All I Want for Christmas...: Christmas KissesBaring It AllA Hot December Night

by Lori Wilde

  “Justice. That’s why.”

  He sat up straight. “We have flip-flopped. Usually, I’m the one caught on the justice prong and you’re the one trying to see every side of an issue.”

  “Maybe our short association had an impact on our perspectives,” she said, stirring sugar into her hot tea. “Imagine that.”

  “That’s a scary thought.”

  She glanced up, teacup pressed to pursed lips gleaming with shiny red gloss, stream rising up against her smooth, creamy skin and curling the loose tendrils of auburn hair. Instantly, Noah found himself engulfed in another sexual fantasy. This must be what she looked like in a hot shower. The exotic water nymph. Holy Mother Nature.

  “Terrifying,” she agreed.

  Noah gulped. He was in over his head. Which was the real reason they’d never gone on a second date. She had the power to change him and Noah did not like change.

  But he knew her weakness. When the waitress brought their food, he told her, “Bring us a hot fudge sundae for dessert, extra fudge and two spoons.”

  The waitress shot a glance at Alana, waiting for her approval.

  Alana looked like she was going to refuse, but then nodded. Ha! He had her. She was a sucker for chocolate. She gave him a furtive smile and made a soft noise so sensual, he got an erection.

  “Maybe you should become a prosecutor, instead of a defense attorney,” he said. “Considering your recent change in outlook.”

  “Everyone in my family is a judge or a defense attorney. We’re big on the right to fair counsel.”

  “That doesn’t preclude your being a prosecutor, does it?”

  “I have an opinionated family.”

  “Afraid to be the black sheep, huh?”

  She opened her mouth, shut it, opened it again and forked in a mouthful of lettuce, busied herself with chewing.

  Controlling her tongue by keeping it busy? At the thought of her sexy little tongue, he grew even harder. He tackled his sandwich so he wouldn’t have to watch those straight white teeth adeptly pluck a tomato from her fork.

  “So,” she said after a long moment. “What are your plans for Christmas?”

  “Who, me?”

  “You’re the only one sitting here.”

  He shifted, dabbed at his mouth with a paper napkin, and cleared his throat. Was it a simple question, or was she angling for something more?

  “Just making conversation,” she said, reading his mind.

  He shrugged. “Working.”

  “Do you work every Christmas?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Got something against the holiday?”

  “More things than you can count.”

  Pity welled up in her eyes. “That’s a shame.”

  “No it’s not. I’m happy being a Grinch.”

  “No one is happy being a Grinch,” she countered.

  “I am,” he replied staunchly. “And someone has to work the holidays. Crime doesn’t stop simply because it’s December 25th.”

  “So, no plans to attend the Pine Crest Firemen’s Annual Christmas Eve Ball?”

  Was she asking him out? That revved him up. “Um, isn’t it usually held at the Price Mansion?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re still having it?”

  “Planning committee says yes, although they’re scrambling to find a new location now that the mansion is no more.” She pushed away her empty plate, picked up her tea. Her hands looked so delicate wrapped around the pink cup.

  “I’m not much of a gala kind of guy.”

  The waitress stopped by to pick up their plates and drop off the gigantic hot fudge sundae. “Is he behaving himself?” she asked Alana.

  “Surprisingly,” Alana said, “yes.”

  “All right then.” The waitress sailed off.

  Alana’s eyes lit up. “It’s been forever since I had a hot fudge sundae.”

  “Dig in,” Noah invited.

  She picked up a spoon dipped into the ice cream, making sure to get plenty of gooey fudge. Going nuts for it just as Noah suspected she would. She took a bite, gave a throaty moan. “Mmm. Ooh, that is so good.”

  Noah’s gaze fixed on her mouth as she nibbled fudge from her bottom lip. He liked how her face looked, blissed out and relaxed for the first time since coming into the diner. It made him relax. Smile.

  “This is heaven.” She sighed dreamily and took another bite.

