Have Yourself a Naughty Little Santa

by Karin Tabke

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  He could see the glint of tears in her eyes. He started to stand, but something—pride maybe, or maybe it was hurt feelings—stopped him. He wasn’t going to play both sides. If it came down to a choice, then by God she’d make it. And if it were his old man? Ricco pushed the full bowl away, suddenly not so hungry. He couldn’t bear it if one of his sisters chose the bastard over him.

  “You have a big day tomorrow. You better take something.”

  “I can’t, not with the baby.”

  He eyed the Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries. It had been his first and favorite cereal. He pulled the bowl back toward him and spooned a big bite. As he chewed, he nodded. Esmeralda walked toward him and stopped two feet away. Her eyes brimmed with tears. He shook his head, set his spoon down, and stood up. As he opened his arms, she moved into him and broke down. For a long time he just held her and let her cry. If it had been anyone other than his sister, he would have hightailed it out of the room, but he’d spent his life cleaning up their emotional messes. Because it had never been directed at him, he’d been able to handle it.

  After several more minutes, her sobs trailed off. He smoothed her long hair from her face and kissed the top of her head. “I love you, Ez, you know that. Let’s not fight over him anymore, okay?”

  She looked up, and fresh tears sprung up. “Uh-uh, no more tears. He’s not worth it. Go back to bed.” He kissed the top of her head again, turned her, and gently pushed her toward the door. When it shut behind her, he sat back down and ate his soggy Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries and thought of ways he could discreetly get his old man to leave town and never come back. Maybe he should pay him off? But he’d be back for more. Nah, he’d have to stand his ground and let the old man hang himself a final time. He’d stand back and pick the pieces of his family back up, as he had done too many times before. And he would tell them that there would be no more next times.

  Ten

  KIM DIDN’T BOTHER CHANGING. AS SHE HAD AT THE Legacy, she kept Ricco’s scent close. On its own, it was potent. Mixed with her scent, then adding their sex, it was heady stuff. Each time she inhaled, he encompassed her, and she felt like he was right there beside her. Her body was still rosy and plump from his lovemaking. She pressed her hand down her belly, then between her legs. She flinched. Still warm and moist.

  It was not over with Ricco Maza.

  She bit her lip and lay back into the cold sheets. What the hell had she just done? Fantasizing about an affair with Ricco was one thing, but actually doing it was another thing entirely. When she’d gone across the hall, she’d really just wanted her locket. Okay, and maybe a little company. But she’d had no intention of any contact. Maybe some conversation or something, but not sex!

  She groaned and pummeled the pillows. What was wrong with her? Was she addicted to sex now? Was she like every other woman in the world who’d gotten a taste of Ricco Maza? Wanting more. And some more after that? Good Lord, she was as doomed as the rest of them. No moss grew on that rolling stone.

  Something vital had changed in her over the last forty-eight hours. She wasn’t sure what it was, or how it would affect her from here on out. She just knew that what had been acceptable to her two days ago no longer was. And it wasn’t about Nick, she realized. Screw him. The way she was feeling, she didn’t want what he was offering. Not when she knew what it could be like.

  Shit! Was she going through a midlife crisis? Was she losing her edge? How the hell long was this going to last? Did she need to buy a red sports car and indulge in whatever caught her fancy?

  No, that wasn’t her. She was Kimberly Ann Michaels. She wore Chanel and Yves St. Laurent and drove a classic 600 SL. She smiled. But she also wore red Jimmy Choos and recently discovered she liked hot, messy, no-holds-barred sex. She rolled over and sat up in the bed.

  Yeah. She liked hot, sweaty sex. A lot. And she was going to have some more of it. And she was going to get it out of her system before she left this town. It was, she decided, just a chemical reaction to a man. She’d never thought it was possible for her, but she couldn’t argue the facts. And the plain fact was she and Ricco had an attraction that was, at its very least, basic carnal. Anything more was not an option. He was Casanova and Don Juan rolled into one. She was and always would be a one-man woman. Anything other than sex with no rules with Ricco was an emotional train wreck waiting to happen. And she did not do emotions. But she apparently did great sex.

  Kim closed her eyes. Oh my God. Her body sizzled as she relived the moment she’d writhed against Ricco and he’d held her hips from impaling him more. The pure eroticism of having but not having had driven her insane. It had been the same for him. Most men would not have had the self-control he did. He must really not want kids. She cooled. Neither did she. Until last month, she hadn’t even been on the pill, since she had been a monk for the last few years. The only reason she was at the moment was that she wasn’t sure if somehow she and Nick would end up in bed. She didn’t want to take any chances. The last thing she wanted was a child. The thought terrified her.

