A Peyton Family Christmas (2 page)

“
You
should have said something. Then again, I guess you didn't have
to, after all.”

No,
he hadn't. He'd called Kat once or twice to invite her up
for the holidays—careful conversations where he'd gritted
his teeth against the urge to push her. Kat had been through hell,
and he could
see
the chasm behind her, waiting to swallow her whole. Such a delicate
balance, trying to assure he was there without making her feel
trapped.

Nick
must have seen how much those calls took out of him. How exhausted he
would be after hanging up the phone, how worried. “I don't
know how she managed it,” Derek admitted, sliding onto a stool
set at the counter. “Nick, I mean. Maybe Kat just needed an
invitation from someone who wasn't me.”

Luciano
arched an eyebrow. “I wouldn't put it past your little
fiancée to drag her onto the plane. Literally.”

A
few months ago, he might have laughed. But the last people to try to
drag Kat anywhere had ended up worse than dead. Empathy, it turned
out, could do some fucking scary things when fueled by a powerful
gift—or powerful fear.

Derek
shook off the momentary moment of bleakness and reminded himself that
Kat was here, safe, and clearly willingly enough. “Maybe it's
the simple fact that Nicky Peyton doesn't take ‘no'
for an answer. From anyone.”

“
No.
No, she doesn't.” Luciano sighed. “To be honest, I
hope Michelle's like that under all the crap the Conclave
heaped on her for so long.”

“
She
is.” In that fact, Derek had absolute confidence. “It'll
take time, though. Her life before... I can't even imagine what
she went through.”

“
You
don't want to. I wish
I
didn't know.”

The
Conclave had feared her. Derek knew all too well what it was like to
fight every day against the disdain of the ruling elite. “For
better or worse, we're all out of it now. No politics here. No
Conclave. Family.”

“
Damn
straight.” Luciano crossed the room and opened the pantry.
“Want a little kick in your coffee? Gus stocks liqueurs
sometimes.”

“
Lay
it on me.” Derek set down his mug and reached for a cookie tin.
A few at the top were crisp around the edges, and remembering
Michelle's cute little frown of frustration made him smile. She
looked nothing like her sister most of the time, but Nick sometimes
glared at things in the exact same way, with her eyebrows pulled
together and her lips pursed.

Of
course, Nick usually followed such an expression with curses foul
enough to make a grown man flinch. Michelle had actually uttered the
word
drat
.
Derek had assured her that he'd eat the burned cookies, so he
picked up three of them now. “Is anyone going in to town
tomorrow? Kat's going to fret until I take her to buy some last
minute gifts for everyone.”

“
Take
my SUV.” Luciano had barely driven it since having it
delivered, but he'd insisted that an old pickup truck with a
bench seat and questionable suspension wasn't appropriate
anymore. Not with a baby on the way.

One
of a dozen little ways he'd changed life at his ranch, so
carefully and quietly that perhaps Michelle didn't even notice.
Derek supposed that was the point—Luciano's way of taking
care of the wife who was wife in name only, and still weighed down by
grief.

He
swallowed a mouthful of slightly singed cookie and nodded. “Thanks.
After Christmas, I think Nick and I are going to buy a car of our
own. Since you're pretty well stuck with us for the foreseeable
future.”

Luciano
laughed. “Nick mentioned bringing her car up from Louisiana,
but then started talking about getting a Land Rover instead.”

“
Car,
Land Rover... Whatever works.” His next bite of cookie was
particularly burned, and he made a face as he rose. “I'm
going to run over to the guest house and check on Nick. If Kat comes
looking for me, send her over, would you?”

“
Want
me to have her call first?” Luciano asked with mock innocence.

Derek
made a rude gesture, then slipped out the back door and braved the
quick run to the guest house in his sweater, his shoulders hunched
against the wind. It wasn't far, at least, and the lights
glowing from the windows pooled across fresh snow that had fallen
that morning.

He
was shivering by the time he slipped through the front door. “Nick,
you over here still?”

“
I'm
here.” She appeared in the kitchen archway, a bowl in one hand.
“Want some soup?”

“
Just
ate half a dozen cookies.” Three long strides took him across
the room, where he bent down to kiss her forehead. “You are
amazing. Do I tell you that enough?”

She
dropped the bowl—which, thankfully, was empty—and slid
her arms around him. “I don't know. How often is enough?”

“
Every
day, at least.” Straightening his body pulled her off the
ground, but she was used to tangling her legs around his hips, and
shapeshifter strength had its advantages. “How'd you do
it? How'd you get her on the plane?”

“
Told
her she didn't have to put on a happy face or anything, but you
missed her. And it's
Christmas
.”

“
How
was she—” He bit his tongue, told himself not to pry.
Failed. “Was she okay, when you showed up? I mean,
is
she putting on a happy face?”

