Between the two of them they managed to transfer the meringue onto the tray, and then, as if it were a land mine, slide the tray into the oven. She set the timer for one and a half hours.
“Back to Beyoncé,” he said, “the baby llama that changed everything.”
“Baby alpaca, actually.”
“My bad.” He caught her hand, drew her to him, then in a swift move lifted her to sit on the remaining clean kitchen counter. Loosely trapping her with his palms braced either side of her hips, he breathed her in. Apricots, vanilla, and now a sugary sweetness because he’d caught her licking a smear of meringue off her hand.
“You were telling me her name fitted in with the other animals?”
“That’s right. At the moment we have ten llamas and twenty-three alpacas, the sexes kept in separate paddocks because the boys get a little nutty around the girls.”
“Understandable.” He was feeling a little bit nutty himself being this close to her. “Tell me your favorites.”
She arched an eyebrow. “A llama mama doesn’t have favorites.”
He ran a hand down her thigh to give a gentle horse-bite squeeze just above her knee. She giggled and squirmed, and he took advantage by stepping between her legs.
“Fine. I do have some favorites. There’s Lady Gaga llama, who is a total flirt with visitors. Whitney and Aretha are alpacas, and they have the same mum. The appropriately named Meat Loaf, who never met a tourist bearing pellets he didn’t like. And yes, we have to watch his weight otherwise he’ll turn into a real butterball. Oh, and Barry is another baby alpaca I helped to raise.”
“Barry as in Barry Manilow?” He hummed the first line of Copacabana.
She chuckled and covered his mouth with her hand. “No, as in Barry White.”
He kissed her palm and she shivered, but before she could pull away he captured her wrist and trailed a line of kisses along the smooth skin of her inner arm. She sucked in a breath, her gaze locked on his, and he dropped her wrist and cupped her face instead. Barry White’s deep voice echoed in his head. Can’t get enough of your love, baby. Why couldn’t he resist this woman?
He dipped his head and kissed her, losing the logical, conscious part of himself in the chemistry of her lips against his. He had no idea how much time had passed when they both came up for air, staring at each other with a hunger that sugar and egg whites wouldn’t satisfy.
A soft hissing sound came from the direction of the oven.
Karen’s gaze slid past his shoulder and widened comically. “Crud!” she yelped.
Whirling around, he spotted the same thing she had through the glass door. White goo covered the width and breadth of the baking tray and was dripping off the edge.
“Is the pavlova meant to look like that?” he asked.
She shoved him out of the way and hopped down from the counter. “No,” she wailed. “It’s ruined.”
Understatement of the year. Yet he couldn’t wipe the grin off his face. He’d eat a hundred flat-as-a-pancake pavlovas if it meant he could keep kissing Karen. He moved behind her and wrapped his arms around her middle, dropping a kiss on the side of her neck.
“I have a cunning plan, milady.”
“Please tell me it involves running down to the grocery store to pick up a premade pavlova?”
“You’re a mind reader now?”
“Uh-huh.” She twisted around in his arms, bunching the T-shirt at his hips in her fists. This time it was he who shivered at the contact, their bodies bumping together. He liked everything about the way she felt in his arms.
“And the cunning part is we dispose of the evidence in there and tell Moira and Jeff we made it.”
“I love it,” she said. “They’ll never know the difference.”
His co-conspirator beamed up at him, and the invitation just spilled out of his mouth. “Hey, now that I’ve seen yours, I’d like you to see mine.”
Her mouth dropped open a fraction, and he laughed, kissing the tip of her nose.
“I mean my work, of course.”
“Of course.” She rolled her eyes.
“There are a few spots left on the stargazing tour tonight. I’d love you to come.”
She twined her arms around his neck. “Christmas Eve under the stars. Sounds perfect. Magical even.”
He winked at her. “Maybe you’ll even see Santa’s sleigh pass overhead.”
And he managed to say it with a straight face. Because with the way Karen was making him feel, for the first time in years, anything could happen.
