The 48 Hour Hookup (Chase Brothers) (17 page)

He blinked. Clearly too much blood still lingered in the bottom half of his body, because he wasn’t sure he heard her right. “Are you saying
you
want a relationship?”

“I’m saying I’ve been engaged twice before, and I’ve never felt loved the way you make me feel loved. Maybe that’s just your thing, and maybe I’m just falling for the wrong guy all over again.” She stared at him, beautiful and blue-eyed. His.

God, why couldn’t she be his?

“Claire.”

Whatever else he was going to say was forgotten when someone screamed. Alarmed, he glanced in the direction of the noise in time to see a cab pulling away from what looked like a group of teenagers. Three in the damned morning. This was the shit he couldn’t get away from.

He froze, hoping the shrieking had nothing to do with him, but the last few weeks had taught him better. “It’s Hot HVAC Guy,” one drawled, a bit drunkenly for someone who looked under age. He thought he recognized her as a neighbor, but made such a habit of late of avoiding people outside of work that he wasn’t sure.

The girl’s companions managed a chorus of shrieks that sounded like something out of one of those campy horror flicks. It ended abruptly when the first girl held out an arm. “Oh, look.
Sssshhhhhhh
. I think Hot HVAC Guy has a girlfriend,” she announced.

By this point, Liam would normally be locked in his apartment, but he wasn’t going to abandon Claire. Not on these terms.

“Say it’s not true,” one of the other girls said, clutching her heart. “Tell us you aren’t taken.”

Claire, who wore a stunned look and hadn’t really moved since the debacle began, shifted her gaze to him. He was so struck by her that he almost said yes, he was taken, but then one of the girls said, “Hey, isn’t that the Runaway Bride?”

All the color fled from her face.

“No, she’s no one,” he said quickly, the lie tearing through him. He hadn’t denied who he was, but he hadn’t confessed it, either. Maybe this would just go away. “I just held the door, and she hasn’t walked fast, much less run. Sleep it off, ladies.”

“Will you sleep it off with us?” one of the girls slurred.

He shuddered and prayed they were all over eighteen, even though he had no intention of taking them up on the offer. “No,” he said firmly.

“I still think that’s the Runaway Bride,” a girl said. She held up her phone. “I mean, she’s literally on the news every day.”

Teenaged girls watched the news?
He was stunned. He also recognized the phone-positioning move from a thousand before it, so turned his back, blocking his face as well as Claire’s from any pending photos.

Claire, who looked inexplicably hurt. “No one,” she said. “I guess that answers that. I should just give this all up and find a deserted island to inhabit.” She shivered and added, “Somewhere warm.”

He winced. “It was either say you were no one or make them twice as curious about who you are.”

“I understand, Liam. More than anyone else, I do.” She hesitated. “I hope you get your life back, but we both know that won’t happen with me.” With that, she turned away from him and headed down the steps, then down the street. He noticed her truck a block and a half away, and he stood there until she’d disappeared inside and the tail lights glowed and the headlights illuminated the car in front of her. He wanted to run up to his apartment and call her and say anything to make her stay, but they’d both been handed proof of why she shouldn’t, so he just watched her go, knowing there wasn’t a damned honest thing he could say or do to stop her.

So he didn’t.

Chapter Eighteen

Liam barely looked up when his mother handed him a package the next morning. He figured it was something work-related, at least until she didn’t keep walking.

“What?” he asked.

“I thought you’d want to see, and frankly, I wondered how I’d done.”

Confused, he picked up the package and lifted the lid. Tissue paper billowed out. Inside…the stockings. How had he forgotten about those? One by one he unfolded them. His mother’s repairs were flawless. Somehow she’d maintained the original integrity while making them like new again.

“She’s going to love these,” he said. “I’ll get them in the mail this afternoon.”

His mother hesitated. “There’s something you should see. I’m not sure if it’s important or not.” She pulled a clear plastic bag out of her purse and handed it to him.

Inside was a ring, two bands of silver twisted into a rope.

