Monsters Under Mistletoe

1. Carol

Chapter 1

Carol

A t five foot ten inches one would assume I would be able to reach the top of a damn doorway to hang a stupid mistletoe—under which nobody would kiss me—but no. My brother and new sister-in-law had to move into a house with eight foot entryways. Not to mention the grand foyer and spiraling, wrought iron stairway. With all that money spent, they should have been able to afford a ladder, but nope. Instead I was wobbling precariously on a three legged footstool ready to collapse under me or tip over—the jury was still out on that.

“Whoa, careful there,” a deep male voice announced beside me, startling me so that suddenly option three—which I hadn’t considered—me falling off the damn footstool, became a very likely possibility.

Large, strong hands encircled my waist, steadying me. “Need a hand there, little lady?”

Little lady ? Nobody had called me little since … kindergarten?

Ah, hell no!

“Gabe?”

“The one and only,” he confirmed with the same cocky grin he had sported ever since I had known him. The same cocky grin that had made my heart flutter and stomach drop every time we crossed paths.

And considering he was my best friend’s brother, we had crossed paths quite frequently.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, even though I should have expected him. After all, this was his brother’s house warming/Christmas/wedding party.

But honestly, he was supposed to be in sunny Tampa Bay, gearing up for the football match of the year, or one of the matches of the year. I guess the biggest event was the Superbowl, after all. Then again, what did I know about football? I had made a point to avoid those games. After watching his brother, Patrick, break his neck in high school, I had stopped watching football altogether.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t like it at all. I had only gone because of Patrick and my best friend, Ella, who had a crush on him for years. Thankfully, the break hadn’t affected Patrick’s spinal cord, and he made a full recovery after months and months of treatment and care, but his days as a football player were over. In stark contrast to Gabe’s, whose career had taken off and him into the big leagues.

“I could ask you the same question, marshmallow, and why are you on this old time-out chair?”

I was very aware of his large hands on my waist, the tingling sensation where his palms touched me spread like wildfire all through my body, just like his stupid nicknames for me rose memories of his irritating presence and flamed my ever present temperament whenever he was around.

Normally, I was a very even tempered person, the gentle giant , was another stupid nickname—not given by him—that had stuck with me since grade school.

“Here, let me help—”

His words broke off as I slapped his hands away from the mistletoe I was about to hang, rising on my tiptoes to gain that last inch I needed to get the knot in. Unfortunately, it had been a long time since I stood on my toes, I wasn’t the most coordinated person at the best of times. Standing on a wobbly footstool, in the presence of the most infuriating man I had ever known didn’t help. It tipped over under me and I floundered. My arms moved ineffectively through the air, but instead of falling, I was pressed against a hard—very hard—man chest, gliding down it in a painful slow motion, taking in all of him.

His tousled, brown hair, the whiskey colored eyes—twinkling at me—the crooked nose, broken during one of his high school football games, and probably a few times after again. Chiseled cheeks, a full mouth, and that uncanny, square chin that screamed male! with another dimple in it. Fuck. I was in trouble if he was going to spend the holidays here too.

My hands came to rest on his massive shoulders, for leverage only, not because I wanted to touch him. Surprising me, he actually sat me gently down on my feet, still holding me close. So, close our breaths mingled. The way his pupils dilated, mesmerized me.

“Easy there, if you wanted to embrace me, you only had to ask,” he laughed, but it sounded strained and dry.

“You’re impossible,” I snarled, hitting his chest with my palms to push myself away from his troubling presence.

“I don’t suppose you were hanging this to steal a kiss from me, were you?”

Automatically my eyes flew up to the mistletoe, which surprisingly we had managed to attach to the doorframe. My face burned and I was sure I turned crimson red as my stomach churned with the same suppressed anger I was accustomed to when he was near.

“In your dreams, buster,” I managed.

“Good grief, the party hasn’t even started and you too are already at it.” Patrick tsked, entering the hallway from the butler’s pantry.

“He started it,” I responded habitually.

“I was just helping Tinker Bell not to break her neck.” Gabe winked at his brother and I winced at his tactless comment and the predictable nickname—besides marshmallow, it was his favorite. “She proved herself as ungrateful as ever.”

“I’m not ungrateful,” I replied defensively. Why did he always have to put me on the defense? “I just didn’t need your help.”

“Would you two just kiss and get it over with?” Ella, my ex best friend joined her husband—my other ex best friend. Immediately he put his arm around her, pulling her into his embrace.

A rush of jealousy pulsed through me. It wasn’t like I didn’t want them to be happy. I was more than glad that my two best friends had finally gotten married, I just wished I could find a crumb of their happiness with someone. None of the men I had ever dated made me feel like Patrick and Ella obviously felt for each other.

“Funny, I just offered legs a kiss, but she declined.” Gabe smirked.

“You didn’t offer, you accused me of…” I broke off when his eyebrows rose daring me to carry on. “Oh, whatever.”

I bent over to pick up the stool, intending to take it back into the kitchen where Ella preferred it, but couldn’t help watching Gabe and Patrick embrace.

“Good to see you, brother,” Patrick said, slapping Gabe on the shoulder. “I’m glad you made it.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Gabe replied, sending a weird look my way that made my stomach tumble. He always managed to unbalance me, probably because I was constantly on edge around him, you never knew what kind of insults would fall from his mouth in the next minute.

Gabe elbowed Patrick in the stomach before he slung his arm around his brother’s shoulder, rubbing his head. “It’s good to see you, little brother.”

“Be careful with his neck,” I couldn’t stop myself. Why did Gabe always have to roughhouse with Patrick? Sure his neck injury had fully healed, but he still needed to be careful.

“She still mother goose around you?” Gabe smirked, jerking his handsome chin my way.

Patrick laughed, “You know she saved my life, right?”

Yeah, so there, Gabe , my mind screamed childishly. Why was he turning me into a child? Oh, that man was insufferable.

“And I’ll be forever in her debt; right, Caro?”

I didn’t dignify his words with a response, when he wasn’t using stupid nicknames on me, he shorted my name by one letter. One! Nobody called me Caro but him. With a huff I took the stool back into the kitchen, where it belonged.

I had just read an article on how a motorcyclist died after a head-on collision after someone took his helmet off when Patrick had been injured on the field during practice. I had raced down the bleachers, and stopped Coach from taking Patrick’s helmet off. We got into quite a squabble until the ambulance arrived, because Patrick hadn’t regained consciousness. When they diagnosed his broken neck, I had been hailed a hero and even Coach apologized to me. Know it all , had been Gabe’s newest nickname for me during the time Patrick spent at the hospital.

People, kids especially always teased me for my height, so I liked to spend my time behind a computer screen, reading anything and everything that caught my interest. I gained a vast knowledge of a lot of things, but nothing truly in depth or something that caught and held my interest enough to go to college for it.

From the kitchen I still heard Gabe’s deep voice as he laughed with Patrick and Ella. It had always been like this when he showed up, he instantly became the center of attention, leaving me all but forgotten, and as far from him and his sarcasm as possible. While listening to the sound of his deep voice, I leaned against the doorway, gently hitting my head against the wood, because the truth of the matter was that I had had a crush on Gabriel McCloud for as long as I could remember.