Naughty but Nice: A Best Friend's Dad Christmas Romance Read online

  “Just in case that peters out,” says Trinity, “there’s something else. Something even better, and this is why I was so surprised that none of these babies here wanted to take it.”

  “Go on.”

  “There’s a rumor that an ex pro MMA fighter is living in the woods out there, and someone finally saw him. I personally think he’s hiding some kind of dark secret. Why else would someone leave a cozy multi-millionaire lifestyle with fans all over and women practically throwing themselves at them?,” says Trinity. “Regularly. We’ve got a contact out there. So I told this guy that I would send our best reporter and photographer out to get a shot of it and write it up. While, of course, doing whatever can be done with the animal sanctuary thingy.” Trinity holds her hands up, framing an imaginary photo between them. “I can just see it. Inner Eye captures ex-fighter!”

  “I’m supposed to go out there and capture a professional fighter?”

  “Ex-professional fighter. But it doesn’t matter. Your job is to go see what’s out there and write something good. I don’t care if you find anything or not. I don’t expect it to get all Blair Witchy out there, but you never know. Sounds like there really are some strange things going on out there.” With that, she opens her desk and pushes an envelope at me.

  “What’s this?”

  “Those are your tickets. I’m going to let you give Jarom the good news.”

  “Wait, you’ve been planning for me to go all along - and you’ve just been giving me the impression that I had a choice?”

  “Afraid so my dear. I knew this was the right job for you and you wouldn’t disappoint.” With that, she picks the pen up, starts chewing on the cap again, and I am dismissed.

  I walk out, a little heated but also a little excited. This would be the most interesting story to hit my desk – and it could make headlines even. Before I let myself get too excited, I go down the hall to Jarom’s office. When he sees me at his window he lights up like a Christmas tree ornament.

  Oh God. I can’t do it.

  I promptly proceed down the hall to my own office and send him the most cursory email in history. “We have an assignment that came up out of nowhere. All I know is that we leave tomorrow. Please see Trinity for details.”

  I move fast, but I’m not even out of my office when Jarom appears at the door. What kind of name is Jarom, anyway? Sounds Amish, but he doesn’t have a beard. But maybe he can’t grow a beard.

  And he’s a cameraman. I’m pretty certain they don’t use cameras.

  In any event, I am unprepared and annoyed when he bows deeply and says “I have never been so excited for anything.” He stares into the middle distance and I know what’s coming. He disappears within a daydream. Soon his mouth opens and I all but shove him out of my office before he can get anything on the floor.

  ***

  That night I skip drinks with Lacey although she does insist on a recap of my first night with Owen 2.0. I tell her its intensity was matched only by its fury on the Richter scale.

  “I’m not a bit surprised,” she says.

  I hear a murmur in the background under her voice.

  “Is that the maître D?” I say.

  “Ugh. I wish. Different guy. Seemed like he was going to be fun, and he was. Once. Now he can’t leave fast enough. Hey, don’t you give me that look, I told you what this was!” she yells at the man who I only assume is on his way out of her apartment. “So what’s new with you, otherwise?”

  “That’s why I’m calling. I’m going to be out of town for a couple of weeks.” I give her the rundown.

  “This doesn’t surprise me at all. I was reading my horoscope and I saw a couple of things that didn’t make sense for me, but I was pretty sure they were right for you.”

  “We’re not born under the same sign.”

  “Yeah, I know, but since it’s all bullshit anyway I figured I could do what I wanted with the info. Well, I think it sounds like an adventure. And just to prove it to you, I’m going to come out and visit you in a week. You know what? I bet you’ll find all kinds of lumberjacks out there that you can bang. Oh man, they are so hot right now. Every catalog has some guy with a beard and flannel on the cover right now. They’d look like idiots on the street here, but in real life? Yes please. Yeah, I’m coming to visit you. Don’t think you can keep them all to yourself.”

  “Please do. I could use your company. How should I handle Jarom?”

