Christmas in a Small Town

by Kristina Knight

  “He makes an exception for us,” Savannah said.

  “For his favorite former country singer, you mean,” Mara put in.

  Savannah shrugged. “I was a good waitress back in the day.”

  “Merle’s just an old softie,” said Jenny, the curly-haired woman with the husky voice. “And getting softer every day since he and Juanita outed themselves.”

  “Wait, Merle and Juanita are dating? I thought they hated each other.” Camden had obviously missed a lot of things. Not surprising, since she’d been so focused on Levi.

  “For years, although they never told anyone until after the tornado last spring,” Julia said. “I wasn’t in town then, but I’ve heard through the grapevine. Van, are you trying on before we eat or after?”

  Savannah jumped up from the sofa. “Before. If I put any carbs at all in my stomach before that dress goes on, I’ll never get it zipped.” The woman slipped behind a Japanese screen. The jeans and top she’d been wearing were slung over the top of the screen, and then she reached for the dress.

  When she returned a few moments later, the woman who had looked more like a teenager in her jeans and sweatshirt than the twenty-seven-year-old Camden knew her to be had transformed. The beading on the bodice of the dress reflected light from all over the room, making it appear as if Savannah were glowing. The strapless dress fit her like a second skin, flowing to the floor in waves of soft white satin, leaving only Savannah’s toes—with hummingbirds painted on them—showing.

  Jenny and Mara put their hands to their faces, tears in their eyes, while Julia walked a slow circle around Savannah, inspecting the fit of the dress.

  “You look beautiful,” Jenny said once Julia nodded her approval.

  “We definitely don’t need to take it in. How does it feel on you, Van?” Julia asked.

  “Like I’m wearing a dream,” she said and twirled before the mirror the way Camden had in her prepageant days. The dress flowed around Savannah’s long legs, and when she turned around, Camden saw more of the beading down the side.

  All those layers of tulle in her own dress had been overpowering, but the simple beading that flowed from the train to the sweetheart neckline only emphasized Savannah’s simple beauty. The dress was perfection.

  Savannah’s gaze caught Camden’s in the mirror. “It really is a beautiful dress,” Camden said. Julia fluffed the train, and when she did the beads seemed to dance, and Camden realized the beading wasn’t random. The shiny beads were in the shape of a hummingbird, like Savannah wore on her toes, and when Julia fluffed the train again, it was as if the bird floated over Savannah’s body. The effect was breathtaking.

  This was the kind of dress she would wear if she were ever to get married. A dress that seemed simple but had hidden meaning. Camden had no idea what the hummingbird was about for Savannah, but it obviously meant something. She’d practically covered herself in the small birds.

  “It’s perfect.”

  “You think so? It’s not too much?”

  Camden shook her head. “I don’t know you that well, so I don’t know your usual taste—”

  “Bohemian hippie,” Mara offered.

  “But you’re glowing,” Camden finished. “You’ll be the prettiest woman in the room.”

  Savannah twirled again. “Okay, okay, get it off me before Bud walks in, because you know he’ll start the phone tree as soon as he sees this dress and then it won’t be a surprise to anyone.”

  Julia joined her behind the screen. Mara and Jenny started talking about someone named Frankie and a school project, leaving Camden alone with her thoughts.

  She didn’t want to marry Levi. She didn’t want to marry anyone, not right now. So why was she imagining herself in a dress like Savannah’s, walking toward Levi in a tux? Camden pulled a throw pillow to her chest and sank back against the cushions. He would look at her the way he’d looked at her that night in the bar, only she would know he was there for her, not just picking up a desperate girl. Or maybe he’d seem a little lost, like those moments after that first night in Tulsa. He’d seemed almost dazed, but his arms had been strong around her middle as he held her to him.

  Someone snapped their fingers, and Camden jolted out of the daydream.

  “There you are. You disappeared on us for a minute there,” Julia said.

