How the Hitman Stole Christmas - Sam Mariano Page 0,27

take her word for it and give her a chance to prove herself.

She swore she wouldn’t try to leave, swore she wouldn’t try anything sneaky, swore she just wanted to be comfortable while she slept. I tried to believe her, but when she first settled into my arms, I was on high alert.

I expected her body to be tense when I wrapped my arms around her bare waist and pulled her back against me, but she let me hold her with all the contentment of a sleepy kitten.

If she wanted to sneak out, she wouldn’t have fallen asleep so easily. Escape would have been on her mind. She would’ve been planning and plotting, leaving as few details to chance as possible.

I don’t think she’ll try to leave, but I push off sleep for as long as I can just in case I’m wrong.

When my eyes drift open next and the motel room is bright from the sun streaming in through the drawn curtains, I jolt a little. I must have moved around in my sleep because I’m on my back now, not touching Autumn. I turn my head and see her still lying there, curled up on the edge of the bed with her back to me. The thin cover has fallen almost all the way off her—I must’ve hogged it, habit of sleeping alone—and since I made her sleep naked, she must be freezing.

Guilt grabs me right in the gut. I reach over and yank her back toward the middle of the bed. She stirs and makes a little noise as I pull the blanket over her, but her eyes don’t open. She must still be sleepy.

I can’t help smiling, watching her instinctively burrow into the spot I made warm by sleeping on it. Since she’s asleep and won’t know, I lean over and give her a little kiss on the forehead.

I move off the creaky old bed as quietly as I can and head for the bathroom. Even though I feel kinda bad for it, I worry she’s not as asleep as I thought she was, that as soon as I shut the door, she jumped out of bed and fled the motel room.

It’s not her fault, I’m just not a terribly trusting individual.

When I step back out of the tiny bathroom, Autumn is still asleep in bed. I breathe a sigh of relief, then I get to work.

I’m not worried about getting to my family’s house by any certain time, so we can stay at the motel as late as we want to. We’re only about an hour and a half away now, so I won’t even leave until my sister tells me they’ve arrived.

I do want to get this Brady shit handled, though.

I stewed over his words longer than I wanted to last night. At the very top of my priority list for today is making sure I protect Autumn from his callous bullshit. When she calls today to formally dump his ass and tell him that his belongings are in the mail, I want to be as sure as I can that he’ll be nice to her.

That means I need to make a call, and I need to do it early enough in the day that what I’m asking for can be done. It also has to be out of Autumn’s earshot, because I don’t want her to know about it.

That means I have to run to the post office to mail his crap back to him and leave Autumn here, and that makes me all kinds of nervous.

There’s no way around it, so I just have to hope she’s tired enough to stay asleep while I’m gone. I grab the notepad and pen the motel provided on the nightstand and jot down a note for her just in case.

Autumn,

Ran to the post office.

Back in 20 minutes.

I’ll bring coffee.

Stay put.

-J

I place the note on the pillow on my side of the bed and look at her one last time before I slip out of the room.

There are plenty of people I could call to help me out with this little problem since I’m out of town and can’t do it myself, but given its spot on my priority list, I decide to go straight to the big guns.

The phone rings a couple time before he picks up.

“Hello,” he answers brusquely.

“Adrian. It’s Jasper. You got a minute?”

“Sure,” he says. I hear him moving around, probably giving himself a little privacy to talk to me. “Everything all