Merry Christmas, Baby by Jill Shalvis

the Pacific Ocean and the Olympic Mountains, and once upon a time, she hadn’t been able to get out of here fast enough. There’d been more than one reason for that, but she was back now, and not exactly because she wanted to be.
    There was a man in the water swimming parallel to the shore. Passing the pier, he moved toward the north end and the row of warehouses, including the one she stood in.
    Transfixed, she watched the steady strokes and marveled at his speed. He might as well have been a machine given how efficiently and effectively he cut through the water.
    Callie had been in those waters, although only in the summertime. She couldn’t even swim to the end of the pier and back without needing life support.
    But the man kept going.
    And going.
    After a long time, he finally turned and headed in, standing up in the water when he got close enough. After the incredible strength he’d shown swimming in the choppy surf, she was surprised when he limped to the sand. Especially since she couldn’t see anything wrong with him, at least from this distance.
    He was in a full wetsuit, including something covering his head and most of his face. He peeled this off as he dropped to his knees, and she gasped.
    Military-short dark hair and dark eyes. And a hardness to his jaw that said he’d had the dark life to go with.
    He looked just like…oh, God, it was.
    Tanner Riggs.
    While she was standing there staring, her cell phone started ringing with the I Love Lucy theme song, signaling her grandma was calling. Eyes still glued to the beach—and the very hot man now unzipping his wetsuit—she reached for her phone. “Did you know Tanner Riggs was home?” she asked in lieu of a greeting.
    “Well, hello to you too, my favorite nerd-techie granddaughter.”
    “I’m your only granddaughter,” Callie said.
    “Well, you’re still my favorite,” Lucille said. “And yes, of course I know Tanner’s in town. He lives here now. Honey, you’re not reading my Instagram or you’d already know this and much, much more.”
    She didn’t touch that one. The sole reason she was back in Lucky Harbor and not in San Francisco was her grandma.
    Callie’s dad—Lucille’s only son—had been an attorney. Actually, both of her parents had been, and even retired, they still liked things neat and logical.
    Grandma Lucille was neither, and Callie’s parents were pretty sure her grandma was no longer playing with a full set of marbles. Callie had drawn the short stick to come back and find out what needed to be done. She’d been here two weeks, staying in the rental because she needed to be able to work in peace. Her grandma had loaned her the car since she’d been soundly rejected by the DMV for a license renewal. The two of them had daily meals—mostly lunches, as Lucille’s social calendar made the queen of England look like a slacker. But there’d been no sign of crazy yet.
    Not that Callie could give this any thought at the moment, because Tanner shoved the wetsuit down to his hips.
    Holy.
    Sweet.
    Baby.
    Jesus.
    Back in her high school days, a quiet brainiac like Callie had been invisible to him. Which had never gotten in the way of her fantasies, as the teenage Tanner Riggs had been rangy, tough, and as wild as they came.
    He’d filled in and out, going from lanky teen to a man who looked like every inch of him was solid muscle, not a spare ounce of fat in sight.
    Was he still tough and wild and a whole lot of trouble?
    Oblivious to both her musings and the fact she was drooling over him, Tanner moved to the fifty-foot sport boat moored at the dock where he came face-to-face with a teenager who looked just like him down to his dark hair, dark eyes, and that air of wildness. Callie actually blinked in shock. Unless time travel was involved and Tanner had come back as his fifteen-year-old self, she was looking at his son.
    The two males spoke for a moment, the teen’s body language sullen and tense, Tanner’s calm, stoic, and