Chapter Twelve
“Is he here yet?”
The question was a jumbled mess because it was uttered around Sarah’s thumb.
“No, baby. Not yet. He just got off work at eight. It still takes time for him to change clothes and ride over here on his motorcycle.” Just the thought made her shiver. It wasn’t the danger, although that was a concern. It was the temperature. It had been dropping all day. He had to be freezing.
A quick glance out the window and she noticed the tiniest of flakes beginning to fall. There was no point in getting excited about it. There hadn’t been a white Christmas in their part of Tennessee in her lifetime.
The loud rumble of a vehicle drew her eye toward the end of the street. The big pickup truck was moving slow. The headlights illuminating the falling flakes and the fact that more than a few had already settled on the cold ground. When the truck eased to a stop in front of their small house, Nikki frowned. Her panther went on alert, looking for danger. Most of her friends had bailed once Sarah had come into her life. It wasn’t fun to hang out with a toddler, they’d said. So the odds of someone just stopping by were pretty slim. Who was this?
Sarah came running out of the bedroom then, her latest artwork clutched in fingers that were suspiciously coated in glitter. “He’s here! He’s here! And he’s got my supwise!”
“What exactly did Joe say to you when he asked to speak to you on the phone earlier?” Nikki asked with trepidation.
“That he was bringing me something and it was too big to fit on his bike so he had to borrow a truck!”
Nikki marched toward the door, ready to give him a piece of her mind. Maybe her stance had softened toward him a little but that didn’t mean she was going to let him buy his way into her life through Sarah. Flinging open the door, she found herself face-to-face with the rather prickly branches of a huge pine tree. From behind it, she heard the muffled words, “Merry Christmas, baby.”
And there went her heart melting all over again. The damn man had brought them a Christmas tree! Her panther was purring, wanting to get out and let her mate know how much the gesture meant. She wasn’t ready for Joe to know what a mush she was becoming, so she pulled her shit together. Stepping back, she moved out of the way as the large pine tree started to make its way into her house.
Propping her hands on her hips, she did her best to take a stern tone. “Joe—dammit, I don’t even know your last name!”
A grunted, “Miller,” came from behind the moving tree.
With renewed fury, Nikki started again, “Joe Miller, what on earth have you done?”
He propped the tree up against her large living room window. Stepping out from behind it to speak to her, Joe kept one hand on the tree so it didn’t fall. “I got Sarah a Christmas tree. Give me a few minutes to go grab the tree stand out of the truck and then I’ll get this baby set up. We can decorate it tonight.”
Joe gave one last look to the tree, presumably to make sure that it wasn’t going to move, and then looked down to the bouncing Sarah. “Step back from the tree, sweetling. It’s not safe for you to be around until I get it set in the tree stand.”
Nikki watched as the three-year-old threw herself at Joe’s legs and wrapped herself around them like a little monkey. “Thank you, Joe! It’s the best supwise ever!”
Joe ran his hand over her head in a loving caress. He gave her sister a wink, “You’re welcome. Besides, it was totally worth it because that’s the best hug I’ve ever gotten.” Nikki tried not to choke on her emotions as Joe said, “Guess we’re even now.”
Standing there, unsure of what to say or do, Nikki watched as Sarah climbed on the couch and kept bouncing while Joe went back for the aforementioned tree stand. She kept standing there, just like that, as Joe set up the tree. Her sister jumped around as if she were fueled by a pound of sugar Nikki knew she hadn’t consumed.
“Do you see it? Do you see it? It’s so big!” Sarah squealed in delight with wonder and fascination in her eyes. Nikki gave her sister a bemused look. She hadn’t heard the girl squeal and laugh so much since before their parents had passed. Looking back to Joe, she stifled a giggle when she saw the smudges of glitter on his jeans. She’d wait to point that out later.
Yet again, the man felt too good to be true. Bringing Christmas joy like this into her sister’s life. Into their lives. Nikki could admit now that Sarah wasn’t the only one lacking Christmas spirit this year. She’d just been so focused on Sarah that she hadn’t realized how down she had been about it until this very minute.
And as she watched Joe put the tree into the tree stand, she didn’t know whether to cry or laugh for joy. A part of her wanted to do both. Her emotions were a jumbled mess. Joe Miller was starting to get to her, only she was beginning to wonder if that was a bad thing.
In such a short time, he had already done so much to lift Sarah’s spirits. Maybe there was hope for them as a mated couple yet.
Most importantly, she couldn’t imagine telling Joe that they couldn’t accept the Christmas tree now that Sarah was so excited about it. That left only one thing to do. Sighing in defeat, she headed to the back of her house where the storage room was. There in the back corner of the boxes left over from her parents’ house were their family’s ornaments. After pulling the box out, Nikki carried it down the hallway and into the living room, where she sat it on the coffee table.
Kneeling by the table, one by one, she started to take the ornaments out and lay them on the table. Once Joe was done securing the tree into the stand, he began to help Sarah put the ornaments on by picking her up so she could place them up high. Nikki kept unloading ornaments until Joe came and knelt down beside her.
“Why do I get this feeling you’re not as thrilled as Sarah is about the tree?”
Unable to look at him for fear of crying, Nikki kept her eyes on the box in front of her. “You can’t buy our love, Joe.”
Two fingers tipped her face his way and she stared into his determined face. “Not trying to buy your love, babe. What I am trying to do is give my girls a good Christmas. There’s a difference and I hope you can see that.”
Leaning toward him, Nikki whispered, “Promise me you’re not going to hurt us, Joe. Promise me that if I let you in to mine and Sarah’s lives that you’re not going to leave us. Because I don’t think either of us can take that sort of pain again.”
Joe reached out and cradled her face in his big hands. “You accept me, accept our mating, and there’s nothing that can take me away from you or Sarah. Promise you that, sweetheart.”
Then without another word, he pulled her to him and crushed his mouth on hers. This wasn’t a sweet kiss—this was a claiming kiss. One full of promise and Nikki soaked up all that emotion from him.
She was starting to think Joe was right and they needed each other.
Maybe giving into this mating wouldn’t be so bad after all.