Her Christmas SEAL (When SEALs Come Home Book 7) Read online

  She gave me a look I couldn’t interpret, but that was nothing new. “I work on a Christmas tree farm.”

  Definitely not an art gallery, but maybe she enjoyed the work? I jumped out of planes for a living, so I wasn’t gonna judge her.

  “So where’s Mr. Holly?” Wherever the fuck he was, he wasn’t glued to her side, and he damned certain wasn’t looking after her. I might be stuck halfway up a tree, but certain things were clear. She looked tired. She was alone. It was starting to get dark.

  I couldn’t make out a ring beneath those ridiculous pink and green gloves she wore. She needed something tougher to go tipping.

  She bit her lip, then glared up at me with the stubborn look I recognized. Usually it preceded her doing something particularly foul in the interests of evening the score or paying me back. Wasn’t like I had anywhere to be though. I was stranded in the ponderosa, facing a two-mile hike in the dusk. I’d far rather be here with her, so I could wait all night for her answer.

  “I’m a failure,” she tossed off finally.

  I didn’t believe that for a moment. Sure there was no such thing as insta-success, although I kinda would have liked that for her, but Holly didn’t know how to give up. She went after what she wanted, and I’d always liked that about her even if it had led her straight to Mr. Dick.

  “There’s no more Mr. Holly,” she said, after the silence had stretched on for too long. “We got a divorce.”

  Jesus.

  Christ.

  I still had it bad for her, didn’t I? One of the last times I’d seen Holly, she’d been glued to the side of her new fiancé. She’d flashed a teeny-tiny rock at me and then demanded I congratulate her. The reality of the stone had sunk in as I’d taken in the guy’s arm wrapped around her waist. Yeah. Fucker knew he’d lucked into the best thing ever to happen to him. I’d realized—too little, too late—that I wanted to be her man. I’d never made a move on her, hadn’t said a word. She wasn’t a mind reader, and she’d gone guy shopping and picked out a happily-ever-after that didn’t include me. Truth was, that hurt worse than crash-landing in any ponderosa pine.

  So if Holly had ditched her mister, I had a second chance.

  But first I had to get down out of this goddamned tree. Reaching up, I started to unlace my boots.

  “What are you doing?” I hadn’t known her eyes could get that wide—and she hadn’t even seen my best parts yet.

  “I’m getting naked,” I told her. “Which means I’m gonna shuck my clothes so I can shimmy out of my current predicament. That’s step one in my plan. Step two involves me climbing down this tree, collecting my knife, climbing back up, and cutting my clothes free.”

  I kept step three to myself, because that was the part where I either kissed her senseless or convinced her she wanted to go out on a date with a slightly banged-up smoke jumper and former SEAL.

  A pink blush tinged her cheeks. It was kinda cute. “That’s a complicated plan.”

  And she was a complicated woman, I was cold, and my branch was about to break and plant my sorry ass on the ground. “You got a better one?”

  I set to work on the second boot. In another thirty seconds, I was going to be freezing my ass off, and she was going to get her own personal Chippendales show. If I was lucky, that would jumpstart step three of the plan. If I wasn’t lucky? She’d either run down the mountain screaming or whip out that camera of hers again. I’d deal with it when it happened.

  “You could ask. Nicely.” She shrugged. “I’d bet the word please wouldn’t even kill you. And you can add a promise to that. I want to hear you say you’re going to behave yourself.”

  I shook my head, frustrated but out of options. “Please.”

  The word came out more growl than not, but her face lit up. Who knew six letters were the key to winning her over? I made a mental note to say the word a whole lot more around her. I’d be happy to please her in bed. For instance.

  It took three tries for her to lob the blade high enough for me to catch it. I didn’t like her tossing knives around, but I also didn’t like her being alone on the mountain. She didn’t have the right boots, she wasn’t wearing enough clothing, and I was pretty sure she’d cut her fingers on those damned pine tips. She was supposed to be happy and safe—that was the principle behind why I’d joined the SEALs. Guys like me fought so girls like her could enjoy the right kind of life. No one got to her on my watch or tried to tell her how to be. She even got to marry Mr. Douche Bag. So why was she out in the woods by herself?

