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Abigail frowned up at the decorative faux window framing the ordering counter. It was too high for her to reach on her own and the shop’s tiny step stool brought her only a few steps closer to the cutesy frame. There was only one solution remaining and Miranda would scold her soundly if she caught her.
With a cautionary glance toward the kitchen door, Abigail pushed herself up onto the counter top, slid her legs underneath herself and slowly, with only a few wobbles, rose to stand. The wooden frame was now at eye level and she could easily pin the string of Christmas lights to it, if only she hadn’t left the damned pins sitting next to the cash register.
She took a deep breath and dipped low enough to grasp the little box of pins. Pleased with her progress, she popped back up.
Big mistake. Huge.
The little uncertain wobbles she’d battled before turned into one large wobble. Time slowed down. Miranda would kill her if she didn’t die from toppling backward onto the wood floor. With any luck, that stomach-dropping sensation meant she’d faint before cracking her head open.
Her right foot left the counter top, her arms flailed uselessly, and she felt herself go weightless. This was it. What a horribly embarrassing way to die. Or end up in a coma. Hard to say which option was worse.
To her shock, her weight stopped mid-air. A pair of impossibly large hands stopped her, then a pair of impossibly strong arms encircled her waist and lowered her gently to the floor. Still off balance, her back tottered against a hard wall of muscle and heavy fabric.
Oh thank God, she thought, one of the Marines has caught me.
Working at the naval base’s coffee shop came with many benefits, including but certainly not limited to a steady stream of strapping young men and women, all too ready to rescue a damsel in distress. Abigail seldom fancied herself a damsel - just a university student with big, Christiane Amanpour-sized dreams - but in this moment she’d been foolish enough to earn the damsel title.
Abigail turned to thank her savior, but the words stalled in her throat.
Bones, or Captain Cantankerous, as she liked to call him, stared down at her with those obnoxiously blue eyes, face knitted in concern. Or probably judgment. It wasn’t fair that such a handsome man be so hostile.
“What were you thinking?”
Ah, there it was, the judgment.
Abigail straightened and pushed herself away with more effort than she cared to admit. It was one thing to know the man was a solid mass of muscle and smelled positively delicious, something entirely else to know.
“I’m quite alright, thank you.” She tugged her apron back to its place and stomped behind the counter. “The usual?”
The man ordered the same damn thing every time he came in: quad-shot redeye, black, large, please. As often as he came in asking for this abomination of a beverage, it was a medical wonder he wasn’t dead.
Bones closed his eyes and seemed to count to three before opening them again, his expression remarkably softer. “I’m sorry. Are you alright?”
His genuine concern, after so many months of brutal disinterest, jarred her. Instead of slamming the pin box down as she intended, she set it next to the register and took a deep breath. “I’m fine, thank you. I...I guess I’m lucky you were here.”
“Yes, you are.” He slammed his mouth shut then, shock of shocks, his lips quirked into what might have been an abashed smile. He glanced up at the frame, then around the shop at the meager decorations Abigail had thus far managed to put up. “Decorating?”
“Well, it is Christmas.” Now it was her turn to bite her lip. “Yes, Miranda asked me-”
“Mrs. Hamilton?”
That was interesting. The man paid attention. “Yes, she asked me to make the place more festive.”
Bones had the distinctive green beret of special forces tucked into his belt. It drew attention to a trim waist offset by broad shoulders. Stop it, woman, she mentally smacked herself. Abigail wondered if he was in the same unit as James. She never asked because one simply didn’t ask such questions of special forces types. Though, they were on the same base and he only appeared when Miranda’s other husband did, it stood to reason they might at least know each other.
The decorations she had managed to put up sat at her height, but the coffee shop needed more. Abigail had envisioned lights around the whole cafe, but without a ladder she was sorely under-qualified for the task. Bones, however, towered over her, and most people in general. He would have no problem, but that meant asking for his help. Perish the thought.