  A box filled with sandwiches and potato salad sat on the low coffee table before the sofa grouping. Just how long had she been daydreaming about Levi?

  “Sorry, I...it’s been a weird couple of days.”

  The four other women exchanged a look, and then Savannah chuckled. “Levi has that effect on women.” She frowned. “Not that he brings a lot of women around. The few I’ve seen, though—” she pointed her index finger at Camden as if circling her “—that same dazed expression.”

  Levi hadn’t dazed her. The two of them hadn’t been together long enough for dazing to have happened. This was just...a sex hangover. Lack of sleep or something. She was not falling for Levi Walters. Camden hadn’t come to Slippery Rock to fall in love.

  Even if she had come back here looking for love, it was too soon to have fallen in love with him. Love didn’t strike people down in a heartbeat—it took time. Savannah and the other women picked up their sandwiches, talking about the wedding plans as they ate. Since Camden wasn’t part of the wedding, she sank back into the sofa, considering Savannah’s statement and the vaguely uneasy feelings she’d been having ever since the trip to Tulsa. She’d fallen right into Levi’s bed, had begun fitting her life around seeing him, but did she know much more about him than she had three weeks ago?

  She thought of her grandmother’s story about jumping off the float to kiss Calvin at that parade. She hadn’t exactly jumped off a float, but that kiss at the barn had been pure impulse. The one after it, at the bar, another impulse. Sleeping with him in Tulsa, impulse. And Camden wasn’t normally an impulsive person. Her heart stuttered in her chest.

  There was nothing in her past she could compare those moments to; no one had ever made her jump into action so quickly, and the clammy feeling in her belly told her those kisses had been more about Levi’s nearness than convincing Grant to go back to Kansas City. That didn’t have to mean she’d fallen in love with a man she barely knew, though.

  Maybe she was just in lust with Levi. The thought was so much more calming than the other option. Because if she was in love with Levi, she was in real trouble. Love, in Camden’s limited experience, caused pain harsh enough to break a person.

  She couldn’t let loving Levi break her.

  * * *

  LEVI AIMED HIS dart at the board, let it fly and rolled his eyes when it hit just left of the board. He couldn’t throw a dart for anything lately, and it annoyed the bejesus out of him. Losing at anything bugged Levi. Especially when the loss was due to a lack of focus. Levi never lacked focus. At least, that had been true before Camden blew into town at Thanksgiving.

  He was distracted, though, and it had everything to do with Camden Harris. Their fake relationship had quickly turned into a full-blown affair, one that Levi has having trouble keeping in the nice box he usually confined his relationships to. Instead of having dinner with Camden and then carrying on with his life, he found himself daydreaming about her at odd times, wanting to text her to check in during the day. Things a boyfriend would do. Only he wasn’t her boyfriend. They were sleeping together but hadn’t talked about future plans. Hell, she was less than a month out of an engagement—did she even want a serious relationship?

  Levi threw his third dart, which landed on a five spot. He needed to get his game together. James took his spot, aimed and hit the twenty position, putting the red team—James and Aiden—ahead of Levi and Collin, who were playing the blue darts. Adam sat in the corner of the booth, nursing a Coke and texting with Jenny.

  He’d finally had
hip surgery the week of Thanksgiving and used the excuse that he hadn’t been cleared for athletic competitions to sit out their regular Wednesday-night game. Levi thought Adam sitting out had more to do with Jenny, who was at the boutique with Mara, Savannah and Julia, than it had to do with athletic competition. He started to scratch Adam’s service dog, Sheba, behind the ears, but then remembered Adam was the only one who was supposed to handle the retriever. Levi slid into the booth while Collin and Aiden played their round.

  “You seem a little off your game,” Adam said after a moment. His phone buzzed. He glanced at the readout, then grinned and chuckled.

  “How would you know? You’ve been playing with your phone all night.”

  “Texting with my wife about your new girlfriend isn’t ‘playing with my phone.’”

  “My new—Wait, what’s Camden got to do with Jenny?”

