whispered, “Late.”
His cheeks split into a slow mischievous grin.
“What’s that smile for?”
He pressed his warm lips to my forehead. “I’ve got an idea.” He quickly tossed his covers aside and slipped out of bed. Even though I couldn’t see him in the dark room there was no mistaking the rustling of drawers. Not two seconds later his low voice echoed in the silence. “Sweetheart. Come here.”
I bit down on my lip, trying to contain the excitement starting to rush through me. “Where are you?”
“I’m over here.” His voice floated softly through the darkness.
I sat up with a cheesy grin plastered on my face and slipped out of bed. My long night shirt brushed against the back of my thighs as I tiptoed around his bed. “Where are you?” I asked quietly.
“You’re cold,” he answered. It was as if I could hear his smile.
I reached out in front of me and started walking toward the door like a mummy. I wiggled my fingers, hoping to feel him, but it was just air.
“Warmer,” he murmured.
My bare feet slid across the carpet another step.
I heard in a low sexy voice, “Even warmer.”
Sucking in a short breath I inched forward again, my fingertips stretching for him.
“You’re getting hot.”
Yes, yes I was . . .
I took two small strides and sighed as his chest heated under my palms. He leaned in and pressed his lips against my ear. “You’re on fire.”
I trailed my hands up his torso and around his neck, holding my body close to him. His warm flesh seared through my shirt. “So are you,” I whispered.
He placed a chaste kiss on my cheek. “Put this on,” he said, sliding something soft between us. I glanced down at the clothes in his hands. Without thinking I took them from him. Quickly, I put on a pair of his sweatpants and rolled down the waist so they didn’t drag. “Arms up,” he added. So, I did as he asked and he tugged a heavy sweater over me and smiled. “You’re all set.”
I cocked my head and stared at him. “What are you up to?”
He smirked and yanked a sweater over his body. “Come with me.” He reached out and without a second thought I secured my hand in his and with a new sense of giddiness followed him upstairs.
The house was pitch black as Jase pulled me behind him. We made our way through the kitchen, the family room, and stopped at the window in the front of the house.
“What are we doing?” I asked, my voice barely there, not wanting to wake Trish and Bart up.
“Are you up for an adventure?” His brows popped and I tilted my head.
“It’s storming,” I reminded him as I peeked out the curtain; the rain was coming down hard. I turned to look at him.
Crinkle lines formed around his eyes the wider his smile grew. “Come with me.” He laced our fingers together, the curtain closing as I followed him. Butterflies swarmed my belly as he gripped the door knob. “Trust me,” he whispered as he opened the door.
“Okay.” Excitement washed away every ounce of apprehension in me as we slipped out of the front door and into the rainstorm.
He didn’t let me go as he dragged us through the grass and into the middle of the street. My feet disappeared into a puddle of water. I took one last look at Jase and then closed my eyes, threw my head back and let the warm summer rain blanket my body.
Jase’s firm hands framed my cheeks, pulling my face back down. I batted my lashes and grinned. “This is crazy!” My skin bubbled with excitement. It was something I’d never forget.
“I’m way past crazy, sweetheart.” He sucked in a deep breath, his shoulders falling as he released it. “I think . . . I think I’m in l-”
I quickly pressed my lips to his with a wet kiss, stealing the words I knew he was about to say right from his mouth. It wasn’t time yet, it wasn’t that moment for the three words that would change everything. My heart pounded wildly for him, my skin tingled with every touch of his. Deep down I knew I loved him. But tonight wasn’t about those three words. Tonight was about the passion. I broke our slow, wet, kiss and locked my eyes on his. “Don’t say it yet. Tonight, just show me what you feel,” I murmured.
“I feel everything. Everything when I’m with you.” His mouth crashed onto mine, his tongue pushing past the seam of my lips. Every bit of what he felt, poured into his kiss. I was loved, I was cherished; I was whole.
He groaned into my mouth and I melted into his arms. The storms here just kept getting better and better. I couldn’t wait to see what the next one was like.
Lightening crashed and my skin buzzed. Amazing things were in store for us, I felt it. We were alive and no storm could tear us apart.
Bonus Chapter
I WATCHED THROUGH MEL’S apartment window as the snow blanketed the empty street below me. It was going to be a beautiful white Christmas this year. It was also the first time I wasn’t celebrating it with my family.
We normally spent Christmas Eve in our immaculately decorated home, celebrating with our closest friends. Which of course, meant colleagues and associates. It was sad but I once thought they were real friends, turns out they were far from it.
The semester had ended two weeks ago and while my smart friend Mel received her 4.0 GPA, I received a voicemail from my parents. It wasn’t the usual, ‘Your grades are posted. Better luck next semester’ message I was used to. This time it was much worse.
Mel set her luggage down by the front door. She was headed home to spend the holiday with her parents. She didn’t want to, but I kind of forced her. “You’re really not going home?” she asked, her voice full of concern.
