Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle (Play with Me, Snowfall, and After Midnight): A Loveswept Contemporary Romance

by Lisa Renee Jones

  This was today’s lesson plan, but Nora wished it weren’t, because she was stuck with her own thoughts—of Miles.

  Three weeks ago, she’d flown home from Miles’s house, sandwiched between an overweight, talkative college student and a sullen, middle-aged businessman, and she hadn’t heard from him since. Not once.

  At first she tried to contact him, partly because the act of dialing his phone number was a paltry kind of comfort—the sound of his voice, gruff on his voice mail, barely him, but fully him. All the Miles she had.

  She left him message after message—phone, email, Facebook—but none of the messages contained the words she wanted to say, the words he needed to hear. She couldn’t find them. She didn’t have them.

  I know you didn’t do it.

  I believe you.

  I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, you’re innocent.

  But she couldn’t stop wishing for it. For the ability to give him what he wanted. For the ability to make things right, to bring him out of hiding.

  She still missed him. It made no sense for her to miss someone she’d barely known, just as it had never made sense for her to love someone she’d just met. From the beginning, what she felt for Miles had defied logic, and yet it was the part of her life that, for the brief time it lasted, had felt the most right.

  Being with Miles had been like teaching. It was what she did, what she was meant to do. When she taught, when she was with Miles, she was the most her. All the her came brimming to the surface, bubbled out.

  Of course, with Miles, there was that whole other level of communication that she missed, too. She’d thought things with Henry were pretty good, sex-wise, but Miles had blown away her previous conceptions. He’d woken some sleeping monster, and she was twitchy and miserable, wanting him all the time. She kept going on stupid dates, but on the few dates that had segued into kissing, she had shut it down right away.

  Not Miles.

  It scared her, the possibility that she might never be able to kiss someone without thinking, Not Miles.

  She blamed Henry for what had happened between Miles and her. Henry had stolen her ability to believe the best of people. When he’d said, “You’re too trusting,” he’d cast a kind of curse on her.

  Henceforth, you will not trust.

  He’d taken away her ability to be who Miles needed her to be. The timer she’d set for the role-play went off. “Back to your seats!” she called. “So—anyone want to talk about what this was like for them?”

  “It was hard.”

  There were murmurs of agreement. Good. She’d told them to give one another a tough time, to argue as forcefully as they would in a true social situation. Role-plays that didn’t mimic real life didn’t help them when the chips were down. “What made it hard?”

  “Your brain gets all muddled up,” said Jenna, a skinny, slightly geeky brunette who reminded Nora of herself at the same age—a feeling that was both lovely and terrible. “You can’t think, and there’s all this stuff coming at you.”

  “Anyone else have that experience?”

  Hands went up.

  “Anyone have strategies for dealing with that? The noise in your head?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Ask questions,” Nora said. “It slows things down. If your friend says, ‘Let’s sneak downtown during sixth period today,’ ask, ‘What will we do?’ Then name the trouble. Say, ‘That’s shoplifting, and if I do that, I could go to jail or have to pay a big fine.’ Suggest an alternative. ‘Instead of doing that, let’s spend the gift certificate I got for Christmas.’ Then turn and walk toward the alternative, so they have to follow you if they want to continue the conversation.”

  “It sounds good, Ms. Hart,” said Jenna thoughtfully, “but in reality it’s much, much harder. You feel like a dork.”

  “You’re sometimes going to feel like a dork, but that’s better than doing something that can hurt you.”

  They stared back at her, blinking and doubtful.

  “A lot of this is about self-trust. You need to trust that the rules that you live by, the decisions you want to make, are the right decisions for you. If you don’t want to break laws, or have sex with someone you don’t love, or do drugs, but someone else is trying to convince you to do those things, you have to trust that when you made that clearheaded decision, not in the heat of the moment, you did the right thing. Your gut led you right. And it will lead you right every time if you trust yourself.”

  “Is it easier when you’re n-n-not a kid?”

  That was Geoff, who rarely spoke in class because of his stutter.

  “Saying no?”

  He nodded.

  He was looking at her with such hope in his eyes. They all were. Please, Ms. Hart, tell us it gets easier. Better.

  “Saying no gets a little easier. Trusting yourself, though, is always a challenge. And if you listen to the wrong voices, it can be very hard to hear your own.”

  The bell rang, punctuating her assertion. The students gathered up their papers and books, shoved them into backpacks. The hurriers hurried; the dawdlers stayed behind to schmooze with friends. “Hope you get what you want for Christmas,” she called to them as they left. “See you next year!”

  She wondered what percentage of what she’d said to them would get through. Hopefully, if nothing else, they’d learned some skills in the role-play. That stuff mattered ten times more than all the words she’d said combined, because, for so many of them, the words would go in one ear and out the other.

  Your gut will lead you right every time if you trust yourself.

  That’s great, Ms. Hart, but what the hell does that mean in practice? Huh?

  Yeah, kids never heard that stuff, or if they did, they didn’t know how to make it work for them in real life. Kids watched the models in their lives—which at this age, sadly, were mostly other eleven-year-olds—and they learned from doing. Actions spoke louder than words.

