Page 5 of The Holiday Clause

“I guess not when you stole my fucking keys.”

“I didn’t steal them. I relocated them into a snowbank.”

“Prick.” Soren reclined in the wooden rocker and stretched out his legs. “We all had the same thought. If we had to pick a wife in a pinch, there was only one choice.”

All eyes again turned on her, and her cheeks burned. “Okay, take it down a notch.” The testosterone radiating from the three of them was thinning the air and making it hard to breathe.

They smirked with Neanderthal-like male satisfaction.

“So Logan steals my keys, leaving me with whatever was left in Dad’s garage. I grabbed the first set I could find?—“

“To the snowmobile.”

“Correct. Next thing you know, I’m blasting through the woods—without proper gear—in my socks—getting blinded by the snow.” He shot his brother a pointed look. “I could have died.”

“Don’t be such a drama queen.” Logan rolled his eyes. “The whole time I was driving, he wouldn’t shut up on the two-way radio. It couldn’t have been that treacherous if you had the ability to use the radio.”

“Talking shit was my only defense! You were in a truck!”

Logan snickered. “And I got to her first.”

“Which brings us back to where I left off.” Wren set her mug aside and sat up. “I was carrying in my groceries—swarmed by cats—when you two maniacs barreled in like a landslide and almost killed me.”

“Now who’s being dramatic?”

“My whole life flashed before my eyes!”

“And like I said, that’s not where the story starts.”

She frowned at Logan. “If not there, then when?”

“You have to go back. Way back, to when we were kids.”

“He’s right,” Greyson agreed, watching her with that quiet attention that missed nothing.

Wren frowned, oddly feeling as if they harbored secrets that—for once—didn’t include her. “How far back?”

Soren shrugged. “Probably to the Christmas after Mom died.”

The room grew silent as it usually did at the mention of Sable Hawthorne. As always, any reference to their mother reminded Wren of her own.

Haven Wilde and Sable Hawthorne had been lifelong best friends. Losing them at the same time was a sort of poetic tragedy that further sealed the bond she shared with Greyson, Soren, and Logan. Their mothers’ connection had been stronger than marriage. The expectation that the four of them remain friends had been instilled from birth. Therefore, Wren’s life had always been entangled with the untouchable Hawthorne brothers—even when she’d tried her best to detach herself.

As she stared at the lapping flames in the hearth, she tried to recall the fading memory of her mother’s hair. It had been blonde, like hers, but with fiery copper undertones. The crackling wood put her in a trance as she fixated on the flames, searching for the exact shade of red she sometimes glimpsed in her mother’s highlights when she stood in the sunshine.

A gentle hand closed around her shoulder, startling her. She closed her eyes, able to recognize and differentiate each brother’s touch. The grief in her chest instantly eased as she pressed her cheek to his familiar fingers and sighed.

Their silence spoke volumes. After their mothers passed away, birthdays, holidays, and ordinary Mondays were never the same. Nothing was. They’d somehow managed to stick together.

The Christmas Magnus died was, by far, one of the most challenging, but, as always, the challenges they faced together only made them closer in the end. And, what was one of theirhardest holidays, somehow also ended up being one of the most memorable and cherished.

“Fine,” she eventually conceded. “If that’s not where the story starts, then you tell it from the beginning.”

The men shared a knowing grin. “For that, we’re going to need a refill and another log on the fire.”

CHAPTER 1

“On The Naughty List”