Christmas with his Fake Fiance (Christmas in Hope Peak #15)

Chapter 1

AVERY

Christmas is the best! Even in southern California’s unwieldy urban sprawl that most people only know as "LA," despite Los Angeles being such a tiny part of the massive collection of highways and bland apartment buildings.

Some people come here and can't wait to get out, but I admit to not hating it.

College has been amazing, and I love that SoCal has so many options for my career-- although sure, I could be a nurse pretty much anywhere, but not everywhere has the big, state of the art, non-profit children's hospital that offered me a good salary, an amazing signing bonus, and help funding the master's program I start in the spring.

Eventually, I'll give up the tiny, overpriced apartment that's almost, but not exactly, near the beach, buy a house somewhere that still has yards, and do the married and kids thing... when that part of my life falls into place as easily as the collage and career part has.

Right now, there are only a few days left till Christmas and I'm in the holiday spirit, despite it being seventy-two degrees and sunny outside... again.

Nothing's going to kill the vibe for me today; because I am packing up my little hybrid sedan and heading back home for the holidays.

Music plays on a Bluetooth speaker sitting on the tiny, Ikea kitchen table next to the equally tiny-- and disappointingly fake-- Christmas tree.

None of the modern stuff, just the classics; Nat King Cole, Burl Ives, and Baby It's Cold Outside complete with the cringey lyrics that don't really hold up so well in the modern era.

I choose to accept that the song is from a different time. Although, I really do love the version where the parts are reversed.

Putting my heart into It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, I sing along with Perry Como as I make a pile of everything that's going with me by my door. Hopefully I'll be able to get it all downstairs from my third floor apartment in one trip.

I haven't been home since summer, and I haven't seen my older brother, Cap, in two years.

With almost a full decade between us, Cap was the best big brother-- sitting through tea parties when most teenage boys are too cool for doing anything with their little sisters beyond terrorizing them, and protecting me fiercely so everyone knew if they messed with me, they'd be messing with Caspian Huxley.

Seeing as how my brother hit six foot his freshman year of high school, topping out at six, three by graduation-- not many people were willing to take him on.

Cap signed up with the Army shortly after he got out of high school, letting them foot the bill for his college and medical school for the small return on investment of owning him for several more years afterward.

I've spent many a holiday back home with Mom and Dad, only getting to talk to my brother over patchy phone calls, or not at all.

Even after he discharged, he hasn't made it home most years. He took a job with a high-profile security company and sometimes he's just MIA.

He's been in touch more for the last few weeks, now that he's working on an assignment that doesn't have him so deep in NDAs that he can't even tell me where he's living, and he promised he'll be home this year.

While Johnny Mathis and I agree that we need a little Christmas, I make one last round of the apartment I won't be returning to until next year-- heh, I'm never going to outgrow that joke-- making sure lights are off, windows are closed, and nothing in the refrigerator is going to make me throw up when I get back in a few weeks.

I've just managed to hang every bag over my arms and grab the extending handle of my suitcase with one hand and the doorknob with the other, when I pull the door open and find the hottest man alive about to knock on it.

Booker

My day started with my phone ringing off the damn table before the crack of dawn. Normally, when that happens, it's the office informing me I'm required on a crime scene that can't wait till later, so at least I'm conditioned to answering the phone when it goes off.

This morning, however, it wasn't work. It was something more important.

"Cap?" I eye the three a.m. hour on the clock's read-out above my old Army buddy's name, answering before even getting the phone near my ear. "Where the fuck are you that you think three, thirty-nine Cali time is appropriate for catching up?"

"Sorry man, yeah, it's me. I need a favor."

Caspian and I go back to our military days, and we wouldn't have managed to remain friends since then if he hadn't saved my life when they dragged me out from under a burning vehicle in some godforsaken desert village.

That turned out to be the end of my military service. I recovered eventually, and got into law enforcement. Eventually made detective and landed a good job in one of those southern California towns that everyone just refers to as "LA."

Cap stayed in a few more years and then took a job with Harlan Frost, who runs a high end private security outfit, but there's a better chance of pigs flying than there is that Major Caspian Huxley is making a living babysitting celebrities.

He sounds bad this morning, haggard, like he hasn't slept in a week, but I know better than to ask for details not offered freely.

"You remember me talking about my kid sister? Avery?"

I scan my memory and come up with several tales of his family back in some small town in Montana, answering in the affirmative.

"Yeah well, here's the thing I never mentioned, okay? When she was in high school, she watched some shit go down... Started off as standard country kid stuff. Big party. Some farmer's field. Bonfire. Underage drinking-- underage lots of shit, you know how it goes.

"One of the guys out there wasn't taking no for an answer..."

With my arm slung over my eyes, I prepare for this story to take the nasty turn I know it's about to.

"Guy ends up picking up the girl he was hanging onto, tossing her over his shoulder and walking off with her... girl goes missing and her body's found a week later."

"Wait," I'm awake now, trying to put all the pieces in order, "that wasn't your sister, though, right? She's in the city working on a nursing degree or some shit now, isn't she?"

Caspian makes a sound through the connection, like he's torn making a decision that's not coming easy to him.

"Yeah. She is. Graduated last spring. She's headed for her graduate degree next. She's doing real well. But the thing is... Avy's got this internal moral compass that always points north, know what I mean?

"None of the other kids that were at that party that night came forward. Anyone that got questioned swore they didn't see anything."

"Except your sister," I guessed aloud.

"Yeah, 'cept Avery. She knew that girl. They'd been in the same classes together since pre-school-- small town and all. And Avy saw who had taken her from the party. There was no convincing her not to testify. Guy got life."

I whistle long and low. "Impressive. Your sister sounds tough."

Cap's already tired voice gets strained.

"Yeah well, thing is, he made it very clear that he blames Avery. I got a heads up about an hour ago-- he escaped. First place he's going to head is for Avy, man, and I can't get there. I'm um..."

There's a long pause and muffled sounds in the background of the call.

"I've got shit going on, I can't leave. You know how it goes."

It's pretty much code for "classified," which only cements my suspicions that my old friend is involved in work a lot more dangerous than he lets on.

"I need you, man. I know it's a lot to ask. Holiday and all, but I trust you with my life-- now I'm trusting you with my sister's life. Don't let her out of your sight. Seriously. If you'd seen what that monster did to that girl..."

His voice trails off, choking on the words he doesn't finish saying. He doesn't have to elaborate-- I can hear his worry.

"I'm there, brother. I owe you."

And that's how I end up standing on the landing outside apartment three oh seven of a building with zero security beyond a couple of cheap cameras pointed at the parking garage before eight a.m.

I'd put money on those cameras not even being on.