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

by Lori Wilde

  “I’m giving the job to Raul,” Eric pronounced, because after all, he was captain. Ergo, he was the boss.

  “He and Maureen are driving up to Vermont tomorrow. Won’t be back until after the New Year.” Lily smiled, like an angel—or a sociopath.

  Eric pretended to consider the possibilities. “We can do without the decorations this year, or maybe scale back...”

  “Ladies Auxiliary will have your ass atop their tree, painted in a festive green and red. And that’s in a good year. Now that the Price Mansion is decimated, they’re more holiday-crazed than ever. The charity ball committee has been meeting around the clock, and every idea gets nuttier than the last. No doubt about it, this year Christmas is going to be a holiday to remember. The mayor gave five-thousand-dollar checks to all emergency agencies that we’re ordered, yes, ordered, to spend on even more ornamentation.”

  “I don’t need this now.”

  “Is there ever a good time for an orgy of holiday decadence?” asked Henry, not looking up from the video game.

  At the words orgy and decadence, Eric’s brain rewound to Chloe, as did his privates. Smoothly he grabbed a clipboard from the captain’s desk, holding it in front of his groin. “I’ll be upstairs.”

  “You’ll do it?” Lily asked.

  Eric considered the idea, and wanted to reject it, but with the now-married Chloe Skidmore in town, sans memory, sans husband, a nightmare of holiday overload would be the perfect way to keep his mind and his libido on ice.

  “Sure,” he agreed, without any trace of holiday cheer. That was what the eggnog was for.

  “Ho-ho-ho. Can’t wait to watch this one, Captain, or should I call you Captain Sugarplum?” Lily chuckled to herself and Eric dashed for the stairs, visions of sugarplums spiking his pulse. He told himself it was sugarplums, not Chloe. Not Chloe at all.

  * * *

  SHE LOOKED BETTER this morning, less nervous. Her dark hair had been washed and hung in long, loose curls that made her sexier than any woman should be while wearing a butt-ugly blue hospital gown. Eric had hoped that the clear light of day would have shaken off some of the more carnal images that haunted his dreams, but no, even with her in a hospital bed, he was still struck with that tidal wave of hunger that centered around Chloe. Damn.

  “Welcome back. I thought you would have deserted me.”

  Chloe greeted him with the cheery wave of someone who had no clue that she was the object of his late-night fantasies, including one especially weird one involving a topless elf costume and a chimney.

  “Why would I desert you?” asked the man who had deserted her twelve years ago. Mentally he put the top back on the elf costume.

  She’s married.

  “I don’t know why I thought that. Just a feeling.” Her blue eyes watched him, curiously, cautiously, and yet...there was something else there. In the past, she had called him names, “Alistair McSnobbyballs” being the favorite. But in those dangerous blue eyes was the same bold awareness that she watched him with now. Brave, stupid, blood-pumping hot. Eric looked away.

  He settled into the uncomfortable plastic chair and put the wretched shopping bags behind him. “Do you remember anything?”

  “No?” Her brow arched. The Chloe that he had known had spent hours trying to arch a brow, but never had any luck. Obviously somewhere down the line she’d figured it out. “Should I remember anything?”

  “What did the doc say?” Eric knew that brain injuries were a crapshoot. Sometimes the mind protected itself from pain, and sometimes it was just a matter of the brain getting knocked in the wrong place. If he had been a nicer kid to her, he would have told the doc his suspicions about her identity and let them all sort it out. On the other hand, his suspicions could be wrong.

  Maybe she wasn’t Chloe. Maybe Santa Claus was a real person. Maybe Eric wasn’t such a jerk. Oh, yeah, all were possibilities. Not.

  “Doing a little Christmas shopping there, Mr. Grinch?”

  He looked down at the bag full of tinsel, relieved for the diversion but wishing he’d been out hunting or fishing or doing he-man sorts of things. He twisted his mouth in a Grinchy sort of smile. “Knee-deep in decorating hell. Don’t ask.”

