Page 40 of Another Christmas from Hell

Over the years, new families had come and gone, but no one stayed for long, leaving the neighborhood to slowly waste away. By the time that Bryce came up with the idea for this project, most of the homes had long ago been abandoned with only a few families living in the neighborhood, desperate to sell, while the rest of the houses had been taken by the town after years of neglect and failure to pay taxes.

It had taken some time, but Rory and Connor had been able to convince the town to sell the houses to them for a fraction of the asking price with the promise that they were going to bring the neighborhood back to its former glory. Now they were just waiting for old man MacGregor to agree to their offer, but Cayley knew the moment that she saw his name on the list that it wasn’t happening.

Mr. MacGregor was never going to sell that house and she honestly couldn’t blame him. It had been in his family for over two hundred years and he refused to be the one to lose it after everything that his family went through to save it. Bryce had been hoping that they could convince Mr. MacGregor to part with it, but at this point, their best bet was to convince him to hire them to renovate the house so that it matched the others, but knowing how stubborn Mr. MacGregor was, that probably wasn’t going to happen either.

While Bryce cooked dinner, they talked about how to handle this, the plans for Dawson Road, and making sure that they were ready when it was time to begin construction. By the time dinner was ready, they’d moved onto a comfortable silence while he read through her notes and made some of his own until it was time to check another item off her list. Without a word, Bryce would finish getting dressed, take her list, and with a resigned sigh, head for the door.

Cayley still wasn’t sure why he was putting himself through this, especially since it was clear that he hated anything and everything Christmas-related, but she wasn’t going to complain, especially since it meant that she got to fall asleep in his arms every night. The only downside, besides the fact that Sean was embracing the voices in his head, was that Kevin kept showing up everywhere she went.

When they were dating, it was like pulling teeth to get him to go anywhere with her, but now, it seemed like he was everywhere. It was definitely weird. Most of the time, Kevin just stared at her, but a few times, he looked like he was about to approach her but always stopped himself when he saw Bryce by her side. She wasn’t sure what else there was to say to her after last week when he showed up at the park for movie night and let her know that she’d ruined his life.

After that…

What else was there to say?

She-

I can see you.

-should have definitely stayed home, Cayley thought, deciding that was a good plan as she grabbed her bag off the passenger seat and began frantically searching for her keys, only to end up swallowing hard when her door was suddenly opened and she found herself slowly, ever so slowly, turning her head and looking at Sean as he reached over and plucked the bag out of her hands with a satisfied sigh and a murmured, “Now, let’s have that talk, shall we?”

CHAPTER21

“I’d really like to come out now,” came the sadly mumbled words that had Bryce looking up from his clipboard.

For a moment, Bryce stood there as he glanced around the second-floor landing until a small grumble had him biting back a sigh as his focus shifted to the small supply closet to his right. Curious, Bryce tossed his clipboard on the floor, grabbed one of the metal folding chairs they kept up here for breaks and dragged it in front of the closet before dropping down on it with a heavy sigh.

There was a pause, and then, “Sean?”

“Try again,” Bryce said, stretching out his legs to get more comfortable.

“Oh, thank god,” Cayley said, sounding really fucking relieved for some reason.

“How long have you been in there?” Bryce asked, reaching up to rub the back of his neck before dropping it away so that he could fold his arms over his chest while he considered all of his options.

“A little over seven hours,” Cayley grumbled.

“Seven hours is a long time,” Bryce murmured absently as he glanced at the rest of the chairs lined up against the wall and noted that one of them was missing.

“It really is,” she mumbled sadly with a sniffle.

“Did he tie you to a chair?” Bryce asked as he focused his attention back to the supply closet door, noting that his brother didn’t bother ramming a chair beneath the doorknob to keep her locked in there.

“Among other things,” Cayley said, releasing a shuddering sigh that had Bryce sighing heavily as he leaned over and opened the closet door to find the small woman that he couldn’t seem to stay away from duct-taped to a chair that was hanging from the ceiling, putting them at eye level.

God, his brother was fucking thorough, but since this worked in his favor, Bryce decided to just go with it. He sat back as he considered the small woman shifting in the metal chair suspended from the ceiling as she as struggled to get more comfortable even as she shot him a hopeful smile that quickly died away when she realized that he was just sitting there, watching her.

“Are you going to get me down?” Cayley asked, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, drawing his attention to the familiar movement as he once again found himself thinking about just how soft that plump bottom lip looked and had him wondering what it would feel like brushing against his, something that he’d been doing a lot over the past week.

“Probably,” Bryce said as he forced his attention away from her lips and focused on the beautiful green eyes narrowing on him.

“What do you want?” Cayley asked, reminding him why he liked her so much. She didn’t play games or pretend that she didn’t know how this worked, which he truly appreciated at the moment since it would make this easier.

“Well, that depends,” Bryce drawled as he made a show of getting more comfortable, watching as Cayley noted the move.

“On?”

“On what you’re going to tell me,” he said, debating where to start.

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