It's Not Christmas Without You (The Holloway Series) (3 page)

He hadn’t changed and she wasn’t ready to come home on his terms. That left little room for compromise. Not that he even understood the word.

She eyed her cell phone. Four calls to her scheming brother for an explanation about his role in this mess and all had gone to voice mail. Mitch was hiding. The coward. She’d see how he liked it if she called every hour until he answered.

She picked up the phone and her finger hesitated over the camera icon. She clicked. Her photos scrolled until she found the one she wanted, the one she stared at almost every day. Austin in his safety harness, what looked like miles above the ground in a tree.

She traced the outline of his body and smiled as she remembered that spring day. He sang some stupid made-up song off-tune as he shimmied up there. The carefree act eased her jumping nerves and made her forget about the danger, which had been exactly his plan. But that’s what he failed to get. She accepted this side of him. She just wished he would do the same for her.

Spence finished locking up the trees on the right side of the lot before wiping his hands on his pants. “She never came back today.”

“Thanks for highlighting the obvious.” As if Austin needed that newsflash.

On one level he knew just seeing him wouldn’t be enough to make Carrie realize she’d made a mistake and come running back to him…but a guy could fantasize. God knew he did that a lot when it came to her.

He dragged a net over the last tree on his side and dropped to his knee to rope the wire around the trunk then clicked the lock. Since he didn’t plan on sleeping outside in the cold, he had to make sure he secured everything for the night. The two guards walking the outline of the lot would take care of the rest.

With the final close-up work done, he stood up and glanced at Carrie’s apartment building. He hadn’t been inside and had no idea which window belonged to her, but the restlessness kicking in his gut over the last few months wound down. Being close to her helped ease the anxiety pounding through him. She hadn’t taken him back, but she would. He just needed time to convince her.

“It’s not too late to cut our losses and get back home.” Hope echoed in Spence’s voice as he took up a position standing next to his brother.

Austin shot down that line of thinking before it took hold. “This is only the first day.”

“I’m not convinced the rest of the days are going to go any better.”

He treated Spence to a side-scowl. “You’re not great with the brotherly support thing.”

“How about this?” Spence turned around, blocking Austin’s view of the building. “Why don’t you go up to her apartment, apologize for being a giant ass and end this torture?”

“She needs romance.”

Spence’s eyes widened. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Women like that shit.” It made Austin’s head pound, but a guy had to take a hit now and then to make his woman happy. Maybe this was the price he had to pay for being so flippant when she asked him to move to D.C. with her.

Spence folded his arms across his chest. “Define romance.”

“Yeah, that’s where my plan gets fuzzy.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Austin ignored his brother’s smirk and stayed on topic. “She thinks I don’t care. I need to show her I do.”

Spence threw his head back and laughed. “Priceless.”

Yeah, his brother was going to die if he kept this up.
“What?”

“Seeing you knocked on your ass by a woman.” Spence shook his head, adding a tsk-tsking sound as he did. “After months of having every eligible woman, and some not-so-eligible, in Holloway knock at your door, now you’re getting the cold shoulder.”

“Do you want to be knocked on
your
ass?”

“I wish Mitch was here to see this. He’s your best friend. He really should have a front-row seat.” Spence pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket.

Austin grabbed Spence’s arm. “Press any button and you die.”

“What, this?” Spence shook his phone. “I was looking up
romance
for you on the internet. Trying to help.”

“I got this covered.” Or Austin vowed he would once he spent all night thinking about formulating a plan.

Something or someone thumped against her front door early the next morning. At the sound, Carrie jumped and a black smudge of mascara slashed across her cheek.

“What the hell?” A glance at the small clock on her bathroom counter told her it wasn’t seven yet.

After barely sleeping and hours of trying to kick the image of Austin’s ridiculously handsome face out of her head, she’d showered and gotten as far as drying her hair and throwing on a robe before the thud. Thanks to the scare, the make-up application was a bust and would need a second attempt.

But first, the door. She wiped off the smear and dropped the tube into the sink. Stepping into the entry, she cursed under her breath and generally worked her nerves into a full-blown fury as she went. There were twenty apartments on her floor and if someone had wandered to the wrong door she’d scream. She glanced through the peephole and her planned unreasonable explode-on-a-stranger rage fizzled. A whirring mix of anxiety and unwanted hope spun around in her belly. The sound of whistling hit her a second later.

