A few minutes later, down in the basement, Elvis the chicken clucked at me from her roost inside her cage. I added a bit more feed to her bowl and wished her a Merry Christmas, leaving the basement light on so she didn’t have to spend the holiday in the dark.
That dang chicken was starting to make me soft.
After turning the thermostat down a few notches, I pulled on my blue wool coat and placed the overnight tote of clothes that I’d packed last night next to the bag of Santa’s gifts. Next came Doc’s gifts from where I’d hidden them in the bottom of Aunt Zoe’s china hutch.
I frowned unseeingly toward the kitchen, worrying about my gifts for Doc. This was the first Christmas with a man in my life other than my father, son, and brother. Choosing the perfect gift had inspired a lot of knuckle chewing, so I’d picked out several possibilities with the hope that I’d hit somewhere close to the bull’s-eye with one of them.
My cell phone rang as I grabbed my stocking hat and gloves from the dining room table.
“Not again, Mom,” I grumbled, fishing my phone from my pocket.
It wasn’t my mom. My heart pitter-pattered. “Bonjour, mon cher,” I purred.
“Ah, Tish, that’s French.” Doc’s deep voice warmed me through the line. “Hurry up and get over here so I can kiss my way up your arm,” he flirted, playing along in our Gomez and Morticia Addams game.
“You miss me already?” I teased.
He and I had the house to ourselves last night since Aunt Zoe and the kids were down in Rapid City. The fooling around had started on the couch after I crawled on his lap, flashed my bare sugarplums at him, and showed him exactly what I wanted for Christmas. We moved to the floor several moans and groans later where I worked my magic heating up his Yule log. The tree lights added a colorful glow to Doc’s skin as I kissed every inch of him, doing my darnedest to spread Christmas joy throughout his land.
“I miss your lips,” he said in a husky voice. “And your sugarplums.”
All of a sudden my wool coat felt like a goose-down parka made to withstand Antarctic winters. I fanned my collar. “Be careful, big boy. If you keep talking dirty to me, you’ll end up on the Naughty list.”
“Me? What about you?”
I faked a haughty scoff. “I’m a good girl.”
He chuckled. “That game you played with me and that red ribbon was very naughty.”
“A peppermint stick is meant to be licked. I was merely following proper etiquette.” I unplugged the Christmas lights in the living room, smiling down at the floor where I’d worked him into a lather while demonstrating exactly how one savored a peppermint stick.
“Your demonstrations of proper etiquette are going to be the death of me, woman.”
“What can I say? I enjoy jingling your bells.” I slipped the straps of my overnight tote over my shoulder. “I’m about to head out the door at Aunt Zoe’s. Do you need anything from here?”
“Just a sexy blonde with killer curves.”
“It’s your lucky day, then. One blonde coming up.”
“Good. Get those sweet lips over here. The snow is really starting to come down.”
I peeked out the window next to the door. The snowflakes were falling with purpose now. “I made sure the tire chains are in the back of my rig.”
“Keep your fingers crossed we don’t need them.”
“I need to swing by Nat’s apartment to drop off her gift, then I’ll be there to grab you.” I snickered. “When I’m done having my wicked way with you, we can hit the road.”
“That’s it, Boots. No more spiked eggnog for you.”
Au contraire, mon cher. I had a feeling I was going to need to keep hitting the hard liquor hourly to get through the next two days without tackling Susan and rubbing gum in her hair. Her history of stealing my boyfriends had me wanting to lock Doc away in a sarcophagus and feed him red and green Jell-O via a straw through a hole in the lid.
“Why isn’t Natalie coming with us?” Doc asked.
“She’s going to hang out with Freesia tomorrow. Nat doesn’t want to leave her alone.”
Freesia was Natalie’s landlady. Her parents had moved to Nevada, leaving Freesia the boarding house, her family’s legacy. But the Galena House had turned into more work than Freesia could handle and afford, so she’d traded free rent in exchange for Natalie’s handywoman help fixing up the place to sell.
“You’d better make your visit brief,” Doc said. “We don’t want to get caught in this storm. The forecast is calling for up to three feet of snow by tomorrow morning in some areas of the hills.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Doubt away, sweetheart, but there’s a Colorado low front that has formed on the eastern slope of the Rockies, and it’s flowing north right into that frigid air blast coming down from Alberta. That’s a guaranteed recipe for major snow.”
I paused with my hand on the doorknob. “Are you moonlighting as a meteorologist in between planning what people should do with their money?”
He chuckled. “Growing up in the Rockies where blizzards hit in the blink of an eye turned me into a bit of a weather geek.”
I opened the door. The snow was falling even faster than moments ago. Crud. There’d be no living with my mother if this truly were a blizzard. “I’ll hurry with Natalie.”
“Harvey’s making cookies for us to
