His eye narrowed. “So I ho-ho-ho for you and then you’ll h-”
“Tell me you’re not about to mention me and ‘ho’ in the same breath.”
He grinned, and she felt some of the tension leach out of him.
Some tension left her too.
Almost three hours later, she still hoped she was right. At the end of the film, once the sentimental moviegoers had sighed over the sight of ol’ Kris’s cane left beside the fireplace of the new Santa believers, Bailey had trotted out her Kringle-for-the-night and called upon Trin to help pass around refreshments. Then the customers had proceeded to do what all good customers should…they’d lined up at the cash registers, many of them purchasing their own copy of the
Then she’d sent Trin home to her baby and husband and let Finn help her stack the chairs she’d rented and put the displays back to their original position. It was almost midnight when they stood by the door and she flipped off the lights.
“Thanks for everything,” she said to Finn. He had to be as ready to call it a day as she was. Sex, please God, was the last thing on his mind.
He put one hand on the doorknob. The other he curled around the back of her neck, underneath her hair. “I have an idea. Let’s stay here.”
Earlobes could goose bump, she realized. And maybe sex
“Let’s stay here and eat…” He let the sentence trail off, then added the one word guaranteed to seduce her. “Donuts.”
It was such a bad idea. But he wasn’t suggesting sex again, exactly, was he?
Leaning closer, he whispered in her ear. “Bailey.” A hypnotist, and she was halfway to being mesmerized. “
Oh hell. Some things were just worth the risk.
The Christmas flower known in the English-speaking world as the poinsettia is named after Dr. Joel R. Poinsett, a U.S. diplomat who served as minister to Mexico in the 1820s. The shrub, native to Mexico, blooms in midwinter with star-shaped crimson blossoms. Mr. Poinsett returned home to Charleston, South Carolina, with enough cuttings to begin growing the plants in more northern climates.
Chapter 16
When Finn returned to The Perfect Christmas bearing a pink box and the best four bucks could buy from Dee Dee’s 24/7 Donuts around the corner, he found the front door unlocked but no sign of Bailey in the dimly lit store. “GND?” he called softly, locking the door behind him.
At his first step, a reindeer standing on an eye-level shelf swiveled its head his way. Finn started, nearly dropping the box. The movement triggered more action on a display table to his right. Jack-in-the-box-style, a Santa popped out of a chimney. Shaking his head, he took another step and saw the lights strung along the banister to the second floor spring into action. Red and green alternated, racing upward at a dizzying speed.
Getting the hint, he made for the staircase, then almost swallowed his tongue when something touched his leg. He looked down and left-a knee-high angel was waving her arms about, gesturing him onward with a lighted plastic candle. As he reached the landing, a stuffed moose hanging on the wall broke into song, its mouth moving, its ears twitching, the wreath around its neck blazing with light. “I wish you a Merry Christmas too,” he muttered, then kept moving, senses alert for Bailey’s next surprise.
A train steamed down its track laid along the hallway as he reached the top of the stairs. Taking the indicated left turn, he continued forward. Three snow globes sitting on a narrow table lit up and started spinning in their bases, snow whirling in tiny blizzards as he passed by. Finally, a moving Santa and Mrs. Claus gestured him into the smallest second-floor room, half dark like the rest of the store.
In one shadowy corner stood a real Christmas tree, decorated more simply than those downstairs. White lights twinkled through its bows and it was wrapped in strings of cranberries and slices of dried orange.
“Another popular myth busted.” The amused voice of the woman he wanted sounded in the room. “Apparently men
His head shifted left. He looked up. Perched on a short stepladder, Bailey gazed down at him with a half smile curving the usual pout of her full mouth. She had a glitter-covered ornament in her hand and he saw a streak of glitter across her cheek.
It was like that night in Gram’s driveway when he’d thought she’d been dipped in stars. He’d ached for her then. He ached for her now.
For some reason she wanted to fight going into his arms again, but he would overcome her resistance. Rushing her wasn’t going to work, he’d tried that in the back room at the store. So he’d settled on seduction. By sweet treats, by sweet words, by whatever damn thing necessary, he was going to get her naked and him inside her again.
Bare to bare.
Battling his Bailey-lust the past couple of days had only been making things worse for him and everyone who came in contact with him. The tension he’d vowed to uncoil this Christmas had instead only been wrapping tighter. He’d nearly clocked the receptionist at Gram’s oncologist’s that morning.
Don’t tell him the holiday season was a bad time to be terminally ill.
Bailey stretched high, taking his mind off everything but her, as she reached to place the ornament in her hand near the top of the tree. Finn remembered the balance beam her stepfather had built for her in her backyard. He’d watch from his side of the hedge as she practiced, fascinated by the grace in her flips and turns. Fascinated by the slender line of her strong legs and the way the sun caught in her blond hair. Bailey then.
Bailey now. A woman.
As if sensing his thoughts, she looked down at him. Their gazes met, and deep inside him, at his center, there was a shift, like something fallen over finally rerighting itself.
“What?” Bailey asked, and when he didn’t answer, a puzzled smile took over her face. “
It was the attraction, Finn told himself, pulling the bakery box closer to his chest. That’s all. His need for sex moving from his groin outward.
“Finn?”
“Get down from there,” he ordered softly.
Her body twitched, swaying a little on the ladder.
He reached her in one stride, steadying her with his hand on her thigh. The top of his head reached her hips. “Be careful.”
She stared at his hand on her leg. “Don’t you get it? I’m trying, I’m trying.”
“Then come on down, sweetheart.” He squeezed her denim-covered flesh.
Her gaze didn’t leave his hand. “I, uh, think we should talk.”