No, no, no.

She’d thought about Austin nonstop and now he appeared at her door and…she was a dead woman. No way would her shaky control withstand this. Staring at him through the safety of a window and from six floors up last night made her twitchy enough. Smelling him, seeing him, hearing him, being inches away from touching him. It was all too much.

To keep from bending, she focused on her frustration over his stubbornness. He pretended to listen to her talk about her job but he didn’t really hear her. The anger at his refusal to see her as more than the woman who’d always been there for him washed over her. She let it fuel her until it pounded in her ears.

She threw open the door and glared. “How do you know where I live?”

“Uh, hello?”

How the man could look so yummy so early in the morning was a mystery. Hair ruffled from the air and a chill on his skin that swept over her from two feet away. The faded jeans and checkered shirt hanging open over a gray tee added to the scruffy, just-out-of-bed look that never failed to make her jaw drop.

She ended the visual tour with a practiced frown. “You can’t possibly expect a warm welcome at this time in the morning.”

“It’s seven.”

“Your point?”

He executed the perfect eye roll. “I’ve been up for two hours.”

“You’re not normal.” Her gaze bounced down to his hands and she wondered how she’d missed the two cups of what looked like coffee and a white bag of something in the carrier.

The man knew how to get to her. She’d once joked about how a woman could forgive a lot for a man who brought her breakfast. She was trying to weasel a coffee run out of him at the time.

“You’ve enjoyed my early rising in the past,” he said.

She bit down on her lip to keep from laughing at his dumb joke and the sexy smile that followed. “You haven’t explained how you found me.”

“We come from a town of, like, ten people. They lined up to tell me how to find you.”

Traitors.
“So, Mitch squealed. That would explain why he won’t answer my calls.”

“Your brother has to work with me.” When she snorted, Austin talked louder. “Then there’s the part where I threatened to kill him if he didn’t spill.”

“I’m going to smack the crap out of him when I see him again.” She stood back and opened her arm to usher Austin out of the hallway. “Come in before we give the neighbors a show that will get me evicted.”

“In that robe? I’d be willing.”

Her skin warmed everywhere his gaze touched. She grabbed her lapels and gathered them in her clenched fist to stop that sort of thing. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

“I’m not complaining.”

Her all but naked and his gaze traveling down her front spelled
disaster.
“I’ll go get dressed.”

Before she could shuffle off to the bedroom and lock the door behind her, he raised his hands. The move put the goodies he brought at eye level. “Are you sure you don’t want to try these first?”

The smell of deep roast filled her senses. Hot man and hot coffee. Who could resist that combination?

“What’s in the bag?”

“A cinnamon-swirl pound cake to go with your grande nonfat vanilla latte.” He shook the bag as he spoke.

The evil coffee pimp remembered her usual order. “Lucky guess.”

He walked into her kitchen and went to the silverware drawer as if he’d been in the apartment a hundred times. “You tricked me into a caffeine run almost every morning in Holloway once that joint opened the next town over.”

“Tricked?”

“Maybe I should say bribed with sex and the promise of football tickets.”

She leaned in the doorway and fell into the gentle rhythm of their comfortable conversation. “A gentleman wouldn’t mention my methods.”

“A gentleman wouldn’t have jumped on the deal, but I did. On the deal. On you. All of it.”

She eased up on the grip on her robe as she watched his lean fingers work on the lid and empty what looked like three pink packets into his coffee. And people accused her of having a sugar addiction.

“Those were good times,” she said as the pictures played in her mind.

“But your mother’s cinnamon rolls are better than anything I’ve been able to get in a store.” He opened the bag and peeked inside.

“And more fattening.”

He frowned. “Not a big concern for you.”

Sweet talker.
Carrie wasn’t the weight-obsessed type but a healthy weight in Holloway was a good ten pounds heavier than an expected weight for the high-heeled, big checkbook crowd she moved with at work.

“Every woman worries about her weight. Mine leveled out when I left Mom’s kitchen.” The daily hour on the treadmill also helped.

He dropped a slab of cake on the piece of wax paper stuck underneath it and slid it to the edge of the counter closest to her. “You have to miss those special meals. That woman can cook.”

