Alice only smiled. “I’ve known you since you were born, Tracy. I have great faith in your capacity to bounce.”
Her eyebrows drew together. Bounce? “Huh?”
Alice was already turning back toward her house. “Go in and make yourself a cup of tea.” She waved. “You’ll see I’m right.”
Shaking her head, Tracy turned too. A cup of tea didn’t sound bad. As she approached the back door, she could hear the phone ringing.
Harry, probably ready to wheedle her into putting more money on his Starbucks card, again, or maybe he needed to know what else he shouldn’t try in a microwave. As she reached for the receiver, she realized she was still holding the travel brochures close to her heart.
Rolling her eyes with disgust, she dumped them on the kitchen table, then picked up the ringing phone.
Harry didn’t know how to manage a coin-operated laundry. As she started walking him through the details, a disturbing thought came to mind. He’d been gone how many weeks?
To calm herself, she started paging through the glossy pictures, and found herself thanking Dan instead of cursing him. A week on Corfu provided a worthy distraction to mental visuals of three-month-dirty sweat socks.
* * *
Bailey Sullivan’s Vintage Christmas
Facts & Fun Calendar
December 15
The custom of the Christmas bonus was brought about in 1899 by department store owner F. W. Woolworth, who wanted to ensure his employees worked hard during the busy season. Five dollars was given for every year of service, not to exceed twenty-five dollars. It was considered a nice sum at the time.
* * *
Chapter 15
Movie night. In The Perfect Christmas’s back room, Bailey cursed idea person, ex-principal Peggy Mohn as she cocked an ear to the dialogue of the 1947 version of Miracle on 34th Street and stuffed tissue paper in the man-sized Santa boots. She had her head down and her hair was covering her face when she heard the door open, shut.
“Trin. Thank God. Give me an update on where we are in the movie. The courtroom scene? Have they dragged in the big bags of letters? Oh, never mind,” she said, before the other woman could reply. “If the audience has to wait a few minutes for me—I mean, Santa, to show up and pass the cookies, so be it. But if one more person calls this albatross of a store an institution—”
“Landmark.”
Bailey jerked up, steadying herself on the small worktable beside her. “What?”
Dressed in jeans and a red pullover, sleeves pushed to his elbows, Finn stood with his shoulders against the door, one foot crossed over the other. “Landmark. On my way in, I overheard a grandmother telling her granddaughter this place is a landmark.”
She could only stare at him in reply. The night—early morning, rather—that he’d dropped her off after their…interlude in his loft had been the last time she’d seen him. A flush blossomed over her skin and crawled up her neck. It was one thing to look on the man who’d been her first lover and suffer a nostalgic little shiver. It was quite another to recall in immediate, intimate detail what he’d felt like pushing inside her, his hot length invading, the cool leather at her back. How she’d felt when he’d caressed her between her legs, what the sound of their harsh breathing and the scent of Finn’s shampoo and sex had been like in the emotion-charged air of his loft.
Which were exactly the wrong kind of memories to be reliving in the workplace. There was a passel of customers in the next room and everyone knew she was all-business Bailey. She had to get him out of here.
The tissue shoved in the toes of the Santa boots crinkled as she took a cautious half step back. “I don’t have time to talk. There’s forty-something Whos from Whoville out there, Whos who’ll be clamoring for the promised refreshments as soon as the movie’s over.”
“You’re missing the Grinch-green face paint, but you’ve got the outfit. Nice.” He nodded at her.
She glanced down by instinct, then wished she hadn’t. Without a better Santa substitute, she’d had to settle for herself. So far she had on the boots and the big red pants, held up at her shoulders by suspenders. But of course it was all too big, so red fleece bunched at her boot tops and gaped at her hips. On top she wore a skinny-ribbed tank top, because she’d yet to don the pillow she’d brought from home and the red jacket that would go over all of it.
“What do you want, Finn?”
“I thought we could talk.”
“I told you. I don’t have the time.” Stacked on the worktable was the tissue she’d been using, along with a jumble of other items. As she reached for another sheet, her gaze snagged on the pieces of the vintage heart ornament she’d dropped the week before. With a big ocean swell coming in from the south, no one had gotten around to trying to repair it. By the twenty-sixth, though, it wouldn’t be the only battered and broken thing in The Perfect Christmas. Nothing flocked can stay.
She looked back up at Finn. “Go away. I’m busy.”
“I’ve come to the conclusion we can’t unring the bell.”
Her fingers slid off the sleek white paper. “What do you mean by that?”
“We had sex. I can’t just forget about it.”
Who was forgetting? Finn’s body had changed in a decade. What had been bony and boyish had become muscular and manly. There’d been dark hair on his chest that had once been smooth and she’d wanted to touch it, run her fingers through it. His thighs were different now too, heavy with muscle. The thick length of his erection had been longer, felt smoother, hotter without a condom. More flames rose along her neck and she looked down at the stack of tissue, ruffling it with her fingers as she tried to play it cool.
“I was thinking…” Finn drew the word out until she looked at him again. “How about a replay or two?”
