Page 51 of Hero: Claimed

He sighs an insufferable sigh. “Whatever.” But he does as tasked, stuffing his cart with more outdoor lights. I have a cart full of inflatable lawn ornaments, tree ornaments, and every other Christmas decoration I can get my hands on.

Despite how much I like seeing her in my brown jacket, it’s too cold for a simple leather jacket now. I put Hannah in charge of picking out the winter coat, gloves, hat, earmuffs, scarf… anything she thinks Brin will use for the winter or what I like to call the reason I gave my woman for going out to Walmart with her sister.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this for her,” Hannah says as she sniffles.

“Get my woman a coat? What, you think I’m an asshole?”

Hannah punches my shoulder. “No, but youarea dumbass. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing for my little sister.”

I’ll buy out the whole goddamn store to give Brinley the Christmas she’s always dreamed of. It doesn’t matter how much money I have to spend to make it happen, which is a good thing because it ends up costing me over $600 at checkout.

Four weeks after that…

“Han, I’m leaving now.” Chaos let me take the day off, even though I’ve only been back on the job for a week. Brin needed my help. Period. But when she felt ready to return, obviously, I returned with her.

Hannah walks out of her bedroom looking beautiful as always. She’s wearing a tight pair of jeans, those UGG-style boots, a pink knit cap, and gloves, along with a puffy coat. She wears her makeup heavier than Brin. But Brin’s so naturally beautiful, she only wears it because she wants to.

“Come on, woman,” I say, holding my arm out to her.

Butch steps behind the bar from the kitchen. “Damn, Hero,” he says, “One Brown woman not enough for you?”

“One Brown woman is all I’ll ever need, man. We’re just making sure she wants to keep me around.” Ain’t that the truth? Brinley won’t ever forget this Christmas.

I pull open the door for Hannah and we’re hit by a blast of frigid air. Feeling that wind, part of me is ready to sayfuck itand stay inside. But no, I’m about to win the boyfriend of the year award, here. We leave the warmth of the clubhouse to step into a bitter chill of December wind and blowing snow. “We need fucking Rudolph to get through this,” I yell to Hannah as we fight our way to the truck. Remote start—gotta love it. I already had it heating for us. As the climate’s been shifting, winters have been getting colder and snowier every year.It’s a miracle that we make it to the doors; the wind practically pushes us backward.

Even with snow tires on the truck, I take it slow going down the mountain. Brinley and I have too much life to live for me to bite it in a winter storm and I don’t know if she’d forgive me if I killed her sister. It takes me twice as long as it normally would, but Hannah and I reach our destination in one piece, which is the most important thing today. We fight our way through the near-blizzard conditions, stepping through knee-high snowdrifts, to make it inside the Walmart at the top of the hill in the uptown district. Yes, with a couple of new home stores and restaurants on top of the hill, Thornbriar now has an uptown.

Hannah’s with me today to get the shopping done because she’s a shopping guru. Brin and I are hosting a holiday meal and she doesn’t even know it.

After planning a menu on the fly, we decide on turkey and ham to give the guests options. She’s helping make a chestnut stuffing, a yam casserole, homemade cranberry sauce—Brin made it for Thanksgiving and it was so fucking good we had to have it for Christmas, too—vegetable, cheese and pickle and olive platters, mashed potatoes, and white gravy. I’m making green bean casserole because it’s Brinley’s favorite and I want to give her that.

Then it’ll be whatever anyone else wants to bring. Duke says Caity makes the best pies I’ll ever put in my mouth. Now, I’m not for getting in an argument with my president, so I let him have that one, but Brinley cooks like she went to school for it, so I’m pretty sure she could take Caity in a pie battle.

On the way home, I call Tommy and Maryanne to invite them to Christmas dinner. Then I catch Boss and Elise, then Sneak and Trisha, and finally, Chaos and Liv. I think either Blood, Duke, or Hannah got to them before me because not one couple or family say they have other plans.

When we turn onto the compound, I drop Hannah back at the clubhouse and we haul all the groceries inside to the kitchen with notes attached to everything we need for our dinner, threatening the life of any brother or hot mama who even thinks about touching our food.

Blue took off work early to help me get the house ready. We had to wait until the wind and snow died down. The forecast says we have a small window of time to work with before we’re hit by another round of shitty weather. He meets me in my bedroom in the clubhouse, where I’ve been hiding all the decorations. Well, the decorations minus the ones for the tree and the few to decorate the inside of the house. The day after Thanksgiving, Brin wanted to put a tree up, which meant she and I huffed it out to a Christmas tree farm, where I sawed that sucker down and dragged it back to pay for it.

She made me buy a silly mantle to fit around the stove pipe in order to hang our stockings. I could’ve made it myself, but I no longer own the tools. And she didn’t exactlymake me… she asked. And I did it because turning Brin down isn’t something I’m apparently capable of.

Before we get to work on the lights, I walk over to Duke and Caity’s place. Jade squeals in the way only a little kid who’s in the throes of Santa’s-coming-to-town excitement can. She answers and yells, “Daddy, Hero and Blue are here.” Then she follows that up with, “What did you get me for Christmas?”

Both Blue and I laugh. “You’ll have to wait until Christmas, squirt.” I answer.

“Fine,” she says, her mouth turned down in a pout.

“Gonna freeze out there. Come in,” Duke yells and from the distance, I know it’s from the living room floor. When we walk in, he’s changing Diesel’s diaper.

“The Ellises coming to Christmas dinner?” I ask.

“Fuck, yeah. My wife’s been baking pies for the past two nights. She’s got some chocolate-cherry upside-down cake planned and a trifle or some shit. So you can count us in. Four’ll be there, three’ll eat.”

“Good deal,” I say. “We got more houses to hit. Did you get the lights up?”

“Not a brother, old lady, or kid’ll have seen anything like it.”

Perfect. We clap hands and Blue and I leave to visit with Scotch and Frankie and even Crass and Brighton, who moved into a place on the property right before Thanksgiving. All the women asked what they could bring. I had to keep a mental note of everything the other women said they were bringing.

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