All She Wants for Christmas by Jaci Burton Read Free Book Online Page A

step foot into the lion’s den.
    ***
    As she stood outside Ethan’s parents’ house and stared up at the brightly blinking Christmas lights lining the roof as well as the smiling, waving mechanical Santa and snowman parked on the front lawn, Riley took a deep lungful of bitter cold air and wondered what she was doing here. She should have just asked Ethan’s mother to have him call her when he was free.
    But it had been a long time since she’d seen his parents, and they’d always been so nice to her.
    Still, his brothers were here and she’d just bet they weren’t members of her fan club.
    Her knees knocked against each other and her heart slammed against her chest as she rang the doorbell.
    One would think she’d never get nervous, but since she’d come back to Deer Lake, she’d had a ton of leg-shaking moments.
    Ethan’s dad swung the door open. He’d changed a little in ten years, gotten a little grayer and a lot heavier, but his generous smile was still the same.
    “Riley Jensen. Aren’t you just all grown up and more beautiful than ever? Come on in.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Kent.”
    He shut the door behind her, then took her coat. “Everyone’s in the family room. He limped next to her. “You have your choice of Yahtzee, Uno or Scrabble.”
    She remembered family game night, a required weekly event she’d always loved, and a tradition that obviously still continued.
    Family traditions. She’d never had them because she’d jumped around from family to family. That’s why she’d loved the Kents. They’d been her stability, her normalcy in a childhood that wasn’t.
    The house hadn’t changed much. As she surveyed the Christmas tree and the decorations she remembered so well, she was struck with a pang of homesickness she hadn’t felt since the day she’d grabbed a bus out of town and hadn’t looked back.
    The Kent home had been as much a home for her as it had been for Ethan. When she and Ethan had started dating her freshman year of high school, they’d been inseparable, which meant she’d spent much of her time at his house because she tended to bounce around here and there at foster homes. And even when she was stable, she didn’t want to burden her foster family with yet another kid.
    The Kents had been like parents to her—kind, welcoming, treating her like their own daughter.
    She’d loved them.
    And like so many others in Deer Lake, she’d left them behind without explanation and without saying goodbye.
    She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed them until she saw the stuffed Christmas moose on the table in the foyer, or the strings of lighted garland winding up the stairs, or the smiling snowmen who decorated Stacy’s mantel. She heard the whistling of the train under the tree, remembering sitting in the living room and staring at that train for hours, marveling at the magic of a family holiday.
    All of these were part of her memories of Christmases past.
    Not everything in the past hurt.
    She’d had good memories too.
    Fighting back tears, she put on a smile as Roger led her into the oversized family room.
    “Guess who I found at the front door?”
    Several pairs of eyes turned and the raucous noise in the room quieted down.
    The guys all stood.
    The Kent brothers had certainly all grown up. Between Ethan, Wyatt and Brody, the three of them were devastating in the looks department. All of them with thick dark hair, tall and well muscled. Wyatt had dangerous good looks and a firm jaw, Brody looked like one of those sexy calendar models, all lean and lethal, but it was Ethan who caught her eye the most. It was in his eyes, the way he looked at her when she entered the room. Maybe because she’d been in love with him for half her life.
    Ethan came over to her.
    “Riley. What are you doing here?”
    “I called your house but you weren’t there so I called your mother. She asked me to come over.”
    Stacy greeted her with a hug and held it for a minute. “More like demanded