Once Upon a Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  “He’s practically as good as new already.”

  When Holly had phoned him earlier, Sam had confirmed that he and his Loony Tunes foot felt well enough to move in this afternoon, as planned. She’d promised to leave him a house key in one of the porch flowerpots. He might even be there when she got back home.

  She tried to imagine what it would be like to live with a man like Sam, a man so impulsive he’d give a woman a scorching kiss the day they met—a man who’d talk about love at first sight with someone he barely knew.

  Holly turned down Clarissa’s street. “Did you put Sam up to something last weekend?”

  If she had, it would go a long way toward explaining Sam’s behavior. Maybe the two of them had cooked up some sort of a joke after all, and she’d fallen for it—hook, line, and sinker.

  “Well…yes,” Clarissa admitted. “I guess you could say that.”

  Holly’s heart sank a little.

  “It was my idea he meet you at the Grill. And I did encourage Sam to move into your place.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I wanted to help. God knows why you’re so hung up on Brad, but I hate seeing you unhappy.” So there, her expression seemed to say. “You promised Brad a roommate, and I helped deliver one.”

  Holly pulled into Clarissa’s driveway. “Then you didn’t…no, never mind.” She shook her head. “Thanks for wanting to help.”

  Clarissa wasn’t having it. “Then I didn’t…what?”

  When Holly only drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and didn’t answer, she pushed a little harder.

  “What do you think I did? Sam’s a big boy. I can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to.”

  Holly drew in a deep breath. “Sam told me he was crazy about me. He said meeting me made him believe in love at first sight.”

  Clarissa’s mouth dropped open. Good Lord. She’d rendered her speechless. Holly couldn’t remember the last time that had happened, if ever.

  “This is still my cousin Sam we’re talking about, right?“Holly nodded. “Does he do this sort of thing a lot?”

  She was starting to feel concerned. Maybe Sam fell in and out of love with a different woman every week. Maybe he was a closet Don Juan. For all she knew, he’d used this “love at first sight” line before.

  “As far as I know,” Clarissa replied slowly, “Sam has never uttered the word ‘love’ to a woman. Except maybe in bed,” she amended thoughtfully, “but I wouldn’t know about that, of course.” She pursed her lips and squinted at Holly. “Did you sleep with him already?”

  “No!”

  Clarissa looked at her closely. “Then why are you blushing, Holly Berry? Hmmm?”

  It was true. Holly felt the warmth spread through her cheeks and couldn’t have stopped it to save her life.

  “You’ve thought about it, then?” Clarissa pressed. “I wouldn’t blame you, actually. Sam’s quite a hunk—even I can recognize that, despite knowing him since he was a toddler.” A dreamy look came into her eyes. “We both used to get stuck at the kid’s table together at Thanksgiving dinner every year. We must have been twelve before we got promoted to the big table. And now Sam’s falling for you. Wow.”

  “Clarissa—”

  “It’s okay, I won’t breathe a word to your precious Bradley,” she said, drawing out the name until it sounded at least six syllables long. A broad smile crept across her face.

  “You and Sam,” she muttered. “Wow.”

  “There’s no ‘me and Sam,’” Holly objected. “There’s not going to be any ‘me and Sam.’”

  “I can’t wait to tell David.”

  “Oh, no. You’re not telling him a thing.” If Clarissa’s husband even suspected something was going on, the news would be all over town before midnight. “Besides, there’s nothing to tell. Nothing.”

  Clarissa picked up her purse and swung open the car door. She turned back to Holly, frowning in concentration.

  “What’s that saying?” she asked. “Oh, yeah—the lady doth protest too much, methinks.” She winked and stepped out of the car. A wave. “I’ll talk to you later!”

  “Bye,” replied Holly glumly. She was really in for it, now that Clarissa was on the case. Starting the car again, she pulled out of the driveway and headed for the only safe haven she knew. Home.

  Her safe haven had been destroyed.