  Kim snuggled deeper into the covers and closed her eyes. Instead of sticky-fingered, poopy-diaper-smelling kids, Kim thought of the man across the hall and let his lingering scent rock her gently to sleep. More than a few times she woke in a sweat, gasping for breath, dreaming of his body doing naughty things to hers.

  • • •

  LIKE A WELL-FED CAT, KIM YAWNED AND STRETCHED under the smooth warmth of the flannel sheets. She smiled before she opened her eyes. Her first thought was of big warm hands stroking her. She rolled over and pressed into the mattress. The morning sounds slowly infiltrated her sex-infused dreams: the slow sound of traffic, the dull drone of water running off in the distance. She turned to face the window; since it caught the western sun, she wasn’t blinded by the morning sunlight. She slid from the bed and meandered over to the window. The small town glowed like a Swarovski crystal beneath the bright morning sunshine. It was a glorious morning. She stretched and smiled, her body warming. She couldn’t wait to see Ricco. She should have realized then she was in trouble, but she had always managed to control herself. And, she told herself, she was in the driver’s seat with the Latin playboy, not the other way around.

  Excitement thrummed through her veins. She wanted to see Ricco again. She wanted him to touch her. She wanted to touch him, smell him, feel his long, muscled body against hers. Like last night in the ice rink. Yeah, she liked the anticipation of him—not just the sex, but him as an individual.

  She was also excited to get out on the town and get her own unbiased opinion of it.

  Quickly she showered and dressed. Grabbing her purse, she headed downstairs. The minute she opened the door to the hallway, voices assailed her from downstairs. Esmeralda’s friendly voice rose above the din, and every so often she heard Ricco’s deep, throaty voice. She walked downstairs and literally ran into a crowd of people, all of them with luggage, in the salon.

  Kim caught Esmeralda’s excited eyes across the room. Esmeralda smiled. Kim smiled in return. Behind her, her brother looked up from the phone in his hand, and he smiled too. Heat rushed into Kim’s cheeks. Her smile widened. Esmeralda looked from Kim and turned around to find her brother grinning like an idiot. She looked back at Kim and scowled. It was easy enough to put two and two together.

  Ricco bent back to the telephone and gave the person on the other end directions. After he hung up, he grabbed two suitcases beside the couple in front of him. “Mr. and Mrs. Schafir, right this way.” He walked past her, brushing his elbow against her breast in the process. The contact nearly toppled her. Kim held her breath and looked up to find Ezzy’s knowing eyes watching. Kim was glad for the conversation and the activity; she could hide in it. She watched Esmeralda manage the hordes, calmly checking them in.

  Ricco came down and took the next couple up, along with their luggage. In the corner behind Esmeralda, Kim heard the whimper of a baby. Krista? Esmeralda s
miled at the older couple she was checking in. Krista’s wails were clearly beginning to grate on everyone’s nerves. Esmeralda excused herself and tried shushing her with her binkie, but the baby was having none of it. Ricco was off on an errand, and Esmeralda seemed for the moment to look a bit desperate. She walked toward Kim with the baby. Kim looked behind her to see who Ez was looking at, but she saw no one. When she turned back around, Ez grabbed Kim’s purse and tossed it behind the desk. Just as Kim was about to tell her to be careful with her three-thousand-dollar bag, Ez thrust the screaming kid in her arms. “Kim, I need you to take her into the kitchen or up to your room and rock her. Just keep an eye on her for a few minutes until I get everyone checked in.”

  Kim’s heartbeat jumped to a marathon pace. She stepped back, shaking her head, putting her hands behind her back. “Uh, no, sorry, Ez, I don’t do babies.”

  Ez grabbed Kim’s right arm, brought it around, and thrust the screaming Krista against her. Then she grabbed her left arm and wrapped it around the baby’s back. “Five minutes,” she said, then walked back to the waiting throng.

