Once Upon a Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  He helped her to her feet, then hot-footed it behind his desk, putting some distance between them. While his back was turned, Holly seated herself on the sofa and belted her coat closed again. Somehow, it didn’t feel right anymore.

  Brad sat, looking awkward and embarrassed for them both. He stared at his desk blotter, patting the nape of his neck—a sure sign he was mulling something over. She crossed her legs, waiting.

  “I’m not sure what to make of this,” he finally said. “Have you been reading one of those women’s magazines or something?”

  As a matter of fact, she had. She’d gone to the library and searched the periodicals index for appropriate articles, articles which might spark some ideas for her plan. Holly wasn’t going to admit that to Brad, though.

  He straightened in his chair and glanced at her. “This isn’t about…sex.” He cleared his throat, looking vaguely prudish—something she hadn’t noticed in Brad before. “It’s about making a decision that will affect my life for years to come. I won’t rush into a greater commitment without considering all the factors. It’s part of the ‘space’ thing I’ve been talking about lately.”

  Holly leaned back. Okay, so seduction hadn’t worked. She was willing to speak practically with him.

  “Exactly how long do you think this…consideration is going to take?”

  She slipped off her shoes and set them on her briefcase. The motion made the Lover’s Potion and Aphrodisia Massage Oil clink together inside. Maybe she could still return the unopened bottles for a full refund. She wasn’t likely to find a use for them now.

  Brad patted his neck again, then smoothed his open palms over his desk blotter. “I don’t know, but I’m very close to making a decision.”

  Hallelujah. Brad was “very close” to deciding their fate.

  “I’m not sure how much longer I can wait,” Holly said.

  It was the end of the line. The end of the plan. She’d tried everything she could think of, short of handcuffing them together. Even then, Brad would probably resist making a commitment. It had to be up to him now.

  “I understand.” His forehead wrinkled with concern. “After all, you’ve probably got that biological ticking clock thing going on. I’ve been thinking about it. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”

  Holly couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “And you’re not getting any smarter.”

  She rose from the sofa with as much dignity as she could muster. Gathering her shoes and briefcase, she headed for the office door. There, she stopped.

  “I need to know what your decision is—about us—by the end of the week.”

  Brad blinked up at her. After a minute, he asked, “Does this mean you won’t evaluate my new accounting software for me?”

  Had he always been this self-centered?

  “I don’t know,” Holly said, throwing his words back at him, “but I’m very close to making a decision. Bye, Brad.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I’ve gotta be crazy,” Sam said to David mid-morning on Sunday. “Of all the women in this town—”

  “And we both know there are so many in Saguaro Vista—”

  “Of all the women in this town,” Sam continued, scowling at Clarissa’s husband, “I’ve got to pick one that’s obsessed with another man.”

  They were sitting on Holly’s kitchen floor, trying to pry up the remaining few feet of old yellow linoleum so they could lay a new wood floor. It was the last big renovation project to be tackled, but given their progress so far, Sam almost wished they’d chosen something easier—like rewiring the whole house.

  The linoleum seemed to have been welded on somehow. Either that, or the original concrete slab was really an eight-inch-thick slab of linoleum. With a heavy metal spatula, Sam pried at the one corner he’d managed to loosen. As usual, it barely moved.

  “She’ll come around,” David said. “Holly’s a smart girl.”

  He rammed his spatula beneath the section of linoleum he was working on and pulled. About an inch of flooring came up. David swore.

  “Louder. Maybe you can cuss it out of there,” Sam told him, grinning.

  Of all the men who worked for his dad’s construction company, David was the only one who’d agreed to help Sam with Holly’s renovation project. As soon as the other workers had heard the job was renovating Holly Aldridge’s house, they’d all found other things to do with their nights and weekends than earn a few extra holiday-shopping bucks. Sam didn’t understand it.

  “I know Holly’s smart,” Sam said, returning to their earlier conversation. “What I didn’t bargain on is how determined she is, too. She doesn’t know the meaning of surrender.”

