Page 114 of The Thief Who Saved Christmas

“He sent you here to steal my grandmother’s ornament,” I say softly, my hands still caressing him—his hair, his back, his firm chest through his clothes—while my legs encircle his waist.

“Anabelle,” he says, pulling away enough to look me in the eye. “How’d you…”

I smile at him. “Why else would you have come to The Crooked Quill by yourself under an assumed name?”

He gives me a half-hearted smile. “Right. You’re smarter than me.”

“Is it a problem that you were arrested? Will the police know it’s a fake ID?”

“I had my real ID on me. Roark always had us destroy our fake IDs after sending us somewhere.”

“So all I had to do was look in your wallet to learn your real last name?”

He shrugs, looking remorseful. “I should have told you. I was…ashamed. I wanted to leave the past behind, but you were right when you told me that’s impossible. I might not want to be Ryan Langston anymore, but he’ll always be a part of me.”

“Good. Because I love him too. I love all of the parts of you.”

“God, I really don’t deserve you.”

“We’re going to add that to the list of things you should stop staying.”

He holds my gaze. “I need you to know I didn’t steal the ornament. I couldn’t. I got to talking to your grandmother, and she told me about you and the inn and your parents. Hell, she told me the whole story of the ornament I’d been sent to take. She also told me she was dying. I decided I was going to leave in the night and face the music with Roark, but I went in to look at the ornament one last time. You know, one last look at the thing that was going to screw me. She caught me in there and knew I was up to something. I found myself telling her everything, Anabelle, and she…”

A couple of tears fall down his cheeks, and my whole heart belongs to him. To this man who only knew my grandmother for a day but loved her. To the boy he was, so lost and lonely and in need of human kindness that he let himself be taken in by a horrible man.

I lean in and kiss the tears away, tasting their salt, and look up into his golden eyes. “She gave it to you, didn’t she?”

Fresh tears fall from his eyes, and I squeeze my legs around him and hug him. “She did,” he says. “And I promised her I’d come back on December 1st.”

“You did.”

“No,” he says, pulling back to smile sheepishly at me. “I was tardy.”

I smile too, loving this symmetry between us. But I have one question left for him, perhaps the most important. “How’d you get away from that awful man, Ryan?”

“It’s a long story, but it comes down to this. He wasn’t going to let me leave. One of his enforcers, Javier, and I were good friends, and I got to know his other guy, Mike, too. I convinced them there was no reason we should keep getting paid peanuts when we were the ones who did all the work and took all the risks. So I helped them empty his stockroom full of stolen goods. I took the ornament and the antique watch that cost me mybrother, which Roark hadn’t sold yet, and they kept everything else. I returned the watch to its rightful owner for Jake before I came here.”

“Are you sure Roark isn’t going to come after you?” I ask, instantly imagining the worst. A criminal, showing up at the B&B to kidnap Ryan.

“Yeah,” he says. “His operation had gotten a lot smaller by then. Javier and Mike were the only muscle he had left. Without them, without me and Jake, he’s just an old man without any respect for the law. Javier’s been keeping an eye on him, and it looks like he’s buying a place in the Caribbean.”

“He’s getting away with it,” I say with an aggrieved sniff. “That hardly seems fair.”

He nods. “But if he doesn’t get away with it, then neither do I. Or Jake. Or Javier. Maybe I don’t deserve to. I can make excuses for myself all I like, but I was a criminal, Anabelle.” He rubs his nose, looking so obviously miserable that I don’t need to ask him how he’s feeling. “And even though Cynthia’s dad seems like he’s a great lawyer, there’s a chance he won’t get me off. I got arrested a couple of times as a kid. I don’t know if the police have seen that yet. I wasn’t sure how much to tell Mr. Matthews.”

“Say anything you want to Cynth’s father, and then only share what he tells you it’s okay to say. Aren’t juvenile records sealed?”

“I don’t know anything about that. Or anything in general, it feels like.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“We?” he asks, giving me a look that’s half puppy dog.

“We,” I insist firmly. “Now, as much as I love this Santa costume, let’s get you out of it and into the shower. You smell like a jail cell.”

“Oh shit, sorry.” He gently lifts me off to the side and then takes off his socks and shoes and gets up. The sight of his barefeet on my carpet makes me feel grounded, and I nearly laugh. I’m relieved, I realize. Relieved that it wasn’t worse, and that I, at least, find his past excusable. I have no doubt that a judge and a jury would feel differently, but I have no intention of letting him face a judge and a jury anytime soon.

I get up too and unfasten his Santa coat, running both of my hands up his powerful chest until I get to his thick arms. One push, and the oversized jacket falls to the ground, revealing more of him to me. But not enough.

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