Depends on Who's Asking - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,24

holding up what looked like a boombox, a battery-powered Christmas tree, and they were singing at the top of their lungs.

Oh, and they were on jet skis.

I glanced around the lake, not able to see all of the sides, and assumed that wherever they got it in, it was likely not on any of the banks that we could see.

“They must’ve just backed the trailer right into the lake,” I guessed. “I don’t know for sure, but that would be my guess.”

She pushed open the sliding glass door, caught hold of my hand with one of hers, and walked outside.

Despite it being a beautiful day, the air was cold and crisp.

If one of those dumbasses fell into the water, they were going to freeze their proverbial and literal balls off.

Together they used their jet skis to start putting something up in the water. Then out came a post hole driver, followed shortly by duct tape, zip ties, and a few other things.

When they were done, they’d staked the Christmas tree into the water using a few poles and had also Jerry-rigged the boombox to tie to the poles, too.

Then they left, leaving their spoils behind.

“They gave me a Christmas tree.” She smiled wide, her eyes turning to survey me. “I swear, they’re not always this nice.”

I knew her brothers.

Not well, no, but I knew them.

Both of them were on the police department with me. Both were in the traffic division, though, and I didn’t see much of them at all.

However, when I did, they weren’t all that nice.

Not to say that they wouldn’t warm up if I got to know them, but they definitely weren’t warm and welcoming now.

I wondered what they would do when they learned that I’d slept with their sister.

I’m sure that they definitely would have something warm to offer me… in the form of their fists connecting with my face.

And hell, I didn’t want to consider what her father would do when he learned.

Now, he was halfway welcoming. When he learned that I had feelings for his daughter? I was sure that would change rather fast.

“Oh, boy.” Carolina just shook her head. “They’re going to whine like little babies when I show them the Christmas tree you got for me. They’ll be all, ‘but we went to so much trouble and we didn’t have to.’”

She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, but the smile stayed firmly in place.

I resisted the urge to pull her into my arms, but only just barely.

She turned to look at me.

“Back to the movie?” she asked hopefully.

We’d worked out. We’d eaten breakfast and lunch. We’d washed clothes. We’d dried clothes.

Literally, short of getting up and walking out of the building, we’d done everything we could do in the room that we were provided.

“Sure,” I said, a weird feeling expanding in my chest at that smile.

It sure felt a whole lot like trouble, too.

CHAPTER 8

The tree isn’t the only thing getting lit this year.

-Carolina’s secret thoughts

CAROLINA

Quarantine Day Four

I was dying.

Literally, dying.

I was lying next to Saint, had been lying next to him for going on two hours now, and my body was going haywire.

There was a thump, some cursing, and a whole lot of yelling coming from the room next door, and I squeezed my eyes tightly shut as I wished that Brielle and her roommate had been put in a different part of the hotel instead of the room right beside us.

She’d been driving me nuts all day.

Honestly, it was likely that she wasn’t being that bad. That really, what was bothering me was that I was a horndog wanting the man that’d driven me nuts all day long and was taking my frustration out on Brielle.

But this? Them screaming at two-thirty in the morning? This was something that I couldn’t get over.

Some of us wanted to sleep.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Saint grumbled when I stood up out of the bed and walked to the door that adjoined our two rooms.

“I’m going to kill them both and they won’t have to worry about freakin’ Ebola,” I grumbled darkly.

Saint chuckled from the bed and I felt the sheets shift as he sat up.

Moments later he disappeared into what I assumed was the bathroom, but I didn’t turn around to make sure.

Nope, my entire focus was on the assholes next door.

I slammed my fist on the door, hopefully loud enough to be heard over their yelling.

“If y’all don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to fucking lose it!” I