How the Hitman Stole Christmas - Sam Mariano Page 0,52
the hots for you.”
“Becky Lawrence. That checks out,” he teases, running his finger along my jawline.
A shiver runs through me, and it’s not from the cold. “What are you doing?” I ask soberly, trying to ground myself.
“Kissing my girlfriend,” he says simply.
“Your pretend girlfriend,” I remind him, just before his lips meet mine.
I know I shouldn’t kiss him back, but I can’t resist. The sensible thing to do would be shove him off me and get back on my feet, head back inside the warm house with Amira.
Instead, I wind my arms around his neck and close my eyes, ignoring the bite of the cold seeping through my clothes and getting lost in his warmth.
We’re lying there on the ground making out like a couple of teenagers when I hear the unmistakable sound of a woman clearing her throat.
Jasper stops kissing me, and we both look up. Nora is standing there with her eyebrow cocked and a hand on her hip.
Tarek is behind her, laughing a little as he hides Amira’s eyes.
Amira isn’t having that. She shoves her dad’s hand away and I quickly shove at Jasper’s chest. I couldn’t move him if he didn’t want to be moved, but he lets me roll out from under him and climb to my feet.
“Sorry,” I mutter, dusting the snow off my butt.
Nora tries to keep up the look of playful censure, but she cracks and grins. “I’m so glad my brother found you. It’s nice to see him happy.”
“Okay,” Jasper says, mildly annoyed. “I’m standing right here.”
Nora shoots him a saucy grin and turns toward the snowman. “All right, let’s see this—”
She stops dead when she sees our unintentionally monstrous creation.
Amira smiles at it proudly and looks over at Nora. “Mama, look! I make pretty snowman.”
Chapter Seventeen
Jasper
When my mom and Tom get back, they have a tree with them.
Apparently, the tree in the window is just for decoration. The real tree is significantly bigger.
I give Tom a hand getting it inside, then I follow him to the room off the garage where they keep the decorations and fetch the boxes of ornaments and other Christmas tree dressing.
My sister was right—Tom talks a lot about when he played baseball, but other than being far too talkative and mildly annoying, he seems like an all right guy. Not at all my mom’s type. After the parade of creeps and assholes she got mixed up with when I was a kid, I expected far worse.
Since Autumn soaked her clothes playing in the snow and she wants to save the dress she brought for Christmas Eve or Christmas day, she asks my sister if she can borrow an outfit while we do a load of laundry.
Nora lends her a pair of black leggings and a red plaid dress. Autumn looks so sexy in it, I can’t bear the thought of my sister ever wearing it, so I add “buy Nora a new outfit” to my to-do list.
I need to get Autumn a present, too.
Since I told her I’d take her through downtown Stillwater at some point and tomorrow is already Christmas Eve, I really need to take her out tonight.
I ask Nora first since she’s been here a lot more than I have. She recommends a shop on Main Street that sells “fashionable women’s clothing,” and tells me about a couple of other places I could take her.
I get on my phone and do some research once I have an idea of the downtown area, check hours and locations so I can make a game plan.
When I go back to find Autumn, she’s in the kitchen with Nora and my mom baking cookies.
That is one hell of an image. I don’t know which part feels strangest—seeing Autumn looking like part of my family, or seeing my mom bake.
Uncle Arlo is sitting at the island talking to them while they bake. Autumn’s hard at work on snowball cookies, rolling them in powdered sugar and setting them aside.
She’s wearing an apron so as not to get sugar on Nora’s clothes.
An apron.
I sigh, shaking my head at the profound domesticity of this scene.
The hair on the back of my nape suddenly stands up. At first I think it’s some kind of response to seeing Autumn integrated into the fabric of my family like this, but then I feel a shift in the space behind me and look back to see Tarek creeping up on me.
My fists clench as a matter of habit, but of course he’s not creeping