Three Nights before Christmas (8 page)

S
tupid. So stupid.

Lacey tried to shake the chill from her fingers as she fumbled along the wall for the annex’s light switch, but the chill went deeper than flesh. Austin had asked her to take a look at his locomotive, and she’d agreed in the hopes of relaxing his suspicions about her. But she didn’t have to dig too deeply to find other motivations. She missed working on trains. Missed the heat, the noise, and the thrill. Missed harnessing their power and force. Missed knowing that she was doing her part to keep America running by transporting important goods from one place to another.

More embarrassing to admit, though, even to herself: Austin had shown up out of uniform, with his jeans hugging his legs and butt in ways she was beyond stupid to notice.

You’ve been away from men for a looong time. The only men you’ve seen are prison guards, the maintenance staff who got you to do all their work for them, and your brother. Of course your hormones are hard-up for action.

Before prison, she’d reveled in an active sex life. Dave had been the best lover she’d ever been with, but not the only. Her mom had delivered passive lectures about good girls waiting for marriage—or at least love and something resembling commitment—and she’d nodded and agreed before heading out to “Bible study” with whatever guy had caught her eye.

She’d enjoyed getting to know guys biblically.

It wasn’t that she’d been a bad kid, lying to her parents and going out in search of trouble. She’d gotten good grades, had good friends, and loved her family. She’d just been bored, living on the outskirts of a small town and eager to find some excitement. In high school and after she’d moved out and started her own career, she’d had a few serious boyfriends—Dave being the most regrettable and the others being pretty forgettable—but she’d also felt no shame in getting down and dirty for the sake of a few feel-good moments with guys who happened to catch her eye.

But prison had severely limited her sexual partners, basically leaving just her hand. Though some of her otherwise-hetero friends had developed relationships with other women, she hadn’t experimented. For one thing, she’d built thick defensive walls around herself and didn’t want to be touched. For another, she hadn’t found anyone she was attracted to enough to let them breach those walls. Sure, prison sex was often more about working off frustration or providing comfort rather than genuine attraction. But she could do those two things on her own.

The fact it had been so long had to explain why her fingers itched to sift through Austin’s wind-ruffled, snowflake-dampened hair. To run them down his stubble-roughened face to his broad chest and beyond. Her sexual drought was the only possible explanation for the way her body seemed to awaken and liquefy at the sight of him. He was the most virile man she’d been close enough to touch in years.

And the forbidden attraction of unbalanced power had to be a gross leftover of life inside.

As she continued patting down the wall in search of the switch, the lights suddenly blazed on so brightly she had to blink several times before she could actually see anything. But when her eyes adjusted, she gasped in horror. The locomotive was nothing more than a rusted hulk in the middle of a cold, dingy warehouse. Chipped black paint fought a losing battle with the rust. All four sets of her driving wheels had been removed, so she hovered over the tracks balanced on hydraulic jacks.

Lacey’s heart bled for her. “Oh, my God. It’s worse than I imagined.”

Chagrin lined Austin’s face, and he ran his palm over the stubbled cheeks she’d just been fantasizing about stroking.

Boyish embarrassment radiated off him as he clearly made an effort to meet her eyes. “I had a team of volunteers from a historical society, and we had to recondition or replace all the locomotive’s parts, so we took it apart. Whatever we couldn’t fix here, we sent to specialized mechanics to recondition. Most of the parts have started to come back, but it took longer than I expected so most of my volunteers are busy with their own stuff right now. What do you think our chances are of putting her back together quickly?”

“
Quickly
?” She couldn’t suppress her cringe as she stepped carefully over the locomotive’s remains, scattered across the concrete floor. “How about we talk about putting her back together
at all
. What parts are ready to go back on? I see her chimney over there, only one set of driving wheels… Where are her other driving wheels? Her boiler? Holy shit, she’s been completely dismembered.”

“That’s a little strong, don’t you think? I mean, speaking as someone who’s had to investigate actual dismemberments—”

She jerked her arm toward the poor, naked locomotive. “
This
is an actual dismemberment, Officer. She might not be alive to feel it, but she’s a grand lady who deserved better treatment than this.”

Picking up a piece of the locomotive’s flue from the floor, he murmured, “I was trying to fix her.”

“Here’s a life lesson for you. Sometimes when you try to fix someone, you just make them worse. And it looks like that’s happening here. Do you have a plan for putting her back together? Equipment? A team?”

“No. Just you.” He concentrated on turning the piece over and over in his big hands.

She’d never seen him off-balance before, not even a little. He was embarrassed. She’d embarrassed him. Power washed through her in a sickening surge. She didn’t want to be more powerful than him—or anyone, for that matter. Equality was all she asked. The ability to stand her own ground, live her own life, take care of her herself. She didn’t want to berate or humiliate anyone. She’d been on the receiving end of that kind of treatment enough to know how gut-twistingly awful it felt.

Rubbing at the tiny muscle twitching painfully between her eyebrows, she fought for peace. When her roiling emotions had slowed to a simmer, she said, “This is your first train?”

“First and last,” he replied gruffly.

She nodded in understanding and stepped over some rubble that separated them.
Don’t get too close. Don’t.
But her feet ignored her, stopping when he was close enough to touch.
Don’t touch. Don’t.

She clasped her hands behind her back, just in case. “When does she need to be operational by?”

“Ten days from now, so we can make sure it passes safety tests and Gabriel has some time to practice driving it with a guy we know from the Historical Society.” His face brightened. “Maybe you’d want to drive—”

She shook her head. “I was never certified on steam trains. They’re a completely different beast than what I drove. Besides, I lost my certification and there’s no point trying to get it back since no railroad will hire me with a criminal record, especially with the crime I was convicted of.”