  “Either full force or at arm’s length. If he can’t persuade you, don’t try and persuade yourself.”

  That wouldn’t be a problem.

  CHAPTER TWO: HUGH MADDOX

  If you want to remove all traces of masculinity from a man, plunk his ass down in the middle of a big city, then just sit back and watch. Pretty soon he’ll be covered in silk ties and satin doublets, ordering cous cous for every meal and thinking that getting a callus on his hand is as bad as leprosy.

  This is exactly the opposite of what I’m doing right now. There are storm clouds rolling in. Out here, at my cabin, you can see more sky than you ever knew existed. It’s both exhilarating and desolate in a way that you can’t appreciate until you’ve seen it.

  Solitude is almost everything to me.

  Almost.

  Unfortunately, what I consider solitude most people would consider isolation. It took me a year out here to realize that I didn’t even have a mirror. When I finally saw myself again I was pretty much the same: 6’4,” buzzed brown hair, blue eyes, broad as a barn door, and sporting a beard that was headed for Grizzly Adams territory.

  When I was about to leave New York for my Walden-esque sojourn into the wilderness, I considered going to Alaska. Nothing big like Juneau or Fairbanks, but somewhere kind of off the grid. I had been reading a relocation website that literally said, ‘People who will do best here are those who tend to thrive in harsh climates more closely resembling third world countries than the continental US, and who can adapt to situations where the rules are unwritten.’

  Sounded like the Deadwood of the Wild West, just with more snow and Eskimos. I was all set to go, having left the rough and tumble world of professional mixed martial arts, where I had been the welterweight champ in the biggest league before departing under circumstances of pain and loss that were mysterious to everyone but me. Everyone wondered, but it was no one’s business but mine.

  Still isn’t.

  There is a rumble in the distance. The Vikings would have heard Thor’s hammer. I just hear a ferocious melancholy that sounds like the world is growling along with my own heartache. Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong millennium. I would have been right at home on some ancient battlefield.

  With no true company here other my own, I’m far better off than I ever was in New York. Those damned fights. Fucking double crosses and shady deals. They were people I was never going to see again because of what had happened.

  Darkness and death. It was enough to… well, it was enough to make a man leave an extremely lucrative profession with his banked millions, go out into the middle of nowhere to escape his secrets, and do what I was doing.

  It’s my business. Mine. Maybe this isn’t the most glamorous, high-octane life, but that’s no longer what I need. I need this.

  I split another log and add it to the pile as another roar of thunder echoes across the valley. Once the rain starts I’m going to be trapped in here for a while, which suits me fine.

  I’m already trapped, when I feel honest enough to admit it.

  The week before I was supposed to come to Alaska, an email came through from an old friend who had gone into the military. He decided to give up the family cabin that his father left him when he died. His siblings didn’t want it and my friend decided to stay in Okinawa where he was stationed. All I had to do was say the word and he would relinquish the deed to me. Of course, I could afford to get a decked out luxury cabin with a sick view overlooking the mountainous landscape, but a small reclusive cabin in the middle of nowhere was just what I
wanted.

  I knew the place. It was as desolate as Alaska, and nearly as far away, on the Washington and Canada border in the northwest. It was miles from town and, while the rules weren’t quite unwritten up there, they weren’t spelled out on stone tablets either. I took the offer in a heartbeat, told my agent I was leaving town and had no plans to ever return or fight again, and got the hell out of dodge.

  Now I’m here at my own place, which has everything I need, except a woman. It has turned out that meeting ladies up on a mountain top, miles away from anything except trees, deer, and the occasional flyby from a helicopter, isn’t the easiest business in the world. Neither is being fucking celibate or lonely for years, but I am doing what I have to do, for now. I’m lucky that I like my own company well enough.

  Sometimes I wish I was different, but I’m not. I’ve never been used to doing things the easy way.

  CHAPTER THREE: SAM WASHINGTON

  When I meet Jarom at the airport he has three suitcases that I assume are full of camera equipment – but I quickly remember that practicality isn’t his strongest asset.

