Her Christmas SEAL (When SEALs Come Home Book 7) Read Online Free

chainsaw from her and struck out on the nearest path. I walked fast, and I had at least a foot on Holly. She’d always been a tiny thing. She hustled along behind me, babbling crap about liability and farm rules. Apparently I wasn’t allowed to handle the chainsaw. Since I wasn’t letting her cart heavy stuff around when I was right here, we were kinda at an impasse.
    The path wasn’t bad the first few hundred yards, beaten down by the hordes hungry for one hundred percent genuine, fresh-cut Christmas trees. Even got a few flakes of snow falling from the sky, although I wouldn’t have put it past the Santa dude to have a snowmaker hidden somewhere. Probably good for business. After the first five minutes, the crowd thinned out, and after ten it disappeared altogether. It was just me, Holly, and about a thousand pine trees. A thought struck me.
    “Why were you up on the mountain cutting branches when you have about a million trees here?”
    She shot me a look. I couldn’t tell if she thought I was an idiot or just giving her grief. After a moment, she went ahead and answered. “I was tipping. It pays well.”
    I’d never tipped, but I understood the principle. You went out in the forest, cut off the tips of pine branches, and then sold the green stuff to the good folks who made Christmas wreaths and that decorative garland stuff. It was kind of like making Popsicle sticks for the arts and crafts crowd. As far as pays well went, I was skeptical. Tree tips weren’t made out of gold, and Lucky had a reputation for being cheap.
    I asked the obvious question. “You got money worries?”
    Her hands shot to her hips. “You can’t ask me that!”
    Where I came from, we didn’t see the point in pussyfooting around the issue. Unless she had a thing for pine trees and fresh air, there was only one reason to be hauling ass around the mountain, cutting branches. She needed the money.
    “Can too,” I pointed out, thinking things through. “Mr. Dick not play fair in the divorce settlements?”
    Because I’d be happy to fix that for her. Several possible solutions came to mind, and none of them involved me writing her a check. Not that she wasn’t welcome to raid my bank account, but I let myself fantasize for a moment about beating the crap out of her deadbeat ex-husband.
    Her mouth opened. Closed like she’d bit back the words she’d intended to say. She made one cute, cranky elf. Fuck, but I wanted to kiss the frown right off her face. I also really, really liked the red-and-white-striped stockings. My eyes kept going back to those.
    “You’re not freezing?”
    Because if she was, I could think of a whole lotta ways to warm her up.

    HOLLY
    “I’m not cold.”
    Not a snowball’s chance in hell I froze. Not when Mr. Big Bad Grumpy Firefighter was around. Jacks sauntered down the path like he knew exactly where he was headed. Things were clearly simpler in the Universe of Jacks.
    He made that noise again, the one that was the verbal equivalent of nope, I don’t believe you in ginormous neon letters. Too bad. I didn’t care what he thought. Now that I was divorced, the only guy I had to make happy was my boss, and Lucky wasn’t unreasonable except when it came to employee uniforms.
    Jacks didn’t say anything, although he also showed no signs of stopping.
    “If you don’t pick a tree soon, we’re going to end up in Canada,” I pointed out.
    “Got a few more states in the way, babe,” he said drily.
    I shrugged. It was the principle of the thing. I had to draw the line somewhere, before he walked me ten miles into the wilderness. I liked the snow and the trees just fine, but dealing with night, cold, and voracious mountain lions was above my pay grade. Still, I was almost surprised when he stopped. Jacks usually preferred to set the pace. Maybe he was getting mellow in his old age.
    He came to a halt, and I almost plowed into his back. I had to put a hand out to stop myself. My palm hit hard, muscled back.