Three Nights Before Christmas: A Holiday Romance Collection Read online

  Mia frowns. “Detective Matthews—”

  “I’m all right.” It’s a harsh rasp. “Just another second.”

  “Okay.” She tilts her head, that long ponytail swinging against the back of her shoulder. “So you live here?”

  More like I’m dying here. “I would if I could get to my place.”

  A shadow crosses her face. “Sorry. We’ll get out of your way—”

  “Hold on,” the frat boy interrupts. “Did you say ‘Matthews’? This is the guy who stopped that fucker from shooting up the building where you work?”

  “Yes,” she says softly, her eyes still locked on mine.

  “Oh, man.” He comes at me with hand extended. “Jason Lewis. And thank you. Mia’s the best thing in my life, so you saved mine, too.”

  Now I’m wishing him dead. Ignoring his hand, I answer flatly, “Sure.”

  My resentment bounces right off him. Grinning, he says, “You’ve got to let me take you for a drink sometime—”

  I stop him with a hostile stare. “I’ll settle for you getting that elevator clear.”

  “Oh shit. Yeah.” Still in good cheer, he grabs hold of the sofa arm and begins hauling it back out into the hallway.

  Mia’s still right in front of me, close enough to touch, her gaze running all over my face. But the light in her eyes is darker now, worry pleating her brows. “So you are healing up?”

  “I am. Thanks to you, if I’m remembering right.”

  A hint of pink touches her cheeks. “I didn’t do much. The EMTs were there right after me, so…” She trails off with a shrug. “I heard the grand jury cleared you for the OIS?”

  For firing my gun, shooting Lowery. “I was back on duty today.”

  Her face brightens with a smile and my heart just seizes in my chest. Christ. Christ. Simply seeing her is heaven. Seeing her happy? I’d give anything to see it again. Give anything to be the one who always puts that smile on her beautiful face. I’ve never wanted anyone so fucking bad. And she’ll be so close, every day. But someone else will be holding her. Kissing her.

  This is pure hell. “You’re moving in for a while, then?” At her nod, I add, “I hear your daddy isn’t too happy about that.”

  A surprised laugh bursts from her, followed by a disbelieving shake of her head. “Did he go to Chief Jackson? Probably after my boss told him she wouldn’t try to convince me to change my mind.”

  “Maybe you should. You don’t really belong in a place like this.”

  Her expression freezes. A shadow darkens her eyes as she stares at me for an endless moment. Then she glances over her shoulder and steps back. “Looks like Jason’s got the elevator clear. I’m glad you’re feeling better, detective.”

  I’m not feeling better. I’ve never felt like so much shit, not even in the seconds after the bullet tore up my leg. I’m aware of her gaze following every limping step I take past her.

  Then another realization hits me. The apartment across from mine has been standing empty for a month. Holding the elevator door open, I ask gruffly, “What number you in?”

  Her face brightens again, as if she’s happy I bothered to ask. “Three-oh-six.”

  Fuck. I let go of the elevator door, letting it slide closed.

  Not just in the same building. Right across the hall. And not just knowing someone is holding her, fucking her. Maybe hearing it. Maybe seeing him kiss her goodbye in the morning and disappearing through that door together at night.

  Suddenly the most painful thing I’m feeling isn’t my leg, or even my goddamn dick. It’s centered right in my chest, instead.

  3

  Mia

  “Hate to break it to you, sis,” Jason tells me. “But it looks like your hero is an asshole.”

  “Yeah.” Clearly the detective wasn’t thrilled when I gave him my apartment number. When the elevator’s indicator stops on three, the reason why is obvious, too. Cole Matthews doesn’t think I belong here. And I’m not only in the same building, but apparently on the same floor. “But some people are jerks when they’re hurting. And he was just shot two weeks ago.”

  Jason jabs the down arrow, calling for the elevator again. “And some people are jerks when they aren’t hurting. Guess which one he probably is?”