I shook my head. “They’ve made it very clear that I don’t have a home anymore. You heard my mom’s voicemail. I’m only allowed to go home if I re-enroll in school and give my baby up for adoption.” My chest squeezed as I glanced down at my growing stomach.
Mel made her way toward the couch, the very couch I had been planted on for the past couple of months. “You can’t just stay here alone.”
I waved her on, my heart crushing knowing this apartment was about to get cold and quiet the moment she left. “I’ll be fine. Go see your mom and dad. I have some stuff to finish up anyway.” Which wasn’t a lie, I was writing every day in the journal Jase had bought me. At first I started writing about how unfair life was. I became hateful of the path I was on. And after I got my anger out on paper, my writing turned toward the future I wasn’t going to have. My words were sad and lonely. Self-pity at its finest.
But then a few days ago, my heart pumped with love. I started writing my memories of Jase, cherishing what I had with him in Keaton. Mel didn’t know what I was writing, only that I had my journal by my side as if it were attached to me like a limb.
Mel placed a comforting hand on my arm. I looked up and met her sad puppy dog eyes. “You know the feeling you get when you have to do something but you feel wrong for doing it?”
My heart squeezed in my chest.
“Well, that’s how I feel right now. I can’t leave you!” She sighed and waved a hand in the air. “It’s freaking Christmas. We’re supposed to be all ’Ho Ho Ho’ not ‘Boo Hoo Hoo’.”
“I’ll be fine. I really want to sit here and be all ‘Boo Hoo Hoo’ by myself. Capishe
?” There was nothing worth celebrating this year. How could she not see that?
She snapped a hand to her hip and her eyes slanted in a glare. She was pissed. I would be too, but what other choice did I have? Her parents weren’t expecting me. They wouldn’t mind me being there, but no offense to my best friend, her parents weren’t exactly going to help my mood any. Mel’s parents had more issues than I was ready to dive into.
I swallowed back my anxiety and forced a weak smile. “You’re going to be late for your festivities and I swear I’ll kick you out of this apartment if you don’t leave.”
Her frown lines deepened. “I don’t like this.”
“I love you, but go. I’ll call you if I need anything,” I promised.
She let out a long, exaggerated sigh and gave me a huge hug. The type that said ‘I’m going to miss you more than you know’.
“Merry Christmas, Cass. I love you.” She whispered into my ear and I sniffled. “If Santa doesn’t come, don’t be sad. He has this apartment on the naughty list.” She pulled away and steadied her hands on my shoulders.
A single tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and I knew me she was only teasing to cover up the pain of leaving. Being the emotional mess I was, it only sparked the release of my own tears.
“Merry Christmas, Mel. I snuck a surprise into your bag.” I made sure she had a bottle of vodka ready to go once she got home. She’d need it.
“There might be something on your bed for you,” she whispered.
“Cheetos?” I asked, a faint smile wanting to spread across my mouth.
“Maybe,” she said with a shrug. “Chester said to tell you thanks for the increase in sales. He might have sent a few extra bags to the house as a thank you.” She laughed.
I couldn’t help it that I craved those cheesy things as if my body needed them to survive, or better yet, my baby craved them.
“Call me when you get there so I know you made it safe.”
“Always.” And with that, she grabbed her luggage and was out the door.
The apartment walls began to close in on me. I hugged myself. There wasn’t a peep to be heard for miles and as I looked around, there wasn’t a single thing that represented Christmas in this apartment. Melanie wanted to decorate, but my stubborn ass wouldn’t let her. Not only were we both dipping into our meek savings to live, but also what was the point?
I glanced around the bare and empty apartment, at the missing tree that should have been in the corner by the window and the stockings that should have been hung by her fireplace, and I wished we would have. I turned my focus to the window and watched the snow fall. It was coming down heavier by the second. Watching the flakes became too depressing. I had to stop.
I remembered the ‘gift’ Mel said she left and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t waddle quickly to my room to see what it was. A sigh escaped me as my eyes zeroed in on her gift. A bag of puffy and crunchy Cheetos. “She’s the best,” I mumbled in the cold room. I snatched the bag of puffy Cheetos and popped one in my mouth. As I was swallowed my heart stopped. There was a rattling at the front door. I dropped the bag from my hands and peeked out my door. My palms grew sweaty and my heart went about a mile a minute as I watched the door slowly open. Cassandra, go into your bedroom. Run. Do something. My body froze as if the cold weather outside turned me into an ice cube. I couldn’t move or breathe. The door finally swung all the way open revealing Mel. She dropped her luggage in the very spot it occupied only twenty minutes ago.
“Fuck it. I’m not going. We’re celebrating Christmas together. Who the fuck leaves their best friend to become a Cheeto on the couch while they go drink in misery with their parents?”
I shrugged. “We do.”
“No. Eff that shit. I drove about twenty minutes and realized how messed up this was. So I pulled into a tree lot, don’t even ask how much I paid for a tree on Christmas Eve, and drove back here.”
My eyes widened. “You got a tree?”
She smiled and tucked her long hair behind her ear. “Damn straight! Charlie Brown would be jealous of the tree I just got.”
