Once Upon a Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  Clarissa rolled her eyes. “David saw one of those TV chefs grill a Thanksgiving turkey on his Weber 6000. Now he’s dying to try it himself, so we’re having a test run this afternoon.”

  “Sounds tempting,” Holly hedged, “but…”

  “Come on,” Sam coaxed with a seductive grin. His voice lowered intimately. “It’ll be fun.”

  He nodded toward the door, as though they’d pick up right there and head outside, just for the fun of it. Holly could picture it: a backyard patio filled with friends, a pitcher filled with sangria…her, getting to know Sam.

  You’ll never get that promotion that way, a voice inside her whispered. Shut up, she told it. But the tide was turned.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry. Thanks for the invitation, though. You guys have fun.” She glanced at her watch. “Now I really am late. Do you still want to see the house tonight?”

  Sam nodded. “I’d love to.”

  Holly whipped open her day planner. “We agreed on six-thirty, right?”

  “I’ll be there with bells on,” Sam answered. His words called to mind a very interesting image, one Holly refused to contemplate beyond a few seconds. Almost as though he’d guessed what she’d been thinking, he added with a wink, “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Holly.”

  She fled before he could guess anything more incriminating.

  At 6:25 that evening, Sam McKenzie parked his pickup truck in front of Holly’s white-framed house at the address Clarissa had given him. The porch light was on, and lamplight shone through both of the curtained front windows. It looked welcoming. Heading up the walk, juggling the things he’d brought, he surveyed the house with approval. It was sturdy, if a little run-down, and it had a character newer houses typically lacked.

  Pink geraniums crowded together in the built-in stone planters that flanked the porch steps and filled the air with their spicy scent. The porch itself was clean-swept, adorned with only a Happy Thanksgiving welcome mat and a white wood swing that swayed in the breeze. The loud clunk of his boots on the floorboards must have announced his arrival, because just as Sam touched the doorbell, Holly opened the door.

  “Hi! You’re here.”

  She sounded surprised. He peered through the aluminum screened door, trying to gauge her reaction. With the light behind her, though, her face was cast in shadow.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t show?”

  “I, ummm…well, I guess not.” She pushed open the door to let him in. “I mean, I didn’t think you wouldn’t.” Holly smiled and rolled her eyes. “That is, you said you would, and I can’t imagine anybody who’s related to Clarissa saying anything they didn’t mean. It must be in the bloodline or something.”

  He laughed as he moved past her into the house. He’d say one thing for Holly: She definitely had his cousin pegged.

  “We’re not generally known to be hesitant about things,” Sam agreed. One of those things he wasn’t hesitant about was Holly. From the moment he’d touched her in the restaurant he’d felt something between them, something hot and intriguing and inevitable. It was that feeling, more than mere architectural curiosity, that had brought him to her house.

  Sam turned to face her and saw she was looking at the flat white box in his hand. Nodding at it, Holly sniffed at the savory aroma rising from it.

  “Mmmm. I hope that’s what I think it is.”

  “Dinner.” He brandished the box that was rapidly heating his left hand. “Pizza, from Angelo’s.” He handed over the bottle of red wine he’d brought. “And something to drink. I hope you haven’t eaten already.”

  “No—in fact, I just got home from work.” Holly motioned with the bottle for Sam to follow her through the wood-framed archway to the kitchen. He did.

  “I didn’t think I’d be at the office as long as I was,” she went on, setting the wine atop the counter. She opened the cupboard and pulled out a pair of plates. “Once I get going, I lose track of time, sometimes.”

  With a shy smile she reached for the pizza box he’d been balancing on one hand. She slid it gracefully onto the countertop. “I was half afraid you’d get here before I did.”

  “You’re an accountant?” Sam asked, remembering their conversation at the Grill earlier.

  “Officially, I’m a controller, but that’s just a fancy word for it. I work for the county, like Clarissa.”