  Kim held the baby out at arm’s length. Krista screamed louder, her face turning fire-engine red. When it seemed the rug rat’s lungs were filled to capacity and no sound came forth, Kim panicked. She carefully jiggled the baby. It gasped for breath, and Kim watched, horrified, sure she was going to self-suffocate. Then Krista let out another shrill scream and Kim about dropped her. Her hands shook and panic overcame her. What the hell was she supposed to do with it? “Rock her,” Ezzy calmly said from across the room. Horrified, Kim looked up with the baby still at arm’s length, as if she’d had a case of kiddy cooties, and walked gingerly down the hall to the kitchen. Screw the rocking chair. There had to be a kid seat somewhere where she could set it down. Frantically she looked around, but she found nothing suitable for a screaming, slobbering baby. And there was no rocking chair. As if.

  “Shush, Krista, shush now,” Kim pleaded. It seemed to only infuriate the baby more. When the back door opened and Ricco walked in, Kim hurried toward him with the baby in her outstretched hands. “Take this kid!”

  Ricco put up his hands. They were full of dirt and wood chips. “No can do.”

  “But I don’t know what to do,” Kim cried, panic and fear closing in on her.

  He moved past her to a door. He opened it and pulled out a bentwood rocker. He pushed it toward her with his boot, then said over his shoulder as he strode past her, “She doesn’t bite. Figure it out.”

  As Ricco moved to the front of the inn, Kim stood alone in the middle of the large kitchen, holding sixteen pounds of screaming, snotty humanity. She jiggled the baby again. She cooed at it. She attempted to sing to it. Yet it continued to cry. She sat down on the edge of the rocking chair with it still at arm’s length and began to awkwardly rock. Her back was so rigid that she thought it would snap in half. That would do neither her nor the baby much good.

  “Shushy, little baby,” Kim tried to soothe. She looked wildly around for a bottle or a cup or something. It screamed louder. It was getting that deep red color again, and Kim knew Krista was going to pass out from lack of oxygen. And then what? She’d get blamed for the baby passing out? When Krista refused to settle down, Kim finally did the unthinkable. She brought it closer. And jiggled it a little. “Krista,” she sternly said, “you are being a bad baby. Please stop crying.”

  The baby’s cries lowered half an octave. Kim smiled and jiggled it some more. The baby grunted. “Okay, you don’t like that. Do you like this?” Kim made a funny face. Krista stopped crying and looked cagily at her. Kim smiled, then stuck her tongue out at the baby. Krista’s bottom lip trembled. “No, no don’t cry again. Be a good baby.”

  She brought it closer, so close she could smell it. It smelled good. Sweet. Like baby powder. Not so bad. Krista grabbed a hank of Kim’s hair and put it in her mouth. “No, no, don’t eat hair. You’ll get a fur ball. Then you’ll have to go to the vet, and drink cod-liver oil, and that’s never fun.”

  She brought the baby closer, so that now she was pressed to her chest. Krista reached out a wobbly hand to the fur fringe of Kim’s three-hundred-dollar sweater and tried to eat it. “No, that’s fur. Remember no fur balls?”

  Krista yawned. In a move that stunned Kimberly to silence, Krista rested her little blond head on the rise of Kim’s left boob. Kim smiled and looked down at the little face. Her big blue trusting eyes looked up at Kim and smiled. Kim swallowed hard. How…sweet. The baby’s eyelids fluttered, and she stuck her fist in her mouth and started to suck. Instinctively Kim found herself rocking slowly back and forth. She brushed the baby’s hair from her cheek and inhaled the sweet scent of her. This wasn’t so bad. Krista grabbed more of Kim’s hair with her other hand, as if it had been a security blanket. Kim didn’t pull it away. Instead she softly cooed and sang a soft lullaby. When Krista’s little breaths came slow and even and Kim knew she was asleep, she couldn’t resist kissing the shiny golden head. She turned slightly in the chair, adjusting her body more agreeably to the baby, happy with herself for mastering the baby test. She stopped short when her eyes caught and held dark brown ones. A funny look crossed Ricco’s face before he smiled and extended his arms to Kim to take the baby. She backed up in the chair and shook her head. “Go get your own baby,” she said. He smiled and that look crossed his face again, but he moved past her and out the back door.

  Kim continued to rock the baby, who continued to sleep soundly. As she looked down at the angelic face, Kim smiled. It amazed her that this little piece of humanity trusted her. The innocence of a child. Kim sat back and closed her eyes. It seemed a lifetime ago when she’d been innocent of anything. Everything she did, she did with purpose, and in many cases she didn’t care who or what was in her way. If she wanted something, she simply set about a way of acquiring it. She was able to sleep at night because she honestly believed that money made people happy. She had yet to meet a single happy poor person.

