Reaching up, she clasps my hand, holding on as though she never wants to let go. And she never has to. This miracle is going to extend far beyond Christmas.
“And then mom and dad started yelling from downstairs, started going crazy, and I…”
She coughs back a sob.
“It’s okay,” I tell her with a tremble in my voice. “You can talk to me about anything. Always.”
She smiles through the budding tears, looking up at me with glistening eyes. “Even after the holidays are over?”
I smirk. “That’s what always means, my little elf.”
She nods, turns back to the mall and the decorations.
“Men had broken into our house, horrible men. They tied mom and dad up and started torturing them, trying to get information about where the safe was hidden. But we didn’t have a safe. Kenny and I were tied up too, watching them, being forced to watch. I...I’m sorry. I’m jumbling the story up…”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” I snarl firmly. “You never have to be sorry, not with me.”
“It was Terrence and his bikers,” she says, and suddenly everything seems colder, darker, grimmer. “He was the one who pulled the trigger, Nick. I watched him do it. I… I saw it happen. He was never caught, but his face was burned into my memory. I never forgot it.”
She breaks down on the last word, unable to keep going, unable to hold it all inside without letting some of it explode out of her. Her pain twists through me and I reach forward, wrapping my arms around her and hug her close, pressing her as close to me as I can.
Croaking into my chest, she wraps her arms around me and squeezes onto my sides. “I never knew his name, who he was… but then years later, a few weeks ago, I saw him, Nick. I saw him here, a few days after I left the orphanage and Kenny got this job. So I decided to stay, to see if he’d return, and… And I don’t know what.”
She leans back in my embrace, staring up at me with a shaky smile, tears in her eyes. “I don’t know what the heck my plan is. All I know is that man put a gun to my parents’ heads while their children watched. I can’t let him get away with that, can I? I just can’t let him go. I have to do something.”
“Did you think about going to the police?” I ask quietly.
“It’s an old investigation,” she says with a sigh. “I was a kid when it happened. They’ve already closed the case.”
“Natalie, if you went to the police—”
“No, you don’t understand. That’s what the police said to me when I went to the station. They said it’s been so long and I was just a kid. Could I really be sure I’d seen the man correctly?”
I bite down hard, my jaw threatening to shatter. “They shouldn’t have done that. They should’ve taken you seriously.”
“Yeah, well.” She shrugs. “What the heck am I going to do?”
I lean down, bringing my face to hers.
“Exactly. Just what are you going to do? What’s your plan here, my little elf? Terrence and his men are dangerous, a dangerous bloody biker gang. You and your brother shouldn’t want to be anywhere near them.”
“But he can’t get away with it,” she snaps. “I can’t just let him swagger around thinking my parents’ deaths meant nothing, what he made us watch meant nothing. Can I?”
“I get it,” I tell her. “But—”
“No, you don’t get it,” she hisses, as all the anger of the past burns through her, as she shakes her head like she’s trying to dislodge the pain. “How can you? You’ve never—”
“Natalie,” I cut in, staring meaningfully into her eyes, as snow falls softly all around us, settling in her wavy dark hair. “Trust me. I get it. I really really do.”
She gasps, staring closely at me. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Yes. My parents were killed too. And I saw the whole damn thing. Just like you and your brother.”
Chapter Ten
Natalie
The snow melts on his bare arms as it falls, causing his silver streaked hair to sparkle like there are gemstones resting within it. Everything about him is large and burns like he’s about to erupt from the plain black T-shirt. It’s the first time I’ve seen him without the Santa jacket on, and my suspicions were correct.
He is ripped.
Now his entire demeanor is savage and on-edge, like any second he could tear off that T-shirt and reveal his muscled body, howling to the moon like an animal.
“I was a kid,” he growls, clenching his fists so that his forearms bulge. “Just a kid, and… and hell, you don’t need to hear all this.”
I rush forward and take his hands in mine, staring up at him as the snowfall picks up and whispers between us, making the air hazy and beautiful. I can’t stop my overactive mind from imagining what it will be like when we get married, standing facing each other as brightness and beauty and warm love swell in the air around us.