“Do you need a hand?” His voice rumbled a deep baritone she felt in her skin, her muscles, her traitorous nether regions. He’s a knob, she reminded herself, a rude, sullen, nearly silent knob.
Abigail cleared her throat lest her voice betray her body’s reaction. “No, thank you. There’s a ladder in the back,” she lied, “I was just too lazy to get it. Your usual?”
The corners of his eyes narrowed enough to let her know he didn’t believe her, but wasn’t going to argue. “Yes, please.”
Abigail punched the order into the register and whirled back to the espresso machine. He always paid in cash and this gave her something to think about - and look at - that wasn’t the obnoxiously sexy grumpasaurus who came in so often.
At nearly 8 p.m., she shouldn’t have been surprised that Miranda already cleared the coffee station, yet here she was; surprised and as grumpy as her customer. Abigail inhaled slowly through her nose and exhaled. There was surely a carafe in the back Miranda hadn’t gotten to yet.
Miranda jumped when Abigail burst through the kitchen door.
“You haven’t-oh good,” Abigail breathed a huge sigh of relief. The last carafe still sat at the rear of the dish pile. It was probably even still hot. At Miranda’s raised eyebrow, Abigail explained, “Bones is here. The usual, please.”
Miranda tugged her rubber gloves and stepped away from the sink. “Bones is here, that means…” a dreamy smile formed, then wiped away in favor of bemused suspicion. “What is that tone for? Bones is a sweetheart.”
Abigail balked. “A sweetheart? Hardly. He barely looks at me except to order. Large quad-shot, redeye, black,” she mimicked his deep voice to comical effect. At least it made Miranda chuckle. “I’ve been here for six months and he is the only Marine who talks to me like that.”
“They’re not Marine Commandos.” Miranda removed her apron and smoothed her hair. “They’re SBS, Special Boat Service. Technically, they can be recruited from any branch, though I do believe they pulled Bones from the Commandos.”
She’d grown up around the Royal Navy long enough to know what that meant, she’d just assumed the green beret meant they were Marine Commandos. The SBS was a different animal.
“Well,” Abigail struggled to regain her footing, “regardless, he’s rude.”
“What do you mean, ‘rude’?” Miranda settled her hip against the counter, arms crossed, with that damnable patient expression of a mother waiting for a belligerent teen to ‘fess up.
“He’s…” Abigail wrinkled her nose, “he barely even looks at me. He barges in here, barks his order, that is when he isn’t mumbling, then takes up a table until closing drinking that god awful sludge…”
Miranda snorted. The most refined lady Abigail knew snorted, then dissolved into laughter.
“Let me put it to you this way,” Miranda said, “he works with James and whenever they aren’t off on training or a deployment, that man is in here every single time you’re working. Only when you’re working.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m going to let you close up tonight so I can spend the evening with my boys. God only knows how long Thomas has had him all to himself. Don’t be so hard on the lad.” Miranda laughed and waved her way out the back door without another word.
Abigail was left dumbfounded with her hands on a slowly cooling carafe. She took it and backed her way through the swinging door to an even more surprising situation: Bones was stretching his arms up to his full height, pinning the lights up around the register window just how she’d imagined them.
It was perfect.
Her mouth ran dry. This was possibly kinder than catching her before free-falling to the floor, at least to her. Abigail hurried to finish his drink, but the coffee was already too cool for her satisfaction.
“I might have to microwave this.”
“That’s fine.” He kept right on stringing lights, all long limbs and dexterity she’d never share.
She finished the drink in a daze, Miranda’s words and Billy’s Christmas decorating threw a wrench into the uniquely satisfying image she had of him as a confirmed knob. It was much, much easier to deal with finding him unbearably attractive when she thought he was just another good looking prat.
Abigail scribbled Bones on the sleeve and pushed the cup across the counter just in time for him to plug in the lights. The twinkling reds, greens, and whites were magic.
He frowned at the cup. “It’s Billy. Just Billy.”
