It Came Upon A Midnight Clear. Suzanne Brockmann

He probably already knew what she was thinking—he had to be aware of what she wanted. She’d been far less than subtle over the past few weeks. But he didn’t want the same thing.

      Friends, she reminded herself. Crash wanted them to be friends. Being friends was safe, and God forbid he should ever allow anything to shake him up emotionally.

      Crash stepped to the side of the room, gently pulling Nell with him as three workmen carried one of the evergreen trees into the building.

      She moved out of his grasp, but not because she didn’t want him to touch her. On the contrary. She liked the sensation of his hand on her arm too much. But she was afraid if she stood there like that, so close to him, it wouldn’t be long before she sank back so that she was leaning against him.

      But friends didn’t do that.

      Friends kept their distance.

      And there was no need to embarrass herself in front of this man two days in a row.

      Chapter 4

      Crash held the stepladder while Nell positioned the angel on the top of one of the trees.

      She’d brought a portable CD player into the barn, and Bing Crosby sang “White Christmas” over remarkably natural-sounding speakers. Nell sang along, right in Bing’s octave, her voice a low, throaty alto.

      She looked out the window as she came down the ladder. The snow was still falling. “I can’t remember the last time it snowed for Christmas. Certainly not since I’ve lived in Virginia. And last year, I visited my parents in Florida. I was on the beach on Christmas Eve. The sand was white, but it just wasn’t the same.”

      Crash was silent as he carried the stepladder to the last tree, as Nell removed the plastic wrapping from the final angel.

      “You didn’t make it out here to the farm last Christmas, did you?”

      “No.”

      Nell glanced at him and he knew what she was looking for. She’d tossed him the conversational ball, and wanted him to run with it. She wanted him to tell her where he’d spent last Christmas.

      He cleared his throat. “Last December, I was on a covert military op that is still so top secret, I can’t even tell you which hemisphere of the globe I was in.”

      “Really?” Her eyes were wide. And very blue. Ocean blue. But not the stormy blue of the Atlantic, or even the turquoise of the Caribbean. Nell’s eyes were the pure blue of the South China Sea. In fact, there was a beach there that—He cut his thought off abruptly. What was he doing? Allowing himself to submerge in the depths of this woman’s eyes? That was insanity.

      He turned away, making sure the stepladder was close enough to the tree. “Most of what I do, I can’t talk about. Not to anyone.”

      “God, that must be really tough—considering the way you love to run off at the mouth.”

      She’d caught him off guard, and he laughed. “Yeah, well…What can I say?”

      “Exactly.” Nell paused on the rung of the ladder that brought them eye to eye. “Actually, I shouldn’t be making jokes. It’s probably really hard for you, isn’t it?”

      Malaysia. The beach was in Malaysia, and the ocean had been an impossibly perfect shade of blue. He’d sat there in the sand for hours, drinking it in, watching the sunlight dance across the water.

      “It’s my job,” he said quietly.

      Unlike in Malaysia, Crash forced himself to look away.

      He could feel her gazing at him for several long moments before continuing on up the stepladder. She set the angel on the top branch of the tree, carefully adjusting its halo.

      “I know that part of what Jake does has to do with these…covert ops you’re sent on. Although…they were called something else, weren’t they? Black ops?”

      Crash waited several beats before speaking. “How do you know about that?”

      Something in his voice must have been different, because she glanced down at him. “Uh-oh. I wasn’t supposed to know, was I? Now you’re going to have to kill me, right?”

      He didn’t laugh at her joke. “Technically, your having access to that information is a breach of security. I need to know what you saw or heard, to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

      She slowly came back down the ladder. “You’re serious.”

      “There are only five—now six—people in the world who know I work covert ops for Admiral Robinson,” Crash told her. “One of them is the President of the United States. And now one of them is you.”

      Nell sat down on the second to last rung of the stepladder. “Oh, my God, you are going to have to kill me.” She looked up at him. “Or vote me into office.”

      He nearly laughed at that one. But in truth there was nothing funny about this. “Nell, if you knew how serious…” Crash shook his head.

      “But that’s just it,” she said imploringly. “I don’t know. How can I know when you won’t even finish your sentences? I know close to nothing about you. I’m friends with you almost entirely on faith—on vague gut instincts and the fact that Daisy and Jake think that the sun rises and sets with you. Do you know that in the past two weeks, you’ve told me nothing about yourself? We talk about books, and you tell me you’re currently reading Grisham’s latest, but you never say if you like it. You wouldn’t even tell me your favorite color! I mean, what kind of friendship is that?”

      The problem she had with him was nothing compared to the problem he currently had with her. He pinned her into place with his eyes. “Nell, this is extremely important. I need to know how you found out I was working with Jake. Have you mentioned this to anyone else? Anyone at all?”

      She shook her head, holding his gaze steadily. “No.”

      “Are you sure?”

      “I’m positive,” she said. “Look, I overheard Jake and Daisy talking. I didn’t mean to, but they were being loud. They were…exchanging heated words. It wasn’t quite an argument, but it was the closest to it that I’ve ever heard. Daisy accused Jake of sending you out on a black op. Those are the exact words she said. A black op. I remember because it sounded so spooky and dangerous. Anyway, Daisy wanted to know where you were. It was back when all that trouble was happening in the Middle East, and she was worried about you. She wanted Jake to stop using you for those dangerous covert missions—again, that’s pretty much a direct quote—and he told her there was no one he trusted as much as you to get the job done. Besides, he said, you could take care of yourself.”

      Crash was silent.

      “They both love you an awful lot,” Nell told him.

      He couldn’t help himself. He started to pace. “You had a security check run on you before you started working for Daisy,” he said, thinking aloud.