Page 151 of A Merry Mountain Christmas

Aidan is enthusiastic enough about this prospect, on top of the allure of getting to open the box and set up the game by himself, that he nods and enters the house ahead of us. I shut the door, still feeling Jace’s gaze on me. Goodness. I can feel it in every cell of my body, it seems.

“You already apologized,” he comments.

“Not properly,” I say, steeling myself to be open with him. Vulnerable, if the situation requires it. “I made that call to Butterfly Buddies before I looked up the incident.” It occurs to me belatedly that I’m essentially admitting that I spent the afternoon Googling him, but he doesn’t look surprised or particularly annoyed by it. More like he expected as much.

He nods slightly, telling me to go on.

“It’s just…when you said you’d stolen a car…I assumed it had happened recently. I thought that…”

“I know what you thought, Mary,” he says, his voice so deep and rich when he says my name that I can feel it between my legs. My entire body shudders, and I lose track of all the things I meant to say. He smirks a little, although not meanly. “You thought I was running a chop shop out of my garage. As it happens, I live in an apartment. A setup like that would be totally impossible.”

“But at the time you were arrested, you lived in Sydney. You were running your family business.”

He nods but doesn’t say anything, his lips in a tight line, and it occurs to me that I probably shouldn’t have said that. Talking about his family upsets him.

So I blurt out, “My sister says she let you adopt a cat. She wouldn’t do that if you weren’t a good person.”

“Your sister’s Maisie?” he asks, surprised. “She’s good people. Taking Bingo in was one of the best decisions I ever made. Not that it was much of one. She was holding an adoption event at a brewery, and he escaped his crate. Came right over and curled up on my lap.”

Smart cat.

I choke down the thought. “Did you name him? Bingo should be a dog’s name.”

It’s an inane sentiment. The kind of thing that would have Molly sighing because I’m too literal to be alive. But he just smiles, slow and sexy.

“What can I say? I like to reverse expectations.”

“Well, you’ve reversed mine,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat. “What I mean to say is that I understand people make stupid mistakes, and yours was a long time ago…” Oh, dear. I probably shouldn’t have said it was stupid. Itwasstupid, but he looks like he’s on the verge of laughing again, which means it wasn’t the right thing to say.

“Haveyouever made any mistakes?” he asks, and from the devilish way he’s saying it, it’s almost like he’s asking me to make one—with him.

The rogue part of me wants that. Needs it.

“Yes, of course,” I stammer out instead, ignoring the subtext, which is almost certainly in my imagination. “Terrible ones. There was one really stupid one when I was a teenager, and you’ve heard about my ex-husband.” I blush. Again. “Of course,it wasn’t totally a mistake, because I got Aidan out of it, and I’m more grateful for him than anything.”

“I know that.” He reaches toward my face, and my heart feels like it’s about to beat out of my chest as his fingers near the soft flesh of my cheek. When he tucks an escaped lock of hair behind my ear, I almost melt into a puddle.

“You’re a good mom,” he says. “I know you were just worried about him. I get it. And you were probably right. It might not be a good idea for him to get too attached to me, and me to him, given that you and I are attracted to each other.”

Shock roils through me. It’s as if I’ve opened my eyes and found myself on a different planet, where the ground is as solid as a bounce house and left is right and right is left.

No, it’s not possible.

I gawk at him, taking in his sparkling eyes, the golden ends of his hair, and that short beard that shouldn’t look good, but oh God, it looks really good…

“Did you just say…?” I start.

It’s then that Aidan bursts through the door, holding something in his hand. He thrusts it out in front of him, scrunching his nose. “Did you get me this, Mom? It came in the box with my game. It was in a container, but I took it out.”

Shock renders me mute and still, like a pillar of salt. Especially since I can feel the intense scrutiny of Jace’s eyes. There’s no way Aidan knows what he’s holding, but Jace must know.

No, no, no, no, no, this can’t be happening.

The vibrator wasn’t supposed to come until tomorrow. Why would they pack it with a children’s board game?

A twisted sense of humor? A lack of reasonable bathroom breaks in the warehouse?

Aidan waves the bright pink vibrator around.

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