Page 31 of The Thief Who Saved Christmas

“Look, if you ask me, you shouldn’t rush into doing anything you’re not ready to do. Why don’t you let me handle Hot Chocolate Happy Hour again? When we get back, you can get some rest.”

“I should be doing my job, Ryan,” she says, straightening in her seat. “I should be able to do my job.”

“My old boss told me delegating was what bosses did.” Usually before he sent me to do something he didn’t want to do, but best not to mention that.

She rubs the Santa’s belly as if it were a genie’s lamp, then looks at me again. “Why are you helping me?”

Because I want to.

Because I enjoy being around her.

Because she’s gorgeous and funny and smart and interesting, and the only sensible thing to do is worship her.

But that doesn’t make her any less off-limits…

I rub the back of my neck. “I have my reasons. Can we leave it at that for now?”

She sighs. “You could have said nothing and it would have meant as much.”

Story of my life.

I insiston bringing Anabelle through a drive-through to get lunch, since she doesn’t seem up for the restaurant experience. We park on the side of the road within view of the College of William & Mary’s campus and scarf down our food. Her phone buzzes about half a dozen times with incoming texts and calls before she turns it off without checking the screen.

She tells me she attended William & Mary, which isn’t surprising. It’s a good school, probably only a mile from her grandmother’s B&B, and she’s both scary smart and not the sort of person who’d want to go far from home.

Besides…it looks like a place that would suit her, the same way the inn does. The buildings are old, brick, and covered in vines.

Old places, old things.

I’m a man who’s stolen old things from wealthy people. I didn’t do it for myself, but that doesn’t make it better. If this law-abiding woman knew the truth, she’d want nothing to do with me. I should remember that.

“Where’d you go to school?” she asks offhandedly, her gaze on one of the buildings. Maybe she answered questions about Shakespeare in there.

“I didn’t. I didn’t even graduate high school.”

She drops what’s left of her veggie burger just as I’m taking a sip of Pepsi. Judging by the look of shock on her face, she did it in reaction to what I said, and I start laughing so hard the drink snorts up my nose. Which makes me laugh harder.

“I’m sorry,” she says, reaching for her scattered burger and throwing the bits and pieces into the fast food bag. There’s a look of disgust on her face, as if she’s collecting worms and not a sandwich that was making its way into her mouth thirty seconds ago, but she doesn’t give up. “I’m clumsy.”

“And unimpressed by the uneducated. That’s okay. Smart people usually are. I was no good in school. I hated sitting in one place for too long. It drove me crazy. Eventually, I decided to do everyone a favor and stop going.”

She meets my gaze, her eyes wide. “Someone failed you.”

I laugh again. “I like your interpretation. If you ask any of my old teachers, they’d tell you I’m the one who failed.”

“Not everybody learns the same way. I didn’t learn to talk until I was three. My parents thought I was mute, but then I started answering them in full sentences.”

“Admit it,” I say, stuffing my drink into the cup well by the seat. “You didn’t want to talk because your dad’s kind of a dick.”

She shrugs. “It certainly didn’t help.”

I smile at her, feeling drawn in. Wanting more. But I can tell how exhausted she is—she wears it in the slump of her shouldersand the far-off look that keeps surfacing in her eyes, like she’s fading in and out.

I pull out of the space and drive toward the B&B. When I park in Anabelle’s usual spot, I give her a sidelong glance. “I can tell you were a straight-A student.”

“You’re mistaken,” she says. “I got a C– in chemistry.”

“A C– for me would have been like getting on the honor roll.”

---