Three the Hard Way (20 page)

Justice and Ian were still asleep. At some point during the night, Tag had gotten up to stretch out on the couch and get some real shut-eye. His queen-sized mattress was fine for three men fucking or two men sleeping, but three men sleeping was definitely a crowd.

Tag slipped into his snow gear and stepped outside into a beautiful day. Yes, it was still dark, but a fresh layer of snow coated everything, wiping out the signs of battle from the day before and turning the place into a Christmas dream.

It was also thirty below, and he was going to freeze if he didn’t hurry.

Quickly, he grabbed the ax from the shed and snowshoed about thirty yards away, to the tree he knew wanted to come home with him. Somehow it had survived being shredded by bullets or charred by missiles or the helicopter crash, but not everything had been so lucky. Before Dev and his team had finally cleared out, he’d promised to send a crew to clean up.

He’d also formally offered both Tag and Ian a job.

They’d both accepted, and both had given only one condition. Ian had asked that he be sent only on missions that didn’t require his seduction skills. Those, he whispered to Ian and Tag, were reserved for them, and them alone.

Tag swung the ax at the base of the tree, bracing himself for the impact. He’d done the same when he’d waited for Dev to reply to his demand. Turned out he hadn’t needed to brace for anything. Devlin O’Malley was exactly as Justice had described: firm, but fair.

Tag faced Devlin, but for the first time since the guy had walked through the front door, he faced him with respect, not suspicion. “I don’t want to be a field agent.”

Justice nodded encouragement from where he stood with Ian near the fridge. Ian saluted with a beer bottle. Which reminded Tag that he could really use a cold one.

Dev cocked his head, and Tag suddenly wondered if the guy could read minds. “Is it because you don’t like to use your powers? Because you’d be surprised how many agents come to us with a love/hate relationship with their abilities. We can help.”

Tag slid a glance at Ian, and his heart fluttered with warmth. The man was alive right now because of the ability Tag and Justice had used on him. “Actually, I’m pretty much over that.” He considered his next words carefully, which was pretty much a first for him. “I did what I had to do tonight, but I don’t like to kill. Itor forced me to do it, and I know we’re going to have to talk about that eventually. But I’d like some assurance that I can apply my ability to something other than fighting or undercover work.”

Dev grinned, and suddenly he could see the man and not the person in charge of the most powerful secret agency in the world. “You have no idea how much we can use you in our sciences department.” He paused, his expression going serious but his voice teasing, “After you go through basic training. Something tells me you’ll need to go through the class on understanding the chain of command twice.”

Tag snorted. But the guy was probably right.

Smiling at the memory, he went back to concentrating on Christmas, and twenty minutes later, he was inside the cabin again, inhaling the aroma of the coffee and cinnamon rolls he’d made before he left. The warmth of the fire thawed him as he used the fireplace poker stand to hold up the tree. He didn’t have ornaments, but he did have a leftover length of LED string lights that the cabin’s builder had used to illuminate the stairs going down to the now-destroyed basement during an emergency.

It didn’t take him long to wrap them around the tree and get them lit up. He took a few more minutes to hide gifts in the branches, and just as he was admiring his work, Ian and Justice emerged from the bedroom, their noses leading them toward the kitchen.

When Justice looked over and saw the tree, he froze.

This was going to be a crapshoot. Until the day their moms died, Justice had loved Christmas. They both had. Their mothers had made sure that even though they didn’t exactly have a traditional family structure, they still celebrated like a family. Justice and his mom always stayed over at Tag’s house on Christmas Eve, and in the morning, Justice’s mom made cinnamon rolls that they scarfed while they opened presents.

So, okay, this wasn’t exactly like when they were kids. The tree was kind of pathetic, there were no wrapped presents, and there was no TV to play
A Christmas Story
in the background. And the longer Justice stood there, staring at the tree like it was an enemy in need of being shot, the more Tag worried that this might have been a really bad idea.