Billy. So personal. She swallowed, her throat drier than ever, and stepped around the counter. “Billy,” She tested his name on her lips and found she liked it. The lights were so perfect her heart swelled. “Thank you for this. It looks brilliant.” Understatement.
“Yes, it does.”
Abigail tore her eyes off the little display and found him looking right at her, an unguarded warmth coloring the hard planes of his face. Scruff lined his jaw, framing his full lips. It wasn’t fair that a man should have such blue eyes, those long lashes, and full lips altogether. If he let her put mascara on him, he’d be unstoppable. He swallowed, sending his Adam’s apple on a journey that shouldn’t have been nearly as sexy as it was. All that and a sexy throat? Maybe she was ovulating. Yes, Abigail decided, she was ovulating and her hormones were in overdrive, because there was no earthly reason why she should notice such things. There had to be a hormonal explanation for this break from sanity.
“Is there more?” He cleared his throat and cast his gaze around the cafe, assessing what was painfully obvious: she’d only decorated what she could reach.
There were more lights in Miranda’s office. A lot more. And garland, among other items. “Well,” she trailed off and chewed her lower lip.
Billy’s eyes twinkled - they actually twinkled - at her. “Go get it.” He winked, so quickly she might have dreamed it, but the handsome bastard actually winked at her.
Damned if she wasn’t trotting to the office without another word. She returned with the large plastic tote of holiday trimmings and together they set to work turning Miranda’s shop into a winter wonderland.
They worked side by side, speaking only about the best placement for the lights, the garland, festive stars and Santa's, and all manner of childish nonsense. It gradually occurred to her that he must find this ridiculous. Embarrassment prickled her skin until she was so anxious for him to leave and pretend none of this ever happened, her palms broke out in a sweat.
Billy stepped off the chair to survey his work. All the windows were framed in twinkling lights and together they just finished stringing garland around the entire room. He folded those big arms, pursed his lips, and said, “Not bad for my first time.”
“First time?”
“Yes, I am a Christmas virgin.” He said it with such somber sincerity, Abigail didn’t realize she was being teased until his face broke into a dazzling grin.
A giggle bubbled out of her, then he joined with a few deep, throaty chuckles.
“Do you mean you’ve never celebrated Christmas?”
He shook his head. “No, well, I’ve gone to a few Christmas Eve dinners, but that’s about it. My parents were academics, always too wrapped up in some research project or lobbying for grants to fuss with it. And, you know, Christmas in the barracks is mostly drinking and at least one guy running around in nothing but pants and a Santa hat. Gets weird.”
The image of Billy - serious, quiet, super-secret-Special-Boat-Service Billy - goofing off in nothing but briefs and a Santa hat was enough to make her head explode. The mischievous gleam in his eyes told her he had definitely done this at least once or twice.
Oh, dear. Heat flamed in her cheeks. She rushed to put the plastic bin away before he could guess the freight train of her thoughts.
“That just won’t do, Mr. Bones,” she began to prattle away in an overly bright voice. “We’ll just have to see to it that you get a proper holiday. There’s a parade of lights next weekend, and ice skating, sledding, and caroling, and - oh! There’s a lovely plant nursery that decorates their whole garden. They serve hot toddies and it’s just wonderful.”
He followed from a safe distance while she stowed the bin and rambled like an idiot. “Sounds good, but I’ll probably look a bit odd doing all this alone.”
“Nonsense! I’ll be with you.”
Billy arched a brow.
“...And I’m sure the Hamilton's and Captain McGraw would love for you to join us.” Whew, that was a close one, Abigail.
Both eyebrows went up. “I doubt Captain McGraw would love spending his liberty with one of his corporals.”
“Well, we’ll just have to figure something out.” Abigail folded her apron over her purse and tried desperately to steer the conversation in a direction that didn’t involve her asking Billy on a date after having exactly one pleasant conversation with him.
There was one more item left to hang sitting in one of the coolers, but the course of their conversation made her hesitate. At this rate, he was liable to believe she was some kind of uniform-chasing husband hunter.
