Three Nights before Christmas (11 page)

“I don’t want to go into town.” She’d done it for the stroll, where at least she’d had a task to keep her occupied. But wandering from shop to shop, confronting judgmental stares or, worse, well-meaning but awkward conversations? She suppressed a shudder.

“Bozeman, then. Go to Bozeman. I’ll drop you off and pick you up.”

“I’m not fifteen anymore, Sawyer. I hate being dependent on you for rides.”

“Then go to Bozeman, sit your ass in a café, and study for your fucking driving test. Buy some clothes while you’re there.”

“You’re really fixated on my clothes.”

“You’re really turning purple.”

She would’ve sighed, but she didn’t have any air left in her lungs. “Fine. I’ll buy some new jeans and do some studying. But I don’t want to take you away from the farm for long.”

“Got any friends you can ask for a ride?”

Austin immediately flashed through her mind, but she dismissed him. “When will you be ready to go?”

“As soon as your legs don’t make me crave sausages.”

*

Her head bursting
with speed limits, traffic signs, and intoxication laws, Lacey closed her book and rubbed the muscle between her brows that twitched whenever she got stressed. She hadn’t had to study for anything for a damn long time. When her dad had taught her how to drive, he’d said, “Driving’s an instinct, so learn this stuff for the test and then forget it.” That’s what she’d done. She could pull a freight train’s engine apart and put it back together without hesitation, but driving without rails? Yeah, she’d never been great at that. In fact, she’d failed her car driving test four times before finally passing.

This time she was determined to do it in one.

But she’d spent nearly two hours cramming her head full of driving laws, and nothing more would fit in there. After downing the dregs of her peppermint mocha, she left the cozy cafe she’d holed up in and moseyed down Bozeman’s Main Street. The old western city had gone to town with the Christmas decorations, and every shop displayed tantalizing items. Sawyer had told her to buy herself something, but it had been so long since she’d shopped outside a catalog that nervous energy made her buzz. Or maybe that was the sugar and caffeine. Either way, as she strode from Christmassy window display to Christmassy window display, she couldn’t shake the feeling she was a suspect under constant surveillance.

She caught her reflection in one of the windows, and it made her stop. Ill-fitting clothes stained with dirt and streaked with mechanical grease from working in the forest and on Lucinda. Caterpillar eyebrows that kissed in the middle. Premature gray that no one in her family had.

She was a rusty old train, shunted aside and left to rot. She used to sparkle and shine. She used to go places, have a purpose. Now she was off her track and trying to find her way back.

No one else can put you back together, Lace. If you don’t like seeing a prisoner when you look in the mirror, scrub the rust off yourself and get a new paint job.

Before she could change her mind, she strode away from the window and turned a corner, hoping the place she was looking for hadn’t closed. She yanked the zipper of her purse open, pulled out her phone and tapped out a message to her brother:
How much do you want to spend on me for Christmas?

His reply came several minutes later, after she’d stepped through the door of a salon she’d been to a few times as a teenager.
Figure I owe you for at least three Christmasses. Knock yourself out.

Right answer. She grinned as she approached the ultra-polished college student at the reception desk. “Hi there. Do you have any slots open today?”

“Sure do. What would you like?”

“To look twenty-five.”

“Oh.” The young woman hesitated, giving her a doubtful look before casting her eyes at her appointment book. “Um…”

“I’ll settle for a cut and color.”

The receptionist brightened. “We can definitely do that.”

Her phone buzzed again.
I should probably clarify…no plane tickets to anywhere tropical.

Lacey chuckled under her breath.
Paris isn’t tropical, right?

Her phone buzzed.
That better be a joke or you’re fired.

She put her phone away. “Can you guys make sure I leave here with two eyebrows instead of one?”

“Definitely. Special occasion?”

“I guess you could say that.” She leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “First time on parole. A girl’s gotta celebrate, right?”

The receptionist blinked, clearly unsure whether to take that as a joke. She recovered quickly, whispering back, “In that case, want our waxer to take care of those special places that are hard to shave when you’re not allowed a razor?”

This time it was Lacey’s turn to blink in surprise. The receptionist grinned. “Or so I hear from my big sister. Besides, if you’ve been away for a while, you want to be ready for anything, right?”

For the second time that day, Austin jumped into her mind in a totally inappropriate way.

She nodded decisively. “Heat up a shit load of wax. My brother’s razor wept at the sight of my leg hair, and I didn’t even try to use it to tame Betty Downstairs.”

Three hours later, she sauntered out of the salon with her shiny, all-brown hair swaying healthily in the light breeze. Despite the below-freezing temperatures nipping at her ears, she didn’t dare mess up her blow-dry by putting her knit hat on. No one really needed the tops of their ears anyway, right?

Her brows stung where a woman with incredibly fast fingers had threaded the stray hairs into oblivion. And, thanks to her brother’s generosity, she no longer felt like a lumberjack from the waist down. Time to get underwear that didn’t cut into her skin and maybe a pair of jeans she could wear till the rest of her prison weight magically melted away. She rounded a corner on her way to a women’s clothes shop when a window display made her skid on an icy patch of sidewalk.

