Silent Night: Vampire Holiday Romance (The Night Songs Collection Book 4) (6 page)

“Who used drawer two?” Katie knew exactly who it was assigned to.

“I did.”

“It’s off by twenty dollars.”

I gulped and nodded. I didn’t know what she wanted me to say. She could hold me upside and shake me, she wasn’t going to find that money. I didn’t even have coffee money until we got paid tomorrow. I couldn’t believe this. Three days ago, she wanted me to come to her house for Christmas. Now she thought I was dumb enough to steal money out of the register.

“I must have given back the wrong change.” It wouldn’t surprise me at all. One of our closing girls had called out, and the rest of the staff conveniently didn’t answer their phones when we tried to call them in. We barely had time to make the calls, the lines wrapped around the register like people were still buying gifts. Instead they were bringing them back. Things bought in other states, no receipts, my brain hurt almost as much as my feet did.

“You know I have to write you up.” She sounded as tired as I felt.

“Okay.” Shit. With a write up on my record, I wouldn’t be able to apply for any full time positions for ninety days. Next week I was only scheduled for fifteen hours. This twenty dollars was going to cost me thousands.

With the shortage came extra paperwork, and extra phone calls to our district manager as well as the loss prevention department. LP already eyed us with suspicion, since our customers had sticky fingers. Corporate insisted it was the employees that had sticky fingers. Next time someone stashed bras underneath their kid in the stroller, I’d have to take a picture. I wished I was kidding, but I wasn’t. But then I’d just get in trouble for having my cell phone on the sales floor.

My heart pounded as I signed off on the shortage paperwork. I was admitting guilt for something I hadn’t done.

It was almost eleven by the time we pulled up on the gate to make sure it was locked. I let Katie look through my bag, painfully aware of the extra attention she gave as she moved around my things. I half-heartedly peeked in hers, not really seeing anything. No one was ever going to accuse her of stealing.

A cold mist hung in the air, meeting with the dirty snow on the sidewalk. I walked through the fog, not exactly sure where I was going. On a night like this, The Spirit House would already be at capacity. Homeless people could handle the cold, but they hated wet. After the twenty dollar debacle, my self-worth was already too deflated to face Matt.

Aidan. I wanted Aidan. Aidan was warm and safe. I wanted to sink into that leather couch and read about David the vampire. Of course, I could do that anywhere, thanks to my shiny new e-reader, but it wasn’t the same as holding a book in your hands.

I wanted to smell a book. That dusty paper smell mixed with the spiciness of man and leather. Looking around at the buildings, I realized I’d been walking toward Aidan’s house all along.

The problem with triple deckers was they pretty much all looked alike. I hadn’t thought ahead last time I was here to look for any distinctive markings that identified one of them as Aidan’s. Cursing as I landed ankle deep in a puddle I didn’t see as I looked up at the houses, I wondered if I’d even be able to find it.

I had to at least try. If it didn’t work out, to Matt’s house it would be.

“Kyndra!” A male voice boomed from a car as it slowed and pulled over, double parking along Mass Ave. My heart pounded at the surprise. The car blocked the right lane, drivers leaned on their horns as they swerved around the stopped car.

I didn’t recognize the car. Matt drove a giant SUV, all tricked out. I thought it was just a rolling advertisement for the fact he was a dealer, but he thought it was sophisticated. This was a compact car, and a nice one.

Should I respond or run? Approaching the passenger’s side window and feeling like a hooker, I pushed my wet hair out of my face and thought I was dreaming when I saw Aidan behind the wheel.

“Get in!” he insisted. “We’re going to get rear ended.”

Still dazed, I did as he said. “What are you doing?”

One side of his mouth lifted in a smile, but he didn’t take his eyes off the road as he merged back into traffic. “Out for a drive, looking for inspiration. For some reason, I come up with great stuff when I’m driving.”

“That’s cool.” I wriggled out of my mittens and hood. Aidan blasted the heat and it felt wonderful. I liked it when the car was so hot it felt like it could liquefy my eyeballs. Memere always hated that. “Coming up with anything good tonight?”

Now we were stopped at a red light, and he turned to look at me. “I think so.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about it. Or will you make me wait to read it?”

“I think you’d make a great editor.” He winked and then began driving again. “Do you have anywhere to stay tonight?”

Instantly I felt small. “No,” I muttered.

“You are always welcome to stay with me. You don’t have to ask, okay?”

“Okay.” My voice barely audible. I’d heard this so many times from my friends and even my aunt. But it always felt like such an imposition. Even if I stayed a day or two, I could never settle in enough to feel like I belonged there. One night knowing Aidan and his house didn’t feel like that at all.

This isn’t a romance novel, Kyndra. Get your head on straight
. After tonight. It was too crappy out to say no.

“Do you have to be at work in the morning?” he asked.

“No. I have the next two days off.” I instantly regretted telling him that. Two days of uninterrupted torture, if he was in to that sort of thing. I kept waiting for the bottom to fall out of this fantasy.

“Want to take a ride? I was thinking of heading out to Newton and Chestnut Hill to see Christmas lights.”

“That sounds awesome, actually.” Maybe this was a romance novel after all.

Before heading out of the city, Aidan stopped so he could get tea and I could get hot cocoa. I loved looking at people’s holiday decorations. The lights just captured something magical and innocent about the day, something everyone could enjoy.

Aidan hummed along to his Country Christmas satellite radio station. I joined in, sort of. “Where did you stay last night?”

“With my friend Paige.” I sighed at the memory. “It was just weird. I almost hate seeing her now, because she reminds me of all these things I don’t have. And she doesn’t even appreciate it.”

“People who are handed everything in life don’t understand.” Aidan shook his head slightly. “You’re a fighter, though. When you get to where you need to be, you won’t take it for granted.”

