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

Leave it to Raine to cut to the chase. He hadn’t seen her since Monday afternoon, when she came by for a tour of the place. Lily had still been in town and was in the house taking all kinds of pictures for Franz, or Henry, or whoever the hell it was she’d called about decorating.

It was obvious that Raine didn’t care for Lily—it was pretty damn hard to miss—and the short hour Raine spent with him had been plain weird. He wasn’t sure if she was just being bitchy—a territorial woman thing—or if she was back there, back to the way they were.

It left him feeling like crap, because he’d hoped that after the night before, he and Raine had maybe turned a corner.

But the space between them was as big as ever and he had no idea how to bridge it.

“I’m at Wyndham, where are you?” He cleared the cedar hedge and made his way over to the pile of crap in front of the house he now owned.

“It’s six o’clock,” she said, a hint of impatience in her voice.

“And…?” he answered with an edge. He wasn’t in the mood for Miss Bossy Pants and quite frankly was getting sick of walking on eggshells around her.

“You were supposed to pick me up for the turkey roll, remember?”

Shit. He had forgotten about the damn fundraiser. Why the hell had he let her talk him into that anyway?

Dumb question. He’d always had a hard time saying no to Raine, but the turkey roll? He knew it was for a good cause and all, but shit, every single available woman would be there—pretty sad when a turkey roll was the “big event” of the season—and they’d be gunning for fresh meat. He didn’t have Lily as a buffer, since she’d left for Texas.

He clenched his teeth and ran a hand over his forehead as he gazed off into the gloom. “Sorry. Time kind of ran away from me.”

There was a pause. “Are you still coming? Do you want me to come get you?”

He glanced down at his ragged jeans and dirty hands, and grimaced.

Aside from the single women out looking for love, the entire town would be there as well, and he’d had enough of them on Black Friday. He knew what some of them thought, the rumors as to why he’d left town not long after Jesse’s funeral.

Some of the townspeople thought he had a drug problem. Others thought he was an alcoholic or crazy with grief or just flat-out certifiable. Soldiering would do that, they said. Make you crazier than you already were.

In fact, there was a bit of truth in all of those reasons.

“Jake?” Raine repeated.

“Yeah, I’m still here.”

“Are you all right?”

No.

Jake rolled tense shoulders. Damn, he was tired. He hadn’t hired any help at all. Hadn’t taken up his father’s offer to lend him some of the workers from Edwards Lumber, either. His plan was to work his ass off every single day until he fell into bed at night, exhausted. He wanted to sleep, for fuck sake.

Except his plan wasn’t working.

His head was still haunted and he was lucky to get two hours of sleep at most. As a soldier, he was used to running on fumes, but a body could only do it for so long until it crashed and burned. He was there. On the edge.

“Jake?”

He scooped up his gloves, took the stairs up to the porch. “Yeah,” he answered distractedly.

“Are you going to bail on me?”

He locked the front door and turned around. She was nervous. He heard it in her voice, and as much as he needed to go home and do whatever he had to do in order to sleep—at this point pills and booze were looking mighty good—he couldn’t. He owed Raine so much more than that.

“No,” he answered, heading toward his truck. “I’m not bailing, and neither are you.”

“It’s a turkey roll, Jake. I’m sure we can throw some cash at the committee and be done with it.”

“No, I’ll meet you there. I just have to run home and shower first.”