Mistletoe Kisses & Christmas Wishes: A Christmas Romance Boxed Set Book Bundle Collection

by Leah Atwood

  She rested her hands on his shoulders and grinned down at him, but her heart was in her throat, because if he just let her loose a little, and stayed where he was, she would slip right down into the center of his arms. A provocative yet terrifying thought.

  She saw the moment the same realization penetrated for him, because slowly his features turned serious and soft. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and he loosed his arms but kept them tight enough to keep her close.

  It would have been so easy to lean forward and let her lips capture his as she slipped by. Instead, reminding herself to be strong, she eased back from him slightly.

  But oh, how she wanted to forget about the future and just revel in the here and now. Her feet firmly on the ground, Chelsea rolled her lips in and pressed them tightly together, refusing to meet his studious scrutiny. Her hands fiddled nervously with the lapels of his jacket. He’ll be gone next week, she firmly reminded herself. Don’t look at him. Just walk away.

  The magnetism was too strong. Her eyes disobeyed the command to remain averted and she looked up at him.

  His eyes crinkled at the corners as he cupped one of her cheeks with his hand. “No pressure, Chels. None.” Then he grinned outright. “Okay, maybe a little.” His grin turned to a laugh and he held his fingers a scant width apart. But before she could give in to the urge to kiss him properly, he left her standing alone and jogged over to retrieve her hat, gloves and scarf from her snowman. “What do you say we head back into town and find something to eat?”

  If she was disappointed that he’d walked away, there was relief mixed in too. Just when she’d been about to give in to her weakness for the man, he’d saved her from herself. But for the first time, the disappointment far outweighed the relief. “Sure.” The word came out on a squeak, and she cleared her throat.

  Somebody needed to relieve the tension snapping like a taut line between them. She accepted her wraps from him and tilted her head cheekily. “I think the winner of this contest ought to have to pay for dinner, don’t you?”

  He laughed and settled one arm around her shoulders as they trudged back toward the car. “The winner is fine with that just so long as it’s someplace where his thin African blood can find some warmth.” He shivered purposefully.

  She poked him in the ribs. “Told you you wouldn’t last long out here.”

  He tried to smile, but she didn’t miss the way his attention drifted to where they’d been standing a moment ago when they’d almost kissed, or the fleeting frown that touched his brow as he clicked his seatbelt into place.

  Why did she feel like she might have just missed her last chance at the rest of her life?

  A few minutes later when they pulled back into town, Cannon leaned low to scan the shop names along the main street. “So, I’ve never been here. Where’s a good place to eat?”

  Chelsea shook her head. “I’ve never been here either. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Well, we’ll just pick one then.”

  There were any number of places to choose from. And the heater was no longer only pumping in warm air – the scent of something delicious and spicy wafted in and made Chelsea’s stomach growl loudly.

  Cannon chuckled. “And we better find one quickly it sounds like.” He pulled off onto a side street. “What sounds good?”

  She shrugged. “Well, we are in a Little Bavaria, so we should probably eat something German.” She grinned and waggled her eyebrows at him.

  He laughed. “German it is. What kind of food is German food?” They rolled past a Teriyaki place. “I know it’s not that.”

  “German…” she pondered. “Sauerkraut and…bratwurst?”

  “Ding, Ding, Ding.” Cannon pointed out the window to a place called Munchen Haus. “I think we have a winner.” He tilted her a questioning look. “Sound good?”

  She nodded.

  Cannon parked and they stepped onto the sidewalk out front. Wicker Christmas trees shrouded in white lights made a pathway up to the door of the place. And Chelsea was surprised to note that the restaurant didn’t have any walls – just a roof and stone tile flooring. They passed under an archway that proclaimed “Wilkomen.” Cannon leaned closer, settling his hand at the small of her back. “Are you sure you’ll be warm enough here?”

  She grinned at him and tweaked the knit cap he’d tugged down over his curls. “I think the real question, sire, is will you be warm enough here?”

  “It’s bratwurst and kraut. I’d brave the frozen tundra of the arctic north for that.” He winked.

  “Well, it’s settled then.” She tried not to enjoy the feel of his hand guiding her to the ordering counter too thoroughly. She tried to remind herself that he’d be gone back to Africa in just a few days. She tried…but an hour later, after she was done licking the delicious mustard off her fingers and they had ambled down the walk and ordered hot mochas from a sidewalk coffee stand, she suddenly realized she’d been having just a little too much fun to remember all her warnings to herself.

  “So where to now, Miss Ice Queen?” Cannon tugged on a strand of her hair.

  She chuckled. She hadn’t missed an opportunity to tease him about the fact that ten minutes into their meal he’d had to run back out to his car to retrieve his pair of gloves. He’d tried vainly to preserve them from the sticky honey mustard sauce he’d added to his dog and had failed miserably.

  “Maybe we should take your gloves in to be dry cleaned?”

  He laughed out loud at that. Stepping closer, he leaned down and peered into her face. “Do you want to say that again now that I’m this close?” There was no threat in his stance other than in the low timbre of his voice and the calculating way he studied her.