  “The four of them have been helping Van with her final gown fitting. Didn’t you know?”

  The last he’d heard, Camden was having coffee with her friend Julia. She hadn’t said a thing about helping Savannah with the wedding plans. For that matter, Camden had only spent a single evening with the other women, the night of the holiday dance. At what point had that dance turned into bonding over wedding finery?

  Levi scratched his head. “I just forgot.”

  “More like you never knew. Don’t you know how this works by now? Four of us are either married off or about to be. When wedding fever bites, it takes a chunk out of every single woman within a hundred-mile radius.”

  “Not Camden. She isn’t interested in marriage.”

  Adam chuckled. “She walked into this very bar three weeks ago wearing a wedding dress. I’d say weddings are somewhere in her consciousness.”

  Not Camden, not right now, anyway. Not after the way she’d learned about Grant’s cheating. Of course, he couldn’t really say that he knew Camden, because knowing what turned her body on wasn’t the same as knowing what made her mind tick. And he wanted to know what made her tick, Levi realized. Not just sexually, but in all the other ways. So far, he’d settled for only the physical.

  Levi threw a few bills on the table. “I have to go.”

  Adam blinked. “But it’s darts night.”

  No one left darts night early. “I’m off my game. You won’t miss me.” He escaped the bar before the others could add in their questions or comments and texted Camden from the truck, asking her to meet him at his house when she was free.

  It was time the two of them started to really get to know one another.

  * * *

  LEVI STRIPPED OFF his T-shirt, one knee still on the bed. Getting to know Camden outside the bedroom was going to have to wait. He’d had a plan in mind, a good one. It involved him cooking her a meal and not getting distracted with kissing her before it was served. That lasted about five minutes after she walked in his front door wearing skinny jeans, an oversize sweater and those high-heeled knee boots she’d worn to the dance. Was that less than two weeks ago? It seemed like so much more time had passed than the twelve days he quickly counted.

  Two weeks of being with Camden, but not getting to know her.

  She deserved better than that, and so did he. But right now she was nearly naked on his bed, and that getting-to-know-you session would have to wait.

  Camden curled one leg around his, her back against the mahogany of the headboard, looking more inviting than...anything. Levi couldn’t remember wanting a woman more than he wanted Camden, and not just for sex. Although he didn’t want to delay that part of it any longer than necessary. Her chest rose and fell unevenly as she tried to catch her breath. And after this was done, he already knew he’d want to do it again and again.

  Hell, he just might never stop. That thought should’ve send a jolt of panic through him but it didn’t. Because he might know why Camden was back in town, but they hadn’t talked about her plans for the future. Was the dog-training thing an impulse? Neither she nor Calvin had added dogs to the kennel yet, although Camden continued to work with Six most mornings. Not wanting to marry Grant didn’t necessarily mean she wouldn’t want to return to Kansas City—or some other city—in the future.

  Levi had no plans to leave Slippery Rock; this was his home. This was where he wanted to be, although the thought of being here without Camden sent a chill through him. As annoying as it was that she opposed his ideas for the bike trail, about adding more tourism, he wouldn’t want her to be anywhere else but here, in his bed, with him.

  For as long as they both might live.

  Levi paused. As long as they... Didn’t mean anything. With Savannah in full-on wedding-planning mode, James having just married Mara, and Adam recently renewing his vows to Jenny, there was wedding fever in Slippery Rock. It didn’t mean Levi was ready to settle down with Camden. Men didn’t get that wedding-fever thing Adam had been talking about.

  She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, and the small move brought him back to the bedroom and out of his head. She looked so sweet in the middle of his big bed, surrounded by a thick comforter, wearing nothing more than a few scraps of lace—and who knew that a girl who ran around in rain boots all the damn time would have such...interesting undergarments?

