Not Your Average Vixen: A Christmas Romance

by Krista Sandor

  “Follow me,” Tanner said, unfazed by the old lady condom drop and waved them into the kitchen.

  The guy set his bag of gummy bears on a table in the center of the room, then leaned against the counter as the timer continued to beep.

  Did he not notice the irksome sound?

  “Let me get that for you,” Bridget offered.

  She dropped her purse onto a chair in the corner of the room and jumped into action, turning off the incessant beeping, then donning oven mitts to remove the tray of brownies from the oven.

  “Thanks, bird lady,” the guy replied with an easy grin.

  Bridget held out the tray and cringed. “Your brownies look a little green.”

  Tanner slid his shades down and assessed the baked goods. “No worries! I’m playing around with a new recipe.”

  “I see. And you help prepare food here at Kringle Mountain House?” she asked with a nervous lilt to her question.

  Truth be told, he wasn’t all that crazy about eating anything this guy touched either.

  “Yep, and at Kringle Acres. But don’t worry. I don’t experiment with food for the guests, if you know what I mean. Oh, yeah! Let me get you those sandwiches!” he exclaimed and pulled a platter out of the refrigerator.

  Bridget’s plastic smile said she absolutely didn’t know what he meant, but she nodded politely.

  Tanner set the platter on the center table. “Mrs. D. made these for lunch while I was busy experimenting with a new recipe.”

  Thank Christ, this kid didn’t have a hand in preparing lunch.

  Soren took one look at the platter, piled high with deli-style sandwiches, and his stomach released a monstrous growl. He swiped a turkey slider off the plate and ate it in two bites.

  “You’re one hungry dude!” Tanner remarked.

  He wiped a crumb from the corner of his mouth and caught Bridget’s eye. “I had quite a workout last night. I need to build up my strength.”

  His one-night vixen huffed as she buzzed around the kitchen, collecting ingredients when a horn beeped, and Tanner didn’t move.

  Did this kid have selective hearing loss?

  He took another sandwich from the platter. This time, opting for a delectable looking ham and cheese. “That’s probably Delores, wanting you to join her in the car,” he said through a bite.

  “Yeah, good thinking,” the pseudo-Santa-surfer replied.

  “I think she’s trying to tell you that she’s ready to go,” Bridget added, wrapping the tray of brownies in a dish towel and handing them to the clueless man.

  “Right! Catch ya later.” With the tray in one hand, he grabbed a sandwich with the other, then disappeared out the kitchen’s side door.

  Okay, what did he know so far?

  They were in a strange mountain town that really got into Christmas and had the best fucking sandwiches on the planet. He took another one, switching back to the turkey, and watched as Bridget twisted her hair into a bun, snagged an apron, then went to the sink to wash her hands.

  “Aren’t you going to eat first?” he asked, working on his third sandwich.

  She glanced at her watch. “There’s no time.”

  He leaned against the counter. “What do you mean there’s no time?”

  “I mean, we have to get to work.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “We?”

  “Um, yeah! You know, doing maid of honor and best man duties,” she answered, rocketing around the kitchen like a petite baking ninja.

  He popped the last bite of the sandwich into his mouth. “I tried to exercise my best man duties. I sent strippers, but your sister didn’t seem to like that.”

  “Neither did your best friend,” she shot back, now operating a giant mixer.

  She was like the Energizer Bunny of bakers.

  “Don’t you need a recipe?” he asked as the distinct scent of peanut butter filled the room.

  She tapped her head, and he couldn’t help but notice the strands of dark hair that had broken free of her bun and brushed past her chin.

  “It’s all in here, Scooter. Don’t you worry,” she offered, piling on a nice helping of condescension.

  This woman!

  “What are you making?” he inquired, maintaining a neutral demeanor as the memories came flooding back.

  “We are baking peanut butter blossoms, and you need to unwrap all the chocolate kisses. Wash your hands, then get started. The bag is on the counter,” she instructed, then gestured with her chin to the bag containing a hell of a lot of the foil-wrapped Hershey’s chocolate kisses.

