Chapter 2
With his naughty-or-nice routine finished, Will retreated to the guest room, where he’d left his normal clothes.
He quickly stripped off the sexy Santa costume and shoved it back in the bag, his face heated.
He’d been spending too much time away and hadn’t thought about guests.
That was pretty stupid, considering it was Christmastime.
The Brighams were always eager to open their home to anyone needing a little holiday cheer.
A guest wouldn’t have even been a problem. So what? Will had never cared much about what strangers thought of him. He’d been judged plenty in his life. Sometimes, it was accurate, sometimes not, but he could always move on.
Then there was Julie. Holy shit. She had those big dark eyes, the kind he could just fall into. His bear was still going wild just thinking about her. Stacey’s best friend, huh? This would be an interesting one to navigate.
He tugged on his shirt. The boots, at least, were already his.
After he stuffed the bag in the corner of the closet where he could retrieve it later, he glanced at himself in the mirror.
Smoothing his short, dark hair with his fingers, he glanced down and saw the Santa hat he’d discarded when he’d changed his clothes.
The full getup might not be tradition, but the hat was.
He tugged it on and turned to the door. There was nothing left to do but go back downstairs and face the music.
“There’s Santa’s little devil,” Carol remarked when he returned to the living room. She gave him a wink and a smile. “Will, we can always count on you to inject some fun into a stuffy holiday.”
“I always do my best,” he replied with a laugh, knowing he didn’t sound nearly as nonchalant as he wished.
“I’d say you grossed all your brothers out and gave the women a good show, so it was successful. Have you tried the rum punch yet?” Carol took a sip from her cup and licked a few drops off her lips. “Excellent stuff.”
“Mom’s not serving her traditional champagne?” He would probably need a drink or two to calm himself down. His heart was racing as he looked around the room, his eyes not taking in anything but a blur of Christmas decorations.
“She is, but then your dad slipped into the kitchen and started handing these out. Don’t get me wrong. Champagne is always fun, but this will hit you right where it counts.” She lifted her glass. “There’s probably still some in the kitchen.”
“Thanks.” Will moved into the next room, still scanning as he went.
Plenty of familiar faces were there, considering this gathering was mostly family.
He could talk to his siblings and their mates later.
There was really only one person he wanted to find, even though he wasn’t sure he could truly face her.
She wasn’t in the kitchen, but his dad was. Paul Brigham scooped up the last of the punch and carefully ladled it into a cup. His thick brows twitched as he shifted his gaze to his son and handed the cup over. “Try this.”
“I don’t want to take the last of it,” Will said as he accepted the cup.
“I’ll make more. We all needed it to recover from seeing you in that getup.” Paul turned to the fridge, pulling out the bottle of rum, some orange liqueur, and a bottle of pomegranate juice. “I think we could use a bit more, in fact.”
Will wasn’t fooled. His father knew how to put on the strong-and-silent face. It was a genuine part of his personality, but when you knew the man well enough, you could see straight through it. A hint of a smile perked the corners of his lips. “I’ll have to figure out how to top it next year.”
Muddling blackberries and raspberries in the bottom of the bowl to prepare for a second batch, Paul shook his head. “I’ll be sure to buy extra alcohol, then. Wouldn’t want the shock to traumatize us all.”
Will turned as Stacey came into the kitchen carrying a big box of garland. “Oh, good,” she said, her eyes sweeping over her brother-in-law. “Your brothers are going to be complaining about that little prank until Groundhog Day. Come on, Julie. We can put this up on the deck railing.”
His heart quickened as Julie appeared in the doorway behind Stacey.
Her eyes glittered at him for a moment and then flicked away, and she pressed her lips together as she tried to avoid smiling at him.
Being in the same room with her once again had his bear completely fired up now, practically ripping at the underside of his skin.
“I’ll help you,” he volunteered, pulling the sliding door open and letting them outside before he followed.
He was rewarded with the wake of Julie’s perfume, a blend of jasmine and vanilla mixed with something almost earthy.
He felt like a cartoon bear following a delicious scent on the breeze as he was drawn out onto the deck.
