Three Nights before Christmas (18 page)

She could be here and feel like she remembered who she was. Not just who she used to be, but who she’d become, thanks to the trials—literal and figurative—she’d been through in the past few years. And as she gazed at Lucinda’s gleaming black beauty, she realized she’d triumphed over a hell of a lot. Her brother might see her as the same willfully blind young woman who’d thrown away her future because of a loser boyfriend, but Austin didn’t.

The weight of the past twelve hours lifted from her shoulders.

Until her phone rang, and she saw it was Jenna.

“Hey, there,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “I didn’t want to wake you, so I left a note—”

“I saw,” Jenna replied, her voice oddly scratchy. “Lacey, I have a problem.”

No, no, no. I knew good news didn’t travel alone.
Trying not to imagine all the horrible possibilities, she forced herself to say, “Hit me with it.”

“I woke up feeling awful. To be honest, I didn’t feel great when I went to bed, but it had been a long day, so I didn’t think much of it. But now…” She paused, and Lacey could hear her swallowing, as if it took superhuman effort. “I’m burning up, and my throat is killing me. It’s like I’m swallowing glass.”

“Oh, no, you poor thing! I can’t believe you came down to my house and got the flu. Talk about the worst—”

“It’s not the flu. God, I wish it were, but it’s not. I’m covered in red spots, and they itch so badly I want to light my skin on fire.”

Lacey unconsciously scratched her forearm in sympathy. “That’s odd. Last night when we were talking, did you…I don’t know…stumble into poison ivy or something?”

“No.” Jenna sighed hard. “I think I have chicken pox.”

Lacey’s jaw fell open. “Chicken pox? That’s a joke, right? Like lighting your skin on fire?”

“No,” Jenna repeated, sounding so miserable Lacey knew she wasn’t kidding. “I never had them as a kid, and—”

“You’re kidding. Who makes it through childhood without getting chicken pox?”

Her brother’s voice replaced Jenna’s. “You, for one. Actually, I guess that makes two.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I had them when I was five or six. Mom and Dad packed you off to Grammy’s so you wouldn’t get them. I don’t remember you ever getting them. Do you?”

She cast her memory back. “Well, no, but I just figured I must’ve had them at some point. Doesn’t everyone?”

Weariness crept into Sawyer’s tone, and Lacey almost would’ve forgiven him for the night before. Almost. “I don’t know, but Mom and Dad are on that damn cruise so I can’t get a hold of them, and I can’t take any chances. For better or for worse, you’re the only one who can run the farm right now. You can’t come back here. Not till Jenna’s stopped being contagious.”

For better or for worse? Lacey’s fingers clenched around the phone till she was in danger of shattering it. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying find somewhere else to stay for a few nights.”

Shaking her head, she tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling. “First of all, I can just imagine the two of you taking care of each other. Seriously, Sawyer, you have a broken leg. What part of that sentence don’t you understand?”

“I can handle it.”

“Yeah, but can Jenna? Putting up with your grumpiness can take a toll on a healthy person, believe me. And a sick one? Hell, Sawyer, you’ll end up grumping her into an early grave.”

“I’ll be on my best behavior,” he snapped.

“That tone of voice is a great start. Secondly, you realize it’s not that easy for me to find somewhere to stay, right? All accommodation has to be approved by my parole officer.”

Austin laid his hand on her knee, snagging her attention, and motioning for her to put the phone down for a second. “Hold on,” she told her brother.

“You can stay here,” Austin said, his voice low.

She cringed. “In the annex? I mean, I love trains, but no way I’m sleeping in here.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, making a weird warmth spread through her belly. “Not the annex. The station house.”

“Your house?” she gasped.

“It’s only temporarily mine, if that makes you feel better. And if you give me your P.O.’s phone number, I’ll square it with him.”

Stay with Austin? The idea was equal parts terrifying and intriguing. She could touch him every morning, touch him every night. Discover the secret places that made his body tense with need for her. Let him satisfy himself with her, in her.

Eat dinner with him. Make him coffee the way she knew he liked it.

“Lacey,” Sawyer called out from the phone. “You still there?”

She put it back up to her ear. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“Who are you talking to?”

Crap.
She tucked her chin to her chest and spoke quietly, as if Austin wouldn’t overhear her even though he sat two feet away. “You, um… you remember Mom’s old friend from high school, Mrs. Wilder?”

“Not really.”

“Oh.”
Phew. Bullet dodged.
“No one, really. Just her son.”

Tension crackled over the line. Finally, Sawyer said in a low, dangerous voice, “I remember an Officer Wilder—real well.”

“Oh. Right.”
Shit.
“Yeah, that’s him.”

“Lacey, for the love of God—”

“For the love of God, don’t finish that sentence. Hanging up is even easier than walking out, and I’ll do it if you push me. Let’s just talk about keeping you and Jenna alive through the holidays, okay?”

“Fine. Jenna and I can take care of ourselves. We have enough food in the freezer to see us through the apocalypse. But I—” He cleared his throat. Then he cleared it again. “I can’t look after the farm, too. I need your help. I need you healthy.”

She squelched the urge to pump her fists in the air, Rocky-style. Schooling her voice into something suitably humble, she said, “I can do that.”

*

Austin grabbed the
suitcase from the passenger seat and got out of his truck. “Oh Holy Night” pumped from inside the annex, and he wasn’t the least bit surprised that Lacey was still in there working on Lucinda. Of course she wouldn’t make herself at home. After being railroaded into agreeing to stay with him, she probably needed to work out a little frustration.

Better she work it out on Lucinda than with a wrench to his head.