  She went on to describe the people the agency served and the various functions of her office with an enthusiasm Sam might have found unbelievable coming from anyone else. Somehow, it seemed very real coming from Holly. Her words came faster, keeping tempo with her double-speed gestures. She talked about depreciation and budgets with the same zeal his buddies reserved for, say, strip poker or professional football.

  She paused. “Why are you smiling like that?”

  Sam flipped open the pizza box, stalling for time. “This looks great, doesn’t it?”

  Holly’s inquisitive expression never wavered. He wasn’t going to get off the hook that easily.

  “You’re lucky to have work you love,” Sam said, realizing only as he said it how true those words were. “Even if it is something like accounting,” he added with a mock shudder.

  “Hey! I happen to be very good at what I do.”

  “I believe you.”

  She looked skeptical.

  Sam went on anyway. “Not everybody is lucky enough to spend their days doing something they love.”

  She turned her back to the counter and leaned against it, listening, her palms propped on the edge for balance. “Are you?”

  He’d walked right into that one. “Until recently, no. Now I am.”

  He lifted a wedge of pizza from the box and transferred it to a plate, which he handed to Holly. She watched him intently.

  “But your teaching helps people,” she said. “Do you think that makes a difference?”

  Holly took a bite of pizza, then set the plate down again and moved a little closer. Her eyes were green, Sam noticed, green as new spring grass. She expected an answer. He knew it.

  Sam wanted to give her one. But standing there so close, close enough to smell the faint muskiness of her perfume, thoughts of work and career planning were the furthest things from his mind.

  She seemed different tonight. Why, he couldn’t tell for sure. It wasn’t her clothes. They were the same kind of lady-lawyer stuff she’d been wearing in the restaurant earlier—a pair of ordinary khaki pants and a plain white shirt. So why was he imagining himself unbuttoning those buttons, revealing the woman underneath? Why was he wondering what Holly would do if he leaned over and kissed her, if he pinned her against the countertop and lost himself in her?

  “Sam?”

  He’d forgotten what they were discussing. Some smooth talker he was. Sam scrambled for the topic at hand.

  “Yeah, I think helping people makes a difference. And for me it was a lot of little things that added up to a job I loved. I didn’t plan it that way. Once I’d taken the first step, the rest just followed.”

  He lifted a slice of pizza for himself, not bothering with a plate, and took a bite. Beneath the toppings, the double cheese and sauce were still hot. Perfect. Sam closed his eyes and savored the first bite. When he opened them again, Holly’s curious gaze was still focused on him.

  “You’re the lucky one,” she said. “I don’t think anything’s ever happened to me that I didn’t have to work for.” She laughed a little and reached for the wine bottle, pouring them each a glass. “Don’t get me wrong—for the most part I’ve been successful. But I can’t imagine just leaving things to chance like that, waiting to see what comes.”

  “Why not? Sometimes what comes along is exactly what you’ve been looking for.”

  Holly shook her head. “I just can’t see it.”

  Sam wondered what kind of failure she’d come up against, what it was that had wrecked her “mostly successful” planning. Whatever it was, it had made her a woman afraid to travel without a roadmap at her side. He didn�
�t know how to explain joyriding to a woman like that.

  “You must have pretty detailed plans for your house renovation, then,” he remarked, glancing around the kitchen.

  A spacious, open-planned room, it was trimmed with the natural woodwork and built-in storage cabinets typical of a Craftsman-era home. It was filled with personal things, too—flowering plants, copper cookware, and a small rectangular table with a banquette that probably wasn’t original to the house. Still, it suited her.

  “Oh, I do!” Holly said, smiling. “I’ll show you.” She disappeared around the corner to the living room. She returned a few minutes later, balancing an opened book in her arms.

  “See?” She nodded at the opened pages. She moved closer to him, their heads almost touching as they looked at the photographs she’d marked. “It’ll look just like this when I’m done.”

  Her hair brushed his arm. Sam’s skin prickled with goose bumps. He couldn’t remember when he’d had a response like that to a woman. It felt good. It also felt as if he were seventeen again, trying to hide a surprise erection behind his history textbook.

