by Linda Turner
Oh, how she wanted to! She wanted to touch him and caress him and drive him slowly out of his mind, and it had nothing to do with payback. She needed to know that she could make his breath catch in his lungs and his blood warm with passion at just a touch from her, that she could, with delightful ease, make him as crazy for her as she was for him. Because she loved him.
The truth came to her so easily that she didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it before. Now that she had time to think about it, it seemed as if she had always known it. She would never have let a man become such an important part of her and the kids’ lives if she hadn’t cared about him. And she would never have been so hurt when he asked her to move in with him after they made love if he hadn’t already owned a piece of her heart. She wanted the fairy tale, happily ever after, the dreams that her heart made, and he’d offered her money instead—to cushion the blow when they broke up.
And it still hurt. She’d fallen in love with a man who didn’t believe in love, and she could see nothing but heartache ahead. Commitment didn’t mean the same thing in his world as it did in hers, and she wouldn’t make the mistake of living with him. Because if she couldn’t have his love, if he didn’t trust her enough to give her his heart the way she was willing to give him hers, she didn’t want anything from him. It had to be all or nothing.
Too late, she realized that she should have found somewhere else to stay weeks ago, before she fell in love with him, before she set herself up for a heartache that was never going to go away. She’d waited too late, and now she couldn’t leave. The tree was up and even though most of the decorations on it belonged to Alice, the kids claimed it as theirs. They’d written Santa to tell him that they’d moved, and they were expecting him to show up at the Lone Star Social Club with his bag full of presents on Christmas morning. Even if she could somehow come up with the money to rent a new apartment, she couldn’t just pack them up and haul them off to someplace new when they were expecting to spend Christmas right where they were. Not only would they not understand—they’d never forgive her.
Stuck, she had no choice but to make the best of things and somehow get through Christmas. How she was going to do that, she didn’t know. She couldn’t even get through the decorating of the tree without almost losing her mind. Just a few teasing touches from him, and all she could think about was her own almost desperate need to feel his arms around her again. And it was still three long weeks until Christmas. How would she be able to bear it?
Things would have been easier if he’d been called away on business at least for a couple of days, but he wasn’t. An entire week went by, and with each passing day, she lost more of her heart to him. And for the life of her, she couldn’t understand why. It wasn’t as if he was constantly trying to seduce her. They hardly saw each other. He spent the nights in the attic, and during the day, they were both working. He handled more and more of his business on the phone, and the remodeling of the attic took much more of her time than she’d expected. When she wasn’t running upstairs to confer with the contractor, she was making trips to the hardware store to choose paint and wallpaper and molding. The tenants seemed to have a host of problems that only she could deal with, and whenever she could manage it, she worked on the kids’ Christmas stories while they were in school. And every day, there seemed to be less time to do everything.
And always there was the threat of Christmas hanging over her head. It was all the kids talked about; the decorations were a constant reminder, and there was no way to get away from it. With every passing day, it drew closer, and money was as tight as ever. She still didn’t have a clue how she was going to be able to manage to buy anything for the kids, and she readily admitted that she was starting to panic. And with good reason. She was running out of time.
Her stomach tight with worry, she pulled out her typewriter every evening and worked on her murder mystery, determined to finish it before Christmas, come hell or high water. She knew she was grasping at straws—even if she could get it in the mail and into the hands of an editor who wanted to buy it immediately, there was no way she would have a contract or any money on the deal before the end of the year. From what she’d heard, the publishing world didn’t work that fast. Still, it was the only hope she had at the moment.
So while the kids had a snack before going to bed, she pounded away at the keys while worry ate away at her stomach. Fourteen days. Fourteen days until Christmas. Over and over again, the refrain echoed in her head to the clatter of the typewriter keys, teasing her, taunting her, frustrating her until every nerve ending she had was tied in a knot. And still she wrote, though God only knew how. What was she going to do? That was all she could think about.
Caught up in her own private nightmare, she didn’t notice that the kids were picking at each other until Becky whined, “Make Robby leave my cupcake alone, Aunt Phoebe. He ate his and now he’s trying to snitch mine—”
“I am not! She’s waving it in front of my face—”
“’Cause you did that to me!”
“Did not!”
“Did so!”
Frowning, Phoebe glanced up from the last line she’d typed and began, “All right, kids, that’s enough—”
Glaring at her brother, Becky chose that moment to once again taunt Robby with her virtually untouched cupcake. It was the wrong thing to do. Snarling at her, he made a move as if to knock her hand away, she jerked back, and someone hit the glass of chocolate milk sitting between them on the table. Gasping, they both froze, but it was too late. The glass fell over, and like a flash flood that came out of nowhere, chocolate milk went everywhere.
It happened so fast, Phoebe didn’t have time to do anything but watch in horror as the milk raced across the table and swept over the chapter she’d been working on all week. In the time it took to blink, twenty typed, hard-wrought pages were soaked in chocolate milk.