  “I can’t ever figure out how many clothes to bring so I kind of wind up bringing everything.” This trip is going be shit balls of fun.

  On the flight I watch the movie Gladiator. Talk about men! Owen and Jarom were not part of this dying breed, the breed of the ancient Greeks and Romans and warriors was so far gone that, short of a time machine, very few of us women had a chance of ever meeting one. What would it be like to see one of them in their glory?

  I think about what Lacey said about the lumberjacks on the covers of the magazines and a small shiver of anticipation goes through me.

  As for the ex MMA fighter, I still don’t know much. Apparently there’s a cabin out in the middle of nowhere in a small town called Wahay. And sometimes, when the wind or moon or whatever is just right, you can see the ex-mixed martial artist in the trees, chopping wood, or doing karate chops, or something.

  The whole thing was a huge mystery. Why would he have left the perks of his career behind to go to the edge of civilization? Couldn’t someone go mad in such isolation?

  Regardless, it was nice to be out of town, knowing there was no way to run into Owen. And I had Owen 2.0 in my suitcase; a fact that I’m sure would dismay Jarom to no end.

  We land and take a cab to our hotel, which is less than ten minutes away. Then we rent a car and drive into the hills outside Wahay. When the pavement gives way to dirt, the dirt gives way to trees, and we have to get out. Trinity forwarded me a map that will supposedly get us within earshot or eyeshot of the mystery cabin. It seems like we could have just asked around in town a little, but Trinity insists that Jarom and I got in cold and report exactly what we see and find, novices in the wilderness. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was out here in a monster costume, ready to scare us into some good copy and photos.

  Jarom gets quiet when we move into the trees. We aren’t losing daylight yet, but the clouds, while still white, are making things more overcast that I had expected. He keeps putting his hand on the small of my back and offering to help me over small things that I don’t need help traversing.

  He’s getting a little peevish, which is a side of him that I’ve never seen. He stumbles and I catch his arm, but he shakes off my hand.

  “Glad you’ll offer me help I don’t need, but you’ll ignore me about everything else,” he says.

  “What are you talking about, Jarom?”

  “I think we’re lost,” he says, ignoring my question. “I bet I’m the last person in the world you want to be stuck out here with, right?” He turns around and I’m reminded of how much bigger nearly every man in the world is than me.

  “We’re not lost, we’re only five minutes away from the car. What is the matter with you?”

  He doesn’t answer, but forges ahead, muttering to himself. I’m aware of how alone we are out here. The car is probably actually fifteen minutes behind us, and now the clouds are growing dark, not to mention that the sun will eventually set. I’m not feeling the reality of this story yet, although if a big hard fighter pops up out of nowhere, he’s certainly going to be better company than Jarom.

  He turns around. “Am I really so bad? You know, the last time I liked a girl she laughed at me. I was as nice to her as I am to you, but every time I tried she laughed at me. But you know what? You ignoring me actually hurts worse. Her laughing at least meant that she noticed me.” Without another word, he turns around and stomped away again.

  I check my phone. No service. “Jarom, I think I want to go back,” I say. “We’ll pick it up again tomorrow.”

  A thunderclap shakes the ground. Then there’s a streak of lightning. And there it is, in the trees on the other side of Jarom. I almost sprint past him into the clearing beyond. I wait for another flash of light to show what I’m positive I saw.

  There is a hand on my shoulder. Jarom.

  “Why won’t you just give me a chance?” he yells.

  I shake his hand off my shoulder and squint. There it is. A cabin in the distance, up on a knoll. Whatever is in there is probably going to be better than Jarom. If it starts raining, it’s going to be a hellacious downpour and it’s probably where we should head either way.

  I start to walk, telling him about what I see. Then he grabs my poncho, hard, and drags me backwards.

  That’s when I hear the monster bellowing in the trees.