  Levi ran the back of his hand over the lace covering one breast, and Camden closed her eyes as she inhaled sharply. Her fists clenched around handfuls of the comforter. He moved closer to her on the bed, buried his hands in her silky hair and turned her face up. Her brown eyes met his, and he couldn’t look away. Could only drink in the sight of her, as if he might imprint this night on his brain.

  She shifted restlessly on the bed. Ran her bare foot along his denim-encased calf. Screw imprinting. He wanted her, and he was going to have her, and they’d figure the rest out once he’d satisfied the haze of lust that kept short-circuiting his brain.

  He took her mouth with his, but instead of the rush of adrenaline he expected, everything seemed to slow. There was only the taste of her on his tongue, only the sweet scent of her perfume in his nostrils as the sun sank slowly outside his window. Her mouth was pliant beneath his, her hands spinning lazy circles on his, which held tightly to her silken head, wanting this kiss to go on forever. Longer than the kiss at the barn. Deeper than the kiss at the Slope.

  Need took over. The kiss could go on forever, but sooner or later, the bottom half of him was going to blow. He’d rather be inside her when that happened. To know how it felt to be enveloped in her heat. Levi released her mouth, put his hands on her hips and pulled her down the bed so that she rested against the soft pillows instead of the hard headboard.

  “Ooh,” Camden squeaked in surprise. “Nice offensive move for the defenseman.”

  “They don’t call linebackers ‘defensemen’—that’s a hockey term.” He pressed kisses along her jaw, settling himself against her. His fingers found her breasts beneath the black lace, and he teased them gently. Camden sucked in a breath.

  “Hockey, football. Is there a difference?”

  Levi tweaked her nipple a bit harder and Camden squeaked again, not in pain, but surprise. “Because I can’t walk away at this moment, I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask if there was a difference between hockey and football.”

  He kissed his way down her neck, pausing for a moment to play with the pulse at her throat before taking her breast into his mouth. Levi lavished attention on her pink areolae, flattening his tongue against one while his fingers feasted on the other.

  “But Sunday, we’re totally having a lesson in the differences between football and hockey,” he said before moving to her other breast.

  “If I tell you a goalie is no different than a field-goal kicker, will you do that tweaking thing again?” she asked, writhing beneath him.

  Levi raised up on his elbows, watching her. Camden looped her arms around his neck, trying to pull h
im back to her. “You’re just messing with me.”

  She blinked. “Did you think for a second a girl who attended an SEC school—even one of the new additions to the conference—wouldn’t know at least a minimum about football? You had me on that forward pass thing, and I’ve never spent more than a quarter at an actual game, but I do know that a touchdown is seven points—”

  “Six. It’s the field goal that puts it at seven.”

  “Whatever. And that the quarterback is the most important person on the field.”

  “Actually, a good linebacker—”

  “I’m explaining how much I know about football.”

  “You’re actually explaining how little you know about it but, sure, carry on.”

  “I also know linebackers are a dime a dozen,” she said, referring to his position. A position he’d been damn good at. He caught her gaze with his, and an impish light danced in the brown depths. For a moment, Levi forgot to breathe, he was so mesmerized by the woman in his arms.

  “You’re going to pay for that,” he said after a moment.

  “Promise?” The word was barely a whisper, but it seemed to echo around the bedroom. Camden clenched her hands against his head when his mouth found her breast again. Levi kissed his way back to her mouth, capturing her lips with his. She arched her back, pressing her breasts against his chest.

  Levi pushed her hands over her head, holding them there while he worked his other hand over her ribs and down her belly, making her muscles jump under his touch. He wanted more. Wanted to feel the smoothness of her skin without the lace between them. In a smooth move, he unhooked the lacy bra, pulling it from her. Her breasts were perfect. Small, but he’d never been a size guy. She had a beauty mark, a tiny freckle or mole, centered on her breastbone, and Levi pressed a kiss to it.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “I’m ordinary.”

  He twisted a lock of her hair around his index finger as he kissed his way to her rib cage. “There is nothing ordinary about you, Camden Harris. Nothing ordinary at all.”