The 48 Hour Hookup (Chase Brothers) (10 page)

“Is there any more batting?” she asked.

“I’m on it.” Actually, he was curious what she wanted with a condom, but he could pick up a handful of batting and wonder about that at the same time.

She glanced at the whitish ball of fluff. “It’ll work better if it’s black, so rub it in the ashes.”

“Do I want to know why?”

“You’ll see in just a few minutes,” she assured him.

Outside, soot-stained batting in his hand, condom in hers, she tore into the packet and unrolled the condom and held it under a rivulet of water draining from the roof. “It’s warming up,” she said. “That bodes well. Plus, it’s late afternoon, so the sun is high.”

“What are you doing?” he finally asked.

“It works like a magnifying glass.”

He watched as he found a rock the size of a dinner plate and moved it to a sunny spot. Then she put the fire starter on the rock and positioned the water-filled condom so the sun pierced through it and hit a concentrated spot on the batting. The material was already warm from the embers. About fifteen minutes later, smoke began to tendril.

“Want to come blow on this?” she asked him.

He eyed her, then the condom. “That’s probably the most creative way I’ve ever been propositioned,” he said, but he did as she asked. Too bad the damage had been done. He was absolutely thinking about her blowing something else entirely, and seeing her holding a condom in both hands did nothing to waylay that thought.

He cupped his hands around the batting and blew gently. Ridiculously, he was still stuck on the idea of sex. He was grateful when, five minutes later, the smoke finally kicked into flame. She left the condom on the ground and carried the rock in the lodge while he protected it from the wind, and together they slid the batting into the firebox. The fire billowed.

“There was a stack of pallets in the shed we can burn,” she said.

“Keep this going. I’ll go grab those.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He went back outside, retrieved the condom, and set it just inside the door in case they needed it again, then jogged to the shed. He found a hammer and quickly broke apart a few pallets, then dragged the pieces back to the lodge.

“I had no idea it was possible to start a fire with a condom,” he said. “Where did you learn that trick?”

She shrugged. “I overheard a conversation between a group of guys trying to start a bonfire on the beach. Someone came up with a lighter, so they never got around to trying it, and they sounded like they were joking around, but the science behind it made sense, so it was worth a shot. I didn’t know it would actually work.”

Like an idiot who hadn’t gotten the memo about them not having sex, he said, “They do tend to add heat to certain situations.”

Her eyes widened.

He was an idiot. He had to stop thinking about her. Especially now that there was fire, and he had work to do elsewhere.

And also a sexy distraction who would absolutely never be a part of his real life.

He didn’t know how long he’d been in the attic, inspecting the duct work, when her voice startled him.

“How bad is it?”

He jumped at the sound and ended up falling over a stack of boxes, spilling a couple of them. He hadn’t heard her come up. He knelt and started cleaning up the mess as he spoke. “The ductwork looks like it was replaced within the last few years. Most people just clean that out with a system upgrade, so even if the entire furnace had been replaced, I’d expect this to be older. I don’t know why you were given a high estimate on this part. This is basic maintenance at best.” He glanced up. “There are other ways to make it…more…efficient.” He frowned. He could have sworn there were tears in her eyes. “Are you okay?”

She walked over to him, or not so much him as the box he’d been refilling, and knelt on the floor next to him. “Oh my gosh.”

“What? I didn’t break anything.” She hadn’t glanced his way since joining him on the floor, so he wasn’t even sure she remembered he was there.

“The stockings.”

He glanced at the side of the box. It had
kitchen
scrawled on the side. The contents had been…decidedly un-kitcheny. In fact, he wasn’t sure
what
the contents were. She’d said stockings, but all he saw was a pile of dingy red material. And now actual tears were falling.

He peered at the folded stack of fabric.

“I thought these had been thrown out,” she said, her voice a bit wobbly.

He watched as she lifted each one in turn. Christmas stockings. He saw that now. One by one she unfolded them.
Edith. Davis. Eddie. Claire
, the names read. “Eddie was my uncle,” she said. “My mom’s brother. Edith and Davis are my parents.”

He did a mental double take when the name clicked. “Davis Henley was your father?” The man had driven race cars for a living. He had been pushing fifty and still racing at the time of his death. Liam didn’t follow the sport, but he knew of Davis Henley. Everyone did.

She stared, finally out of her daze. “How did you put that together?”

“You told me upon my arrival that your last name was Henley.”

