Bounty (Colorado Mountain 7)

“Yeah,” he got closer, his expression shifting the mood as it filled with amusement. “Warning, Jussy. You’re about to get a full-on blast of Laurie at Christmas.”

He thought this would freak me.

He wasn’t the only person who’d told me Lauren Jackson Christmas stories so it might.

But still.

I couldn’t wait.

* * * * *

“Okay,” my voice was shaking with suppressed laughter, “never in my life would I think Laurie could best Twyla.”

We were on our way back home from Carnal’s Christmas party at Bubba’s and doing a debrief.

It seemed the whole town showed up, the place jam-packed, the outside strung with so many lights, it was certain they could see it in the next county. The inside decorated, every inch, in Christmas.

There were deli trays all around and a big vat of eggnog that I avoided because it was spiked so deep, one sip of it, I couldn’t taste nog, only rum and it went right to my head.

I didn’t want to be hammered. I wanted to be buzzed sweet and enjoy every second of my first experience with what had become Carnal’s official kickoff for Christmas.

Lauren, however, got sloshed out of her mind. And when she went to the jukebox, pulled the plug (on Christmas songs, she’d filled the damn thing with nothing but starting on December first) and demanded loudly everyone needed to start singing—you guessed it, Christmas songs—Twyla declared that, at least for her, would not be happening.

Laurie got in her face. Somehow it was decided an arm wrestling match would determine the winner, and then to everyone’s surprise, with a lot of hilarious grunting, Twyla’s eyes getting bigger and bigger in her head as it came clear the way it was going, Lauren’s Christmas monster came out and she beat Twyla at arm wrestling.

An amazing feat.

Thus Twyla sang “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” with Lauren while Jim-Billy put in his astonishingly good baritone, a bunch of three-sheets-to-the-wind bikers and their babes and another bunch of locals chimed in.

But not Deke, Tate, Ty, Chace, etc. because mountain men apparently didn’t sing Christmas songs in public, but they did laugh their asses off watching Twyla do it.

Twyla then exited the premises pronto, dragging a giggling, waving and drunk-off-her-ass Cindy behind her.

It.

Was.

A blast.

The whole night.

The best kickoff to Christmas I’d ever had.

Truly.

Even besting the ones Dad and Joss initiated, and they were both holiday fiends.

But not like Lauren. I swear her breath smelled like peppermint, that’s how deep she lived and breathed Christmas.

This could have been Schnapps, though.

“Told you,” Deke said, his voice a smile.

“Yeah,” I agreed, watching him turn up my lane.

“Good night,” he whispered.

I reached for his hand, gave it a squeeze and agreed, “The best.”

He squeezed my hand back, parked outside my door, and through my buzz I decided to have another conversation with him about the garage.

My truck was parked in there. The second bay was taken up by Deke’s Harley, which he’d moved there from his trailer.

There was a third, kinda-half bay where you could store ATVs or snow mobiles, if you had them (and I wanted to get them) but now it was stacked with Deke’s tools and some of the construction stuff left over from the house. Extra tiles. Floorboards and bags of grout not used. The remnants of the slabs of marble my countertops were cut from. All of this Deke suggested (this more aptly described as demanded) I keep, at least for a while, just in case I needed to switch something out, do a repair, and simply because I bought it so I owned it.

Since I was closing on the extra property soon, I was having a stable built come spring. Max was having it designed. It’d have a big tack room, four stalls, and a large storage space.

We’d move that crap out there when I had the stables, Deke’s Harley to the half bay of the garage and Deke could park inside.

Something he should be doing now.

His truck was newer, nicer, and he had to go out in the cold to get in it to go to work in the morning. I did not have to do the same thing.

But he wouldn’t hear of me not parking Granddad’s truck inside. We’d had words. I recognized that meant something to him, so I’d backed off.

That said, it was cold, there was a lot of snow on the ground, we kept getting it regular, and I figured if Deke and I spent a few hours in the garage, we could stack the house stuff in a way we could move his Harley over and get his truck inside.

That would be our conversation tomorrow.

After sex, coffee and breakfast.

After that, our plans were to go get our Christmas tree, a live one, and decorate it with the ton of Christmas stuff I’d bought.

But right now, it was about getting inside, sex and sleep.

Deke cut the ignition. We got out. I waited for him at the head of my front walk, the outside arch of my front door draped with fake Christmas boughs, lit and now illuminated, the side points of the draping decorated with big gold and white bows, the middle point having a lit star. And beyond, on the door, there was a fat, brightly lit wreath.

Deke had put that all up.

For me.

It looked gorgeous.

When we got to the door, walking hand in hand, he put his key in and I moved closer to him in an effort not to waste a second in getting out of the cold the minute he allowed me entry.

My mind focused on that, therefore it missed his body stilling.

I didn’t miss it when he used his hand in mine to push me slightly back.