The Thief Who Saved Christmas

Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

RYAN

I hesitate for a second, because this guy really needs to be taken to task, but Anabelle needs me more. I choose her. Easy.

I run out to find her, but Anabelle is out of sight. All I see is the table set up out front between two big ornamental bushes. The attendant sitting behind it is so interested in her own phone, she doesn’t even look up to see if I’m a shoplifter. It’s only as I barrel past that I realize I am a shoplifter. The reusable shopping bag is still slung over my shoulder.

I pause.

I consider.

I retreat to the table and clear my throat.

The attendant looks up at me with wide eyes. “Yes?”

I set the bag down in front of her.

“Did you see my friend go past? A gorgeous brunette with long, wavy hair and big brown eyes? About yay tall?” I say, lifting my hand up.

A throat is cleared.

Anabelle steps out from behind one of the large bushes.

The attendant points to her. “I think I found her.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I say, my gaze stuck on Anabelle. “I’ll be sure to share the reward money.”

“I need to go back to the B I don’t go in looking for him.

I halfway expect the car will be gone, and I wouldn’t be too sore about it if Anabelle had left after the scene inside. But she’s waiting in the passenger side, her eyes closed, rocking slightly in her seat. Alarm pounds through me, and I open the driver’s side door so quickly I nearly slam it into my body.

“What do you need?” I say, ditching the bag on the driver’s seat. Then I reconsider and pull out the real Santa, handing it to her. “Come on, Anabelle, give his belly a rub. You know you want to.”

Thank all that’s above and below, she laughs and takes it from me, her finger rubbing small circles over the worn spot. “You know, it really works.”

“Christmas witch.”

She gives me a soft smile, her eyes a little less glassy. “ Thank you , Ryan. I didn’t know he’d be there.”

“You don’t need to thank me.” I put the bag in the back and then lower into the driver’s seat and shut the door. “I’m damn sorry. At times like this, I figure I’m lucky that I never knew who my father was.”

“You don’t know?” she asks, looking up from the figure.

I grin at her. “Our mother used to say our father was Santa. I think she was hoping we’d stop asking questions, but that obviously led to more questions.”

She smiles again. “So I’m in the presence of greatness?”

“You didn’t already know that?”

Her gaze holds mine for a few seconds, and awareness zips through me, filling every cell in my body with a buzzing sensation. “Yeah,” she finally says. “I knew.”

A heavy pause hangs between us, and my gaze falls to her pink lips, which I’m not supposed to notice. They tilt into a mischievous grin.

“You put in a remarkable performance in The Proposal .”

Surprised laughter bursts from me. “I fucking did, didn’t I?”

Grinning, she leans toward me a little, her seatbelt biting into her. I hadn’t even noticed her putting it on, not that I’m surprised—it’s a reminder of how differently we approach life. Anabelle, cautious and careful; me, as if it’ll all catch up with me if I don’t move fast enough.

“Why’d you come to the B&B under an alias?” she asks.

I can’t tell her yet.

I can’t tell her ever, probably.

Her lips are parted, and they’re glistening slightly, from the moment she licked them approximately thirty-five seconds ago—and if you’re wondering whether I watched her do it, then you’re damn straight I did.

I clear my throat. “I already told you my father’s Santa. I can’t share all my secrets.”

She looks down at the Santa in her hands. “My father was right. I should be doing a better job at the B&B. And I have to talk to Weston. That wasn’t a good way to end things.”

“Look, if you ask me, you shouldn’t rush into doing anything you’re not ready to do. Why don’t you let me handle Hot Chocolate Happy Hour again? When we get back, you can get some rest.”

“I should be doing my job, Ryan,” she says, straightening in her seat. “I should be able to do my job.”

“My old boss told me delegating was what bosses did.” Usually before he sent me to do something he didn’t want to do, but best not to mention that.

She rubs the Santa’s belly as if it were a genie’s lamp, then looks at me again. “Why are you helping me?”

Because I want to.

Because I enjoy being around her.

Because she’s gorgeous and funny and smart and interesting, and the only sensible thing to do is worship her.

But that doesn’t make her any less off-limits…

I rub the back of my neck. “I have my reasons. Can we leave it at that for now?”

She sighs. “You could have said nothing and it would have meant as much.”

Story of my life.

I insist on bringing Anabelle through a drive-through to get lunch, since she doesn’t seem up for the restaurant experience. We park on the side of the road within view of the College of William & Mary’s campus and scarf down our food. Her phone buzzes about half a dozen times with incoming texts and calls before she turns it off without checking the screen.

She tells me she attended William & Mary, which isn’t surprising. It’s a good school, probably only a mile from her grandmother’s B&B, and she’s both scary smart and not the sort of person who’d want to go far from home.

Besides…it looks like a place that would suit her, the same way the inn does. The buildings are old, brick, and covered in vines.

Old places, old things.

I’m a man who’s stolen old things from wealthy people. I didn’t do it for myself, but that doesn’t make it better. If this law-abiding woman knew the truth, she’d want nothing to do with me. I should remember that.

“Where’d you go to school?” she asks offhandedly, her gaze on one of the buildings. Maybe she answered questions about Shakespeare in there.

“I didn’t. I didn’t even graduate high school.”

She drops what’s left of her veggie burger just as I’m taking a sip of Pepsi. Judging by the look of shock on her face, she did it in reaction to what I said, and I start laughing so hard the drink snorts up my nose. Which makes me laugh harder.