Chapter 5
Karen was inexplicably nervous on the ride up to the Mount John Observatory. Art had left for work hours ago, and she’d rugged up in a scarf, beanie, jeans, and a warm parka before walking down to the tourist office. The stargazing tour didn’t start until quarter to midnight, since it was high summer and they had daylight savings to contend with.
Moira and Jeff weren’t keen to accompany her. Jeff said he had done the tour a few times before, and Moira claimed to have done the exact same tour last time she visited her brother.
“Go have fun with your sexy nerd,” Moira teased, shoving her out the door just before eleven.
“He’s not my sexy nerd.” But Karen found herself talking to a closed door, and okay, she was starting to make the mistake of thinking he was hers. That he could be hers.
As the bus wound up the twisty road toward the observatory, Karen only listened with half an ear to the short educational video playing. High above them hung a nearly full moon, which staff had warned would affect their view of the stars. She didn’t care. The night felt breathless with anticipation. Once they reached a certain height on the mountain, the driver turned his headlights off and continued on slowly. Another thing the staff had warned the tour group about was that there was no white light allowed at the observatory. They’d been given keychains with a little red-light flashlight as part of the tour and asked not to use the flashlight app on their cell phones. It all added to the excitement.
They reached the top of the mountain, and climbed out of the bus to be greeted by two tour guides, one of whom she recognized as Art in the pewter moonlight. She couldn’t quite see the features of his face clearly, but his smile when he spotted her was unmistakable. The other guide introduced himself as Jake and went into his spiel about what they would see tonight, plus a safety briefing and a whole bunch of rules.
Finally they made their way up a hilly path, using the little red flashlights to guide their feet until they reached the main observatory. They gathered on a large deck, which overlooked the sparkly lights of Tekapo and the lake a shimmering onyx pool far below.
Karen tipped her head back, taking in the tapestry of stars woven across the sky. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the twinkling dots above, none that her puny human mind could comprehend. It made her breathe deep of the chilly night air with a smile on her face. The universe wasn’t meant to be dissected and debated about, rather to instil a sense of wonder in those who marvelled at it.
As Jake continued to point out items of interest with his powerful laser pointer, the back of Karen’s nape prickled for a moment before a light hand touched her upper back. She dropped her gaze from the heavens and met Art’s eyes.
He smiled at her and mouthed, “I’m glad you’re here.”
“And now I’ll hand over to the smarter but less good-looking of the two of us, Art Donnelly,” Jake said. “Art’s an astronomer in real life, but we’ve trained him to tone the geek talk down so we can all understand.”
Everyone in the crowd shuffled around to face Art, who’d taken a step forward and climbed onto one of the low benches. He made an imposing figure against the backdrop of stars and the jet black sky.
“Jake’s already shown you the Milky Way,” Art said, using his laser pointer to once again trace a line from south to north in the sky. “And, of course, Sirius, the brightest star, and Mars, which is in the west. Then there’s Orion to the north-northeast”—the red laser
line swept to a cluster of stars—“a constellation I’m quite fond of because of the Greek mythology surrounding the hunter Orion, from which the constellation gets its name. The hunter Orion was the son of the sea god Poseidon, and was apparently the most handsome of men. In one story, Orion fell in love with seven sisters—the Pleiades—I’ll tell you a little bit more about them in a moment. Zeus, however, wasn’t cool about this, so he scooped the sisters up and placed them in the sky. As you do, when you have a handsome young man armed with an unbreakable bronze club trying to hook up with seven of your granddaughters.”
That earned Art a round of chuckles from his audience. He had a completely different style than Jake, a combination of earnestness and humor that sucked you in and made you want to hear more.
