Page 31 of Santa's Girl
I sighed.Here we go.
The bathroom was small, tiled, the mirror cracked at one corner. I had barely turned on the faucet when the door banged open.
Jess strode in like she owned the place.
“Of course,” I muttered. “The cliché ex-girlfriend scene. Let me guess—you’re here to warn me off Bear? Don’t bother. He’s just babysitting me.”
Her mouth curved. “You look a little old to need a babysitter.”
“Tell him that,” I said.
She moved closer, perfume and smoke trailing behind her, and before I could step back she caught my arm. Not hard, just enough that I felt it. Her voice dropped low.
“Don’t sleep with him,” she said. “You’ll never get over it if you do. Man’s addictive as hell. No one’s ever put it down on me like he did. Serious Big-D energy, too. I wish I could forget, but I can’t.”
For a heartbeat I just stared at her, caught between shock and laughter. Maybe a bit turned on. Then I gently pulled my arm free.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, my voice steady even though my pulse wasn’t. “Thanks for the PSA.”
She gave a short, humorless laugh and walked out, leaving the door swinging on its hinges and the smell of her perfume behind.
I looked at myself in the mirror—hair a mess, cheeks pink from the cold, a woman who hadn’t planned on being anybody’s problem this Christmas—and whispered, “Too late.”
I went to the kitchen, finding it a safe pace from crazy MC women, just needing a minute. I was sipping my cocoa, half-listening to the buzz of the kitchen, when McDaniels—flour on his apron, hair wild like he’d wrestled a sack of potatoes and lost—slid a tray of cookies onto the rack and cleared his throat.
“Hey, uh… how’s your Aunt Margie doing? After, you know… Steve.” His cheeks went red—real red. Could’ve been the heat of the ovens, sure. Or the fact he couldn’t meet my eyes. I blinked, thrown for half a second. Was the Clubhouse cook… into my aunt? Margie, with her no-nonsense voice and killer lemon bars? I mean didn’t look a day over forty-eight of you asked me.
I covered my smile with a sip. “She’s doing alright,” I said slowly. “Why do you ask?” He shrugged like it was nothing, but the way he fumbled the spatula said otherwise. Huh. Interesting.
“Does your cell have signal, by chance? I need to call about my car.” He pulled out a device… “’Satellite booster’.’” Did some weird thing with it and then magic… I finally had a bar of signal, the first since I’d landed in this snow-globe nightmare. My phone blinked awake, and reality came rushing back with it.
I called the insurance company.
Big mistake.
Five minutes later I was sitting at the end of the bar, staring at the grain in the wood while the voice in my ear ran through numbers that didn’t sound real. The tow alone was five hundred bucks—apparently that’s what it costs to drag a car off a mountain where even AAA won’t go.
Bear had called the garage for me, got it hauled out before the snow buried it completely. I’d thought that was a miracle.
Turns out miracles come with invoices.
The mechanic said the taillights were busted, the bumper cracked, the front end folded like paper. The ice bank had been frozen solid; I was lucky all the airbags hadn’t gone off. Lucky to be alive actually.
But “lucky” wasn’t going to cover eight to ten grand in repairs. Or the state highway patrol threatening a ticket because they could.
“Okay,” I whispered, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and ended the call. The screen went dark.
I must’ve zoned out, because I didn’t hear him until he was right there.
“What happened to your fa-la-la?” Bear’s voice was rough but not unkind. “You look like somebody popped your balloon.”
I tried to smile. “Just… reality catching up. Got laid off before the holidays, remember? And now my car’s totaled. I don’t know how I’m supposed to fix it. And apparently the state police are looking for me.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then I felt his hand settle on my shoulder—heavy, warm, grounding.
“Come here, sugar.”
Before I could argue, he pulled me in. “I’ll handle it sugarplum.”
