The Thief Who Saved Christmas

Chapter 31

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

RYAN

“If you warn him off, he’ll know you’re onto him, and he’ll do something less stupid,” Jeremy says. “You want him to keep being a dumbass so we can catch him in something illegal and have him arrested instead of you.”

We’re at the Green Leafe Café again. When I told Jeremy I needed his help with something, he insisted on buying me a drink, saying, I think I’ll have to keep buying you drinks for the rest of my life .

The trip to Richmond went well, and now he and Cynthia are a thing. I’m happy for the guy. It’s a hell of a feeling when the woman you’re falling for wants you too.

Anabelle and Joe spent most of the morning working on their online store, although Anabelle also filed online to change the B&B’s name and ordered a new sign.

I picked up locks for the windows at the home improvement store, plus a deadbolt for the front door. If Westie is still having us followed, installing new locks is likely to be noticed. Maybe he’ll see it as evidence that we have the ornament, if that’s what he’s after. But fuck it. I’ll feel like Anabelle’s a hell of a lot safer with the locks.

The supposed building inspector has yet to answer her email, and my suspicions about him are getting stronger, like a stomach virus that sets in with indigestion and then has you puking your guts out over a toilet for ten hours.

I’m consumed with the painful need to keep Anabelle safe. The way she got down on her knees for me last night broke something inside of me—and then healed it. She’s my Christmas witch. I’m not going to let any harm come to her, from anyone. I will protect her at all costs.

Jeremy, Joe, and Cynthia have all volunteered to help with the locks, but only Jeremy has any experience with home improvement projects. So Cynthia said she’d help Joe and Anabelle disperse the non-scavenger-hunt Santas and also finish writing new ad copy for the inn.

“I don’t like that you’re right,” I say, finally responding to Jeremy.

“I can’t agree with you there.” He grins as he touches his glass to mine. “I always like being right. But if it makes you feel better, I can recruit some of my buddies to serenade him the next time we see him on DoG Street.”

I grin at that thought, then shake my head. “Nah, it would be funny as hell, but you’re right. I don’t want to get him any more riled up.”

He laughs. “True.” He takes another sip of his beer, then asks, “You have any interest in plumbing? My uncle’s losing one of his guys in January, and he could use another helper who’s good with his hands.”

“Seriously?” I ask in disbelief. “I don’t have any experience.”

He shrugs. “Even he uses YouTube to figure shit out. I’ll be perfectly honest with you, though, I hated working with him. He’s a loudmouth, and half of the job is clearing out people’s toilets after they flush down all manner of things. You literally don’t want to know. But there’s some cool shit, and the pay’s not bad. Definitely better money than playing trumpet or pretending to be Santa Claus.”

“I’ll take that under consideration,” I say, feeling like my words have dried up. It’s hard to believe two people have gone out of their way to try to find me work in as many days.

He claps me on the back. “We gotta keep you around, man.”

“Is that Cynthia talking, or you?”

He gives me a slow grin and taps the bar. “You know what? I feel confident that I’m talking for all of us, man. Anabelle and her buddy too.”

On Saturday, we get the locks on the windows and front door installed. At one point, I see someone watching us from the street—a bald guy in a nondescript black coat, jeans, and generic tennis shoes. I don’t know if he’s the private investigator, but I do know what it looks like when a guy dresses to avoid getting noticed. I’ve done it myself often enough. So I salute him.

He flinches and immediately walks off, which doesn’t mean anything, but I’m left with a feeling that we’re being watched by shitty-sneakers guy.

“Weston will give up eventually,” Anabelle tells me, but I’m not banking on it. He didn’t just lose his woman—if he’s having me followed, he knows by now that he lost her to me . He’ll have guessed that I’m in her bed almost every night, that I’m kissing and holding her and making her moan. I haven’t fully made love to her yet, but he doesn’t know that. It must drive him crazy thinking that I have what he was stupid enough to lose.

I’m worried Weston will try screwing up my weekend shifts at the toy shop, but Ada put up some signs saying, “Parking lot is under surveillance.” I don’t see any cameras, and I doubt she went to the trouble of actually installing any, but Weston doesn’t seem like a guy who’d know what a security camera looks like. He’s a man who pays other people to do things for him and has never learned to do them himself.

I told Anabelle she didn’t need to come back to the shop with me, being that it can’t be fun to watch me pretend to be Santa Claus for several hours in a row, but she said that I “greatly underestimated” how hot I looked in my Santa suit.

