Page 4 of Unruly Kris

“What about your mother?” She noticed he approached the topic carefully, knowing how she felt about talking about her family. His eyes were kind, and she reached out to grasp his hand again and took her time answering.

“We are...not close in a conventional sense.” She chose her words carefully. “I talk to her maybe two or three times a month, but she spends every Christmas in Puerto Vallarta with friends.”

“There’s a story there,” Kris surmised. “I’m willing to listen if you want to talk about it, you know that.”

“It’s not that dramatic, we’re not estranged, there was no big fight or disagreement.” Cath assured him. “She just…keeps me at arm's length. I think it’s to protect herself to be honest. She lost her husband and then her son to the military, then her only surviving child ditched a possible safe career in science to join up and serve as well. I don’t think she could handle it if something happened to me, so she just chooses to stay on the outskirts of my life. I’ve learned to accept it.”

“That’s bullshit.” Kris made a face in disbelief and to her surprise there was a current of anger in his voice. “You’re supposed to support what your kid decides to do with their life. If I had a daughter who was as strong and smart as you are, I’d be so proud of her, they’d have to tie me down. I’d be singing it from the rooftops.”

“I would too.” Cath admitted. “But everyone has their limits. I’ve learned to respect hers.”

“You’re kinder than me.” Kris frowned, such a rarity for him that Cath realized she could count on her hands the number of times she had actually seen him do it before. “My dad was a mean asshole, and even worse when he drank.”

“Is that why Christmas wasn’t that important?” Cath felt a pang of sadness he had grown up like that. As fractured as her family was, she had good memories of what time she had spent with her parents and brother.

“Largely. I mean, my mom tried her best to make it normal, but he hated when the attention wasn’t centered around him, and Christmas was just an excuse to drink more and ruin things.” He shrugged a shoulder, and she could see he was trying to seem indifferent, as if it didn’t matter how hurt he felt in the past. “I’ll be honest when I say I don’t have a lot of great holiday memories until I could make them myself. In the past I’ve pretty much just used Christmas as an excuse to go away somewhere expensive for vacation and party until it was over.”

“And now?” She was suddenly nervous about what he was going to say, realizing that she wanted to spend her Christmas with him, to make it a holiday he could look back on and say he enjoyed because they were together for it.

“Now, I don’t care what I do for the holidays as long as I’m doing it with you.” He looked away, and although it seemed impossible for a man who often ran on ego and caffeine, he actually sounded nervous. Cath suddenly had a moment of clarity. She wasn’t the only one who hated feeling vulnerable and exposed.

“Well, it’s a damn good thing I want to spend Christmas with you.” It was the truth. Thinking back to her earlier thoughts about how her army issue house was suddenly feeling like a home, she realized it was very possible that for the first time in a long time she could have a Christmas at home with someone she loved. It gave her a giddy feeling, like she downed far too many of the coffee flavored pre-workout drinks Kris was now stowing on the door of her fridge. “So, what do you say to us spending our first Christmas together, just the two of us, making some traditions that we like for us?”

“I say that sounds like a movie of the week plot,” Kris cleared his throat, and she could hear the relief in his voice. It gave her heart pause, sometimes with all they had been through it was far too easy to forget they weren’t made of stone. “And I am totally in.”

Getting up, not caring if anyone saw them or if it would end up on a tabloid the next morning, she walked purposefully around the table, cupped his cheek softly with one hand and kissed him. Immediately he reached up, threading his fingers into her hair and kissing her back until her head was spinning and her heart was hammering in her chest.

A soft noise caused them to separate, and they both turned to see the waitress standing awkwardly off to the side of their table with an unimpressed smirk on her face, holding the two portions of chocolate mousse they ordered for dessert. Cath responded by giving her the “fuck you” death glare she normally reserved for recruits pissing her off and in short order the women was scurrying back to the hostess station as if her Louboutins were on fire.

“You really should learn to market that; you’d make a fortune.” Kris gave an impressed snicker and swirled the spoon in his dessert.

“Ah, but then it would be less impressive,” Cath pointed out then dropped her voice to a low whisper, gesturing with her spoon casually. “Plus, how else am I going to let other women know you’re mine?”

“Possessive, I like it.” Kris grinned. “I cannot wait to get you on the red carpet, heads are going to roll. It’s going to be glorious.”

“For you,” Cath winced but she was also laughing at the gleeful look on his face. “For me it’s going to be like walking on glass, however I’ll gladly do it like a good little soldier.”

“Anything coming up you want me on your arm for? When’s the military ball again?” His tone was jovial, and she got the impression that the idea of them going out together while he was recovering was easier to handle than the thought of tackling events alone if she was unavailable.

“It’s not until the end of January.” Cath idly trailed her spoon through the chocolate mousse. “But there’s something tomorrow you can help me with, a covert mission of sorts.”

“Bring it on!” From the look on his face, she could tell it was exactly what he needed to feel better, something to make him feel a bit more useful and back in the game. She just hoped what she had in mind would work out and not fall flat. “Give me the details.”

Cath leaned across the table and began to fill him in on what she had in mind. It was definitely out of his element, but as she tried to sell him on the idea it could be a fun way to kick off their holidays together, she could see him getting more excited than he had been in weeks, and that alone, made it double worth the while.

4

The next morning, by “ass crack of dawn” as Kris liked to put it, Cath was up and plotting to get them out of the house far earlier than she knew he would have liked. On a normal morning, be it a day off or working, she was an early riser, and her wake up routine was quick and efficient. It was more than regular for Kris to sleep through her leaving, so she wasn’t surprised when she got up and he remained curled under the covers snoring softly, never waking as she moved about the bedroom. She brushed a kiss to the top of his head, took a quick shower and headed for the kitchen, throwing on a pot of coffee and sputtering until it was almost ready.

As she began sourcing the ingredients to see if she had everything to make omelets for breakfast, she began making a mental list of holiday things she and Kris could do, things that were both traditional and fun that he may not have gotten the chance to enjoy before. Most overly physical activities were out due to his injuries, but by the time the coffee was brewed, and she poured herself a cup, she had a firm handle on a plan to make Christmas fun for both of them.

First up on her list was today’s expedition and tonight it was on to decorating the tree.

The evening before, they stopped on the way home to get a Christmas tree, only to find that getting it up on top of the Subaru, off again, and into the house when she was doing all the lifting would be impossible, even for her. It was also a given that it would also be impossible for Kris, for two reasons: one being his injuries and two being that he hated to see her struggle and do all the work when normally he’d have been more than able to help. Instead, they picked a six-foot Douglas fir and arranged for it to be delivered the next afternoon. It would be much easier for her to get it in the house and set it up in the living room with added help from the delivery service, as much as she hated to grudgingly admit it. It also gave her the opportunity to hunt through her storage room and find her lights and decorations. It had been years since she dragged them out and seeing the boxes stacked in her living room gave her a giddy feeling she thought was long forgotten.

With omelet ingredients laid out on the counter and her own coffee half gone, she grabbed another mug from the cupboard and poured another then headed back towards the bedroom. She slipped the coffee on the nightstand next to Kris’s inert form and dropped another kiss to the top of his head. “Time to wake up.”

“Says who?” Kris muttered, pulling the blanket around himself like a shield.

---