Chasing Christmas Eve

She’d been in the city for all of an hour. She hadn’t even found a place to stay yet. She couldn’t imagine how many texts and voice mails were waiting for her from her mom, her brothers, her two staff members, Janeen and Tracy, and her agent, Jackson—not that she could get to them anyway with her phone possibly destroyed.

Which, actually, had its upside . . .

“I’ve got hot tea,” Elle said.

The thought of hot tea appealed to Colbie on every single level and she bit her lower lip in indecision.

“She’s got a million different kinds too,” Spence said, watching her with a hint of humor, like he knew she was arguing with herself. “She specializes in flowery and fruity shit.”

Elle sighed.

Colbie laughed but . . . “I don’t know you,” she blurted out. Embarrassed, she grimaced. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I came here to be alone.”

Elle nodded. “I get that. And so does Spence, more than anyone I know. He’d be a complete shut-in if we let him. We routinely have to drag him around with us and force him to be social.”

Spence looked pained. “I’m not that bad.”

“Wanna bet?”

He shook his head but didn’t take his gaze from Colbie. “I want you to know that you’re safe here in this building. I promise you that.”

He had incredible eyes and that combined with a killer smile, and she was sucked right in. Her problem was simple. The promises of people she loved had never meant jackshit, so she certainly couldn’t accept a promise from a stranger. And yet, her gaze locked with Spence’s, she found that she somehow wanted to.

“This way—follow me,” Elle said and started walking, Daisy trotting along after her.

Colbie stared at them. “Do people always just do what she says?”

“Always,” Spence said. “Resistance is futile. Come on, I’ve got ya.” He took her stuff and led her past the wrought-iron gate that would’ve taken her back to the street.

The irony was that she’d come into the courtyard on her way to the hotel she’d Googled only because of the fountain. The one with the crazy love legend that had appealed to the writer deep down inside her.

Ahead of them, Elle and Daisy took the stairs, which was impressive because Elle was wearing some seriously kickass heels.

Thankfully, Spence bypassed the stairwell and hit the button for the elevator.

“Your girlfriend—” she started.

“Not my girlfriend.”

“Okay, then,” she said, not sure why that sent a thrill through her. “Your dog is taking the stairs.”

“Because she’s not in danger of hypothermia. And she’s not mine either. A friend owns South Bark Pet Shop on the farside of the courtyard. To clear my head, I sometimes help her out and walk her day care clients.”

So Daisy wasn’t even his, a fact that oddly relieved Colbie. He hadn’t been shirking responsibility of his own pet.

Which meant she’d jumped to conclusions about him and she didn’t like what that said about herself. “So . . . you’re a professional dog walker?”

He laughed as the elevator doors opened. “No.”

They stepped on and he pulled out a special keycard, sliding it across the card reader as she looked at him. “Dog walking is a perfectly respectable profession,” she said.

“Of course it is. But that’s not what I do.”

She waited, but he didn’t say what he did do—and that’s when she caught sight of herself in the mirrored walls of the elevator and did her best not to gasp in horror. Her hair was so much worse than she’d imagined, and she’d imagined it pretty bad. The waves had exploded around her face and shoulders like she’d stuck her finger into an electrical socket. Letting out a shaky breath, she turned her back to the wall so she couldn’t see herself. Better.

“So where you visiting from?” Spence asked, his hair also tousled but looking ridiculously effortlessly sexy.

Where was she from? “Another planet entirely,” she said.

He did that brow arch again, which somehow with his glasses and those piercing light brown eyes was hot as hell and loosened her tongue. “I mean a life that seems like another planet from here,” she clarified.

He studied her a moment, leaning back against the elevator wall like he didn’t want to crowd her. “And you . . . ran away.”

“Sort of.”

“Are you in trouble, Colbie?”

The way he said her name did something to her low in her belly. “No.” Yes. Most definitely, yes. Her deadline was barreling down on her and instead of working on her book, she was three thousand– plus miles from home. “There were . . . things I couldn’t control in my life, so I decided instead to control the way I responded to it all. It’s my superpower.”

He smiled, and oh boy did he have a nice smile, so she returned it. “New York,” she said. “I’m from New York.”

“That’s a long way to run.”

Hopefully long enough. As the oldest sister to twins Kent and Kurt, the two brothers she’d mostly raised herself, both of whom had so far refused to grow up, she’d have liked to go even farther. And then there was Jackson, the agent who’d single-handedly put her on the map in her career. Until not too long ago, he’d been one of the most important people in her life. So important that she’d fallen for him hard, and she’d believed he was doing the same.

Oh how woefully, pathetically wrong she’d been. Remembering her humiliation over what had happened, she felt her face burn.

So yeah, she’d desperately needed to get away, and far away. After a lifetime of taking care of everyone around her, she just needed to be left alone for a little bit, needed that quite badly. Just her and her laptop and her thankfully vivid imagination.

Except it wasn’t so vivid lately, was it. Not since she’d become an entire huge franchise that she alone maintained. The pressure was killing her. Her brothers and their incessant neediness were killing her. Jackson was killing her.

Everything was killing her and she’d lost it. Lost herself.

“I’m going to ask you again,” he said very gently. “Are you in some kind of trouble? Do you need help?”

“No,” she said and repeated it when he didn’t look like he believed her. “No,” she said more firmly. “I’m really not in trouble. I’m . . .” She sighed. “Well, what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks. I’m a fiction writer,” she admitted.

His mouth twitched. “H-E-double-hockey-sticks?”

She shook her head. “Don’t ask. It involves a swear jar and me going broke.”

He laughed. “Creative swearing. I like it. So you’re a writer. Who ran away from New York.”

“I hit a wall. I need some inspiration. I was thinking a tropical beach, but then a surprise hurricane thwarted me, so here I am. And so far it’s been the right call. On the cab ride here, I saw a gorgeous bridge, a sparkling bay, and streets lined with elegant Victorian houses.”

“And then a horse of a dog and a fountain up close and personal,” he said with a smile. “With all that inspiration, I bet your first book flies right out of you.”

She opened her mouth to correct the notion that this would be her first book. In fact, she’d written three, the first of which had a movie coming out on Christmas Day. In her mind, she’d finished off the series, but her publisher wanted to add a fourth book and they wanted it by the first of the year.

One month from now.

As a result, she felt like there was an elephant sitting on her chest. “That’d be great,” she said.

“So what do you do to support yourself while writing?”

“Waitress,” she said, citing what she’d done all through college and up until the day she’d gotten her first big deal. See? She wasn’t a complete liar. She was merely an omitter, and that was totally allowed with perfect strangers, no matter how hot they were.

Look at her learning something from Jackson after all . . .

“Do you live or work in this building?” she asked.