  Land’s Edge was padded and willing to pay a fair sum for property it coveted. And Nick coveted Evergreen. The setting was perfect for the super resort casino he wanted to put in. He’d been working with several local tribes and had hammered out a highly profitable management contract. The locals would get their cut, but Land’s Edge would come up smelling like a rose. She wanted to get out over by the lake and see where they could clear forest for helipads. There was no way they could get even small aircraft in here. The approach from the Sierras was too steep. But passenger choppers? Flying out of the Bay Area, Sacramento, and even Reno would be a snap.

  Yes, Evergreen had promise, and Kim was going to bag it and hang it up on her trophy wall, just like one of those dead deer heads on Ricco’s bedroom wall. The baby shifted, and suddenly she smelled something that wasn’t baby powder. “Oh, gross.”

  Lucky for all parties involved, Esmeralda bustled into the kitchen just in time. She plunked Kim’s Chanel bag down on the table, and Kim happily handed her the little stinker. “She needs her pants changed.”

  Esmeralda smiled and took the sleeping child. “Thank you, but I sent Ricco back to get her. What happened?”

  Kim shrugged. “I had it covered. He took off a while ago.”

  Ez’s brows wrinkled, then she smiled. “Oh, it’s his turn at the North Pole.”

  “North Pole?”

  “Yes, Santa’s Workshop and all that up at the pavilion. The kids from the Truckee Detention Center come up every year.”

  “Detention center as in juvy?”

  Krista stirred in her mother’s arms, and she was starting to smell pretty ripe. “Yes, it’s really sad actually. These kids are young, eight to twelve, and they have the souls of old men and women.”

  “Then why haul them up here for something they know is fake?”

  “Because if we touch just one with the spirit of Christmas, then it’s a success.”

  Kim rolled her eyes. “Give the kids some candy and an iPod and they’ll be happy.”


  Esmeralda cocked her head and rearranged Krista in her arms. The baby was wide awake now and sucking her fist, staring at Kim. At least she wasn’t crying. “For some that works, but kindness and a little time do too.”

  Kim grabbed her purse from the table, moved toward the back door, and said, “It might here, but not where I come from.” She forced a smile. “I don’t mean to come across as cavalier, but in my world, it’s every girl for herself. No one looks after you better than you do.”

  Esmeralda smiled serenely. Kim didn’t trust it. It was one of those I-know-something-you-don’t-know kind of smiles, but Kim wasn’t going to argue that Ez didn’t know how it was in the real world. She lived in this Christmas globe. Nothing got in and nothing got out. “I’ll see you later—I’m going to head out and play tourist,” Kim said instead.

  Ez smiled and opened her mouth to say something else but decided against it. Hand on the doorknob, Kim put her other hand on her hip and cocked a brow. She might as well hear the speech now so that next time, she could remind the innkeeper she’d already heard it. “What?” Kim asked.

  “Thank you for taking care of Krista.”

  “That’s not what you were going to say,” Kim replied. Esmeralda’s cheeks flushed. And Kim understood. “If you’re going to give me fair warning about your brother, you’re too late. We’re both adults. I’ll be gone in a week, and we’ll both move on.”

  “Just like that?”

  Kim nodded. “Just like that.”

  “Just sex?”

  Kim laughed. “With your brother, it’s just great sex.” She laughed again, genuinely amused by the embarrassed look on Esmeralda’s face. “Hey, you asked.”

  As she stepped through the kitchen door into the crisp winter air of Evergreen, Kim stopped on the stoop and inhaled it deep into her lungs, then slowly exhaled. She smiled, not so much at the pristine landscape surrounding her but at the conversation she’d just had. Two days ago, anyone sticking their nose into her business would have been soundly slapped. She’d always had the stay-the-hell-away-from-me look, which had always worked like a charm. People only approached her if she allowed them to approach. But innocent Stepford girl Esmeralda wasn’t sophisticated enough to see her repel shields go up. Esmeralda and her family just assumed everyone looked out for everyone else. It didn’t occur to them not to be concerned for another’s well-being and then act on the concern; no doubt Esmeralda would have if Kim had allowed her to interfere. Kim scrunched her brows a little, confused. Because, well, if she was really honest with herself, the really weird thing was, Kim was okay with it. And she guessed it wasn’t because Ez was trying to protect her brother—it was because Ez had genuine concern for Kim. A first. But what the sister did not understand was that Kim had perfected the art of walking away. There was no need for worry.