  She grinned, looking completely unashamed. “Now I have to know.”

  “Don’t make me tell.”

  “You’d really deny such a small, completely sadistic pleasure to a woman who was in a fire, lost her memory, has no means of financial support? Only five days from Christmas? Seriously?”

  He sighed, kicking at the larger bag with his boot.

  “The hospitality secretary quit the corps this year. She was having a fight with the treasurer after he criticized her. He held up quote fingers, and said, ‘World’s worst chocolate cake,’ and so she resigned. God bless volunteers.”

  Her laugh wasn’t exactly the font of human goodness, but there was a rasp in her voice that made it...stimulating. That, and the challenge in her eyes. So different from the fear in the ambulance last night. “Nobody else left but you?”

  “There’s Mrs. Randolph and the Ladies Auxiliary,” he tossed out the name, waiting for a sign of recognition. Finding none, he continued. “But they’re working on the Firemen’s Annual Christmas Eve Charity Ball. Now that the mansion is gone, every holiday nutjob in Pine Crest is determined to keep the ball happening. Idiots.” He pulled a grinning Christmas elf from the bag, and watched a delighted smile show up on her face. He wasn’t sure if she was happy with his foolishness, or the idea of the holidays, but either way, it didn’t bother him like it should have.

  “So you ended up with the sticky end of the candy cane?”

  She hadn’t meant it suggestively. He knew that with every inch of his being, but parts of his being took it that way and grew six inches. Discreetly he put the elf on his lap. “Ha. Ha.”

  She was married.

  The married woman grinned as mischievously as the elf. “I suppose I should apologize for making fun of your misery, but the docs told me that being surly is allowed with a head injury.” Apparently she thought the pain on his face was from embarrassment. Somehow it was easier that way.

  “How are you feeling today?” There. Guide the conversation toward something impersonal and non-sexual.

  “Definitely hurting, because you know I wouldn’t be surly otherwise.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Sarcasm? Why is there sarcasm?”

  “I don’t know. Just a feeling.”

  She watched him suspiciously. “Is there something I should know?”

  “Nope. Not a thing.”

  “Good, because you’d tell me, right?”

  “Definitely.”

  He didn’t think she believed him, but she was smart enough to not call him on it. The younger Chloe would have charged ahead, damn the torpedoes, and called him a liar. But apparently this new Chloe was older and wiser. And so much more untouchable.

  “They’re discharging me tomorrow,” she announced.

  Discharging her? “To where?”

  “Dr. Montessano told me about the Bunratty Hotel down on Elm. I thought I could stay there. Of course, paying for it might be a problem until I have some sort of ID and money, but until then...I’ll manage.”

  Oh, yeah. Right. Old Iron Claw Bunratty wasn’t big on the whole “kindness of strangers” thing. Even at Christmas. “I can get you some assistance from the town. We have a fund for that.” Yes, there was a fund. It was called Eric Marshall’s checking account, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

  “That’s very generous of you.”

  “The town, not me,” he corrected, because he didn’t want her to think the wrong thing about the situation. He didn’t want her to think that he was some white knight who ran around giving money to the ladies. Hell, that just sounded creepy. No, better for her to think that she was relying on the goodwill of the town. Besides, Pine Crest had treated Chloe like crap in the past, it only seemed right that they pay restitution, even if it was Eric fun
ding the effort.

  She was quiet for a while, nervous fingers plucking at the sheets. He wished that he knew where she belonged now, who she belonged to, but Eric knew that he shouldn’t get involved. Bad idea. Rotten idea. And, of course, that idea was only reinforced when she looked up at him and he could feel something pull at his insides. A hernia would have been nice, but he didn’t think he was that lucky.

  “I hate this,” she said, only twisting his insides more. “The not knowing. The idea of being in a hotel room. At Christmas. God knows, they probably don’t even have a tree.”

