Sherelle Green - Wrapped In Red - Mistletoe Mantra / White Hot Holiday

“Look, I get it. You like to do everything on your own. But help from a local can’t be a bad thing.”

“I don’t want to keep you from anything. I’d feel terrible. And it’s the holiday. I’m sure you have family obligations. A girlfriend. Somebody is going to need you. I got this.”

His breathing slowed. Did she just ask if he had a girlfriend? “Right now you need me. Family is fine and no girlfriend. Why can’t you just accept help?”

She ducked her head. “I guess I’ve never been very good at it. I’d rather count on myself.”

Only with a Herculean effort did he manage to keep his gaze from flickering to her chest. “Can’t have that, now, can we? Besides, my mother and Jilly would have my hide if I didn’t help you. You’re practically family.” Shit, way to put it out there .

She blinked, then again. “Uh, whatever the reason, I appreciate it. And any return favor, just name it.”

“Am I taking you to your parents’ house?”

She shook her head vehemently. “God, no. I haven’t seen either of them in a year, and birthday conversations were awkward enough without me being under their roof. Besides, I’m not staying for the holidays, so there’s really no point of letting them know I’m here.”

“So where to, if not your parents’?”

“Resplendence Inn,” she said absently.

She was staying there? That was the most expensive hotel in town. Vacationing celebrities looking for a Norman Rockwell Christmas had put Faith on the map. The town had become a booming tourist destination, and with that had come development. Resplendence was one of the newer boutique hotels. “Nice place.”

She shrugged. “The magazine booked it.”

“So what exactly do you want Nolan Polk for?”

Her morose mood lifted the second she started talking about her job. “ Sassy magazine is having their twentieth-anniversary issue and we’re doing a women in beauty spread. But not like the usual bullshit stuff that the other magazines do featuring photoshopped celebrities who don’t even look like that. Or just the western aesthetic. We wanted to capture real women around the world. This Polk guy, you should see his work. He does the most moving and intimate candid portraits. I think you’d like his stuff. You used to be into photography, if I remember correctly?”

Used to. “Yeah. I dabbled.”

She narrowed her gaze. “You more than dabbled, from what I remember. Didn’t you win a competition or two? I always thought you’d leave here and travel the world with your pictures.”

And he had. Or at least that was before he’d had his heart ripped out and come home to lick his wounds. “Well, funny thing is, there is no place like home.” The last thing he wanted was for her to dig further about him, so he changed the subject. “So what’s going on? You lost your artist?”

“I didn’t lose him, exactly. He just doesn’t want to be found. Little does he know I don’t give up on anything. Ever. And I need to find him before Amber does. If she finds him first and convinces him to give her a photo, then she gets my promotion.”

“Who’s Amber?”

“My nemesis who works at the magazine. She’s in town looking for Nolan, too, and she’s had a head start.”

Damn, there was someone else looking for him? How was he supposed to keep two of them at bay? “So, what? You plan on finding him and convincing him to be part of this spread?”

“Short answer, yes. But more than that, I feel like I get him. I wish I could explain, but his photos, they do something to me. They make me feel something. I want him to know I understand him and that Sassy isn’t going to exploit his work. I’m hoping that appeals to him. My job depends on it.”

“You do have this way of manifesting what you want. I mean, look at you. You always talked about working for a fancy magazine. And now you are.”

Her gaze narrowed. “You remember that?”

“Just because you barely noticed me doesn’t mean I didn’t notice you.” He pulled into the hotel’s parking lot in front of the valet stand. Not giving her a chance to respond, he was out of the car quickly, pulling her luggage out of the trunk and beating the valet to her door to open it. He needed to stop blurting things out around her.

She accepted his proffered hand. “Thanks, Linc. I have it from here.”

Yeah, he should probably just head home, but he wasn’t ready to say good-night yet. “If it’s just the same, I’ll make sure you’re settled in. Jilly would have my head if I didn’t.”

She silently studied him for a minute, then her gaze shifted to his mouth. Linc’s heart tripped into full gallop. With their breath lingering between them in puffs of visible air, his blood hummed just under his skin. But then her gaze shifted away and the moment was gone.

He led her inside to the lobby and she shifted from foot to foot in her boots. “I don’t even have the words to thank you.”

“It was just a pickup from the train station. No big deal.”

She winced. “Well, and helping me find Nolan Polk. I owe you.”

Cocking his head, he said, “Let me just add that to your tab.”

At check-in, she gave her name and the desk agent searched for her name. He took that time to drink in his fill of Nomi. Sure, he’d be seeing her a lot over the next couple of days, but he wanted the unfiltered Nomi, who didn’t have her walls up.

“I’m sorry, Miss Adams, but your reservation was cancelled.”

Nomi’s head snapped up and she glared at the registration attendant. “Please check again. It was booked by Sassy magazine.”

“I have, ma’am, and we have one reservation under that booking. A Miss Amber Divine. Your reservation was cancelled. This evening around four.”

Nomi shook her head. “That’s insane. I was on a flight at that time. Fine. Whatever, just rebook me.” She clamped her hands together on the counter; she was the picture of calm, but he could sense the heat coming off her body.

“I’m sorry, we gave the reservation away.”

“Excuse me—”

Linc placed a hand at the small of her back and her jaw snapped shut. Glancing at the attendant’s name, he smiled, calling up whatever Porter charm he’d been blessed with. “Karen. I hope you realize the error you’ve made. Miss Adams is a guest of my family. Senator Porter would be disappointed if you couldn’t resolve this problem. There must be something you can do.”

Karen blinked rapidly. “Of—of course, Mr. Porter.” But after another check through the VIP rooms, nothing was available.

Nomi hung her head. “I’ll need to get a hold of Amber and room with her.”

“No. You won’t. I have another idea. Come with me,” Linc said.

“Where are we going?”

“Trust me. I know of somewhere better than the Resplendence Inn.”

“And you think they’ll have rooms days before Christmas?”

“I can guarantee it.”

Thirty minutes later, she was standing in the middle of one of the guesthouses on his family’s property. “Linc, I don’t even know what to say. You’re really going above and beyond with this whole white-knight thing.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. The smile she gave him was reminiscent of seventeen-year-old Nomi. There was no way he’d crack that shell if she left in a couple of days. He wanted to spend some time with her. “I know you said you’d owe me.”

“Anything. If I have the power to give it to you, it’s yours.”

Oh boy . His brain conjured up images of her twined around his body naked in front of a fire, and he had to shake his head to get rid of the imagery that would likely drive him insane for weeks. “Go with me to Brad Lennox’s wedding on New Year’s Eve.”