“Oh, no!” Jumping up, she grabbed the manuscript, but it was too late. The pages were ruined.
After a roller-coaster week, it was too much. She never meant to cry, but suddenly her eyes were stinging, and she was horrified. It was just twenty pages, she tried telling herself. And it wasn’t as if a week’s worth of work had gone up in smoke. When the pages dried, they would still be legible—she’d just have to retype them before she could send the finished manuscript to a publisher. It was no big deal. But still, her eyes burned.
In the sudden stunned silence, Robby said tremulously, “We’re sorry, Aunt Phoebe.”
“We didn’t mean to make you cry,” Becky added, puckering. “Are you mad at us?”
Surprised that she would think such a thing, she said, “Of course not! It was an accident. These things happen. It’s nothing to get mad about. We just have to be more careful next time. Okay? So come here and give me a hug. It’s getting late and you guys need to be in bed.”
More subdued than usual, they each gave her a fierce hug, then begged her to read them a story, one of the ones she’d written especially for them. She wasn’t really in the mood, but they looked so pitiful that she didn’t have the heart to tell them no. “Okay,” she said, giving in. “But just one!”
She was chuckling as the kids pulled her off to the bedroom, but Mitch knew she wasn’t nearly as unconcerned about her ruined manuscript pages as she pretended. She’d been working on her novel every spare moment, and although she hadn’t said anything, he knew she was desperately trying to finish it so she could sell it before Christmas. Considering the strain she was under to come up with money for the kids’ presents, it was no wonder she’d almost cried.
He’d seen the entire incident from the living room, and when she’d snatched up her ruined chapter, all he’d wanted to do was take her into his arms and assure her that everything was going to be all right. She didn’t have to live like this, scrimping and saving and worrying about every little dime. Didn’t she know he could make things easier for her if she’d just let him?
But she wouldn’t, and that was the on
ly thing that had kept him from going to her. He’d never in his life met such an independent woman, and it was driving him crazy. He didn’t want anything but for her to be happy. Why couldn’t she see that instead of constantly throwing roadblocks in his path? He just wanted to help her.
And dammit, he didn’t always need her permission to do that! Enough was enough. He wasn’t going to stand around with his hands in his pockets and watch her try to hold things together when nothing that had happened to her had been her fault.
Making a snap decision, he retrieved Phoebe’s blow drier from the bathroom and strode into the kitchen. Separating the pages of her manuscript so that they wouldn’t stick together, he quickly blew them dry, then carried the lot into the living room where he had his office set up and scanned them into the computer. By the time Phoebe finished reading to the kids and returned to the kitchen, he’d run the entire chapter out on his printer and the new pages were waiting for her on the now clean kitchen table.
She took one look at them and frowned in confusion. “How—”
“I dried them and scanned them into my computer,” he said from the living room doorway. “I didn’t read it, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just couldn’t see you spending hours retyping the whole thing when I could do it in a matter of minutes on the computer.”
He half expected a protest from her, but it was tears that he got instead. She tried to hide them from him by quickly glancing away, but her voice gave her away as she said thickly, “No, I wasn’t worried about you reading it. I just hadn’t thought of trying that. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said gruffly, and had to fight the urge to take her into his arms. Afraid of scaring her off and losing her for good, he said, “Well, I guess I’ll let you get back to work. If you need to use the computer again, feel free.”
If she’d have looked at him just once, offered one word of protest at being left to her work, he didn’t know if he’d have been able to walk away from her. But she didn’t, and he had no choice but to return to his own work. But as he stared unseeingly at some figures Jennifer had faxed to him earlier, all he saw was the panic Phoebe was able to hide less and less as Christmas drew closer. If something didn’t give soon, she was going to crack, and that was something he was determined wasn’t going to happen. She’d worried enough. Tomorrow, he was going to play Santa. If Phoebe didn’t like it, that was just too damn bad!
Chapter 13
He did, he admitted later, get carried away. But how could he have known that buying Christmas presents for Becky and Robby could be so much fun? He’d just meant to get them a few things so they wouldn’t be disappointed on Christmas morning, but it had been years since he’d been in a toy store, and the second he stepped through the front door, he was hooked. By the time he wandered up and down all the aisles, he had a basketful of toys to pay for and a mountain bike waiting for him at package pickup. And he was just getting started. From the toy store, he headed to Computer Warehouse. He’d specifically heard both kids ask for a PC, and he didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t have one. Phoebe would be upset, but once she saw how happy the kids were, hopefully she’d relax and not worry about the cost. This was something he wanted to do, and he could afford it.
Loaded for bear, he returned to the Social Club with enough presents for a small army but didn’t have a clue where he was going to hide them until Christmas Day. The kids would immediately notice the packages if he brought them into the apartment, and he couldn’t risk leaving them in the car. Alice had a storage area out in the garage, but the last time he’d checked it, it was crammed full of family keepsakes. He couldn’t clean that out without risking her ire, which meant the only other available space was the attic.