It was the ring Claire’s mother had bought for her. The one they’d thought had rolled into the fire.

“Where was this?”

“Inside Claire’s stocking. There was a small tear in the lining, and I guess it slipped inside.”

“Her mother got this for her before she died,” he said. “They thought it was gone.”

His mother beamed. “Then I imagine she’ll be happy to see it.”

“Yeah, she’ll be happy to see the ring. And the stockings. They look almost new. Thank you for putting so much work into them. I’ll have this overnighted to her.” He hesitated, not sure if she was still at the lodge or where else she might be. Maybe she’d stayed with the Christmas tree. Or maybe she’d gotten the hell away from everything that had anything to do with him.

“I think you should take them yourself,” his mother said. “Wouldn’t want that ring to get lost a second time. Especially something with that much meaning.”

He glanced up, finding her wearing a knowing smile.

“I’m not sure she wants to see me.”

“Do you really thinks she wants to be alone when she opens those?”

Liam swallowed. His throat was tight. Christmas was days away, and she’d be alone in that lodge with a lifetime of memories and a tree half-filled with broken ornaments. And regardless of where they
weren’t
going, that was unacceptable.

“She might not want to be alone, but she definitely won’t want to be with me.”

His mother smiled gently. “If you did this for her, I can’t imagine why not.”

Boy, did he have news for her. “First,” he said, “I outed her as the Runaway Bride in the place she went to escape being the Runaway Bride—”

His mother held up a hand. “She’s the Runaway Bride? The famous one?”

He cringed inwardly, feeling like he’d betrayed Claire all over again. “Yes. And I outed her. Then she heard me telling Sawyer what he could do with the bet he made me, and that I wasn’t sure if I won or lost but either way I couldn’t wait to get away from her.”

His mother’s brow furrowed. “What bet?”

“Whether or not she’d ever speak to me after I left there.”

“Why wouldn’t she?”

Liam rubbed his finger over the silky edge of Claire’s stocking. “Besides the fact that I said I couldn’t get away from her?”

“I can see how that might do it.”

“Yeah, me too. Only we actually hit it off to the point that we had to agree that whatever was happening between us could not happen outside of that lodge.” He caught his mother’s perplexed expression and explained, “Runway Bride meets Hot HVAC Guy. It’s a headline disaster waiting to happen.”

“Not if you think you two have something worth pursuing.”

“Well, we agreed we didn’t. Only I haven’t stopped thinking about her, and then she showed up at my apartment and hinted that it might be worth seeing where it went.”

“And?”

“And I said it wasn’t worth it. Which brings us to why I think she’d rather open these with anyone but me.”

His mom frowned. “Why would you say that if you’re still thinking about her?”

A mix of frustration and regret curled in his chest. “Because this stupid Hot HVAC Guy stuff has been crippling us. Our real customers are getting ticked off, and in some instances going other places. It’s actually hurting the business, and it’s going to kick up tenfold if I’m ever linked with her.”

“It’s a business, Liam. It might be the family business, but it never comes before family.”

He nodded. “Family comes first. Exactly my point, and exactly who suffers when the business does.”

His mother slid into the chair across from his. “The phone ringing off the hook is such a small thing. An inconvenient thing. We’ve all laughed at you—”

“Thanks,
Mother
.”

She didn’t hide her smile. “And we’ve all been annoyed and frustrated, but it’s small. This woman may present a challenge, but the fact that you’re still thinking about her proves she’s worth pursuing.” She put her hand on his arm. “I promise the rest of us will get through it. Your happiness means more to all of us than the number of times the phone rings, and maybe if word gets out that you’re dating the Runaway Bride, people just might stop thinking of us a dating service, if all of the Chase Brothers are spoken for.” She smiled again, patted his arm, and stood. “Take her the stockings yourself. If she’s not holding a chainsaw when you get there, tell her she’s worth it. You’ll be glad you did.”