  I know what he is. Cole Matthews is an asshole. But word is, he’s a gruff and blunt asshole, not a mean and vicious one. That distinction makes all the difference in the world to me.

  Not that I ever talked to him before the day Lowery showed up at the courthouse with a semi-automatic rifle. But I knew who Cole Matthews was. He’s hard to miss. Not only is Cole tall as hell, he’s built like Superman. And if that weren’t enough, he’s… Well, he’s not handsome, really. Not like Jason is, or my father is. Instead his features are overly bold, with dark slashing brows and a brooding stare over a strong nose, and absolutely magnetic—as if forged from iron that pulls your attention in his direction the moment you enter his sphere of influence.

  So, yeah. I noticed him.

  I don’t think he ever noticed me. I can’t recall our eyes ever meeting before that awful day. Working in Joan Childers’s office puts me in contact with a lot of law enforcement, though, and the city and county administrative community downtown is small. So I hear my share of gossip, and some of it involves Detective Matthews. Nothing disturbing. No harassment or groping. Usually it’s a lab assistant griping about him badgering them for quick results on tests, or some abrupt remark he made to the forensic technicians at a crime scene. Both Dr. Childers and Chief Jackson like the detective, though—and I can think of few people whose opinions I respect more than theirs. Hell, neither of them like my parents much, so I’d say they’re pretty good judges of character.

  “He did look in bad shape,” Jason concedes as the empty elevator dings open.

  He had. Pale beneath his tan, face gleaming with sweat. But better than the last time I saw him. Blood was streaming down the side of his head and pooling on the concrete steps, and I was desperately trying to stop the bleeding in his thigh. He got lucky. Both of Lowery’s bullets could have been fatal so easily. Just a few millimeters and it would have penetrated his skull instead of grazing off of it. Just a few millimeters and lead could have shattered his femur or ripped open his femoral artery.

  I was lucky that day, too. Just a few seconds, and another of Lowery’s bullets would have hit me.

  It’s strange how life can seem to change so slowly…then all at once, change in a flash. Strange how choices that seemed so difficult are suddenly so easy and obvious. For years I’ve been pushing back against what my parents want me to be. Then in one pull of a trigger, I simply don’t care what they want. I’m done pushing back, because what they want is not even a factor in my life anymore.

  Not that they’ll make it easy. They never make anything easy.

  “So this time,” Jason says, “I’m going to get in there and lift that end up while you push this end in. All right?”

  “Yep.” We can be smarter than my furniture. Though maybe next time I’ll just pay for movers to bring it in. When I bought the sofa, I thought, Oooh, this is what it’s like to be independent! I’ll haul my new couch into my own home!

  First living-by-myself lesson learned: Hire professionals to carry the heavy stuff.

  Jason clambers over the sofa and tosses back, “So did you find out if he has a girlfriend?”

  My cheeks catch fire. Because I don’t need to find out—I already know he doesn’t.

  I don’t respond but my red face must give me away. Jason starts laughing so hard he can’t heft his end of the sofa.

  “Maybe you can bake him some cupcakes or something.”

  This time I flip him off, because he knows I’ve never baked anything. Unless you count helping a friend slice up cookie dough when I was over at her house. My mother never allowed me to go anywhere near our own kitchen, claiming that my presence there would only create more work for the staff—first when they felt obligated to help me, then whe
n they had to clean up my mess. Besides, a Bennet simply didn’t belong in the kitchen. A Bennet belongs on a seat in a boardroom or at the head of our charity foundation.

  But now that I’m living by myself, I should be able to bake. And making cupcakes actually sounds kind of fun.

  Not that I’ll be making them for Cole Matthews. I can’t deny that the thought of him eventually getting a girlfriend or a wife twists up something hot and painful inside of me. And I can’t deny that I think he’s gorgeous, and that everything I’ve learned about him tells me he’s a dedicated, hardworking, loyal man. The detective sounds like everything a woman could want.