His throat flexed. “I thought it might give you something to look forward to.”

“What do you care if I have something to look forward to?”

His gaze steady and his voice gruff, he said, “I’m not sure I do.”

She smiled. “Thanks for your honesty. Appreciate it.”

“Anytime. Now, about my dismembered train…”

“I’ll help on one condition. No, wait. Make that two conditions.”

He crossed his arms, the movement stretching the soft-looking flannel of his shirt across his wide shoulders and thick biceps. “Which are?”

“First, don’t call me Ms. Gallagher anymore.”

His brows jerked up in obvious surprise. Maybe he’d been expecting a bigger request, a favor he couldn’t fulfill without risking his job. But she didn’t want any big favors from him. Just a couple of little ones to make her life more livable.

“When you call me Ms. Gallagher, it makes me feel like I’m still a defendant,” she explained.

“Got it. Likewise, don’t call me officer unless I’m in uniform and talking to you under caution.”

“Hopefully that means I’ll never have to call you officer again.”

He grinned. “Hopefully not. Hit me with your second condition.”

“I want Christmas music in here. Lights. Decorations. A tree, if there’s space.”

“Here…in the annex?”

“Yeah.”

He threw a skeptical glance around the dingy workshop, which looked just like every other mechanic’s garage—except messier. “Can I ask why?”

“I missed a lot of Christmases, and I never really appreciated the ones I had.” She swallowed hard before forcing herself to admit, “I think January’s going to be tough. Nothing to look forward to, as you said. I want to binge on festivity now and hope some of that comfort and joy sink so far in to my soul that they carry me through the rest of winter.”

Drawing in a deep breath, he seemed to let the words settle in before pointing to a corner by a frosty window. “I think we could fit a tree there, but you’re the expert. I’ll make sure to drive my truck when I pick you up tomorrow. We can sling a tree in the back.”

Tension she hadn’t even known she was carrying melted away. “Thank you—for understanding.”

“Thank you—for being ready to work your ass off.”

She gave him a mock frown. “No ass comments please.”

He threw his hands in the air in surrender. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Now, ready to get to work?”

*

Austin was used
to hard work. He came from a family where everyone busted their asses—Gabriel in the Air Force, Camila running a camp for troubled teens in California, and Wyatt building up his own outdoor adventure business. Though their parents hadn’t been on speaking terms since their mom had admitted Gabriel and Camila weren’t her husband’s kids, the one thing they had in common was working hard.

Austin’s work ethic was so rigid he was used to being disappointed by the lax attitude of people outside his family. But hell if Lacey didn’t run circles around him in the four hours she stayed at the annex. She organized the locomotive’s blueprints, which he’d found on a train enthusiast’s website. She cataloged all the reconditioned parts that had come back and studied the list of parts they were still waiting for. She even created a step-by-step plan for putting the locomotive back together. Everything he’d accomplished in his fumblings over the past three months, she quadrupled in four hours.

All he could do was get started on the Christmas decorations.

It was a little disheartening, to be honest. This was his project, and he wanted to stay in charge. But the only way to get the thing finished in time was to give up control, so he did.

While Lacey worked, he grabbed his portable speakers from inside the house and plugged them in on the annex’s workbench. Flicking through his tablet, he found a playlist of Christmas music. Within seconds, the room filled with the sound of jingling bells and a jolly voice booming, “Dashing through the snow…”

He couldn’t help but tease Lacey as she lip-synched along. “Can’t hear you, Lacey. Sing louder.”

“No way. My singing voice would shatter the windows.”

“So? Let’s hear it.” He perched his butt against the workbench as she knelt on the floor and organized parts.

She was smiling when she looked up at him, but that smile froze as her gaze flicked down his body from his eyes, over his chest, to his groin, where it lingered just a little too long for comfort before skating away.

“I don’t sing.” She turned her concentration back to her project, but heat simmered where her gaze had stroked him. She’d been checking him out—he was sure of it. He’d been on the receiving end of looks like that one enough not to be coy about it. But getting
the look
from her?

The feeling wasn’t as uncomfortable as it should’ve been.

Unlike most women who’d undressed him with their eyes, she didn’t follow it up with a smile and flirty gesture, like tucking her hair behind her ear. Instead, she reached for a piece of the train’s flue, the movement stretching her out and emphasizing the fit of her jeans across her ass.

He turned away. “I’m going to make coffee. Want some?”

He didn’t even wait for a reply before leaving the annex, the bitter-cold bite of reality waking him up.

Idiot. What’s wrong with you? She just got out of prison, for God’s sake, and you helped put her there.

But for some reason that hadn’t stopped Lacey from running her gaze all over him as if he were naked except for a big red bow tied around his dick and a pair of dangly jingle bells.

He climbed the three steps onto the old railway station’s porch and stomped the snow off his boots before heading into the mudroom attached to the kitchen. The floors were knobby, hundred-year-old oiled wood, so he didn’t bother toeing his boots off before heading to the kitchen. The station’s waiting room now served as a large living room with a vaulted ceiling and exposed wooden beams thicker than his legs. This cabin was intended to be a getaway for families, a budget way to comfortably explore the forest, so there was no TV or entertainment. There was, however, a stone fireplace and several old, mismatched sofas and armchairs covered with ancient quilts. Cozy, functional, and historic.

The kitchen wasn’t much to look at, but neither were the meals he created, so he couldn’t complain. It was a mishmash of Formicas, having been converted in the seventies as a break room for the museum staff. Coffee was one thing he could make, so he measured some out and flipped the machine on. As he waited for it to brew, the answer he’d searched for earlier hit him.