She stared. Was he insane? This was a man she’d known for only about, what, oh, seventeen years? Okay, he wasn’t anywhere near a stranger, but still…It wasn’t going to happen.
“Just because we rang the bell once, Finn, doesn’t mean we have to go all merry and jingle it again.”
“Don’t you think it would be…fun?”
Bailey wiped her damp palms against the dumb red pants. “I’m only here until the twenty-fifth.”
“Brief fun, then. Even better.”
Oh, but she didn’t want brief! She wanted hours with him. Long hours to explore him in all the ways she’d never dared when she was seventeen and so afraid of how he made her respond. What would the curve of his biceps feel like under her tongue? Would his nipples harden beneath her fingers as hers did at his touch? Even thinking about his touch.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Can’t we chalk it up to a one-night stand?” There was the practical solution.
“A one-night stand?”
“Come on. That’s all it was. You needed someone that night, and I happened to be there. That’s why we ended up together.”
He frowned. “Are you telling me it was a pity fuck? Thanks a lot.”
Through the door, she could hear swelling music. Santa needed to get of here. Bailey too. “Look, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
He pushed off from the door and stalked closer, appeared anything but wounded. Instead, he looked…predatory.
Bailey took another step back and then another, until her shoulders hit the far wall.
“I know how you can make it up to me,” he said softly.
Her palms pressed against the cold surface behind her. “Finn…I thought we agreed there was no such thing as magic.”
He smiled and reached out to slide his forefinger under one suspender. “I’m not talking about magic, sweet thing.” His finger rode the elastic until his knuckle bumped into the hard nub of her nipple. “I’m talking about all the ways I didn’t get to touch you. Taste you.”
“No fair.” Those were her daydreams.
His finger slid back up to toy at her breast. “Aren’t you just the tiniest bit…tempted?”
There wasn�
�t enough air in the room. And the air that there was smelled like Finn, the spicy scent she’d inhaled the first day she’d seen him again and realized he’d grown up—but maybe she hadn’t grown out of her overwhelming attraction to him.
However, surrendering to attraction and temptation was what she should be fighting against. Yes, it was self-protective, but it was also smart. When she was eighteen she’d decided it was safer not to bother committing to anyone too much. Then she would never have to feel the soul-destroying hurt that she’d witnessed at the end of her mother and father’s marriage. That she was witnessing now with the demise of her mother’s relationship with Dan.
She cleared her throat. “Don’t you think this is a little weird? Admit it, two days ago you still resented me for the way I left you.”
His wandering finger halted. “I’m a man. I compartmentalize. And the compartment that’s getting all my attention right now is the one that has me in it, with you, naked.”
While unfortunately that was quite an intriguing one to her as well, something suddenly wasn’t jiving in Bailey’s mind. There was a hard look on Finn’s face that you could take for pure lust, but the hair on the back of her neck was now rising in a completely unsexual way.
Her hands pressed harder against the paint, her eyes narrowing. “So, um, what have you been up to since last we met?”
“Downloading photos of my new nephew. Downloading more photos of my new nephew. Driving Gram to a couple of doctor’s appointments.” His finger traveled from her breast to her chin, so he could tilt her mouth toward his. His voice lowered to a raspy whisper. “Thinking about you.”
Bailey swallowed, still not buying it completely. “How is your grandmother?”
His hand dropped. “On the road to recovery.” He pivoted away from her and stalked toward the door. “So do you want to get it on or not?”
“Gee, there you go with the hearts and flowers again.”
He stomped back. His face was furious now, but she held her ground. He grabbed her right hand and pressed it against his breastbone. “I’ve got your heart.” His slammed against her palm with an angry beat. Her left hand he forced to cup the hard rise of flesh between his legs. “And I’ve got your flowers right here.”
And with those two rough gestures he had Bailey all over again. Not because she appreciated rough—but because that wasn’t the kind of man he was. He’d always, always been so careful with her, and this attitude told her that something besides sex was driving Finn, something dark and tangled and that maybe he wasn’t even aware of.
He might as well have been whispering, “I can’t do it, Bailey. I don’t think I can do it alone.”
Just like that, finding his way once more into her damaged heart.
“Maybe we can cut a deal,” she said, sliding her left hand from under his and away from his erection. More sex shouldn’t be on the table—that wouldn’t be a high-IQ move on her part—but maybe there was a win-win option available.
“Yeah?” He caught her escaping fingers in his, held them.
Her heart stuttered a little. “Yeah. I have a business to run, customers waiting, and you fill out the Santa suit better than I do.”
His eye narrowed. “So I ho-ho-ho for you and then you’ll h—”
“Tell me you’re not about to mention me and ‘ho’ in the same breath.”
He grinned, and she felt some of the tension leach out of him.
Some tension left her too. Congratulations, Bailey. He’d taken the bait. By the time he was done with Kris Kringle duty, perhaps he’d be too tired or at least too diverted to think that sex was the answer to whatever was driving his mood.
