The Broody Brit for Christmas (Holiday Springs #1) - M.J. Fields Page 0,4
bag, and begins shoveling the candy back into it, I realize the door-shutting episode doesn't hold a candle to this mess.
I blink my eyes and look him over. He’s gorgeous. He must be over six feet tall with chiseled features, eyes covered in tinted aviators, and perfect dark hair, a bit of that sexy salt and pepper dusted around his temples, leveling up his gorgeousness to dashingly distinguished. God, I just can’t. I look anywhere but at him. My eyes dart to the street where a shiny Harley Davidson sits. Looking back at him, I swallow hard. He’s in a leather jacket. A nice one, obviously expensive, too. I can see some tattoos on his forearms. This man is a contradiction if ever I saw one.
And here I am, on my knees in front of another rich prick, whose smirk indicates that he knows exactly the effect he has on me.
I raise my head, ready to snap, but he hands me my keys as he stands and takes my elbow, helping me up, as if I need it. I want to tell him, I’ve only gained ten pounds, asshole, I can do it myself, but he steps back and looks down at me, his square jaw set as if I’ve done something to offend him.
I don’t have to wonder long.
“My son was here. He took a sweet from you?” He reaches in my bag and pulls out a piece of my special stash, unwraps it, and pops it in his mouth, chewing as he reaches in his pocket and then holds out his hand, turns it, and shows me two shiny nickels. Even his damn money sparkles, sitting pretty in the center of his large and heavily calloused hand. “For his and mine.”
Oh, no, he didn't! But my mouth doesn't cooperate, as I open it and close it just like a fish out of water. His lips tighten, fighting a cocky rich prick smirk.
I clear my throat, look above him, focusing on the beautiful oak trees lining the street instead of the drop-dead gorgeous rich asshole in front of me.
With as much strength as I can muster, I finally speak. “You should teach him not to take things without paying for them.” I can’t even deliver my comment with forceful eye contact. Obviously, Tinsley’s ‘lessons’ didn’t imbed themselves as deeply as I had thought.
“Well, I must say you’re obviously a pro at making boys quake. He told me about the verbal tongue lashing you gave him. Let me assure you,” his eyes move from my feet up to my face, “he wasn’t trying to starve you.”
His full lips purse together, telling me he’s trying not to laugh. Without another word and before I can tell him to go fuck a stack of Benjamins or his black card, he walks away, gets on his bike, and drives off.
Rule Number Two
Never look a redhead straight in the eyes
Raff
Two hours ago, I shot off a text to my son and his aunt Faith, apologizing profusely that I was stuck in traffic. It was quickly worked out; Nathaniel was more than happy to walk the four blocks to his favorite store on Main Street in Holiday Springs, Winterfield’s Sweet Spot, to wait for Faith’s one employee at Bookland bookstore to cover her so that she could meet Nathaniel and they could walk back to her place and wait for me.
Thirty minutes later, he called me.
“Dad,” he whispered, and I felt anxiety’s invisible claw grip my chest so tight I almost couldn’t respond.
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you whispering? Is aunt Faith—”
“I’m in her bathroom. I did a really bad thing, and I didn’t want her to know.”
My body tensed, and I willed myself to be calm when I reminded him, “You can tell me anything, Nathaniel, you know this.”
He proceeded to tell me what had happened, and I was less than impressed with whoever this new employee at Winterfield’s was. For fuck’s sake, aside from the owners, Elden and Gloria Winterfield, their daughter Nellie—who wouldn’t ever speak to Nathaniel that way because she wants me—I’d never had an unpleasant experience in the Sweet Spot, and neither had Nathaniel.
Nellie typically worked the after-school and evening hours alone, and she would never give Nathaniel a hard time. Because just like the rest of the single, divorced, or widowed women, from the ages of eighteen to eighty, she’d all but told me she’d like nothing more than to warm my bed.