“I’m sorry,” she says, reaching for her scattered burger and throwing the bits and pieces into the fast food bag. There’s a look of disgust on her face, as if she’s collecting worms and not a sandwich that was making its way into her mouth thirty seconds ago, but she doesn’t give up. “I’m clumsy.”

“And unimpressed by the uneducated. That’s okay. Smart people usually are. I was no good in school. I hated sitting in one place for too long. It drove me crazy. Eventually, I decided to do everyone a favor and stop going.”

She meets my gaze, her eyes wide. “Someone failed you.”

I laugh again. “I like your interpretation. If you ask any of my old teachers, they’d tell you I’m the one who failed.”

“Not everybody learns the same way. I didn’t learn to talk until I was three. My parents thought I was mute, but then I started answering them in full sentences.”

“Admit it,” I say, stuffing my drink into the cup well by the seat. “You didn’t want to talk because your dad’s kind of a dick.”

She shrugs. “It certainly didn’t help.”

I smile at her, feeling drawn in. Wanting more. But I can tell how exhausted she is—she wears it in the slump of her shoulders and the far-off look that keeps surfacing in her eyes, like she’s fading in and out.

I pull out of the space and drive toward the B&B. When I park in Anabelle’s usual spot, I give her a sidelong glance. “I can tell you were a straight-A student.”

“You’re mistaken,” she says. “I got a C– in chemistry.”

“A C– for me would have been like getting on the honor roll.”

I don’t know why I’m trying to be unimpressive, other than that I need to stay away from her, and my own willpower has been compared to Swiss cheese.

“Your parents didn’t help you study?”

I laugh as I get out of the car, grabbing the shopping bag on the way out. On a whim, I go around to open her door, but she gets to it first, not that I’m surprised.

“Oh, do you want me to get back in?” she asks dryly as a breeze whips her hair around, a few silky locks getting me in the face.

I reach over and tuck the loose strands behind her ear. To my amazement, she leans her head into my hand. My dick responds with enthusiasm, but I know her better than to think it’s some kind of sensual invitation.

I tuck my hand into my pocket. “Don’t get back in on my account.”

“Didn’t your parents help you study?” she asks, returning to her earlier question as she inches away from me and closes the door. We start walking toward the inn, Anabelle reaching up to tuck her red and gold scarf more tightly around her neck.

I have to grin at her. “You don’t forget anything.”

“Never. It’s exhausting.”

“I’ll bet. I try to forget every few years. Get a clean slate.”

I’m joking, but there’s some truth to it. There are plenty of things I’d like to wipe away. My mother giving up on me. Jake giving up on me. Countless disappointed girlfriends giving up on me.

Anabelle’s gaze finds me over her shoulder, holding for a second before flitting away. “Something inside of you always remembers, even if you can convince the thoughts to stay hidden.”

A heavy feeling presses on me, as if her words are tugging those old memories up through all the bullshit inside of me.

I rub my chest, telling the memories to stay put. “Let’s hope you’re wrong about that.”

She pauses, turning toward me, and shocks me by taking my hand—shocks herself too, judging by how quickly she drops it. My breath feels heavy, and so do my lungs. My body. I watch her, waiting. People pass on either side of us.

“It’s good to remember, Ryan. That’s what I’m doing with these.” She points to the shopping bag. “I’m remembering for other people, people who can’t do it anymore themselves.”

I nod, working my jaw. “But what if you have memories that aren’t any good?”

“The good and the bad are always mixed up together,” she says with a sad smile as another gust of wind whips her hair around. Christmas witch. “So if you gave up all of them, you’d be missing out on the good things too. You don’t have any positive memories from those times?”

I think about making dinner for Jake. Shooting the shit with Javier at the bar, both of us complaining about our pain-in-the-ass boss. I think about Grandma Edith and how her bones felt like a bird’s when I carried her down the stairs.

“Yeah, I guess I do,” I say, swallowing.

People continue to step around us, one man grumbling under his breath, but it feels like we’re in a bubble, a small world where there’s only the two of us.

“It’s like that for me too,” she says. “Even with Christmas. The day I found out Santa Claus wasn’t real, I cried for two hours. My father was the one who told me, and he wasn’t kind about it. I was nine, and he told me I was much too old to still believe in children’s stories.”

“That doesn’t make me want to punch him less.”

She shakes her head slightly. “You don’t have to punch him on my account. I don’t see my parents much, but they’re not all bad. When I was four, my dad brought me to the Christmas tree lighting and lifted me up on his shoulders. He said I was the star in his tree.”

I cock my head. “You’re how old?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“And you had to go back twenty-four years to find something nice he did for you? I’m gonna hold onto my bad impression.”

She smiles, her eyes twinkling. “Still. It was really nice.”

“ You’re really nice,” I blurt before I can think better of it.

Then again, that’s my way—rushing in with both feet. And this woman in front of me, with her big brown eyes and perfect tits and infectious love for Christmas, is impossible to resist.

“Despite your chronic tardiness, I think you might be really nice too,” she says. She’s watching me, her hair a mess now, her lips so pink and soft, and…

And I know who I am, and what I can offer someone like Anabelle: nothing.

I don’t even know what I’m going to do to make a living.

Resigned, I hand her the shopping bag. “Let’s get you inside.”

She gives me a sad smile. “I do have approximately twenty-five text messages to answer. Then I’m baking Christmas cookies for Hot Chocolate Happy Hour. Cynthia already made the dough for me.”

“You’re not going to cut me out of your baking plans, are you?” I tease. “I bake a mean cookie.”

“Nope, sorry.” She hitches the shopping bag more securely over her shoulder. “I only consume kind gingerbread men.”

As if she needed to be any cuter.