Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 59022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
“You sound jealous,” I tease.
He cocks an entitled, aristocratic, arrogant brow.
“That doesn’t dignify a response.”
I laugh.
“You’re right,” I give him what he wants because he’s my cousin and I love the bastard. “I didn’t expect to meet anyone, let alone feel anyone.”
Jayson opens his eyes and stares at me, eyes narrowed.
“You felt her?” He asks slowly dragging out the sentence like he’s afraid of my answer. “You sure?”
“Yes.” I admit hesitantly. He’s the only one I’d admit it to. Shit, saying it out loud makes it even more real, more terrifying.
Feeling someone before encountering them—especially the opposite sex—is the stuff of legends in the Nicholasen family. Only two St. Nick’s had found their fated partner to share Christmas cheer with.
Only two.
In seventeen fucking centuries.
“The ground will tremble with echoes of ancient past. Breath will falter. The heart will race. The stranger is no stranger. She is your face.” Jayson whispers the old words the way my grandfather would when he’d recount the tale.
“Did the ground tremble?” Jayson asks softly. “Or was it just the bear?”
My gaze flicks to his.
“It was more than the bear.”
It was her.
I felt her in my buggy. That’s why I jumped out the way I did, walking into an unknown blizzard feeling for her energy. It was overpowering, like a siren’s call. The blood pumping through my veins was racing so hard that I could feel it when I entered the buggy.
She was the first and only person I saw before I was pulled away by her friends.
But in that second, when I set eyes on her, the world shook. I still can’t explain it—like I was living in one reality where Charlie Horse (her parents are cocks) didn’t exist—and then she was there, and everything somehow changed.
And I don’t even know how.
I saw her last Christmas, the look on her face. I felt her loneliness, her pain like it was my own.
I saw my person… didn’t I?
I watch Jayson’s pensive face.
Frankly, I don’t have time to care what he’s thinking because I’m still processing the feeling myself.
I’d never felt anyone before.
Not another female.
Only relatives with my bloodline.
“Fuck. Me.” Jayson lets out a long sigh and leans back in the seat. He shakes his head and lets out whistle.
“Scared?” He finally asks.
“Hell no.”
Hell yes, but I’m not telling him that.
“Liar.”
“If you say so,” I shrug before finishing my drink.
“So what now?” Jayson asks. “Besides having dinner with them tonight? And just so you know, I had planned on binge watching Aliens On Earth this evening. I’d even planned my meal and what bottle of wine I’d have them bring up from the cellar.” He sighs. “I know they’re in the arctic I just need to fucking prove it!”
I stand and pour myself another drink.
“As exciting as an alien reality series followed by hunting does sound, you’ll have to take a raincheck.”
“Do you have any idea what my life is like with three children under the age of four?” Jayson shoots me a look of desperation. “The noise never stops. That’s all I wanted from this trip— quiet. I can’t even go to the bathroom without screaming.”
“Yeah, that’s not new, man.”
“Shut the hell up! You know what I mean!”
“You love those little hellions,” I laugh. “And so do I. The noise is worth it, you literally sleep with a fan and the tv on now because silence gives you anxiety.”
“Hell is the perfect word to describe the state of my life right now,” Jayson diverts the conversation and his head. “My wife doesn’t think I help enough and every time she looks at me, I swear to God, Stetson, she looks like she wants to kill me.”
I remember the look on Evelyn, his wife’s face, when she opened the door and saw me, since I picked Jayson up. To be fair to my cousin, she didn’t look like her usual cheerful self.
“She did look like those women on those crime documentaries that end up poisoning their significant others.”
Jayson pales. “My stomach has been off.”
“I’m kidding, but she did look pissed.”
Jayson shakes his hand up in the air like an Evangelical minister. I’m guessing he’s looking for validation.
“See!” He shoots back another drink. “And now she talks to herself, Stetson! And when I catch her mumbling about me the words I’ve been able to decipher are— useless, moron, inept and missing braincells… a few colorful ones I remember…”
I burst out laughing.
“I’m serious, man! You should see the look in her eyes. Stetson, it’s like a wild animal’s taken over,” he shakes like even he can’t believe it, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more humorous than him losing his mind over his wife and kids, wasn’t he just a bachelor a few years ago?
“She’s incredible,” I manage.
Jayson narrows his eyes at me then sighs. “I know.”
I’m proud of Jayson. I smile over at him, thoroughly enjoying the moment of clarity. She drives him crazy but he wouldn’t want it any other way. Love is like that. I find myself insanely jealous in that moment, jealous of his chaos and noise.