The Nice Boxset Read online

  The Nice Boxset

  Jasinda Wilder

  Contents

  DEC THE HOLLS

  Dec the Holls

  Falling Into You

  The Past

  1. BFF…Or BF?

  2. Lucky I’m In Love

  3. Going to the Hotel

  4. A Proposal; A Tree Falls

  5. Liquid Heartbreak

  The Present

  6. Old Man Jack

  7. Cuts; Pain for Pain

  8. Fermented Grief

  9. Ghosts; One Breath at a Time

  10. Silencing the Ghosts

  11. Falling Into You

  12. Feel You Bare

  13. A Blue Cross

  PART THREE

  14. The Unborn Song

  15. A Song of Single Breaths

  PLAYLIST

  SNEAK PEEK

  FOREVER & ALWAYS

  somewhere out there

  goodbye is not forever

  indelible ink inscriptions

  painted by pain

  billy harper, warm rain for a funeral

  first love, dreams like memory

  interstice

  a breath of time

  once more unto the breach, dear friends

  the scent of death

  a kiss upon your flesh

  no need to breathe

  forever and always

  an arpeggio, descending

  fiat concordia discordiam

  SNEAK PEEK

  PLAYLIST

  THE LONG WAY HOME

  PART ONE

  [a handwritten note on Christian St. Pierre’s personalized stationery; August 3, 2015]

  [From Ava St. Pierre’s blog: Confessions of a Working Mommy; August 5, 2015]

  [From Christian’s computer journal; January 10, 2015]

  [From Ava’s blog: Confessions of Working Mommy; January 20, 2015]

  [From Christian’s journal; February 14, 2015]

  [From Ava’s blog: Confessions of Working Mommy; March 17, 2015]

  [April 5, 2015]

  [From Christian’s journal; May 3, 2015]

  [From Christian’s journal; June 10, 2015]

  [From Ava’s blog: Confessions of a Working Mommy; July 3, 2015]

  [July 25, 2015]

  [August 3, 2015]

  [A handwritten letter from Christian to Ava; postmarked August 9, 2015]

  [Email from Ava to Christian; 3:23 a.m., August 11, 2015]

  [Email from Christian to Ava; 12:33 p.m., August 13, 2015]

  [Email from Ava to Christian; 8:23 p.m., August 15, 2015]

  [Email from Christian to Ava; 6:04 a.m., August 20, 2015]

  [Email from Ava to Christian; August 21, 2015]

  PART TWO

  16. [Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela; September 1, 2015]

  Untitled

  [Off the coast of South America; October 23, 2015]

  Untitled

  [Jamestown, St. Helena, Ascension and Tristan de Cunha; December 24, 2015]

  Untitled

  [Cape Town, South Africa; February 14, 2016]

  PART THREE

  17. [Email from Ava to Christian; April 9, 2016]

  18. [Email from Christian to Ava; April 11, 2016]

  [Email in Christian’s inbox; April 11, 2016]

  [Port Elizabeth, South Africa; April 14, 2016]

  [From Christian’s journal: April 18, 2016]

  [Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean; May 15, 2016]

  [Ft. Lauderdale, FL; May 16, 2016]

  [Somewhere in the South Atlantic; date unknown]

  [Ft. Lauderdale, FL; May 19, 2016]

  [Somewhere in the South Atlantic; date unknown]

  Epilogue

  [Ft. Lauderdale, FL; May 20, 2016]

  SNEAK PEEK

  WHERE THE HEART IS

  Also by Jasinda Wilder

  DEC THE HOLLS

  DEC THE HOLLS

  Copyright © 2014 by Jasinda Wilder

  * * *

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  * * *

  Cover art by Sarah Hansen of Okay Creations. Cover art copyright © 2014 Sarah Hansen.

  Created with Vellum

  Dec the Holls

  Holly Wright shut off her computer with a relieved sigh. Rubbing her tired, burning eyes, she scooted her office chair back and slipped on her coat. The entire floor was empty, as it always was when Holly left. In fact, there was only one other light on, the corner office.

  His office. Declan Montrose. Owner and president of Montrose Logistics, LLC. Young, breathtakingly handsome in a rugged yet sophisticated way, Declan—Mister Montrose, Holly reminded herself—was the only person in the small company who worked more hours than Holly, and he owned the company. Holly worked past midnight because she needed the money; Declan, because it was his company, obviously, and because she suspected he was a bit of a workaholic.

  She shuffled on aching feet to the elevators, wishing she could take off her heels and dreading the walk through the bitter cold to a frozen car that might not even start. She wrapped her inadequate winter coat more tightly around herself, flipping up the collar and stuffing her gloveless hands into her pockets, already trembling with cold even before she’d taken a dozen steps across the parking lot. By the time she made it to her car, her teeth were chattering and she could barely fumble her keys out of her coat pocket.

