Page 31 of A Not-So Holiday Paradise

Golden Retriever, Golden Retriever, Golden Retriever…

Crap. It’s not working.

This is not a dog. This is a woman. And she is inconveniently adorable with the most perfect curves and I want to take care of her and I am just going to have todealwith all of those things. I’m going to have to suck it up anddeal. With. It.

I will tell absolutely no one about these thoughts and feelings. Not one single person. I will not even acknowledge them to myself after this moment.

So I lie there while Molly sleeps, my arms around her, and I try to drift off myself. I try counting sheep—which has never worked for me, by the way, so I don’t know why I bother—and I try counting my breaths. But every time my eyes drift shut, they pop right back open.

Because the woman pressed up against me is seizure-prone and out of medicine, and whenever I think about the possibility of sleeping through one of her seizures and not being able to help her…something deep in my gut twists with a dread I rarely feel.

It’s not entirely logical, this desire to stay awake; I know that. I desperately need sleep. But it’s hard to banish the impulse to take care of her, to make sure she’s safe.

Molly O’Malley is not my responsibility. I owe her nothing. I’m not her brother or her father or her boyfriend or even herfriend.

These are the things I tell myself as we lie here, but they ring false. Because right now, I’m the only one here with her. There’s no one else. Not to mention, she’s Wes’s little sister.

And…I don’t know. There’s something about her that makes me want to protect her. Which makes no sense at all; she’s not helpless. But that’s the impulse that seems to have developed over the course of this hellacious day.

No,I think furiously. Didn’t Ijustsay I wasn’t going to acknowledge these feelings again?

I slam my eyes closed, squeezing them shut so hard I see starbursts behind my lids. I try to force my mind to quiet, pushing away all thoughts of the woman in my arms. This time as I attempt sleep, I count not my breaths but Molly’s; it’s this compromise between ignoring her and keeping watch over her that finally seems to work. My brain succumbs to the tired monotony of listening to her inhales and exhales, and sometime a few hours before dawn, I finally drift to sleep.

* * *

“Beckett?”

Her voice is soft, little more than a murmur in my ear, but it pulls me to the surface of consciousness until I gradually become aware of my surroundings—hard ground beneath me, softness in my arms, the sound of gentle rain outside.

My eyes flutter open, squinting against the wan daylight that’s starting to stream in through the cracks in the walls.

“Molly?”

“Hmm?” she says lazily, and her face pops into my field of vision. She props herself up on one elbow as the blanket falls away from her, and my eyes trace the curve of her neck, that perfectly kissable juncture of smooth, pale skin where the strap of her swimsuit disappears over her shoulder.

My view is obstructed as Molly leans closer to me, smiling sleepily, before dropping a tiny kiss on the tip of my nose. She seems amused by my reaction as she leans back again; her lips curve into a wide smile, her eyes dancing as she laughs.

“Look at that,” she says, placing one finger under my chin and closing my gaping mouth. “Look at that face you’re making.”

“You—you can’t—”

“Mmm,” she hums, still looking amused. “Can’t I, though?” She leans back in.

Soft lips on my neck.

Hot breath on my ear.

“Molly,” I gasp in protest—even as my arms tighten around her.

“I was just thinking,” she murmurs into the patch of skin below my ear. “We’re stuck here, and I like you. I’ve always liked you. May as well enjoy ourselves, right?”

“No!” I get out. My brain is on the fritz, my blood humming with want, my hands itching to trace her curves. “No,” I say again.

She pulls away, pouting, a ridiculous face with that bottom lip pushed out in a way that makes me want to nip at it. “You’re no fun,” she says, giving me the most pathetic puppy-dog eyes I’ve ever seen. “No fun at all…”

And then darkness.

“Beckett!”

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