Three Nights before Christmas (9 page)

She just got out of prison.

She had to be lonely. Why else would she agree to work on his train for the benefit of a kid she’d never met? She herself had pointed out that step-uncles didn’t normally go to such lengths, so why would she? It couldn’t be that she was looking for a place to get her festive spirit on. She lived on a fucking Christmas tree farm, for God’s sake.

He hadn’t been part of the investigation into her role in the crime—she’d just happened to show up while he was staking out her boyfriend’s grow-op with the local sheriff’s department, since the pot farm had been half on and half off NFS land. So he didn’t know intimate details about her life, but he did know she’d left Marietta after high school and made a life for herself in Whitefish.

Maybe she didn’t have many friends locally. He hadn’t noticed anyone at the stroll being friendly to her. If anything, the people who recognized her had acted awkwardly in the face of her calm-but-distant professionalism.

Was she so hard-up for companionship that she’d agreed to volunteer all her free time on this project of his? Was she doing it because he was the only one who’d asked her to spend time with him?

The thought made him weirdly melancholy. He’d never had to worry about feeling alone. Growing up in a family of four kids born within three years meant he’d
pleaded
for solitude.

What would it be like to start life over with only one brother for support?

The coffeemaker beeped, and he poured the fresh brew into a couple of mugs, only realizing then that he had no idea how she took hers. So he put some milk in a jug and rooted through the cupboards till he found sugar.

When he got back to the annex, she’d organized the train’s parts into several groupings. Standing as he entered, she lifted her arms high overhead to stretch her back. He didn’t think she intended the move to be sensual, but he turned away to put the coffee on the workbench and turned the music down so they could talk a little.

“I didn’t know how you take it, so I brought milk and sugar. No cream. Sorry.”

She didn’t answer, but she did take a mug and add milk and sugar before lifting it to her nose and breathing deeply. “Mmm…I’ll never get sick of this smell.”

“I guess you didn’t get much fresh coffee over the past few years.”
Nice one, dickhead. Why bring up prison?

“Hot liquids were kind of a no-no. We got tepid stuff, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure it had never had a passing acquaintance with a coffee bean.”

“I don’t think I could live without strong coffee.”

“You’d be surprised what you can live without.”

He closed his eyes, annoyance washing hotly through him. “I don’t know why I keep bringing it up.”

She shrugged and took a sip. “It’s the main thing you know about me. What else would we talk about?”

“Anything.” He gestured toward the junk heap jacked up above the tracks. “Trains, maybe.”

“I’d bore you to tears if I started talking about trains. Plus, trains lead back to prison talk. Dave used me for my train, and that got me sent to prison. Being in prison means I lost my career. Vicious cycle. Let’s not talk about trains.”

Dave used me for my train.
That had been her defense, despite her ex claiming that it had been
her
idea to use her train as cover. Sounded like she was sticking to it. Weariness settled into his bones. “Okay, then. How about friends?”

She stiffened and put her coffee cup down. “How about we don’t talk?”

He’d had the sad misfortune to be taking a sip when she said it, and he sputtered as his brain conjured up all kinds of ways they could pass the time not talking.

“You okay?”

“Mmm.”
Not really
. He thumped his chest until the coffee went down. When he finally regained control, he tried to change the subject. “Have you ever met Molly Dekker?”

“Josh’s mom? I was a year behind her in high school, but we moved in different circles.”

“What circles were those?”

“Well, she got engaged while we were still in school, so I mostly remember her making puppy eyes at Greg Dekker all day long. He seemed like a massive douchebag, so I didn’t go out of my way to talk to her. Why?”

He tried to sound casual. “Just thought you guys might have a lot in common.”

“Me and Molly? Are you kidding?”

“No.”

Her laughter was short, sharp, and humorless. “Does she have a secret prison record I don’t know about?”

“Now who’s bringing up prison?”

“Me. I’m allowed to bring it up. If you do, you’re a jerk.”

He grinned. “Hardly seems fair.”

“Life’s not fair, buddy.”

“True. And that’s what I think you’d have in common with Molly. Her life has been flipped upside down a couple of times, but she always comes out fighting.”

Her mouth opened as if to reply, but she shut it again. She lifted her arms to pull down the rubber band holding back her ponytail. She jerked her fingers through her hair, messing it up as if she needed something to hide her face.

Clearly agitated, she walked away from him and crouched next to one of the piles she’d made. He didn’t think she was going to reply at all, but after a long, tense minute, she muttered, “Who’s a woman gotta screw to get some Christmas music in here?”

Apparently they wouldn’t have a bonding moment after all.

‡

O
ver the next
few days, Lacey settled into a routine of waking early, getting a lift up the mountain from Joel and Tony, working till sunset and getting a ride to Austin’s place, where she worked till dinnertime. Usually he was there the whole time, seemingly happy to act as her assistant. Tonight, though he had to work late, leaving her on her own to monkey around with Lucinda.

That was the name Lacey had chosen for her steamy friend—Lucinda. Never Lucy, a name that evoked silly capers and histrionics in the face of a stern Cuban husband. No, the train was definitely a Lucinda, named after one of Lacey’s favorite singers. She was bluegrass and country, soulful and throaty. She had plenty of tough history, but she’d chugged through it and come out the other side. She was a survivor and would touch a part of her riders’ souls that needed to believe they had the same fight in them.

And she was starting to look like a locomotive again. Tonight Lacey was working on sandblasting the rust and old paint off her harder-to-reach areas, a job that required a short ladder and a lot of elbow grease. Lacey lowered her transparent face mask and shouted along to Christmas tunes since Austin had texted to say he was running late. She changed the words of the song and crooned it to Lucinda as she fought the grime that had attached itself to her over decades of sitting outside. “Have yourself…a
steamy
little Christmas. Let your heart…be light. From now on, your troubles will be out of sight…”

“I don’t hear any glass shattering.”

