WITH WARY EYES and heaving breaths, I watched the McAllister women head toward the front door as Holly dipped out of the fray back to her house.

Suzanne led the way with Beth trailing after her, and when Rick got to his feet, glaring at me, his father said, “Get going.”

Rick’s eyes narrowed on me, and he all but growled, but before he could say anything, Jack gave his shoulder a shove and said, “Now, Rick.”

Rick turned on his heel and stomped through the snow to the door, his father following behind, and when Miles’s eyes found mine, I could see apology swirling in the blue depths.

I was about to tell him it might be better if I just left, when Jack turned on the front stoop and said, “You two also. Inside, now.”

As I ran a hand through my wet hair and swallowed, I wondered exactly what was about to happen now. Then Miles said under his breath, “Don’t worry. It’s all going to work out.”

But really, how could it? I had lied to his entire family, and in about five minutes they were all going to know it. Oh well, at least we’d had one final kiss, right?

When we reached the living room, I found Suzanne now frying-pan-free and sitting by the fire in her recliner, Beth perched on the edge of it, and Rick standing with his arms crossed and his jaw clenched.

Jack stood beside his eldest son, as though ready to restrain him if the need again arose, and when Miles and I came to a standstill just inside the living room, Jack said, “Okay. Explain.”

We all looked at each other, our lips tight, our wet clothes sticking to us, and then Rick said, “Maybe Beth’s boyfriend should explain.”

Beth sprang to her feet and balled her fists by her side. “Rick—”

Rick held up his hand and stared at Aiden. “Well? You care to tell her, or should I?”

“Tell me what?” Beth asked, shaking her head.

Not sure what Beth wanted me to say, I remained quiet, but that merely added ammunition to Rick’s outrage.

“Your boyfriend here seems to be getting a little too close to our brother,” Rick said, as he looked to where the two of us stood, and everyone’s eyes widened.

Miles brought his hands to his face and groaned.

What a damn cluster—

“Sean?” Jack said. “Is that true?”

I looked at Beth, who sighed and got to her feet, rubbing her hands on her pants. “The truth is, I haven’t been honest with you guys. Sean’s not really my boyfriend.”

Suzanne’s mouth fell open as she looked at her daughter, and then she blinked a couple of times before getting to her feet.

“Look, I know you’ve been worried about me, and I just wanted to have a Christmas without all the questions about me still being single, or when will I have time for kids if I don’t get married, and…I thought it would be easier this way.”

Suzanne shook her head as though trying to get her mind around what her daughter was telling her, and then she looked at me and said, “So Sean is—”

“Someone I hired online,” Beth said.

“Online?” Suzanne shrieked.

“Have you lost your mind, young lady?” Jack said as he aimed a pointed stare in his daughter’s direction. “You don’t know what kind of ingrates you’ll find online. What if he’d been a serial killer? Did you think of that?”

I’m still here, I wanted to say, but thought it best that maybe they forgot that tidbit right now.

Beth sighed. “Well, obviously he’s not, or we’d be chopped into bits already. I heard about him through a friend, so stop freaking out.”

Rick shook his head. “You’re insane.”

“I’m insane? You’re the one who’s been hiding your secret girlfriend from everyone.”

Rick’s eyes widened, and his jaw close to hit the floor. He recovered quickly, though, and said, “Can we get back to the subject of a stranger in our house, please?”

“No, I don’t think we can,” Beth said, and crossed her arms, jutting her hip out to one side. “Hey, Mom, you remember Mrs. Wilkie, right?”

“Your high school math teacher?” Suzanne said. “What does she have to do with anything?”

Beth smirked at Rick like she’d won some kind of game. “That’s who your son has been seeing.”

“Rick!” Suzanne gasped, gaping at her eldest son. “Tell me that isn’t true.”

I had to admit it was kind of fun watching Rick squirm, as he tried to think of an excuse he could give to his mother, but when he clearly came up with nothing, Suzanne took a step toward him and said, “But…she’s married!”

“She’s separated,” Rick said, and Miles scoffed, drawing my eye.

“Oh, Rick, what are you thinking?” Suzanne moaned and dropped her head in her hands.

“Uh, I’m still thinking who the hell that guy is,” Rick said, pointing to me, and I tore my eyes away from Miles.

“Stop trying to change the subject,” Beth said, and turned her attention to her mom. “Where do you think Rick’s been sneaking off to all weekend?”