  Grinning to himself, he concentrated instead on the pictures Holly was showing him, squinting at the series of interior and exterior shots of another Craftsman-style house. This one had been gussied up like a museum, with period furniture and hardwood floors you could probably see yourself in.

  “It’s the most perfect example of the style I could find,” Holly said. “What do you think?”

  Sam thought it looked like a house that ought to be roped-off so visitors could pass through without messing anything up.

  “Well,” he equivocated, “this house is in Massachusetts. It would be hard to duplicate the effect out here in the West. What kind of modifications did you have in mind?”

  “Modifications?” She looked puzzled. “Like what? This house is perfect.”

  Sam looked at the photos again, trying to place Holly inside them. Inside that house. He couldn’t do it. It looked too stiff. Unapproachable.

  “It’s too perfect. Maybe that’s the problem.”

  Holly shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. It can’t be too perfect.”

  “You’ve got to be able to live in the house, too. This house”—he tapped the photo with his fingers—“wouldn’t work in Arizona. The landscaping is all wrong for the climate, for one thing. The chairs look about as comfortable as stadium bleachers, and these bare windows here look nice, but unless all your neighbors live five miles away you’re going to want some shutters or blinds for privacy. And—”

  Holly snapped the book shut, all but flattening his nose with the pages in the process. Sam felt about as popular as the hunter who shot Bambi’s mother.

  “Okay,” he said quickly, “you don’t want me messing around with your design. Understandable. It’s perfect. But maybe, just maybe, it’s not right for this house.”

  She frowned, drumming her fingertips on the book.

  “Renovating a house can be tricky,” Sam said. “If you’re not careful, it’s easy to design the heart, the you, right out of it. Your house has a history. It’s had generations of owners. Every one of them touched these walls.” Sam reached for her hand and pressed it, warm beneath his, against the white plaster wall. “Every one of them left something here. Now it’s your turn.”

  Beneath his palm, Holly’s hand trembled. He brushed his thumb along the edge of hers, downward to her wrist, easing the pressure of his grip in case she wanted to move away. She didn’t. Sam moved closer, until they were only inches apart.

  She was still, watching him. She was warm, luring him. She was sexy as hell, surprising him. He took the only action that seemed reasonable under the circumstances, and kissed her.

  His thoughts were veering into new and dangerous directions by the time Holly ended the kiss.

  “Do you always win arguments this way?” she asked, managing to look both hot and bothered, and just plain bothered, as she clutched the book to her chest.

  “Nah. Sometimes I need a rebuttal,” he murmured, lowering his mouth to hers again. Damn, she felt good. Kissing Holly was like eating chocolate for breakfast—pleasurable, sweet, but probably not very smart.

  She dropped the design book on his foot.

  “Ow!”

  “Ooops, sorry.”

  She didn’t look the least bit repentant. She whipped her hand out from beneath his, then bent to pick up the book and thumped it on the countertop.

  “Listen, Lothario. I think we need to get a few things straight.”

  “Can we wait until my foot quits throbbing? That damn book must weigh at least ten pounds.”

  She shook her head. “Number one, I didn’t invite you over here so you could perform some pizza and wine seduction routine on me. That was a cheap shot—”

  “A double deluxe pizza from Angelo’s isn’t all that cheap,” Sam argued. “Have you got any aspirin?” he added, tugging at his boot. If the pain was any indication, he’d lay bets his big toe was broken.

  Holly, clearly not a woman to be jollied out of her agenda, cast him a scathing look. “You’ll be fine. It’s not that heavy a book.” She continued talking, ticking off items on her fingers as she went. “Number two, I wanted your opinion on my house renovation, but you just wrecked my whole vision. Have you ever heard of tact?”

  “You asked what I thought. I was supposed to lie?”

  Shaking her head, she paced to the living room. “How do you ever get any jobs, anyway?” Holly waved the question away. “No, never mind, don’t answer that. I think I know.”

  Carrying his boot, Sam followed her. “What the hell does that mean?”