Almost three hours later, she still hoped she was right. At the end of the film, once the sentimental moviegoers had sighed over the sight of ol’ Kris’s cane left beside the fireplace of the new Santa believers, Bailey had trotted out her Kringle-for-the-night and called upon Trin to help pass around refreshments. Then the customers had proceeded to do what all good customers should…they’d lined up at the cash registers, many of them purchasing their own copy of the Miracle on 34th Street DVD as well as the ornaments, cards, and other memorabilia commemorating the movie that she’d hastily stocked.
Then she’d sent Trin home to her baby and husband and let Finn help her stack the chairs she’d rented and put the displays back to their original position. It was almost midnight when they stood by the door and she flipped off the lights.
“Thanks for everything,” she said to Finn. He had to be as ready to call it a day as she was. Sex, please God, was the last thing on his mind.
He put one hand on the doorknob. The other he curled around the back of her neck, underneath her hair. “I have an idea. Let’s stay here.”
Earlobes could goose bump, she realized. And maybe sex wasn’t the last thing on Finn’s mind.
“Let’s stay here and eat…” He let the sentence trail off, then added the one word guaranteed to seduce her. “Donuts.”
No fair! Her stomach growled and she could already taste them on her tongue. Finn knew she was a goner for greasy, sugary stuff. Bailey slid a glance toward him, his expression telling her nothing more than it had when he’d marched into her back room demanding to once more ring her chimes.
It was such a bad idea. But he wasn’t suggesting sex again, exactly, was he?
Leaning closer, he whispered in her ear. “Bailey.” A hypnotist, and she was halfway to being mesmerized. “Donuts.”
Oh hell. Some things were just worth the risk.
* * *
Bailey Sullivan’s Vintage Christmas
Facts & Fun Calendar
December 16
The Christmas flower known in the English-speaking world as the poinsettia is named after Dr. Joel R. Poinsett, a U.S. diplomat who served as minister to Mexico in the 1820s. The shrub, native to Mexico, blooms in midwinter with star-shaped crimson blossoms. Mr. Poinsett returned home to Charleston, South Carolina, with enough cuttings to begin growing the plants in more northern climates.
* * *
Chapter 16
When Finn returned to The Perfect Christmas bearing a pink box and the best four bucks could buy from Dee Dee’s 24/7 Donuts around the corner, he found the front door unlocked but no sign of Bailey in the dimly lit store. “GND?” he called softly, locking the door behind him.
At his first step, a reindeer standing on an eye-level shelf swiveled its head his way. Finn started, nearly dropping the box. The movement triggered more action on a display table to his right. Jack-in-the-box-style, a Santa popped out of a chimney. Shaking his head, he took another step and saw the lights strung along the banister to the second floor spring into action. Red and green alternated, racing upward at a dizzying speed.
Getting the hint, he made for the staircase, then almost swallowed his tongue when something touched his leg. He looked down and left—a knee-high angel was waving her arms about, gesturing him onward with a lighted plastic candle. As he reached the landing, a stuffed moose hanging on the wall broke into song, its mouth moving, its ears twitching, the wreath around its neck blazing with light. “I wish you a Merry Christmas too,” he muttered, then kept moving, senses alert for Bailey’s next surprise.
A train steamed down its track laid along the hallway as he reached the top of the stairs. Taking the indicated left turn, he continued forward. Three snow globes sitting on a narrow table lit up and started spinning in their bases, snow whirling in tiny blizzards as he passed by. Finally, a moving Santa and Mrs. Claus gestured him into the smallest second-floor room, half dark like the rest of the store.
In one shadowy corner stood a real Christmas tree, decorated more simply than those downstairs. White lights twinkled through its bows and it was wrapped in strings of cranberries and slices of dried orange.
“Another popular myth busted.” The amused voice of the woman he wanted sounded in the room. “Apparently men can follow directions.”
His head shifted left. He looked up. Pe
rched on a short stepladder, Bailey gazed down at him with a half smile curving the usual pout of her full mouth. She had a glitter-covered ornament in her hand and he saw a streak of glitter across her cheek.
It was like that night in Gram’s driveway when he’d thought she’d been dipped in stars. He’d ached for her then. He ached for her now.
For some reason she wanted to fight going into his arms again, but he would overcome her resistance. Rushing her wasn’t going to work, he’d tried that in the back room at the store. So he’d settled on seduction. By sweet treats, by sweet words, by whatever damn thing necessary, he was going to get her naked and him inside her again.
Bare to bare.
Battling his Bailey-lust the past couple of days had only been making things worse for him and everyone who came in contact with him. The tension he’d vowed to uncoil this Christmas had instead only been wrapping tighter. He’d nearly clocked the receptionist at Gram’s oncologist’s that morning.
Don’t tell him the holiday season was a bad time to be terminally ill.
Bailey stretched high, taking his mind off everything but her, as she reached to place the ornament in her hand near the top of the tree. Finn remembered the balance beam her stepfather had built for her in her backyard. He’d watch from his side of the hedge as she practiced, fascinated by the grace in her flips and turns. Fascinated by the slender line of her strong legs and the way the sun caught in her blond hair. Bailey then.
Bailey now. A woman.
As if sensing his thoughts, she looked down at him. Their gazes met, and deep inside him, at his center, there was a shift, like something fallen over finally rerighting itself.
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