She comes both days, although she brings noise-cancelling ear protection and a book.

It fills my fucking cup to have her there.

Cynthia gets her a Mrs. Claus costume as a gag, and she actually wears it to the shop on Sunday. The kids pay her more attention than she’d probably like, and I’m worried that she’ll be worn out by it. After my shift, though, she insists it was fun—and I insist that she keep her costume on while I get down on my knees beside the bed and tuck her legs over my shoulders so I can lose myself in heaven.

Monday passes, and there’s still no word from the building inspector. I call the number on his card, and it bounces straight to a voicemail service. The message sounds like it’s on the up and up, but my gut insists he was casing the place. So when he doesn’t respond by Tuesday, I look up the office online and call the general service line.

They’ve never heard of the guy.

I share the news with everyone over lunch at The Bread Shop, holding Anabelle’s hands for my own sake as much as hers, and Jeremy suggests calling the police.

My first thought is hell no. But this guy is slinging some murky shit. In the past, a paper trail was my enemy, but this time we need one. Someone in a position of authority has to know that Weston has been going after Anabelle and is escalating.

“Ryan?” Anabelle says, her voice heavy with concern. I know what she’s thinking… I haven’t told her anything else about my job for Roark, but she’s too smart not to have realized I’ve done illegal shit before.

“You should call them,” I say. “They need to know that guy was planning something.”

So she does, and although the officer she speaks to is receptive, he can’t do anything. We don’t have any direct evidence that Weston sent the guy, any photos of the “inspector,” or anything other than the fake business card. He tells Anabelle to keep her eye open for scam artists, promises to look into the matter, and that’s that.

For them.

I’m on guard.

It feels like I’m in a silent war, and I wish again for my brother. Jake’s smarter than me, and he’d know how to handle this.

I start wearing the watch I got at the estate sale, which bolsters me in a strange way and reminds me that I’ve decided to be a new man.

On Wednesday, the new sign for the inn arrives, and Jeremy and I install it over his lunch break. It looks damn good, and Anabelle has tears in her eyes as she takes it in.

“Your grandmother would be so proud of you, sweetheart,” I tell her, letting my hand settle on the small of her back. I know it’s true. Grandma Edith was a woman who owned her shit, and she would have loved to see that her granddaughter had inherited the same backbone. Hell, the thought puts tears in my eyes, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

She gives me a sidelong look, leaning into my hand, and says, “She would have been proud of you too. I know it.”

I want to believe it. I want to believe I’m not being a selfish prick for sticking around, especially since Weston must be driven crazy by the knowledge that I’m still here, still with Anabelle. He’s the one who broke his relationship with her, but to his mind, I’m the thief who took his woman and the B&B he wanted for his portfolio.

What wouldn’t a man like that do?

I ask myself that every day as I go about my business, pausing to look out the windows and search the street.

I ask myself that as I kiss my girl until my lips are raw, and as I make her come with my mouth and my hand. But I still haven’t let myself have her all the way, even though she’s hinted she’s ready.

By the time the weekend rolls around again without any developments, I’m so past ready to sink into her that my dick’s sending me hate mail.

It’s just…

I’m in love with her. It would be impossible to feel any other way. But she doesn’t know everything, and some broken bit of logic in my brain tells me it’s not fair to make love to her without telling her who’s been sharing her bed.

So even though I’m happy in a way I’ve never been, it’s incomplete. Because I can feel trouble at my back, just two steps away, and I can’t relax or take comfort in her the way I’d like. But I try to hold back my worry, not wanting to infect her, or Cynthia and Jeremy, who act like every day is their honeymoon despite bickering as much as ever, or Joe, who’s already worried enough about everything.

The inn looks great, and the guests are crazy about the Santa scavenger hunt—a reporter even got in touch with Anabelle about doing a national story about it. The thought of taking the interview gave her hives, so she responded that she’d “get back to them,” but still, it’s cool as hell that they’re interested.

The Gingerbread House has been full for days, and it’ll be full until after New Year’s.

It’s a lot for Anabelle, but Cynthia, Joe, and I work together to make sure she doesn’t get burned out—which seems entirely possible given that she and Joe are like Christmas elves in their office, sending out dozens of packages a day.

Christmas is coming, and I want to be excited about it. I want to think it’s all going to be okay. But that nagging worry just won’t go away.