  He picked up the second spoon, dipped it into the sweet, sticky goo. For a long time they simply ate, the silence occasionally punctuated by Alana’s rapturous sounds of appreciation. She closed her eyes, savoring every morsel. Never mind that his erection was solid concrete and she looked like she was about to have an orgasm at any second.

  Mesmerized, Noah set down his spoon.

  She opened one eye, caught him staring at her. “What is it?”

  “You look...”

  “What?”

  No way in hell was he going to say what was on his mind. He shook his head.

  Her other eye popped open. “Don’t judge,” she mumbled. “I had a bad day.”

  He held up both palms. “No judgment here.”

  “I normally never eat like this.”

  He eyed her smoking-hot body, couldn’t stop the appreciative smile from crawling across his face. “Obviously.”

  She scooped up the last bite, turned the spoon around backward as she sucked off the fudgy ice cream with gung-ho gusto that cut right though him. She pondered him, spoon pressed against her lip. “What’s your deal, Briscoe?”

  “Deal?”

  She dropped the spoon—licked completely clean—into the glass bowl. It made a clinking sound. “Why do you hate Christmas? Santa leave coal in your stocking once upon a time? Were you a bad little boy?”

  He didn’t like talking about himself. Liked talking about his past even less. He tried to put all that stuff out of his mind. So it surprised him when he opened his mouth and said, “There were plenty of years I didn’t even have a stocking.”

  She looked as startled as he felt and she straightened in her seat. “That’s the most I’ve ever heard you say about your childhood.”

  “Don’t start feeling sorry for me.” He growled. “I hate it when people feel sorry for me.”

  “Were your parents really poor or—”

  “That’s all you get,” he said and glanced at his watch.

  “You’re running away.”

  “I’m not running away,” he denied. “I have to head over to the station. See what progress is being made on the arson investigation.” He pulled his wallet from his pocket, peeled off a couple of twenties to cover their meal and the tip. Once he scooted across the seat, he got to his feet.

  “But you’ll keep your promise, right? You won’t railroad Clausen into prison just because it’s easy.”

  “I thought your boss took the case away from you.” Noah shrugged into his jacket.

  “He did, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

  “You care too much,” he said.

  Her chin shot up defiantly. “You don’t care enough.”

  “Is that so?” Noah leaned down, getting in her face.

  Alana’s hands clutched the Formica tabletop, but she did not draw back or flinch. She gulped. Held her ground. Even though the pale blue vein at her throat fluttered wildly.

  He was close enough to kiss her. He sure as hell wanted to kiss her. He would not kiss her. Not here. Not yet.

  But somewhere, and soon.

  3

  ALANA FELT LIKE a treasure seeker who’d just mined a tiny flake of pure gold from a hard, craggy stone. Noah had confirmed what she’d long suspected. He’d had an awful childhood. So bad that he couldn’t talk about it. Was that what made him so skittish when it came to intimate relationships?

  Um, he wasn’t acting skittish just now.

  In fact, she was certain he’d been about to kiss her, but in the end, had thought better of it.

  She took a sip
of her tea, now tepid, and tried to imagine the vulnerable boy he’d once been. It was impossible seeing that masculine jaw as anything but rough, strong and confident. Yet, at one time, he had been a child. He aroused her curiosity.

  Oh, who was she kidding? He’d aroused much more than her curiosity.

  And the fact that she was off the Clausen case meant that they had nothing to clash about. No conflict of interest standing between them. And she believed him when he said that he would search for exculpatory evidence to prove Clausen’s innocence.

  Noah had his faults (being emotionally closed off being chief among them) but he was always straightforward and honest. Which was probably why he would never rise much higher than sergeant. He didn’t play politics. He was the exact opposite of the strategic men in her family. He operated out of integrity and gut instinct, not cunning tactics.

  Ah-hem. There’s a reason you didn’t hook up with him last summer. But for the life of her, Alana could not remember what that reason was.