“I forgot about that,” she admitted. “Stevens was my mother’s maiden name, so I use it professionally. Needless to say, I didn’t want to advertise who I was out there. I wanted to get by on my own merit, not on my father’s fame. And when I came back here, I wanted to leave that whole professional identity behind.” She picked up his stocking. “Ironic he died going speed limit in a school zone, isn’t it?”

“They were together, weren’t they?” He remembered hearing about the accident at the time of her parents’ deaths. He was surprised all that hadn’t been dragged up alongside the runaway bride nonsense.

“Yep. Gone in an instant because a guy in a truck couldn’t be bothered to slow down. I guess I should be grateful for that. That they didn’t feel anything, I mean, but all those weekend races my heart was in my throat, and he was killed going twenty-five-miles an hour.” She took a shaky breath. “And these…I thought these were gone.”

“Do you want to bring them downstairs?” he asked gently.

“They used to hang on either side of the mantle. Two on each far edge so we didn’t have to worry about the fire. And there were real boughs all over the place, and they were tied with wide ribbons in silver and gold.” She paused, tracing the letters on the stocking that bore her name. “I remember the year I turned sixteen, I was shopping with my mom and saw this ring that just took my breath. It was simple, really. Just two twisted bands of silver, almost like a rope, but just beautiful. I begged for it, and my mom said no.”

She smiled and wiped a tear from her eye. “Christmas morning, she asked me if I got everything I wanted. Of course I said yes, having no idea she’d put the ring in my stocking. She just put it in there by itself, without the box, hoping I’d be more surprised without that telltale clue, but there was a gap in the stitching in the toe she hadn’t noticed, and I guess the ring fell through. We spent hours looking but never found it. It probably rolled right into the fire.”

Liam didn’t care much about jewelry, but damned if he didn’t ache for that ring.

“The stockings and the live boughs and the decorations, they were so beautiful. And the tree…” She wiped her eyes with a shaking hand.

“We’ll get your tree up tonight,” he said. It felt like such an empty gesture. It couldn’t possibly give back what she’d lost.

“I’m sorry,” she said, a bit shakily. “I don’t know why I’m so emotional. It’s been so long. You think I’d be over it by now.”

He pulled her into his arms. “You don’t get over loving someone, or missing them when they’re gone.”

“I know. After all these years.” She pushed away from him a bit abruptly, leaving him blinking while she drew to her feet. “I need to go check on the stew.”

“What about the stockings?”

“They’re a mess,” she said. “Just leave them.”

She walked quickly across the attic, her boots echoing against the hardwood floor. He waited until her footsteps faded, then pulled out his phone and took pictures of the stockings. They weren’t in terrible shape, but a few chewed spots indicated rodents may have gotten to them. The stitching had come loose in places, and they were dirty. After he finished taking pictures, he folded the stockings back into the box and circled the attic until he found a signal. Then he sent the pictures to his mom with a text.

Think you can fix these?

He didn’t doubt for a second that she could. He’d have to get Claire to take him into town so he could overnight them to the city. And then send them back, because he needed his distance. He needed it five minutes ago, because she’d hit him right in the feels talking about her parents and family Christmases and things that had nothing to do with the duct work or the job or staying professional. To that end, he was better off leaving the stockings in the attic, just like she wanted, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Once he had the thought that he could give her back a small part of what she missed, he knew it was something he had to do.

Just like finishing the job and leaving.

Screw the bet. He didn’t need to see her again. He needed to get away from mixed emotions and wanting what he couldn’t have and feeling what he shouldn’t.

He needed to get the hell away from her.

Yesterday.

Chapter Ten

By the time he and Claire had finished sweeping the snow off the tree, it was late afternoon. Liam was surprised to see a plow had actually cleared the road to the lodge. Claire had a perfectly intact four-wheel drive truck that would have easily handled the fresh snow—maybe even better than the packed ice that was left after the plow went through—but a layer of ice had melted from the snow and made driving dangerous.

The plow driver had stopped in to make sure she was okay, and she’d offered him a bowl of stew. They’d sat there chatting over it like old friends, and when he left, it was with a full thermos of coffee, with Claire standing on the porch waving like they were all in one of those schmaltzy movies.

Meanwhile, Liam was left staring down a truck-crushing spruce that needed to somehow go through the front door. He sincerely hoped in that twenty-four hours since the tree had hit the ground—or, rather, his hood—that any creatures that might have been living in it had taken a hike. He hadn’t noticed any while brushing off snow, but that didn’t mean anything. Stanley sure hadn’t bothered to hit the bricks.

