The words are right, but her tone is wrong.
“How was your Christmas?” I repeat the phrase that I’ve spent three days practicing. With everyone else, I grunt and grumble. But Joy makes me want to remember how to be human.
“I got to spend some time with my sister. I really enjoyed that,” she answers as she enters the cabin uninvited. She ducks under my arm, brushing against my side.
I swallow a groan. Will there ever come a day when I get to feel all of her curves, when I can map her body with my hands and know what she feels like underneath me?
I follow her to the den, trying and failing not to focus on the way her hips sway so gently. As soon as she’s in my space, I flop down on the couch and grab a blanket to cover myself. I have a permanent hard-on around her, but I’d never want her to know. Not unless I knew she returned my feelings. I might be the horny boss, but I won’t be the creepy boss.
She settles in the armchair that I always leave open because I love seeing her in my seat, swallowed up and tiny and looking like the perfect gift. If she’d agree to marry me, she could live in that chair if she wanted. “You should just set your thermostat higher. It’s not good for you to be cold all year long.”
I shrug rather than confess the reason for my constant blankets around her. “So, what did Santa bring you for Christmas?”
“Something unexpected,” she answers casually. “Now, let’s get to the Henderson case.”
I fight a wave of disappointment that she doesn’t mention the all-expenses-paid summer trip to Italy to take art classes. She “won” this while on Christmas vacation.
I know because I secretly arranged it, but I couldn’t let her know it came from me. I want to spoil her day and night, give her every good thing in the world until she has a million reasons to smile.
She digs in her bag and passes me a stack of papers then she turns her attention to the laptop. A second later, the schematics for the new mansion flicker onto it.
I swear under my breath as soon as I see it. “There are fourteen million entry points in the place and half as many blind spots.”
“This guy is a fuckin’ idiot,” Joy agrees and immediately claps a hand over her mouth.
I chuckle. “The wealthy usually are.”
We spend the next three hours reviewing every possible entry point and how to mitigate a potential threat. I’ve made dozens of notes and drawn countless arrows on the papers she’s given me.
At one point, I notice the blanket has slipped and my shirt has ridden up. I tug it down quickly, hoping she didn’t see the shrapnel scars on my side. I don’t want to advertise to pretty, innocent Joy that I’ve seen the horror of war.
As the hours pass, the tension between us doesn’t melt. I thought maybe she was just feeling awkward because we haven’t seen each other in a few days. But at the end of the meeting, I’m convinced it’s more than that.
“What did I do?” I finally ask when I’ve walked her to the door. We finished our work early today. Usually, she stays and chats with me after, but she isn’t lingering.
She frowns.
I manage to croak out the words from a raw throat, “Have I done something wrong?”
Whatever it is, I’ll make it right. I’ll show Joy that I’m more than just the grumpy ogre living on a mountaintop. I can be the kind of man who makes her happy.
The same sadness that was there when she first arrived is back again. “No, you’ve been a great boss.”
She leaves my cabin, and I watch her car getting smaller and smaller. With every passing second, the hollow feeling in my gut grows bigger. I’m definitely missing something.
It feels like I keep fucking up everything this week. I grab my phone and call Nate before I can talk myself out of it. He answers on the first ring.
“Hey! Congrats on getting married,” I put as much enthusiasm in my voice as I can muster.
He chuckles, but it’s more of a relieved sound than any actual mirth. Fuck, I hate what I keep doing to my family. “Thanks. Are you doing OK? Too hard to drive? You know, one of us would have come to pick you up.”
It’s what I should have done. I should have called Hunter or any of the other guys that live in these mountains. All of them would have given me a ride without batting an eye.
“My tire blew,” I admit in a small voice, feeling like a kid who wet the bed again.
He swears under his breath. He knows I was the one driving the day my patrol went over the roadside bomb, that the tire blowing took me back to the worst moment of my life. “You could have called. I would have–”
“Put your whole damn wedding on hold for me. I didn’t want you to do that,” I answer then because I don’t want to talk about it anymore, I say, “Tell Callie I’m looking forward to meeting her.”
