Must Love Mistletoe

Pushing her sweater toward her breasts, he’d kissed her navel, close enough now to inhale a creamier scent that he wanted to think was proof that she desired him too. As usual, her face surrendered nothing. With her lashes brushing her cheeks, he couldn’t see the expression in her eyes. Her baby-doll mouth was plump, but pursed. Silent.

So he could only hope, wish, then finally believe once he touched her thighs, tracing those goose bumps in reverse, and curled his forefinger beneath the elastic of her panties.

As he touched the wetness waiting for him, he didn’t think she breathed.

It paralyzed him.

“What do you want, Finn?” she’d asked, her eyes shut tight.

Everything. Every day.

He wanted her joy in seeing him. To her, he wasn’t the screw-up son, the delinquent teenager, the failure one arrest away from jail.

He wanted her mind. The brains that made her number three in her high school class. The intelligence that could write a paper on The Sun Also Rises that not only he could understand, but that also made him want to read the book.

Finn, the fuck-up, wanting to read.

As much-more, hell, he’d only been nineteen, for God’s sake-he’d wanted her body. Every lithe line, every feminine curve, every small moan that he could manage to wring from her. He wanted to rub his face against her belly, the small of her back, the hills of her pretty ass.

“Finn?”

She’d faint if he told her the truth-that he wanted to dip a cookie in that sweet, delicious cream between her thighs and then gobble it down.

“Finn?”

Her voice had lost its breathiness. It sounded surprised.

Or annoyed.

His eye popped open.

And there she was. Not sweet or tremulous or laid out for him like a Christmas banquet. Instead she looked harried, her elf hat askew, her eyes fatigued. As if she’d spent the day searching for the last Go-Go Toaster train in Southern California. A passel of kids were gathered around her, the littlest ones with her work apron clutched in their fists. A gooey-looking, child-sized candy cane was stuck in the ends of her hair.

He didn’t mean to laugh. But it was funny-the joke on him-that he’d been dreaming of the seventeen-year-old princess who ruled his body and then been rudely awakened by this grown-up, hassled-looking woman who gazed at him like he was a frog instead of a god.

Then the joke really was on him, because she glanced down at the kiddie squad. “Hey, everybody, remember how I couldn’t promise we’d have Santa to read you stories tomorrow? Because Santa was probably planning on riding the uh, big surf?”

Disgruntled nods all around.

“I was wrong. I’m certain our AWOL Santa will be here!”

The motley crew cheered. Bailey grinned at their enthusiasm.

Then she looked over at him. Her forefinger aimed at his chest.

U

Her hand curved into a circle.

O

Her thumb jutted backward, her lips formed the word.

Me.

Too late, Finn remembered he hadn’t wanted to know what exactly she meant by that.

Bailey Sullivan’s Vintage Christmas

Facts & Fun Calendar

December 8

In medieval England, people attended church at Christmas wearing Halloween-type masks and costumes. They’d sing rowdy songs and even roll dice on the altar.

Chapter 8

“You’re supposed to be nice to Santa,” Finn hissed, the words twitching the silvery beard and mustache strapped to his head beneath the plush red-and-white hat.

“Only if Santa has something in his bag I want,” Bailey retorted in a hushed voice, shoving a storybook into his hand. She looked down at the dozen or so little ones who were cross-legged on the floor in the front room of The Perfect Christmas for story hour. Their moms were either hovering at the edge of their semicircle or-better yet- edging away to look over merchandise and check price tags. “Now stop yapping and get ready to read.”

“I only asked for a glass of water.”

“No time,” she said, for his ears only. “The kiddies are here and we said we’d start at eleven on the dot. This is a business, Finn, and I don’t have time to hold your hand.”

She wished back the comment the minute she said it. It was all business at The Perfect Christmas, no matter that she’d dragged her old flame-a man whose hand she used to love to hold and also a man whom she’d had to admit to herself she was once again out-of-control attracted to-into playing Santa. But that had been a business decision too!

He’d been standing there yesterday afternoon, just as she’d finished an exhaustive hour doing the Pied Piper thing for a passel of sugar-buzzed, Christmas-crazed, two-legged little rats. The idea of having to read Christmas stories to a similar group the next day had made her want to run, screaming, for the Hollywood Hills.

With the surf up and her sales dude Byron heading beachside, she’d desperately needed a Santa more than she needed distance from Finn. Plus, he owed her, and he seemed to accept that fact.

Now if only his piratical take on St. Nick wouldn’t scare the kiddies or do any lasting psychological damage. It looked as if Sesame Street and those weird Wiggles (the store stocked both their Christmas CDs) had actually taught the kids to accept differences, however. Only one munchkin at Finn’s feet had made note of his patch-and then only to ask if he’d been poked in the eye by an antler. Finn had murmured something under his breath about a Red Ryder BB gun, and one of the younger mothers laughed. She was still there, cozying up to the kiddie circle.

Bailey checked the clock. “Go,” she said.

He glanced up at her.

A sharp pang pierced her, somewhere between her stomach and her throat. A bullet had wounded Finn, she thought, and not for the first time. It had taken one of his eyes.

He could have died.

Somehow she was suddenly holding his hand after all.

Frowning, he squeezed her fingers. “Bailey…”

She whipped her hand away. Business! “The book,” she said. “Start reading.”

With a little shrug, he turned away from her and opened the storybook in his hands.

With a lot of relief, she moved away from him and toward the cash register on the other side of the room. For several minutes her hands occupied themselves with organizing the pen cup and tidying the checks in the drawer even as her ears took in Finn’s low voice. She stole a look at him. It was kind of cute, really, to see the baddest boy she knew dressed up like the nicest man in the world, telling children a story.

Made you think about him as a dad some day-

No. It did not make Bailey think of him as a dad. No damn way. God, the sentimental glop The Perfect