You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology

by Karina Bliss

  Resolved to make a plan past the week at the resort, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, grabbed her phone, and tiptoed her way to the bathroom. Door shut and light on, Selina posted to Facebook that she needed a job and a room in Salt Lake City, starting immediately. Most of the people she knew from high school had gone to Spokane when they’d left for the “big city,” but a few had ended up in Salt Lake, and if they didn’t have any leads, maybe they knew someone who did. She texted Babe, too. Maybe Babe’s friend knew of something or someone that could help.

  Her business done, she flipped the light off and snuck back out of the bathroom. Enough light streamed through the window that she could make out Marc’s sleeping form. He was sleeping in a T-shirt and his boxers, a far cry from last night when they’d both been sleeping in as many layers as they’d been able to put on.

  He was handsome and kind, and as soon as she found a place to live, she’d never see him again. The realization made her sad . . . and lonely. It would be nice to have someone she was more than Facebook acquaintances with in Salt Lake. More importantly, it would have been nice to continue to know Marc. Maybe they could exchange e-mails after he returned to Seattle after his adventures. Or wherever it was he was going to go next.

  Or maybe when he dropped her off at wherever she was going to be, that would be the end of this. If she wanted anything more to happen with him than that kiss she could still feel on her lips, she would need to act now.

  Before she’d realized what she was even considering, she was sitting on the edge of his bed and had placed her hand on his shoulder.

  Marc stirred, then murmured a soft, “Hmm?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. Can I get in bed with you?”

  “Hmm?” he muttered again. “Oh . . . yes, uh, of course.” He scooted over, taking most of the sheets and blankets with him. But then he shifted around, reaching around behind him and lifting the covers and sheets off himself. He gave them a good yank so that she had covers now, too, as well as space in the bed and someone to cuddle with.

  When she got in bed, she rolled over to her side, and he curled up around her like they had been navigating sharing a bed for years. His hand rested on her stomach as they spooned. The light touch stirred desire deep in her belly, want tingling between her legs.

  And curiosity.

  She knew how Marc’s lips felt under hers, but how would his chest feel as she rubbed her hands against it? And how would he feel when poised above her, about to enter her?

  She rolled over so that they were facing each other. He woke enough to shift so that their legs were intertwined. He was semihard against her leg.

  Does he have a condom? The thought flitted through her mind before she leaned forward and kissed him.

  He responded immediately, pressing his lips against hers and weaving his hands around her head and threading them through her hair, holding her tightly against him. She rocked closer to him. Feeling him hard against her leg wasn’t enough. Feeling his hands in her hair and his lips on hers wasn’t enough. She wanted more.

  She shoved her hands under the waistband of his boxers, digging her fingernails into his perfect butt and pulling him closer to her.

  In an instant, he had flipped her onto her back and climbed on top of her, fitting himself between her legs. His hard length, covered by the thin cotton of his boxers, was pressed against her. “Oh, Selina, you feel so good,” he groaned as he rocked against her.

  She yanked up his shirt, tugging at it trying to get it off. His arms got caught in the sleeves as they both struggled for a moment to pull it over his head. While he was still propped up on his arms, she skimmed her palms over his now-bare chest. His soft chest hair tickled. He sighed, relaxing into her. Then, with a low growl of frustration and desire, he pulled at her shirt, and they had another moment of struggle to get her T-shirt off. This time, they bumped heads and giggled.

  “Do you have a condom?” she whispered as soon as his hands hit the elastic of her pajama shorts.

  “Hmm?” he murmured, nibbling at her neck. “Oh! Yes. Don’t move.”

  “What if I move to take off my shorts?” she asked with a wiggle of her hips.

  He smiled, then kissed her neck, her ears, and finally her lips. “I suppose that’s okay,” he teased.

  He lifted off her and swung off the bed. As he stood by the side of the bed, she admired the shape of his body, the dark shadows of him backlit by streetlights.

  From this moment on, she would recognize his body anywhere. The smell and feel of him was etched in her memory. Her body would recognize him. She could feel him in her skin, in her muscles, and in her bones. In her marrow.

  She heard his suitcase unzip. He rustled through clothes and then unzipped another pocket. As he returned, he was ripping at the foil packet. Her hips pushed forward and up, wanting him. She was impatient by the time he was standing next to the bed. Their hands intertwined and their bodies writhed and bumped as he tried to put the condom on while she tried to pull off his boxers. Desire deepened the sounds of his chuckles, and her giggles sped into moans.

  Suddenly his shorts were off and the condom was on. He was on top of and then inside her. They both sighed, shifting and undulating until he was deep inside her.

  She couldn’t touch as much of him as she needed, but she tried. Kisses met shoulders and arms and necks and ears and cheeks. Hands explored backs and butts and rubbed against chests, fingers digging in to skin as their breathing grew more labored and faster until they both cried out at once.

  Selina lifted up her hips as Marc bucked several times, groaning with satisfaction until he nearly collapsed on top of her, his arms stopping his fall only once he was a breath away from her.

  “Hi,” she said, suddenly a bit shy and weary from the force of her orgasm.