He directed his laser pointer up again and circled another area of the sky. “In the north-northwest of the Taurus constellation lies the Pleiades or Seven Sisters—those bad girl siblings I was telling you about. Before I hit you with the science stuff about the Pleiades cluster, let me give you a little insight to what the Māori call them. Here in New Zealand, the Seven Sisters are known as Matariki, and their reappearance in the night sky around late May or early June signals the Māori New Year. It’s a time of remembrance and celebration, of a fresh new start. I think we can all use a fresh start once a year, and not necessarily on the traditional Western world’s December 31.”
Art continued to talk, listing stats and figures that boggled the mind. His genuine passion for his subject was as obvious as the moon’s cratered surface, and he had his audience spellbound in moments, stilling even the impatient rustles from a couple of kids on the tour. He was absolutely in his element, and even the arrival of two staff members passing around takeout cups of hot chocolate barely broke the spell.
“Enjoy your complimentary hot chocolate,” Jake announced to the group. “Art and I are happy to answer any of your questions so far.”
Karen had to chuckle as a circle quickly formed around Art and people peppered him with questions. She cradled her hot chocolate and moved carefully across the deck away from the others. She’d nearly finished the warming drink when Jake called the group back together around one of the two set-up telescopes. He began to talk, and she watched as Art politely excused himself from an enthusiastic elderly man and came to stand beside her.
He took her hand, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles as they continued to stare out across the lake. Hidden by darkness, she leaned into him, sipping the last of her drink as if their linked hands were no big deal. But it was a big deal to her, and she had to restrain herself from making him look unprofessional by twining herself around him like tinsel around a tree.
“Merry Christmas,” he whispered.
Huh? She had completely forgotten the time once Art had started his talk, so caught up with him—by him—that she hadn’t noticed midnight had come and gone. How cool was it that they were welcoming in Christmas beneath a blanket of stars?
“Merry Christmas,” she whispered back.
Art slanted a glance over her head toward the main group. She followed the line of his gaze; everyone else in the tour group stood with their heads tipped back, Jake directing their stares at the Southern Cross. When she turned back, Art had moved closer and she bumped right into his chest. She only had time for a shocked half breath, then his mouth was on hers. Cool fingertips slid under her ponytail and cupped her neck, holding her in place while his lips created magic. The kiss was sweet, heady, and left her bereft when he pulled away.
“Sorry. I just had to kiss you,” he murmured.
Her heart still pounding out a Little Drummer Boy rhythm, Karen shoved her shaking hands into her jacket pockets. “Did you, now?” She lifted her face skyward, in case anyone should turn around and catch her looking guilty and thoroughly discombobulated. She had no clue what stars she was looking at, one sparkly thing looking much like another when her emotions were playing havoc in her brain.
“Yep,” he said as Jake mentioned his name, and the dozen other people on the tour turned in unison to face them. He moved behind her, hands resting lightly on her shoulder for a moment as he bent to whisper in her ear. “You’re the only thing I want to find under the tree this Christmas.”
* * *
December 25
Art lay stretched out on his bed, watching the sunrise herald in his fifth New Zealand Christmas. After he and Karen had arrived home just after two in the morning, he’d stolen one more kiss, whispered, “Merry Christmas,” again, and left her outside her bedroom door. It’d taken every last ounce of his willpower to do so. He craved her company, and not just in a sexual way. Although there was that, too.
Their chemistry was off the charts—wilder then the storm that had been raging on Jupiter for the past four hundred years or more.
He sighed and rolled out of bed. Spending a little longer than normal on his morning grooming routine, Art selected a button-down shirt Lexie had once told him brought out the blue in his eyes. So as not to appear as if he was trying too hard, he shucked on a pair of clean but faded jeans.
The first spikes of sunlight arrowed through the living room windows and made the tinsel-covered pine tree glitter. He wandered past, and on impulse stooped and switched on the tree lights. He took a step back and had to admit the tree did look pretty in a kitschy kind of way.
Coffee on, he sank onto the couch and propped his feet on the coffee table. The lights flashed green, white, red. Green, white, red. He closed his eyes, inhaling the delicious scent of coffee brewing. Green, white, red.