  He eyed the bag. “Are these the peanut butter cookies where you have to plop the kiss on top right after they’re done baking?”

  She glanced up from making the dough balls and smiled at him—a real smile this time. Baking clearly made her more amenable.

  “Yes, they are. They were a Christmas staple at my grandmother’s house. Have you made them before?”

  Had he made them before?

  That would be a yes.

  Crammed into Janine’s cozy kitchen, the day before his mother fired his favorite nanny, he’d helped Janine’s sons unwrap the tiny chocolate treats. ‘Open five kisses, and then you can eat one,’ she’d said as he sat at the table, legs dangling, with the boys. And for the entire afternoon, he’d felt normal, like he was a part of something real.

  “Yeah, I made them with Janine,” he said over his shoulder as he turned on the sink to wash his hands.

  “You call your mom Janine? That’s a little bizarre,” Bridget remarked with a thread of humor.

  “Janine isn’t my mother. She was my nanny. Well, one of many nannies,” he answered, drying his hands on a dish towel.

  “Many, huh?” she echoed, focused on her work.

  He steadied himself. He sure as hell wasn’t about to pour his heart out to Birdie Dasher and share his sad, lonely tale of his parents not giving a damn about him.

  He needed to change the subject.

  “Are you a lawyer, like your sister? Is baking your hobby? Is this how you de-stress, or do you prefer picking up strangers in hotel bars?” he pressed, throwing in a healthy dose of jackass as he unwrapped the chocolates.

  And he was slightly curious. He didn’t know a damn real-life thing about her.

  Well, that wasn’t exactly true.

  To be fair, he did know a few things. Number one: she and her sister were a serious threat to his happiness. But he also knew other things, intimate things—like the way she bit her lip and released the sexiest of breathy moans before he made her come. And how, when she entwined her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, he damn near forgot his name. Just the thought already had him rock-hard.

  He had to stop thinking of her like that!

  He glanced at her and noticed a muscle tic on her cheek as she formed tiny balls of dough between her hands, then placed them delicately across a giant baking sheet.

  “No, I didn’t go to college. I’ve worked in bakeries since I was eighteen,” she answered without taking her eyes off the task.

  He barked out a little laugh. “I figured you were an Ivy Leaguer like your sister. Tom couldn’t stop telling me Lori went to Harvard when they first got together.” He tossed a wrapper into the trash. “Why didn’t you go to college? You seem as tenacious as Lori.”

  Bridget set a ball of dough, rolled into a perfect sphere, onto the tray, then looked up and held his gaze. And a cold trickle worked its way down his spine. There was nothing playful in her eyes, but they blazed with a determined ferocity.

  “I’m the oldest. I was Lori’s guardian after my grandmother died, and somebody had to pay the bills to make sure she had everything she needed to get into a school like Harvard.”

  Between the scent of the cookies and the warmth emanating from the oven, a buzzy headiness came over him. Pain flashed in her eyes before she broke their connection and started in on another ball of dough.

  He placed an unwrapped chocolate kiss on the counter next to th
e others and stared hard at the candy lining the wooden table. “I’m sorry. I forgot that Lori said you’d taken care of her after your grandmother passed away. I didn’t put two and two together.”

  She gave him a sharp nod, acknowledging his half-assed apology but not really accepting it.

  And for God knows what reason, that hurt. Unlike anyone he’d ever met, her fierce protective retort had elicited a response in him.

  “That was a shitty thing for me to say. What can I do to make it up to you?”

  Her hardened demeanor melted away as a decidedly mischievous smirk pulled at the corners of her lips, and immediately, he regretted his apology. She was cooking up—or baking up—a plan, and it didn’t look good for him.

  She placed the tray of cookies into the oven, dusted off her hands, then pulled her phone out of her bag.

  “Are you setting your phone’s timer?” he asked, working to keep the nervous edge out of his voice.

  Why did she make him nervous?