  She turned the key in the ignition, only to have it chug and try to turn over, and then…clickclicklickclick…the dash lights flickered back into darkness. “No, please no. Not now. Please.”

  She turned the key again: clickclickclick. She’d just spent almost a hundred dollars on a new battery, which meant it was the alternator that was the problem; Holly knew from bitter experience that replacing an alternator would cost more money than she had.

  “Come on, please, please start, you piece of shit!” She tried it again, knowing it was futile. Clickclickclick. “How am I going to get home?” She wondered out loud.

  She reached over to the passenger seat to retrieve her cell phone from her purse, only to realize her purse wasn’t on the seat. She’d left it in the building…along with the keycard that let her back into the building.

  “Crap.” She tried to remain calm, squeezed her eyes shut to keep from crying. “Double crap.”

  Out of hopeful stubbornness, Holly twisted the key again, but this time it didn’t even click.

  “Okay, Holls,” she asked herself. “What are you gonna do? No phone, no purse, no car, and Mom is expecting me back home with the kids in twenty minutes.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s too far to walk, and it’s below zero outside anyway. It’s Friday, and the building will be empty all weekend. Crap!”

  She pounded her palms on the steering wheel, fighting the tears which were now wavering in her eyes, turning the cold, dark world blurry. She sniffled, wiped her eyes with the heel of her palm, pushing hard enough to send stars bursting behind her eyes. Then, when she started hiccuping and crying anyway, she slammed her hand into the steering wheel again, out of frustration and anger; in the process she bent her pinky finger back far enough that she heard a pop, and felt a burst of blinding pain.

  “FUCK!” She thunked her forehead forward against the steering wheel, shoulders shaking with sobs, clutching her aching finger.
>
  Declan Montrose was stuck in that twilight state of wired on caffeine and exhausted from running on four hours sleep in the last forty-eight. He wanted to get this last account squared away so he could take a day or two off for Christmas, but it had been plagued by problems. Now, after two days of nonstop work, he was too fried to be able to work any longer. Yet despite his exhaustion, Dec just couldn’t stomach the thought of going home to a cold, empty, echoing condo. His girlfriend of three years, Kimberly, had dumped him a month ago for his best friend—ex-best friend—and he hadn’t slept well since; or rather, worse than ever, and he’d always had trouble sleeping.

  It wasn’t that he’d loved Kimberly, he reflected, it was more the gall of it. Dec had done everything for the woman: he’d paid for her breast implants, bought her a brand new Lexus, paid the rent on her condo, taken her on exotic vacations, which she spent lounging on the beach drinking while he kept working in the hotel room. And then the ungrateful bitch had up and left him for a piece of shit like Brad Haney.

  Dec didn’t care about the money; he didn’t even care about Kimberly herself, really.

  He was lonely. She’d kept the specter of loneliness at bay. She was a warm body in his bed at night, someone to be there when he got back from a long day at work. Someone to talk to. Their relationship itself hadn’t been spectacular. She wasn’t even that great in bed: she’d been unresponsive, apathetic, and cold. She would lay in bed with him afterwards, a look of long-suffering on her face as if she’d done her duty by him, and now she just wanted to go to sleep rather than deal with him anymore.

  Closing his laptop with a long sigh, Declan scooped the most important papers into a folder which he then stuffed in his messenger bag along with the laptop, and then shrugged into his thick navy peacoat. He glanced out the window and grimaced at the swirls of snow, small hard flakes that meant it was bitterly cold out. He tugged on his Thinsulate-lined leather gloves and wrapped a scarf around his neck as well. He’d parked on the far side of the parking lot, simply because the walk to the building was often the only exercise he got these days.

  As he left his office, he noticed one of the cubicles still had its lamp on. He crossed the office and shut the light off. He frowned, though, when he saw a faded black leather purse sitting on the desk. The cubicle was neat and orderly, papers filed away, the workspace clean, no clutter or decorations, only a small framed picture of a strikingly beautiful woman of about thirty or so. She had curly auburn hair and vivid green eyes, and her smile was warm, happy, and kind, lighting up her stunningly beautiful face. In the photograph with the woman was a girl of about eight, and a boy that looked about six, although Dec wasn’t exactly an expert on children, being single and an only child himself.

  He searched his memory for the woman’s name; Holly Wright, that was it. He knew her by face and name, having hired her about two years ago, but he didn’t know her well. She tended to keep to herself, and whenever he did have an opportunity to talk to her, she was painfully shy around him, darting away as soon as she could. If he looked her in the eyes, she flushed crimson and glanced away.

  He wondered if she was still in the building, but then noticed the computer was off and her coat was gone. Glancing into the open purse, he saw a lanyard with a Montrose Logistics keycard, and a battered, outdated cell phone.

  “Odd,” he muttered to himself. “I wonder where she went.”