  Maybe she hadn’t missed her last chance at happiness after all. She grinned and batted her eyelashes, purposely emphasizing the gesture but holding her silence.

  His gaze warmed and roamed her face from her hairline to her chin and back.

  Chelsea tucked one side of her lower lip between her teeth, all at once nervous that she had overstepped the bounds of their relationship and yet at the same time hoping he might give her another chance and follow through on the desire she could once more see burning in the azure depths of his eyes.

  After a long moment, he slowly stepped back a pace and nodded. “I see you’ve decided to plead the fifth.”

  She eased out a measured breath, trying not to be too disappointed. She sipped her mocha to give herself a moment to recover, then offered, “Yes I’ve learned in life that sometimes that’s the best policy.”

  Reaching over he took her hand and started down the sidewalk. He angled her a sideways glance. “Maybe we should just stroll and see where the sidewalk takes us.”

  “Good idea.”

  All around them the lights of the buildings started to turn on as dusk wrapped its quilt around the light of day. The entire length of the main street was soon one long string of lit up buildings, some red, some white, and some flashing the welcome glow of multiple colors. From the huge wooden gazebo in the park at the center of town Christmas music streamed through mounted speakers. Clusters of tourists chatted throughout the park, and several children sledding down the hill near the gazebo squealed with glee. The scent of warm woodsy chestnuts wafted to them from where a vendor roasted them over an open fire pit.

  Cannon lifted one brow and jutted his chin toward the vendor. “Want some?”

  Even though Chelsea was stuffed from the meal she’d just finished moments before, her mouth watered at the thought of the once a year treat. “Definitely.”

  Cannon released her hand, and the loss of his warmth flooded her with the reminder that he was heading back to his job on the other side of the world in only a few days. And she’d just been wishing for another chance to kiss him. Her stomach knotted in indecision. What were they doing here?

  She wrapped her arms around herself and glanced away. Across the park a lamp encircled by a wooden bench glowed warmly. A couple snuggled together on the
bench, their foreheads pressed together. The man said something and the woman responded with a giggle. They were speaking to each other in a world where no one but the two of them existed. Could she and Cannon ever have something like that? She’d seen Levi and Havyn in just such blissful solitude in the middle of a crowd numerous times. But things were so much more complicated with Cannon and her. She was tied to the coffee shop for the unforeseeable future, and Cannon had his heart in missions.

  Her chest felt like molten lead had just been poured into it.

  There was no future for them.

  Chapter Ten

  “Earth to Chelsea…”

  Chelsea pulled herself from her morose thoughts and blinked at how close Cannon was to her face.

  His brows furrowed in concern. “You okay? You were really gone there for a few seconds.”

  She rubbed her arms. “What are we doing here, Cannon?”

  He stepped back. “We’re spending some time together. Getting to know each other better.” He lifted the small paper bag full of brown deliciousness. “Having chestnuts. Enjoying Christmas lights and music…”

  “Yes, but, why?” She threw her hands up and strode several steps down the walk before she turned to face him again. “There can never be an us, can there?” Her finger darted a gesture from herself to him and back again. “You have your work and I have mine and…” She blinked hard. She couldn’t believe she’d started blurting all this seemingly out of the blue. The poor guy probably didn’t know what had just hit him. “I just don’t see how we can make it work.” Defeat coated every syllable of the words.

  Something caught his attention down the walk a ways.

  She glanced behind her to see what had snagged his interest, but all she saw was a couple strolling hand in hand under a Christmas-light-bedecked awning.

  Purposely, Cannon folded the top of the bag of nuts closed and shoved it in his pocket. He gave her a warm look, then took her hand and gently but firmly urged her to follow him.

  “So we’re just not going to talk about this?”

  He stopped very suddenly and spun toward her. Momentum plastered her against his chest with her forearms resting against the warmth of his jacket. He was quick to catch her to him as though trying to keep her from falling, but by the slight uplift of the corners of his lips, and the gleam that leapt to life in his eyes, she suddenly had a feeling the golden boy had known exactly what he was doing.

  He turned her until her back was to the stone wall of the little store he’d stopped in front of. “Oh, we’re going to talk about it, but first there’s something else I’d like to do.” His gaze slipped over her features from the consternation tugging at her brows to the teeth she was working over her lower lip.

  Her knees went weak and she was glad for the solidity of the wall pressing into her shoulder blades. She found the strength to ask. “What in the world are you talking about?”

  Cannon leaned down until his face invaded her personal space.

  “Cannon…” She tried to come up with something else to say, but her gaze had disobeyed her and settled on his mouth, and that had sapped all her will to protest. It was a nice mouth. One that was smiling softly as slowly the span between them disintegrated. He was not going to let her weasel her way out of this one. Oh how her traitorous heart was beating. “Cannon.” Her hands somehow found the strength to apply counter-pressure to his chest.

  He stilled only a fraction of an inch away.

  She could feel the warmth of his breath caressing her lips with tantalizing clarity. She swallowed away the desire to just give in to him. All of Aunt Flo’s assessments washed over her in that moment. What did a guy like Cannon want with a girl like her? “What are you doing?”