He looked at the stockings, remembering that moment in the attic when he saw just how much they meant to Claire. He couldn’t bring back her family, and he couldn’t take back sending her away, but there was one thing he was pretty sure he could get right.

To his mother, he said, “You’re right. Gather the troops. If it’s okay with you all, I have an idea for a Christmas none of us will forget.”

But first he had a phone call to make.

By that evening he’d scored an interview with
People
magazine.

There was no going back now.

And no wanting to.

…

Dry Mountain Lodge

Christmas Eve

Liam was fully prepared to see Claire to slam the door in his face, but she wasn’t even at the lodge when he pulled up. Briefly he worried she’d gone back to the city, or somewhere else entirely, but the door was unlocked and the fire glowing, so he knew she hadn’t gone far. Which meant they didn’t have much time.

But if anyone could pull this off quickly, they could.

Estelle, Kelsie, and Rue, all with breaks in their schedules due to the holiday, had spent the last two days scouring the city and for vintage ornaments and decorations. They’d filled the back of Ethan’s truck with their findings to the point the stash had been covered with a tarp and fitted with a ratchet strap. Liam’s truck was still at Monk’s. Sawyer’s truck was full of greenery. Apparently he’d met up with Crosby at a tree lot near Crosby’s house and bought the guy out of live boughs and wreaths, while Ethan and their dad had gone on some kind of nuts-and-berries hunt. Russell had immediately latched onto the idea of an old-fashioned Christmas, apparently having lived them throughout his childhood. Or so he claimed.

And it wouldn’t be Christmas without food, which was Alice Chase’s forte. She’d packed her SUV with enough food to feed an army, although the reality was they’d probably eat every bite. The traditional Chase family Christmas dinner included more than a dozen sides. Whether or not it was straight out of Claire’s childhood Christmases at the lodge, he had no idea, but no traditionalist could argue that every possible side had been served and not a soul would leave there hungry. Not even Stanley. A slice of banana cream pie would see to that.

When Liam stepped inside the lodge, his heart was in his throat. The mattress they’d slept on was gone, as were all the dust covers. The entire main room had been polished. Literally, because every surface gleamed. He had no idea how she’d reached all the beams and exposed wood at the top, but the woman was clearly thorough. The leather furniture gleamed softly and appeared to have been conditioned. He tested the cushion, grinning when it dipped under his fingertip. She hadn’t re-stuffed the sofa, but the rugs had been fluffed, the hearth scrubbed clean. The restoration was stunning.

“Looks different,” Ethan said.

“Looks like she was trying to erase me,” Liam muttered.

Ethan gave him a sideways look. “Or maybe she just cleans when she’s trying to get over someone.”

“If that’s the case,” Liam said, “judging by the extreme changes in here, she probably got over me a dozen times.”

“I doubt that.”

Easy for Ethan to say. He didn’t have his entire family there to witness…whatever this was. But they were there, and they had his back. As much as Claire had transformed the room, so had the Chase family. Fresh boughs burst from every available surface, save for the ones that posed a fire hazard, and an entire truckload of ornaments had been added to tree. Liam had hesitated only a moment before telling them to leave the broken ones. They, too, had a story.

He and Claire had a story.

Everyone in the family had a job, but Liam kept one for himself. Standing in front of that fireplace, the fire now roaring—Rue, it turned out, could stoke a fire as well as Claire could—there were only two things missing. One he could remedy.

He felt an odd sense of reverence as he unfolded the stockings his mom had restored, hanging them one by one at the far ends of the mantle, safely away from the fire, just like she said they’d done when she was a kid. He hesitated by the one with Claire’s name on it, his hand palming the package in his pocket, then gave up the fight and dropped it inside. Only afterward did he notice the room had gone silent. When he turned around and realized it wasn’t because they were all staring at him, the relief was short-lived.

They were all staring at Claire, and she was staring right back.

“What’s going on here?”

Sawyer was the first to speak. “You must be Claire. We spoke on the phone. I believe you know my brother Liam?”