  You’re too trusting.

  Fuck you, Henry.

  She was too trusting and not trusting enough. What the hell was she supposed to do with that?

  She had no clue.

  She’d have to start from what she did know, and maybe, maybe, if she was lucky, the rest would come.

  She knew one thing for sure.

  If you listen to the wrong voices, it can be very hard to hear your own

  “We’re all done here, Henry,” she said aloud. And, for finality’s sake, she picked up her messenger bag and walked out of the classroom, away from him.

  * * *

  Nora wasn’t here, among the partygoers, among the brushed nickel and rice paper, among the streamers, balloons, relentless eighties’ music. No flash of pale-red hair, no bright smile, no blue eyes. He was quite certain that even if he’d missed one of those aforementioned body parts, he wouldn’t have missed the mind-bending chemistry she exerted over him. She was absolutely, positively, not here.

  It was after eleven-thirty, and he’d been sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if he flew to Boston and wrangled an invitation to this party through Owen’s Facebook friendship chain, he’d find her.

  But that had been foolish and deluded, of course. Why should she be here? He’d behaved badly and she’d moved on, and just because he’d been unable to let go of her, of the idea of starting over with her here, there was no reason to believe she’d nursed any of the same fantasies.

  He hadn’t called her or texted her or let her know he was coming. He hadn’t wanted her to tell him no, to turn him away. He’d wanted to use every persuasive power at his disposal when he finally got the chance to talk to her. And if sex was part of that persuasion toolbox—okay, that would be no hardship.

  He pulled out his phone and dialed her number, but he got her voice mail. He didn’t leave her a message. Instead, he wrote her a text. View’s nice up here.

  He put his phone back in his pocket, but a minute later he pulled it out to make sure a text hadn’t come in and failed to
vibrate. Nothing.

  He didn’t know her address, and there was little point in trying to go to her on New Year’s Eve, anyway. She was probably at a party somewhere. Smiling at another man across the room. Dancing.

  He was torturing himself.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket and his heart pounded madly, so hard it hurt. He pulled it out.

  Owen. She there?

  No.

  Oh, man. Sorry.

  Dumb to think that because he wanted so badly for her to be here, she somehow would. As if he could conjure her through will alone.

  His festive surroundings had begun to oppress. The Mylar balloons with their Happy New Year’s message were mocking him again.

  He headed for the elevator, took it down.

  He saw her again in his mind’s eye, at another New Year’s Eve party. Smiling. Dancing. Leaning close to whisper. And, later, tilting her face up as the countdown receded toward zero.

  The thought of it made his chest hurt so much that he flattened his palm against the wall of the elevator to steady himself.

  Because of course anyone who saw her across the room, as he had, would want her. Would want her so much—

  Miles’s teeth hurt and his hands clenched into fists, remembering.

  He knew there was no one else for him. All the women who’d come before her were ghost versions of what he wanted. Her, naked, in those red lace boy shorts, gesturing and laughing and making him laugh. Down on her knees, draping herself over his shoulder while he knelt at her feet, standing with her legs apart and her hands braced against the shower wall. Telling him about her job, her day, her reasons for things. Smiling, laughing, teasing, remaking the world in her image: Luminous. Glorious.

  He stepped into the lobby and headed for the revolving doors.

  He’d seen her, a year ago tonight, and there was no way to unsee her. No way to unravel her from his own fibers, no way to forget the whisper of her voice in his ear, the curves of her body under his hands, the feel of her as he moved in her, through her. There was the world, vivid with her presence, and then there was this. One foot in front of the other. While that imaginary other man at that other party watched her across the room and coveted and schemed.

  Because Miles had screwed up and needed too much and confided too little and waited too long. And being here was too little, too late.

  He was going to make himself sick.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. Owen, he thought, and he almost let it go.

  Only he didn’t. He pulled out his phone.

  Nora. View’s not bad from down here, either.

  He looked up and she stepped out of the revolving door, toward him.

  * * *

  She wore a loose, short bright-blue dress with chunky blue patent-leather shoes. She had a matching shawl wrapped around her shoulders and draped over her arms. The blue of the dress made her eyes bluer, and the drape of the dress made her breasts higher and rounder, and he—he stuck both his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t try to slide them under the flippy little hem of that dress, which had a ruffle all the way around it.

  “Nora,” he said.

  “I was already on my way when I got your text.” She said it so defiantly that it would have made him laugh, except that all he wanted to do was grab her and hold her and brand her in every way he knew how.

  “Nora, I—”

  “No. Listen.”

  She looked fierce. For a moment he was afraid again. She was here, but that didn’t mean she was his.

  “I almost didn’t come here tonight,” she said.

  He started to say he was glad she had, but she talked right through the half-formed words.

  “Because I couldn’t do it. I tried and tried—I practiced in front of the goddamned mirror—but no matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t tell you I was a hundred percent sure you were innocent.”

  He shook his head and started to speak, but she shook hers, too, hard. Don’t interrupt me.

  “I didn’t think you’d want to see me if I couldn’t say that.”

