Page 30 of Wounded Christmas Wolf
She sent herself a text from his phone that just saidJace. Seeing it plunk in with her text history with Rob was a little uncomfortable, but at least it pushed Rob down. She had thought about deleting Rob’s texts, then decided it would be best to keep them in case she had to show them to the authorities or something.
Jace took the phone back, his fingers rough and callused, but warm when they brushed against hers. It seemed to her that his hand lingered briefly. Then he cleared his throat, stepped away, and put the phone in his pocket.
“See you later, Holly,” he said with another of those intense looks. He went to the door, grabbed his town coat, and left.
Holly was left standing in the middle of the living room with her hand tingling where he’d touched it.
She found excuses to be downstairs for the next hour or so, tidying things that didn’t need to be tidied, putting the sheets in the dryer, hunting through her dad’s closet for a coat he didn’t wear that she could give to Jace in the morning. Every time a window rattled in the wind, she jumped, and when boots finally clomped up on the porch, she tightened her grip on the brush she was currently using to try to get dog hair off the couch, holding it in front of her like a weapon.
But it was just her dad; he came in with both dogs bouncing around him, snow dusted on the shoulders of his coat. “Snowing again, a little. Don’t think we’ll get enough to need to plow.”
“It’s certainly going to be a white Christmas,” Holly said absently. “I’m going up to bed.”
They almost never locked the door, but she made sure both the front and back were locked before she went upstairs.
Maybe Jace was right after all, she thought as she changed into her PJs and brushed her hair. She didn’t want to go through the entire holiday season jumping out of her skin every time her dad came into the house or one of the dogs knocked something over.
Downstairs, things quieted down as her dad went through his nighttime routine. A toilet flushed. The house was so quiet at night that she even heard Rocket’s toenails clicking as the dog prowled the downstairs before settling down to sleep.
Cupcake poked his nose in the door. Holly let him in, and he prowled the room, sniffing everywhere.
“I wish you’d been in the house when Rob showed up,” Holly remarked. “I bet you’d have bit him, and he would deserve it. Though you probably don’t. You might catch some?—”
A noise rattled at her bedroom window, and she jumped so violently she dropped her hairbrush and almost knocked a lamp over.
“Good grief,” she muttered, going over to secure the window just as it happened again, sounding like bits of driven ice clicking off the glass. They got that now and then in the winter when the wind was really blowing. It hadn’t seemed like such a windy night, though ...
Holly peered out, her heart in her throat, and relaxed when she saw Jace standing beneath the window in his inadequate coat, looking up, holding a handful of icy snow.
She pushed up the window and leaned out. The cold wind went straight through her pajama top. “What are you doing?” she whispered loudly.
“Getting your attention,” Jace whispered back.
“You have my phone number!”
Jace cupped his hands around his mouth and said softly, “You would have just told me to stay in the cottage.”
“Well, now I’m telling you to go back to it! My dad’s going to hear you.”
He shook his head.
Holly sighed. “Come around to the front,” she whispered. “I’ll let you in.”
She padded downstairs, barefoot. The house was completely dark, with just the light of the barn light coming in through the window, casting shadows. Rocket stirred in her bed in front of the radiator. “Go back to sleep,” she told the collie quietly, and unlocked the front door with as little noise as possible. She cracked it open. Jace had come up on the porch so stealthily she hadn’t even heard him. Heghosted inside on a gust of cold air and closed the door behind him.
“What are you doing here?” Holly whispered, hugging herself. She felt vulnerable, barefoot in her loose flowered PJs. She could sense the winter cold coming off Jace, trapped in the folds of his coat and the hair on his hatless head.
And at the same time, she felt better than she had all evening. More relaxed.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he whispered back. “I’ll spend the night here, and leave before your dad gets up. Just in case.”
“Oh, Jace, no ...” But there was that clenched fist of tension inside her that had relaxed as soon as he came through the door. All her jumpiness melted away like snow in the spring sun.
“If you shut me out, I’ll just sleep on the porch,” he told her quietly. “I’m not leaving you alone with that guy coming around. Your dad’s bedroom is at the back of the house, right? Would he hear if someone came in?”
“Maybe not,” she admitted. If her dad knew, he would sit up all night with a shotgun, probably. Or, no, he’d talk to the sheriff, and they’d both talk to Rob .... and then what? With Rob’s banker dad connected to everyone in town, she didn’t know what kind of hornet’s nest they might stir up.
“I just want to keep you safe,” Jace said, and the sincerity in his eyes, in his voice, undid her.