  David stopped prying at the linoleum long enough to point the spatula toward Sam. “And you do?”

  Sam laughed. David had him there. “I’ll surrender just as soon as Holly does. Until then, I’m going to do my damnedest to convince her we belong together.”

  The slam of the front door put an end to their conversation. A few seconds later, Holly stomped past the archway to the living room. There was a thud as something hit the floor, then the sound of Holly muttering to herself.

  “I don’t know, Holly. What’s gotten into you, Holly? Might be bronchitis, Holly.”

  Her voice sounded low-pitched—a pissed-off imitation of a man’s voice. Brad’s voice, if Sam guessed correctly.

  Still muttering, she came into the kitchen, clutching a pair of red high-heeled shoes to her chest. She was dressed in a raincoat. She dropped the shoes on the counter and frowned at them. A small red thing rolled off the countertop and landed on the other side, almost in Sam’s lap. It was one of her heels.

  He held it up. “I can fix this for you, if you want.”

  Holly screamed.

  She lurched over the counter, staring at him. “Why didn’t you say you were down there? You just about gave me a heart attack.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” Sam said, looking back at her. She’d done something to her hair. There was a pouffy spot on top big enough to stash a pack of gum in, and it was all curly on the ends. It looked good, in a wild kind of way.

  Holly examined the ripped up floor, then the two of them sitting amid their spatulas, the heat gun, assorted tools, and Sam’s open red tool box. Her gaze rested for a second on the jumbo bag of red and green Christmas tortilla chips he and David had shared for breakfast, then moved up to Sam again.

  “Are you sure you two are doing this right?” she asked doubtfully. “You’ve been at this for days. The floor looks worse than ever.”

  “It’s supposed to look this way, at least until the new floor is all the way in,” David interrupted, saving Sam from answering. “How ya’ doing, Holly?”

  “Fine, thanks.” From the sound of it, she’d rather chew nails than talk civilly to anyone.

  “Oookay… Sorry I asked.” David grinned and went back to work again.

  Holly took a deep breath, visibly trying to calm herself. She gave David a wavery, apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, David. You guys want some help? I can change and be back in a couple of minutes.”

  She touched her fingers to her coat lapels, started pulling them apart, then stopped. Her face reddened. Surprisingly, so did her chest. Sam hadn’t realized a woman could blush all the way down to…down to where her shirt should be, if she was wearing one. Holly wasn’t wearing a shirt. Probably, she wasn’t wearing much of anything else, either.

  Holly shoved the raincoat closed again, holding it tight against her throat. “I’ll be right back.”

  Hastily, she turned toward the archway.

  All at once, Sam understood. “How’s Brad these days?”

  She stopped, holding onto the archway edges with both hands. Her fingers tightened.

  “None of your business.” She raised her head and, with sudden decisiveness, marched all the way back to the middle of the kitchen where he and David sat. “How did you know?”

  “It didn’t take a genius to f
igure out all those lingerie bags in the trash. But your raincoat was the dead giveaway.”

  Sam examined her broken heel, still in his hand. “What I can’t figure out is how this happened.” He grinned. “You want to tell us about it?”

  David looked interested. Holly looked mad.

  “No.” She turned, scooped up her shoes from the counter, and headed for the living room.

  Sam waved the heel of her shoe. “You want me to fix this, or what?”

  He couldn’t stop smiling. If Brad could turn down Holly—and he must have—when she was wearing nothing but a raincoat and some sexy lingerie…. Well, Sam’s chance of a future with her looked a whole lot brighter, all of a sudden.

  Holly belted her raincoat tighter, then came back and snatched the heel from him. “No. I’ll fix it myself.”

  She examined the little nails embedded in the broken heel, then flipped over the shoe and centered the heel in place. Biting her lip thoughtfully, she glanced around the kitchen, studiously ignoring him. An instant later, her eyes lit up. Picking up her other shoe, Holly held it like a hammer, high above her head. She took a deep breath and slammed it down hard on the broken heel.

