Nana Malone - Never Christmas Without You - Just for the Holidays / His Holiday Gift

“Cinnamon bread. Your favorite.”

He couldn’t help but talk around the mouthful. “Grandma, seriously, I don’t know how you do it, but this is amazing.”

His grandmother shook her head. “Wasn’t me. Alex made that.”

Justin coughed. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to swallow the piece now or spit it back out. Thing was, it tasted fine. It wasn’t rock hard; it was soft and warm and moist. Just how he liked it. And it tasted freaking delicious. He opted for swallow.

“Alex made this?”

Alex nodded. “I dunno how it happened, but with your grandmother standing right here, there was no way I wasn’t getting it right. Turns out when she says pinch it’s not an exact science. It’s more like an art. When she explained it like that, it was pretty easy.”

He nodded warily, not sure it was a good idea to take another bite, but his stomach rumbled, begging for more. It was really good.

His grandmother patted him on the back. “And why are you standing up like I didn’t teach you properly? Grab a plate, and coffee and juice. Eggs and pancakes will be out in a moment.”

“Another Alex creation?”

Grandma Lucy shook her head. “Now that I have Marta from the hotel coming on over to cook for everybody, Alex and I got to know each other.” Her smile intensified when she glanced at Alex. “Oh my, I forgot. Justin, I want you to go golfing with Martin today. I think you two can heal your tension. Then when you’re done with that, will you go to LA and check on Alex’s artwork for her? So she doesn’t have to do it herself? You know her nerves.”

Justin looked back and forth between his grandmother and his best friend. And his gaze locked on Alex’s. The crack of a spark was there, just like it had been last night, but today it was worse. He needed to get away from it.

“Okay, I’ll head out there. What time?”

His grandmother grinned. “They started an hour ago.”

Shit. That meant he was late. He grabbed another slice of bread and jogged upstairs to change. When he finally made it up to the golf course, his cousins and uncle were on the fourth hole.

Martin was typically snarky. “Look, the family slacker decided to wake up. It seems the rest of us who aren’t the favorite were up at the crack of dawn.”

“Keep talking, Martin. Grandma’s not here right now, so I will happily break your nose. For the second time.” Justin grinned. He’d been seven when he broke Martin’s nose the first time. Didn’t matter that his cousin was older or bigger than him.

But now Justin had the height and weight advantage. While Martin may have looked similar to him, working out for his cousin consisted of a round on the golf course. Justin wasn’t sure if his cousin had ever run anywhere in his life.

Martin studied him for a moment, unsure if he should take him seriously or not. Try me. There was no way Justin was going to poke at his cousin with his grandmother present, but since Grandma wasn’t here, he was done taking Martin’s insults.

Martin cocked his head and took a step back, conceding the would-have-been fight. “It’s okay, cousin. I mean, I know you probably didn’t get enough sleep, with that hot piece next to you.”

Justin tossed down the five iron he’d picked and got in Martin’s face all close and personal. “What did you say?”

Martin held his hands up. “Sorry. Can’t help it if I notice that your woman is hot. She’s got that sassy thing going for her. I mean honestly, I never thought you were into exotic girls, but man, am I glad you brought her around. Maybe she’s looking for an upgrade.”

If Justin hit him in the face, Grandma Lucy would notice and she’d be upset. As Justin assessed all the points that he could hit on his cousin without his grandmother noticing, his uncle stepped between them. “That’s enough. You two need to stop arguing and learn how to get along.” Uncle Lester wasn’t a bad guy; he was just complacent and let his son have too much freedom.

“Not another word about my girlfriend.” Justin punctuated the point with a glare.

Martin grinned. “That’s fine, I’m happy she’s in my imagination.”

As if Justin would let Martin anywhere near Alex. Luckily for Martin, he narrowly dodged a beat down thanks to an intervention. Justin pulled out his ringing phone and turned his back to his cousin. “Yeah?”

“Justin. Thank God you answered. I didn’t want to disturb Alex. You know how she gets—she’d be freaking out right now.”

“Cassie? Calm down. What’s the matter?”

“The pieces haven’t arrived. No, scratch that. Some of them have arrived. But not all of them. And I watched the guys load the truck myself. Alex is going to kill me. And just when we started to become friends. Oh my God.”

This was so bad. “Cassie, calm down. Were there any other scheduled deliveries for the truck?”

“I was on the phone with the truck delivery people this morning. They’re looking up to see where else the vehicle stopped. But the problem is, I’m here at the gallery and I’ve got maybe two-thirds of the pieces we promised. And I don’t know a way to fix this. Alex put everything that she had at the studio on that truck. I have no contingency if they can’t find the pieces.”

His gut curled in on itself, and the bile rose. Alex had worked so hard for this. She was finally getting the recognition she deserved. She was selling her pieces. This gallery showing was going to open up new opportunities for her. She needed this. “Cassie, calm down. I’m coming. We’ll figure this out together.”

“What about Alex? Will she know there’s a problem?”

“You and I are keeping any problems to ourselves for now. Besides, she asked me to look in on the gallery today anyway.”

He hung up with Cassie and turned on his cousin with a grin. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go save the day for my girlfriend. You should be so lucky.”

Chapter 8

It had been a long time since Justin had been this angry. “What do you mean you don’t know what happened to the pieces?”

He had the owner of the delivery truck shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet as he tried to explain. “Just that. I don’t know what happened. There were two other stops, but things were supposed to be loaded on there, not taken off. I’m trying to figure it out.”

“You need to do more than try. Do you understand how long Alex Winters has been working for this gallery opening?” Instead of shouting, Justin’s voice went deadly soft. Cold. “You may already think yourself a success with your business. She is meant to do so much more than any of us could do. With her work, she brings joy and light to people’s lives. And you want to tell me that you don’t know where those pieces are? Let me tell you how this is going to go. You’re going to get on the phone, and then you’re going to personally go to those other locations and do a full search for those items. And you will have them here for me tomorrow.”

The guy darted a glance to Cassie, and Justin got in his face. “Don’t look at her. Look at me. I’m the one you have to deal with if you can’t perform the simple task of delivering what you were contracted to do.”

The guy nodded vigorously, the sweat beads rolling down his temples. Granted, it was also unseasonably warm for December in Los Angeles, but Justin wasn’t screwing around.

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