That Time We Kissed Under the Mistletoe (Abieville Love Stories #4)

Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sara

Is this really happening?

Yes, Sara. Yes, it is.

But what does this mean, exactly?

It means shut up and surrender.

Well. Who am I to argue with such a commanding inner voice? I’m Sara Hathaway, the woman who’s dreamed of Three Fuller’s kisses for half her life. And the decade between our last real kiss and this one only stoked the heat inside me.

What happened at the Christmas tree farm doesn’t count. Three was coerced by the deputy then. But no one’s prompting us now, and the darkness frees me to be a little wild. A little risky.

As he lifts his hand to cup my jawline, I draw in a sharp breath and his mouth slides along my ear. My name is warm on his lips.

“Sara,” he whispers.

“Please,” I whisper back.

His mouth feathers across mine—a gentle hint at what’s to come—and my heart leaps in my chest. His lips are both familiar and new. Testing and tested and lighting a fuse inside me. With a gasp, my mouth crashes into his, and I’m greedy and drowning in the heat of this kiss. Soon his hands are in my hair, tangled and twisting as his lips slant over mine.

In the darkness, I can’t see a thing, including the potential mistake. All I know is I’m fizzing, sizzling, about to burst into?—

ZZT! ZZT! ZZT!

The bulb above us pops and flickers. I’m so startled I almost fall out of Three’s lap. But he wraps his arms around me, holding my body in place through the series of rapid flashes.

Light, dark, light, dark, light, dark.

When the room finally lands on light, my protective shield is officially gone.

“The light’s back on!” I blurt, in an Oscar-winning performance of Captain Obvious. “We have to find a way out.” But before I can lunge even two feet toward the wall, the lightbulb sputters and dies again.

“NO!”

“Are you all right?” Three asks, his breaths coming heavy.

By way of answer, I begin to stammer. “That was … you were … I should … maybe we should …”

I let my voice trail off so Three can finish the sentence, but the only thing coming from him is heavy breathing. And more heavy breathing. The spell is definitely broken.

No more kissing for me and Three.

I was just scared with a side dish of crying, and Three was trying to comfort me. Then we got a little too close, and the memory of that Humboldt Farms kiss we shall not speak of popped into my head—not to mention all of our kisses from ten years ago.

Three Fuller had some pretty sweet moves when he was nineteen, but the man’s next-level now. He was taking his time, mouth hovering over mine, until he swept every rational thought right out of my head like a gorgeous man-broom.

So I absolutely can’t let that happen again, right? At least not tonight. Not until we’re out of this room and able to engage in a non-stammering, non-panting, adult conversation about what all this means.

“I think I’m going to try the lightbulb again,” I say, just to have something to do. “Maybe that first attempt to tighten the connection wasn’t enough. Maybe we need to loosen the bulb first, then tighten it.”

Three stops his heavy breathing long enough to let out what sounds like a cough. Or a scoff. Either way, I can’t just stand here doing nothing. I’m giving this a shot. So I drag a crate over beneath the spot where I estimate the dead bulb is dangling. Yes, Three was able to just stand there on his own two feet when he tried to fix the light, but I need a bit of a boost.

Climbing up onto the box, I feel around until I find the lightbulb, and accidentally bat the thing so it sways in the dark. Catching it in my hand again takes me a moment.

“Careful,” Three says, as I begin to unscrew the bulb.

“Of course, I’m going to be care—” That’s when the bulb slips free from the socket and out of my hand, before it crashes to the floor.

Crap.

There’s a long moment of silence during which I quietly mourn the death of our only lightbulb. Then Three finally speaks. “You’re wearing socks.”

“Umm, yes.” I nod. “But why is that relevant?”

“Because,” he grits out. “There’s broken glass all over the floor now.”

I gulp. “You’re right.”

“We don’t need to add bloody feet to the situation so just hold still.”

“Okay, but I wasn’t exactly planning to do a river dance up here on this—ACK!” I begin to slip and let out a shriek scrambling for something to grab on to. What I find is the chain for the light, and as I fall, I rip the whole thing out of the ceiling. Of course I land on Three.

He catches me with a grunt.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“I know.”

He carries me away from the sad remains of our broken bulb as shattered glass crunches under his boots. His body is warm, and my arms snake around his neck. “How can you see where you’re going?”