Nick
bit her lip and tilted her head. “Yeah, I think so. But it
hasn't been very long, Derek. She needs time, and we can't
begrudge her that.
Or
push her.”

Kat
had killed to protect the man she loved. Derek had killed to protect
Nick and her family, but he'd won, and had the woman who made
the fight worth it. Kat had nothing to show for what she'd done
but heartache and a man who couldn't bring himself to see her.
If he'd fought a challenge and had lost Nick anyway...

His
throat felt tight. “Time,” he agreed gruffly. “I
can give her that. As much as she needs.”

“
Yeah.”
Nick laid her head on his shoulder. “This is a start. We're
not right next door anymore, but we're still here for her.”

We.
God, he loved that word. Loved knowing that Nick would take care of
Kat as surely as he'd fight for Michelle. The truest kind of
comfort, having someone he could trust with the people most important
to him. “When I left, she was teaching your sister about laptop
motherboards.”

“
She
was
not
.”

“
She
must have had the screwdriver in her back pocket or something. Pieces
of Michelle's computer are all over the table.”

Nick's
soft laugh tickled his skin, a precursor to the gentle scrape of her
teeth. “How long do you think it'll keep them occupied?”

Over
a month with her in his bed, and the barest touch still stirred him.
“Not nearly long enough for everything I want to do with you.”

“
Obviously,
you should make a list and start prioritizing.” She laughed
again. “I'm way ahead of you on that, because there's
one thing I want to do more than anything else.”

She
kissed him, not an easy peck or a slow exploration, but a kiss
blazing with a need that took him back to the earliest days, when
instinct rode every touch and the mating urge boiled over without
warning, leaving them helpless in the grip of desire.

Not
so different than how it felt as he groaned and eased her higher,
lips parting over hers. Except it wasn't just the mating
instinct now, but also affection and love, which magnified every
touch until she threw her head back with a shaky groan.

“
We
have to go back,” she muttered. “And if we don't go
now, we
won't
.
I swear to God, I'll tie you to the bed and keep you there for
a week.”

Derek
eased her to the ground, not because her idea didn't sound
good, but because it sounded damn good—and now wasn't the
time to give in to temptation. “I'm taking the SUV into
town tomorrow so Kat can do some shopping. Do you need anything while
we're there?”

“
Can
you pick something up for me at the post office?”

“
Sure.”
See? He could talk to her. Have nice, easy discussions where no one's
pants came off. So what if he had to take a step back to make sure it
stayed that way? “Did you order something?”

“
Mmm,
sort of. It'll be addressed to you, but don't open it.”
She smiled, the expression tinged with nervousness. “It's
your Christmas gift.”

“
How
mysterious.” He chanced another kiss, a quick peck this time,
and jerked his head toward the door. “Come on, let's go
save your sister and the rest of the electronics.”

*
* *

“
Shit.”
Nick snatched back her hand and examined her fingers. That was the
third time she'd almost sliced off her fingernail with the gift
wrap cutter. “Do you know how to work this thing? I'm
going to lose a digit.”

“
Here.”
Michelle held out her hand without looking, most of her attention on
the perfectly wrapped gift in front of her. “I did this every
year, you know. Wrapped dozens of gifts.”

“
Yeah?”

“
Mm-hmm.”
After depositing the cutter next to her growing stack of presents,
Michelle flipped the current gift over and reached for a length of
wide ribbon. “I bought presents for all of the people directly
under the Alpha's offices. Spouses and children, too, for the
ones we worked with a lot.”

Nick
had always bought people fruit-of-the-month subscriptions or arranged
for gift baskets. “I'm bad at this holiday stuff.”

“
No,
you're not.” With deft movements, her sister wound the
ribbon around the flat box and tied it, leaving two trailing ends. It
looked like something she'd done often enough to relegate the
movements to absentminded habit. “I always overdid it a little
because it was one of the few things I
could
do. Shop online, wrap everything in the penthouse. It was my quiet,
silly rebellion—giving the secretary's son an iPod
because they never paid her enough to be able to afford one.”

“
It
doesn't sound silly at all.” Nick picked up a small box
and twirled it between her hands. “Together, we can knock this
stuff out. You're good at presents, and I'm good at
parties. We've got it handled.”

“
The
best Christmas ever,” Michelle agreed. She finished the bow and
twisted in her chair. “Except...I don't know what to give
Luciano. It's all so...” She trailed off.

Marriages
of convenience had to be sticky under the best of circumstances, and
this was much, much more complicated. “Do you want to give him
something?” Nick asked carefully.

“
It's
the right thing to do.”

“
I
didn't ask that. I asked if you
wanted
to.”

Michelle's
hand dropped to her abdomen, where a loose sweater still managed to
hide signs of her pregnancy. “Yes. And no.”

There
were no guidelines here, and Emily Post had never written about what
to do in a situation like Michelle's. “You just have to
do what feels right, honey. The most right, anyway, whatever that
ends up being.”