Return to Christmas

by Anne Stuart

  She used the word deliberately, just to watch the slight flash of shock in those clear blue eyes. If she were in a better mood, that could prove entertaining, but not right now. All she wanted was to curl up in a nice, warm bed and sleep. And sleep with his arms around her, scaring away the demons. But he was leaving, and she didn’t need him. First thing in the morning, she was getting out of there if she had to get an axe from whatever the hell department carried them—they had to sell them somewhere in this vast building. She could even do it right now, but the thought of hiking down the frozen escalator to the eighth floor was too depressing. “With any luck, I’ll be long gone by the time you return on Monday. It’s been real.” Spinning on her heel, she walked away with a pace that was just short of an angry stomp. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on. She’d be just fine.

  What the hell was he doing to himself, Johnny thought as he caught up with her and led her through the maze of bedrooms. He thought he was over punishing himself, but God knew every moment he spent with this girl...er...woman was doing a number on him, twisting him up inside so badly that he thought he might explode.

  At least this particular twisting was a good thing—he was tangled in lust and protectiveness when nothing had moved him for so long. He cared for her, as dismal and tepid as that word was. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and protect her from all the badness that could harm her, even if he was afraid he was the badness.

  And he wasn’t going to waste time thinking about what else he wanted to do with her. His body was an insistent reminder, but he could ignore it. Maybe.

  She was keeping up with him, but he slowed his pace anyway. He knew where he was taking her, knew it was a bad idea, but he didn’t care.

  “Here,” he said brusquely, standing aside to usher her into the bedroom partition, but she stopped and looked up at him.

  “You designed this,” she said.

  He’d forgotten what a good eyes she had. “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t do the others.”

  “Right again.”

  He tried to see it through her eyes. Unlike the fussy, chintzy look of the other partial rooms with their pairs of twin beds that someone seemed to think was good for marriage, his room was almost plain. There were no sentimental pictures on the walls—he’d chosen a print by a Spanish artist named Picasso. He built the bed as a prototype, and the alterations department had whipped up the bedding. The finished look was sleek and calming, at least to his eyes.

  It had gotten mixed reactions from the public—some customers thought it was spare and cold, but others loved it. The store had already been swamped by special orders for the very expensive custom decorations, and the room was considered a qualified success, enough that he’d considered putting a variant of it up in a window during the January white sales.

  That big bed was his own particular fantasy—he was six feet three and he usually had to lie at an angle across a double bed or have his feet hang over the end. He liked to stretch out when he slept, and with a bed like this, there’d be room for his lanky frame and a woman beside him. And she wouldn’t have to be a shrimp—someone Molly’s height would fit just fine, as long as she slept close.

  “Shit,” he muttered, then started to apologize before he remembered that his potty-mouthed, unwanted guest didn’t need an apology.

  And “unwanted” was the furthest thing from the truth. He wanted her, all right; his very bones ached for her. He just wasn’t going to have her.

  She was looking at him, a question in her eyes, but he was damned if he was going to offer any explanation. She had moved to the center of the three-sided room, uncomfortably close to the bed he kept picturing her in, and she looked around her with pleasure, and he wanted to groan. There was no doubt he’d found his perfect audience.

  This had been a very bad idea. He was only human, and even if he’d spent the years since the war in strict control of himself, he should have realized sooner or later something was going to get through his cold defenses. But why did it have to be her?

  He moved past her, to the state-of-the-art record player and radio combined, and opened the lid. He had no idea whether it was hooked up or not, but he needed to do something other than stand there with his tongue hanging out, at least metaphorically.

  “My dream bedroom,” he said with just the right amount of irony. “A big enough bed, tables beside it to hold books, reading lights, and a phonograph.”

  “This doesn’t look much like the other rooms.”

  “Yeah. I like it,” he said.

  “I like it too.” Before he could react to that idea, she moved on. “I suppose that’s a wooden box beneath the bed covers. I’ve never seen a bed that big.”