  The Bunratty Hotel had a tree. They had a huge twenty-foot tree that they put up every year on Thanksgiving. And lots of greenery and ornaments, and not a single silly grinning elf to be found. It was the perfect place for her, and he should have told her that—but he didn’t.

  At his silence, she held up the remote to the television and clicked on a morning cooking show. Eric listened quietly while the hostess walked the studio audience through the fine art of baking a life-size gingerbread house. Chloe pulled her mouth into a tight line and changed the channel. On the next station, some bubbly blonde news announcer was broadcasting from a sleigh with eight dogs dressed up with antlers. Chloe clicked the remote again. Now some preschool kids were singing “Jingle Bells.”

  Chloe clicked the television off.

  “I would know if I had a family, wouldn’t I? I would know if I was a mother? I don’t feel like a mother.”

  Did she feel like a wife? The words stuck on his tongue, but Chloe railed on, as if it wasn’t even a part of the equation.

  “It sucks. I don’t want to stay in a hotel. Not for the holidays. I want to be in a place where there’s people and presents and songs about snow. I want to be able to make gingerbread men and if I’m hungry, then I’ll bite off their heads. I don’t want to be alone at Christmas. I don’t want to be by myself.”

  She met his eyes, and hers were full of that needy, don’t-let-me-be-alone thing, and it was the same look she’d given him twelve years before. As a kid, he’d been enough of an ass to walk away, and without Chloe being around, it had been easy to think that it was no big deal.

  But it was a big deal. He’d spent a long time shoving those memories into a dark closet where only skeletons and mix tapes mingled together. God, he’d been an ass. Totally befitting the Marshall name.

  But not this time, he promised himself. He would make up for the past, give her a Christmas to remember until her memory came back. Before she realized who she was, and she remembered the name of the man she had married, or before she remembered exactly what Eric had done.

  No, this time he wouldn’t bail, which, considering her married condition, very ironically made him an even bigger ass than before. Guilt and lust were hell on a man’s thinking, and guilty lust? Well, better men than Eric would have been just as stupid.

  “You can bunk with me,” he offered.

  “Excuse me?” Her brows rose, surprise, shock, and yes, apparently he wasn’t the only one with a mind in the gutter. But at least she was calling him on it. Dammit.

  Eric pretended to be shocked as well. “Not that way. I have a lot of extra space.”

  “So why do you look like your dog just died?”

  There were two options here. Tell her the truth and confess his less-than-admirable intentions, even though they weren’t actually intentions, more...ideas, or act like a total moron and make her believe that he didn’t want her under his roof, and it was only some weird, “feed the poor, shelter the homeless” duty that had made him ask.

  Eric chose the middle ground, neither admitting nor denying his lust, or his guilt. He sighed the patient, burdened sigh of a martyr. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

  “You’d take in a complete stranger?”

  “I made a promise,” he explained, as if that made him an honorable person.

  Her mouth tightened into a thin line. “There it is again, that pesky Christmas promise that seems to make you miserable. Listen, it’s very nice of you, but I don’t want to put you and your family out.”

  “Family?” Martyrdom momentarily forgotten, he looked at her, confused.

  “Yes. Kids, dogs, or maybe y’all are a fish family. A wife.”

  He noticed the way she slid the reference in. Subtle, yes, but the look in her eyes was just like the Chloe he’d always known, budding with ideas that should have been extinguished a long time ago. His pulse raced like a man who lived for danger, except that wasn’t Eric. He was the sensible one, the smart one. The one who didn’t race into burning buildings, or invite helpless married women to bunk at his house. Except for one woman. This one.

  Get up and leave, the sensible man told himself. Make an excuse and get the hell out of her life. But those eyes...a siren’s eyes, the devil’s eyes. With Chloe, it had always been the same, and once again, Eric Marshall was dying to touch the now-untouchable Chloe Skidmore.

