by Tawny Weber
She grabbed the television remote off the table. “Ready to enjoy my evening of choice on the world’s most uncomfortable couch?” she asked brightly.
He shifted, pulling her onto his lap.
“Better?”
“So much.” She sighed.
Twenty minutes later, Frankie was happily transported into her favorite story, but nonplussed by Phillip’s reaction.
“I can’t believe you’ve never watched the Harry Potter movies,” she said as a brick wall shuffled and transformed into a magical entrance.
“It’s a kids’ movie,” he muttered. “We could watch something else.”
“Something that requires a discussion at the end? We can do that with this movie.”
“Seriously,” he said, setting her on the couch next to him. As if the rock-hard seat would bring her around to his side of the argument. “I don’t mind running to the store. I’ll pick up a bottle of wine, a few movie selections. I’ll even stop by that little pastry shop you mentioned for dessert.”
“That’s sweet,” she decided, shifting to brush a kiss over his chin before grabbing a handful of popcorn. “A sneaky and underhanded attempt to get out of winner’s choice, but still sweet.”
His sigh was so deep it almost nudged her off the couch.
“Popcorn?” Frankie held up the bowl. She grinned when, in spite of the disgruntled look on his face, he dug in.
By the time Harry put on the Sorting Hat, Phillip was totally engrossed. Frankie enjoyed watching his reaction even more than the movie.
The look of understanding on his face at Harry’s shock over receiving gifts during the Christmas-morning scene was so telling.
And it was all the confirmation she needed that her idea to give Phillip the best Christmas ever was a great plan.
“That was actually good,” he said two hours later.
“For a kids’ movie?” she teased.
“The main characters were kids,” he pointed out. When Frankie poked him in the belly, he laughed and admitted, “It was a great movie. Really.”
“Great enough to watch the next one?”
“There’s more than one?”
Her mouth dropped. Did he live in a cave? Then she saw the laughter in his eyes.
Mission accomplished, she thought with a sigh.
Joy and contentment mingled inside her, filling her with so much warmth.
A night out with a gorgeous man, followed by postdate sex, middle-of-the-night sex and look-it’s-morning sex.
A productive day in her studio, better than she’d had in at least a year.
Cookies, dinner and now a cuddle-fest while watching one of the best movies of all time.
She shifted so she was facing Phillip with his arms wrapped around her.
“What would you see if you looked into the Mirror of Erised?” she asked him, referring to the mirror in the movie that showed the viewer his heart’s desire.
“Not my dead relatives,” he said. His hand slipped under the heavy knit of her sweater, sliding up her spine, then back down again.
“What did you think of Harry’s Christmas?” she asked, trying to sound casual. “Poor kid, he’d never celebrated before.”
Phillip’s hand stilled. His arched brow told her she hadn’t been nearly casual enough. But, ever the gentleman, he didn’t call her on it.
Instead, he slid around from her back to her front, his fingers slipping under the band of her bra.
“What are you doing?” she asked, instantly aroused.
“Changing the subject,” he told her just before taking her mouth.
* * *
PHILLIP HAD NEVER understood the concept of a guy being led around by his, well, manhood for lack of a better word. Not because he didn’t appreciate good sex. He was all for it. But he’d never considered sex important enough to detour from his carefully laid-out plans. And he’d definitely never been so enamored by the act that he’d do something he really didn’t want to do just to get it.
Yet, here he was, practically hanging from the rafters. Ignoring his own plans for the day, doing something he seriously didn’t want to do.
All because Frankie had put on a pleading look and asked him to help her with the decorations before her grandmother returned.
It wasn’t the look that had done him in, he admitted to himself.
It was the fact that she’d been naked at the time.
As he leaned over to hang the light strand on a tiny hook hidden beneath the crown molding, the twenty-foot ladder gave an ominous creak.
“Sent here to give useless talks on the importance of following safety regulations and security,” he muttered. “If I fall and break my ass, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t get that,” Frankie called from below.
“Don’t you have people to do this?” he said.
“They, um, couldn’t make it this year.”
He glanced down and sure enough, she was chewing on her thumbnail. He’d come to recognize that as a sign that she was hiding something in that maze of a brain of hers.
“You’re not planning to decorate the entire house, right?” he asked, climbing back down the ladder so it could be moved two feet for the next hook.
“Just the foyer for today,” she said, giving his cheek a pat. Then, laughing at his expression, she added a kiss. “Come on, admit it. You’re having fun.”
“No,” he said seriously. “I’m not.”
“Okay, then, at least admit it looks pretty.”
Knowing she wouldn’t let him move the ladder until he did, Phillip sighed and made a show of looking around.
It looked nothing like his mother’s decorating style.
Oh, he recognized enough of the decorations to know they were the same ones he’d grown up with. But instead of sticking to a single color palette—always the sedate glint of silver in the foyer—Frankie had thrown splashes of color everywhere. Red on the staircase, green around the mirror, a hodgepodge of everything over the doorway and...