“What the hell is that?” Justice asked as Ian poured coffee for the three of them.

Tag wasn’t going to play that game. “Remember when we found that scraggly stray cat, Lucky? Remember how he was cold and scared, and we brought him home and nursed him back to health?” Tag gestured to the tree. “It was cold and scared, and I brought it in to warm it up.”

“Fuck.” Justice scrubbed a hand over his face. “Tag, I told you—”

“I think it’s awesome.” Ian brought over the coffee and put all three mugs on the coffee table. “And he made cinnamon rolls.”

“Of course he did.”

Tag bit back a grin at Justice’s annoyance. “And there’s more.” He grabbed the blanket off the couch and spread it out on the floor. “Sit.”

Ian shrugged and Justice bitched and moaned, but they obeyed while Tag popped the cork on a bottle of bubbly he’d chilled overnight.

“You’re telling me you just happened to have champagne sitting around in your doomsday shelter?” Justice said.

Tag poured the sparkling wine into three plastic cups. Classy. But hey, he hadn’t exactly planned on entertaining.

“The previous owner said it’s tradition. You keep a bottle of champagne at all times, and you drink it whenever an apocalypse doesn’t happen. You know, the Y2K thing, or the Mayan 2012 thing, or whenever some nut-job decides the Bible says the world is going to end on a certain date.” He handed them each a cup and sank down onto the blanket with them so they formed a three-person circle. “In a way, we did survive an apocalypse. An avalanche. Itor. Each other.” He held up his cup. “And it’s Christmas. We should celebrate.”

“Tag—”

He cut off Justice with a hand on his thigh. “Don’t. Listen to me. What happened four years ago . . . it was the worst day of our lives. It’s tied to Christmas, and I understand that. But our mothers would want us to be happy, and I think we’re honoring their memories by keeping their traditions alive. Christmas is about family. And you two are my family.”

Justice still looked uncertain. But then Ian looked down at his cup. “I’ve never had a Christmas,” he said. “Family get-togethers weren’t really a thing, you know?”

Tag had known that Ian wasn’t big on Christmas, but he’d never gone into detail. It wasn’t that he’d hated it—he’d just seemed ambivalent about it. Now Tag knew why.

“Listen to me,” Tag told them both. “No more bad memories. From now on, we make new ones.”

Justice and Ian exchanged glances. A slow smile turned up Ian’s face, and even Justice’s lips twitched tentatively.

“Yeah,” Justice said softly. “New memories.”

Ian leaned over and kissed Justice. Leaned the other direction and pressed his firm lips to Tag’s. “To new memories,” he murmured.

They raised their cups. “To new memories.”

Grinning, Tag said, “I didn’t have time to shop, what with Itor playing Grinch, but I do have presents for you.”

Justice winced. “I can only imagine.”

“It better not be reindeer jerky or bear sausage or some shit,” Ian muttered.

Taggart laughed. “Nope. Better.” He set aside his cup and reached into the tree branches to pull out a short length of coiled rope. “Justice, this is for you.”

For a moment, Justice stared. Damn, this had backfired . . .

“Shit, Tag, just what I wanted.” His voice had gone dark and smoky . . . and when he looked up, so had his eyes.

Instant. Erection.

“Yo, Santa.” Ian leaned toward Tag again. “Don’t suppose you have a blindfold for me hidden inside your little Charlie Brown tree?”

Damn, he knew these guys well. Tag produced a long scarf and handed it to Ian. “Merry Christmas. Next year I’ll do it right.”

Justice shook his head. “
This
year you did it right.” Going to his hands and knees, he crawled over to Tag and drew him into a deep, powerful kiss. He felt Ian’s hot breath on the back of his neck and his arousal pressing into his spine as they both surrounded him.

This, he thought, was shaping up to be the best Christmas ever.

His mother had always said that Christmas was about family, and somehow, after four years of hell and loneliness, he had one again.

So yeah, best Christmas ever.

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Three the Hard Way
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