  The soft smile bloomed into a bigger one touched with uncertainty. “Well, I know I’m out of practice, but I’d hoped it was pretty obvious.” His gaze darted to her mouth once more before rebounding to meet hers.

  “We can’t,” she breathed. She wanted to snatch the words back the moment she uttered them. She wanted it so badly that her hands tightened around a fistful of his coat in case he took her at her word and pulled away.

  But he didn’t. Instead his lazy, self-assured smile was back. “Oh but we can. In fact, we sort of have to.” One brow arched as if to challenge her to ask him why.

  Brow furrowing, she accepted the challenge. “Why?”

  He angled a look upward, touching her chin with one hand and guiding her to do the same. “Because we are standing under mistletoe.”

  Her heart thudded against her breastbone. “Cannon we really can’t—”

  One of his thumbs settled over her lips and he tilted her a questioning look. “Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you and I’ll back away right now. But you have to promise to tell me the truth.” Slowly his thumb released its seal, trailed a warm caress across her jaw, and continued down the column of her throat to rest at her pulse point. His gaze never wavered as he pressed his forehead to hers. “Talk to me, Chels.”

  In that moment she lost the battle and threw all caution to the wind. She tilted her head and met his lips with her own. She felt his moment of hesitation, and then he cradled both sides of her face and took control.

  If she thought she’d been glad for the wall behind her before, she was even more so now. Her hands curled into the softness of his down coat and pulled him closer. His lips moved across hers slowly, surely, confidently. He slipped one arm behind her while his other hand settled at the base of her neck, and for just a moment the world around them disappeared into oblivion. In that moment everything was right with the world and all her cares slipped away.

  All too soon, Cannon eased back.

  She pulled in a tremulous breath and with it all her concerns about their relationship came rushing once more to the fore. What had she done? She’d just made things infinitely harder for them when the time came for him to return home.

  Cannon must have seen the weight of that thought in her expression because he curved both hands around her face and looked her right in the eyes. “I don’t know how we are going to work this relationship out, Chelsea. But I know I want to and I know we can. If you want to?”

  Oh how she wanted to. She just wasn’t sure if she believed they could work it out. “Cannon, I want to. I’m just not sure I can do a long distance relationship.” She didn’t add anything about her worry over her suitability to keep him happy.

  “I have something to tell you.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders and directed them down the sidewalk.

  “Oh?”

  “For the past year, even before you and the team came out for that building trip, I’ve had this realization growing inside me that God was about to make some changes in my life. I wasn’t sure what those were, but could feel it coming. The feeling is hard to explain really. I’ve just sort of felt like my time in Africa would be coming to an end soon.”

  Chelsea held her breath, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. Her heart hammered against her ribcage.

  “Well, you know how Pastor Chad pulled me aside after Bible study the other night, and you asked me if everything was alright?”

  She nodded, not daring to speak for fear of breaking some magical spell.

  “Well, he asked me if I would consider coming home to be the general contractor on the church’s new building. They are set to break ground in late February and their contractor just had to back out on them a couple weeks ago.”

  Chelsea couldn’t contain her excitement any longer. She jumped in front of him and put her hand on his chest to stop him. She could feel a grin stretching from one side of her face to the other. “You might move here? What did you tell him?”

  “Well, I told him my decision would be based on some other things I needed to find out first.” He cocked one eyebrow at her.

  He meant them! She felt a bit dizzy at the sudden turn of events. Giddy with happiness. “Oh, Cannon, really?”

  He touched her cheek. “You were my rea
son for coming here. And I want you to be my reason to stay.”

  She would love to be his reason for anything, but suddenly she was trembling all over. Some scary emotion that she couldn’t quite pin down coursed through her. What? She spun away from him and strode several steps, then stopped and looked at the sidewalk. Why was she suddenly quite terrified? This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? The chance at a life with Cannon?

  It might be good for now, Chelsea Anne, but it will never last.

  The voice was so assuredly Aunt Flo’s that she gasped.

  Cannon was by her side in an instant. “What is it, Chels?” He bent down, peering into her face, concern etching his features.

  She gritted her teeth. Stepped to one side to allow a group of tourists to pass.

  It was a family of four. A father, mother and two children, one boy and one girl. As the family passed between Cannon and Chelsea, the boy leaned close to his sister, said something in her ear, and poked her in the side.

  “Mom!” the little girl cried, “Steve keeps telling me I’m uglier than the Grinch!”

  “Steven Jameson Shorewood!” The father’s tone left no room for misinterpretation. “Come here, son.”

  The boy slumped toward his father who led him off to one side and bent to speak to him, but the mother paused right on the sidewalk next to Chelsea and bent down to peer into her daughter’s face. “Honey, all your life there will be people who lie to you about yourself. In magazines. On TV. They’ll say you aren’t pretty enough. Aren’t smart enough. Aren’t rich enough. Steven shouldn’t have said that to you. But now that he did say it, you have a choice to make. Are you going to believe it? Or are you going to brush it aside and remember what Daddy and I tell you every day? That you are a beautiful little girl, perfect just the way you are, and we love you very much?”

  A warm presence invaded Chelsea’s chest and the woman’s words whispered through her and wrapped themselves around her heart, urging her to pay attention.