  * * *

  METHODICALLY, Noah combed through the burned-out debris of the Price Mansion the morning after his dinner with Alana. Daylight shed a whole new perspective on the scene. He could see things he’d missed in the dark. Bic was still writing up the details of his assessment, but he’d assured Noah that the fire was definitely arson.

  Yesterday evening, Noah had dropped by the hospital to check on the Jane Doe victim found unconscious in the mansion’s foyer. She’d come out of her coma, but unfortunately, the trauma of the accident had left her with amnesia. The doctor told Noah that while he expected the woman to regain her memory within a few days, she might never be able to recall exactly what had happened the night of the fire.

  It was up to Noah and his team to get to the bottom of the blaze. That is, if Clausen hadn’t done it. Alana seemed convinced of the man’s innocence, but Noah wasn’t so easily swayed.

  And yet, here he was.

  Doing a thorough job. Not for Alana, he told himself, but for justice.

  He went back over ground that had already been covered by himself, his team and Bic. Sometimes all it took was a fresh perspective to see things in a different way. Today, Noah claimed that fresh perspective by thinking like an arsonist instead of a cop.

  Laypeople often thought that pyromaniacs caused most arsons, but in reality there were very few true pyromaniacs who set fires simply for the sexual thrill they got from watching things burn. It was the motive he’d offered Alana on the night he’d arrested Clausen, but even as he’d said it, he’d known that was the big hole in his case.

  Clausen had no history of arson. In fact, he’d never gotten so much as a parking ticket. If Clausen was a true firebug, he would have shown signs of it in his teens or early twenties when pyromania peaked. If Clausen was the culprit, there had to be another motive.

  Other motives for fire-setting included vandalism, revenge, crime concealment, to terrorize or for profit. Noah ticked through the motives one by one. Vandalism. Could be a gang thing. Except as an upper-middle-class suburb of D.C., Pine Crest experienced almost no gang related crime.

  What about revenge? Now there was a possibility.

  Noah paced the foyer where he’d found the belt from Clausen’s Santa suit. Pausing, he closed his eyes and put his head in the mind of a revenge seeker. Someone had wronged him. He was determined to get even.

  Revenge was a dish best served cold. He’d have time to think about it. Be methodical. Make sure an innocent victim like Jane Doe was not in the house before he burned it down. Then again, maybe Jane Doe wasn’t so innocent.

  Crime concealment? Had the arson been a cover? Had the arsonist meant to kill Jane Doe in the fire? If so, he’d done a poor job of it. If Noah was going to kill someone and use a fire to hide the crime, he’d make damn sure the person was dead before he started the blaze.

  Noah opened his eyes, ran a hand over his jaw.

  Terrorism? But what was the purpose of a terroristic arson if some terrorist group didn’t lay claim to the arson? No one would know that was the reason for the fire, so no one would be terrorized by the act.

  That left profit. Good old-fashioned greed. Money. The number-one motivator of criminal behavior.

  Who would benefit from burning down the Price Mansion? The city owned the mansion. How could anyone profit from destroying the building that drew so many tourists, and their dollars, to Pine Crest?

  “Yoo-hoo, Detective,” a woman called, snapping Noah from his concentration.

  He looked up to see the scrawny older woman that he’d interviewed the night of the fire. She stood beyond the crime scene tape, waving a hand. Noah dusted his hands against his pants legs and wandered over to where she waited.

  “Miss Gaines,” he said.

  Her narrow face folded into a smile. “You remembered my name.”

  His boss would have sweet-talked her with a line like “You’re very memorable,” but Noah cared more about solving crime than the artifice of flattery. “When it comes to the cases I work, I remember everything.”

  She nodded. “You’re a serious young man.”

  “Is there something I can do for you, Miss Gaines?”

  “My memory is not as good as yours, and I just realized something when I saw your car parked over here.”

  He leaned closer, his interest piqued. “What’s that?”

  “The same time that I saw Santa leaving the mansion, there was a car parked at the curb right where yours is parked now.”

  “Did Santa get into the vehicle?”

  She shook her head. “No, no. He walked away.”