  He didn’t know. But she did.

  “Well, Mr. Rudolph, to make it up to me, I’ve got a job for you,” she said, tapping away on her phone.

  “What’s that? More chocolate to unwrap?”

  Jesus! Was it getting hot in here? It had to be the oven.

  She glanced at the mound of chocolate kisses. “Nope, that’s enough.”

  He unzipped his coat and hung it on the back of the kitchen chair. “Then what?”

  With one last tap to her cell, music played and a deep voice crooning “White Christmas” filled the peanut butter scented air.

  She plucked a gummy bear from the bag Tanner had left on the counter and popped it into her mouth as her mischievous smirk morphed into a full-on shit-eating grin.

  “You, Scooter Rudolph, are going to dance.”

  8

  Soren

  Dance?

  “Are you out of your goddamn mind?” he shot back.

  He glanced around the kitchen. They were alone in the mountain house, but there was no way he was about to break into a jig or whatever the hell she wanted him to do.

  Bridget popped a few more gummy bears into her mouth, then swayed to the music. He recognized the tune—he wasn’t a complete Grinch. It was Bing Crosby. Janine had played the very same holiday album in her kitchen all those years ago. The guy had a deep voice and, to a ten-year-old, sounded pretty corny. He’d giggled with Janine’s sons at the sound of it. But there was a soothing, calming quality to the music he’d never forgotten.

  Bridget sashayed around the room, tidying up as the heady scent of the baking cookies mingled with the pile of unwrapped chocolates. His mouth watered, and he wasn’t sure if he craved her or the sweets.

  And speaking of sweets, when was the last time he’d indulged in baked goods? He couldn’t even remember. Those cupcakes Mr. and Mrs. Angel had left at his office smelled delectable, but he didn’t eat that kind of junk. It took work to get abs like his.

  Discipline.

  Self-control.

  Two important qualities his parents never possessed.

  Entitled.

  Selfish.

  Thoughtless.

  Careless.

  Those were more emblematic words to describe his family if you could call it that.

  He crossed his arms. “Why don’t you eat a sandwich?” he said, going into scrooge mode.

  “I’m good sticking with the gummy bears. They aren’t half bad. They’ve got an earthy cinnamon flavor to them. I’ll have to ask Tanner for the recipe,” she answered, eating another, then doing a little twirl in front of him.

  He frowned. “When was the last time you ate a real meal?”

  She cocked her head to the side. “Define, a real meal.”

  “We know you didn’t have dinner.”

  “Nope,” she answered with another twirl.

  His one-night vixen had mellowed out quite a bit.

  He huffed an exasperated breath. “What are you doing, Bridget?”

  “Dancing,” she replied, enunciating the syllables slowly as if she were addressing an idiot, then took his hand and twirled underneath it. It was a bizarrely charming move.

  He’d never met anyone like her.

  “Why are you dancing?” he pressed as “White Christmas” ended, and Bing started in on “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman.”

  She pointed at the oven. “It’s for the cookies.”

  “You’re dancing for lumps of sugar and peanut butter?”

  “No, I’m injecting joyful Christmas spirit into them,” she answered, then swiped the oven mitt off the counter and threw it at him.

  He snapped it out of the air with one hand. “Are you on something?”

  She frowned with her hands on her hips. “No, I’ve never done drugs in my entire life. I barely drink. But I do dance for anything I bake.”

  He walked across the kitchen and set the mitt on the counter. “Is this why you got fired? Did you freak out the people in the bakery with your prancing and dancing?”

  She beckoned with her index finger for him to come closer.

  “I know what you’re doing,” she whispered with a sly hint of a grin.

  He schooled his features. “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “You’re trying to scrooge your way out of dancing. But I’m not about to let you get your bah humbug vibe into my cookies.”

  “Your cookies didn’t mind my bah humbug vibe last night,” he replied, pretty damn pleased with that retort.

  Unfazed, she wagged her finger at him and clucked her tongue. “See, you’re trying to upset me. You think that if you act like a real scrooge, I won’t make you dance.”

