A Kade Christmas

  A Logan and Taylor Novella

  Tijan

  Copyright © 2021 by Tijan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited by Rogena Mitchell-Jones, RMJ Manuscript Service

  Proofread by Paige Maroney Smith, Kara Hildebrand, Kimberley Holm, Chris O’Neil Parece, Serena McDonald

  Beta read by Crystal R Solis, Amy English, Eileen Robinson

  Contents

  1. Taylor

  2. A Month Earlier

  3. Present

  4. Earlier

  5. Present

  6. Earlier

  7. Still Earlier

  8. Present

  9. Earlier

  10. Present

  11. Earlier

  12. Present

  13. Taylor

  14. Earlier

  15. Present

  16. Earlier

  17. Present

  18. Logan

  19. Earlier

  20. Present

  21. Logan

  22. Logan

  23. Forever Present

  24. Logan

  25. Mason

  26. Taylor

  27. Mason

  28. Group Text

  29. Taylor

  30. Mason

  31. Taylor

  32. Samantha

  33. Taylor

  34. Taylor

  35. Logan

  36. Christmas Day

  37. Kade Christmas

  38. Taylor

  Acknowledgments

  Kess

  Also by Tijan

  To all my Fallen Crest and Roussou readers!

  Thank you guys. Your support means the world to me.

  Taylor

  Present

  Positive.

  The test was positive. I stared at it for thirty minutes, then turned and vomited my breakfast from that morning.

  2

  A Month Earlier

  “Taylor.”

  I woke to Logan whispering my name, nudging my hip. I peeked through an open eye and stared at him. Nope. It was dark out. It was still dark out. I had no clue the time, but I knew it was hellish early in the morning. There’s a universal rule. You do not wake a nurse after they’ve worked a double shift and had stayed another three hours for the paperwork.

  I loved Logan, but I was ready to kill him, and I knew how. I knew all the ways to murder someone.

  “I love you, honey, but if you shake me one more time, I am going to take a scalpel to a part of your body and you don’t want to know which part.” I was lying on my stomach, snuggled into our blankets. I was an RN at the local hospital, and Logan was a partner at his firm. We did well, seriously well, but at that moment, I was grateful for so many of our blessings because this bed was one of the most comfortable places in the world. I glanced out the window, saw that it was starting to snow, and yes, this was my favorite place to be. Here. This bed. With Logan. Knowing I didn’t have another shift for a long time! This all happened last minute, today. Another nurse needed to switch schedules, and pick up more hours. I took her hours next month, so score for me.

  And again, heaven. Right here.

  I closed my eyes and put my head back onto the pillow. “I love you, but leave me alone. I want to sleep.”

  “Taylor.” He wasn’t whispering now, and a second later, he whipped my pillow out from under me.

  “Logan!”

  I reared up—or started to rear up—but Logan caught my hand and flipped my entire body. I had no clue how he did that, but I wasn’t surprised. He was seriously efficient at moving my body around. I landed on my back and he was on top of me. His legs straddled mine, and as I growled, raising my other hand, he caught that one too. Then, with both my hands pinned down, his hips sank further onto me, and he leaned down slowly.

  God, his eyes. So dark. So filled with the typical Logan mischief.

  As long as I’d known him, it was the same look, the one that said, ‘I have a great idea that you will probably hate, but you’re going to go along with it because I’ve decided we’re going to do it and you love me that much so you’ll come along.’ It was that look. Everyone fell for it, literally everyone.

  I growled, but he half-grinned and half-smirked down at me. “I want to go to Hawaii.”

  I stilled, frowning. “What?”

  “Right now. Today. This hour. I want to go.”

  Oh, man. Maybe this was one of those moments that I wouldn’t mind so much.

  We were in our thirties. No children. We were together, but we weren’t married.

  I never minded. I had Logan. That’s all I cared about. He had haunts and his own demons, so I always went with his timeline. Deciding to go to Hawaii on a whim was something we could do.

  “What about your work? What about the boys?” I said we didn’t have children, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have children. Two golden retrievers were in the hallway, and I was shocked that the door was closed. They were whining, wanting to get into bed with us.

  Logan’s mischievous look just went up a level. “I decided to take some time off and I made a call. Sam said they’d watch them for us.”

  Samantha was Logan’s sister-in-law. They had their own house full of kids, the human and four-legged kind. “Are they sure? It’s such late notice.”

  Logan slid his entire body down so he was lying on me, his eyes staring deep into mine. His were starting to smolder, and I felt another piece of him enjoying this position a whole lot. He released one of my hands. That hand went to my hip and slid up under my shirt. “I’m very sure that they’re very sure.”

  I laughed, but Logan’s mouth was on mine.

