Three Nights before Christmas (24 page)

“I can’t believe I let the two of you trick me like this. How stupid—”

He stood so quickly the stool clattered over. “Not stupid. Trusting, maybe, but never stupid.”

“Sometimes it’s the same difference.” She hated the fatalistic words, hated that they came from her, but how many times did she have to learn a lesson the hard way before it sank in?

Austin gripped her shoulders, his touch firm but gentle at the same time. Leaning down so they would be at eye level, he brought his face close. “Would you have come up here on your own?”

Her stubborn silence seemed to be all the answer he needed. But maybe… maybe.

“Thought so. You deserved to see what we’ve done up here. You helped make all this possible—you know that, right?”

“Yeah. Of course I do. And so did you. My problem isn’t with how well we work together, Austin.”

He squeezed her shoulders. “I know. It’s about not trusting me to see the person you really are.”

Her chest ached, as if her heart were fragmenting into a million pieces. “I want to trust you,” she whispered.

“But you don’t trust yourself to make the right decision.”

She could feel her face contorting as she tried to fight the tears but, damn it, she was just grated raw. “Please stop. This hurts too bad. I can’t deal with this on top of the retrial and trying to figure out what to do with my life. I live in limbo, Austin. It’s purgatory. Searching for balance in that, or even long-term happiness, it’s just impossible.”

He let go of her long enough to resettle the stool and sit down. Opening his arms, he said, “Come here.”

“No.”

“Please. Just for a minute.”

She squeezed her eyes closed, unable to ignore the plea in his voice. Berating herself for being a fool, she lowered herself onto his thigh. One of his arms came around her back to steady her, but he didn’t try to draw her closer. She would’ve shattered if he had. Reaching behind himself, he brought out a hunter-green envelope and handed it to her. She took it.

“Open it.”

The seal had been closed with red wax, an imprint of a Christmas tree stamped into it. She slid her finger under and drew out the contents. It wasn’t a letter. Not to her anyway. “What is this?” she asked.

“My new testimony. I sent it to the D.A. yesterday.”

Her stomach heaved. She didn’t want to read it. Could hardly bear touching it. Her voice breaking, she said, “Austin, I can’t—”

“Then I’ll paraphrase it.” He shifted his weight so she leaned against his chest. “I told the D.A. that the facts I presented three years ago are still true. I arrested you during a stakeout of your boyfriend’s grow-op. You were carrying money that tested positive for drug residue. You denied any knowledge of the things you’d been transporting.”

Her breath came in short, hard bursts. She squeezed her fingers into fists, trying to keep her hands from shaking.

“But in the past month,” Austin continued, “I’ve discovered new facts that have changed my interpretation of the old ones.” He tipped his head against hers and held her closer, his voice low and clearly fighting to overcome his own ragged emotions. “I’ve discovered that you work your ass off—not because you like to keep busy but because your whole heart belongs to the people and things you love. You worked to help your brother’s business be successful. You worked to renovate an old steam train. You worked to help a family have a chance to set up a camp for kids. I’ve figured out that you have a hard time saying no when someone you care for asks you for a favor. And I’ve realized that you would never,
ever
have sacrificed your family or the job you loved to make easy money.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she didn’t bother to swipe them away. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to lift her arms high enough.

But she didn’t have to. Austin nuzzled the dip between her nose and cheek, sparking rays of tenderness shooting through her. “You are honorable to your core, Lacey. You’re a dirty-minded sex fiend—”

She choked on her own shocked laughter.

“—and you are the most honest person I’ve ever met. I love you.” His voice shook with the weight of his emotions. “
So
much
. These past few days without you have almost wrecked me, and I can’t stand the thought of a single night more without you in my bed and in my arms.”

She buried her face in his neck, twisting to wrap her arms around him as he squeezed her close.

“But I’ll do it if that’s what you need. If you truly need space, time to figure out your new life on your own, I’ll give you that. But it would kill me if I thought you were pushing me away because you don’t think I realize what a good, decent person you are. If that’s the reason you’re doing it, then stop. Because I see you, Lacey. And I love every bit of you.”

For once in her life, she couldn’t speak. Her well of face-saving retorts had run dry. She’d been broken apart, and he’d patiently taken every rusty piece, cleaned it off, and helped her put herself back together.

“I let you down so badly three years ago, and I’ve never been so sorry about anything in my life. You deserve so much better than me, and I don’t know if you could ever forgive me for the judgments I made about you. But if you think there’s a chance—even the slightest one—I’m begging you to take that chance on us. His broad shoulders trembled beneath her cheek, and his fingers dug into her ribs. “Lace? Say something, honey. I’m dying here.”

“I love you, too.” Her voice cracked like a pubescent boy’s, and his arms tightened to the point she could hardly breathe. “You’ve given me so much more than you could know, and I need you so badly it scares me.”

“Oh, God,” he breathed raggedly against her temple. “You have no idea. I’m yours, Lacey. All yours.”

She wiped her wet eyelids against his shoulder, trying to gather herself together. When she could finally speak again, she pulled back just enough to be able to cup his stubble-roughened cheeks as she whispered, “Thank you.”

He tilted his head. “For what, baby?”

“For being mine. And for wanting me to be yours.”

Then his mouth found hers, and he turned her words into a promise that would last though all their trials.

‡

Three days after Christmas

A
ustin stomped the
snow and mud off his work boots before opening the door to the mudroom and stepping in. He hung his work jacket on a hook and swiped his palms down his chest, annoyed with the uniform shirt he was still wearing.

