Christmas With the Convict (Bringing Home Trouble)

Chapter 3

WENDY

There’s a varied set of reactions that one’s family members will take when you bring a recently released convict home for Christmas.

Your father will probably give passive-aggressive threats, spew backhanded compliments, and load his gun (I cannot confirm that the last bit has happened, but I have a hunch).

Your mother will be polite, welcoming, and entirely awkward. She’ll ask questions like Can I get you something to eat? You must be sick of prison food! or That’s an interesting tattoo… What does the barbed wire signify? She’ll drink, but that’s no surprise.

Uncles will make crass jokes about dropping the soap.

Your Aunts will stare far too lustily at his big body in a borrowed, too-small sweater.

Your sister and her husband will play it cool, saying only what they mean to each other with their eyes.

And all the children will commence a game of cops and robbers in honor of their new, favorite, most interesting guest.

It’s a Christmas miracle Chase survived the first night with his sanity intact. Luckily, we arrived late, so he was only subjected to a couple hours of the circus before people started heading off to bed with their nightcaps.

My father, still not budging an inch, set Chase up on the dingy couch in the basement rather than the last empty guest room upstairs. I didn’t fight him on it. I’m sure Chase will be happy to sleep anywhere other than a concrete cell, and the distance between him and everyone else seemed to put him at ease.

If I had it my way, he’d be sharing a bed with me…

All night, I’ve been wishing we were back in the car, alone on the road. I could have driven for days watching him rest in the passenger seat. Sometimes, he would twitch and groan horribly in his sleep. I’d reach out and take his hand or gently rub his arm, and he’d settle.

I want to know what haunts his soul while he sleeps.

I want to hear his voice when he speaks softly and just for me.

I want to—so feverishly and horribly—crack open his journal and pour through all the words he wrote.

And when the house finally quiets, I tip-toe downstairs and through the door into the basement. I immediately shiver as my bare feet touch the concrete steps. The central heating has never kept it warm down here. One lamp is on, barely illuminating all the ski gear, firewood, and boxes stored along the wall.

When I reach the bottom and turn the corner toward the light, I find Chase sitting up on the little couch as if he’s about to fend off an attack. He’s shirtless, and I nearly fall down the final step.

I’ve never seen muscles stacked like that before…

“Just me.” I give a little wave.

“I thought your dad was coming to strangle me.”

My eyes trace the canvas of tattoos that runs up his right arm and bleeds into his chest and back. I want to examine them all, piece by piece, feeling every dip in his body that the ink conceals.

“Oh, he’s not the type,” I hurry over to the big rug to warm my feet. “He’ll strangle you out in the open, with an audience.”

Chase chuckles and sits back against his makeshift bed. He moves to put the sweater my dad let him borrow back on.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I say a little too quickly. “I mean, I’m in your room, right?”

Chase shrugs. “I’d call it a small library.”

Memories of this space flood through me like warmth from a cozy fire. The same tall bookshelf that’s been here since I was six is still overflowing, pocked with knickknacks and fake candles.

I walk over and take one of the plastic candles, flicking the switch so the warm light turns on. “My dad forbid fire down here.” I puff my chest up and point a stern finger at Chase. “ You’ll light up those damn books and burn the house down. ”

He watches me turn the rest on and set them back on the shelf. The lights reveal my collection, all read twice or three times by now.

I glance over my shoulder and catch Chase peeking at my legs. This nightgown is meant to be hidden under the sheets…

I smile at him, turn slowly on my heels, and bite my lower lip.

He clears his throat and offers up his blanket. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Aren’t you?” I laugh.

Chase moves to the other side of the couch as I sit down, throwing the blanket over my legs. We sit facing each other, toes nearly touching under the cover.

“It was always cold in my cell,” he says. “It’s nice down here. The nicest place I’ve ever laid my head.”

I look around the dark, damp basement. Aside from my little reading nook hideaway, it’s pretty depressing.

“So.” Chase nods at the shelf behind me. “This was your spot?”

“My world.”

I reach back and pluck my old copy of Something Wicked This Way Comes from the shelf. My legs stretch out and my feet find themselves nearly buried in Chase’s lap. He doesn’t budge, so I don’t pull away.

“I slept down here most nights as a kid, I’d need four or five blankets.” My fingers brush over the faded colored tabs stuck between the pages. “You ever read this one? I love Bradbury.”

Chase smiles softly and shakes his head. “You read all of those?”

“Mhm. Oh! What’s your favorite book?” I lean forward and put my hands on his shins over the blanket. “Let me guess… Harry Potter ?”

Chase’s cheeks go flush. “I’ve never… I didn’t have any books to read growing up.”

I can’t help but gasp. A world without books feels so empty to me…

“Really? What about the library?”

“Not where I’m from,” he sighs. “My dad taught me about old engines. Motorcycles. Trucks.”

“I guess that explains the wrench tattoo.”

I risk reaching over to poke the faded black wrench that runs along his collarbone. My finger presses into the muscle, making me feel warmer than I’ve ever been in this basement.

“Your dad didn’t pick you up,” I say, sliding back against the arm of the couch. “He didn’t want to see you?”

