All I Want for Christmas: A Kinnison Legacy Holiday novella Read Free

off the ignition and glanced back at the boy strapped into the new car seat. They had researched dozens before deciding on this one—one they felt was safest for his size. A strange yet familiar tug pulled on his heart. Was this how Jed must have felt when he looked at the three misfit teenage boys fate had bestowed on him?
    Liberty followed his gaze. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You haven’t said much on the way home.” Together they paused, watching the slumbering child. Outside the snow fell in soft, giant flakes. “We should probably get him inside. I don’t think freezing him is wise.” Liberty patted his shoulder.
    He grabbed her hand and leaned over to kiss her. “I love you.”
    She cupped his cheek. “Hold that thought. You get Cody, I’ll get his bag.”
    Rein loved how effortlessly they seemed to work together as a team to get the sleepy child ready for bed.
    Liberty plugged in the small lamp with a muted light so if he woke, he wouldn’t be afraid of the dark. On the nightstand were two framed pictures—one of him and his mom in better days, and a smaller one of Rein and Liberty with their dogs.
    Liberty bent down and brushed a wisp of hair from the child’s forehead before placing a kiss there. She then joined Rein, who stood at the door waiting for her. “Do you think I need to sleep in here tonight?” she asked him.
    A low, mournful hoot—that of an owl—sounded from outside the window.
    Rein chuckled. “Jed’s keeping watch.” He rubbed her shoulders. “Come on, I’m still hanging onto that thought like you asked.”
    A few moments later, he lay in bed and watched Liberty go through her nightly routine—she washed her face, brushed her teeth, would start to climb into bed, have an afterthought and go back to check the bedroom window to be sure it was locked—everything she’d done nightly since they’d married. Tonight, he couldn’t put his finger on the odd emotions playing inside him as he watched her checking the locks. “Darlin’, you know that Antonio and his men will be locked away for a very long time, and I won’t let anything happen to you.”
    She folded her arms, tossed him a glance, and looked back at the snowy night.
    “What is it, sweetheart?” He climbed out of bed, walked up behind her and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her.
    “It feels right…having him here.” She leaned against him, holding his arms to her. “Is that weird?”
    He gave her a quick squeeze. “If it is, then I must be weird, too. I think he fits right in.”
    “What if he wakes up and gets scared?”
    He kissed the top of her head. “We’ll hear him. That monitor you bought has both sound and visual. Now, come to bed,” he whispered as he nuzzled the sweet, warm curve of her neck.
    “Maybe we should shut the door.”
    Rein thought a moment, shrugged, and complied with his wife’s wish. He agreed that he wasn’t yet ready for that talk. He was halfway back to the bed, where Liberty had dropped her robe and lay in her next-to-nothing gown. He’d been thinking for the better part of two hours of how he’d peel it off her.
    “Wait.” She pointed to the door. “Maybe open it a little…so we can hear.”
    Rein eyed her, finding this new side of his wife—usually uninhibited when it came to their lovemaking—quite interesting.
    With a sigh and a definite semi, Rein returned to the door. “He seemed pretty zonked to me, sweetheart, but if it makes you feel more at ease….” The matter of how wide to leave the door open was the strangest foreplay Rein had ever experienced. “How about there?” He’d positioned it according to her instructions for at least the third time. He looked back at Liberty who now lay on her side. She had a wicked smile. It dawned on him then that she’d been playing him with the dexterity of a maestro.
    He narrowed his gaze, hooked his thumbs in his boxer briefs and stripped, pleased when her eyes widened at his already firm erection. He