Silence stretched between them. Billy ran his hand over his close-cropped hair and cleared his throat. “I meant to do this a while ago, but I want to apologize. I know I’ve been...”
“Surly?” Abigail offered, with only a dash of light mockery.
He broke into a light chuckle. “Yes, that. I guess I was nervous, then I didn’t want to be that creepy bloke who flirts with the nice lady whose job it is to be nice to me.”
It was an evening for wonders, apparently.
“So, you thought it was better to just keep coming in, grunting your mildly insane coffee order at me, and lurking in the corner table with a book?” Abigail had to bite her lip to hide her smile.
Billy opened and shut his mouth, then shrugged. “When you put it that way, I’m definitely an idiot. I’m sorry.”
The intensity of his gaze did funny things to her belly. She pushed her dark hair behind her ear and fussed with the hem of her work polo. “You’re forgiven. I’m not sure what you’d have to be nervous about in here, though. This must be terribly mundane to you.”
“Peaceful’s not the same as mundane.” His voice dropped to a pleasant, low rumble. “You’ve never been mundane.”
The air grew thick in the warm, festive coffee shop. What would Miranda do, she wondered. Be bold.
“There is one more thing I’d like to hang.”
He blinked at her change of topic, but recovered himself enough to at least feign interest in what she fetched from the small refrigerator.
She tugged a chair to the front door. Realizing what she intended Billy stepped forward and reached for the small plastic container in her hands. “I can-”
“No!” Abigail pulled it away before he could take it. “I want to put this one up.”
She discarded the plastic box and clambered onto the chair with a fresh sprig of mistletoe in her hand. An ancient nail poked out from the center of door frame where they usually hung up one of Miranda’s myriad holiday decorations. She looped the mistletoe’s ribbon around the nail and leaned back to inspect her work. Yes, the shop was officially perfect.
At this height, she was a head taller than Billy, a wondrous experience in and of itself. He stood almost unbearably close, ready to wrap his arms around her should she further demonstrate her graceful prowess. His tongue darted out to wet his lips and it dawned on her that they now stood under the mistletoe together. It hadn’t escaped his attention either, by the way he drew imperceptibly closer. His hands came up to her waist, presumably to help her down, but neither of them moved.
“Happy Christmas, Abigail.”
“Happy Christmas, Billy.”
Instead of stepping off the chair, Abigail leaned forward and brushed a feather-lite kiss on his cheek. Something so innocent shouldn’t have lit up her nerves like a Christmas tree, but the stubble beneath her lips and the warm, woodsy scent clinging to his skin were so masculine, so foreign to her quiet, bookish life, they set off a keen feminine awareness in her.
Abigail went through life with meticulous plans, so when she turned her cheek against his and their noses brushed, she surrendered to a wild impulse. Her body hummed with a need she seldom, if ever, experienced. They froze, watching each other with equal parts want and question, neither sure who should, or would, make the next move. Billy must have seen the answer in her eyes. He leaned his face up and their lips finally met.
He kissed her slow, gentle, even a little cautious. In Abigail’s limited experience working on this base, Marines, Commandos, and sailors were bombastic personalities, bold to a fault, but not Billy. Billy, the giant special forces sailor who looked like he bench pressed small cars to stay fit, kissed her with an exquisite tenderness that left her weak in the knees.
Billy’s hands tightened on her waist and lowered her to the floor, gently easing their lips apart. He brushed the calloused pad of his thumb over her cheek and she could feel his heart hammering beneath where her hands rested on his chest.
“Sorry, I-”
“Don’t you dare apologize,” Abigail interrupted. “Besides,” she sheepishly tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, “I’m pretty sure I started that.”
He took a reluctant step back and cleared his throat. “Let me try this again. Would you like to grab a hot toddy and walk around a bunch of lighted trees with me?”
Now it was Abigail’s turn to grin. Captain Cantankerous had turned out to be something else entirely. She couldn’t wait to see what happened next.
“That sounds lovely.”