Page 80 of Santa's Girl
But I made a mental note anyway.
Christmas was going to be different this year.
Even if I had to strong-arm fate to make it happen or pop a few xanax.
I wanted to tell her.
Every damn time she looked at me with those eyes—bright, trusting, open—it scraped against the part of me I’ve spent years burying. The wreckage. The truth.
How broken I really am.
Not the kind of broken people see in movies, some romanticized scar-tissue version of pain. No. Mine’s real. Bone-deep. Ugly.
But I don't say it. Because I don’t want her to look at me differently. Or worse—leave.
Her phone buzzes with a message from the community center and she groans, “Crap, I’ve gotta go in. Something’s gone sideways again.”
“I’ll drive,” I said before she even finished.
She tried to protest. “Bear, no, you don’t have to?—”
I pressed a firm, hard kiss on her mouth. “You’re my woman now. I’ll drive.” It wasn’t a question. She was with me now and I wasn’t letting her drive on a snowy mountain road.
The roads were rough, but not worse than I’ve seen. I had her there in forty minutes flat, and when she stepped out, looking like a flustered elf in boots and my damn hoodie, I just leaned against the door and watched her run inside.
I should’ve left.
But I didn’t.
Good thing, too.
Because ten minutes later, the fire alarm went off, three toddlers were locked in the janitor’s closet, and someone had managed to short out the entire lighting grid for the rec hall’s “Winter Wonderland” stage setup.
I was halfway through rewiring the fuse box when Becca came skidding into the back room with two teen volunteers dragging folding chairs.
“Where did you—how did you?—”
I grunted, twisting the final wire. Lights flickered on like magic. “It was either fix the grid or watch you have a nervous breakdown trying to run this place on emergency lighting.”
She blinked at me. Then launched herself into my arms and kissed me in front of the art teacher, a confused nine-year-old ballerina, and a guy dressed as a snowman.
Worth it.
I was just starting to think maybe the night could still be ours. Maybe we’d make it back up to the cabin. Light a fire. Watch her dance around in fuzzy socks and my old Henley. Maybe I’d finally tell her something real.
Then my burner phone buzzed.
Three times.
I didn’t have to look to know it was MC business.
Urgent.
“Bear?” she asked, voice soft, already knowing.
I looked at her. Took a second. Burned the image of her face into my mind like it was the last peaceful thing I’d see for a while.
I pulled her close. Kissed her hard. Slow. Deep. Long enough for her to know that I didn’t want to leave. That if I had a choice, I wouldn’t.
