Merry Entwined Hearts (Santa’s Radio Christmas Romance #2)

1. Lacie

LACIE

Time was like an unruly dog—it had to be managed or it would get away from you.

I had to spend these last few minutes waiting for my fiancé to pick me up doing something . Since I already had everything packed—using an organizer insert to compartmentalize each of my belongings and stuffing them tightly enough that they wouldn’t get jostled during the flight—I skimmed my list a final time, wanting to make sure every aspect was in place.

This was an important trip—so I’d given its management equally important emphasis.

There were still twenty-three minutes before Wyatt came. Then there was a twenty-minute drive to the Alliance airport, with just enough time to get through security by the suggested two-hour window.

I was nothing if not thorough.

I’d outlined every day we would spend at Harper’s Inn, the itinerary for each of those days, and exactly what I’d need to wear. Everything looked just as it should.

Exhaling through my lips, I peered at the clock on the bedside table.

“Twenty-two minutes.”

Pent-up energy coursed through my bloodstream, making me wish things would move quicker than snail speed. I lifted my phone, skimming over emails I hadn’t had the chance to go over earlier.

Swipe. Swipe. Swipe.

I had plenty of correspondence to keep track of—I didn’t need to deal with spam. These emails could not only wait—they could wither and die in the digital trash can on my phone’s menu.

During my search, the phone’s background lost some of its luster. The screen dimmed, and the battery in the corner blinked red, sending a jolt of panic through me.

“What?” I stared at the little icon, hardly believing this.

The battery was dying? I never forgot to charge my phone!

Then again, I’d been up watching videos last night to help me coordinate the Blums’ bar mitzvah after-party, and with as comfortable as I’d been while burrowed in my bed, I’d fallen asleep in the middle of those videos.

Another thing I rarely did.

I’d attributed the unusual behavior to my excitement over the trip, but that still left me with a major problem:

My phone hadn’t gotten plugged in.

I was about to board a flight with no phone? No books to read, no notes to scour through from clients’ upcoming events—their wishes, decorations, the overall general feel for the parties I planned for them?

Sooo many parties.

So much wasted time if I couldn’t use my flight to manage anything.

I swore I’d enjoy myself while at Harper’s Inn, but that was after we arrived in Montana. I intended to make the most of the hours until then.

Chances were, Wyatt would have his phone at his nose through the whole flight, too.

Huffing in frustration, I rifled through my bag where I typically stored my charge cords—but my cord wasn’t there.

I hadn’t packed it, either?

That was so not like me.

With my uncertainty rising, I peered at the empty outlet beside my nightstand. The outlet’s little mouth gaped beneath what I’d always imagined were two little eyes where the top prongs of the plugs went. Those outlets had always looked like little faces to me, and normally that made me chuckle.

Not now, though.

Now, my sense of panic strapped right on in and slammed on the gas.

I balled my hands into fists and stared around the room.

“Where is it? I can’t leave without my charger!”

Leaving my suitcase splayed open on my bed, I dashed to the kitchen and then the bathroom in my apartment, checking each and every outlet. Their faces all gaped open, too.

No charge cord.

“No, no, no. I need my charger,” I said, trying to keep my hands from mussing my hair. I’d worked hard to style my auburn locks this morning and wanted to look the best that I could when Wyatt got here.

I stopped in place in the center of my living room and breathed, tapping my collarbone with alternating fingers.

“It’s fine,” I told myself, trying to believe it.

My therapist and I had worked on this. Deep breaths. Positive self-talk.

It’s okay to focus on something else. Things will fall into place, even if you’re not the one to put them there directly.

I’d paid good money and spent countless hours with my therapist rattling over my inability to relinquish control. He’d had me repeat the mantra dozens of times, trying to convince me that if I repeated something often enough, I was bound to believe it sooner or later.

That belief still hadn’t arrived. Sometimes words were just words.

I smooth my hands over my stomach, glancing around my living room and its soft blue accents, and talked myself through the reasons this unforeseen setback would work out.

“Wyatt has the same phone I do. If worse comes to worst, I can just borrow his charger.”

Except, I liked having my phone plugged on the side of my bed. What if I woke up in the middle of the night? Reading was guaranteed to help me relax enough until I could fall back to sleep again.

The idea that I could have forgotten something so important shook me.

A heavy knock sounded on my door. I darted an antsy glance to the clock above the TV. Twelve-eleven.

Too early for Wyatt to be here.

Curious—and yeah, still unnerved—I dashed to the door and answered it.

Rather than my handsome fiancé with his curly, black hair, pointed jawline, and careful eyes, Jared flashed his dependable smile and waved at me.

He was taller than Wyatt and filled out his shirt in a noticeable way that spoke of too much time spent at the gym. His skin was the easily tanned kind—the kind that made my ready-burn pale complexion jealous.