  “Hi.” His kiss on her jaw shook the shy feeling away, and she kissed him back.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said as he climbed off her.

  His shadow retreated into the bedroom. The faucet turned on, then off, and then he was climbing back into bed with her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her toward him as if they had been doing this for years.

  And as if they had years to keep doing this.

  She pushed that thought to the back of her mind, willing herself to focus on the pleasantness of the present as she drifted off to sleep.

  *

  Marc lay in bed, feeling just about perfect. He was warm, satiated, and Selina’s body fit perfectly against his, even if his right arm was beginning to fall asleep. He smiled as the perfect solution to his restlessness sprang into his head. Selina could come with him for the rest of his winter trip. His mind swayed off to sleep, buoyed by his dreams of the future and Selina.

  Chapter Nine

  Selina clutched the handhold above the passenger window as they bounced over the snow-dusted, rutted dirt road to the ice caves. As with the bird sanctuary the day before, this area of Idaho lacked heavy snow and high winds blew what little snow there was up in swirls. Swaths of black lava studded the landscape, a break between the dead grass and tops of sagebrush. Finally, they sprang their way under an arch announcing the ice caves and pulled into the parking lot.

  There were three buildings, all made of logs and one clearly a house, probably for the people who ran the caves. One of the buildings was small, with restroom signs nailed to the wood. The largest building also had a sign for the caves—this one smaller and over the door. Between all the buildings and off to the side of the parking lot were statues, the smallest one taller than the roof of the buildings and the tallest one towering over the parking lot. There were several Native Americans, a couple of cavemen and cavewomen, and one dinosaur.

  Marc put the SUV in park and turned the car off. “Well, should we go in and see what they’ve got?” he asked. “Though the statues alone might be worth the drive.”

  His voice was warm and loving. It had been since they’d woken up this morning, naked limbs tangled together and a
satisfied, safe feeling deep in her bones.

  “You wanted to see the odd roadside attractions in Idaho, didn’t you?” She nodded her head to the statutes. “Those look about as odd as they come.”

  “I don’t understand the dinosaur.”

  She laughed. “Neither do I.”

  “Come on,” he said, patting her knee. “Let’s see what this is all about.”

  They both hopped out of the car and trotted to the information building. They didn’t hold hands, though they stood close enough that their hands brushed each other as they walked. When they reached the door, Marc gave it a hard tug. It was locked.

  “Hey,” a voice called out from the porch. “We’re closed for the winter.”

  They both turned around. An old man, with deep wrinkles and enough sun damage that Selina couldn’t tell his age beyond old, trundled toward them. A worn cowboy hat was pulled low over his head, and the work boots on his feet had clearly seen better days.

  “Your website said to call for winter hours,” Marc said.

  “Well, did you call?”

  “Yeah,” Marc confirmed. “And no one answered.”

  The man had crossed the parking lot and was now standing right in front of them. “If you called the number on the website, that one’s old. The missus and I don’t know how to change it, and our son keeps saying he’ll do it later.”

  “How long has it been like that?”

  “Couple years,” the man said with a shrug. “Most people out this way are more interested in skiing than in caves, so we don’t get many visitors, especially in the winter.”

  “Can we have a tour anyway?” Marc asked.

  “Caves are closed up for the season. Ain’t much to see.”

  “I’ll update your website for you,” Marc offered.

  Selina watched with interest as both Marc and the old man seemed to settle into faces primed for negotiation. The old man looked Marc up and down, glanced as his new SUV, and finally said, “That’s not enough to open the caves.”

  “And we’ll pay you the tour cost.”

  The old man considered them both, his keen eye noting Marc’s expensive ski jacket and Selina’s worn winter coat. “Where are you both from?”

  “I’m from Athol,” Selina said, at the same time Marc said, “Seattle.”

  “Which one is it?”

  “I’m from Athol,” she answered. “Marc is from Seattle. He’s giving me a ride to Salt Lake City, and we’re stopping at touristy spots along the way.”

  “That so.” The man rubbed at the white stubble on his chin. “That all seems a far bit out of your way. How do I know you can fix the website?”

  “If you have the password, I can fix it.”

  “He’s real smart with computers,” Selina attested, then giggled at the understatement.

  “It’s on the fridge, for all that I know what to do with it.”

  “Not only will I update your website but I’ll teach you how to do it yourself.”

  The old man nodded once. “Son, you have yourself a tour.”

  They were welcomed into the house and greeted by an older woman, also of indeterminate age, who smiled at the idea of their website being fixed and bustled off to get them some coffee. The furniture in the house was sparse, and what was there was threadbare. But after their coats had been hung up, they were led to a fairly new computer.

  “Nice,” Marc said with a nod at the flat screen monitor and desktop CPU, whose red power buttons glowed. “This will be even easier. I was afraid I was going to have to engineer something fancy because of ancient web browsers. But we should get this done in no time.”

  “I’ll get the password for you, then,” the old man said.

  He returned with a piece of paper, and his wife followed, clutching four mugs of coffee in her hands. The mugs were blue metal with white splotches. Campware, Selina recognized.

  “Before I get started, I’m Marc.” He tilted his head toward Selina. “And this is Selina. Thanks for agreeing to the tour.”

