Page 123 of The Thief Who Saved Christmas

When we return to the inn, Anabelle swings the door open for us before we even clear the top of the porch steps. She’s so gorgeous, and as soon as she sees us smiling, she smiles back and gets even more gorgeous. Cynthia is right behind her, giving Jeremy a wicked grin, and we both try to enter at the same time, nearly getting jammed in the doorway before Jeremy laughs and pushes me inside.

I set the bag of ornaments down on the front desk, sweep Anabelle up into my arms, and twirl her through the air, the skirt of her green dress billowing out.

I kiss her joyfully, because I spent the last few hours worrying about the future, and now it’s feeling pretty okay.

Besides, she needs to be kissed. Everything inside of me demands it. Her lips open for me, and she wraps her arms around my neck, burying her fingers into my hair. Maybe she feels the need to reassure herself like I do, because it’s several seconds before she pulls back.

“It worked?” she asks in an undertone, her face inches from mine.

“We saw them take him away, and he looked none too pleased.”

I feel the air from outside cut off, signaling that Jeremy has closed the door, and my buddy says, “I serenaded him as they drove him away. It felt only right.”

“We don’t know what took them so long to come out,” I say, tucking a few strands of hair behind Anabelle’s ear.

Cynthia erupts into hysterical laughter, and Anabelle starts laughing with her.

“Come on,” my girl says through it. “Come into the parlor.”

As the others file down the hallway, I pause to grab the ornaments from the desk before joining them. Anabelle and I sit down on the sofa, and I pull her into my lap. Jeremy and Cynthia settle in beside us in much the same way, and he asks her, “So what’d you do this time, Trouble?”

“I made some Ex-Lax cookies, and Anabelle offered them to him. He took two. I’m guessing the effects kicked in by the time he got back to the house with the police officers.”

“Brutal,” Jeremy says, kissing her nose.

I hug Anabelle close to me. “How wicked of you.”

She snuggles in, and a feeling of deep contentment fills me. “Where’s Joe?”

She smiles at me. “I convinced him to take your shift at Curio.”

Holy smokes. He took off after one baby doll bumped into him, and now he’s going to hang out at the toy store for hours?

“He’s a good friend,” I say, feeling choked up again. Doubly choked up, because Anabelle’s not someone who asks for favors easily.

“He’s family.” She gives me a brave smile. “We’re all family.”

I know why she’s saying it, and my heart hurts for her. I kiss the side of her face. “We are.”

“There’s something else we have to tell you,” Cynthia says, sounding reluctant to share her news. “The reporter says she can’t run the story.”

Not ideal, but what I care about most is that Weston is, temporarily, behind bars. He’ll get out on bail, of course, but maybe the scare will be enough to get him to act right. He’s never been in a holding cell before, I’m betting, and I have a feeling he won’t like it.

Anabelle was hoping we could get the charges against me dropped, but I doubt it. I hit him in front of a cop. Not smart. And if you do not-smart things, you sometimes pay for them.

What I care about is convincing Weston that he’ll get nothing but pain from hurting Anabelle.

“We need the publicity,” Jeremy says firmly.

Cynthia turns in his lap, her eyes bright, and places her hands on either side of his face. “You’re going to do it, you big, handsome lug.”

“Excuse me?”

“Didn’t you get tagged in like five thousand reposts of your dick video? We can use that to our advantage.”

“You want my dick to make a video about the missing Santa Clauses?”

“No. I want the stardom of your dick to spread the word far and wide for us.”

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