“I can’t.”

He adjusts his hold on me—sticking one leg out at a time, scoping out what’s in front of us with his foot—then he shuffles forward. Slowly. When we’ve moved several yards away from the lightbulb wreckage, I say, “I think it’s safe for you to put me down.”

After he lowers me to the ground, I grope around for a place to sit and locate a long rectangular trunk. We each take a side.

“So.” Three clears his throat. “What’s the game plan now?”

“Well, we couldn’t find a way out in the dark, and I just permanently murdered our only light source. Neither of us has a phone to call for help, so I’m thinking we might be stuck in here until Ryan Detweiler shows up tomorrow. He can let us out.”

“Hmph. How will he get in the house?”

“He has the lockbox code,” I say. “Property owners aren’t supposed to be home during the evaluations, so I was planning to take you out to breakfast while he was here.” At the mention of food, my stomach rumbles—traitor—and I press my hands against it. “Good thing you made that grilled cheese for us, huh? And you took your antibiotics. And you’ve got a fresh bandage on.” I’m doing my best to find the bright side in a room that’s pitch black, but my voice cracks anyway. “We should be okay overnight, right?”

“Sure.” Three’s quiet for a moment. “And being in the dark, resting overnight, is probably better for me than running around the yard with pink flamingoes and tiki torches anyway.”

“You were running ?”

“Exaggeration.”

“Still.” I groan. “I not only concussed you, I turned out to be the world’s worst caretaker.”

One who came awfully close to spending the rest of the night kissing you.

“You were just trying to keep me occupied.”

“Right.” Another groan from me. “Because I’m so boring.”

He lets out a small chuckle. “I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Sara.” He takes a beat. “The truth is, spending these past couple days with you hasn’t been all bad.”

“Oh, really?” I snort. “What was your favorite part? When I threw a fire extinguisher at your head? When your entire family left for a cruise without you? How about the time I tried to make you play chess with a concussion? Ah, right. It was probably the moment I locked us in this storage room, then assassinated our only lightbulb.”

Three guffaws. “Well, when you put it that way …”

“No wonder you broke up with me,” I mumble under my breath. I don’t intend for him to hear me say this, but he does.

“Hey. Don’t do that. Please.”

“No, it’s all right.” A long sigh escapes me. “I get it.”

“You don’t , though.” His voice goes gruff. “At least not all of it, and that’s on me.”

“How is my cluelessness your fault?”

“Because there’s some stuff we haven’t talked about,” he says. “Stuff about me. About us. And maybe it’s time I cleared things up.”

I suck in a breath. What’s left for me to know? I handed him my heart. He shot me down. It was humiliating. The end.

“You want to talk about us right now?

“Maybe.” He blows out a gust of air. “Yeah. I do.”

My pulse is whirring, and I send up a silent prayer that my voice doesn’t crack. “I’m not sure this is the ideal moment for us to rehash everything that happened.”

In other words, I’ve already gone over our breakup a million times in my head and getting over the heartbreak took years. In fact, I’m still not the same, and being back in Abieville already has me questioning my sanity.

So if Three wants to perform an autopsy on the worst night of my life, he should go ahead and do that with Ford. Or Nella. Or Kenny. His work friends. Anyone but me.

“Okay.” He clears his throat. “So, when then?”

I chew my lip, considering the best answer to his question. I mean, at least it’s pitch black in here. Three wouldn’t be able to make out the pain in my face. But there’d also be nowhere for me to hide after we dissected the details of our one-sided breakup. And anyway, the darkness wouldn’t mask the sound of my tears.

“How about any time we’re not stuck in a small space together,” I say.

Three blows out a breath. “Fair enough.” But why is he the one sounding defeated? I’m the woman whose heart he broke. Still, he just wants to communicate—finally—so I kind of regret my sarcasm.

“Listen.” I lean over and nudge his shoulder. “I appreciate your good intentions. But you’re talking about ancient history, and I’m just not up for a deep dive into those ugly memories. Now or ever.”

He bumps my shoulder back. “Message received.” A beat of silence follows. “I just thought the conversation was long overdue.”

“Well, I think we should try to make ourselves as comfortable as possible. It’s going to be a long night, and I already have to pee.”