Six years ago, the lights had been flashing blue. Ambulance lights. He’d been last-minute Christmas shopping with his youngest brother on the high street.
“Merry Christmas,” a feminine voice said from behind the couch, jerking him out of his penitent walk down memory lane.
Karen.
He rolled his head to the side and managed a smile. “Right back at you. Coffee is probably ready if you fancy pouring us a cup?”
“Sure.” Her brow dipped into a soft V, but she continued on to the kitchen to pour them both a cup.
She placed both mugs on the coffee table—away from his feet—and curled up on the opposite end of the couch. “You looked miles away, like in the UK maybe.” She tilted her head. “Something’s wrong.”
It wasn’t a questioning tone she used, but one of certainty.
He could deny it. Laugh it off or make excuses for why he couldn’t spend Christmas Day with a woman if he happened to have a more than casual girlfriend at the time. He’d be working, or she’d go away with her family, or he’d use the statutory days off to hike one of New Zealand’s stunning walking tracks. This year was different.
This year there was Karen, and she was different.
“You believe in magic and miracles around Christmas,” he said, noting she didn’t correct him to say it wasn’t just in December that she believed in magic and miracles. As if some part of her sensed he had a corner of his soul that had never healed.
“I used to. Well, as much as my slightly cynical scientific heart could.” He reached for his mug, wrapping his fingers around the porcelain to try and warm them. They felt as chilled and numb as they had on the sidewalk outside Marks and Spencer while ambulance lights flashed and flashed and flashed.
“Six years ago I went Christmas shopping with my youngest brother, Charlie. I dragged him along, even though he’d already done his shopping months ago. He had a knack of ferreting out the perfect gifts. I was taking too long making up my mind about which color scarf my mum would like, so he left me to it and said he was going to another store. I didn’t give him another thought until I heard a commotion outside—people yelling, people running past the decorated shop windows.”
Karen had picked up her mug while he’d been talking, and her knuckles were pale from gripping it so hard. “It was Charlie?”
He gave a sharp nod. “He slipped, fell into oncoming traffic, and was clipped by a car going too fast for
the slick conditions.”
His brother sprawled in an unnatural position on the road, surrounded by strangers and brightly colored shopping bags. The endless loop of piped carols, the gaudy window displays, the shock and dismay and pity on people’s faces as he shoved past them. The distant sound of sirens.
“It was a Christmas miracle, or so the doctors said. A miracle he became a paraplegic instead of quadriplegic.”
Karen replaced her mug on the coffee table and scooted over to sit next to him. “Jeff never said anything.”
He shrugged, his gut twisting. “Jeff doesn’t know—or at least, he knows I have a brother in a wheelchair, just not how he got there.”
“A tragic accident.”
“Yeah.” He set his coffee cup down beside hers and wrapped his arm around her. “I’m sorry, it’s not really a Christmas morning story.” He forced his mouth into a smile.
“It’s your story, and I’m touched you’d share it with me. Thank you.” She leaned her head against his shoulder and laced their fingers together on his leg. “How’s he doing now?”
“Charlie’d run over my toes in his tinsel-decorated chair if he knew I was being so maudlin. My brother is the most positive person in the world. My dad says we should probably ship him and his fiancée off to the North Pole where they could give Mr. and Mrs. Claus a run for their money.”
“He sounds like an amazing man.”
“He’s all right. For a know-it-all, spoiled-rotten pest of a baby brother.”
Two sets of footsteps thundered down the stairs, Moira and Jeff’s laughter accompanying them. They burst through the living room door almost at the same time, tussling to be the first.
“Presents!” Moira crowed.
“Coffee,” Jeff said.
At Moira’s pout, Jeff let out a dramatic sigh. “At least let me have a coffee while we open presents.”
“Merry Christmas, you two.” Moira beamed at them now that she’d gotten her own way, and raced over to sit cross-legged by the Christmas tree. “I’ll play Santa’s little helper.”
Beneath the Christmas Stars Page 5