  Okay, maybe destroyed was a little harsh. Rearranged, redone—no, invaded—was more apt. In front, Sam’s pickup truck was parked, two tires on the street, the other two on the sidewalk. Its bed was filled with assorted lengths of lumber, some bricks, and—Holly peered closer—a pair of old muddy shoes.

  In the middle of the porch swing sat a squat terra-cotta pot containing a miniature fir tree strung with tiny ornaments. Next to it was a longneck beer bottle.

  Just inside the doorway, she stepped over a box packed with Christmas lights, larger ornaments, and a novelty Santa figurine. Beside the sofa lay a pair of very large tennis shoes. From the kitchen came the sound of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”—and a loud male voice singing accompaniment.

  Sam.

  Holly sniffed. He must be cooking something, probably using her prized set of Calphalon cookware. The sauté pan alone cost more than a hundred dollars. She bolted for the kitchen.

  What she smelled was dinner, but he wasn’t cooking it. He was…agitating it. Sam held two white Chinese takeout cartons in each hand, and he was swinging them by their wire handles to the beat of the song still blasting in the background. As she watched, he lifted his formerly injured toe and spun on his heel. He bopped across the kitchen floor, wiggling his backside as he went.

  Holly smiled despite herself. Sam danced with the kind of abandon she hadn’t witnessed since the drunken festivities at Clarissa’s wedding reception.

  “Hi,” she called out.

  He shimmied across the linoleum, unable to hear her over the music and his own singing. Holly marched over to the portable stereo taking up most of the counter space in her little kitchen and switched it off. Sam paused in mid–spin, the take–out cartons still swinging.

  “Great, you’re home!” He didn’t look the least bit chagrined to have been caught in mid–song. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

  Holly slung her purse on the counter. “You made dinner?”

  “Don’t go getting all mushy on me,” he warned upon seeing her smile. “I just ordered in. It’s nothing fancy.”

  From the looks of things, it was nothing neat, either. He hadn’t left a stone unturned—or a cupboard door unopened. For the first time, Holly felt thankful for the meticulous order Brad had always insisted upon keeping everything in. Trying to look as un–mushy as possible, she went through the kitchen flipping the cupboards closed.

  Sam lifted the cardboard containers. “I was looking for some bowls to put these in. Hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded.

  His smile grew wider and twice as seductive. “I’ve got just what you need,” he teased. “Come on over and get it.”

  Did he really mean what she thought he meant? Sam leaned against the countertop watching her, his bare feet braced against the old linoleum floor. Holly let her eyes travel up the length of his denim-clad legs, past his haphazardly buttoned shirt, to his face. What she saw there made her tremble. He meant it all right, and every sensual spin she could put on the words. Come on over and get it.

  Her breath left her. This was going to be harder than she’d thought.

  “You probably want to bring in the things you bought first, though,” he said.

  Holly’s mind flashed on the supplies she’d purchased and the bags of lingerie, still in the trunk.

  “You did go to the mall with Clarissa like you said, right? Do you want help carrying your things in?”

  And let him see the stuff she’d bought? The “holiday appropriate” garter belt and stockings set? The massage oils? The red and black velvet groping-ha
nds bra? No way.

  She shook her head. “I…no, thanks. I can manage.”

  “Sure?”

  Holly nodded.

  “Okay, then.” Sam indicated the food cartons. “I’ll get this ready while you do. Just leave everything to me.”

  He couldn’t know how tempting those words were…could he? Half on autopilot, Holly headed for the car to bring in the clothes she’d bought.

  Just as she added the last shopping bag to the mountain of others on her bed, Sam called her for dinner. Walking back through the house, she felt his presence everywhere—saw it in the toothbrush beside hers on the bathroom vanity, in the stack of unfamiliar books on the coffee table, in the basketball game that flickered on the television.

  It gave her a strange feeling. Until now, a roommate had been just an idea, a faceless entity to make good her boast to Brad and help pay the mortgage. She hadn’t counted on feeling Sam’s presence so strongly.

  Beneath the archway to the kitchen, she stopped and stared.

  Sam spotted her. “Come on, it’s getting cold.”