“I don’t know where he is,” he says. “Haven’t seen him in nine years. I was fifteen when he took off.”

“And your mom?”

Again, Chase gives me a slow shake of his head.

Looking at this man, you’d see a beefy, intimidating figure with a threatening glare. He’s handsome, to be sure, but it’s easy to lose sight of that among the tattoos and wild eyes.

And yet, all I see is a man plagued by pain.

He looks at people defensively, returning their suspicion and fear. Up there, among my snobby family, he’s a convict. A criminal. Something dangerous and toxic.

But here, with me, his edges soften. He gives me glimpses of everything hiding behind the ink and the eyes and the scars.

He’s dangerous to me, but in a way I hope he isn’t with anyone else.

“I’m sorry, Chase,” I say, scooting closer. His bare legs swallow me up, bringing a heat that makes my chest heave. “I’m sorry no one was there for you today.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he hums. “No one’s ever been there.”

A tear breaks free and rolls down my cheek.

I’ve read stories meant to make me weep, but no one’s ever made me feel this sort of sadness. It’s tinged with something else, something rising in my core and tingling in my fingertips.

Chase reaches over the blanket, cautiously cups my face, and wipes the tear away.

“You were there,” he says, drawing me closer. “If I’m being honest, I didn’t want to leave that place today.”

“What?” I laugh and nestle against his palm, allowing myself to slide closer and closer until we’re practically wrapped up under the blanket. “Why wouldn’t you want to leave?”

We’re so close that I can feel his breath. The warmth spreads down my chin, tickling my neck as he speaks.

“Because I didn’t want to miss your class,” he whispers, nose brushing across mine, “I wanted to see you, one last time.”

My hands travel up his tense, solid arms. I let my fingers glide over every bulge up his shoulders until I’m holding his gorgeous, damaged face in my hands. My thumb finally feels that jagged scar along his jaw.

“You had a staring problem, you know?” My words travel breathlessly to his lips.

“Yeah,” he hums. “So did you.”

Finally, there’s nowhere left for us to go. No more space to fill.

Our lips seal, and we pull each other greedily into a deep kiss that I hope never ends. It’s like losing myself in an amazing book. When I no longer register my fingers flipping the pages. When words and sentences become vivid images in my head.

He pulls me into his lap, hands completely under my nightgown, tugging at my panties and taking handfuls of everything I have to offer. Everything I want him to take for himself…

If he was wearing a shirt, I’d shred it from his hunky body.

If this massive house was vacant, I’d moan his name as the bulge between his legs presses against me.

If these were more favorable circumstances, I know exactly how far we’d go…

Unfortunately, we don’t get the chance.

The door to the basement opens.

“ Shit.”

Before we can completely untangle ourselves, I hear my nephews giggle and run back up the stairs.

I sigh and fall back against the couch, feet still in Chase’s lap. “Well, at least it wasn’t my dad.”

Chase’s body is heaving. He runs a hand up my leg before pulling back.

“Yeah.” I nod. “Let’s not push our luck tonight.”

I get up and straighten myself out, already missing his warmth, his touch, the feeling of those thick muscles pressed against me.

“I’ll handle those two,” I promise. “I’m their favorite aunt.”

“Aren’t you their only aunt?”

“ Exactly. ”

I turn to head up the stairs, but Chase catches me by the arm. He’s on his feet, pulling me into his warm embrace and a soft kiss.

“I know I shouldn’t do this,” he says, smiling mischievously. “I know I shouldn’t have come here. But… you’re all I’ve thought about for months, Wendy. I thought I’d never see you again when I walked out that gate. When that car stopped and it was you in the driver’s seat, it was the first time in my life that I felt like something, somewhere, might be looking out for me.”

Our foreheads rest together.

I tremble as his hands run down my arms.

“I wish I could say that I picked you up due to some moral compulsion,” I laugh softly, fingers rolling over his barrel chest. “I was looking for you . I wanted you to be out there on the road. I wanted you to be cuffed to the bench in my class. I’m selfish, Chase. There isn’t any other way to say it.”

He lifts my gaze with two fingers on my chin.

Deep in his earthy eyes, chaos swirls. It’s a mirror. Everything I’m feeling is in there looking right back at me.

Chase’s voice cracks as he speaks, “So am I.”

A chill runs down my spine.

“Wendy, I—“

“No.” I press my lips to his before yanking myself away. “That’s enough for tonight. I don’t want your confession. Not now. I just want to know you .”

He watches me head up the stairs, body tense and heaving.

“I’m afraid you won’t like what you find,” he says.

“Let’s take it one date at a time.”

“This was a date?” Chase laughs, coming round to the bottom of the stairs. I don’t care that he can see right up my nightgown. In fact, it excites me so much that I stop at the door and look down at him.

“Mhm.” I bite my lip and point my toes as if I’m about to come back down to him. “The best first date I’ve ever had.”

He smiles and nods. “Me too.”

“And tomorrow,” I whisper and crack open the door. “We go skiing.”

“Wait, what? ”

I shut the door behind me and lean against it. On my back, I can still feel the heat of his touch through the wood.