  Hawaii was going to have to wait a bit.

  3

  Present

  I was going to be a mom.

  Blinking back tears, I was now no longer staring at the pregnancy test. I was holding it, and I was sitting in the bathroom, my back to the shower, and I had tears rolling down my face. I was blinking them back so I could see the pregnancy test, but wow.

  Positive.

  Mom, I’m going to have a baby.

  I hadn’t known. After seeing my mom gunned down in front of me and later losing one of my best friends, I had a different outlook on life. Enjoy. Be grateful for your blessings. And love. Always love. So maybe it was because of those events that I was okay with chilling, being happy being with Logan, but I’d been going on his timeline.

  He had struggles. I knew he did. I knew. I knew him better than anyone right now.

  I knew he feared being like his father.

  I knew he feared being absent and cold like his mother.

  I knew he worried about marriage, fearing it’d only end in divorce.

  Those are all seriously valid struggles, and I waited. I had struggled at times, but I made a conscious decision. I loved my man. I was his ride or die. I’d be at his side, always, but now I was pregnant, and I was in my thirties.

  I wasn’t waiting anymore.

  Oh.

  Wow.

  Okay.

  I touched my stomach, looking down.

  Holy fuck, little dude or dudette. You’re with me, no matter what. You lucked out. You got this momma as your momma, and I’m going to be the best damn momma I can be. Got that?

  I closed my eyes and sent out another thought.

  Mom, it’d totally be amazing right now if I could feel you, if I could become psychic and communicate with you. I waited. Nothing. But no, I could smell her perfume, and just like that, Thanks, Mom. You got a grandchild coming. Tell me you’re happy. I love you. I miss you.

  And I swear, I swear I could hear her say I love you back to me.

  Then my phone rang.

  Logan calling.

  4

  Earlier

  The airport was bustling when we got there. The snow wasn’t helping, but Logan took my hand and began weaving through the lines. We had premier access to get through the security lines faster, and when we approached, the two workers started smiling.

  “Logan, my man.” The first guy held his hand up, and Logan met it with his.

  “Raj, how’s it going?”

  The guy’s eyebrows shot up. “Same as always. It’s going, but how are you? Tell me your brother’s team is going to do better this year.”

  Logan laughed, handing over his ID, and he motioned to me, showing both of our tickets. The other worker, a woman, cleared us both, but she listened to Logan and her coworker have an entire conversation.

  The guy’s name was Rajdo. After Logan skimmed over talking about Mason’s football team, I learned that Rajdo had a wife pregnant with their fifth kid. They were having a hard time planning their older son’s Bar Mitzvah, and they needed to head south later in the month for his niece’s quinceañera. The woman worker’s name was Sandra. She hated Mason’s team, but since she knew Mason was Logan’s brother, she said he was ‘alright’ in her books. And she said all that with a wink and a smile my way.

  No one else was behind us, but when a couple of guys started down our lane, pulling business carry-ons behind them, we moved into the actual security line.

  It was the same effect there, except the workers knew me.

  We got so many ‘Heya, Logan’ and ‘Taylor! Why are you still with this guy?’ that other passengers b
egan pulling out their phones. One girl’s eyes got big, and she started typing fast on her phone.

  Logan, by himself, wasn’t famous, but because of Mason’s football fame, Samantha’s Olympic record, and Nate’s relation to Blaise DeVroe, some fans online had taken to knowing who everyone was in our group. That included Logan and Nate. Because of all of that, I was guessing the girl was the only one who recognized Logan for being Logan Kade.

  “How’s the hospital going?” The question came from the last security agent as she waved me through.

  I moved aside, grabbed my tote as it came down the conveyor belt, and began putting my items back into my bag. Logan had moved forward to a bench, doing the same.

  I shrugged. “It’s still there. What can I say?”

  She gave me a soft smile, her gaze looking me over. “Well, safe travels wherever you and the mister are going.”

  I finished up, shrugging on my bag. “Thank you, Tracy.”

  Her smile got wide.

  They wore name tags, but we always tried to go through this security line, and Tracy was studying to be a nurse, so there was an extra connection between us. She always acted like I wouldn’t know who she was, but you don’t forget a fellow nurse or who’s going to be a fellow nurse.

  Logan was standing, ready to go, when I got to him. He took my hand, lacing our fingers as we started for our gate.

  “How long do we have?”

  He glanced at me. “Not long. They start boarding in twenty minutes.”

  I nodded as we kept going.

  Everything was last minute, but Logan and I each traveled so much that we knew the process.

  Except for this time, I was finding that I didn’t totally.

  When we got to the gate, Logan would typically find a place for us to sit, and he’d head off, making the social rounds. He knew the drivers going past or the front desk people. He knew a couple of the maintenance staff.

