Chapter Forty
Ethan
Ethan shouldn’t have been enjoying this. He was a terrible person. A scoundrel. A rogue. He was a bad guy is what he told
himself.
Because he should not have been enjoying this .
A man was fighting for his life. A woman was missing. A shooter was somewhere in their midst and there were children on the
premises. And Maggie... So help him if he wasn’t able to protect Maggie...
But Ethan was enjoying this, he had to admit as they followed Rupert through the shadowy halls. He enjoyed it even more when Rupert stopped
suddenly and Maggie grabbed Ethan’s arm and tugged him into a narrow alcove, shielded behind a pair of heavy drapes.
“Seriously. You are freakishly strong.”
“Shhh.” She was pressing against him, squeezing in close and he was the worst kind of villain in the world because he slipped
his arms around her waist and pulled her closer.
“Are we doing the make out so no one suspects us thing?” Ethan whispered.
Her big, brown eyes and soft, full lips were just inches away. Even in the shadows, he could see her thinking. “Maybe?”
He swallowed hard. “Maybe? Or definitely?”
“If he catches us, yes,” Maggie whispered, but she didn’t look away.
“It’s a staple of the genre.”
“As tropes go...”
He felt her breath on his lips. “It’s a classic.”
They were all alone in a house full of people, and Ethan tried to remember that she hated him, but her fingers were in his
hair and they were standing so close that he could feel her breathe and—
“Hey, Maggie?” Had her skin always been so soft? “Do you want to make—”
But before he could finish, she was going up on her toes and he was bending down. Maybe they met in the middle? Or maybe they
collided? Maybe it was an accident, or maybe it was fate?
The only thing Ethan knew for certain was that their lips touched. Just a brush. A graze. A whisper. But it lingered. It lingered
and then it deepened and then Ethan was drinking her in, her taste and touch and little sighs. He wanted to memorize this
moment. And he wanted to forget it ever happened—burn it from his brain because something so deep and arterial would someday
leave him bleeding out.
But then Maggie sighed his name and gave him more of her weight and Ethan’s mind went blank. He forgot about Eleanor and Sir
Jasper and even Christmas. Ethan forgot his own name.
“Damn it, Rupert!”
A voice broke through the silence and Maggie pulled away. There was something like horror on her face. Horror and panic and
regret. She was going to spiral—
“Maggie,” Ethan whispered. “Don’t—”
She was going to run, but then the voice came again from the corridor. “When you asked me to spend the holidays away from
my family, you said it was an emergency!”
Maggie froze. It was almost like the kiss hadn’t happened when she whispered, “Dr. Charles...”
All Ethan could do was stare at her swollen lips.
“But now here we are”—the doctor gave a low, dry laugh—“trapped in the middle of nowhere with a killer on the loose. Kirk
and the girls are going to be terrified when I don’t get off that train tonight, and I can’t even call them because I’m stuck
here . With you and your awful sister and terrible cousin.”
“Don’t call that woman my cousin,” Rupert snapped.
Cece? Maggie mouthed, and Ethan nodded. It was the only thing that made sense.
“I didn’t sign up for this. I don’t care what strings you can pull at the hospital. I didn’t sign up for shootings and poisonings
and... I didn’t sign up for this!”
They heard footsteps coming closer and, on instinct, Ethan spun, pinning Maggie to the wall. Shielding her. Keeping her out
of sight and out of harm.
“Gregory! Come now. My aunt is delusional. That’s why you’re here, remember?” Rupert laughed again but trailed off like a
man who’d just realized nobody finds him funny.
“In light of everything that’s happened, her fear seems quite justified to me,” Dr. Charles shot back.
“Now, Gregory. We agreed. My aunt is no longer of sound mind. Someone needs to take over her affairs,” Rupert prompted like
a parent getting a child through a play. “ For her own good. ”
“You said I’d have a chance to examine her, see her paranoia for myself.”
“Well.” Rupert huffed. “I should think the fact that she’s run away just before Christmas would prove my point quite nicely.”
“Actually”—there was a challenge in the doctor’s voice. It was lower, deeper, closer—“if you ask me, it proves hers.”
The hall went silent then, nothing but footfalls on old rugs and the sound of an even older house settling beneath a heavy
snow. Everything in Ethan’s training told him it was over—they were alone. And Ethan knew he should step back, give Maggie
space to move and room to breathe. But Ethan didn’t move and Maggie didn’t protest, so he decided to stay right where he was,
one hand on the wall behind her head, another around her waist, chests rising and falling together like a dance.
“That’s the second time I’ve heard him call Eleanor paranoid,” she said.
“Which is exactly what you’d say if your aunt had just caught you with your hand in the cookie jar.”
“Exactly.” Her eyes twinkled. Her skin glowed. It was almost painful to look at her, so he found a point over her head and
tried to look there instead. The alcove must have been home to a piece of art at some point—something fragile and precious
and rare. There was delicate wallpaper and intricate trim and...
That was when he saw it.
“Which means, if Rupert was stealing... Excuse me. Earth to Ethan. What are you...” Maggie trailed off as she looked up and saw the little green
bundle overhead. “Mistletoe.”
He knew the instant she remembered the kiss because her body went tight and her eyes went wide and he expected her to pull
away, threaten him with death or dismemberment or some other form of destruction if he ever mentioned it again, but instead
her voice got a little higher and she shifted on her feet. “Oh. Well. It is Christmas.”
“Maggie—”
“And Eleanor seems like someone who would be big on... traditions. Not to mention the name of the house and...”
“Margaret—”
“It’s a parasite, you know. And a poison. And...”
She was rambling now, nervous and shy and turning the color of new skin—fresh and pink and fragile. So Ethan did the only
thing he could think to do. He kissed her again, playful and quick.
Then he dipped down to meet her eyes and whispered, “Maggie, how sure were you?”
“What?”
He brushed aside a strand of soft, dark hair because he couldn’t stop his traitorous fingers. “Yesterday. Before the gunshot...
Before Sir Jasper... When it was you and me in the maze... When it was just us, how sure were you that it was a test?”
Suddenly, she jerked away. He’d seen her recoil a dozen times, a hundred. He used to think she was pulling herself together,
but she wasn’t. She was pulling herself back, taking up less space and making herself a smaller target. When this was over,
he was going to track down her cheating ex and Ethan wouldn’t be responsible for what happened.
“I was wrong.” Maggie shook her head too quickly. “I was stupid. I—”
“Hey.” Ethan couldn’t stop himself from tucking that errant strand of hair behind her ear and cupping her face. “Don’t tell
me how wrong you were. Tell me how sure you were.”
He watched her summon her strength—put it on like armor. “I can’t remember the last time I was that certain of anything.”
Good. Goose bumps were rising on his arm. “Now... Eleanor’s mistletoe book... are there secret passages in it?”
Her eyes went wide. “How did you...” But Ethan was already bending down to kiss her forehead. “What...”
And then he reached over her head and touched the sprig of mistletoe that was carved into the wood.
And pressed.
He heard the click . They felt the wall shift. And Maggie gave him a look like this would be the best Christmas ever if it weren’t for all the
almost dying. But before she could say a word, they were both stumbling, falling, tumbling into the dark.