The Christmas He Loved Her (Bad Boys of Crystal Lake 2)

“Yes, really.”

“You just hate the wine.”

She cocked her head to the side and looked at him as if he were crazy. “They don’t have wine, remember? Cold Duck is not wine.” She grinned. “Though I will concede, their tequila is as fine as a whore’s tongue.”

Jake shook his head and fingered the empty shot glasses. “That it is.” The one thing most people would be surprised to know about Lily St. Clare was that the woman could hold her booze better than most men he knew, and on occasion she talked like a trucker.

Unlike Raine, who was a lightweight when it came to the hard stuff.

The thought of Raine was enough to kill his buzz, and Jake sighed as he ran his hand along the back of his neck.

“Don’t you dare,” Lily said loudly and stood.

Jake looked up at her in surprise. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t retreat into your dark place. Not now…not tonight.” She held her hand out as a slow, melodic tune swept over the dance floor. “It’s my last night and I feel like dancing.” Lily moved her hips and giggled. “Come on, redneck, show the city girl how it’s done out here in the boonies.”

“I don’t dance,” he shot back.

“Sure you do.”

He shook his head. “Not gonna happen.”

Lily grinned as her hands went to the edge of her blouse. She gazed beyond him and paused for a second before she tossed her hair all over the place and rolled her hips suggestively. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said she was gunning for an Academy Award. “Dance with me or I’ll take my shirt off, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not wearing a bra.”

Jake gritted his teeth and glared at her. He knew her well enough to know she’d do it too. And she knew him well enough to know he’d never let her.

“You’re not only crazy,” he ground out, “you’re a goddamn brat.”

“I know.” She beckoned him. “Now dance with me.”

Jake rose and let her lead him to the darkened dance floor, where they slid among several couples moving slowly to the music. It was heavy on the steel guitar, a melancholy sound that tugged at something deep inside him. He’d never heard the song before, but the tone and feel of it reminded him of…

Raine.

He stilled and held Lily as they moved along the edge of the dance floor, both of them lost in thought and somewhere else. Her fingers dug into his shoulders and he knew that she was tense. As much as she projected a sex-kitten image, Lily wasn’t fussy on being touched, and though it made him wonder why she’d wanted to dance, he pushed the notion aside. About a week after meeting Lily, he’d given up trying to figure out how her mind worked. So he held her lightly and tried to forget how good it felt to hold someone.

How good it had felt to cradle Raine against his chest the other night.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we…”

He angled his head and looked down. “If we what?”

Lily’s eyes shimmered, and though she tried to hide the pain inside her, she couldn’t. She swallowed and smiled, a small, sad smile. “I just thought it would be nice if we could have been more than friends. If you weren’t so screwed up and I wasn’t so broken.”

Leave it to Lily to hit the nail right on the head. Hard.

“I would have wanted someone like you,” she whispered.

Jake exhaled slowly, wishing he could ease her pain. He knew the secrets she kept hidden from the world. Her hands rose up and cupped his face, her fingers light. “I want you to be happy, Jake. You deserve to be happy.”

He didn’t know what to say, so he kept quiet. Happiness and Jake Edwards were at odds, and he doubted they’d ever be friends.

She leaned up and kissed him alongside his mouth, pressing her cheek next to his, and she whispered, “Promise me you’ll tell her how you feel.”

She let him go, took a step backward, and slowly her features relaxed into a smile that immediately put Jake on alert. She was a chameleon, and he’d seen that smile before. The woman was up to something, and he was pretty damn sure it was nothing good.

The song ended and silence filled the air around them as the couples on the dance floor slowly disengaged and returned to their seats. A few of them said hello on their way by and he nodded, though his eyes never left Lily.