Red-Hot Santa

“Got it.”

Jackson took a deep breath, telling himself he really needed to get a grip. This was Max, for Pete’s sake. It wasn’t like he didn’t know her. And Lord knew he’d never reacted this way toward her before. She was like a sister to him, for crying out loud.

He cleared his throat. Oh, yeah? If she was like a sister, then certain body parts told him what he was contemplating was very, very wrong, indeed.

“Hey, Jax.”

Her greeting nearly caused him to spill the pitcher he’d just filled. He put it on a tray along with the other one.

“Hey,” he said.

He finished the order and Genie picked up the tray. He didn’t miss the long look she gave Max.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, when did you get back into town?” he asked. It couldn’t have been long. He’d have heard something before now. Then he remembered her phone call. “The last I knew, you were kicking around Oregon.”

“Washington.”

He smiled. “Close enough.”

“Yeah.” She pushed up her sleeves, drawing his attention to the too-tight top and the full breasts underneath. Had she always had those? Why hadn’t he noticed before? “I got back late last week.”

“Staying long?”

She tilted her head. “Don’t know yet. Depends …”

He met her gaze, seeing a question in there he didn’t quite know how to interpret. Then again, he was having a hard time reading her tonight, period. Or, rather, he was finding it impossible to read his new, unfamiliar reaction to her.

“On what?”

“On whether or not I can scare up some work. You wouldn’t happen to have a line on anything, would you?”

“What are you looking for?”

“Something I’m qualified for that doesn’t require I learn how to use a beer tap. No offense.”

He grinned. “None taken.” He ignored Chuck’s shout for him to get a move on. “Tonight’s my last night. I start at Pegasus Security tomorrow.”

“Pegasus? Is that Jason’s place?”

It seemed she’d been around long enough to hear what his brother had been up to. Small towns were like that. “No. That’s Lazarus.”

Her full lips twisted a bit, likely seeing more than he was comfortable with just then.

He cleared his throat. “Anyway, Pegasus is actively looking for people with your job skills if you want to check them out.”

“Great. Thanks.”

He found himself staring at her yet again. What was up with him? He hadn’t been this quiet since Jason had tried to superglue his tongue to the roof of his mouth when he was five.

“I was wondering …” she said.

He forced himself to blink up into her eyes. He wondered if she’d caught him staring again at her chest. “Wondering, um, what?”

“Can you give me a ride home later?”

It took a moment for her question to register. The fact that he was trying hard as hell not to look back at her breasts wasn’t helping matters any, either. “Where?”

“My aunt’s.”

He dragged the back of his wrist across his brow. Was he sweating? “You’re staying at your aunt’s?”

She nodded. “She dropped me off, but if you’re going out to your grandmother’s, well, it’d be easier than asking one of the girls to run me all the way back out there.”

He hadn’t planned to go to Gram’s tonight—there was a small apartment above the bar he rented—but the idea of spending uninterrupted time with Max so he could figure out what the hell was going on between them was too tempting to pass up.

“Sure. It’ll probably be late, since I’m closing.”

“That’s fine. I can wait.” She smiled that smile again and his jeans tightened. He adjusted the suspenders, happy for the first time that night to be wearing the blasted, baggy Santa pants. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

“Talk to you later, then.”

“Yeah … later.”

His response came after she’d already turned to walk back to her table, the view of her backside just as enticing as the view of her front.

There was chuckling down the bar. He glanced over at Winston and Pete.

“Hey, Jax,” they called out. “You finally going to take care of that little problem?”

They both gave him a thumbs-up as he turned to walk down to the other end of the bar where there were other customers waiting to be served …

2

MAXINE ENJOYED CATCHING UP with her old girlfriends from high school. She might be as different as light and shadow from them, but she was pleasantly surprised they were connected in a comforting way. She’d spent so much time fraternizing with the guys in recent years—partly because she’d believed them easier to be around, mostly because as a female in the military, guys were what you tended to be around most—she’d forgotten how nice it was to have a drink with girlfriends.

Patience Saunders had been a varsity football cheerleader and an unlikely but fun friend. Her athletic ability had extended beyond short skirts and pom-poms so she and Max had participated in many of the same sports. Max wasn’t surprised she was now a Phys Ed teacher at the same grammar school they’d once attended … or that she was married with two kids under two.

Julie and Jae Jennings were identical twins but had gone out of their way to disguise that fact even when their mother had tried to dress them alike as kids. When Jae had stumbled across goth fashion, she’d latched on to it tightly, and even now favored black nail polish and hinted at body piercings beyond the one visible on her left nostril.

Still, as much as Max was enjoying catching up with them, her gaze endlessly trailed to the man behind the bar, noting how’d he changed … and how her feelings had stayed the same.

“God, Jax is still as hot as he was in high school, isn’t he?” Patience said with a sigh, propping her chin in her palm as she watched the man in question.

“Is he ever,” Julie echoed.

Jae gave an eye roll and downed her third shot of Jaeger. “You guys always were about as subtle as a bulldozer.”