He got it. I hoped I wasn’t reminding him of Marielle again. “It’s just so hard. Her mother was giving me such crap about not being in school. How the hell am I supposed to go to school when I don’t even have a permanent address?”

“Use mine.” He didn’t meet my eyes, so he didn’t see my shock. “Look at this house!”

“It’s beautiful.” Everything was just outlined in white lights. Simple and elegant. “I can’t do that.”

“Can’t do what?” Aidan sounded amused. “I’d hate to pay that electricity bill. I was just going to ask you if you were a colored lights person, or a white lights person, but now I’m confused.”

“Color. And I can’t use your address.” That familiar anxiety started to rise.

“Why don’t we head back?” he said, sounding deflated. “And if a line item is the only thing that’s standing in the way of you getting what you want, why not?”

I didn’t understand what he meant right away. I hated myself for ruining our adventure. Then I realized he meant using his address, that it was just a lip service. To him. To me, it was a commitment.

“I understand this makes you feel uncomfortable, Kyndra,” Aidan added when I didn’t answer his question. “But you’re looking for a place that you belong. You’ve said it to me a dozen different ways since I met you. Stop shutting me out.”

Eight

“I need to borrow your pajamas again.”

“Follow me.” Aidan waved his hand toward the hallway. I didn’t know if he heard me or not. I wouldn’t ask again. The shadows swallowed him before he clicked the light at the end of the hallway. “I hope it’s all right. I cleaned it up, and I’m limited on short notice. With my schedule, I can only go to all night stores.”

He led me into an oddly shaped room, with floor to ceiling dark wood bookshelves loaded with even more books. How could one person even hope to read so many books in one lifetime? In a nook, under more shelves, was a freshly made bed with a fluffy white spread and aqua throw pillows. A pair of pink and black pajamas were folded at the foot of the bed, on top of a silver throw.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Did you do this for me?”

Aidan’s smile was so wide it hardly fit on his face. “I did.”

I sunk down on the bed, head in my hands. “It’s too much.”

He put his hands on my wrists, still cool from just coming in from the car. Electricity flowed from his skin to mine, sending waves beneath the surface. “I just want you to have a place you know you can come to. No questions asked.”

Hot tears slipped down my cheeks. Why was he doing this? Why did this man I’d met two days ago care about me more than my own mother? She didn’t even call me this week. I tried to bury that hurt deep, but it bounced out when I least expected it. Being with Aidan, the pain faded, and I couldn’t remember why I wanted to fight to get away from him anymore.

“I can’t pay for this,” I whispered, my voice still breaking.

“Let me do things for you.” He pressed his forehead against mine, not moving my hands away from my face. His skin felt so refreshing against my anxiety flushed skin.

Lowering my hands, I had to force myself to meet his eyes. “Thank you.”

“My home is your home. Really. I did food shopping, too.”

“So, when you found me tonight,” I worked up the nerve to ask, “was that an accident?”

“Nothing in this world is an accident, Kyndra.” He stopped at the door, then closed it quietly behind him, leaving me to stare at it after he left me alone in this haven created just for me.

I was afraid to touch anything. Aidan left me in a snow globe and I didn’t want to break the glass. I curled up in a ball, clutching one of the pillows at the head of the bed. My head pounded, but my body so desperately wanted to let go of all the tension that had built up since I gave the keys to Memere’s apartment back.

I wanted to stay. Here.

Sitting up, I ran my finger along the edge of the piping on the pajamas. They were classic button down pjs with pinstripes, but adorned with little black stars and star buttons. The flannel felt like a hug as I pulled them on. As soon as my brain wound down to the same level as my tired body, I would be ready to sleep forever.

A book would help me relax. Ignoring the e-reader in my bag, I went straight for the wall of books. I noticed some repeats from the living room, namely the Allison Duprois books. I pulled out the hardcover version of
A Piece of My Heart
.

I hadn’t read these books since junior high. Memere had been concerned they were too mature for me, but she didn’t want to discourage me from reading. I couldn’t remember the order the series went in, so I skimmed the opening pages for the information.

First Printing, 1990.

My eyes couldn’t leave those words. That was not only six years before I was born, but twenty-four years ago.

Aidan didn’t look much more than thirty. Thirty-five at most. He would have barely been a teenager in 1990. Tearing my eyes away from the book, I looked back to the closed door. My heart pounded so hard it threatened to jump out of the neckline of my new pajamas.

This didn’t add up.

Maybe he just looked really good for his age. It was possible, with plastic surgery and manscaping and gross things like that. But Aidan didn’t seem like someone who’d be vain enough to go through all of that. This was someone who hid behind a secret identity. So maybe he would be vain enough to alter his face. Maybe I was just wrong about how old he was, but that didn’t make me feel any better. If he was old enough to be my father, that was gross on a whole other level.

I couldn’t lie to myself, I was falling for this guy. Or who I thought this guy was.

Putting the book down, I went back to the bookshelf, checking the original publishing dates for all of the Allison Duprois books. So many early nineties. An anthology had a publishing date of 1988. This wasn’t a mistake.

Whatever the answer was, Aidan had lied to me about something.

“How old are you?” I barged out of the bedroom, even more reluctant to refer to it as mine, to face this head on.

“Thirty-two.” He didn’t seem alarmed my inquisition, he didn’t even look up from the laptop. I stopped short. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I wanted his answer to be. No matter how this worked out, he was so much older than me.

“That’s bullshit, or you’re full of shit.” I crossed my arms, realizing wearing the pajamas Aidan bought for me put me at an instant disadvantage. “You published books when you were ten? I didn’t realize I was in the company of a prodigy.”

Aidan put his computer aside and looked up at me. “Have you ever read V.C. Andrews?” he asked.