Page 51 of Sable's Santa Daddy

Chapter Thirty-Three

Jethro had seen the Hollingsfords’ house before because he had landscape clients in their neighborhood, but he’d sure as hell never been inside it.

Sable had told him he looked very handsome when they were leaving the house but he still felt out of place. Didn’t help that he wanted to wrench his tie loose, tug at the collar that felt like it was choking him, and take off the shoes that were a far cry from his beat up work boots that were perfectly molded to his feet.

He didn’t want to be here and he didn’t think Sable did either, but if she felt like shehadto be here, he wasn’t going to let her do it alone.

The house loomed in front of them as they walked up the front path. It was pretty, he supposed. Expensive certainly. But the grey stone and navy blue shutters and the white Christmas lights that looked like they’d been placed just so also seemed kinda…rigid.

It was funny for a man who enjoyed making rules for the woman he was with and punishing her when she broke them to wrinkle his nose at rigidity, but this felt different.

Like he’d told Sable earlier, she was going to make mistakes and she wasn’t going to be perfect and that was okay—he’d still love her.

This house and the people who lived in it, though? Gave off the impression that if you spilled something on the expensive furniture or got a smudge of dirt on the carpet that you’d be banished. Forever.

How could a person breathe in a place like that?

Maybe the answer was that a person couldn’t. It seemed like from what he knew about Sable that she hadn’t been able to. He could practically feel the tension radiating off her as they got closer to the door with the enormous wreath on it.

“Hey,” he said, squeezing her hand. “If this gets to be too much, just tell me and we’ll blow this popsicle stand. I’ve got no skin in this game except hoping there’s gonna be some shrimp cocktail. I really like shrimp cocktail.”

Sable snorted and gave him a fondly exasperated smile. “I promise you’ll get some shrimp cocktail before I have a meltdown.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, pulling her closer and planting a kiss on her temple.

A guy in a tux took their coats at the door and though he was trying to play it cool and be Sable’s rock, he couldn’t help but be a little dazzled by the scene inside. Greenery and lights and poinsettias everywhere, from the marble floors to the fifteen-foot coffered ceilings. Holy shit.

Given his business, he could do a few quick figures in his head and calculate that the decorations in the few rooms he could see probably cost thousands of dollars. Yep, the Hollingsfords had bank and weren’t afraid to show it off.

It only took a minute until Deirdre was bustling up to them, her mouth already pinched in a tight smile that really looked more like a frown.

“Sable,” she said, leaning in to give her daughter a couple of perfunctory air kisses, “I thought we discussed this. You weren’t going to wear this…eyesore to dinner.”

Deirdre looked pointedly at Sable’s sling and tilted her head like she expected Sable to strip it off and throw it in the fire at that very second.

“I—”

“Blame that on me,” Jethro interrupted. “She’s been in some pain and I didn’t want it to get worse. Given the turnout I knew you’d have, I didn’t want Sable getting jostled, thought people might give her some space if they knew she was hurt. She’ll take it off for family pictures when she needs to.”

Deirdre glowered at him. “There are candids, too, you know. Just try to stay out of the sight lines of the cameras.”

No wonder Sable thought she had to be perfect. Her mother hadn’t even expressed an ounce of sympathy or asked if she was feeling any better. Nah, Deirdre was concerned only about her pictures.

Jethro would trade all the Hollingsfords’ money for the warmth of his own family. He suddenly wanted to introduce Sable to them very badly. Show her it didn’t have to be this way.

Yeah, his brothers could be coarse, his sisters could be loud, the kids could be holy terrors, and his parents could be nosy as hell, but he’d never questioned their love. Never felt like he might get booted from the clan if he messed up.

He was about to compliment Deirdre’s decorating when the woman grabbed Sable by her arm—the one in the sling—and started towing her away. She threw a few careless sentences over her shoulder like he was a dog who should be happy with a bone.

“I have some things to discuss with Sable. Eat, drink, be merry. Excuse us.”

A growl rose in his throat because Sable had flinched when Deirdre dragged her away. Whether she was in physical pain from having her injured arm wrenched or emotional because no doubt her mother had something she wanted to give her opinion on, didn’t really matter to Jethro. All that mattered was Sable was hurt, and unless he was the one doing the meticulously calculated hurting, he didn’t like it.

But Sable was a grown woman and she’d been handling these people for twenty-eight years. He had to trust her to keep doing it the same way he’d trust her about real estate valuation or what shoes to wear or any of the other myriad things she was an expert on and he wasn’t. That didn’t mean he had to like it.

To occupy himself until Sable came back or until she put up the bat signal and he got her the fuck out of here, he snagged a beer from the bar—some kind of winter holiday microbrew abomination—and then made his way over to a table that was practically groaning under the weight of the food that was piled on it.

Fuck yeah there was shrimp cocktail, but there were also raw oysters, lobster tails, monstrous crab legs, caviar, and some stuff he didn’t even recognize. And that was just the seafood table.

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