Sam
My lips twitched in amusement for the first time since arriving in Montana. Not much made me laugh in the past few years, but hearing those five words from this woman’s lips sparked something inside me that I thought was dead.
I meant to do that.
As the blood rushed to her head, it occurred to me that someone should help the woman down from the predicament she found herself in. And I was standing right in front of her.
But before I could open my mouth and say something clever, I heard the telltale sound of the wire stretching too thin. My hands flew out and caught her just as the lights snapped. Legs flailing, she somehow managed to lock them around my neck as she screamed and jerked in my arms.
“Lady—” I sucked in a ragged breath as her head slammed into my junk.
Wheezing, I lowered her to the ground, careful not to smack her head on the concrete, though I was quite certain she deserved it after what she just did to me.
Wayne, the deputy, walked over, chuckling as he watched me bend over and protect myself from any further abuse.
“And that’s what you get when you decorate too early.” His eyes flicked to mine, and he quirked his eyebrow at me. “What’s wrong with you?”
“She bashed him in the nuts,” Mrs. Abernathy chuckled. “You know, this would make an excellent meet-cute.”
“A what?” Wayne asked.
“A meet-cute. It’s when—well, I don’t know why I’m telling this when we have a resident book lady right here. Cassidy, get off the ground and explain it for me.”
I glanced down at the woman who just nailed me in the nuts, and nearly laughed again as I saw her struggling to extract herself from the lights tangled around her body.
“Bigger problems here, Mrs. Abernathy!”
“I’d say. This poor man saved your life, and this is how you repay him?”
I really needed to get out of there, back to my house where I could nurse my bruised body in peace.
Not that I had a house to go to with any form of privacy.
I was still living in the guest room of Krista and Rob’s house, and the constant moaning at all hours of the night was enough to drive me out of the luxury of the house and into that tiny home once again just so I could get some fucking sleep.
“Would somebody please help me untangle myself before I end up with the cord wrapped around my neck!”
When no one moved to intervene, I put aside my pain and whipped out a pocket knife, slicing through the lights wrapped around the gorgeous woman.
I should have been concentrating on anything besides her looks. But that face…
Delicate cheekbones, thick lips, and the most expressive eyes I’d ever seen, it was hard to think about anything other than what she looked like when she wasn’t wrapped in Christmas lights.
Though this was a good look for her as well.
Finally, I pulled the last of the lights from around her and held out my hand, only half-nervous that she’d somehow end up nailing me in the groin again. What I wouldn’t give for my cup right now.
“Thank you,” she huffed, tugging her bright red hat down on her head. Two braids stuck out on either side, keeping her silky brown hair safely out of the way of tangling in her work.
Cocking her head at me, her lips twitched in amusement. “That’s when you would say something like you’re welcome.”
“Is that so?”
She shivered, glancing away from me as she pretended to busy herself with escaping the last of the lights. But I knew better. I’d recognize a shiver like that anywhere.
Attraction.
Not that I was in the right frame of mind to date any woman, and this woman had marriage material written all over her body.
“That was a nice move,” Wayne laughed. “Mind demonstrating that for us again?”
“Shut up, Wayne.”
“No, I’m being serious. I thought the whole thing was spectacular. You know, the whole wobbling up there and tumbling down the roof. Not many could pull off something like that.”
“I’d be happy to take you up there and shove you off just to see how you compare.”
Again, my lips twitched in amusement.
A woman shoved through the crowd, wrapping her in a hug. “Oh my gosh! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I got tangled up in the lights, but otherwise, I’m safe thanks to—”
“Sam. Collins. Blake’s brother.”
“Oh, right,” she frowned with a knowing look.
I was so tired of everyone around here giving me that pitying expression. The boxer who had retired due to an injury. And where was I now? Bumming around Montana without a clue in the world as to what to do next.
The woman who had hugged her glanced up at the roof. “What were you thinking? Why didn’t you get a man to hang those up for you?”
The woman snorted in amusement. “Because I can do it on my own.”
“Clearly,” I muttered, earning a disdainful glare from her.
“Excuse me, but I am perfectly capable of doing this on my own.”
“That’s why you fell off the roof,” I pointed out. “And why I had to catch you.”
“The lights caught me.”
“Until they snapped. Then it was all me,” I corrected.
