Blame It on the Mistletoe Read Online Free PDF

night when he sneaked in her bedroom window, but she had always been Ryan’s little sister, which made her absolutely off limits.
    He thought back to the Brooke he’d encountered tonight, her shoulder-length brunette hair that framed her beautifully expressive face. Her eyes—how had he never noticed her eyes years ago? Probably because they weren’t sending him I-want-to-fuck-you signals like the other girls he spent time with. But thinking of them now, and knowing that someone had hurt her, pissed him off. Royally.
    “Who did it?” Alex pushed for more. It certainly wasn’t any of his damn business, but he needed to know. Ryan sighed, but Alex continued. “A stranger … a boyfriend?”
    “A boyfriend, her ex.”
    Alex’s rage intensified. The idea that someone Brooke had trusted had betrayed her made him ache. No wonder she’d thrown a damn owl at him tonight. She must have been terrified.
    Ryan ran a hand through his hair and went on without any more prompting. “The slimeball motherfucker that she’d been living with in Phoenix. None of us knew him that well which I guess should have been a sign. They met in college, moved in together. They were together a few years. Brooke thought he was her future. I swear to god, when I found out it took all of my control to not just get on the damn highway, drive out there, and kill him.”
    “Why the hell haven’t you? And you’re a cop. Arrest his ass.”
    “Yeah, it’s so damn easy, right?” Ryan was now angry, his words hard. “I’m a small-town cop in the middle of nowhere. Plus, she doesn’t want it, says there is no need to press charges, and is unwilling to even tell me all the details. But I know it had gotten worse there toward the end. She’s in a much better place than she was a year and a half ago. Which is why I want you to keep your distance.”
    Alex worked his jaw back and forth. The car was getting cold inside with the window open. He should crank up the heat, but he suddenly welcomed the discomfort.
    “Do your parents know?”
    “No. Not my choice, though.”
    “What the hell, Ryan?”
    “She begged me not to. You didn’t see her when she came back. I would have done whatever she asked me to just to make her not look so lost. I’m not a complete idiot. Yes, I agreed not to tell them, but in exchange she went to counseling with a lady I know from the department, took six months of self-defense class, and agreed not to move out of Preston for a few years.”
    Alex scoffed at the last one. “For what, so you could babysit her?”
    Ryan gave him an irritated glance. “Yeah, somethin’ like that.”
    “Alright, man. Just so you know, I had no intention of seducing Brooke. I don’t know what you
think
you saw, but I’ll stay away from her.”
    “What I
know
I saw was you looking at her like a piece of candy, don’t try to fucking deny it.” Ryan said in clipped tones. Alex couldn’t deny it. It was the absolute truth. Ryan went on. “But thank you. I appreciate it. I know you’d never hurt a woman…but, I don’t want her heart broken either.”
    “I can respect that. But just so you know, I’m not the same guy I was when I left this town.” Alex looked across the expanse into the police cruiser. Ryan stared at him for a minute, then nodded.
    “Good thing, because you cause trouble in this town these days, and it would be me arresting your sorry ass.”
    They laughed, although both sounded a little strained. “What’s it like being on the right side of the tiny Preston jail cell?”
    “It was weird as hell at first, especially the first time I booked a teenager for some stupid shit, but I got over it. We were such punks back then, we deserved whatever shit we got.”
    “Yeah.” “Punks” didn’t even begin to cover it. “It sure was fun though.”
    “Fun as hell.”
    They were quiet for a moment, neither looking at the other, only the sound of the idling vehicles interrupted occasionally by Ryan’s radio sounding