  But for a long, long time, I’ve been told that I’m not someone a good man would want. And it’s all shit, I know it’s shit. That doesn’t mean I’m ready to hang my heart out as a target. I need to build up a little more armor before I let anyone start taking shots at it.

  Then maybe tiny pellets like You don’t really belong in a place like this wouldn’t pierce so deeply. Because I don’t think he meant anything hurtful by it. He was just bluntly saying what a lot of people probably believe. Still, I’m so used to being wounded, all I heard was: You don’t belong.

  But I do. I belong in Apartment 306. Because I’ve got my lease, signed and paid for.

  And I’m not going to let anyone ever make me feel worthless again. Not my parents, not random assholes—and certainly not overly blunt, grumpy detectives. Not even the ones who are big, sexy heroes. This is my life, dammit.

  So I’m finally going to start living it.

  4

  Mia

  It turns out, I love learning to live by myself. I love turning this apartment into a home of my very own. And I love YouTube, because it doesn’t matter what I want to know—someone has uploaded a step-by-step tutorial about how to do it.

  And it’s all so fun. Even chores as simple as washing my new dishes or sweeping my wooden floors. Maybe one day the thrill will wear off, but two weeks after moving in, I’m still enjoying all of it. Especially laundry, and that moment when I pull the clothes from the dryer and they’re so warm and smell so good. And after taking on so many projects at home, God knows I dirty a lot of clothes. The apartments each have hookups but I haven’t bought my washer and dryer yet—and I don’t know if I will. When I use the small laundry room in the basement, the whole process feels like an adventure. First sorting the clothes. Then traipsing down the stairs. Then feeding the machines detergent and quarters.

  As far I can tell, only a few people in the building use the coin-operated machines, so the laundry room is always quiet. I use both available washers, colors in one and whites in the other. Then I race upstairs again, praying the door across the hall won’t open while I’m running around in my little shorts and thin sleep shirt…and also praying it will.

  It doesn’t.

  So I just have to fill the time until my laundry’s dry and until I go to bed. I prop my tablet on the kitchen counter and fire up an episode of The Great British Bake Off while I mix up some muffins—which turned out to be surprisingly easy now that I have all of the ingredients and equipment. My results won’t look anything like the bakes on the show, but a girl can dream and the contestants are all so nice. I slide the first batch into the oven before running down to throw my clothes into the dryers. About a second after I make it back to my apartment, I hear Cole leave his. I stand there with my hands braced against the door, forcing myself not to spy on him through the peephole, wondering if he’ll ever knock.

  He doesn’t. Instead the faint ding of the elevator arriving on our floor tells me that he’s going out.

  On a date? It’s Sunday night and probably too late for that. Maybe just picking up something from the corner store.

  Suddenly torn by worry, I gnaw my bottom lip. It’s snowing outside. The sidewalks are pretty slick. And he’s getting around more easily now, especially in the mornings. By the afternoons, though, he usually seems to break out the crutches—and crutches plus snow and ice might be a problem. So maybe if I don’t hear him come back before I go to bed, I’ll make a trip to the corner store, too.

  Then he’ll probably think I’m stalking him. I see him almost every day. We leave for work about the same time, come home around the same time. We don’t say much when our paths cross in the hallway. Usually he just answers my greeting with a stiff nod and a brooding glare.

  And just like before the shooting—and before I moved into this apartment building—I occasionally see him while I’m at work. The difference now is that he sees me, too. Every time I notice him, he’s already noticed me. His dark gaze never leaves me. Then I pretend to be unaware and get out from under that unrelenting stare as fast as I can. It’s cowardly, I know. But I don’t know how to handle the crazy way my heart starts pounding when he’s near. And I can’t bear those stiff greetings, as if he’d rather not talk to me at all. It’s gotten so bad that I’ll use the stairs so I’m not stuck in the elevator with him, my heart going a mile a minute and my body on fire, while he watches me. Doesn’t talk to me. Just watches me.

