Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle(36)

My gut knots. “Why don’t I like how that sounds?”

“Heads up: Natalie told Damion that you were in this, too, and that you were going to write a tell-all piece and expose him for what he is.”

“Oh, God. No. It’s a lie.”

“I believe you, and I think he does, too, but he’s had a hell of a day.”

I remember him grabbing my hand and telling me no recordings. He’s going to be suspicious. People have lied to him. I’ve been lied to. I know what that feels like.

“Kali, are you there?”

“Where is he?”

“He left the police station about an hour ago.”

“I have to go.” I hang up and dial Damion. He doesn’t answer. I race for a drawer and rip away my robe and shove on jeans and a tank top, slide on my Keds. I don’t have a car, since I let go of my rental, so I decide to take a cab. I race for the door and stop. Where the heck am I even going? He isn’t at the police station. I dial Dehlia to discover he’s not at the shelter, either.

The door buzzes and opens, and a weary Damion appears, dropping his briefcase on the floor. I launch myself at him and throw my arms around his neck. “I would never write a tell-all about you. I told her I’d investigate before I met you, when she told me a horror story. The minute I met you I knew she was lying. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. And I love you. And I think we should get a house that is a home and get away from work all the time. And—”

He wraps his arm around me and kisses me. “I didn’t believe her.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. I told you. I’m sure of you. Of us, Kali. I love you, too.”

My heart warms. “You do?”

“Yes. I do. And we’ll get a real home on one condition.”

“Condition?”

“That you marry me. Be my wife, and neither of us will ever be alone again.”

My heart swells. “I would be honored to be your wife.”

He scoops me up and carries me to the bed, settles me on the mattress, and then braces his elbows above me. “Happy Thanksgiving, Kali.”

“Happy Thanksgiving, Damion.”





PHOTO: ? DIEGO HARRISON


New York Times and USA Today bestselling author LISA RENEE JONES is the author of the highly acclaimed Inside Out Trilogy, which has been sold to more than twelve countries for translation, with negotiations in process for more; it has now been optioned by STARZ Network for a cable television show, to be produced by Suzanne Todd (Alice in Wonderland).

Since beginning her writing career in 2007, Lisa has published more than thirty books, with publishers such as Simon & Schuster, Avon, Kensington, Harlequin, NAL, Berkley, and Ellora’s Cave, as well as crafted a successful indie career. Booklist says that Jones’s suspense truly sizzles with an energy similar to FBI tales with a paranormal twist by Julie Garwood or Suzanne Brockmann.

Prior to publishing, Lisa owned a multi-state staffing agency that was recognized many times by the Austin Business Journal and also praised by Dallas Women Magazine. In 1998 LRJ was listed as the number-seven growing women-owned business in Entrepreneur magazine.

Lisa loves to hear from her readers. You can reach her through her website, and she is active on Twitter and Facebook daily.





Snowfall


Mary Ann Rivers





For the late, legendary Keith Barnes, who on the first day of Honors Biology my senior year, handed out a huge mimeographed piece of paper with the entire metabolic pathway of glucose in vertebrates and boomed, “There are no secrets here!” You also had poetry on the walls of your classroom, and so I believed you, and there weren’t.





Christmas


This is the time of year we want most to tell the people we love that we’re okay.

I think that’s why we get on ladders and hang lights from the tallest eaves of our houses, from the very tops of trees.

It’s to get some light in front of the darkness, to tell the whole world that we’ve made it, and that these lights, way up here? That’s what we think of the New Year, what’s coming—it’s all going to be light and joy and flame in the blackness and none of us have any reason to be afraid.

All those carols we loved as kids?

Now, they make us cry, because to sing them, to hear them, to pass a flame candle to candle while the lyrics come easy, is to acknowledge everything that has come since childhood.

The darkness and the light.

My favorite holiday is Christmas, mostly because it is the one time of year I come up for air and my mom is always there, waiting for me with a big Frasier fir wrapped in tinsel and lights.

There are always piles of presents and the rule is you can’t get anyone anything they actually need, presents are for the most frivolous wants possible—a subscription to a champagne-of-the-month club, a turquoise pendant carved to look like a frog, a prism to hang from the kitchen window so washing dishes can happen inside a rainbow.

We love Christmas, my mom and I.

We spend it with each other and anyone else we love and can lure with impractical presents, tinsel, and lights into our tiny home. Sometimes there were boyfriends, blushing and overwhelmed. Always, our friends. As often as she could coax them, her parents.