  “It’s real, it’s custom, and it’s very comfortable.” Damn, he had to keep away from that line of thought. He could see it all too clearly, his arms wrapped around her warm, slender body, breathing in her scent.

  She let her hand trace the surface of the bed, and he wanted to groan, picturing that hand on his skin. “I’ll leave you to get some sleep,” he said abruptly, turning on his heel.

  “Does the stereo work?”

  “The what?” She came up with the damnedest words sometimes. “What the hell is a stereo? Some kind of stereopticon? Those things are antiques.” And so was she, he thought. Like a creature frozen in time, from another world, another century, with her strange words and her peculiar behavior.

  Odd as she was, he didn’t think she was an escaped mental patient. Her reactions and mien were too normal—there was nothing furtive or frightened about her. But what the hell was she?

  “The...record player?” She almost seemed to be guessing at the word.

  He shrugged. “It did when I set it up.” He moved over to the console, and for some reason, she backed up, away from him. His own damned fault. He shouldn’t have snapped at her.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he grumbled as he switched on the radio and was rewarded with a dull red light.

  “I know,” she said, and he believed her. He wanted to move closer, but the soft squeal of the warned-up radio stopped him. He reached down and turned the dial, and then stopped at the unmistakable sound of Glenn Miller and his orchestra. Not emotional sucker bait like the twentieth version of “I’ll be Home for Christmas,” but an old Judy Garland song, one of his favorites.

  “Have yourself a merry little Christmas.” He remembered the words as the instrumental played on, lithe and moving, and he realized Mollie had come closer, drawn to the melody. She was looking at the radio like this was all new to her, but every human being on the face of the earth knew this song. He’d heard it in Paris, surrounded by death and betrayal. He’d taken his girlfriend to the movies back in Minnesota when it first came out, a decade ago, and afterward she let him slide his hands under her bra for his first touch of a girl’s nipple. Glory days.

  “I know this song,” Madison said, and her eyes were suddenly bright and innocent, all her wariness gone as she unconsciously swayed to the sound.

  He really couldn’t help it. He knew better, but right then, the ice that had covered him since V-E Day seemed to have vanished, and he pulled her into his arms, against his body, as the music took over. She moved like silk against him, following him like they’d been dancing together forever, and she leaned against him, closer than Mrs. Grundy would have allowed, and he simply pulled her closer, lost in the music and the warm body that belonged in his arms.

  Neither of them said a word as the music swung around them. She rested her head against his shoulder, and he held her loosely enough with the hidden power of possession. He moved her around in the room in time with the music, and damned if they didn’t end up beside the bed as the music faded away. He didn’t want to let her go. He’d tasted her mouth once already, and he needed the full feast of her. He felt her tip her head up to look at him, and the sleepy, dreamy expression tore at his heart. She was still tight up against him. Could she feel the impressive wood in his trousers?
He could only hope not.

  Her mouth was so close, it would be simple enough to drop a kiss on her pale, parted lips, to push them open and deepen the kiss until neither of them could think straight.

  He knew what he was doing was wrong and he was going to do it anyway, going to push her down on the big bed and follow her down, when a sharp rapping made them both jump, back away from each other in guilty surprise, as the radio pumped out “Open the Door, Richard,” and Johnny wanted to smash the tubes with a crowbar. He didn’t have one, and it would have terrified her, so he quickly got his frustration under control.

  She was definitely breathless as she moved out of his touch, out of his reach. “What the hell is that?” she demanded shakily.

  He was almost getting used to her cursing. “There’s no way you couldn’t have heard that song—it’s played everywhere.” He switched off the radio, and the cheerful chorus disappear into silence one more.

  “Not on my playlist.” The slow, sensual movements of the dance seemed to have vanished. Good thing. He didn’t bother to ask her what a playlist was—if he reacted to every strange word she came up with, he’d spend his life questioning her.

  “Go to sleep,” he said shortly.

  “Go away,” she said.