He’d worked almost nonstop since Christmas Eve, a bunch of overtime he’d agreed to before Lacey had turned his life upside down. He’d figured he’d owed it to his coworkers, since they had families and he’d taken time off to help run Santa’s Wonderland. When he’d come home for brief rests, he’d made sure to change out of his uniform at the station, so she wouldn’t have to see him in it. It had seemed as if she’d gotten used to seeing him in it when she’d worked in the forest but, as she’d pointed out, it was different to be confronted with it in a place where she’d grown to feel safe and at home.

But today he hadn’t been able to change because when he’d taken his clothes out of his locker he’d set them down on a bench and accidentally knocked over a Thermos of hot coffee one of his fellow officers had left there.

He could handle the stain. He couldn’t handle going out in twenty-below weather with wet clothes.

So he’d kept his uniform on and tried to call Lacey to warn her, but her phone had been busy.

Please don’t freak out
.

As much as his new testimony and their declaration on the mountain had lifted the heavy weight of their past from their shoulders, he wasn’t naive enough to think their road would be perfectly smooth. They had a lot to work through, and he didn’t want to trigger any painful feelings by being insensitive or blithely ignoring reality. Especially not today, which he and his family had designated as Christmas, since he’d had to work on Christmas day. His brothers and his parents—both of them, for the first time ever—were coming over in an hour. Camila wouldn’t be able to join them, since she and her soon-to-be husband were in England introducing their daughter to Ash’s family, but they would Skype later and include her in the annual Horrible Sweater contest.

Damn, but he was looking forward to that.

First, though, he had to get up the nuts to enter the house and hope he could change before Lacey saw him.

He opened the kitchen door a crack and peeked around it. No Lacey, but plenty of evidence she was around. The scent of roasting turkey filled the warm room, and a sheet of freshly baked cookies lay cooling on the counter. Molasses cookies, if he wasn’t mistaken.

He crept in, closing the door behind himself, and walked into the living room. Still no Lacey. His heart picked up speed. She could be in the annex, tinkering with Lucinda. He hadn’t heard any music coming from there, though. She could be in the bathroom.

Or she could be in the bedroom.

Please be in the bedroom,
he thought, half forgetting his need to get in there and change.

The bedroom door was only partly open, so he rapped his knuckles softly against it before sticking his head around. “Lace?”

She sat on the bed, her knees drawn to her chest, her face pale and her eyes staring at nothing. Adrenaline exploding, he rushed to her side, accidentally sitting on the phone she’d dropped on the mattress next to her. He pulled it out from beneath his ass and set it on the side table before grabbing her hands. “Lacey, honey, talk to me. What’s wrong? What happened?”

She shook her head, blinking and looking at him with confusion all over her face. “I just got off the phone with Jenna.”

“And?” Jesus, if his heart didn’t slow down, it would punch its way out of his chest.

“And the D.A.’s dropping the case.”

Hoooo—ly shit.
His heart stopped racing. It felt like it stopped completely.

She heaved out a shocked breath. “It’s true. That’s what she said. The D.A. decided not to prosecute me. He said that Dave’s testimony cast reasonable doubt, but yours cinched it. Yours was much more convincing. There won’t be a retrial. My conviction will be expunged.” She slowly shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe the words coming from her mouth. “I’m not on parole anymore. I’m just… me again.”

He wrapped her in his arms and they fell onto the bed together, their mouths meeting in a hot kiss where everything felt brand new. She was brand new.
He
was brand new. The new year wouldn’t be the dismal slog that Lacey had once predicted it would be. They had each other and would start rebuilding her life together.

Nothing would repair the damage he’d once done, nothing would completely absolve him of that guilt, but knowing he’d played a part in her exoneration filled him with emotions that threatened to overflow. He stretched out on top of her, sweeping his hands over her breasts, her stomach, searching for the snap of her jeans and fumbling before his brain caught up with his fingertips. He pulled away from their kiss and looked down her body.

She wore a sweater he’d never seen—oatmeal colored with gray snowflakes knit across the chest. And a dark-green skirt that went to her knees, and thick black tights.

She’d gone shopping.

He toyed with the hem of her sweater, then let his fingers slip lower to skim her intimately through the skirt, making her suck in a shaky breath.

“This is new,” he murmured appreciatively.

She plucked at the buttons of his uniform shirt. “And this is annoying.”

He gave her a dirty grin. “Want to take it off me?”

“You have no idea how bad.”

Their hands got busy stripping each other, and when they finally had each other naked and panting, he nudged his way into her, holding her as tightly as he could as she hugged him with her thighs and arms.

He kissed her again, his mouth moving over hers as he held her as closely as possible.

“Oh, God, I love you,” she moaned against him.

“I love you, too, Lacey. Always.” He tightened his grip on her, determined never to let her go.

Lacey and Austin had to fight hard for their happily-ever-after, but I hope you enjoyed their story! If you did, here are some ways you can spread the love:

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Did you know that Austin’s brothers and sister all have their own stories? In
One Night with Her Bachelor
, Gabriel Morales discovers that no good deed goes unpunished when he agrees to be auctioned off to help Molly Dekker pay her son’s medical bills. In
Taming the Legend
, Camila Morales’s past comes back to haunt her when she has to beg for help from the super-hot English rugby player who broke her heart. And in
Two Nights with His Bride,
Wyatt Wilder falls in love with Hollywood actress Nancy Parsons—but he has to convince her to take a chance on him before she marries the wrong man!