“What are you thinking?” Claire asked. She stood beside him, the expression on her face reflecting none of his concern over getting that thing through the door.

“That you’re probably going to want to cut ten feet off the bottom to get it in the lodge. And for future reference, I don’t think you’re supposed to ask men what they’re thinking. It’s never the touchy-feely stuff like women want it to be.”

“Clearly not. Your thoughts are murderous.”

He gave her a blank look. “Are you not the one who cut down this tree?”

“Yeah,” she shot back with impassioned defiance. “But I’m not asking to dismember it.”

He had a feeling that blank look of his hadn’t gone anywhere. “Okay, you’re going to have to help me pull. And I can’t guarantee there won’t be a loss of life or limb, considering the size of these bottom branches.” They were the size of entire trees, some of them, and he had no idea how Claire expected Liam to finagle them sideways through the front door of the lodge.

But he’d try. He twisted the tree so the largest of the branches faced up, giving them the height of the door for clearance. “You ready?”

Of course she wasn’t. She was still giving him a
look
.

“I know I’m amazing,” he said, “and even godlike, but I can’t move this tree through this door by myself. So unless you want to call the plow driver back to help you…”

“Godlike.” She laughed.

He let go of the branch. Pointedly. “You might want to save the mockery for after we get this thing up.”

“Noted.” Still, she didn’t exactly bother to hide her laughter as she took a spot next to him and gripped a branch.

Together, they pulled. To his surprise, the tree moved about six inches.

“That was easy,” she said.

“Yeah. Only about twenty-four and a half feet to go.”

An hour later, after much shoving and twisting and scratching the door frame, he was convinced no tree of any substantial size had ever before graced the main room of that lodge, but they had the thing in there. Together, they stood it against the front wall. When he took a step back, he had to admit it looked great.

“I can see why you wanted such a large tree,” he said. “I have a feeling this room would swallow anything less.”

“It’s perfect,” she said. “Or as perfect as it’s going to be. This is the first one since…well, the first one without everyone here.”

Everyone. More like
anyone
. He came from such a huge family—three brothers, all significantly hitched—that he couldn’t imagine being the last one standing. “Do you have a tree stand?”

Her face fell. “I forgot all about that. I don’t know what they did before, but I haven’t seen a stand around here.”

“We’ll figure something out,” he said, but it must not have been much comfort. Tears welled in her eyes.

She threw out her hands. “I’m sorry. In the city, I have a fake tree with a built-in stand, and every time I came here, the tree was already up.”

He took one look at her exasperated, near-tears face and dragged her in and kissed her. Her mouth was the most addicting thing he’d ever tasted. She was so damned innocent, always with that little gasp of surprise before she melted into him and gave him everything. Surrendered. Not with some limply waving white flag, but with a promise of passion he couldn’t believe belonged to a woman who had been hurt like she had.

“There are about a thousand reasons that was a bad idea,” she said, her fingers lightly clutching his shirt.

He could only think of a couple arguments against it being an
excellent
idea—one, that he was there on a job and two, he didn’t ever want to see the headline
Runaway Bride Hooks Up with Hot HVAC Guy
—both points they’d already discussed. “I only need one reason it’s not,” he said.

“I like bad ideas,” she said, surprising, though not entirely convincing, him.

“You?” he almost laughed. “I would have never guessed it.”

A frown teased her lips. “Am I that boring?”

He put his hand over hers, willing her to hold on. He must have been crazy, not wanting her to let go. Forging any kind of connection with her put him somewhere in the territory of certifiable, but resisting her seemed crazier. “I have a feeling you’re anything but boring.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

From any other woman, those words might have been coy. From her, they felt like a genuine question—one for which he had a ready answer. “There’s not a boring woman in the history of womankind who can make fire from a condom.”

A smile played at her lips. “That was pretty awesome, wasn’t it?”

“Definitely awesome. And I think I saw some stuff we can use to make a tree stand. It’s all wet, but the tree won’t care.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Make that happen, and I might actually swoon.”

Well, that was one tactic he’d bet wouldn’t show up in the typical advice column, but hell, he’d do what he could. If she could build a fire from a condom, he could figure out a tree stand.

“Prepare your swooning parts. I’ll have this tree taken care of in no time.”

He hoped.