“Looks like we’ll need to untangle it first,” Stacey noted as she set the box down and opened the lid. “That’s what I get for letting the kids take it down last year. Oh, crap. I’ve got to get Vivian’s dance clothes in the washer. She’s got a lesson tomorrow. I’ll be back.”
Will took a sip of the rum punch, which he’d been carrying around but hadn’t tried yet.
It was strong, but also good. He opened the sliding glass door once again to allow Stacey through and thought he caught something in her eyes as she passed by.
A warning? A wink? He wasn’t sure, but his bear had enough ideas that it might not matter.
With the door closed, he set his drink down on the patio table. “Let me help you with that.”
Julie bent over the box, pulling out a big hunk of tangled garland. She swept back her hair to look at him. “Thank you.”
He reached in as well. “I can’t say decorating is my forte. I only get to do it when I come home.”
“You don’t live around here?” Julie pulled up a chair and parked it next to the box so she could put a knot of garland in her lap while she untied it.
“No, not exactly.”
“Where are you from?” Her nails were cut short and unpolished, and her fingers were quick and efficient as she found a loose piece of greenery and worked it free.
“A little bit of everywhere. You see that fishing trawler out there?” With his hands full, he gestured with his head. “That’s my home.”
She turned to look and then back at him. “Really?”
“Yeah. I run a fishing crew of several boats, and we go wherever the season takes us. Sometimes it’s close to home, and sometimes it’s nowhere near.
” Will’s fingers roved over the rope of evergreen in his hands, but he wasn’t making any headway with it.
He was concentrating too much on Julie, wondering what she thought of living on a boat.
“It takes a lot of dedication to do something like that for your work,” she replied.
Did she think that was a good thing or a bad thing? He couldn’t be sure. “Maybe, but is it really any different than when someone moves to a new city to get a better job? Or buys a certain house because the commute is short?”
“Fair point,” she acknowledged with a smile. The current knot taken care of, she reached back into the box at the same time he did. Their fingers brushed together as they grabbed more garland.
Did she feel the electricity shooting up her arm, too?
She was human; Will was certain of that.
She wouldn’t have an animal inside her that was going wild the way his bear was, threatening to make him lose control like he was a teenager again.
Should he even be feeling this way for a human?
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time it’d happened.
There were humans just behind them in the clanhouse, after all.
“What about you? What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a computer systems analyst for Reeves and Booker Global.” She flicked her hair behind her shoulder, but the strong, silky strands slipped forward again. “Not very exciting compared to living on a boat.”
“Maybe it is,” he countered, “although I have to admit I don’t really know what a computer systems analyst does.
Actually, I don’t even know what Reeves and Booker is.
” Will didn’t like to admit his faults, not to anyone or about anything.
He genuinely wanted to know more about her, though, and instinctively knew he couldn’t just shove his way through this conversation.
“I’m a software nerd, to put it bluntly,” she said, a few syllables of laughter escaping with her words. “It’s my job to make sure the software they’re using is working well for them. Sometimes, I have to tweak it to fix bugs or help individuals troubleshoot their issues.”
“So you’re a problem solver,” Will concluded.
“I like that term for it, yes. As far as Reeves and Booker, it’s a big financial company. They deal with investments all over the world.”
“See now, that does sound pretty exciting compared to throwing a net out in the ocean and waiting for some fish to swim into it.” Will knew his job was more complicated than that.
So did she, apparently. “I highly doubt it’s that simple, or it wouldn’t be worth living on a boat.”
“Do you think it’s that bad?” he asked, always one to rise to a challenge. “You might be surprised about the living conditions I’ve got on that trawler. Some folks in ‘normal’ houses wish they had something as nice as I do.”
“My knowledge doesn’t go much further than the movies,” she admitted as she found the right bit to pull and unrolled a long strand of garland. “I think we can get this hung up now. Let’s start with your end. Looks like there are some cable ties in the bottom of the box.”
Will was more than happy to keep the activity going as long as he got to spend time with her. He handed Julie one end of the greenery and grabbed a cable tie. “Listen, I think I should apologize for my behavior earlier.”
“For what?” She held the end in place and stepped a little to the side so he could fasten it. “The good show?”