  The heel flew like a red leather bullet, straight at Sam’s head.

  “Ow!”

  Distantly, he heard the heel clatter to the floor. Holly gasped and skidded across the linoleum to where he clutched his head with one hand. It still stung where the heel had smacked into it.

  “Oh, Sam—I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” Gently, she lifted his hand away, then peered at his scalp. “I don’t think you’re bleeding.”

  Beside him, David picked up the broken heel and held it out to Holly. “Here you—”

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Sam grabbed it, glaring at them both. “You want to arm her again? I thought you were my friend.”

  He shook off Holly’s hand and got up. Taking the heel from David, Sam picked up the broken shoe from the counter.

  “I’ll fix this.” He gave them both a look that dared them to disagree. He shouldn’t have been surprised when Holly did. She grabbed for the broken shoe.

  Sam held it just out of reach. She gave a little jump. He lifted it higher.

  “I can fix it. I’ve gotten along just fine until now without your stupid he–man fix–it routine, you know. I’m not helpless.”

  He–man? “You’re a menace,” he shot back.

  “Give me my shoe, please.” The words emerged through clenched teeth, just before Holly jumped again.

  She missed, probably because Sam stood six inches taller than she did. It wasn’t difficult to keep the shoe away from her.

  He had a devious thought.

  “Show me what’s under your coat,” he offered, “and I’ll give you your shoe back.”

  “What? No.”

  “Come on,” Sam coaxed, dangling her shoe—the bait—just out of reach. He grinned.

  She kicked him in the shin.

  “Ow!” He dropped her shoe.

  Holly picked it up with a smug little smile and flounced off, muttering something about getting into some normal clothes so she could help.

  He stopped her. “Oh, no. You’re not helping.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’ve already covered this ground, haven’t we?”

  She glared at him.

  “You’re not going to kick me again, are you?”

  Holly shook her head. “Come on, Sam. I’m having kind of a hard day. Why don’t you quit trying to change the subject and just tell me why you don’t want me to help?”

  “Because you’re dangerous, that’s why.”

  Looking offended, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Only when provoked. I asked you nicely to give me my shoe, and you didn’t.” She nodded at the broken heel. “Hitting you with that was an accident, and you know it.”

  “So was breaking my toe with that damned ten–pound book,” Sam pointed out, waggling his bare foot in demonstration—and remembrance. “Now you want me to let you wreak havoc on the floor? With tools?” He shook his head. “I’d have to be crazy.”

  David grinned at that. “What was that you were saying earlier about being crazy?”

  Sam cut him off with a look. He didn’t need to be reminded that he’d called himself crazy, and crazy about Holly, just fifteen minutes ago. David shrugged and dug into the bag of tortilla chips at his feet, removing himself from the argument.

  “It’s my floor,” Holly insisted. “I want to help. All you have to do is show me how.” She studied the shards of yellow linoleum scattered at their feet. “It doesn’t look too difficult to me.”

  She gave him a shrewd look. “Maybe you don’t want me to find out how easy this is. It would hurt your handyman’s ego.” Her gaze darted over to David. “Is that why he won’t let me help?”

  David looked about to choke on a green tortilla chip with the effort of holding back a laugh.

  “Well, I dunno.” He gazed speculatively at Sam. “Are you worried about your masculine ego, Sam?”

  If that chip didn’t get him, Sam promised himself he would.

  He frowned at Holly. “You really believe that?”

  “No, but I really do want to help. I’ve been working all week and I haven’t had a chance to do anything. Come on, Sam. I’m a quick study, you’ll see.”

  She smiled encouragingly.

  Sam decided to surrender to the inevitable before she dug any deeper. “Fine. Have it your way.”

  Her smile deepened. Sam’s didn’t. He felt like a sap. Holly headed for the bedroom to change clothes. Too bad he couldn’t persuade her to keep on the raincoat and lingerie.

  “Be sure to put on something old,” he warned. “Whatever you wear is going to get wrecked.”