  “Which direction?”

  “South.” She pointed. “He kept walking until he disappeared into the darkness.”

  “So tell me more about this car.”

  “It was a sedan. I’m sorry that I don’t know the makes of car models these days. They all look alike, but...” She trailed off, shot him a coy expression.

  “But what?”

  “You’re not going to guess?”

  Noah held onto his patience. She was probably lonely and enjoyed milking the suspense. He recalled she’d said she used to be a drama teacher. “It’s your stage, Miss Gaines. You’ve got the spotlight. Tell me what you saw.”

  “There was a logo on the door.” She paused, extracted a tube of rose-scented lotion from the pocket of her jacket and squeezed some into her palms.

  Obligatorily, he asked, “What kind of logo?”

  She rubbed her hands together. “I think it was a logo of a real estate development company.”

  “Did you happen to see the name on the logo?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t.”

  “Was anyone in the car?”

  “I couldn’t tell.”

  This was getting him nowhere. “Thank you, Miss Gaines. I appreciate your efforts. If you do remember more, please give me a call.”

  “Always happy to help.”

  He stood there watching her walk away, pondering what she had just told him. The car with the real estate developer logo on it might be nothing. Probably was nothing. But in Noah’s mind, the doubt had been raised.

  Alana very well might be right. Clausen could be innocent.

  And if she was, that left Noah with more questions than answers. One thing was certain. He had a lot more digging to do.

  * * *

  TWO DAYS LATER, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was playing on the radio as Alana drove home from work. The DA had called to say exculpatory evidence had come to light in the Clausen case and the charges against him had been dropped. She felt both grateful and vindicated. She’d been right, but more than that, Noah had kept his promise. He’d gone out and found evidence that vindicated her client. Well, not her client, since Dwight had taken the case away from her—but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that an innocent, if slightly nutty, man would go free.

  Noah had melted her heart.

  Stop it.

  Still, she couldn’t help smi
ling. She turned onto Juniper Lane, took the rolling road that ran past the Pine Crest cemetery. She drove this route every day, mostly never even glanced in the direction of the tombstones lined up on the sloping hillside, but today something drew her attention in that direction.

  A man in a dark overcoat trudged up the hill toward the cemetery gates, a bouquet of bright red roses in his hand.

  The visual was compelling. A lonely figure cast against a dour gray sky, the tall black wrought-iron gates rising up, the bright clutch of flowers the sole contrast to the melancholy scene. The man seemed hauntingly familiar.

  She slowed, craned her neck. Who was that?

  He lifted his head.

  Noah.

  Her heart skipped a beat. Noah was going into the cemetery.

  Alana couldn’t say what compelled her, but she pulled over at the curb and cut the car’s engine. She sat there a moment, listening to her heart pounding and staring at the numbers on the dashboard clock.

  Don’t interrupt the man while he’s grieving.

  She had no intention of interrupting him, even though she owed him a big “thank you.” She should drive away.

  But curiosity had her easing open the car door and she got out, shutting it quietly behind her. She breathed in a breath of bracingly cold winter air and started toward the cemetery gates, hands stuffed deeply into the pockets of her wool camel coat.

  What are you doing?

  She ambled down the rows, the wind burning the tops of her ears. She hunched her shoulders against the cold. The massive cemetery was pre–Civil War and it was filled with tall, thick trees and family mausoleums. He moved in and out of her line of vision, hidden at times by trees or tombs.

  This is stupid. Go back to your car.

  Noah was several yards ahead of her. What was she going to do? Pretend to be visiting a grave? Why was she following him?

  She slowed, almost turned back, but a pressing need to know more about him pushed her forward. Her pulse quickened. What was she afraid of?

  When she reached the row Noah had turned down, a handy excuse on her lips for why she’d bumped into him in the cemetery, she was surprised to find no one there. Had she turned down the wrong row?

  She wandered along, trepidation building. Had Noah been married before? Was he a widower? She hadn’t heard any rumors of that nature, but he was a secretive man.