  “I don’t have a family,” he answered lightly.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. My parents are still alive, living on five beautifully manicured acres, and giving me hell for not practicing law. But there’s no wife and kids—or fish. I’m not married.”

  “Oh.” She sounded pleased, which pleased him. Then she glanced down at her left hand, remembering that she shouldn’t be pleased. “I can’t do that.”

  “I’m not around much,” he countered, because she’d always had more street sense.

  “Girlfriend?”

  A girlfriend would have given him the perfect excuse. A demanding, jealous fiancée. “Ambulance corps,” Eric answered instead. “Twenty-four seven, seven days a week, because emergencies don’t sleep.”

  “You bunk at the building?”

  “Most of the time.” Not even close to the truth, but she needed a place to stay. He wanted to make up for the past. It seemed like a win-win.

  She pushed back the dark hair from her face, and he was startled by the delicateness of her profile. She’d always been so touchy, so invincible, but something in the accident, or her life, had taken that away.

  “You’re very dedicated,” she told him, as if he was a hero.

  “Nah. Just have a lot of empty time on my hands.” Because he was no hero. Far from it. The grinning elf in his lap looked up at him and agreed.

  There was a knock at the door. They would be serving lunch, and Eric knew it was time to go. Pine Crest was small and people would talk. “I’ll find out what time you’re being discharged and pick you up tomorrow.”

  Then he left before she had a chance to disagree.

  3

  WEDNESDAY DAWNED bright and cold and full of new possibilities. She was dying to get out of the hospital and explore the town.

  Eric had brought her some clothes to change into. A set of jeans, a sweatshirt and a coat, along with a matching set of bright yellow bra and panties. They weren’t sexy enough for her to be insulted, but the bra was the perfect size. She chose not to ask.

  Once outside, they trudged over the slushy ground where the last snowfall was stubbornly refusing to leave. She blinked against the glare of the sun on the snow, studying this place, Pine Crest, Virginia. What had drawn her here? It seemed tantalizingly familiar, but it could have been any of a thousand small towns decorated for the season. The streetlights were trimmed with red and green bells, and a Salvation Army bell ringer was greeting passersby with a cheery “Merry Christmas.” In spite of her frustration, she smiled. She liked Christmas. That much, she knew.

  On the way to his house, she watched his profile, his strong hands on the wheel, curious about who he really was, and what he knew of her. He was careful not to give away too much, and sometimes she wondered if he was the man who had put the ring on her finger. But that didn’t make sense. Dr. Montessano would have told her.

  She knew that Eric watched her. She could feel the weighty tension of his gaze, feel the intimacy that it contained. Her skin bloomed wherever he looked, like a winter
crocus opening to the sun. Whatever the truth was between them, she knew things had happened. A woman knew when a man had touched her, even a woman with no memory.

  Idly she twisted the gold band on her finger, trying to recall a husband, a wedding day, a lazy honeymoon in some exotic destination, but there were no memories, only a black cloud.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I should have a name.”

  “You do have a name.”

  Ah, yes. Eric, master of the obvious. “They called me Jane at the hospital. I hate the name Jane. It’s very plain.”

  “You want something fancier?”

  “More mysterious. More dramatic.”

  “Sasha? Or Cassandra? Not everybody is lucky enough to pick a new name.”

  “What would you call me?”

  “Honey, baby or sweetheart. That’s my go-to answer for unknown women.”

  “You have a talent for insulting the female sex?”

  “I do.”

  “Come on. Help me out. What would you call me?”

  He hesitated, and she waited for an answer. Waited for a name.

  “Zoe,” he answered. “You could be a Zoe.”

  “Zoe,” she repeated, testing it out on her tongue. It sounded good, almost familiar. “Is that my name?”

  He shot her a sideways glance, more than a little defensive. “How the hell should I know?”

  “How the hell should you?” she shot back, with only a pinch of healthy skepticism. “You like your questions, don’t you?”

  “Do I?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, leaned back in the soft leather seat. “Go to hell.”