The Trouble with Mistletoe Read online

  and scared.

  She didn’t want to end the night like this.

  She hauled the door open again, Keane’s name on her lips, and there he still stood, hands braced up above him on the doorjamb, head bowed.

  He lifted his head, his expression dialed to frustrated male.

  “Um,” she said. “I think I might have overreacted about the key.”

  He just looked at her. Not speaking.

  She had that effect on men.

  “I really am all sorts of messed up,” she admitted in a soft whisper.

  His eyes warmed a little but his mouth stayed serious. “Well, you’re not alone there.”

  She didn’t want to, she really didn’t, but she let out a small laugh. And then she tipped her head down and stared at her feet and felt her eyes sting.

  For so long she had been just that. Alone. Yes, she had friends, dear friends who were more like her family than . . . well, than any of her blood family had ever been.

  But friends didn’t sleep in her bed and keep her warm and make her heart and soul soar. Friends didn’t give her the best orgasms of her life, even better than her handheld shower massager.

  Now she had this guy standing right here in front of her, a smart, loyal, sexy-as-hell guy whose smile took her places she’d never been before. He wasn’t into messy emotions but even so, and even knowing she was, he was still standing there. Baffled. Irritated. Frustrated.

  But still standing there.

  For her.

  “You’re thinking so hard your hair is smoking,” he said.

  She was surprised she hadn’t gone up in flames. All she could do was stare at him, more than a little shocked at the intensity shining from his eyes.

  He really did want more.

  And if it was true, if he really wanted in her damn life as he’d so eloquently said, then . . . well, then there wasn’t anything holding them back. Not a single thing.

  Except, of course, herself.

  Her heart had started a dull thudding, echoing in her ears. “You’re not ready for this,” she whispered.

  He smiled, but it was filled with grim understanding and not humor. “You don’t get to tell me what I am or am not ready for, Willa. And in any case, what you really mean is that you’re not ready, isn’t that right?”

  She sucked in some air, but she shouldn’t have been surprised that he called her out on this. He wasn’t one to hide from a damn thing. “I want to be—does that count?”

  “For a lot, actually,” he said. “You know where to find me.” He brushed a warm, sweet kiss across her mouth and then he was gone.

  Keane walked down the stairs of Willa’s building, not sure how to feel. This wasn’t how he’d seen the evening going. If things had gone his way, he’d be stripping Willa out of her clothes right now.

  He thought about how they’d taken each other to places he’d sure as hell never been, and he wanted to go there again. He’d thought, hoped, Willa was coming to feel the same way.

  Crazy, considering that until a few weeks ago he could never have imagined that he’d want a relationship. The irony of the fact that he and Willa had mentally changed positions didn’t escape him.

  Damn. He’d known better than to get attached but he’d gotten sidetracked by a pair of sweet green eyes and a smile that always, always, put one on his lips as well.

  Willa made him feel things and he’d gotten swept away by that. But her entire life had been one big Temporary Situation; foster care as a kid, working at the pet shop where animals came in and out of her life but didn’t stay, men—when and if she let them in, that was.

  And for a little while at least, he’d been in, but was starting to realize that had all been an illusion, just hopeful thinking on his part. Because though it was true he’d not done permanent any more than she had, he at least wasn’t fundamentally opposed to trying. Apparently, it only took the right person.

  Problem was, that person had to want it back.

  With a gnawing hole in his chest, he went home to Vallejo Street. Yeah, dammit, home. He’d gotten attached to this place every bit as much as he had Willa.

  Both had been bad ideas.

  He looked around at the big, old, beautiful house that reflected back at him some of the best work he’d ever done. He could sell it in a heartbeat and make enough of a profit from the sale to slow his life way the fuck down. He’d have time for the things that he’d never had time for.

  Playing pool.

  Sitting on rooftops star-gazing.

  A woman in his bed every night, the same woman.

  Things he’d never wanted before, but wanted now. Craved now, the way he used to crave only work. In fact, for long years in his life, the physical aggression of his job had kept him calm. Pounding nails. Carting hundreds of pounds of drywall up and down flights of stairs.

  That was no longer the case.

  He was a guy who prided himself on staying true to himself. He’d always known that he wasn’t the guy who wanted a white picket fence, a woman wearing his diamond, and two point five kids. He’d never seen himself craving any of that.

  But there was no longer any solace in the thought of being on his own for the rest of his life. And if he was being honest with himself, he could also admit he’d changed his mind about love and commitment as well.

  Shitty timing on that . . .

  Restless, determined to go back to his original plans, he strode through the rooms and headed into his office, where he called Sass.

  “Somebody better be dead,” she answered sleepily.

  “I need you to get Vallejo on the market.”

  This got him a load of silence.

  “Sass?”

  “You’re calling me at”—there was a rustling, like she was sitting up in bed—“midnight to tell me you want to sell your house?”

  “I was always going to sell this place,” he said. “You know that.”

  “Noooooo, you weren’t. I mean yes, you pretended you would,” she said, sounding far more awake now. “But we all knew . . .”

  “What?”

  “That you’d finally found yourself a home you wanted to keep instead of living like a vagabond. Especially now that you and Willa are a thing. She loves the place too—”

  “You’re wrong,” he said flatly. “On all counts. Get the place on the market.”

  This time the beat of silence was shorter. “It’s your life,” she said and disconnected on him.

  “It is,” he said to the cat who was sitting at the foot of his bed, eyes sharp and on his face, tail switching about. “My life.”

  Pita stopped twitching her tail, said her piece with a simple but short and succinct “mew,” and stalked up the bed toward him.

  “We’ve discussed this. I don’t share my bed with cats.”

  Not giving a single shit, she walked up his legs and then leapt to his chest, where she sat, calm as you please.

  “No,” he said. “Absolutely not.”

  She lifted a paw and began to wash her face.

  “Cat, I’m serious.”

  She changed things up, washing behind her ears now.

  “If you start going at your lady town, it’s all over,” he warned.

  Still on his chest, she lowered her paw, turned in a circle, daintily curled up in a ball, and closed her eyes.

  “Not happening,” he said.

  She didn’t move.

  And neither did he.

  Chapter 26

  #MagicallyDelicious

  The next morning Willa lay in bed staring at the ceiling feeling the entire weight of her heart sitting heavily in her gut.

  No regrets, she told herself. She’d done the right thing being honest with Keane, for both of them.

  Trying to believe that, she got up and realized with some shock that it was the day before Christmas Eve. Normally this was her favorite time of the year. She loved the renewed sense of energy and anticipation the city of San Francisco put off, loved the smiles on