  This time, when we got to the gate, he gave the front desk workers (those who knew him) a hello nod and pulled me over to our own private corner. Or what we could find. There was one seat free, looking out over the tarmac. He put his bag down, took my bag, placed it beside his, then sat down and pulled me to sit on his lap.

  His arms draped around me, holding me secure, and he rested his forehead on my shoulder.

  I half-turned to him. “You okay?”

  He nodded, closing his eyes as I raised my hand, touching the side of his cheek. “Just want you right now.”

  I loved Logan. I’d always known I loved Logan, and it wasn’t a deal where we had a typical ‘honeymoon’ phase for the first few years. I was in love with him now more than ever. It grew every day, every month, every year. With every touch, every time he reached for my hand, every time he laced our fingers, every time he did things like this, like ignoring the rest of the airport behind us, pulling me to his lap, and then saying things like that. But not just saying it, meaning it.

  He meant it.

  A rush of warmth melted my insides, and I leaned down, giving him a small kiss. “I love you.”

  He turned, his eyes smiling and so eternally warm. He found my mouth again.

  We kissed a few more times, ignoring some of the comments from others, and after a bit, he just held me in his lap as we waited.

  I was starting to have a feeling this trip was different from the others.

  5

  Present

  I was nervous. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I was.

  Logan had expressed his concern over having kids many times. There’d been talks, late-night discussions into the early hours of the morning, so I understood his fear.

  I didn’t have the same fear. When I loved, I loved with everything in me. I knew I would try to be the best mother I could be, but Logan had different feelings.

  I had to respect his fears, but this was a done deal.

  I’d gone to the doctor. It was confirmed.

  I even had a tentative inception date.

  The doctor was the first to give me congratulations.

  I waited to tell anyone. Not my father. Not Samantha. Not anyone.

  It was Logan first. He was my best friend, and it was the night to do it, and I was shaking.

  I made dinner, tacos for us, and yeah, my arms were actually shaking.

  Then my phone pinged an alert.

  Logan: Running late! Something’s going on with Dad so I have to head to Mason’s.

  Logan: You should eat without me. I’ll grab something there.

  Logan: Are you okay? You haven’t texted me much today.

  I drew in a breath, one to calm my nerves.

  Crap. What do I do here?

  Tell him to come home instead? That would alarm him. He’d do it, but he’d come in wondering if something was wrong. I didn’t want to tell him like that.

  But… if something was going on with his family, it could take days or weeks before a good time came up for me to tell him.

  I needed to wait. I would wait.

  The next time he was home, I’d tell him.

  Me: I’m good. I’ll cuddle up with the boys tonight and watch TV. Let me know what’s going on when you know.

  Logan: You want me to swing by and pick you up? We can bring the boys with us to Mason’s? Do dinner there instead. Sam won’t care. Maddie will love it.

  Normally, yes. I’d be all over that.

  Logan’s brother and sister-in-law were amazing. His nieces and nephew too. Barring his parents, Logan had a great family around him.

  But not tonight. I wanted my own boys around me, and I’d wait to tell him.

  Me: I’m tired or I would. Kinda want to chill with the pups tonight.

  Logan: Okay. I’ll hurry home as soon as I can. Love you.

  Me: Love you too.

  Me: I made tacos, by the way.

  Logan: OMG! Now you tell me!

  6

  Earlier

  He did sweet things the entire flight to L.A. and then to Hawaii.

  He held my hand the whole time.

  He walked with me when I got up to go to the bathroom.

  He went and got me water or coffee when he knew I was about to go and get some myself. Just very simple but thoughtful things. It was a continuous cycle. Not that Logan wasn’t like this usually. He was always sweet to me, always doing considerate things, but when we were around others, it was about the others. He thrived off that interaction. I usually got this treatment behind closed doors. Which was how we both preferred it, but I wasn’t complaining about this treatment—hell to the no.

  He carried my bags for me, and he knew I didn’t care. A backpack was a backpack. We tended to both pack light on purpose. It was easier to grab and go than wait for baggage claim.

  He had a rental ready for us at the airport, a luxury Escalade.

  When we got to the house that we shared with Mason, Nate, and Matteo, I was blown away again.

  Pink rose petals lined the sidewalk into the house, into the front entryway and led out to the back sitting area by the pool. We were right on the beach in Oahu, but we still had an infinity pool, and the rose petals filled the entire back section.

  Logan came up behind me, his hand touching my hip as he molded himself to my back. He folded his arms around me. I could only shake my head, my throat clogging up with emotion. So much emotion.

  I saw champagne. I saw tacos. I saw flowers everywhere.