  He looked around, but the rest of the office was empty and dark. A few feet away was a bank of windows overlooking the parking lot. The purse dangling by the straps from his finger, Dec strode to the window and saw his BMW off in a far corner. Not far away from his own vehicle was an older model white Toyota Camry. He thought he saw a silhouette in the car, but from this distance it was hard to tell, especially with the snow beginning to flurry.

  To be sure the building was empty, he checked the bathroom, the break room, and the lobby. Satisfied, he locked the front door of the office building behind himself as he exited, buttoning his coat and flipping up his collar against the icy wind, using the remote starter to warm his car. The walk across the parking lot was long and cold, the strong and bitterly cold wind snatching his breath away.

  Reaching the white Camry, Dec bent to look in the driver’s side window and saw the small form of a woman hunched over the steering wheel, shoulders wracked with sobs. He knocked on the window with a gloved knuckle; the figure jumped in fright, peering out at him, her cheeks streaked with mascara-blackened tears, her eyes red, her lower lip trembling and her chest heaving with sobs.

  Even tired, crying, and shivering with cold, Holly Wright was shockingly beautiful. He wasn’t sure how he hadn’t seen it before. Maybe he was only really seeing her for the first time just now. God knew he’d been so focused on Kimberly for so long that he hadn’t paid much attention to anyone else until now.

  His breath caught at the look of abject misery in her eyes, Dec knew he’d do anything to help her, if only just to take away that look in her eyes.

  Holly had been crying for a long time. She’d lost track of how long, but judging by the stiffness in her joints, and how frozen she was, it had been a while.

  A knock on the window startled her upright, causing her to bump her broken finger on the steering wheel all over again. A fresh wave of tears swept over her, as she glanced out the window.

  Her heart skipped a beat when Declan’s face filled the window. All hard angles and dark brown eyes, rough stubble shadowing the planes of his jaw, thick black hair swept back and tousled by the wind, Declan Montrose was the epitome of male strength and rough-hewn good looks.

  “Oh god, I look like shit,” she muttered. “Just great.”

  She wiped her face with her coat sleeve, brushed the straying tendrils of hair away from her face, and drew a deep breath. She wrenched at the door, but it was stuck, swollen with age and frozen shut by the cold. She shoved at it, but it wouldn’t give.

  “It’s stuck!” She called.

  Declan pulled on the outside handle while Holly pushed, and the door flew open, disgorging Holly into a heap on the snow-covered concrete, her palms slapping onto the snowy concrete, her lower half still in the vehicle. Strong hands gripped her by the waist and lifted her effortlessly out of the car and to her feet. Holly regained her balance, and found herself looking up into Declan’s intense brown eyes. Her breathing slowed at the intensity of his gaze, and her body trembled at the way his big hands spanned her waist.

  “You forgot this,” he said, his voice a deep rumble.

  Finally letting go of her waist, Declan held her purse out, and Holly took it in trembling fingers.

  A gust of wind battered at her, and she shivered, clutching her arms around herself. “Th-thanks,” she said through chattering teeth.

  She dug out her cell phone and tried to scroll through the contact list for the AAA number, but her fingers were too cold and numb to function. Another bashing blast of icy wind hit her and she dropped the cell phone to the ground. She cursed and picked it up, almost breaking into sobs again when she saw the cracked screen.

  ”God…it’s really n-not my d-day,” she said, stammering and trying not to cry again.

  “Shit, that sucks,” Declan said. “You can borrow mine, if you need to call someone. Babysitter?”

  “No, t-tow truck. Car’s—car is d-d-dead.”

  “A tow truck? It’ll take them at least half an hour to get here, probably more with the way the snow is starting to come down.” Declan frowned, the corners of his perfect mouth turning down.

  Even his frown was sexy, Holly thought. She pushed the thought away. ”I’ll be fine,” she said.

  “Let me take you home,” Declan said. “You can’t sit in a cold car for an hour by yourself at midnight on Friday.”

  Holly looked up at him. He seemed serious, concerned, his dark gaze warm with compassion, and maybe a hint of something else. Interest? Not likely.

  “Thanks, but I’ll be fine,” Holly insisted. “Just let me use your
phone to call Triple A.” Subzero wind battered at Holly, knocking her forward and into Declan.

  He gripped her waist through her thin coat, and a smile tipped his lips. “How about I don’t. I’m not gonna let you sit here alone. It’s below zero. You’ll freeze.”

  “Why?” Holly asked.

  “Why?” Declan’s features twisted in confusion. “Because you need help and I’m here to give it. It’s called kindness. It still exists you know. Besides, it’s Christmas.” He unbuttoned his coat, shrugged out of it, and draped it around Holly’s shoulders.

  It was warm from his body, and smelled like cologne and aftershave. She sank into the warmth, wrapping it around herself even as she protested. “Mr. Montrose, I can’t take your coat—”