  The lights were dimmed. Just beyond him, the banquette table glowed with light from the number of red and green votive candles he’d set on it, along with the bowls of food. There were two place settings, side-by-side on one long edge of the table, a teapot and cups, and a little cellophane-wrapped pile of fortune cookies for a centerpiece. Holly blinked. It was all still there.

  “I thought we needed a better beginning than we had at our last dinner,” Sam said when she reached the table. “Thanks for sharing your house with me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Holly gazed across the table again, wondering at a man who’d actually eat by candlelight without being cajoled into it. The food smelled wonderful and the table looked beautiful. It looked…romantic. She raced for the light switch.

  Sam’s hand landed on top of hers before she could switch on the lights.

  “Wait.” He slid his fingers beneath her palm and gently lifted her hand away. “Don’t do that.”

  She glanced up at him. He laced his fingers with hers and came closer, closer, until she was backed up against the wall behind her. His other hand came to rest on the wall beside her shoulder. He pressed forward, and Holly felt his hips touch hers, then withdraw. Her breasts grazed his shirtfront. When her nipples tightened beneath the layers of blouse and bra, her breath caught and held. What was he doing to her?

  “I dare you,” Sam said in a low voice. “I dare you to leave everything just the way it is. I dare you to leave it and see what happens.”

  He pressed their interlaced hands hard against the wall. “I dare you to feel, to feel us together. Feel me.”

  He was hard and hot and breathless, and she was melting against him. His hips rocked, once, sending the heat deeper through her, leaving her pulsing with sensation.

  Feel, feel us together, feel me.

  “I can’t,” Holly gasped, ducking beneath his arm.

  She took refuge on the other side of the banquette, the candlelight blurring from her sudden, inexplicable tears. Her whole body trembled with emotion. Whatever it was that Sam brought out in her, whatever he wanted from her, it scared her half to death. She couldn’t look at him.

  He switched on the lights, and Holly’s breath returned with the brightness. Sam slid onto the other banquette booth. For a long time, he didn’t say anything. The only sounds were the clink of the teapot against the cups and the faint swirl of the tea as he filled each one. Steam rose, fragrant and warm. Holly slipped her fingers around the heated cup and risked a glance at him.

  “There’s a sensuous woman inside you,” he said quietly. “I think she’s worth waiting for.”

  She shivered. No one had ever described her that way. She’d never thought of herself that way.

  “Well, somebody ought to let her out,” she joked, hoping to turn their conversation to safer ground. “It must be stifling in there.”

  Sam didn’t smile. “You’re the only one who can let her out.”

  He wasn’t looking at her, and for that she was grateful. He picked up a plate and gestured toward the serving bowls with a spoon. “Want to try some?”

  She could have cried with relief at his change of topic. Holly peered in the bowl. “What’s in it?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s better not to look too closely at Chinese food.” He grinned. “But it tastes great. You game?”

  “Is there MSG in it? That’s bad for you, you know. Some people have allergic reactions to MSG.”

  Sam paused, the spoon held a few inches above the bowl. “Do you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to find out, though.”

  “This allergic reaction—it’s not fatal is it?”

  “I don’t think so, but—”

  “Then the Kung Pao Chicken is worth it.”

  With certainty, Sam scooped some on the plate. He added a generous portion of beef with broccoli, then filled the remaining third of the plate with rice. He transferred a set of napkin-wrapped utensils from his side of the table to hers, then set the plate in front of her.

  Holly stared at it doubtfully. “Is this brown rice? Brown rice is healthier.”

  He shrugged. “I doubt it.” He ladled rice on his own plate and topped it with heaping spoonfuls of both entrees. “Go on. Live dangerously.”

  It did smell good. She had to admit that much. Holly unfolded her napkin.

  “It was nice of you to get dinner,” she said, poking tentatively at an unfamiliar, but very precisely cut, vegetable.

  Sam nodded, already chewing happily. Holly lifted a strand of something green and stringy between her fork tines and examined it. It looked like seaweed. She frowned.