Phillip squinted. What in the hell was that?
“That’s not ours,” he realized, pointing at the four-foot something guarding the front door. He tilted his head to the side. Maybe it was a reindeer?
“Actually, it is yours,” Frankie said, hanging a crystal teardrop from one of the reindeer’s antlers. “It was always put out back, though, by the garden shed.”
Distracted from the ugly sawhorse with a red nose, he frowned.
“Mother decorated the shed?”
“Nana told me once that this was a gift and your mother didn’t want to offend whoever sent it. Once she found a place she felt appropriate—and out of sight—she extended her decorating there.”
Which pretty much summed up his family’s view of the holidays. It was all for show. All about making the right impression. One foot on the ladder again, Phillip frowned at the string of lights in his hand, then looked at Frankie.
“Why are we doing this?” he asked. “Nobody will be visiting. I promise I’m not hosting some stuffy dinner party. So what’s the point?”
“It makes us happy.” At the look on his face, Frankie rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. It makes me happy. And it makes Nana happy. Decorations are a part of the season. Just like those cookies you devoured.”
“I’d have devoured them just as fast in July.”
“You really don’t understand Christmas, do you?” She looked so bewildered, he was tempted to lie just to make her feel butter. But Phillip never lied.
“I understand that for the most part it’s a commercial venture that taps into people’s competitive nature, puts people into debt and creates a ton of stress.” It had even stressed out his mother, whose holiday efforts as far as he remembered had
revolved around getting her nails done and telling the cook how many guests would be joining them for dinner.
He hadn’t offered his opinion expecting any particular response, but if he had, he’d have figured she’d either gasp in horror or smack him for spewing such sacrilege.
Instead, Frankie offered an understanding nod.
He frowned.
“You agree with me?”
“Oh, no. But I know a lot of people who do. That’s because they focus on the wrong thing. But people do that with everything, don’t they?”
“What do you mean?”
“Take being a SEAL, for instance.” She gestured to him with her ornament. “Some guys would try to join to boost their ego, to score with chicks or because they think it’s a great way to bust all over other guys.”
“Then they’re idiots,” he dismissed.
“You’ve never heard of anyone joining for those reasons?”
“Sure, I have, but guys who think like that rarely make it out of BUDS. It takes focus, real focus to be a SEAL. To withstand the stresses and overcome the odds. Less than twenty percent of the men who try out even make it through training. The ones who do are doing it for the right reason.”
It took a second for her smirk to sink in. Once it did, Phillip shook his head. “It’s not the same.”
“It might be on a different scale, but it’s exactly the same. If you’re doing it for the wrong reason, then you’re right, all it does is cause stress.”
“Fine,” he acknowledged, granting her point. “Then what do you see as the right reason?”
“Tradition, for one. In our family, even if we decorate our own tree at our own house, we always meet at Nana’s house on Christmas Eve to decorate her tree together.”
“Sounds like a lot of work,” he said, eyeing the stack of ornament boxes with trepidation. She didn’t plan on bringing in a tree, did she?
“Okay, how about memories?” She lifted one of the decorations from a velvet-lined box. “There’s a note here that says this was given to your grandmother from your grandfather on their first Christmas together.”
“Seriously?” Phillip walked over to look. His grandfather had died when he’d been pretty young, but he was the reason Phillip had joined the Navy. “She saved the note, too?”
“No.” Frankie handed him the box and the note inside. “He did.”
Phillip read his grandfather’s spidery script, declaring his devotion to his Audrey on their first of many Christmases.
“I never thought of him as a sentimental man,” Phillip mused, remembering the old guy telling stories about the Navy, bitching about the cost of gasoline and always smelling like spearmint gum.
“See, if you’d had family traditions that included decorating with these ornaments, you would have known,” Frankie pointed out. She returned the ornament to its box, then put it with a stack of others. “There are more notes. They’ll be fun to read while you decorate the tree.”
Damn. Phillip grimaced. She was going to bring in a tree. He debated protesting, but had the feeling that she’d hide the cookies if he did.
“Are you ready to admit I’m right?” she teased, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing.
“Nope.”
Her sigh was a work of art, the move pressing her breasts tight against his chest. It was all Phillip could do not to throw back his head and heave a sigh of his own.
He’d never known a woman who could keep him irritated, intrigued and turned on all at the same time.
“Okay, maybe this will convince you that Christmas is special.” One arm still around his waist, she fished her cell phone out of her pocket and started flipping through it with her thumb.
“You’re going to call Santa?” Phillip guessed.
“Don’t think I won’t if I have to.” She opened the photo album icon and up popped hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures.
“You keep all of these pictures on your phone?” he asked.
“They’re not really on my phone, they’re in the cloud,” she said absently, her thumb flying across the screen in search of whatever it was she thought would change his mind. “Aha, here it is. If this doesn’t restore your faith that Christmas brings miracles, I don’t know what will.”