“Look, just because you’re a man and bulky and muscular and…big, doesn’t mean that I can’t do this on my own,” she stuttered. “I don’t need a man to help me with anything.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to your work, then.”
But before I could make my escape, I was thwarted by none other than Liam, Michael’s brother. And since Michael was my brother-in-law, I was somehow attached to the rest of the family. That was the way things worked in Montana.
And I was beginning to hate that.
“What happened here?” Liam asked me, his eyes locked on the woman from the bookshop.
“She tried to string up Santa on her own.”
He eyed the Santa on the roof, and then what was left of the string of lights dangling from the edge.
“She did that by herself?”
“Apparently.”
“Typical Cassidy,” he sighed. “Come on. Let’s fix it for her,” he said, smacking my arm.
“Um…what?”
He glanced back at me, a questioning look on his face. “What?”
“Why are you volunteering me for the job?”
The confusion on his face grew by the second. There was no way I was getting out of this now.
“Because you’re a man, and when a lady needs help, you jump to the rescue.”
“But I don’t know this woman,” I answered, frustrated that I was being put in this position.
The brother cocked his head at me, clearly pissed that I was arguing with him about this. “This is Jeff’s high school sweetheart. Are you really telling me that you won’t help her when she’s about to kill herself putting up Christmas decorations?”
Rolling my eyes, I grabbed a second string of lights lying on the ground near her shop and climbed the ladder, ignoring the woman’s ranting that she could do it on her own.
I disconnected the strand of lights that was now cut up from where I had to detangle her, and connected the new set, then got to work lining her roof and hooking the lights in place.
It was a simple task, one that I didn’t want to do.
This wasn’t my shop, and frankly, there was nothing about Christmas that I liked. I didn’t care for lights or jolly music, and I especially didn’t like working in the cold all for a little twinkle. In fact, if there was one season I could do without, it was winter.
“To the right!” the woman shouted from her spot on the sidewalk as she shielded her eyes from the sun.
I moved to the right, but she immediately stopped me.
“No, the other right!”
“You mean left?”
“No, I mean to the right, but left of where you were!”
What the hell kind of sense did that make? “I am to the right of where I was!”
Liam laughed at me. “What Cassidy means is that she wants you to move a skosh to the left.”
So, Cassidy was her name. I thought he’d said it earlier, but I was too busy trying to find an escape. It fit, but that wasn’t important right now. No, I was now stuck on the meaning of skosh.
“What the hell is a skosh?”
“It’s a smidge, but bigger. Like a…” Liam glanced around the crowd for help. “Like a dash. But you know, without the line.”
That wasn’t any clearer than the first time he explained, but I wasn’t about to ask for clarification on that one. Instead, I moved just a little to the left and tied off the line before anyone could judge the placement.
Once I was back on the ladder, I hung the last of the lights on the edge of the bookshop roof and climbed down, only to have Liam hand me another string of lights.
“What the hell is that for?”
“For the windows,” he snapped.
“Nope. I did the roof. That’s enough for one day.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want him to hurt himself,” Cassidy snarked.
Snatching the lights out of his hand, I glowered at the woman, rethinking my earlier opinion on her beauty. “It’s doubtful I would hurt myself hanging lights.”
“Yeah? And why is that?”
“Well, first of all, I have logic on my side.”
Her eyebrows shot up in the air at my comment. “Are you saying women don’t have logic?”
“Did you ever see that movie As Good As It Gets?”
Clearly, she had based on the way her nostrils flared wide.
“If you say that line, I will nut punch you so hard.”
“Already been done today. What’s one more time?”
I said it with all the confidence in the world that I could handle it, but a thick sweat broke out along the back of my neck as I thought of her knee coming anywhere near my groin.
Instead, she took the lights out of my hand and smiled. “Thank you for putting the lights on the roof, but I can handle the rest from here.”
Somehow, I wasn’t entirely sure about that, but I decided against arguing with her.
I had more important things to do anyway.
Not that I could think of anything at the moment, but surely, there had to be something better to do with my time than argue with a woman who made me hard and angry at the same time.
“Have fun putting up your lights.”
“Always,” she smiled brightly.
“Can you help me find a good dirty book now, Cassidy?” Mrs. Abernathy asked.
I nearly laughed when Cassidy glanced back at me, her face bright red from the old woman’s question.
“Of course. Let’s see what we can find you.”