Claire blinked, first at Sawyer, then at everything else. She turned a slow circle while they all stood there, as quiet as the Chase family had ever been, at least in congregated form.

Liam followed her gaze, and even he was stunned by what they’d managed to pull together. The decorated room was almost identical to the pictures she’d shown him. The vintage ornaments Estelle, Kelsie, and Rue had gathered were stunning, covering every inch of the tree. Most were probably reproductions, judging by their shiny packaging, but it hadn’t mattered. The effect was like going back in time, or so he hoped.

The place looked like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. And while he’d hoped to get it all decorated before Claire returned, the look on her face wasn’t one he’d miss. Not for anything.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” she managed to say. “What are you doing here?” She glanced around the room, taking in what he considered to be a spectacular decorating job. “Do I smell ham?”

“You do smell ham,” Liam’s mom said. “And I need to check on that. I’m Alice Chase, by the way. It’s lovely to meet you, dear.”

“It’s…nice…to…”

Claire didn’t have much of chance to say anything before his mom disappeared down the hall. Liam stared after her then turned around.

“You cleaned,” he said. “It looks great.”

“You decorated. Liam, I don’t know what to say.”

“Just don’t throw us out without food,” Sawyer said. “I’m not kidding when I say our entire Christmas dinner is in your kitchen.”

“You really brought food?” Claire asked.

“Of course Alice Chase brought food,” Sawyer said. “She brings food everywhere.”

Kelsie, Sawyer’s wife, grinned. “I don’t think this group does anything without food. That’s the Chase family motto.”

Liam looked at her. “We have a motto?”

“Yeah,” Estelle said, laughing. “Eat. That’s the motto.
Eat
.”

His mother appeared in the doorway, white-faced. “There’s a problem in the kitchen.”

“I didn’t touch a thing,” Kelsie said. She was a notoriously bad cook, though with his mother’s guidance, Kelsie managed to not ruin everything she touched. He’d actually be a little sad if she ever found her way around the kitchen. Pretty much everyone in the family had a thing, and Kelsie’s was death by chocolate.

His mom pressed a hand to her chest. “No, I mean…there’s a raccoon.”

“That’s Stanley,” Claire said quickly. “I wanted to name him Bandit, but Liam insisted it had been done before.”

“Stanley probably hasn’t been done before,” Ethan conceded. He and Rue were stringing popcorn. Liam didn’t know where they were going to put it. The entire room was bursting with decorations, the tree so full, the green was barely visible.

“You have a raccoon together?” Crosby asked. “I guess that explains why Ethan had me pitch in to buy a stuffed animal.”

“You did that without an explanation?” Liam asked.

“You have a
raccoon
?” Alice said. If the woman wore pearls, she’d probably be clutching them. Raising four boys wasn’t for the faint of heart, but apparently even she had her limits.

“That’s incredibly romantic,” Rue said.

“Only you would think that,” Ethan replied, but in a gooey saccharine way that made Liam want to brush his teeth.

“Says the man with the skinny hippopotamus sleeping at the foot of his bed,” Sawyer pointed out. Ethan had a rescue dog with more scars than hair. She did indeed resemble a skinny hippopotamus.

“There’s still a raccoon in the kitchen,” his mom said. “Where’s your father?”

“Chopping firewood,” Crosby said. “I was helping him. I just came in to grab some water.”

“You were chopping firewood?” Claire blinked. “Here?”

“For the fire,” Sawyer supplied helpfully.

“Stanley wants food,” Liam told his mother. “You don’t need Dad. Just feed him, and he’ll go away. Kind of like Sawyer.”

“Feed him what?” she asked. “A sandwich?”

“One of your sandwiches might be overkill.” They made the ones Liam and Claire had shared by the fire look like something out of a kid’s meal.

At the same time, Claire said, “He likes bananas. There are some in there.”

“I’ve got to see this,” Rue said. And just like that, the entire family not so subtly headed down the hall, leaving Liam standing there with Claire, who looked like she’d been hit by a truck, assuming someone could be stunningly gorgeous despite having been run over.