Phillip peered at the screen, trying to figure out what he was seeing.
“No way.” Shocked, he took the phone from Frankie to look closer. “Is that Lara?”
“Yep.”
“Smiling?”
“That is indeed a smile.”
“Lara, smiling and sitting on Santa’s lap?” How was that possible? “Our parents never took us to see Santa. They didn’t believe in perpetuating myths.”
“That’s what Lara told me. I think she was six in this picture,” Frankie said. “Your mom left her with Nana because Lara’s cold might cause her to inappropriately sniffle or sneeze during some luncheon or other. My cousins and I were with her for the weekend, so Nana took us all out for peppermint ice cream cones, then to see Santa.”
“Lara knew he wasn’t real. So why does she look so happy?”
“I don’t know,” Frankie admitted, wishing she did. But she’d only been three at the time. “I remember Nana telling me that Lara said it was a chance to see what magic felt like.”
Magic. Believing in something for the simple joy of what it stood for.
The only other time he’d seen his sister smile like that was at her wedding.
“I can text you a copy of the picture,” Frankie offered. “You know, for later, after you’ve talked yourself into believing that I didn’t prove that Christmas is special.”
“You think you’ve got me all figured out?” he asked, handing back her phone.
Frankie laughed, the lilting sound filling the foyer, and Phillip’s heart.
“No way do I have you figured out,” she admitted, tucking her phone into her pocket before linking her fingers together and giving him a soul-searching look. “But I do understand bits and pieces. I know you’re an honorable man who’s been hurt by others’ dishonor. You’re a hero who’d scoff at the term. A man who works diligently toward his goals. You give everything to your career but nothing to yourself.”
Her words lying heavily between them, she pursed her lips, then gave a little shrug.
“And, of course, you’re incredible in bed, you have an undeniable sweet tooth that you keep trying to deny and you are well on your way to having a fabulous Christmas.” She flashed him a smile. “How’s that?”
“Pretty impressive,” he acknowledged. Then, for lack of anything else to say, he drew her into his arms, resting his head on top of hers.
Had anyone ever seen him like she did? Looked inside, past the carefully polished shell, and seen him as a man? One with good and bad qualities, with hopes and dreams. And yes, dammit, fears.
He didn’t know if he liked it.
The house phone rang, saving him from having to decide.
“Excuse me.” Phillip brushed a kiss over the top of her head before stepping away.
Grateful for the interruption, he strode into the study to answer the call.
“Banks.”
“Yo, Banks. It’s Evan. Evan Exner. How you doing, buddy?”
“Exner, hey.” Phillip dropped into the desk chair, watching Frankie play decorating elf through the open door. “What’s up?”
“I heard you were back in town, buddy. I thought you might require my specialized talents.”
Phillip frowned, wondering why he’d need advice on smashing beer cans against his forehead. Then he remembered his father mentioning that Exner had joined his father-in-law’s real estate firm. His father had also deemed the guy a tactless hack, but that was beside the point.
“You’re calling to discuss whet
her or not I’d like to sell the estate?” Phillip guessed.
“Right you are. So how about it? You available to talk terms?”
Phillip had been planning to sell the estate ever since his parents’ death, but hadn’t gotten around to actually setting the wheels in motion. In part because he’d never felt right about his parents leaving everything to him and nothing to Lara. He’d actually offered the place to her, but Lara was happily ensconced in California’s picturesque wine country.
Still, he hesitated. Not just because his father would roll over in his grave if a tactless hack handled any of the Banks’ business ventures. The truth was he wasn’t sure he wanted to sell. The house had been in the family for generations, it was close to the Naval Academy, it was paid for. He’d pay more in taxes on the sale than he had in five years’ property tax. Lara might change her mind and want it someday.
All bullshit excuses, he admitted.
He glanced at the doorway.
The bottom line was once the estate was gone, so would be any connection he had with Frankie.
And he couldn’t stand that idea.
More to banish that thought than because he was ready to commit to anything, Phillip squared his shoulders.
“Sure. Let’s meet next week and you can tell me what you think about selling this place.”
11
PHILLIP WAS GOING to sell the estate?
Frankie paced from one end of her grandmother’s living room to the other, her cussing getting louder with each step.
As soon as she’d overheard Phillip’s plans, she’d wanted to scream, yell, and yes, cuss up a storm. But Nana didn’t allow that sort of behavior in the Banks house.
So Frankie had hauled it over here, where the worst her grandmother would do if she overheard was tut-tut.
Her grandmother.
Frankie stopped so fast, her feet stuck to the carpet.
If Phillip sold the estate, where would Nana go? Where would Frankie go?
She couldn’t afford a place for the two of them. Not yet.
Her jewelry was going well, but it had only been a little while since she’d overcome her block. All she had at the moment were three necklaces, a pair of earrings and a funky picture frame. If she was able to keep this pace she’d have a solid inventory before the New Year. But not enough for first and last month’s rent.