Since she didn’t have to be back at the farm for a couple of hours, Austin had offered to pick up Lacey’s toothbrush and things, giving her time and space to keep working on Lucinda before he drove her back to the farm later. Working on the train seemed to give her an outlet for her frustrations, and he imagined she’d have to face a lot of those today.

When he stepped inside the annex, nothing prepared him for the sight of her. She stood in Lucinda’s cab, just where the driver would stand, except her eyes were closed. Her head tilted a bit, and she swayed as if remembering exactly how it felt to drive a train through a windy mountain pass.

His gut clenched with longing—not just for her but for her sake. If her conviction was overturned, maybe she would get another chance at the career she so clearly loved. The one that owned her, body and soul.

The one you helped take away from her.

He tried to squelch the insidious voice of guilt, but it stayed there, worming through him. Other than the CCTV footage he’d seen after she was arrested, he hadn’t seen her drive a train. Yet he couldn’t picture her doing anything else. Maybe if he’d listened to her three years ago,
really
listened instead of falling back on assumptions he’d learned from over a decade of dealing with liars and criminals…

“Fall on your knees…and hear the angels’ voices…oh, night divine…oh, holy night.”

He turned the volume down on the speakers, and her eyelids popped open. Not an ounce of embarrassment or chagrin crossed her face. She just gave him a wry smile and climbed down from the locomotive.

When she got close enough, he slung his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “Nice view from up there?”

“Mmm.” She curled into him like an affectionate cat.

This was a Lacey he wouldn’t have guessed at when they’d first started working together. Was it regular sex that made her so languid, or something else? He couldn’t smother his hope that his companionship had something to do with it. He liked spending time with her, naked or clothed. He wanted her to feel the same.

He squeezed her closer. “What did it look like?”

“My route used to go through mountain passes and Glacier National Park. Best of all, though, I’d go through a pristine virgin forest that no one has touched in a hundred years—and then only to sink the rails. There are no roads. No houses. Hardly anyone’s seen it.”

“But you have.”

She smiled. “I have.”

“And you’d like to again.”

Her head dipped and she pulled away. “I can see it any time I close my eyes.”

He didn’t press for more. He knew better than to think pushing would get him anywhere with her. Better to let her have her quiet moments, her private thoughts, than to try to drag them out of her. Pressure would just make her slam herself closed faster and harder than a prison cell door.

Willing to keep things superficial, at least for now, he gestured toward her suitcase. “I picked up some things for you. Sawyer wasn’t much help when it came to figuring out what you wanted.”

“Probably most of it won’t fit me yet, but socks and undies will come in handy.” She fiddled with a socket wrench, giving it her full attention. “How were they doing?”

“I didn’t see Jenna, but Sawyer looks rough.”

She cringed. “Did he give you a hard time?”

Shrugging, he told her the truth. “Nothing I can’t handle. In fact, he barely said anything.”

“Oh, God. It’s worse than I thought.” Her eyes glossed over, and her voice went all husky. “I should be there helping him.”

“No, you should listen to him. Just this once.” She opened her mouth, clearly about to argue, but he didn’t give her a chance. “How many times have you told him to mind his own business, let you live your own life and make your own decisions?”

She blinked. “How—”

“I have a younger sister, you know. Gabriel’s twin, Camila. The most headstrong woman you could ever meet. Seriously, if you think I’m easygoing, it’s only because she steamrolled me into submission years ago.”

Voice full of irony, she quipped, “I would hardly call you easygoing.”

“Really? Huh. Most people would.”

“Most people haven’t sat across from you in an interrogation.”

Shit.
He tried to brush it off as a joke, the same way she was doing. “Hey, I was the good cop, then.”

“Your good cop made me want to crap my pants.”

His forced humor died away. That horrible event sat between them. Maybe it always would.

She tapped her finger against his chest, drawing it downward in a sensual motion that nearly made him forget. “Does Camila give you a lot of grief about letting her live her own life?”

“Not anymore because I stopped trying to be her personal adviser about fifteen years ago. Besides, she has three brothers, so you can imagine how hard she had to fight for the right to make her own mistakes.”

Lacey shuddered. “Poor girl.”

“Poor us. And now, poor Ash. He’s her fiancé,” he explained. “A rugby coach, which is probably the only kind of man with a chance of keeping her in line.”

Lacey made a big show of glancing around. “Did I just step out of Lucinda and into the Victorian era?”

He rolled his eyes. “My point is, this time it’s your turn to stand back and let Sawyer make his own decisions, even if they’re mistakes. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. I’m sure the same goes for Jenna. They can hobble around and be miserable together. Meanwhile…” He waggled his brows. “We can take advantage of having all our limbs intact and no poxy viruses.”

“How do you propose we do that?”

“Follow me. I’ll show you.” He grabbed her suitcase, entwined the fingers of his free hand with hers, and led her out into the snow. They trudged across the former train yard to the converted station house he’d made his home these past few months. Snowflakes fluttered to the ground, carried down from the surrounding pine trees on a gentle breeze. The only noise was the crunch of snow beneath their feet. Peace settled over him.

She followed him up the stairs to the house, the wooden porch creaking with their weight. The NFS had built a little mudroom at the cabin’s side entrance, so he took Lacey in that way. They shed their boots and jackets, and he opened the door to the kitchen, gesturing for her to go first.

In the two weeks since they’d started working together, she’d never come into the cabin. It was like a hard boundary for her, surrounded in barbed wire and electrified fencing. Maybe in her mind it was. But she would have to break through that barrier because she would be staying here till Jenna got better, and he wouldn’t have her treating his home like a prison.

“Kitchen,” he said, gesturing to the room with a flourish.

“Oh, is that what it is?”

“Yep. Definitely wouldn’t recommend trying to take a shower in here.”

She grinned. “What about other activities?”

“If ‘other activities’ means sex, that’s positively encouraged.”