Holiday Hideout (Polar Bear, Alaska)

At twenty-nine, I realize this might not even be what I want anymore. The Trinity backlash has helped me see how brutal it is in the public eye. People come at you with pitchforks just because they can, and I don’t want to be murdered while I’m snug in my bed.

Felicity laments about my lack of Christmas spirit, and the hairs on the nape of my neck rise when a crash sounds from somewhere in the house. My sister is back in California with her husband and three kids, so I know she’s not standing in my cabin.

My survival instincts kick in, and I grab a knife from the drawer and slip out of the kitchen with it gripped in my hand. The cabin has an open floor plan, and I see the living room is clear, so I strain my ears to find the thumping noise I hear. In stealth mode, I cross through the living area to peek into the arctic room. The firewood previously stacked neatly in the corner now litters the wood floor like matchsticks.

A hunched over woman, bundled in a puffy pink coat with a matching hat covering her dark hair, shrieks when I leap in front of her.

“Penguin piss,” she shouts, jumping about twenty feet off the floor.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” I ask.

“Um, hi,” she says, giving me a blank stare. “What are you doing here?”

My gaze flits across the crimson staining her cheeks and drops to her pouty lips when she pulls the bottom one in with pearly whites and flickers blue eyes to the weapon in my hand.

“Answer the question,” I say.

“You and your steak knife need to move aside. I have a job to do.”

She’s a ballsy little thing, but it’s possible she’s packing heat inside that marshmallow of a coat.

“Do you have a gun on you?”

“No.”

As I’ve learned from Trinity, a pretty face doesn’t make you a truth-teller.

“Take it off.” I point the knife at her jacket. “Slowly.”

She slides the metal zipper down with pink nails and shrugs it off with a wiggle of her shoulders.

“Fuck,” I mutter. And not because of the spectacular breasts straining beneath her purple t-shirt. It’s the words scrawled across those beauties that have my mind reeling—Kill Fender Fallon.

She’s one of them.

Two

Rachel

* * *

Fender Fallon looks sexier in person, if that’s possible. No wonder Trinity is heartbroken.

Even though he’s scowling at me like an angry maniac, I can still admire his beauty. The scowl on his handsome face only emphasizes the rugged angles carved above a strong jaw covered in dark scruff. He’s always clean-shaven on screen, but this new facial hair works fabulously on his tall frame. It reeks of a sexy mountain man.

I’d like to see him whip out his big axe.

I stare into his mesmerizing eyes and remind myself to breathe.

No. Stop fangirling. Who cares if he’s the star of my absolute favorite movie franchise of all time. Not me. I certainly don’t care that he stands there looking every bit as scrumptious as he does on screen. And I really don’t care his eyes are twinkling sapphires. Because that would mean I don’t care he's holding a knife, and that would mean I’m a loon.

“Sorry about the wood,” I say. “I bumped into it and knocked it over.”

“Are you sorry about the wood or sorry I caught you?”

“I didn’t know you were here—”

“I’m sorry,” he interrupts. “Did I screw up your attempt to murder me?”

“Excuse me?” I laugh. “I’m not here to murder you, Mr. Fallon. I’m sure there’re many people out there who’d love to do that, but I’m not one of them.”

His brow lifts. “Ah, so you know me. What do you want? An autograph?”

“An autograph? Unless it’s on the check you’re paying me with, then I don’t have any use for that.”

“Pay you?”

“Yes, we agreed on twenty dollars an hour.”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “Who are you?”

“I’m your maid. Rachel Shepherd.” I reach into the pocket of my jeans to show him the key I used to enter, but he lunges at me, twirling me around, enveloping me in a bear hug.

“Not so fast,” he growls against my ear.

“What are you doing?” I squeal.

“There are a ton of unstable people looking to find me and get revenge.”

“You might be the unstable one,” I say and then apologize because it’s probably not good to criticize in this situation. “Sorry for saying that. Can we start over at the part before you wrapped around me tighter than garland?”

“You’re wearing a shirt that says Kill Fender Fallon, so I want to make sure you’re not carrying a weapon on you.”

It might make things worse if I say I wore this shirt as solidarity with Trinity against heartbreakers everywhere. We’ve established it was a poor decision.

“Look, I’m here to clean your cabin. I should’ve been here this morning, but life got in the way, so I’m late. My boss said you would arrive tomorrow, so I didn’t expect you’d be here. And not to be rude, but I don’t have time for this. If I wanted to hurt you, there’s an axe in the corner and I know how to use it. But I am not, nor have I ever been, a murderer.” I struggle against his firm hold, contacting his groin, and he drops his arms, stepping away.