  “Gone.” In a matter of moments, he’d disappeared in the maze of bedrooms, but he could hear her voice, humming softly. “Have yourself a merry little Christmas,” and he knew if he turned around and went back, there wouldn’t be any more hesitation. The damned Hallelujah chorus could erupt from the radio and it wouldn’t stop him.

  And he knew that the wild horses who were currently dragging him away from her weren’t always going to be that strong.

  That damned song. She couldn’t stop it from reverberating in her head, couldn’t stop humming it. Because she would feel him all around her, the heat and strength of him as they’d danced, and for the first time she understood why people said dancing was like sex. Not bump and grind and twerking. The practiced, well-known steps were simply a sexual allegory, and she had been so caught up with Johnny at that moment that she could feel her body vibrate.

  She couldn’t afford to think about it.

  She’d heard him walk away when she hadn’t really wanted to listen, and she knew he was miles away in this behemoth of a building. Thank God. She turned in the bed, trying to get comfortable, and then froze. The damned feather pillow was damp.

  Hastily she scrubbed her hand across her face, flipped the pillow over, and flopped back down, closing her eyes. WTF? Why was she crying again? That wasn’t her—she was hardheaded and ruthless. If her brain showed any more signs of melting, she might never get back home, away from this place, away from her grumpy...what was he to her anyway? Savior? Boss? Lo...?

  Count backward by sevens, she reminded herself, fighting the sudden, convulsive pain inside her. Ninety-three, eighty-six, seventy-nine...

  Forty-nine, forty-two...and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  It was all he could do not to turn back, but Johnny kept his eyes forward, moving away from her as quickly as he could allow himself, knowing he should run like hell. The more he thought of that wispy slip that clung to her luscious body and the way she’d clung to him, the more he wanted to head straight back and use that mock bedroom the way it should be used. Damn her.

  She could do with a little more meat on her bones, he thought critically, trying to gain some distance. Someone needed to fatten her up, and he’d done his best an hour ago before he let his goddamned weakness get in the way. He had to move past bad memories the way everyone else had seemed to. No one ever talked about the war, about combat, about bombings and strafings and H-bombs and bullets and...

  Jesus Christ! Every few days he left the store and headed down towards the Bowery, the worst part of New York. Pepper’s Bar and Grill was a beat-up, run-down gathering place for the winos on the streets, or at least that was what people called them. Years before, he would have thought of them as losers, subhuman, the dregs of society. Now he knew they were men just like him, ones who had seen too much, done too much, and did everything they could to blot out those memories.

  He despised himself. Almost every able-bodied man had served in the last seven years, and most of them seemed to have breezed through it with no problem, returning to their civilian life without a stumble. There had to be some fatal weakness in those who couldn’t, though he did his best to never judge the men he met at that seedy bar. In fact, he respected them more than he did himself—he didn’t even have the guts to admit defeat. He just kept hanging on by his fingernails, too stubborn to move.

  He was never sure why he took those weekly trips downtown. Maybe to remind himself that things could be worse. Maybe to test himself. In the end, he nursed his whiskey and talked to the men. Listened, more accurately. He would sit at the bar or in a booth and offer a safe ear to the broken men who’d given up, men who needed someone to listen and not judge. He hoped, if he ended up down there, that someone would listen to him.

  Hell, he was getting morbid. Miss Fancy Pants was having a bad effect on him—he’d been feeling restless ever since she’d stumbled into his makeshift workshop. The best thing he could do was get rid of her—he should have done it the first day. But there’d been something about her, something that had only gotten stronger. She was a tough broad, and he liked tough broads. She was also strangely fragile at the same time, like a lost bird, and she brought out his damned protective streak.

  That combination of admiration and protection had turned into an unlikely attraction that was nagging at him as nothing else had since he’d been a teenager learning about girls, though his time in France had been almost as bad. During the war, he’d wanted just about every female there was, anything to blot out what was happening.

  This was different. He didn’t want sex. Well, no, he was only human—of course he wanted sex. But he wanted her. And that spelled danger.

