Kiss Me, Katie! & Hug Me, Holly!

arrested.”

That thought hadn’t even occurred to her, but it did now and Katie went weak. If it had been the other way around, and Matt had been the woman, and she the he… “Oh, God, I sexually harassed him!”

Bryan grinned. “Shame on you. Can you do it to me, too?”

“I’m going to be sick,” she said faintly.

“Well, this is the place to do it.” But he ran his hand over her bowed head in a soothing gesture.

The craziest thought went through her mind at his oddly welcome touch. She was resisting him because…well, he wasn’t grown-up enough, didn’t know anything but fun. And yet here he was, being the mature one in the face of her own stupidity. She might have warmed to him then. Might have, except for his next words.

“Look, it’s not that bad,” he said. “At least now you know the truth.”

“No,” she said miserably. “I never actually kissed him before we fell.”

Bryan stared at her, then laughed. “You poor baby.”

“ARE YOU WAITING for Matt Osborne?”

Katie straightened in her chair and looked at the nurse in surprise. “Me?”

“He’s been released. You’re driving him home?”

Katie looked around, but there was no one else the woman could possibly be speaking to. Bryan had vanished a half hour ago. “Um…okay.” Guess she wasn’t fired.

Yet.

She followed the nurse down the hallway past the emergency room cubicles. Not all the curtains were closed so she got an eyeful of moaning, groaning, screaming, yelling people.

Not a happy place.

Finally they stopped before a cubicle that did have a closed curtain. The nurse whipped it open, and when Katie hesitated, the woman gently pushed her inside and slid the curtain closed again.

Matt sat on the cot, holding his head in his hands. When he saw her, he straightened, his eyes widening a little.

Terrific. Now he was afraid of her. She forced a smile. “Matt? They said you’re free to go now.”

“Yes.” He looked at the closed curtain behind her as if it were a bolted steel door and he was locked on the wrong side of it.

The awkwardness didn’t fade when she found her feet and moved closer to him. With a barely perceptible movement, he shifted back, away from her.

She dropped to the cot next to him and sighed.

Any second now he’d fire her. She’d take it like a man.

Probably.

“Katie?” He sounded wary but concerned, which made her sigh again.

Mr. Perfect was a gentleman, right to the end. Except that he was watching her as one would a poisonous spider. She supposed she couldn’t really blame him; in his eyes she’d been acting pretty strange since the party.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“I’m driving you home.” She attempted a friendly, don’t-worry-I’m-sane smile. “I’ll have you there in five minutes tops.”

He looked as if five minutes were a lifetime. Or maybe he was just worried she’d knock him down again and really injure him this time.

Well, that was her own fault, she supposed. And she still wasn’t any closer to the truth. He was so handsome, and so darn right for her!

Why couldn’t this be simple?

Slowly she lifted a hand toward him, hoping he’d take it. He didn’t, instead stared down at her fingers as if he expected them to separate from her body and yell Boo! “We really need to go,” she said.

“Just checking…” He gingerly took her fingers, studying them intently. Then he slowly craned his neck and stared at the ceiling, and then the walls around him. “For mistletoe.” He shot her an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, it’s just that you seem so obsessed…”

She tightened her grip on his hand and gently tugged him up because she was obsessed. And she wasn’t finished; she had to know. She had to put the wild, unpredictable and far too sexy Bryan out of her head. “I have to try this one last time,” she whispered, more to herself than him. “I won’t hurt you, I promise.” Going up on her tiptoes, she lightly pressed her mouth to his.

He stiffened at the connection, and she thought, Yes! because she’d felt the same reaction from him, at the party. But that night his hands had tightened on her, he’d made a rough sound of helpless arousal, and had immediately taken over the kiss until she couldn’t so much as remember her name.

Not this time.

No fireworks, no heat barreling through her veins, nothing except the short, dry, chaste kiss.

Matt immediately pulled back and frowned at her. “What was that for?”

“Yes, Katie. Do tell.”

Katie jerked around. Bryan! What? Was her good karma on vacation?

Bryan lifted a mocking eyebrow, darn him, and sent her a knowing smile.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Me?”

“Yes, you!”

“Matt asked me to drive him home.” Bryan’s eyes sparkled, his mouth quivered suspiciously. “Unless of course, you’re going to do it.”

“No!” Matt said quickly, too quickly, then sent Katie an apologetic but terrified glance.

Katie could only sigh. Bryan’s eyes were still on her, she could feel them, but she’d streak naked through the hospital before she’d look at him again.

“Hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” he said lightly, turning her, forcing her to face him.

Oh, yes, given that smug expression, he knew exactly what he’d interrupted, and she’d never live it down.

His cocky, wicked grin only reinforced the knowledge.

6

WELL, AT LEAST she had Tic and Toc, her cats. They’d never abandon her. They’d never look at her with soft reproach as Matt had, wondering why she was trying to ruin his life.

Darn him for giving her a complex anyway. All she’d wanted was one little kiss; it wouldn’t have hurt him to cooperate.

Much.

“Meow.”

Katie let out a long, shaky breath. “Well, I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she told the cat. “But really, now that I think about it, that concussion was his own fault. If he would’ve just stayed still, we wouldn’t have fallen.”

She sat on her porch, both cats heavy in her lap as she watched the sunset and sighed. “I’m still Christmas cursed, apparently. Big surprise there.”

“I’ve heard you say that twice now.”

She nearly dumped Tic and Toc to the floor at the unexpected sound of his voice.

Bryan stood below the bottom step.