  “What’s the matter?” Sam asked.

  She twirled the seaweed around the fork and scooped up some rice to help it go down easier. “I’m just not used to eating things I can’t identify,” she confessed.

  “Then don’t look,” he suggested. “Just close your eyes and take a bite.”

  She was being a baby. Next thing she knew, he’d be suggesting she hold her nose, or take twenty-nine bites—one for each year of her life—like the lunch ladies used to do back in elementary school.

  She ate the bite on her fork, then speared a piece of chicken and ate that, too. She was the new, spontaneous Holly, a lingerie-buying adventuress who lived to try new things.

  “Like it?”

  She was surprised to realize she did. “Mmm-hmm, it’s pretty good.”

  It probably had a million calories, one plateful equivalent to twenty-five Big Macs or something, like that report on the movie theater popcorn. Heart attack on a plate. She ate some more. It was addictive, seasoned with flavors she didn’t recognize and filled with weird vegetables, but she liked it.

  Her eyes started to water. All of a sudden, her mouth was on fire. Her lips, her tongue—even her gums—burned. Her nose started to run. She sniffed, swabbing at her watery eyes with her napkin.

  “Sam,” she choked out, hardly able to speak. “Sam!”

  This was it. A MSG reaction. She was going to die from Chinese food. Holly waved her arm frantically.

  He was beside her in an instant. “Here. Drink this.”

  Holly gulped from the cup he held to her lips. When that was gone, she gasped and pointed to his cup, and drank all of his tea, too. By the time she’d finished the third cup Sam poured for her, she was starting to believe she wasn’t going to die after all.

  “My mouth is numb.” Setting the cup back in the saucer, she gave Sam an accusing glare.

  He retreated to his side of the banquette. “Sorry. It didn’t even occur to me you might never have tried Chinese food. I guess it is a little spicy, if you’re not used to it.”

  “A little spicy? That stuff could be used to keep peace between nations.” She picked up her plate and pantomimed hurling it at an invisible enemy. “Watch out, or it’s the Kung Pao Chicken for you!”

  Laughing, Sam r
efilled both their tea cups. Holly pushed her plate away. Far away.

  “Maybe you ought to tell me what other things you haven’t tried,” he said, “so we can avoid disaster in the future.” He gazed thoughtfully at her. “How about Indian food? Ever tried curry? Chicken Vindaloo?”

  She shook her head. “All these new things you’ve got planned for me to try—are they all food-related?” she asked, curious to know what else he’d suggest.

  Sam smiled. Wickedly. “Not all of them. Ever try skinny–dipping? It’s a lot of fun, especially if you can find a heated pool.”

  There’s a sensuous woman inside you, Holly.

  It was dizzying to keep up with him. One minute she and Sam were laughing. The next he was gazing at her as if he wanted to devour her. No man had ever looked at her that way, not even Brad—especially not Brad. He was too self-disciplined for that.

  “Of course, I’d never ask you to do something you didn’t want to do,” Sam was saying.

  Holly smiled. “I get the feeling we’re not just talking about Kung Pao Chicken anymore.”

  “I’m not. Where this takes us is up to you. But I think I can convince you to give us a try.”

  He unwrapped a fortune cookie and handed it to her, then selected one for himself.

  “You know, some people believe fortunes like these are really suppressed wishes.” He cracked his fortune cookie open. “What do you think?”

  “I think whoever is paid to write these things at the fortune cookie factory would be surprised to hear that.” Holly slid the thin paper fortune from her cookie.

  “What does it say?”

  “Your happiness is intertwined with your outlook on life.”

  “See? That’s dead-on.”

  “No, it isn’t. It could apply to about a million other people,” she said pragmatically. “Yours is probably just as vague.”

  Sam shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think it’s right on target.” He held up his fortune so Holly could read it.

  “Your present plans are going to succeed,” she read.

  Suddenly, inexplicably, her heartbeat quickened. With a deep breath, she glanced up from the paper fortune. Sam’s eyes met hers and held.