  She needed to go back where she came from, let him get on with what constituted his life. He hadn’t gone to his woodshop in the sub-basement of this monstrous building in more than a month, and with her arrival, he’d felt even less tempted. Not that he didn’t love the feel and smell of the wood, the way the tools felt like an extension of his body, the way he let his imagination roam free.

  That work wasn’t for Macy’s—that was for his damaged soul—but he could hardly go there while he was working, and the darkness of the cellars were beginning to get to him, just as the fading light from the early winter skyscape and the high walls around him were beginning to close in on him.

  Maybe he was finally ready to move on, back into the world, and the woman who haunted his every waking moment was simply a reminder of that. It could all be incredibly simple.

  But life didn’t tend to be simple. There was something going on between them, probably something as elemental as sex, and it had been so long he hadn’t even recognized it. All he had to do was screw her and everything would be fine, he’d be able to move on.

  It was a nice, simple solution, mutually pleasurable, and it was the very last thing he was going to do. He’d already learned in Paris that sex and drugs didn’t wipe out the darkness. Those shadows always came back with a vengeance, and the woman who’d moved in on his life didn’t need those complications either. She was almost as damaged as he was.

  He could hardly save her when he couldn’t even save himself. And tonight, he’d bring her nothing but trouble. He started down the frozen escalator, so used to it that he automatically adjusted his stride, and by the time he was at the side door he always used he was practically in a run. He needed the cool, crisp air to clear his mind. Tomorrow it would all make a little more sense. Tonight, he just needed to run.

  Chapter 8

  “Mollie” Madison Simcoe opened her eyes very, very slowly. It was morning; her internal clock knew it even if the store was still lit by security lamps. Her brain was full of static, but her entire body felt warm and relaxed and delicious after
a night in Johnny’s bed.

  Johnny’s bed? Noooo—the bed Johnny had designed, thankyouverymuch, but she couldn’t dismiss the feeling. It was as if she’d had a long night of fabulous sex with someone she loved. Since she’d never been in love, and she wasn’t even sure if her hookups had entailed anything more than serviceable sex, she was simply guessing, but for a few short moments, she felt entirely safe and happy. Until she heard the voices.

  “Why do we gotta do this floor again, Benny, huh? I’m ready to go home. Martin checked yesterday when the store closed and everything was copacetic. You know as well as I do that no one could have made their way into the building since then, and why would they? No one goes anywhere in New York on a Sunday—except to Mass, and my wife will kill me if I miss it again. Besides, if someone was trespassing, he’d be in jewelry—not trying to shoplift bedroom furniture.”

  She couldn’t hear the mumbled response, but then she didn’t need to. That one word, “store,” brought everything back to her like a slap in the face, and she slid out of the bed and onto the floor so fast she smacked her elbow against the solid wood table beside her, eliciting a muffle “urmph” of pain.

  “You hear that?” It was that low voice again, but there was nothing the slightest bit sexy about it. She didn’t have to look—the man with that voice was one mean son of a bitch, no one she’d want to meet in a deserted building on a Sunday.

  “Hear what, Benny?” the first man said. “I tell ya, this place is empty. It ain’t that crowded up here on workdays, much less when the place is closed. There’s nothing anyone can steal.”

  “I’m searching this floor again.” Benny’s voice was flat, implacable, but at least it was moving away from her, heading in the opposite direction of her makeshift bedroom. It would give her time.

  She carefully popped her head up, feeling like a gopher, but they were out of sight, the rumble of their voices so far away that their words were intelligible. Staying on her knees, she quickly pulled the bed back together, fluffing the pillow so that there was no sign that Goldilocks had slept there. Her dress was draped across one of the chairs, her shoes and those wretched socks set neatly on the floor. She crawled a few steps, keeping down, and grabbed then, just as the voices grew closer again. Fer crying out loud, this building was huge—how did they get through it so fast? She started to duck under the high bed, only to slam her head against the sold block of plywood beneath. No hiding place there, and obviously the fake bedroom wouldn’t come with a closet.