  “I’m Jeremiah,” the man said. “And this here’s Phyllis.”

  “Jeremiah and Phyllis,” Selina said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She accepted her cup of coffee from Phyllis, then they both turned to watch Marc and Jeremiah at the computer.

  “How long have you lived here?” Selina asked Phyllis.

  “Oh, since I married Jeremiah. He’s my second husband. He was born here, and the ice caves have been in his family since they came west. All the good farmin’ land’s been sold. We make what little money we can off tours and such. There’s a gift shop in the big building.”

  “You don’t give the tours, do you?” Selina was horrified at the idea of this old couple taking several tours a day into caves.

  “Not anymore, no. We get a couple of our grandkids down every summer. They know all the good stories, and they give the tours. They need the tip money. We run the gift shop.” Phyllis shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. “Not sure who’s going to take the place over once we leave. None of the grandkids want it—our son sure don’t—and I don’t know that I’d want them to have it. Good enough life for Jeremiah and me, but not much of a life for anyone else, I suppose.”

  Now that Selina’s coffee had cooled down a little, she took a sip of the strong, bracing brew. If this was what they drank every day, it was no wonder they were spry enough to run a gift shop and tourist attraction.

  The two women continued to make small talk while Marc walked Jeremiah through all the steps of logging in to their website—which Marc had been excited to learn was a Wordpress site—and how to change content. He had the older man sign in and sign back out of the site several times until both men were confident he could do it on his own. Then Marc asked Phyllis to sit down and repeat the process.

  When they’d finished, Marc dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He gave what appeared to be business cards to the couple, one each. “These are my personal cards. I can help you with almost anything you need on the computer, and I can probably teach you how to do it over the phone.”

  “That’s mighty kind of you.” The old man looked at his wife. “I’ll be honest . . . I wasn’t real sure you’d be able to help us. Strangers, you know.”

  “If you like,” Phyllis interrupted, “I’ll make you lunch while Jeremiah gives you the tour. Least we can do to thank you.”

  Marc caught Selina’s eye over the couple’s head, and she nodded. “That sounds great, Phyllis. I’ve been eating out for a week and would appreciate a home-cooked meal.”

  Jeremiah handed them their coats. “Let’s go, then.”

  Back to being bundled up, Marc and Selina followed the old man out of the house. He led them on a trail through bits of lava rock and sagebrush, past more statues—smaller ones, this time—and to a dugout in the rocks where there was a small door.

  As they walked, Marc held Selina’s hand while he chatted with the old man. Jeremiah told them stories too far-fetched to be believed, though they were fun to hear. They included train robbers and a missing trunk of gold, a Shoshone girl who had escaped her capture from another Native American tribe and had hidden out among the caves, and at least one Wild West shoot-out. Though, by the huge grin on Jeremiah’s face, she could tell the shoot-out was one he’d made up just for them.

  Through the door, he led them along a wooden path that had been built over a slick of ice. Stalactites hung down from the ceiling, and stalagmites busted up out of the ice.

  “This is really cool,” Marc said, leaning over to whisper in her ear.

  His warm breath—and mouth simply being so close to her neck—sent shivers down her spine. “Yeah. I’m glad we could come here.”

  “Hard to tell that the caves are cold when it’s cold outside,” Jeremiah said, continuing his tour, “but they’re thirty degrees in the summer, too. My parents used to store their meat down here before electricity and before they started tourin’.”

  He went on to tell them about the nat
ural history of the caves, the geology of the local area, and a little bit about some of the other caves off the highway. “But this is the only one with ice,” he said proudly.

  Selina couldn’t help but smile. Not only at Jeremiah, but at the fact that not once during their entire tour did Marc let go of her hand.

  Maybe, she thought as they shared lunch and conversation in Phyllis and Jeremiah’s small kitchen, if the gallery job turned out to be a dead end and Babe’s friend couldn’t help her, she’d see if Marc wanted company on the rest of his winter vacation. The past two days had been the most fun she could ever remember having. And while the birds of prey sanctuary was neat and the ice caves were cool, it wasn’t the sights that had made the past couple of days so wonderful. It had been Marc.

  Seeing him with Phyllis and Jeremiah only made her like him more. He’d been kind and understanding as he’d talked them through their website and had genuinely seemed interested in their lives. The older couple, too, seemed to see the same warmth and trustworthiness in him that had convinced her to get in the SUV and drive away with him in the first place. He was a solid, hardworking man, which was exactly what she wanted in her life.

  Or she was sure he could be, if he stopped his wanderings. She hoped she was smart enough not to expect him to be something he wasn’t—or something he didn’t want to be.

  After lunch and good-byes, her phone buzzed as she was climbing into the car. She pulled it out of her pocket and checked her messages. The ones she had been hoping for last night were there, but her heart fell as she read them. Babe’s friend had a room she could rent, and her professor thought he might be able to help her get a job at the gallery. Everything she’d hoped for in Salt Lake City was coming together, just as she was thinking of throwing it all away and becoming as free as Marc.

  Only she’d never be free like Marc. She didn’t have the money for it.