Usually, the sight of him alone was enough to settle whatever nerves I was dealing with, but the bundle of purple cord in his proffered fist cranked my smile from a smirk to a beam.

“You might want this,” he said.

I clapped my hands to my chest. “Oh, my gosh, Jared. You are a lifesaver! I’ve been looking everywhere. How come you have it? Was it in your car?”

For a minute, I wondered if this was yet another prank. Like the time he’d given me Oreos stuffed with toothpaste for my birthday, or when I’d moved to my first apartment after graduating from high school and Jared had snuck in to glue googly eyes on everything in my fridge.

When we were kids, he’d snuck things into my backpack during road trips and left frozen quarters on my forehead while I’d slept to see if they’d make me pee the bed. He’d even taped the light switch once at a cabin our families were sharing, scaring the tar out of me when I couldn’t get the light to turn on after he’d been telling spooky stories late at night.

I’d hated his pranks at first, but after finding ways to get him back, our shenanigans had turned into something more like a love tap than a sucker punch.

This, however, was no spoof. While I brought my charger along sometimes when we hung out, I couldn’t remember bringing it to anything recently, let alone leaving it at his apartment.

“How?” I asked.

“I borrowed it after the concert, remember?” he said.

Vaguely, the memory returned to me—along with the squeamish unease that I could have forgotten as much so easily.

We’d gone to The Requiem Orchestra, a Christmas tradition of ours for a few years now. Jared’s girlfriend, Tia, had also come. We’d ridden in Jared’s car, and I’d been worried about not having access to my phone during the two-hour drive to the concert in Austin.

An uncomfortable squirm settled into my stomach. I didn’t like that I’d forgotten something this important.

That was a part of my personality that I’d tried hard to remedy—to the point where I prided myself on my ability to coordinate events and ensure every little detail happened when it was meant to.

After struggling with spaciness thanks to my ADHD, I’d strived to change the label others slapped me with from ditzy to dependable.

The unfortunate fact of the matter was, a hazard of hyper-focusing on organizing and planning parties, meetings, weddings, and corporate events for others, I was bound to forget something of my own.

At least it hadn’t been a detail for work.

I took the cord from him, knowing he would come inside. He did.

Jared closed out the bright, Texas sunshine. The day was a toasty seventy degrees, and while I loved that sunshine and its warmth, I couldn’t wait to get to Montana, to dive into some snow for Christmas.

The last time I’d had snow at Christmastime had been while visiting my grandparents in Idaho over ten years ago.

“Aren’t you going to put it in your suitcase? Oh, wait. Cords go?—”

“In the side bag,” I said, stepping into my bedroom and reaching for the bag slouched against the open suitcase’s side. “Correct.”

Jared peeked over, inspected my self-ascribed preference to compartmentalize every single thing within, and reached for a ball of socks.

“What are you doing?” I asked, feeling a little hitch in my chest.

“Are you sure these go here?”

“Positive. Now, put them back.”

He grinned. “What if I put them here?” Quirking a single brow, he tucked the socks into the mesh lining sewed into the purple suitcase’s side.

“Then I’ll take them out.”

I reached in, but he beat me to it. The struggle ensued in a kind of up-high-down-low-too-slow battle where Jared won because of the length of his arms.

“Would you stop that?” I grunted. “Give them to me. Wyatt will be here any minute.”

“How many minutes?” He tossed my socks from one hand to the other just as I reached for them.

“Shut up and give me the socks.” I tickled his ribs in just the right spot.

Jared released a giggle that so didn’t fit his manly physique and dropped the socks to the floor.

With both bemusement and annoyance, I bent for them and returned them to their place.

How many were in there? I’d planned on five pairs—enough to last the duration of the trip—but I’d better double check now that Jared had messed with everything…

“There’s five,” he said, beating me to it. “I counted.”

I ignored him and his familiar smell of ocean and hair gel and counted for myself. Sure enough, five sock mounds inhabited the suitcase’s lower left-hand corner, right next to my toiletry bag. Right where I always put them when I traveled.

Hurriedly, I closed the lid of my suitcase before he could take anything else out of its place just to bug me.

Jared rested his arm on my TV stand across from my bed. He tossed his brown hair out of his eyes.

“When are you leaving?” he asked.

“The flight isn’t until three, but we’re getting to the airport early.”

“Good thinking. You have everything you need?”

“I’d better.”

The placement of his arm disheveled the table runner in front of the TV. I stepped toward him to straighten it.

“I should say.”

I knuckled him on the shoulder. Not that I wasn’t grateful for his help, but the same urgency that had been pressing against me all morning returned with full force.

“Wyatt will be here soon,” I said. “You can’t be here when he comes.”

“Why not?”

I rolled my eyes. Why not? Please.

I took Jared by his beefy shoulders and directed him toward my bedroom doorway and then to the main door beyond. Or—that was the plan, anyway.

Despite my efforts, he still hadn’t budged.