“Is that a sarcastic statement?” I asked, knowing there probably wasn’t much selection left on Christmas Eve.
She laughed. “Pretty much. It’s a twig. I paid more than a week’s worth of groceries for that twig though, so don’t knock it.” The smile on her face was like watching the Rockefeller tree light up.
I ran over and threw my arms around her. This wasn’t my normal Christmas by any means and the last few months had brought my spirits down lower than I could have ever imagined. The impending birth of a child I knew nothing about raising was more than I could handle. But this was our Christmas, and I couldn’t ask for a better way to celebrate the holidays.
“This was also out front for you,” she said, glancing down at a box by her feet.
”For me?”
“Last time I checked your name was Cassandra Pierce,” she said with a smirk.
Mel grabbed her luggage and left me alone in the entryway with the box. There wasn’t a return name, only an address with a city. The city was the only one in the world to make my heart stop, Keaton. A few names ran through my mind, but the only one screaming to me wouldn’t have been able to send it. The postman doesn’t visit heaven.
I took a breath picked up the light box and carried it to Mel’s small dining table.
I stared at the box as if it were the first one I’d ever seen, mesmerized by it, but questioning it to the fullest. Did I want to open it? Did I want to know what was in there? Was it going to make me bawl like a newborn baby? “Probably,” I answered myself.
“Probably what?” Mel asked as she hauled in our tree. She wasn’t lying. It was a twig, but it was our twig. “Don’t say a word,” she warned.
“It’s perfect,” I told her.
“What’s in the box?” she asked after she rested the twig against the wall.
I stared at it and then glanced back at her and shrugged. “I haven’t opened it yet. I’m not sure that I want to, you know?”
She huffed and left for the kitchen only to return moments later carrying a pair of scissors. “No, I don’t know. Now open it,” she demanded, handing them to me.
“You’re so bossy,” I teased as I began slicing open the tape.
“Some people admire that in a best friend.”
I really did. She was always the one to push me, and a big part of me loved her for that.
Slowly, I peeled each flap of the box back and pulled out layer after layer of stuffing.
“Did someone just send you an empty box?” Mel frowned and eyed the packing covering her table.
“It would definitely be a first,” I replied, then suddenly stopped breathing the moment my fingers felt something. It was a box and this one was small enough to pick up with one hand.
We both watched in silence as I set it on the table, pushing the shipping box aside.
I lifted my gaze to Mel’s.
“It’s wrapped so beautifully. Open it.” Her eyes twinkled a little as she spoke softly.
My heart raced and my palms began to sweat. I still didn’t have a clue who sent it, but the unknown was eating at me with each growing second. I lifted a small piece of tape and pulled apart the wrapping so it wouldn’t tear. It was gorgeous, with red and silver colored circles and a small glittery red bow on top. Once I removed the wrapping, I had to talk myself into going further. Between my screaming subconscious and Mel’s burning gaze, I had no choice but to find out what was sent.
I pulled the top off the box and there lay a folded piece of paper.
“I can’t.” I gritted my teeth together.
“You can.” Mel wrapped her hand around my shoulder. “You can do this.”
One deep breath later, I opened the note.
Someone told me you weren’t decorating for Christmas.
Hang this on your tree.
He’d want it that way.
I stood frozen as I read t
he note a dozen times. Then I looked at Mel and her facial expression appeared as confused as I felt. There was no signature of who it was from or anything. As I set the note down, I lifted the most gorgeous ornament out I’d ever seen.
“Oh my gosh,” I gasped, holding back the tears that threatened to consume me as I stared at the Cowboy ornament.
“Damn, that’s gorgeous. And so . . . so sad.”
I held it up as if it were the crown for Miss America, worth more money than I could comprehend. “I-I know. Who did this?”
“Trish?” Mel asked.
“It can’t be Trish. I haven’t spoken to her since I left. It has to be Moose. In fact, he was supposed to call today but didn’t.”
“Oh, bummer.” Mel rolled her eyes.
“Don’t be that way. He’s been good to me, to us.”
She waved a dismissive hand before crossing her arms over her chest. “Yeah, yeah.”
My heart began to race rapidly as the thought of who sent this to me filled my mind. Anger was drowning me, while the ornament was gorgeous, it was breaking me apart at the seams. Seeing it only continued to remind me of what I didn’t have; what was taken too soon. I was trying to get myself back on track and this just took me ten feet in the opposite direction.
“I’m calling him.” I grabbed my phone from the couch and clicked Moose’s name. It only took two rings for him to answer.
“Hey, Cass!”
“I just got a box, Moose. This isn’t funny. You need to explain.” I tried to control my breathing. Mel stood next to me, her ear close to my phone.
“Hello, how are you, Moose? Oh I’m good, How are you doing, Cass?” Moose mocked an attempt at my voice but I wasn’t having it.
I shook my head. “No, Moose. I need to know or I might throw up. Did you send me this ornament?” My fingers splayed over my stomach and I closed my eyes.
