Merry Mended Hearts (Santa’s Radio Christmas Romance #1)

4. Boone

BOONE

For a moment, I had the stupid fear that the woman whose faucet I’d fixed had somehow made her way here and laid some kind of trap to trip me up. She’d hidden herself in my bed with all kinds of ulterior motives.

Staggering, I regained my balance and stared at the dim room.

My eyes readjusted enough to find someone bolting up in the bed.

My bed.

What the heck? I could see her well enough—she had brown hair and a laptop on her lap, but I needed more light for this. I made for the door, stumbling again over whatever was on the floor, and finally found the light.

It blinded me for only moments before I rounded on the intruder.

“What are you doing here?” I asked before I really saw who it was.

Sure enough, it was a woman, but not the middle-aged cougar from the leaky faucet disaster in room 17.

Although, I wasn’t sure having this woman here was any better.

Grace. The beautiful woman from the lobby with long brown hair lifted a hand to shield her eyes. She was in my room. She was in my bed. Typing on her laptop.

Or, my childhood bed, anyway. I didn’t sleep here all that much anymore.

“You?” I said, my voice sounding gruff. “What are you doing in my room? Junie!” I boomed, not giving Grace a chance to answer.

I called Junie’s name like we were kids again and she’d hidden a frog in my sock drawer.

She did that once. Junie had laughed so hard because I had squealed like a little girl when I’d opened my drawer only to have the frog leap into my face.

In my defense, I’d been twelve, and my voice hadn’t yet dropped.

I took in the sight of the suitcase in the middle of the floor between the bed and the door. I wanted to kick it for tripping me twice.

“Junie!” I called again.

“Dookie!” I heard from down the hall.

“Are you Boone? I’m so sorry,” Grace said behind me, rising out of the bed. She set her laptop back where she’d been sitting and hurried to straighten the blankets. She wore a pair of pink shorts and a tank top that she readjusted before facing me. “I didn’t mean to intrude. She told me no one was using this room.”

I glared at her as he gaze caught mine. As her beautiful eyes raked their way down my bare chest—and lingered.

While the woman upstairs checking me out with unapologetic lust had been repulsive, something flickered in my chest at the way Grace looked at me. I couldn’t tell if she liked what she saw or not.

Frankly, I didn’t care. This heat coursing through me was because I was upset—not because I liked her looking at me.

I nudged the suitcase aside and went to the door just as Junie appeared wearing pajamas with fat candy cane stripes all over them. Her hair was tied up in pigtails. She looked ridiculous.

What if a guest needed something? Then again, she probably had someone who worked the nightshift.

“Boonie,” she said breathlessly. “You scared me to death. What’s wrong? What are you doing here?” She glanced down at my jeans. “And why are you half soaked and half naked?”

Grace cleared her throat. Heat slammed into my face all over again. This only made me tense, which only flexed my muscles, which only added to the problem.

“Leaky faucet,” I said, keeping my attention on my cousin. “It took longer than I thought to fix so I didn’t make it home.”

Junie’s eyes bugged wider than a cartoon princess’s. She groaned and sank against the wall. “Not tonight of all nights.”

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” I gestured as Grace pushed her suitcase toward the closet and joined Junie’s side. She was a few inches taller than Junie, and where Junie’s curls squiggled in all directions from both of her pigtails, Grace’s hair was sleek and straight, curling only at its ends.

“This is Grace,” Junie said.

“We’ve met,” I said, trying to curb my frustration.

I didn’t need to be an all-out jerk over this.

“She got stranded and needed somewhere to stay.”

“Okay,” I said, my annoyance lowering. “But that still doesn’t give you the right to put her in my old room.”

Junie’s typical defenses flared. “Why? You’re not using it.”

“Obviously, that’s not the case.” I opened my arms to her.

Both women looked at my torso. Junie quirked a disbelieving brow while the prettiest shade of pink splotched Grace’s cheeks, and she looked away. She was near enough that I could smell something fruity. Something that stirred that dormant longing in the pit of my stomach.

“I thought you’d gone back to the cottage already,” Junie said.

“Again, no.”

Grace lifted her hands, looking quickly at me and then away just as fast.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “I can just go sleep out on the couch in the lobby.”

“No,” Junie and I both said.

Because not only would that be tacky, but it wasn’t her fault my cousin made the mistake of not asking me first.

What would I have said if she had?

No, probably. But still.

Grunting, I made my way to the dresser and dug out a dry shirt and pants. Wordlessly, I stalked past the two women toward the open door.

“Thanks, Boone,” Junie said with that cheeky grin as though she knew just how much she’d overstepped and was rubbing it in my face.

Grace, however, wasn’t quite as smug about this. I slipped the shirt on over my chest just as she told me to wait.

Reluctantly, I turned and faced her. She twined her dark hair over one shoulder. Her eyes were blue pools of worry, and she tucked her lips into her teeth.

“Where will you go?” she asked.

There was always Aunt Meg’s room. I inhaled and turned to Junie. “Your mom is gone?”

She nodded.

“I’ll sleep there.”

Grace fanned her hands toward me. “Let me,” she said. “I can move. Please. You have your space.”

She bent for her suitcase, pulling it upright and jerking its handle until it clicked up.

I glanced toward the bed. Its blankets were mussed, her laptop still sat where she’d left it, and I didn’t want to be anywhere her fruity smell had been. It was tantalizing enough from a distance, but smelling her in my pillow? Knowing her body had warmed the sheets just before mine did?

That took my thoughts down too many roads they didn’t need to travel.

“You stay right where you are,” I told her, tipping my chin toward both women and stalking down the hall.

After showering and changing into dry clothes, I didn’t bother with dinner. I scrolled through the contacts on my phone, wondering who could help drive the sleigh on Christmas Eve. We had to find someone else.

I couldn’t do it.

My resolve to stay away from Grace only heightened that much more. I had one more day before Christmas Eve. One more day of work. And then I was hiding myself away to let Christmas come and go just like it did every year.

Without anyone meddling in my life in the meantime.

If only I’d known Santa’s magic radio had other ideas, I would have braved the darkness and left that very night.