Page 24 of Blame it on the Mistletoe
“Left it in the car.”
“I thought you alpha types always carry a gun with you.”
He stepped around the table to stand in front of her. “Not when it makes you uncomfortable.”
“You noticed that?” She rubbed the hem of her sweatshirt between her fingers, her gaze everywhere but on his.
Her unease had been hard to miss. There was a distinct difference between gun-shy and petrified, and he didn’t have to look in some file to guess at the kind of history she must have survived to have that reaction to a loaded weapon.
“I seem to notice everything about you,” he admitted.
The way she always put others first, the way she could look sexy even after standing in a downpour, and the way she fidgeted when she was nervous—like now.
He placed a hand over her fingers and intertwined them with his and,oh holy nightwas right. One touch was like adding a spark to a brick of C-4. Those lush lips formed the perfectOof surprise, and her eyes were equally round as she looked to him for an explanation.
Yeah, angel. It really is that powerful.
And she really was that nervous. Oh, her eyes didn’t stray far from his, down to his lips and back up, making the rounds every couple seconds, but he could feel the uncertainty rolling off her. She tightened her grip on his fingers and their arms swayed just enough to make him school-boy crazy.
Oh yeah, she was trouble. And he was neck-deep in it.
“What else have you observed?” she asked. “About me?”
“You look at obstacles like challenges, you like to be capable, you’re actually better at electrical stuff than me. And . . .” He glanced at the scene from Santa’s workshop—if Santa employed stuffed penguins—that sat on her windowsill and chuckled. “You have a bigger Christmas problem than drive-by decorating of public trees. It looks like a Christmas bomb exploded in here, but I didn’t see a tree by the fireplace.”
Or stockings. Or presents.
“Pax and I get up early on Christmas Eve and go get a tree, then spend the whole day decorating, wrapping presents, stringing popcorn.”
“That sounds fun.”
A fond smile washed over her face. “Yeah. It’s kind of our tradition now. The first Christmas it was just the two of us and we were broke. I was paying tuition for a school I wasn’t attending and was dealing with the cost of moving.” She waved a dismissive hand as though the details of sacrificing her future for her brother were insignificant. “I’d only started waiting tables and payday was the fifteenth. I didn’t want to buy a tree when I couldn’t afford to put anything under it. No kid wants to stare at an empty tree. So we waited until Christmas Eve, and somehow it all ended up working out. When the next year rolled around, I asked Pax if he wanted to get a tree, and he said he wanted to wait until Christmas Eve. So now it’s our thing.”
She stopped talking. “What?”
“You’re a pretty amazing sister,” he said, loving the shy expression that stole over her face.
“You already said that once.” Her voice was husky, and sexy.
“I guess I did. How about, you love baking.”
“How do you know?” She feigned shock, and he laughed.
“My stellar observation skills,” he joked But it was more than just the army of bears. In her kitchen she moved fluidly, calmly, as if all her worry and second-guessing and what-ifs melted away and Faith could be Faith. “They also tell me that you have a stubborn streak deeper than the Grand Canyon, especially when it comes to your independence.” He looked at her over his shoulder and caught her checking out his backside. “Even more so when it comes to me.”
“Because yourI’m a Big Bad Rangeract annoys me.”
“This Big Bad Ranger does something to you, angel.” He flashed her a wicked grin. “But I think you’re confusing your verbs.”
She tossed a raw dough bear at his head and he caught it, then popped it into his mouth. “You also have great aim. Softball?”
She floured her hands and the cookie cutter. “Skee-Ball at the arcade on Coney Island. Grand champ two summers straight.”
“You lived in Coney Island?”
“I lived a bunch of places. Why?”
“Lord help me, you are more suspicious than Matlock when he’s on a case,” he said.