  Like he did on Friday morning. Since Cole’s on light duty, most of the missing persons cases are being funneled in his direction. So when a call came in regarding a missing elderly man only a day after an elderly man was found slumped over dead on a park bench, with no identification and no signs of physical trauma, it’s no surprise the detective came down to the autopsy suite to see if the unidentified man was his missing person.

  Also no surprise, it was his missing person. Preliminary identification turned out to be a simple matter, thanks to a distinctive military tattoo.

  The surprise came when Cole stayed through the rest of the autopsy—saying he would wait until Dr. Childers discovered a probable cause of death. My boss is both meticulous and methodical, so the autopsy takes anywhere from a full hour to an entire morning. And it’s gruesome. I don’t mind that, but most people do. Even cops. So they typically don’t hover; they’ll wait for Childers to call with her preliminary findings. And given the deceased’s history of heart disease, this case was pretty clearly going to be filed under ‘natural causes.’ Nothing unusual, no foul play. Just a man who went for a walk but who probably had a cardiac event before he made it back home.

  Cole had to know it, too. Yet still he remained. And every time I looked up, he was watching me. I would like to think it’s because I looked sooooo sexy that day…but as an autopsy technician, I’m dressed head-to-toe in shapeless blue scrubs, a surgical mask, and a hair net. Only my eyes are visible, but even they are shielded by clear safety glasses.

  So yeah. Cole probably didn’t stay because I looked so damn hot. And he didn’t talk much. Just followed me with his brooding stare while I took photos and samples and opened the skull.

  I might have thought the quiet was usual for him, since he doesn’t ever talk much around me. But partway through the procedure, Childers teased him for his atypical silence and asked if he was trying to scare her new technician—me—before assuring him that I’d already seen worse than anything he could deliver.

  I’m not sure that’s true. I suspect that if Cole tried, he could do terrible, terrible things to my heart. He just wouldn’t leave any visible marks.

  Three minutes before my second batch of muffins are supposed to come out, my timer goes off to warn me about the end of the dryer’s cycle. I wait to pull the muffins from the oven before racing downstairs.

  And Cole’s not at the corner store. Instead he’s in the laundry room, wearing nothing but a pair of light gray sweatpants, casually leaning back against one of the washing machines, his phone in hand. The noises coming from the device sound like he’s watching a football game, and a half-empty beer bottle sits within his reach on the nearby table—as if he’s been killing time down here instead of running back and forth like I have been.

  I stop dead, suddenly far too aware of my thin shirt and my little shorts.

  And his bare chest and stomach. His torso appears carved fro
m granite. Holy shit, the pectorals on the man. And the abdominals. And the Adonis belt. And there’s a happy trail of dark hair running straight down. And a soft bulge beneath his waistband.

  I tear my gaze upward again and meet his eyes, which are narrowed on my face.

  Scowling, he asks, “Is your shit I’m waiting on?”

  My cheeks flame. Even I know that when there aren’t any available machines, leaving your clothes in the dryer is not proper communal laundry etiquette.

  “Sorry.” Grabbing my basket from the table where I left it, I edge past him. Bending over in front of the machine, I begin pulling out clothes as fast as I can. They’re still hot, my face is hot, everything in this laundry room is burning me alive. “You need both?”

  “Just one.”

  “Okay. This one’s empty.” I slide my basket over. My heart’s pounding like I just dug a six-foot-deep hole instead of emptied a dryer. Desperately I search for something to say. “How was your weekend?”

  “Long.” He starts throwing handfuls of wet laundry into the first machine. “Yours?”

  I try not to stare at the flex of his biceps but it’s hard. His arms are beautifully cut, muscles and tendons like organic steel, all working in gorgeous harmony. “Productive.”

  He grunts and slams the dryer shut. “Is ‘productive’ why I smelled paint in the hall?”

  I nod and drag the last of my clothes into the basket. “I’m sampling different colors on my walls before I commit to anything.”

  “You’re painting your place yourself?” His voice sounds doubtful—but if he doubts that I’d do it myself or whether I can do it myself, I’m not certain.