  “Oh, God, Nora, I’m so sorry—”

  But she was still talking, ferocious and relentless. “I kept thinking about Henry. How Henry told me I was too trusting. I thought that was why I couldn’t trust you. I felt like Henry had taken away the best part of me. The part that sees the best in people. And that was all I could focus on, how I couldn’t see the best in you, and it was Henry’s fault.”

  “I don’t need you to say anything,” he said. “I don’t need you to promise anything or believe anything. I just—I’m just so glad you’re here. I’m so glad you came.”

  But she didn’t respond, and his mouth got dry and his throat tight. She wouldn’t have come all this way, would she, only to dress him down? To turn and walk away?

  “I kept banging my head against it. Why I couldn’t trust you. Why I couldn’t believe you. What was wrong with me. And then I got it. It had to do with this whole thing with my students.” She drew herself up to full height, and he realized he was seeing what she looked like when she talked to them from the front of a classroom. “ ‘If you listen to the wrong voices, it can be very hard to hear your own.’ I was trying to teach them about self-trust. But even after that, I didn’t totally get it. The problem had nothing to do with not seeing the best in you; it had to do with not trusting myself. That’s what Henry did. He stole my self-trust.”

  Her hair was bright in the lobby lights, her eyes flashing, her hands moving wildly, her breasts rising and falling with her sped-up breathing. He still wanted to grab her, but he was pretty sure if he tried to, she’d bite him, and not in a good way.

  “I should have stood up for myself that night at dinner with you. I should have told you, Hey, cut me some slack, Miles, and don’t shut down on me.”

  “I shouldn’t have—”

  “Because if I had, if I’d stood up for myself and made you look at me and listen to me, we would have both had time to think about it and figure out that it was normal for me to have some doubts in the situation you and I were in.”

  “Nora—”

  “For the record? I meant what I said. I don’t let anyone touch my phone. I don’t let my mother touch my phone.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know you didn’t mean anything. I was just … so—”

  “You were wound so tight.”

  She said it gently, not an accusation, but she was right. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too. Sorry I didn’t tell you that you were being an idiot, right then and there. And I’m sorry I didn’t hear what you were asking. You weren’t asking me to believe you; you were asking me to believe in you. I didn’t hear you. But of course I did, Miles. Of course I do. I believe in you. I trust you. I trust us. I trust this.” She gestured to encompass him. Them. And then she started to cry.

  “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

  He reached for her. She let herself be drawn into his arms, and he kissed her, her mouth, her wet cheeks, her eyelids. She rested her cheek against his shoulder, and she shuddered a little, like a kid who’d cried herself into hiccups.

  The knot in his chest that had been clenched tight for weeks finally let him out of its grip, and he was pretty sure things were going to be okay. But he wanted more and better than okay. Deeper. More real. He owed her a lot of himself that he’d held back, and she deserved it after what she’d given him. I trust us. I trust this.

  She’d stepped onto a high wire for him, thrown herself into the void—because that’s what trust was, ultimately, wasn’t it? A leap into darkness. One she’d been willing to make all along, if he’d let her.

  “Can I talk now?”

  She nodded. It was hard work not kissing her again, she was so wide-eyed and tearstained, her mouth soft and trembling. But now she was listening. Waiting. And here it went.

  He took a deep breath. “I had this conversation with Owen. Where he reamed me out for acting like I was guilty, for refusing to ta
lk to people about the whole embezzlement situation, for being antisocial. I was pissed at him when I got off the phone. But then I started thinking about it. Thinking about me and the way I’d acted. Thinking about you and the way you made—the way you make me feel. Nora …”

  His throat had gotten tight again, and she let him turn away and gather himself.

  “I watched you at that party,” he told her. “Watched the way you were with people. The way you are: no holding back. You were scared, I know you were scared after what happened with Henry, but your response to it wasn’t to hide. It was to be out there in the world. To live.”

  Tears had welled up in her eyes again, but she didn’t drop her gaze. She looked into him, and it seemed as if she was drawing the words right out of him, the confession he’d wanted to make all along.

  “When I found out I was a suspect, I did the exact opposite. I hid from everyone. Wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t … I think I thought that if I told people I was innocent, if I asked them to believe I was innocent, it would seem more guilty. The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.”

  She made a sound, and he said, “Crazy. I know. Anyway, then I met you. I met you and—Jesus, kissing you was the least of what I wanted to do. I wanted to bare myself. Skin, soul, whatever. I wanted you to know everything that was inside me. Everything I was afraid of. I wanted to swear I was innocent, beg you to believe me. But when I had the chance to, I didn’t.”

  Her blue eyes searched his face. Seeing through and around and under and in. His heart beat steadily, skipped, lost its rhythm for a long, terrifying moment, found it again as the words spilled out of his mouth—the beautiful, splintered truth.

  “I didn’t do it. I swear. I swear I didn’t do it.” His voice broke, cracked along the fault lines that had always been there, disintegrated.

  She pressed her lips to his cheek, to his ear, and he drew deep breaths that were not quite sobs. Or maybe they were. He wasn’t sure of anything except the comfort of her body.