  2

  JACKS

  Lucky Paws Christmas Tree Farm was located twenty miles outside of Strong. I hadn’t had much call to go out there in the two years I’d been living in Strong and working for Donovan Brothers as a smoke jumper, but local gossip claimed that Lucky, the owner, had gone into Christmas tree farming some twenty years ago, determined to make a quick buck growing trees. The Christmas business had turned out to be anything but quick since the trees took a good ten years to mature, but Lucky had hung in there. Somewhere along the line, the man had expanded. The billboard—sporting an animated reindeer head—announced sixty acres of cut-your-own trees, a Santa’s village, a sleigh ride, Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe, and ice skating. I’d rather have stormed an insurgent stronghold with my bare hands than gone Christmas shopping, but there you had it. My Holly was in there. A guy did what he had to do.

  When I pulled my truck into the lot, the place was already bustling. Kids were running around, shrieking, and climbing on everything that didn’t blink, whir, or chime out Christmas carols. A fat guy in a red suit shoved a candy cane at me and pointed in the general direction of the trees. I fell in with the crowd, looking for Holly.

  Finding her turned out to be surprisingly easy. She met me at the entrance of the tree lot, although I doubted it was on purpose. She kind of did a double take when she saw me, like only the Easter Bunny would have been less expected. She was just going to have to get used to having me around, I decided.

  I liked today’s outfit way better than yesterday’s lumberjack look, but maybe that was because she was mostly naked. She was dressed as an elf in a short green skirt that barely skimmed the top of her thighs. A matching green jacket hugged her boobs, and even though her “fur” cuffs appeared to be mid molt, I was a happy man. As an added bonus, the red-and-white-striped stockings had me wondering if they went all the way up—or stopped just under her hem. And if she’d let me find out or kick me with her steel-toed boots. Those boots were the only practical thing about her employee uniform.

  “Put your tongue back in your mouth,” she snapped. That’s my Holly. She’d always called me on my shit.

  I grinned at her. “Just appreciating the view, babe.”

  Fortunately for me, I was wearing steel toes too. Barely felt it when she took a shortcut across my foot.

  She mumbled something that sure sounded like it would put her on Santa’s naughty list. “What are you doing here?”

  “I don’t look like the kind of guy who gets his Christmas shopping done early?”

  She snorted. “How long have we known each other?”

  Twelve years and nowhere near long enough. “I want to pick out a tree.” I pointed to the pin fixed on her right boob. “According to that, you’re gonna bring the ax and help me find the tree of my dreams.”

  “You don’t really want a tree.” She folded her arms over her chest as if that could erase the perky claim of her nametag.

  “You telling a paying customer what he does or doesn’t want?” We’d had this conversation once back in high school, when she’d been working at the local Dairy Queen. Then we’d squabbled over ice cream, but I’d learned that I had an important ally in her boss. Money talked.

  I had her, and we both knew it. Sure enough, she tossed a quick glance over her shoulder at Santa Lucky. The old guy was staring in our direction, clearly contemplating an intervention. He wasn’t letting any money walk off his lot, and we both knew it.

  I lea
ned down and brushed my mouth over her ear. “You know what happens to naughty girls.”

  She jumped, her elbow “accidentally” digging into my rib cage. “If you get me fired, I’ll kill you.”

  Duly noted. I might be doing her a favor to get her out of here and the Christmas carols blasting over the PA system. “You really like working here?”

  She shrugged and headed toward Ye Olde Christmas Tree Shacke. I followed. Her skirt wasn’t any longer in the back. It twitched with each irritated bounce. Fan-fucking-tastic. Up until now, I’d really just wanted to see her. I hadn’t thought further ahead than that, but it looked like I’d be buying a tree unless Holly was going Lizzie Borden on me with the chainsaw she snagged from a shelf in the Shacke.

  “There aren’t many job options,” she said warily. “And I happen to like Christmas.”

