Free Three Nights before Christmas by Kat Latham

caution.”
    “Hopefully that means I’ll never have to call you officer again.”
    He grinned. “Hopefully not. Hit me with your second condition.”
    “I want Christmas music in here. Lights. Decorations. A tree, if there’s space.”
    “Here…in the annex?”
    “Yeah.”
    He threw a skeptical glance around the dingy workshop, which looked just like every other mechanic’s garage—except messier. “Can I ask why?”
    “I missed a lot of Christmases, and I never really appreciated the ones I had.” She swallowed hard before forcing herself to admit, “I think January’s going to be tough. Nothing to look forward to, as you said. I want to binge on festivity now and hope some of that comfort and joy sink so far in to my soul that they carry me through the rest of winter.”
    Drawing in a deep breath, he seemed to let the words settle in before pointing to a corner by a frosty window. “I think we could fit a tree there, but you’re the expert. I’ll make sure to drive my truck when I pick you up tomorrow. We can sling a tree in the back.”
    Tension she hadn’t even known she was carrying melted away. “Thank you—for understanding.”
    “Thank you—for being ready to work your ass off.”
    She gave him a mock frown. “No ass comments please.”
    He threw his hands in the air in surrender. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Now, ready to get to work?”
    *
    Austin was used to hard work. He came from a family where everyone busted their asses—Gabriel in the Air Force, Camila running a camp for troubled teens in California, and Wyatt building up his own outdoor adventure business. Though their parents hadn’t been on speaking terms since their mom had admitted Gabriel and Camila weren’t her husband’s kids, the one thing they had in common was working hard.
    Austin’s work ethic was so rigid he was used to being disappointed by the lax attitude of people outside his family. But hell if Lacey didn’t run circles around him in the four hours she stayed at the annex. She organized the locomotive’s blueprints, which he’d found on a train enthusiast’s website. She cataloged all the reconditioned parts that had come back and studied the list of parts they were still waiting for. She even created a step-by-step plan for putting the locomotive back together. Everything he’d accomplished in his fumblings over the past three months, she quadrupled in four hours.
    All he could do was get started on the Christmas decorations.
    It was a little disheartening, to be honest. This was his project, and he wanted to stay in charge. But the only way to get the thing finished in time was to give up control, so he did.
    While Lacey worked, he grabbed his portable speakers from inside the house and plugged them in on the annex’s workbench. Flicking through his tablet, he found a playlist of Christmas music. Within seconds, the room filled with the sound of jingling bells and a jolly voice booming, “Dashing through the snow…”
    He couldn’t help but tease Lacey as she lip-synched along. “Can’t hear you, Lacey. Sing louder.”
    “No way. My singing voice would shatter the windows.”
    “So? Let’s hear it.” He perched his butt against the workbench as she knelt on the floor and organized parts.
    She was smiling when she looked up at him, but that smile froze as her gaze flicked down his body from his eyes, over his chest, to his groin, where it lingered just a little too long for comfort before skating away.
    “I don’t sing.” She turned her concentration back to her project, but heat simmered where her gaze had stroked him. She’d been checking him out—he was sure of it. He’d been on the receiving end of looks like that one enough not to be coy about it. But getting the look from her?
    The feeling wasn’t as uncomfortable as it should’ve been.
    Unlike most women who’d undressed him with their eyes, she didn’t follow it up with a smile and flirty gesture, like tucking her hair behind her