Hot Winter Nights

“We’re having dinner,” Pru said, rubbing her big baby bump. “You two want to join?”

“I’m still working,” Molly told her.

Sadie smiled and squeezed her hand. “Just take it easy, okay?”

“No worries, I’m fine,” Molly said and then the two women exchanged a long look.

Lucas did his best to read it, but even having a sister and his mom, he was most definitely not fluent in Women Speak. He knew people sometimes saw Molly as a fragile little flower, but in his mind she wasn’t fragile like a flower at all. Not even close. She was fragile like . . . a bomb.

“I just pushed myself a little too hard in the gym this morning, that’s all,” Molly said.

“You need to come do yoga with me sometime,” Elle said.

“Maybe,” Molly said. “If it’s cold yoga and I get to wear sweatpants and just lie on the floor.”

Elle laughed. “Sweats are a cry for help.”

“Hey, there’s no reason a cry for help can’t be comfortable. ’Night, guys.” Molly walked off and Lucas followed, feeling all the eyes following them. But Molly didn’t seem to give it a second thought.

A few minutes later they were buckling into his car when his phone rang. Seeing it was Joe, he clicked off his blue tooth so it wouldn’t blast the conversation into the interior of the vehicle. “Talk,” he said.

Molly looked over at him, brows raised. She always complained about the guys and their phone manners, but the truth was, they were just usually in a hurry and trying to be efficient, and he didn’t get the problem with that.

“I’m at the pub with Kylie,” Joe said. “Saw you leave the courtyard with Molly. She’s not answering my call. What’s going on?”

Shit. What was going on? Well, let’s see. Fact number one: he’d kissed Molly until he’d nearly forgotten his own name. Fact number two: she’d kissed him back. Fact number three: that kiss—no, better make that kisses, as in plural—had been the best thing to happen to him in recent memory, and all he could think about was hauling her over the console and into his lap and taking more of what she’d so sweetly offered. “I’ll have to get back to you,” he said.

“Negative,” Joe replied. “Tell me now.”

Right. Okay then. He held up a finger to Molly signaling that he needed a moment and stepped out of the car, shutting the door and walking a few feet away so as to not be overheard. “I already told Archer. She’s taking the case outside of work and there’s no stopping her,” he said quietly.

Joe was quiet for a beat, then he said something, muffled. Lucas realized he was talking to Archer.

Perfect.

Joe came back. “And you’re not going to tell her what you’re up to.”

“What is this, sixth grade?” Lucas asked. “Why can’t you guys just tell her I’m here to have her back?”

“Because then she’ll think we don’t trust her.”

“As you clearly don’t.”

“It’s complicated,” Joe said.

No shit.

“Look, just take care of her, okay? It’s simple.”

It wasn’t simple. Nothing about this was simple. And neither was Molly. She was simple like . . . like quantum physics. “Tell me what happened to her.”

“Why?”

Lucas pinched the bridge of his nose and drew a deep breath. Brother and sister were more alike than either of them wanted to believe. “Look, you want me to keep her safe, I’m going to keep her safe. But I’m missing some key intel here.”

Joe was quiet for a beat. “It’s a long story,” he finally said. “And it’s not my story to tell. But I can say that her getting hurt . . . that shit was all on me. She used to run track. Wanted to be an Olympian. That was her dream, it was her way out. And none of it happened. So yeah, I go a little crazy when I think she could get hurt again. I know that.”

Not an apology, but Lucas didn’t need one. He understood guilt. And he understood the gut-clenching, heart-stopping fear of someone he loved getting hurt. “I’ve got her back,” he said gruffly. “You know I do. I’ll watch over her.”

And he would, or die trying. But if Joe knew the truth, that Lucas had had his mouth on Molly’s, and also his hands, there was every chance that his partner and good friend would kill him dead where he stood with absolutely zero remorse, and Lucas would expect no less.

Chapter 9

#JingleAllTheWay

Molly watched Lucas end his call and slide behind the wheel.

“What’s your plan?” he asked, clearly having no intention of talking about his phone call. The call that had agitated him, even though he was still looking his usual calm, implacable self.

A reminder that while they appeared to have added kissing to their repertoire, they weren’t exactly friends.

Or lovers.

Got it.

“My plan,” she said. “is to go look around the Christmas Village, but first I want to check out Bad Santa’s home address. Stealthily, of course. I just want to get a feel for him. Something’s weird to me.” She gave him the addy and he started driving.

She looked resolutely out the window and not at him because that was the only way to get through this, not looking into his face. She didn’t know how to go back to before the kiss, didn’t know how to un-want him.

When he spoke a few minutes into the silence, he startled her. “I’ve got a question,” he said.

She hesitated, feeling more than a little wary. “Okay.”

“Your leg seems to bother you more on the cold days.”

She looked over him in the dark, ambient lighting of the interior of the car, surprised. People who’d known her for years hadn’t caught onto that. “Yes. It does.”

“What happened? What can be done so you don’t have to be in pain?”

“That’s more than one question,” she said, turning back to the window.

He snorted and the sound made her want to smile, but she held it because she didn’t want to talk about this with him. Or anyone. Ever.

“I’d like to know,” he said quietly, the amusement gone from his voice. “Because I’d like to know more about you.”

“I tried to let you know more about me and was shut down.”

“No fair,” he said softly.

Okay, he might be right on that one. She shrugged. “Hey, if you want to play a game of questions, I’m all for it. But I get to go first.”

“Fine. Hit me,” he said.

“You said you’d let down those you’ve loved. How?”

He glanced over at her and then turned his attention back to the road. “I started out as a medic but I hated that, so I went into the DEA. I did a lot of undercover and was gone all the time, and when I wasn’t, I still wasn’t good about being there for the people in my life.”

“So that’s how you let them down? By being a workaholic?”

He gave a short nod.

“Being a workaholic isn’t the worst thing,” she said.

“It is if you love one,” he said. “My turn. Tell me what happened to you.”

The injury had actually been her back, not her leg. She’d broken her back in three places falling out of the window making her great escape all those years ago. She’d had multiple spine surgeries but the nerves in her right leg still hadn’t come back. While the stabbing, burning, constant nerve pain had thankfully faded, left in its placed was . . . a nothingness. Her right leg from knee to hip was entirely numb. Like gone-to-the-dentist-and-been-doped-up-with-Novocain numb.