  I had no idea what to say, so I grabbed the chainsaw from her and struck out on the nearest path. I walked fast, and I had at least a foot on Holly. She’d always been a tiny thing. She hustled along behind me, babbling crap about liability and farm rules. Apparently I wasn’t allowed to handle the chainsaw. Since I wasn’t letting her cart heavy stuff around when I was right here, we were kinda at an impasse.

  The path wasn’t bad the first few hundred yards, beaten down by the hordes hungry for one hundred percent genuine, fresh-cut Christmas trees. Even got a few flakes of snow falling from the sky, although I wouldn’t have put it past the Santa dude to have a snowmaker hidden somewhere. Probably good for business. After the first five minutes, the crowd thinned out, and after ten it disappeared altogether. It was just me, Holly, and about a thousand pine trees. A thought struck me.

  “Why were you up on the mountain cutting branches when you have about a million trees here?”

  She shot me a look. I couldn’t tell if she thought I was an idiot or just giving her grief. After a moment, she went ahead and answered. “I was tipping. It pays well.”

  I’d never tipped, but I understood the principle. You went out in the forest, cut off the tips of pine branches, and then sold the green stuff to the good folks who made Christmas wreaths and that decorative garland stuff. It was kind of like making Popsicle sticks for the arts and crafts crowd. As far as pays well went, I was skeptical. Tree tips weren’t made out of gold, and Lucky had a reputation for being cheap.

  I asked the obvious question. “You got money worries?”

  Her hands shot to her hips. “You can’t ask me that!”

  Where I came from, we didn’t see the point in pussyfooting around the issue. Unless she had a thing for pine trees and fresh air, there was only one reason to be hauling ass around the mountain, cutting branches. She needed the money.

  “Can too,” I pointed out, thinking things through. “Mr. Dick not play fair in the divorce settlements?”

  Because I’d be happy to fix that for her. Several possible solutions came to mind, and none of them involved me writing her a check. Not that she wasn’t welcome to raid my bank account, but I let myself fantasize for a moment about beating the crap out of her deadbeat ex-husband.

  Her mouth opened. Closed like she’d bit back the words she’d intended to say. She made one cute, cranky elf. Fuck, but I wanted to kiss the frown right off her face. I also really, really liked the red-and-white-striped stockings. My eyes kept going back to those.

  “You’re not freezing?”

  Because if she was, I could think of a whole lotta ways to warm her up.

  HOLLY

  “I’m not cold.”

  Not a snowball’s chance in hell I froze. Not when Mr. Big Bad Grumpy Firefighter was around. Jacks sauntered down the path like he knew exactly where he was headed. Things were clearly simpler in the Universe of Jacks.

  He made that noise again, the one that was the verbal equivalent of nope, I don’t believe you in ginormous neon letters. Too bad. I didn’t care what he thought. Now that I was divorced, the only guy I had to make happy was my boss, and Lucky wasn’t unreasonable except when it came to employee uniforms.

  Jacks didn’t say anything, although he also showed no signs of stopping.

  “If you don’t pick a tree soon, we’re going to end up in Canada,” I pointed out.

  “Got a few more states in the way, babe,” he said drily.

  I shrugged. It was the principle of the thing. I had to draw the line somewhere, before he walked me ten miles into the wilderness. I liked the snow and the trees just fine, but dealing with night, cold, and voracious mountain lions was above my pay grade. Still, I was almost surprised when he stopped. Jacks usually preferred to set the pace. Maybe he was getting mellow in his old age.

  He came to a halt, and I almost plowed into his back. I had to put a hand out to stop myself. My palm hit hard, muscled back. He’d probably look and feel even better naked, and my imagination went into overdrive as I drank in the glorious heat of him seeping through his clothes. My inner hussy insisted we declare him our own personal space heater and wrap ourselves around him. Knowing Jacks, he wouldn’t mind. He’d be perfectly fine with holding me—or with having sex. As his dating record made clear, it was all the parts that came before and after—the relationship parts—that he didn’t do.