  She faced him. “Oh, come on. I saw how you worked on the waitress this morning at the Downtown Grill, doing that…that smile thing you do, all oozing charm. I’ve got to say, it worked like a dream. I’ll bet you get great service, don’t you?”

  “Oozing charm? Yuck.” He shuddered. “I get jobs because I’m good at what I do. Period.”

  “Of course, it doesn’t hurt when your father’s the biggest contractor in Saguaro Vista, does it? Half the town must work for him.”

  Wham, direct hit. Sam scowled. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I do not get hired just because of who my father is. Besides, that’s just a temporary job. Most of the year I have a perfectly respectable job in Tucson, remember?”

  “Whatever,” she said infuriatingly. Then, undaunted, she waggled three fingers at him. “Number three, I happen to have a boyfriend whom—”

  “Whom you’re separated from?”

  “Whom I care about very much,” she said staunchly, heading back to the kitchen. Sam followed, stopping beside the refrigerator to massage his injured toe.

  Holly picked up a towel, polishing the porcelain sink and backsplash with far more attention than the already-spotless surfaces deserved. She poured more wine, set the bottle down, then picked it up and poured a little more. Carrying the bottle and her glass, she paced back to the living room.

  Sam followed, having visions of tying Holly to a chair so he could stop hobbling after her on his one good leg. “What’s the matter? Having trouble thinking up a fourth objection?”

  He regretted the words the minute he saw the wistful expression on her face. He’d rather have her drop ten books on his toe than look like that, he realized.

  “I guess Clarissa told you about me and Brad, too?”

  He nodded. “Unless there’s more than one ‘Brad the Bad’?”

  “Nope.” She dropped into a big, flowery upholstered chair and took a hefty swig of her wine. She sighed. “Just the one.”

  He settled opposite her on the sofa. “Why does Clarissa call him Brad the Bad, anyway?”

  “You really can’t guess?” Holly eyed him curiously. “Then I’m not volunteering. Let’s just say Clarissa never liked Brad much, and leave it at that, shall we?”

  “Sure.” Sam wasn’t in any hurry to repeat what Clarissa had told him, anyway—
that Holly took in wrong men like other people took in stray dogs, and had about as much success domesticating them. Despite her crack about nepotism, he just wasn’t feeling that mean. Besides, it wasn’t any of his business.

  “On a completely different subject,” he said instead, “how much are you asking for rent? I’m assuming you’re still in the market for a roommate, unless you found somebody since this morning?”

  Holly choked on a mouthful of wine, bringing on an impressive coughing attack. Once her breathing had returned to normal, she asked, “You’re still interested?”

  Sam grinned. “I don’t scare easily.”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Nothing. How much?”

  She told him the rent. “But don’t feel put on the spot just because Clarissa asked you to meet me. I know she must have put you up to this, but it’s really not necessary.” Holly narrowed her eyes and gave him a speculative look. “Besides, I’m not so sure you’re the right roommate for me. I can’t go around dropping things on you every day, you know.”

  “I didn’t make the offer because of my cousin,” Sam assured her. Gingerly, he propped his injured right foot on the coffee table. “And I promise I’ll behave. From now on, I’ll ask first before I kiss you.”

  She scrunched her nose at him. “And I’ll say no every time, guaranteed,” she promised.

  He laughed. If her participation in their last kiss had been so reluctant, he couldn’t wait to find out what Holly was like when she felt enthusiastic.

  “You know,” she mused, “maybe I could do without a roommate altogether. Brad and I will probably be back together again by Christmas anyway. I’ve got enough saved to tide me over between now and then.”

  Speculatively, she glanced around the living room. Her gaze settled on the fireplace, the centerpiece of a cozy inglenook formed by the built-in benches and pair of tall bookshelves that flanked it on both sides. It was a typical Craftsman construction, spoiled only by the hunk of nailed-on plywood that sealed the fireplace shut.

  “The money you’ve saved—it’s your renovation money, isn’t it?” Sam asked.

  She looked at him, surprise evident in her expression. “How did you know?”