Her jaw unhinged. Her two distinct brows rose. A mannequin in the shop window wore a green sweater with a snowman on it. Except the snowman was upside down, with a pointy, felt carrot protruding from where the sweater covered the mannequin’s crotch. Two big metal bells hung from the sweater’s hem, dangling like testicles right where the mannequin’s testicles would be…if mannequins had balls.

Before she knew what she was doing, she took her phone out, snapped a picture and sent it to Austin with the message
For Wyatt?

Her phone rang immediately, and Austin’s deep voice tickled her eardrum. “Holy shit, where did you find that?”

“It’s at a store in Bozeman.” She leaned back to read the store’s name. “Seems to be a craft shop.”

“Where in Bozeman?”

She gave him the address.

“I’ll be there in five minutes. If anyone tries to buy it, tackle them.”

Her brows ached a little as they drew together. “Five…where are you?”

“Around the corner. I’m serious. Make a citizen’s arrest if you have to. I’ll back you up.
Don’t let anyone near it.
”

The phone went dead.

‡

A
ustin pulled his
scarf up to keep the bitter cold from biting through his skin as he jogged down Main Street and found the cross street Lacey had said the carrot-dick sweater shop was on. He had to get that sweater, had to. Not only would he win this year’s sweater-off, but he would be the champion of all time.

He owed Lacey so big for alerting him to the sweater’s existence. The fact she would do it surprised him. If anything, he would’ve figured she would buy it and find a way to get it to Wyatt so he could humiliate Austin. Calling him was a truly decent thing for her to do, and he’d have to find a way to thank her. Hell, she’d already committed her evenings to fixing his train. His growing debt to her made him deeply uncomfortable, but he’d been trying to let go of her past crimes and focus on the person she was now. Apparently her tough-girl shell hid a decent core, one he felt oddly happy to spend his evenings working with.

He approached the shop, and even from across the street he could tell the sweater was perfect. But as he crossed the road, a couple of women inside started gesturing toward it. Shit. Where was Lacey? She was supposed to protect it from other customers. He rushed inside, throwing the door open so hard a bell fell on his head. He sucked in a breath and slapped his hands on his scalp, ducking in case more rained down.

“Austin, are you okay?” Lacey’s voice came from right next to him, but his head smarted so bad his vision was blurry.

“Yeah. Fine.” He gave his head a rub and blinked away the pain. Then blinked some more.

Holy shit.
“Lacey?”

“Nope. I’m the ghost of Lacey’s past.”

He couldn’t take in the changes. He wasn’t even sure what had changed—same jacket, same jeans. But…something… “What did you do?”

Okay, so maybe his tone had been a little incredulous. She stiffened. “I got a haircut. You got a problem?”

“No.” Yes. Yes, he did have a problem—a growing problem—and it was in his pants. It wasn’t that she was pretty, though she was. It wasn’t that she looked younger and softer, though she did.

It was the way she stood, all loose-limbed, relaxed confidence. The way he remembered her being in the seconds before he’d arrested her.

She looked happy.

And that made him hard.

“You sure you’re okay?”

He cleared his throat and thanked God his coat covered incriminating evidence. “Yeah. Great. Let me just get this sweater—”

Another woman stepped forward, the one he’d seen Lacey talking with through the window. “I was just explaining to your wife…”

He opened his mouth, but Lacey laid her hand on his forearm. She didn’t leave it there long, just a glancing touch that did more damage to his equilibrium than that bloodthirsty bell had.

“I was telling Pauline here that we really need this sweater.”

“And I was telling your wife that it’s not for sale, I’m afraid. You see, it’s brought more customers in than anything we’ve ever done. But we do sell the pattern, if you’d like to make it.”

His heart dropped. Make a sweater? He had a better chance of rebuilding the train. “I’d be willing to pay just about anything.”

Pauline gave him an apologetic look. “The shop’s so busy this time of year that I don’t have time to make another one. I’m really sorry. If you’d like to come back after Christmas…”

No, no, no.
The most perfectly horrible gift for Wyatt was slipping away.

“Do you know anyone crafty?” Pauline asked, kindly.

Molly was, but he would never ask her to do something like this. She was too nice to say no, even though this was a busy time of year for her.

Lacey cleared her throat.

On top of organizing her school’s Christmas pageant, Molly was putting together all the details for Santa’s Wonderland, a massive task.

Lacey cleared her throat again.

He finally looked at her. “Need a cough drop?”

Her eyes rolled, and she held up the pattern, reading from the back. “Pauline, it looks like we’ll need a half yard of white felt, a yard of fusible web, an orange felt square and some big bell balls. Can you point me in the right direction?”

Austin’s breath seized in his lungs. “You’re going to make it?”

“Nope. You are. I’ll supervise. If I can read freight train blueprints, this should be a breeze, right? And for everything else there’s the internet.” She slapped the pattern against his chest. A rush of gratitude overwhelmed his good sense. He tugged her close and wrapped his arms around her in what he’d only intended to be a friendly hug.

But the second her chest touched his and his cheek brushed hers, one of them turned—her, him, both…it happened so quickly and so naturally that he would never know—and their lips met in a soft, breathless sigh of a kiss.

So he did the only thing he could do. He gave it his all.

‡