Christmas in Lucky Harbor Read online

  Which was silly. Jack could date whomever he wanted, and did. Often.

  “And anyway,” Aubrey went on, “that’s what batteries are for.”

  Ali laughed along with Aubrey as they all continued to watch Jack, who’d gone back to the griddle. He was moving to his music again while flipping pancakes, much to the utter delight of the crowd.

  “Woo hoo!” Aubrey yelled at him, both her and Ali toasting him with their plastic cups filled with orange juice.

  Jack grinned and took a bow.

  “Hey,” Ali said, nudging Leah. “Go tip him.”

  “Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?” Aubrey asked.

  Leah rolled her eyes and stood up. “You’re both ridiculous. He’s dating some EMT flight nurse.”

  Or at least he had been as of last week. She couldn’t keep up with Jack’s dating life. Okay, so she chose not to keep up. “We’re just… buddies.” They always had been, she and Jack, through thick and thin, and there’d been a lot of thin. “When you go to middle school with someone, you learn too much about them,” she went on, knowing damn well that she needed to just stop talking, something she couldn’t seem to do. “I mean, I couldn’t go out with the guy who stole all the condoms on Sex Education Day and then used them as water balloons to blast the track girls as we ran the 400.”

  “I could,” Aubrey said.

  Leah rolled her eyes, mostly to hide the fact that she’d left off the real reason she couldn’t date Jack.

  “Where you going?” Ali asked when Leah stood up. “We haven’t gotten to talk about the latest episode of Sweet Wars. Now that you’re halfway through the season and down to the single eliminations, the whole town’s talking about it nonstop. Did you know that there’s a big crowd at the Love Shack on episode night?”

  Yes, she’d known. At first, she’d been pressured to go but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t watch herself if anyone else was in the room.

  “You were awesome,” Ali said.

  Maybe, but that had been the adrenaline high from being filmed. Leah had pulled it off by pretending she was Julia Child. Easy enough, since she’d been pretending that since she’d been a kid. After the first terrifying episode, she’d learned something about herself. Even as a kid who’d grown up with little to no self-esteem, there was something about being in front of a camera. It was pretend, so she’d been able to break out of her shell.

  The shocking truth was, she’d loved it.

  “And also, you looked great on TV,” Aubrey said. “Bitch. I know you were judged on originality, presentation, and taste but you really should get brownie points for not looking fat. Do you look as good for the last three episodes?”

  This subject was no better than the last one. “Gotta go,” Leah said, grabbing her plate and pointing to the cooking area. “There’s sausage now.”

  “Ah.” Aubrey nodded sagely. “So you do want Jack’s sausage.”

  Ali burst out laughing, and Aubrey high-fived her.

  Ignoring them both, Leah headed toward the grill.

  Bad girl Aubrey Wellington has a plan to make all of her past wrongs right.

  Ben McDaniel doesn’t know it yet… but he’s on the top of her list!

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  Once in a Lifetime.

  Chapter 1

  It was early when Ben walked out of Lucky Harbor’s deliciously warm bakery and into the icy morning. His breath crystallized in front of his face as he took a bite from his fresh bear claw.

  As close to heaven as he was going to get.

  He glanced back inside the big picture window to wave his thanks, but pastry chef Leah currently had her arms and lips entangled with her fiancé, who happened to be Ben’s cousin Jack.

  Jack looked to be pretty busy himself, with his tongue down Leah’s throat. Turning his back to the window, Ben watched the morning instead as he ate his bear claw. Tendrils of fog had glided in off the water, lingering in long, silvery fingers.

  After a few minutes, the bakery door opened behind him, and then Jack was standing at his side. He was in uniform for work, which meant that every woman driving down the street slowed down to get a look at him in his firefighter gear.

  “Why are you dressed?” Ben asked.

  “Because when I’m naked, I actually cause riots,” Jack said, sliding on his sunglasses.

  “You know what I mean.” Not too long ago, Jack had made the change from firefighting to fire marshall, and no longer suited up to respond to calls.

  Jack shrugged. “I’m working a shift today for Ian, who’s down with the flu.” He pulled his own breakfast choice out of a bakery bag.

  Ben took one look at the cheese croissant and shook his head. “Pussy breakfast.”

  Unperturbed by this, Jack stuffed it into his mouth. “You’re just still grumpy because a pretty lady tossed her drink in your face last night.”

  Ben didn’t react to this because Jack was watching him carefully, and Jack, unlike anyone else, could read Ben like a book. But yeah, Aubrey had nailed him—and not in a good way.

  Not that he wanted the sexy-as-hell blonde to nail him. Well, okay, maybe she’d occasionally done just that in a few of his late night fantasies, but that was it. Fantasy. Because the reality was that he and Aubrey wouldn’t mix well. He liked quiet, serene, calm.

  Aubrey didn’t know the meaning of any of those things. “It was an accident,” he finally said.

  “Oh, I know that,” Jack said. “Just checking to see if you know it too.”

  Ben looked at his watch. “Luke’s late.”

  The three of them had been tight since age twelve, when Ben’s mom, unable to take care of him any longer, had dropped him on her sister’s doorstep—Jack’s mom, Dee Harper. Luke had lived next door. The three boys had spent their teen years terrorizing the neighborhood and giving Ben’s aunt Dee lots of gray hair.

  “Luke’s not late,” Jack said. “He’s here. He’s in the flower shop trying to get into Ali’s back pocket. Guess that’s what you do when you’re engaged.”

  Ben didn’t say anything to this, and Jack blew out a breath. “Sorry.”

  Ben shook his head. “Been a long time.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “But some things never stop hurting.”

  Maybe not. But it really had been forever ago that Ben had been engaged, and then married. He and Hannah had had a solid marriage.

  Until she’d died five years ago.

  Ben went after his second bear claw while Jack looked down at his vibrating phone. “Shit. I’ve gotta go. Tell Luke he’s an asshole.”

  “Will do.” When he was alone again, Ben washed down his breakfast with icy cold, chocolate milk. You drink too much caffeine, Leah had told him all bossy and sweet at the same time, handing him the milk instead of a mug of coffee.

  He planned to stop at the convenience store next for that coffee, and she’d never know. It was early, not close to seven yet, but Ben liked early. Fewer people. Quiet air. Or maybe that was just Lucky Harbor. Either way, he found he was nearly content—coffee would probably tip the scales into all the way content. The feeling felt… odd, like he was wearing an ill-fitting coat, so as he did with all uncomfortable emotions, he shoved it aside.

  A few snowflakes floated lazily out of the low, dense clouds. One block over, the Pacific Ocean carved into the harbor, which was lined by three-story-high, rugged bluffs teeming with untouched forestland. The Olympic Mountains. Around him, the oak-lined streets were strung with white lights, shining brightly through the morning gloom. Peaceful. Still.

  A month ago, he’d been in South America, elbows-deep in a project rebuilding a water system for the war-torn land. Before that, he’d been in Haiti. And before that, Africa. And before that… Indonesia? Hell, it might have been another planet for all he remembered. It was all rolling together.

  He went to places after disaster hit, whether man or nature made, and he saw people at their very worst moments. Sometimes he changed l