  She waved a hand over her head. “Okay. I’ll be right back!”

  Sam turned to David.

  “We’re in for it now,” he grumbled.

  He was more right than he’d expected, but not in the way he’d thought. A few minutes later when Holly emerged from the bedroom, Sam stopped in mid–scrape to stare. Holly’s wild new hairstyle was small change compared with how she looked geared up for renovating.

  “These are the oldest, grungiest things I could find.” She waved her hand at her faded University of Arizona T–shirt and old denim cut–off shorts. “Okay?”

  “Uh, okay.” Sam tried to quit staring, but it was impossible. In those shorts, Holly looked completely different. It was a glimpse of the kind of woman she must have been before Brad and his tight–assed ways got a hold of her, before she’d plotted out her plan for life and set the map in stone. He wondered if it was too late to smash the map and start over.

  But that would have to come later. For now he’d have to settle for teaching Holly how to tear up an old linoleum floor. Kneeling next to her, Sam showed her how to look at the edges of the floor for places that had lifted over the years, then pry them up further with a heavy metal spatula. He showed her how to pour in a little adhesive solvent to loosen the glue, and how to scrape up the stubborn pieces that sometimes remained, so the subfloor would be level.

  When Sam turned to check on her progress a few minutes later, Holly was working diligently. Beside her sat the evidence of her labor—a tidy stack of linoleum pieces, a dustpan filled with debris, and the tortilla chip bag, now filled with linoleum shards. For a radius of two feet around her, the floor was swept conspicuously clean.

  Holly crouched on her hands and knees, mopping it with a sponge.

  “We’re not going to eat from this floor.” Sam tried—and failed—to keep his grin hidden. “Work first. Clean later.”

  She didn’t stop. “A neat workspace will make the job go quicker.”

  She sounded breathless from her enthusiastic mopping. She whipped out an old towel and dried the floor, her backside swinging enticingly in rhythm with each stroke of the towel.

  Her denim cut–offs revealed more than they hid, especially in the places where she’d dried her d
amp hands on them. Beneath the soft, thin fabric of her old T–shirt, her breasts kept time too, swaying gently as she worked. Sam’s gut tightened. He really was crazy.

  Clapping his hands to dislodge the worst of the dirt, he looked at David and Holly in turn. “What do you say we break for lunch?”

  When they didn’t answer, he raised his eyebrows. “Lunch?”

  David glanced at the tortilla chip bag. “I’m still pretty full from the Christmas chips.”

  Scowling, Sam got to his feet. “Then you can stay here and finish up while Holly and I go to lunch.” He turned to her. “You’ll want to change first, right?”

  She looked exasperated. “I just did, remember? What’s wrong with what I’ve got on?”

  “Nothing.” Nothing except that it made Sam want to take all of it off. Nothing except that it showed him a side to Holly he’d never seen before, and he liked it. Too much.

  “Nothing. I just thought you’d want to wear something more…ahhh….” He searched his brain for a reason that would appeal to her. “Something more appropriate.”

  Something unsexy.

  “You sound just like Brad,” Holly accused, scrambling to stand on the slippery linoleum. She pointed her finger in Sam’s face. “Well, I’m through with men telling me what to do and what to wear and whom to see. Do you hear me?”

  He backed up, pushed more by the impact of her unexpected temper than the pink fingernail she was poking at him. He’d obviously touched a nerve by telling her to look appropriate.

  It wasn’t a mistake he wanted to repeat in the future.

  “I’ll do what I want, when I want to do it.” Holly’s voice rose. “If I want to dance naked on my floor, in my kitchen, in my house, then I’ll do it! And you can’t stop me!”

  “Why would he want to?” David put in, grinning.

  Holly threw her wet sponge at him. It landed with a wet splat on his nose, then plopped to the floor.

  She was spoiling for a fight. She looked at Sam as though she were mentally rolling up her sleeves, a prize–fighter ready for the next match.

  He held up both hands in surrender. “Okay! Wear what you want.”

  “I will.” Holly flounced away.