“I-I thought he was taking the cookies we made to the shelters,” Suzanne said in a small voice.

Beth snorted. “That doesn’t take five hours, Mom.”

“How long have you been seeing Mrs. Wilkie?” Suzanne asked Rick.

“Can we not?” Rick said.

“Rick, answer your mother.” Jack’s tone was no-nonsense.

Rick let out a heavy sigh. “Five months. Okay? And it’s not a big deal. She’s not living with her husband anymore, and we like each other. So let’s get back to the real issue here, which is Beth lying about her stranger-danger boyfriend here, who I caught kissing Miles out by the wood pile.”

“Miles?” Suzanne said, and finally looked at her youngest son, who up until then had managed to keep out of the new bout of chaos that had taken over the McAllister household. “What on earth is he talking about? You were kissing…Sean?”

Miles opened his mouth, once, then twice, and when he looked to be struggling to find the right words, Suzanne spoke up again.

“So, Sean…isn’t really Beth’s boyfriend? And he was kissing Miles? I’m so confused,” she said, and then sat back down.

Jack was shaking his head as he looked between his brood. “Who are you people? Certainly not the children I raised. Now would someone please explain who Sean is and why he’s here?”

“Uh, well,” I finally said, deciding I should probably try and defend myself in some way. “The first thing I should probably mention is my name isn’t Sean.”

“Oh, for the love of—” Rick said, but I quickly cut him short.

“Well, it is, but not the one I go by.” I looked at Miles. “It’s not the name Miles knows me by.”

Miles smiled at me, and even though I felt as though my world was about to implode—that this strange but wonderful family was about to toss me out on my ass on Christmas Eve—that somehow made coming clean even more important.

Suzanne sighed, and when I turned back to face her, she said, “Would someone please straighten this out for me.”

“Apparently that’s the whole problem here, Mom,” Rick said. “Straight isn’t the way ol’ Sean here swings.”

“Shut up, you buffoon,” Beth said. “Let the man talk. You know, something you weren’t willing to do before you tried to pulverize his handsome face.”

And just like that, five sets of eyes were all trained on me. “Uh, well, Miles and I met a couple of nights before I arrived here.”

“Oh, you’ve got to be shittin’—”

“Zip it, son,” Jack said to Rick.

“We bumped into each other at the mall, and then we ended up at a Christmas party together and hit it off. I had no idea he was related to Beth in any way at all.”

“So”—Suzanne looked at Miles, who had remained silent—“Sean is the man you were talking about at lunch today? The man you’d just met?”

I looked at Miles, wondering what exactly he was going to say, and when his eyes met mine, he said, “Yes. But I know him as Aiden.”

As I stared into Miles’s beautiful face, I memorized everything about it, just in case this was the last time I saw it, then I looked back to his family. “That’s right. I use Sean with my clients, like Beth, to keep things professional. I find that’s the easiest way.”

“And less sticky in situations like this,” Rick piped up.

“There’s never been a situation like this,” I said, pinning Rick with a hard stare. “Not like Miles, and not like all of you.”

“Beth is your…client?” Suzanne said, cocking her head to the side, the idea clearly a foreign one to her.

“Yes. As in, she hired me to come with her this weekend as her boyfriend.”

“Oh my God,” Beth said, and buried her face in her hands. “This is worse than when you all grill me about having kids.” Then she dropped her hands down by her sides. “But seriously, can you see the lengths I am willing to go to, just to have you not talk about that?”

Suzanne looked so shocked by her daughter’s outburst that I winced, and when she reached for Beth’s hand, Beth shook her head.

“No,” Beth said. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.” And before her mother could say anything else, Beth turned on her toes and ran up the stairs, away from the madness that had just unfolded.

Suzanne watched her daughter with a look of concern and confusion, as though she couldn’t believe she had missed something so vital in her daughter’s life, and I suddenly felt as though I was the light bulb shining the big, bright light over a very private and delicate situation.

“Uh, I think I’m gonna”—I gestured over my shoulder with my thumb—“go.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Miles said, but there was no way I was going to stay. This family needed a moment, or three, to wrap their heads around what had happened, and me being there was not helping.

“Yeah, I do. I’m just going to get a hotel room or something.” As I backed out of the living room, no one else tried to stop me. Miles reached for my hand, and as our fingers touched, I felt that spark, and I hoped to God that this wouldn’t be the last time I saw him. And then I opened the front door and disappeared out into the cold, lonely afternoon.