he whispered, and nodding to Chet, he led her out of the room.
“I did not miss you,” she said, stiffly.
“Okay.”
“I didn’t.”
He turned her to face him. He was grinning, the jerk. “You were looking for my flight plan.”
“So?”
“So…you want me.” His eyes went hot. “I want you back.”
Her resistance deserted her. “Look, Bryan, it’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is. Spend tonight with me, Katie. Let’s ring in Christmas Day together.”
“That’s for New Year’s. The ringing.”
“Okay, we can do it again next week. Say yes. Let’s banish your Christmas curse and have a great time while doing it.”
“You mean sleep together.”
“I didn’t say anything about sleeping,” he said wickedly.
“Bryan.”
His fingers lifted to caress her cheek, his gaze softened. “You’re nervous. I won’t hurt you, Katie.”
But he would. He could. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Come on, it’ll make Christmas morning special.”
“I…don’t have a present for you,” she said lamely. As if that was her only concern! She had a million of them! “I can’t think of anything in the world you could want that you don’t already have.”
His eyes darkened, and for a moment she thought he was going to say
How silly that would be. This man could have anyone, anyone at all.
“No presents,” he said quietly. “No pressure. Just you and me.”
“Bryan-”
The intercom buzzed. Katie was needed at the front desk for a “disturbance.”
Saved by the bell from her own hormones.
Bryan followed her.
Two of their biggest clients waited for her, Rocky and Teddy. They’d been both best friends and enemies for nearly sixty years. Short, chunky and balding, with matching deep squint lines from long days in the cockpit, not to mention identical perpetual scowls, they could have been twins separated at birth, except for the fact that Rocky had lily-white skin and Teddy was African American.
They never agreed on anything, unless it was how much they detested everyone else. Both of them held envelopes and glared at her as she came closer.
“Merry Christmas Eve, gentlemen,” she said. “Is there a problem?”
“You betcha, little girl,” Rocky grumbled, waving his envelope, which Katie recognized as the monthly statement she’d recently sent out in the mail. “You charged me the going rate for fuel last month.”
She didn’t understand the problem until Teddy grinned. “I got the favored customer discount.” His amusement dissolved as he, too, waved his bill. “But I got charged full price for tie-down fees, and missy, I
“I didn’t get charged full price there.” Rocky beamed. “Because
“You-” Teddy’s face turned beet red as he grabbed for Rocky’s bill, but Rocky lifted it high over his head, chortling as the portly Teddy leaped up and down like a bullfrog, trying to grab it. Rocky wheezed with amusement, coughing from his forty year old cigar habit as if he intended to lose a lung.
Bryan grinned at the spectacle, and when Katie glared at him, he only laughed. “They’ll get it out of their systems in a minute,” he told her. “Once they get in a good punch or two. Happens all the time.”
“Well, I can’t let them duke it out here,” she said firmly, thinking of insurance premiums and lawsuits.
“Katie-”
“I can handle this.”
“But-”
“Let me do my job,” she insisted. “Gentlemen!” When they didn’t appear to hear her, she reached over the counter for the envelopes, which were being waved by two greedy fists, high over the men’s heads as they danced up and down trying to outmaneuver each other.
“Katie, I could just-”
“No,” she said to Bryan over her shoulder. “Believe it or not, I can take care of this on my own.”
“I realize that, but if you’d just-”
“Please.” Envisioning two heart attacks, or even a stroke or two, Katie reached out farther, but the counter hampered her. Teddy and Rocky weren’t just grabbing for their bills now, but actually starting to wrestle, and picturing the calamity when one of them clobbered the other, she became all the more alarmed. “Come on now, let’s settle this reasonably-”
That’s when Teddy slid in low and punched. Rocky evaded, and in a comical twist that rivaled any raunchy television wrestling show, Teddy swiveled with the follow-through that ended up going nowhere. He fell on his butt on the lobby floor. With an enraged bellow, he went for Rocky’s feet, wrapping his pudgy arms around them just as Katie leaned all the way over the counter and grabbed both envelopes. Her toes left the floor, making her gasp at the loss of balance. She felt Bryan grab her legs, heard his worried voice calling her name.
But naturally, as this day was not one of her best, she overcompensated for her leap up. And as the laws of physics state, what goes up, must come down.
So it was only a matter of a second or so after Rocky tumbled to the floor in a heap over Teddy that Katie lost the battle for balance.
She would have toppled headfirst over the side of the counter, except that Bryan held her legs.
So actually, the only thing that fell was her skirt.
Right around her ears.
As she hung there, held by Bryan, his arms around her thighs, his face only an inch from her proffered tush, her plain white serviceable underwear flashing him, she was fairly certain that nothing else could possible go wrong for the rest of the day.
Naturally, she was wrong about that, too.
Because that was the exact moment that Holly and Matt made their reappearance. No one seemed to notice that Holly’s lips were pleasantly swollen, or that Matt had untucked his shirt to cover the front of his pants.
Why should they, when the upside down, dress-flapping-in-the-breeze Katie easily stole the show?
11
BRYAN SHOULD HAVE followed his heart’s desire. He should have taken a bite out of Katie’s tight, curvy and oh-so-temptingly close rear end.
But he hadn’t, he’d actually followed society’s unspoken rule-do not bite a lady’s bottom unless invited to do so.
And now he was alone on Christmas morning.
Christmas mornings were typically pretty darn good for him. They had been all his life. For one thing, he was the baby of a very large family who believed in lots of love and laughter.
And lots of presents.
Because he wasn’t the most organized of men, he sat on his bed and wrapped the things he’d purchased for everyone. Better late than never, he figured with a smile as he unrolled some festive paper and dug in.
He wasn’t getting together with his family until dinner, which was good. He wanted to see Katie first.
The nerves surprised him, but as soon as he finished wrapping, he showered, dressed and got into his car.
Getting to her place took no time at all, but he wasted another moment in rare angst, staring at the dark windows and wondering what the hell he thought he was doing. She’d made it clear over and over again he wasn’t what she wanted in a man. Not that it mattered; he didn’t want to be any one woman’s man anyway.
