Page 46 of Not Your Average Vixen
“Don’t you worry. I plan to make him work for it,” Bridget answered.
Thrown off by Tom’s request, he met her gaze. A man could get drunk off the confidence brimming in her eyes. She thought she had the upper hand—thought she was holding all the cards. He parted his lips, ready to knock her down a peg when a pat to his back caught his attention. He turned to see the judge, eyeing him closely.
Soren shifted his weight from foot to foot. The rings in his pocket weighed nothing, but a strange heaviness had set in.
“Have fun cleaning up in poker,” he said, aiming for easy-going, but Tom’s grandfather didn’t move.
“There’s something about you two,” he said, wagging a finger at them.
Bridget blushed. She had to work on her poker face. Luckily, he was the king of suppressing his emotions.
“You’re right, Judge. We both care about Tom and Lori and want them to live their best lives,” he answered, leaning on his law degree with that statement. It wasn’t a lie. He wanted Lori Dasher to have a nice life—far the fuck away from his best friend.
“Hmm,” Judge replied, sharing a look with Dan.
When did these two become thick as thieves? Maybe it was an old guy thing.
The judge was a fascinating man. He’d spent his career in the family courts, which sounded like a goddamn nightmare. But the man’s office was littered with thank you cards and photographs of people he’d married, adoptions he’d overseen, even divorcees, who couldn’t stand each other but maintained a soft place in their hearts for the man.
There typically wasn’t a jury in family court, and the judge alone is tasked with ensuring justice—something that Franklin Abbott took seriously. The man was unequivocally fair and unwavering in his deployment of justice, but he did it with compassion. When he’d taught him how to fish, the judge’s steady demeanor, so different from what he’d experienced with his parents, had made him the man’s biggest fan. He’d never met the judge’s wife. The two had been high school sweethearts, and she’d passed away years before he’d met Tom. But the man still carried her high school photo in his wallet.
A sappy as hell move for most, but with the judge, it was the real deal. True love.
“I’ll see you both at dinner. Thank you for planning such a festive week for us, Birdie. I can tell that you’ve put quite a bit of thought into our time here in Kringle,” the judge added, then nodded to Dan as the men headed toward the old Rover.
Soren breathed a sigh of relief. If he could fool the judge, he could fool anyone.
He and Bridget waved as the pair made their way down the snowy drive, headed for Kringle Village, and thought of that crinkled photograph. He couldn’t imagine keeping any woman’s picture with him all the time.
Or could he?
An icy breeze picked up, and a lock of Bridget’s hair brushed against his arm.
And then it was just the two of them.
“Shall we,” he said, gesturing to the mountain house.
The massive one-story structure looked like something kids would dream up with multiple boxes of Lincoln Logs at their disposal. Tucked into the side of the mountain with smoke coming out of the stone chimney, this place was the epitome of rustic chic and had a certain charm he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
No matter. This would soon be the location where Tom came to his senses. He should look into flights to Bali or Australia. After his friend ended things with Lori, he’d need an adventure to get her out of his head.
“That was interesting,” Bridget said with a surreptitious twist to her lips as they crunched through the snow toward the house.
He pasted on his cocksure smirk. “See, I can be nice.”
She barked out a laugh. “No, you can’t.”
“I can’t?”
His pulse quickened. Why did he like going back and forth with her?
He reached to open the door, but she pressed her back against it before he could pull it open.
“I know what you’re doing, and I’m not falling for it, Scooter,” she said with a determined edge.
He took a step closer and tipped her chin to meet his gaze. Barely an inch apart, it would take no effort for him to lift her into his arms and kiss her into oblivion.
“What is it that you think I’m doing, Birdie?” he asked instead, his fingers twitching at the thought of gripping the globes of her perfect ass.