  “That one.” He jerked a thumb toward an enormous pine tree. I was pretty certain he’d given the tree a one-second look before settling on it. Still, it was a tree, it was for sale, and it was just within the realm of possibility that I could drag all eight feet of it back to the cash register. Sold.

  “You got it.” I held out a hand. My chainsaw. My job.

  All I got for my trouble was a grin. A big panty-melting, wicked grin. “I’ve got this,” he said. “I know how to run a saw.”

  God. His mouth. I might be very (very) happily divorced, but my hormones were still in fine working order, and his lips provided plenty of stimulation. Jacks had firm lips, the kind that could kiss a girl rough or sweet, depending on her mood. He’d never kissed me, not really, because who kissed his frenemy?

  Snagging the safety glasses from my pocket, he dropped them in place, yanked the chain, and the motor ground to life.

  “You do know I cut down really big trees for a living, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer his question, just motioned for me to stand back. Cutting down trees wasn’t all he did. He also jumped out of planes, landed in the middle of a raging forest fire, and pretty much did anything he could to stop the flames from advancing. Kind of like playing chicken with Mother Nature.

  I’d once heard one of the Donovan brothers describe the job as digging in a really big, really hostile sandbox. Apparently they hacked six-inch ditches into the ground, and that somehow stopped the fire. I had no idea how it worked, but I was plenty clear on one thing. Being a Christmas elf was far less complicated.

  “You got kids?” He yelled the question over the chainsaw’s roar. Great. Not only had he taken over my job, but now he wanted me to scream my personal details loud enough to be heard in the next state over? Of course, maybe it was his idea of small talk. God knew, Jacks wasn’t easy to figure out.

  “You need to know that in order to cut a tree with me?”

  He shrugged and made the first cut with the same confident ease he did everything. The blade chipped into the wood, and the air filled with the sweet tang of pine sap. I inhaled deeply because no candle, no air freshener, had ever come close to the real deal. This was liquid Christmas, and I loved it. I leaned in closer, and he gave me a look.

  Poor baby. Was I in his space? It wasn’t like the chips from his itty-bitty tree could hurt me unless I stuck my face right up close, and I wasn’t that kind of stupid. It was cute though, the way he insisted on keeping me safe.

  Not that I needed it. I’ve got this. Totally got this.

  He made the second cut on the other side of the tree trunk, angling the blade in. The tree started to fall over, and he finished the cut. Of course, the man was a natural.

  “You didn’t yell timber.” I smacked him on the ass just a li
ttle harder than was strictly friendly.

  Which was a huge tactical mistake on my part. Jacks had an amazing butt. His faded jeans sported those yummy white stress lines that pointed to various parts of his anatomy like a to-do list for my mouth. When he wasn’t talking, he was gorgeous. Too big and rough around the edges for pretty, but something better.

  No more men, I reminded myself. It was just that it had been a while, kind of like week two of a no-sugar diet, or halfway through Lent. Giving up men was the prudent thing to do. My taste was crap, and I couldn’t afford to backslide—or lick Jacks—no matter how hard my hormones begged.

  “You didn’t warn me you were into kink.” He set the chainsaw on the ground and nudged the tree with his boot. The pine, obliging, fell over onto the ground, kind of like I wanted to do. “And you didn’t answer the question. You got kids?”

  Apparently we were playing twenty questions whether I wanted to or not. Of course, that could mean I got a chance to ask questions. I would have loved to find out what he’d been up to, how life had treated him, and Jacks wasn’t the most communicative person on the face of the planet.

  In fact, he might have been the least communicative person I knew, up to and including dead guys. He’d never once, in all the years since we met, sent me a card. I’d religiously sent him a card on every holiday—both major and Hallmark-induced—and had received nada from him. No card, no postcard, not even a return to sender scrawled on my envelope.

  “No kids,” I told him. Mark and I had talked about kids, but always some day in the glorious future because Mark had wanted us to have a house first. Unfortunately for our future progeny, his affair had preceded any real estate purchase, and just like that our marriage had been over. Jacks nodded, however, like he was ticking something off a mental checklist.

  “And you misplaced Mr. Dick.” He set about trimming the bottom branches off the tree.