  CHAPTER FOUR: HUGH MADDOX

  Like I said, the place has everything I need, except a woman. But this place isn’t going to be most women’s cup of tea.

  That’s why I’m so damned astonished when I see the pretty young thing appears at the edge of the tree line, looking down at a map. At least, I think it’s a pretty young thing. They all move the same way. My eyes have always been sharp, but aren’t quite as good as they used to be. I take a pair of binoculars out of my tool belt and took a look.

  Yep. Not even her hug poncho can hide a voluminous figure like that. That’s all it takes for me to start getting hard. Just a little twitch, but yowza, it’s like she’s pulling me towards her like some sort of alluring magnetic north.

  And that, as fate would have it, is when the little dumbass steps out of the trees behind her and puts a hand on her shoulder in a way that looks too aggressive for my liking. I’ve done a lot, I’ve seen a lot, and I can handle a lot, but seeing a man put his hands on a woman against her will is not one of them.

  I have to be sure before reacting. She shrugs her shoulder and he takes his hand away. Then he starts waving his arms wildly like he’s being attacked by hornets, gesticulating in a manner known only to men who feel like they’ve been wronged. I’ve got a sizable ego but I’m the first one to admit that the male ego can be a very silly and fragile thing.

  No, she looks like she can handle herself. Most women can who are hot enough to be turning down the constant, inept advances of men. But what the hell are they doing out here? You get a feel for city people, and these two are absolutely out of their element, especially the guy, who’s wearing about one metric ton of camera gear around his neck.

  She walks away from him and he follows her. Then he puts his hands on her poncho and pulls her backwards. Now we are in very different territory indeed.

  Tightening my grip on the handle of my ax, I start walking towards them both. When I’m within a hundred feet I let out a bellow that they hear over the thunderclap.

  The poor guy. He looks so terrified that it’s all I could do not to laugh.

  Her, though? She’s a little harder to read. Her feelings, I mean. She looks like she was feeling something like relief mixed with fury.

  “It’s you!” she says. “It’s him!” she says, turning to the guy with the cameras, who is now a nice shade of spectral white. From the look of him you would think I’m a cannibal come to collect his glossy pelt.

  What does she mean, “It’s him?”

  There is no way that these two ninnies are out here looking fo
r me, is there?

  “That’s got to be him!” she says, clasping her hands in front of her.

  Damnation.

  There’s a fine line between intimidation and inspiration. Whenever I see someone bigger, smarter, or richer than me, it doesn’t make me think, “Oh, I could never be like that.” I either don’t care what anyone else is doing or I use it as fuel.

  These two aren’t like that. Well, the man definitely isn’t. I know that I look intimidating, particularly in this setting, which is pretty damned cinematic with the thunder and lightning and all. He is not going to be using my demeanor, size, or anything else as inspiration. In fact, he looks like a bug that expects to be crushed.

  She, on the other hand, is something else. She pulls back her hood and stares right into my eyes. “You’re who we’re looking for,” she says, which puts me on edge immediately. I’m no one’s business, and no one’s problem.

  As annoyed as I am, I would rather look into her eyes than worry about what she’s saying. They are blue pools of fire. I can instantly sense that this woman—and she is a woman, my at-a-distance judgment was wrong, she’s not some svelte, squirrely little girl. Given by her demeanor, she has no idea of how stunning she is. I probably won’t be the one to tell her either, given that the clouds just burst and we’re all going to be drenched like fools within seconds. Once you get wet out here it’s tough to get warm.

  She turns to the guy. “Get away from me, Jarom! Go home! I’ll do the assignment myself!”

  What kind of name is Jarom? To look like this poor guy is one thing, but to be named Jarom as well? Jesus wept!

  “I’m sorry,” he says, blubbering. “I love you.”

  Oh brother. I would have been better off locking my door and popping the cork out of a bottle of whiskey. I actually don’t hate the idea of some company, but if company means soft city people, you can count my ass out. Once I know that this guy’s not actually going to push his luck with her – I’ll promptly make my exit.