  He swallowed, surprised to find his throat had gone dry. “How do you know I’m not a real scrooge?”

  He’d never thought of himself in stupid Christmas terms—except the damn Rudolph part, which, thanks to his last name, he couldn’t escape.

  But was he a real scrooge? He did prioritize earning money. He didn’t give a shit about the companies he decimated. Not only that, he’d screwed every air-headed Manhattan socialite and Page Six party girl and never had nor wanted the hassle of a relationship.

  On those fronts, he wasn’t winning any sappy save the world points.

  But he did have one redeeming quality. For whatever reason, the Abbotts cared about him. And that one thing meant everything.

  Without them, he was a scrooge—a scrooge able to bench three-fifty and built like a brick house. But on the inside, in the dark corners of his heart, he was an empty, lonely soul.

  Bridget screwed her face into a puckered, curious expression. “You might be a real scrooge. Lori did say that you’ve made buckets of money destroying people’s livelihoods.”

  He squared his jaw. This is why he couldn’t allow Tom to marry Lori. He’d only seen Tom once in the last five months—and that was when his best friend invited him to lunch to meet his new fiancée. Granted, he’d ignored her and then left early to go bang a waitress. But he’d known instantly that a Tom, Soren, and Lori triad wouldn’t work. And after seeing Lori with the Abbotts today, it was only a matter of time before she’d poison the well with Tom’s family.

  A dropped comment here.

  A subtle observation there.

  And then a five-month stretch without seeing his friend would extend to six months, then eight months, and then, when the holidays rolled around, would they even remember to include him? Would sixteen years of happy holiday memories revert to the solitary Christmases he’d endured as a boy?

  He swallowed past the lump in his throat.

  “Soren?” Bridget said, her voice pulling him out of an anguishing spiral.

  He turned away from her and opened the refrigerator, searching for something to drink. He pulled out a bottle of water, took a sip, then pulled himself together. Bridget Dasher had a way of turning everything upside down, and then with just one word, bringing him back from the brink.

  He set the half-drained bottle on the counter.

>   “The money part is right, but the notion that I’ve had a hand in ruining anyone’s business is wrong,” he replied, maintaining an even tone.

  Good! He was in corporate raider mode. All he had to do was stay in this callous groove, and he’d be immune to her charms.

  She tucked an errant lock of chestnut hair behind her ear, and he had to ball his hands into fists to keep from sweeping the strands back himself.

  Get some control, Rudolph!

  She watched him closely. “Explain it to me.”

  He maintained his muted expression. “I run a private equity firm. My company invests in businesses. If they aren’t profitable, I sell off the assets to recoup any losses.”

  She nodded, taking in his succinct explanation. “Let me get this right. You give a little money to a business that needs help. Then you wait for it to fail, fire everyone, and squeeze every dime out of it that you can?”

  She was a quick study.

  He shrugged. “If they don’t become profitable, essentially, yes.”

  Bridget tilted her head to the side. “How do you know if a business is really failing?”

  That was easy.

  “The numbers,” he answered.

  That damn adorable crinkle in her forehead was back.

  She watched him closely. “That’s it? Just a bunch of numbers?”

  “What more is there?” he replied with another shrug.

  She smiled up at him as if he made up the sun, moon, and stars. And if he wasn’t such an ass, he might have admitted that he didn’t mind that one bit.

  “What?” he barked instead.

  She shimmied around him. “If you haven’t noticed, Mr. Scrooge, you’re dancing.”

  What?

  He looked down to find his feet tapping to the beat as he swayed side to side along with her.

  When the hell did he start doing this?

  She raised her hands in a couples’ dance position. “Let’s do this right. Do you want me to be the guy, or do you want to be the guy?”

  Still swaying to the beat of Bing’s holiday serenade, he stared at her for a second, then two.

  She shook her head. “Sorry, I used to do this with my grandma Dasher or Lori, and somebody had to dance the guy part.”