His first instinct was to reject that, too. With carpenters and workmen traipsing in and out all day with the remodelling job, it wasn’t all that secure. But there was a closet in the old bathroom that had a dead bolt on it. Not only did he have the key, but it wasn’t a place that the kids were likely to wander into, not as long as the attic was off-limits to them until the remodeling was finished. That made it perfect.
Picturing the kids’ faces when they got up Christmas morning, he had to make three trips from the car to get the packages inside the entrance hall of the Social Club. Then he started up the stairs. Everything was carted up to the attic closet except Robby’s bike, and he was in the process of wheeling that up the stairs when Phoebe stepped out of the apartment to see what all the racket was about.
This wasn’t the way Mitch had intended to break the news to her. He’d known, of course, that he would have to tell her what he’d done, but he hadn’t planned on doing it quite so soon. Or exactly in this way. But she took one look at the bike, and she knew.
“What have you done?”
“Now, Phoebe, there’s no reason to get upset. This is no big deal, okay? I know I should have probably discussed this with you first, but I just couldn’t stand by any longer and watch you worry about where you were going to get the money to buy the kids anything for Christmas. So I took care of the problem for you and did a little shopping.”
She frowned at that. “You call a mountain bike a little shopping?”
“Well...yeah.” Figuring he might as well spill the whole story now that he’d been caught red-handed, he said reluctantly, “Actually, I got a little carried away. The rest of the stuff is up in the attic.”
“The rest of—My God, Mitch, what did you buy?”
Wincing at her alarm, he decided it would be best to start with the things he considered fairly inexpensive. When her eyes widened at that, he added defiantly, “And a PC. And I’m not taking it back. It’ll help the kids in school and they need it.”
Reeling, Phoebe couldn’t manage anything but a faint, “I see.”
“I guess you’re mad, huh?”
She should have been. She should have been furious with him for taking matters into his own hands without so much as a by-your-leave. From the very beginning, he’d classed her with other women he’d known in the past, the ones who saw dollar signs every time they looked at him, and for no other reason than that, she should have insisted that he take everything back.
But he seemed truly concerned about her, and she couldn’t deny that there wasn’t a night that went by that she didn’t lie in her room and worry herself sick about money. She kept having a nightmare vision of the kids racing into the living room Christmas morning and finding nothing there but the tree. And in every horrible dream, when she tried to explain why Santa had failed to put in an appearance for the first time in their lives, the kids looked up at her with eyes full of betrayal.
And it hurt. There was so much she wanted to give them and so little that was within her reach right now. Next year, after she got another job and she was able to recover from the financial hit she’d taken when she’d been scammed out of her rent money, things would be better and she would be able to give them a wonderful Christmas. But to a six- and seven-year-old, next year was a hundred years away. And they only believed in Santa for so long before someone ruined the fantasy for them.
That wouldn’t happen this year. Thanks to Mitch. Even though he’d known he was overstepping his bounds, he’d done it anyway...simply because he hadn’t wanted to see her worry any more or the kids do without. How could she possibly be angry about that?
Emotion squeezing her heart, she said huskily, “No, I’m not mad. I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know when I’ll be able to pay you back, but you’ll get every penny back, plus interest.”
“Honey, I’m not asking for a payment plan. It’s just money, and I won’t even miss it. I just want to see the kids’ faces Christmas morning when they wake up and see what Santa brought them.”
If she hadn’t loved him before, she would have fallen head over heels right then. He was such a wonderful man, and she would have given anything to tell him at that moment how much he meant to her. But she couldn’t. He didn’t want love from her, jus
t a physical relationship, and it broke her heart.
Sudden tears flooded her eyes, horrifying her, and she knew she was going to make a complete fool of herself if she didn’t get out of there. “I don’t know how to thank you—” She couldn’t manage any more than that. Swallowing a sob, she turned and fled back into Alice’s apartment.
“Phoebe, wait!”
She never checked her pace, never even looked back. She headed straight for her bedroom, her only thought to get inside and shut the door before the tears she’d been holding off for days washed over her. But she never got that far. Caught up in her own misery, she didn’t realize Mitch was right behind her. Quickly propping the new bike against the couch, he caught up with her right in front of the Christmas tree.
“Let me go!” she gasped.
“The hell I will,” he growled, pulling her into his arms. “Not until you tell me what I did to make you cry.”
“You didn’t,” she sniffed. “It’s just—”
She couldn’t finish, couldn’t tell him that she was only just now realizing the depth of her love for him, and that it hurt. It hurt to realize that he didn’t want what she wanted, that one day soon, he would walk away from her as if the last few weeks had never happened, and that was all there would ever be between them. How, dear God, was she ever going to be able to stand the pain?
Feeling like her heart was breaking, her tears overflowing, she tried to push her way free of his arms, but he only pulled her closer, and with a sob, she buried her face against his neck. “I’m sorry,” she choked. “I’m just kind of emotional right now.”
