Page 52 of Take Me Home for Christmas

When he returned from the bathroom a few minutes later, dressed and ready to sneak out, Hayden almost changed his mind. Elle had worked a leg free and goose bumps were forming on her skin in the chilly night air. But rather than crawl in beside her to warm her up, he covered her with one of the bright Christmas throw blankets her mom had strewn about the suite. He took a minute to fold Elle’s clothes and place them beneath the nightstand along with her shoes just in case she suddenly woke from one of her nightmares.

“You’re safe, Elle,” he mouthed. “Get some rest.”

He forced his feet to move away from his sleeping beauty. Using the light on his cell phone, he crept down the stairs in the bootlegger’s passageway, nearly colliding with someone at the bottom. He aimed his light at the other person.

“Aunt Kitty?” he hissed.

“Hayden?” his aunt whispered.

His aunt looked as rumpled as the woman he’d just left upstairs. And was that a damn love bite on her neck? He was going to kill West.

Hayden must have said that last part out loud because his aunt reached out and grabbed his arm.

“You’ll do no such thing,” she said with a quiet forcefulness that stunned him.

“How long have you been sneaking in and out of the inn?” he demanded. “And how do you even know about these passageways?” Hayden had discovered them alongside Elle’s brothers a decade ago.

She dipped her chin. “Patricia might have mentioned them earlier this evening. And aren’t you the pot calling the kettle black?”

A sound upstairs had them both jumping. Aunt Kitty tugged on his arm until they reached the panel that led out of the inn. The ocean breeze was bracing this time of night. His aunt wrapped her arms around her midsection. They walked a few paces before they turned and looked at each other.

“Do not tell your mother,” his aunt commanded.

“Don’t tell Mom,” he said at the same time.

She chuckled as she began striding down the long driveway. “I’d like to go on the record as saying I’m all in with Team Elle and Hayden.”

If only there were a “Team Elle and Hayden.”

“What makes you think I was with Elle?”

She shot him a look that clearly saidcome on. “Livi was coughing up a storm when I passed by her room. From what Patricia mentioned, she’s still pretty sick.”

Guilt licked at his belly. He and Livi had barely shared a kiss on the cheek since they met, though. Hayden owed her nothing. Still, he made a mental note to let her down gently once her flu subsided.

“I appreciate the support,” he told her. And he did. “But we are keeping things on the down low.”

“For now, you mean?”

Could be forever.

He hated how much it hurt to think Elle might still choose her career over him. When he didn’t answer, Aunt Kitty threaded her arm through his.

“The heart knows what it wants. You are her North Star, Hayden. You always have been. Elle will always find her way back to you.”

While he appreciated his aunt’s optimism, he wasn’t convinced Elle wanted to find her way back to Chances Inlet. “All the same, I would prefer not to let my mom in on any potential Team Elle and Hayden talk just yet.”

“You leave your mother to me. When the time is right, I’ll find a way to convince her to see reason.”

Hayden chuckled as they passed Mr. McDaniel’s brightly colored pine tree. “I don’t think I want to know how you’ll accomplish that.”

They were both wrapped in their own thoughts as they strolled down the quiet side streets in town.

“So, West, huh?” he eventually asked.

“He’s not the man you think he is.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it. Although he’s not scoring any points with me by making you walk home alone this late at night.”

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