Merry and Bright(27)

“Wait.” Tim was staring at the vial.

Maggie froze. Obviously, the color was off, and he knew it. She locked gazes with him, holding her breath.

“You had a lot left,” he finally said.

“Yeah. I did.” Crap. Maggie turned to Alice. “You know how illegal this is, right?”

“Yes, because waving a gun in your face isn’t illegal at all.” Alice jammed the vial into her pocket and pulled out a fistful of cuff ties from her other. “Look, I’m sorry, all right?” She cuffed Scott to his filing cabinet and Tim to the desk. Then she came up to Maggie and Jacob, and after a hesitation, hooked them together. “For you,” she whispered to Maggie. “Because he looks to be a keeper, someone you’d never need this lotion for.”

Jacob didn’t say a word but there was a muscle ticking in his jaw.

“Don’t do this, Alice,” Maggie begged her. “It’s not too late to—” She broke off when Jacob jerked his arm—and therefore hers as well—hitting the button on Tim’s desk that activated the magnetic couch.

The couch shot straight up from the floor, coming to a hover about two feet above the carpet, causing a handful of objects to instantaneously fly through the air as if hurled by a slingshot—like Scott’s phone, which nearly hit Tim, and . . . the gun, which was yanked right out of Alice’s hands.

It slapped hard to the couch and stuck there.

“Dammit!” Alice yelled as Tim used his leg to trip her to the floor. Still attached to the filing cabinet, he slid down and sat on her.

“Hey!” she yelled, struggling. “I’ll sue you for sexual harassment!”

“I’m gay,” Tim informed her dryly. “I’m more likely to sexually harass Maggie’s hottie than you, trust me.”

Maggie stared at her “hottie”—the one who loved her—her free hand clutching her heart, because it had only just now started beating again. “Did you did mean it?”

Jacob’s eyes softened, and some of the tenseness left his body as he lifted his free hand and cupped her face. “Yes, I meant it.”

“Oh, God. I love you, too.” Her throat was so tight she could hardly speak. “For so many reasons. You say what you think and you do what you say, and you’ve got more logic and common sense in your pinkie than my last five dates combined.”

“Hey,” Scott said, insulted.

Maggie ignored him. “I think you’re the smartest, funniest, sharpest, smartest man I’ve ever met.”

“I could have said what I thought and what I feel,” Scott muttered to Tim. “I could be solid and loyal.”

Jacob pulled Maggie close. On Scott’s desk, her heart monitor was still going nuts. With her free hand, she pulled the vial Tim had given her out of her pocket and smashed it to the floor. “That was the last of it,” she told her soon to be ex-bosses. “I realize you can make more, but if you do, know this—I’ll turn Data Tech over to the FDA, the DFA, the CIA, and the DEA, and whoever else will listen to me.”

“You’re bluffing,” Tim said. “Your work is your life. And without us, you won’t get funding.”

“I’ll wait for the right funding, I’ll find it eventually.”

“It could take years.”

“Maybe.” She looked at Jacob. “But I’ll wait. My life is no longer just my work.”

His eyes were full of affection and heat, lots of heat. “I like the way you think,” he said, as pounding footsteps came down the hallway just outside the door.

Knowing it had to be the police, Maggie linked her fingers with Jacob’s. “This is going to get messy, and might take some time to sort out. After which, I’m going to be unemployed.” She winced. “Merry Christmas to me.”

“I love messy. And I love you. As for the unemployed at Christmas, don’t worry, I have an in with Santa. Have you been naughty or nice?”

“Nice.”

“Well, we’ll have to work on that,” he murmured, just as the police burst through the door.





It took several hours to sort everything out, but eventually, Alice ended up in jail, Tim and Scott lawyered up, and Maggie and Jacob were free to go. Maggie walked out of the room where she’d been questioned and found Jacob waiting for her.

He looked into her face and slowly held up a little bough of mistletoe over his head.

She couldn’t help but smile when she looked at him. “What’s that?”

“A hint of what I want from you.”

“And after the kiss?”

“More.”

“More?”

“I want it all, Maggie. And I’m hoping you do, too.”

“Yes.” And she walked right into his waiting arms.





BAH, HANDSOME!





1


Outside the weather was as the song went—frightful. Inside, Hope O’Brien looked down at the huge box of Christmas decorations she’d dug out of the cellar of her bed-and-breakfast inn and thought maybe this would be the year that Santa brought her something she needed. Money to meet her bills for the month would be nice, or lacking that, maybe an orgasm.

Yeah, now that would be real nice.