“Because this is a romantic getaway with me and my fiancé, and you can’t be here when he comes to pick me up.”

To have my best friend here when my fiancé came? Wyatt was pretty chill about the fact that my lifelong bestie was of the male variety, but this was a personal preference.

How would that look if another man was here when my man came for me?

Jared would be cool about the dismissal, I knew, which was why I had no qualms about shooing him away. He was so thick, though—I might as well be pushing a building.

Still standing in the exact same spot he’d been moments before, he slid me a smug, challenging smirk.

“You’re enjoying this way too much,” I said as my feet slipped on the carpet and he didn’t move a millimeter.

“It’s always nice to see you try.”

“Aren’t your meathead friends waiting for you?”

He worked out regularly with Tim and Miguel. For the sole purpose of the three of them bragging about their individual bench press record, I’d wager.

“Not today. I’m heading over to Tia’s before she leaves on her cruise.”

I tried to ignore just how impressively firm his muscles were beneath my hands, but his silky growl crept into my concentration, stirring a spot beneath my sternum.

“You like that, don’t you?”

That tone gave me pause. I glanced up to find him smoldering at me.

And then he brought his fisted hands together in front of his stomach, flexing. Beneath his shirt, his pecks popped. First one. Then the other.

An unexpected flush of heat crept up my neck.

“It’s okay,” he said, his voice lowering. “Take your time.”

Too late, I realized my attempts to push him had stopped. I was standing there with my hands on his firm deltoids. Lingering. And yeah, enjoying the shape of him.

More heat flushed to fill my entire face.

“Dork,” I said, hitting my fists against his chest to get him to stop and to hide my reaction—because where did that come from? “I get it. You’re a rock.”

He laughed, finally backing in the direction I was trying to get him to go. “All right, all right. I’m leaving. Have a great time.”

“You, too. Say hi to Tia for me.”

He did a suave little turn on my front porch as he stepped outside, and I thanked him for bringing my cord back. Then after closing the door, I cursed myself and opened the door again to find him descending the steps of my second-story apartment on the way to his car.

“Oh, and Merry Christmas, Jare!”

Jared lifted a hand toward me. “You, too.”

He trod the rest of the way down the stairs, and I closed the door, hugging the charge cord to my chest.

“Thank you, Jared,” I said to the air before hurrying to plug my phone into the nearest outlet. The device had died sometime between his arrival and now.

Wishing I could tap in a reminder to shop for a new phone when I got back from Montana—or at least a new battery that lasted longer—I made a mental note instead, prayed the device would revive in time, and paced my apartment, stopping to make sure the thermostat was set to where my electric bill wouldn’t squeeze me dry when I returned.

And then I spared a glance at my clock again.

My heart nearly stopped.

Wyatt was ten minutes late.

“What’s going on?”

That wasn’t possible. How had that much time passed since Jared came?

Even so, it had passed.

There was no sign of Wyatt’s car out front. Was everything okay? Had he gotten caught in Fort Worth traffic?

I willed my phone to hurry and charge enough so I could check for any messages from him. Soon, the screen flared to life, but no additional texts appeared.

If he knew he was running late, Wyatt usually let me know.

Hmm.

I tapped his number and held the phone to my ear. No response. The call went to voicemail.

Wringing my hands, I paced my apartment. Had something happened? Most of the time, he could avoid rush hour, but sometimes the influx of cars struck early.

Or maybe he’d misplaced his phone charger.

No, that wasn’t likely. He kept one in his car and usually plugged in his phone while driving.

Since Wyatt wasn’t answering, I dialed Jared’s number.

He answered after the third ring. “What’s up?”

“Wyatt’s not here.”

“Was he supposed to be?”

“Yes! I tried calling him, but he didn’t answer.”

“Maybe he hasn’t seen your call yet. If he’s driving, that’s probably a good thing.”

My pulse escalated. I tried a slow breath to keep it down. “Jared, we can’t miss our flight.”

“You planned things out in plenty of time,” he said patiently. “And you may not have been the only one to forget something. For all you know, he realized whatever it was on the way to get you and had to turn around.”

That might be true… Except…

“Yeah, but he would have called to let me know.”

“Try him again,” Jared suggested.

With shaky resolve, I ended the call and tried Wyatt’s number again. I paced to my kitchen, stepping on each individual tile. There was no answer.

He was fifteen minutes late. Then twenty.

I texted him.

Me: Are you coming? We’re going to miss our flight.

That wasn’t entirely true. Chances were, we still had plenty of time to make it through security. But Wyatt knew how much I hated having my plans thrown off course.

Thirty minutes passed, and I was wearing a hole in my living room rug. What was going on?

I dialed his number again. And again.

Finally, bubbles appeared on my screen. The sight was a gush of relief and a storm of anxiety all at once until his message appeared.

Wyatt: We need to talk.