Page 29 of Mountain Man Grinch
Gus huffs loudly, turns in a circle, and collapses onto his back between us likePet me first, bitch.
Davin drags a hand down his face.
“This is my life now, isn’t it?”
“Yep,” I giggle, pulling him down for a kiss. “You, me, and the gremlin.”
Epilogue
ARIELLE
The first thing I notice is the quiet.
No howling wind, no rattling windows, no distant engines. Just the soft crackle of a fire and the slow, steady thump of a heart beneath my ear.
Davin’s.
I burrow closer on instinct, fingers fisting in his thermal, breathing in cedar smoke and leather and something that smells like home. For half a second, I let myself hover between sleep and waking, floating in that sweet space where danger is still a bad dream and I haven’t yet remembered that the world can be cruel.
Then, I hear snoring from the living room. Gus. It’s a tiny, snuffling chainsaw. My lips curve.
Okay. Not a dream.
I blink my eyes open.
Davin’s side of the bed is empty, thermal rumpled, sheets still warm. In his place is a folded red flannel with a note tucked on top in his scrawled, no-nonsense handwriting.
Stay in bed. No peeking. —D.
I grin.
Yeah, right.
Slipping out from under the covers, I tug on his flannel. It hangs to mid-thigh, smelling like him.
I crack the bedroom door, noticing a soft glow emanating from the end of the hallway.
I tiptoe its dark length, grimacing at every squeaky floorboard. Then, I gasp.
Davin’s cabin—his bare-bones, Grinch-ass, strictly-functional cabin—has exploded in Christmas.
A huge pine tree stands in the corner by the front window, branches sparkling with white lights and mismatched ornaments. Some are clearly new, shiny red and gold balls, snowflakes, tiny silver stars. Others are older, dented metal and wood, like they’ve been sitting in a box in someone’s attic for years.
A plaid tree skirt pools at the base of the trunk, wrapped around a few carefully placed presents. Red and white stockings hang from the mantel, one with a scrawledD, one with anA… and one tiny bulldog-faced one with aGUSin crooked Sharpie letters.
Warm yellow lights are strung along the ceiling beams, draped over the curtain rods, twined around the railing by the door. The coffee table is covered in a red-and-green plaid runner with three little candles and a bowl of peppermint candies.
It looks like a Christmas card crawled in here and settled down to live.
“Wow…” My voice trails off.
As if on cue, Gus waddles toward me in a red knit sweater that I absolutely did not buy him.
I blink. “Is that … does his sweater have reindeer on it?”
Davin grimaces. “Callie sent it. Said if I didn’t put it on him, she’d tell Mateo to come up here and Christmas-judgment my ass.”
Gus pauses by the tree, the tiny bell on his collar jingling. The sweater is bright red with prancing reindeer, little snowflakes, and a huge white pom-pom on the hood.