A skill she did not pass on to her daughter, not that Austin ever complained. Carrie had loved him for many things. His willingness to put up with her crappy meatloaf without gagging was one of them. He’d insisted she was getting better with each meal she made. She was just grateful she hadn’t accidentally poisoned them.

“When will you try them again?” he asked.

Carrie picked up her breakfast but stopped in mid-chomp. “What?”

“When are you coming home to visit your family?” He took a sip of coffee and eyed her over the cup.

“Now you sound like Mom.”

“She misses you.”

Carrie threw the cake on the counter as the acid in her stomach bubbled. “Don’t do that. Don’t use family guilt to lure me back to Holloway.”

“Fine.” He pushed off from where he leaned against her stove and started toward her. “How about this? I miss you.”

The words she’d longed to hear. The same ones that cut through her, bringing both pain and joy. Her heart spun but the knot in her stomach tightened.

“Austin…” She held up both hands in a half-hearted attempt to fend him off.

When he wrapped his fingers around her wrists and carried her wrists to the back of his neck, she didn’t fight him. His scent washed over her senses, lighting every cell on fire. She smelled the cool outdoors on his skin, that subtle mix of pine and soap with a touch of fresh firewood.

The soft strands of his fine hair slid through her fingers as her body melted into his. The robe, his clothes, it all faded away. In her head, her soft skin smoothed over his rough edges.

His mouth danced in a trail from her ear and down her throat. Her heartbeat spiked in response.

“Am I supposed to pretend like I don’t miss you? No way could I pull a lie that big off.” His husky voice rumbled against her bare skin.

“You’re not even supposed to be here.”

“But I am.” He blew the words across her lips.

She didn’t know how much she’d wanted his mouth on hers until his tongue swept across her lips. The kiss started out achingly slow, brushing from one end to the other, until his mouth covered hers and her body sparked to life.

Demanding and hot, he kissed her until the breath left her lungs and her fingers dug into his shoulders. When he slid his hands down her back and pressed her deeper against him, waves of need crashed over her.

A groan escaped her lips, snapping her back to reality. In a flash, the roaring in her ears stopped and the sounds of life returned. The sharp clack of her kitchen clock beat out the minutes as she pulled back first emotionally, then physically.

She nudged his shoulders. “Austin, stop.”

He did, just as she knew he would. He was rock solid and never used force, except for that one time she’d found the two ties he owned and asked him to go all he-man on her.

In slow motion, his arms slid against her sides until his hands dropped to her hips. “You okay?”

Stupid and half-dizzy from kissing him. Other than that, terrible. When a woman got knocked off her feet from the touch of a guy’s lips, she wanted the feeling all the time. Knowing this was a temporary thing filled her with a flulike weakness that reached into her bones.

She cleared her throat. “Of course.”

“Should I apologize?”

She stared into eyes the color of a cloudless summer day. “Are you sorry?”

“No.”

She waited for the slap of regret to hit her but it never came. She could at least have this moment. Savor it. “Me either.”

His hands clenched into fists against her as if he was forcing his fingers not to hold on too tight. “Then?”

Stepping out of his arms was like ripping a strip of skin off an inch at a time. She almost screamed in pain as she left the warm circle of his body.

“I have to go to work.”

He nodded. “Ah, yes. The museum.”

Sadness crawled over her. She felt it spread until it infected everything. “I don’t want to fight with you about this.”

“Makes two of us.”

“I know my career means nothing to you.”

“Oh, Carrie. Come on.” He threw his head back and stared at the ceiling. “That’s not fair.”

“This is my dream job. A position at a prestigious museum, mixing with people in the art world. Being close to masterpieces and seeing works some people will only ever experience in a textbook.” When he finally gave her eye contact again, she poured all her intensity into the words to get him to understand. “I get to live them, to stand there, feeling the artist’s emotions wash over me.”

“Okay.”

The air rushed out of her, taking her last bit of hope along with it. She’d struggled to find a new way to make him understand and failed again. “Forget it.”

She’d left Holloway specifically to avoid scenes like this. She would explain and he would close down. He didn’t say it, but she knew he viewed working in a museum as a hobby she would outgrow. That she’d fall into line and come rushing home again.

Rather than fight, she headed for the bedroom. This was her turf and she could abandon the fight if she needed, and with her emotions so close to the surface she needed to.