Blame It On The Carols (Sugarplum Falls #6)

Twelve | Makayla

Twelve

Makayla

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go tonight,” I said, saying goodbye to my mom at the door.

I didn’t want to tell her what was going on with my stalker—especially since I knew she would be disappointed that I’d kept it from her for this long. But deciding in the spur of the moment to stay with Aiden meant I had to come clean and tell her what was really going on. It wasn’t that I was excited about staying with him, but it made the most sense. The last thing I needed was for her to get her hopes up that something was going on between us when there wasn’t.

If anything, it made me even more tense and stressed because he had confessed he was still in love with me. There was a time when I would have given the world to hear him say those words again, but now that he’d said them, I almost wished he hadn’t. Now wasn’t the right time for anything to try to happen between us, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he would have still said them had he not found out someone was stalking me. If there wasn’t the element of my life being in danger, would he still have admitted it—better yet, would he still feel the same?

“Okay, dear. I understand. I can’t say that I’m happy about not knowing you’ve had a stalker this whole time, but it does make me feel better that you’re going to stay with Aiden. I know he’ll take good care of you.”

Not in the way I would like him to take care of me because that would involve feelings, and no one needed to catch those at a time like this .

I smiled tightly and nodded my head, unable to get words out that wouldn’t be sarcastic. At this point, it was better not to say anything at all.

“I’m glad you’ll be staying at Brock’s house when you can,” I said, hating that there would be times when she wouldn’t have him there because of his work schedule.

“I’ll talk to the ladies and see what they want to do about rehearsing. I think doing it at Sugar Faced Bar during the day is still the best idea, but we’ll have to see if that works for Aiden. I don’t want to make things any harder for him than they already are. We have less than two weeks until the competition, so we can’t mess around.”

“Sounds good, mom. Text me once you get home so I know you’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” she asked, eyebrows immediately raised.

Goosebumps spread quickly across my skin as I realized that my mom has always lived in Sugarplum Falls, and aside from suspense movies, she’s never had to experience something like this in real life. I didn’t want to scare her by telling her that there was a chance my stalker would show up in town or, even worse—that he would find her and use her to get to me.

“It’s just something they say in the big city,” Aiden assured her as he came up behind me and rested his hand on my lower back.

I tried to ignore the flames that spread through me from the contact as my mother narrowed her eyes and looked between us to figure out who was lying.

“Yeah,” I agreed, my voice shakier than I would have liked. “I’m so used to saying it that it just slipped off my tongue.” I rolled my eyes, trying to get her to believe it, but I felt her still judging me.

“Okay...” She stepped outside and cast one more glance at us over her shoulder before heading to her car. Once she was inside and pulling away, Aiden closed the door and locked it.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes.

“How am I supposed to do this?” I whined, hating that I had brought this problem to the one place my mother should feel safe.

“We’ll figure it out as we go. You don’t have to worry about her right now. I have someone watching her.”

“You have someone watching my mom?” I asked, tilting my head to look at him.

He nodded.

“Aiden,” I said with a heavy sigh. “You don’t need to do all of this. I promise it’s fine. Curtis already insisted on sending a few guys from my security team out. I’m sure they’ll be popping up and struggling to blend in any minute now.”

“They’re actually set to arrive this evening. Their flight was delayed.”

My eyebrows rose high into my hairline as I stared at him.

“You know when my security team is arriving?”

“I do. I know their names, what they look like, and I have a full background check on both of them.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Not one bit.”

He walked off and headed back to the kitchen as I trailed behind him.

“Aiden,” I blurted out, my frustration quickly mounting. “How exactly did you get this information?”

“Curtis,” he replied, his back to me as he pulled a dish out of the oven. I didn’t want to judge because it smelled amazing, but who the hell had this kind of time to make such an elaborate meal for lunch? Hadn’t he heard of sandwiches?

“So Curtis just handed over information that is supposed to be confidential and classified?” I pressed, moving out of the way as he worked around me to get lunch set up.

“Yes. We talked, and I told him that in order to keep you safe, I needed to have this information. He sent it over a while ago, and I made it a top priority to go over it as soon as I got it.”

I closed my eyes and let my head fall back.

“I think everyone is making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be.”

Before I could open my eyes, I felt him stand in front of me, pinching my chin in between his fingers to get my attention.

“This is a big deal, Makayla. If I don’t know who he is sending, then this Kevin guy can easily walk in and pretend to be someone on your security team. I refuse to let him get that close to you without knowing everything I can about everyone who shows up in Sugarplum Falls. You might not want to take this seriously, but I do. So does everyone in this town. So suck it up, buttercup. This is happening whether you like it or not.”

He stepped back, his green eyes blazing with heat as my body tried to process what just happened. I should have been annoyed by how he was treating me, but at the same time, I found it very arousing. Which was bad given that I was doing my best to make sure that line between us didn’t get crossed again.