Lacey jumped a mile, the sandblaster clattering to the floor and the ladder tumbling away from her feet. She jammed her arms into the hole where the chimney would be and clung on to keep herself from falling. A loud curse and the sound of a man scrambling reached her a split second before Austin’s hands clasped her waist. “Let go. Gotcha.”

She hesitated, the press of his chest against her butt and his head next to her ribs momentarily short-circuiting her brain. She wasn’t that high up. She could’ve dropped safely to the ground, once she’d gotten her balance back.

But she didn’t point that out. She relaxed her grip and let him lower her slowly till her feet touched the floor. And the whole back of her body touched the whole front of his.

“You okay?” His breath ruffled the hair on the top of her head, sending shivers of delight skittering across her scalp.

Laying her hands on his, she gently pushed them away and stepped away from the danger zone. “Fine. Th—um—thanks.”

“No problem, since I was the one who scared you ladder-less.”

A reluctant smile tightened her cheeks, making her filthy face mask bite into her temples. He was nothing more than a blur through the grime, but hopefully that meant he couldn’t read all the vulnerability she was struggling to hide from her face, either. “Give a girl some warning next time.”

“I thought you heard me. I made enough noise coming in.”

“If I’d heard you, I wouldn’t have been singing.”

He chuckled, but the way he ran his hand through his hair showed how the brief contact had affected him, too. “It wasn’t that bad, you know.”

“I was once told I have a voice not even a mother could love. By my mother.”

He laughed. “Well, I’m not saying you could get a record deal—”

“Or carry a tune?” she joked, making him laugh harder.

“Or that, but it was…nice.”

She clasped her chest and pretended to stumble back against Lucinda. “Wow! Nice? What a compliment!”

Face flushing, he scratched his cheek, looking adorably chagrined. “Not your voice so much as coming home to it. I’ve been doing this on my own every night for a long time.”

She couldn’t work out exactly how she felt about being Austin’s comfortable place to come home to. Needing to get back to work but unable to see anything through her mucky face mask, she pulled it off and swiped at it before freezing.

Uniform.

Her breath seized painfully at the back of her throat. She spun away, hoping to hide her reaction, but he’d been well-trained to spot details—like a woman who looked like she was about to puke.

He clasped her arm gently and tried to turn her to face him. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

She tried to shake him off, but he wouldn’t give up. He grabbed a chair and yanked it over, helping her sit. “Breathe deeply. Head between your knees. It’ll pass.”

No, it wouldn’t. She couldn’t cope with him in uniform. Her life had been inundated with uniforms, but seeing Austin this way dredged up all the terrified confusion of her arrest. The shock of seeing him in uniform
here
, a place she’d grown to feel a little bit safe, had brought on a wave of gut-dropping terror.

“Breathe. That’s it.”

She shook her head. “Can you…can you leave me alone?”

His hand fell away. “Leave you alone?”

She nodded, impotent anger filling her eyes until they burned. “I need a moment.”

“You sure you’ll be okay?”

Her head jerked in another nod. “Go.”

“Okay. I’ll come back in a few minutes.”

She choked out a sound of assent, relief immediately washing over her as soon as the door clicked closed. Her head hung limp and she had to grip her knees to keep from sliding out of the chair.

What the hell is wrong with you?
The cheery melody of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” filled the annex. Strings of Christmas lights—lights that Austin had hung himself, to help her feel optimistic—twinkled merrily from the eaves and windows, bouncing shimmery rays of light off the tree’s ornaments.

You haven’t done anything wrong. You’re safe. You’re not going back.

But the threat of prison hung over her as threatening as a noose, leaving her shaky and weak even as the nausea subsided.

The annex door clicked again, and she tilted her head just enough to let her watch his feet carry him inside.

Jeans. He’d changed. Relief flowed through her, and she let her gaze lift to his sweater…

His Rudolph sweater, complete with a blinking red Christmas light for its nose. She snorted in shock, her hand flying to cover her mouth. “Oh, my God. That’s even scarier than your uniform.”

He gave her a wry grin. “My older brother, Wyatt, and I have a Christmas tradition. We try to humiliate each other through hideous Christmas sweaters. Whoever loses has to wear it at the next year’s stroll. He outdid himself last year.”

“He sure—wait a sec. You didn’t wear this at the stroll.”

“I have a picture that says otherwise. Fortunately, Wyatt was in L.A. with his girlfriend, so this was all the proof I needed.” He slipped his phone from his pocket and flicked through it before handing it to her. Sure enough, Austin stood in front of his Santa’s Wonderland stand wearing the hideous sweater and an ironic look of wide-eyed exuberance while giving two thumbs up. Gabriel and Josh flanked him, grinning hugely and pointing at Rudolph—as if anyone could miss him. Behind them, her Christmas tree display twinkled.

Lacey squinted. “Is that me in the background?”

He took the phone and slid it back in his pocket. “Yep.”

“How on God’s green earth did I miss that?”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “The whole operation took us less than ten seconds. I made sure to do it when your back was turned. I’m not an idiot, you know.”

Words from a long-ago courtroom bounced around her head.
She’s either guilty of transportation of a controlled substance or of criminal stupidity.

She turned away. “Thanks for changing. Your uniform…it caught me off guard.”

“I figured that out.”

“It’s one thing to see it in the forest, where I expect you to harass me, but—”

“Is that what you think I was doing?”

She shrugged. “I’m sure you were just doing your job.”

He didn’t answer. He just nodded toward Lucinda and said, “I’m yours to harass for the next few hours. Tell me what to do.”