Page 6 of This Christmas

“If you climb under the covers and…” Charlotte stopped bouncing and got under the covers to wait for the next instruction. “And you don’t complain about not having a TV in the room the entire stay here.”

Her daughter rolled her eyes but nodded.

She walked across the hallway and took out the old guitar she’d bought the previous summer. She had always wanted to learn how to play. She was still struggling with it, but was far better than when she had started. Sitting on the side of the bed, she tuned it before starting Charlotte’s favorite, a Taylor Swift song.

Before the end of the second song, her daughter was fast asleep.

As she walked back into the room that would be hers for the next few months, doubt crept in. Was moving here really the right decision? What would she do when Ted eventually found them? Because he would, it was only a matter of time. She’d even had to give his lawyers her new address so the small child support checks he was legally obligated to send her could keep coming. The irony wasn’t lost on her. Ted had once paid a nanny twice as much to watch Charlotte while she was in the hospital, yet she’d had to fight for nearly two years to get those meager monthly payments.

What sort of problems was he going to cause for them now?

For now, she had to find a job and secure a place for them to live once Max and Juliette came back home.

A job, she knew, would be easy enough. After all, for the past few years she’d been waitressing at some of the best places in Portland.

Besides, Nate and Faye owned the local book shop slash coffee bar in town, the Brew-Ha-Ha. Nate had already offered her a job, which she had told him she would take if she couldn’t find anything else.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she felt a shiver race over her spine. Pulling on her pajamas, she gave up trying to pretend she would be sleeping in the bed alone and crawled into bed with Charlotte, pulling her daughter into her arms and falling fast asleep.

Chapter Two

Joe watched the lights turn off in the massive place and noted the time. Eight o’clock sharp. The woman was, if anything, punctual.

He’d been on the job for four weeks now, and, even though she’d packed up her car and moved to Pride, Oregon, a small town with about ten thousand people in it, she hadn’t missed a beat.

He knew the massive lighthouse and the home attached to it belonged to her brother, Max Wilson, the famous screenwriter who’d had more blockbuster hits in the past five years than anyone else in Hollywood. He also knew that Max and his wife, Juliette, were in South America for the next few months.

He suspected that Ally Wilson, the woman he’d been hired to watch twenty-four seven, was house sitting with her daughter, five-year-old Charlotte.

He’d been hired by her ex-husband, Ted Garrison, district attorney in Portland. Ted had more power in the city than, well, anyone else he’d worked for in the past two years.

Joe had all sorts of skills that helped him in this job. He was ex-military, and after his service he’d done what all his buddies had done—he’d joined the local police force. Moving back to his hometown of Portland hadn’t really been a hardship, not when Lisa had been waiting for him all those years. Marriage, kids—he’d hoped for all that with her. Instead, a drunk asshole had taken all those plans away one night as Lisa drove home from her job at the hair salon.

After watching the SOB who had killed his dreams walk free thanks to a technicality, his taste for protecting and serving had gone sour.

So now, he found himself photographing and cataloging the scums of the world, in hopes that they’d get what they deserved.

But something ate at him and told him there was more to this job. The couple, Ally and Ted Garrison, had been divorced for almost five years. When he’d asked if the man had hired other PIs to watch his wife in hopes of winning back full custody of their daughter, the guy had acted… pissed.

Joe leaned back in his warm car and set his camera down on the passenger seat. He rubbed a hand over his jaw. The night air off the coast was damp and cold, and it carried the faint cry of gulls even after sunset. He’d been parked long enough that his legs itched to move, but he wasn’t ready to leave just yet. Habit kept him planted.

Normally, he’d just watch until the lights went out, document the pattern so there would be no surprises.

Still, his mind drifted back to that first meeting with Ted Garrison.

The district attorney’s office had smelled like old leather and power. Ted had kept Joe waiting for twenty minutes, which told him plenty about the man right off the bat. When Ted finally strolled in, he’d been dressed in an expensive suit that was expertly pressed. Even the man’s tie was perfect. He had thinning brown hair, glasses with thin wire frames, and cold eyes. His smile had been more shark-like than human.

The millions his family had given him as seed starter when he’d graduated from college had gotten him far over the years.

Joe had looked into the man when he’d called for a consultation.

“You’re ex-military,” Ted had said, flipping Joe’s résumé across the desk like it didn’t matter. “So you know how to follow orders.”

Joe had nodded and kept his tone even. “I know how to do my job. You want surveillance, you’ll get surveillance. But you’ve had custody hearings before. If your ex-wife hasn’t slipped yet, odds are she won’t.”

The shift in Ted’s expression had been instant. His jaw ticked as his eyes grew cold. He leaned forward, his voice sharp as glass. “Don’t ever tell me what my wife will or won’t do. She’s unstable. She always has been. And I don’t hire people who doubt me.”

Joe had held his ground, though every instinct told him this was the kind of man who would destroy a career, or worse, without blinking.