by Lori Wilde
He thought about how she’d switched homes with someone like a heroine in a romantic Christmas movie, and smiled. Katie Cheek had moxie. He’d give her that. He reached for his phone to call her.
Leave her be.
Maybe a quick text instead? Just to make sure she’d gotten back to where she was staying in one piece.
But he didn’t have her phone number. He could call Joe, but then he would have to explain why he wanted her number, and that would fly over like a lead balloon. How did you start that conversation?
Um, hey Joe, your sister and I hooked up for one wild night, and it sure was sweet. And once wasn’t enough. So if you’d just shoot me her phone number . . .
Ryder scratched the back of his neck. He could already feel Joe’s fist punching his face in. Joe was very protective of his baby sister. All Katie’s brothers were.
Once, Joe had caught him eyeing Katie when she’d bent over in a pair of shorts, and he’d smacked Ryder hard on the shoulder. “Not cool, dude. That’s my sister.”
He’d violated an essential guy code. Do not have a one-night stand with your best friend’s kid sister.
And if you do, for hell’s sake, never let him find out.
Right. No calling Joe or Katie either.
Still, he couldn’t help worrying about her. Call him an idiot, but he was going to pay for one of those telephone lookup services. He went to his computer and did a search on her.
“Dumb ass,” he told himself as he waited for the search results. “She snuck out for a reason.”
But that didn’t stop him from calling her number. It rang several times and went to voice mail. Ryder started to leave a message, but couldn’t figure out what to say that didn’t sound desperate, and hung up.
At noon, he was to help deliver gifts and food to needy families through his volunteer work at a community center. That would keep his mind off Katie. Then he would drive Les Ketchum up to the singer’s place at Big Bear for the man’s holiday celebration. That would keep Ryder’s mind off the fact that he had no one special to spend Christmas with.
He was headed out when the doorbell rang, and he found Clara Kincaid, his elderly next-door-neighbor, standing there with a box of Christmas cookies in her arms and a twinkle in her eye.
“Merry Christmas!” Clara thrust the cookies into his hands. “Pecan sandies. Your favorite.” She paused and eyed him curiously. “You were leaving?”
“To deliver toys.” He clutched the box of cookies in his hand, the only Christmas gift he was likely to get this year. It might sound sappy, but he liked the hell out of Clara and treasured their interactions. She was like the grandmother he’d never had.
“I’m still tickled by the thought of you playing Santa.”
“Don’t rub it in,” he grumbled with a smile. “It’s what I get for agreeing to volunteer at my boss’s charity event.”
“I think it’s sweet. Make sure you get someone to take your picture in the Santa suit.” She made a motion of snapping a camera button.
“Over my dead body.”
“Oh, you act so gruff.” Chuckling, Clara went up on tiptoes that were clad in camouflage green footie socks to pinch his cheek. “But I know you’re just a big old campfire marshmallow inside.”
“Shh, don’t let that get out.” He pressed a fist against his lips, cradled the box of cookies in the elbow of his other arm. “People will be asking me to volunteer for all sorts of things.”
“Ooh.” Clara clapped her hands, her face luminescent. “You’d make an adorable Easter bunny. No, no . . .” She dissolved in peals of laughter. “The Tooth Fairy. I can just see you with shiny iridescent wings and a pink tutu.”
“Go ahead. Make fun. Glad to be the butt of your joke if it lightens your day,” he teased.
“Such a grand gesture.” She sighed, pressed her palms together, and tucked them under her chin, and batted her eyelashes as if she was a besotted teenager. “I see why you have to beat the women off with a stick.”
“Hey, I’ve never beaten women off—” He clamped his teeth together realizing she’d gotten him to say something unintentionally risqué. “Clara, you naughty thing.”
She giggled.
“Behave,” he teased her. “Or I’m not going to give you your Christmas gift.”
She bounced exuberantly on the balls of her feet. “You got me a present?”
He turned to the stainless-steel coffee table, set down the box of cookies, and opened the drawer to pull out a box wrapped in silver foil and topped with a matching bow.
“I can’t believe you bought me a gift. That is nice of you.” Clara clapped her hands, reached for the package.
Watching her open it, Ryder felt his heart soften at the grandmotherly woman’s glee. She’d taken him under her wing when he’d hit LA two years ago, and he’d grown fond of their daily conversations, usually taking place in the courtyard as he was coming or going from work.
“My, my!” Clara exclaimed. “What a beautiful shawl.” She took the colorful garment from the box, flung it around her shoulders in a dramatic gesture. “You remembered me.”
How could he forget her? Clara was the only person close enough to him to warrant a special present. The precious few others on his list got generic gift cards.
“I saw it in a shop window and I thought it looked like you.” He shrugged like he hadn’t spent four hours walking around a shopping center searching for the perfect gift.
“It is so me.” Clara rubbed the soft material against her face and smiled as if he’d given her a pocketful of gold. She looked so happy Ryder felt a strange punch in his gut.
“If you don’t like it you can—”
“Hush! I love it. Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome.” He shrugged again, slightly embarrassed. “Where are you spending the holidays?”
“Becca and Will are coming to get me. We’re headed to Kyle and Kim’s house. It will be my first time seeing the new baby,” she said, referring to her latest great-grandchild, who had been born two weeks earlier.
“That should be fun.”
“Every Christmas should have a baby in it,” Clara hugged the shawl tighter around her, lowered her lashes, and looked at him speculatively. “So, are you going to be spending the evening with that lovely young woman who was here last night?”
Ryder startled. “Um . . .”
“She’s the sweetest thing,” Clara went on. “Not like those other women who’ve trotted through here.”
His pulse jumped, and he pressed a palm to the nape of his neck. “You talked to Katie?”
“My, yes. She was passing by and saw that someone—probably Mina Jackson’s Siamese—had knocked over my Christmas cactus. Darling girl righted the pot and scooped up the spilled dirt and patted back into place so gently. I spotted her and invited her in for coffee and some of those pecan sandies.”
“She came in for coffee?” Ryder said, feeling slightly appalled, and not really sure why.
“She did, and she is so lovely. Really, Ryder, you must not let this one get away. She’s special.”
“I think it’s too late for that.”
“Why?” Clara bristled, drawing herself up tall. “What did you do to Katie?”
Wow. Katie must have really impressed his neighbor for her to throw him under the bus. “First-name basis with her?”
“She told me to call her Katie.”
“When was that?”
“When she helped me change the lightbulb in the kitchen.”
“If your lightbulb needed changing, why didn’t you call me? That’s what I’m here for, Clara.”
“I know.” She went up on her tiptoes again to pat his cheek. “But you’ve been so busy guarding Les Ketchum I didn’t want to bother you.”
“But you’ll bother Katie?”
“I didn’t ask. She offered when I told her it was out,” Clara said mildly, but he could tell by the way she gave him the once-over that she wasn’t pleased with him. “
So what did you do to her?”
“I didn’t do anything to her,” he groused. “She’s the one who did it to me.”
Clara cocked her head like a pert parrot. “Oho? What did she do to you?”
“Ran out on me this morning without saying good-bye.”
Clara hooted. “Shoe’s on the other foot for once, huh?”
He shrugged, tried to look like he didn’t care.
“I like her even more,” Clara mused.
“Whose side are you on?” Ryder asked.
Clara drummed three fingers against her chin. “The side of love.”
“You can stop hoping for that. Katie and I are . . .”
“What?” she prodded.
He shook his head. “Incompatible.”
“Uh-huh.” Clara nodded as if he was totally full of shit. “Whatever you say.”
“You’re patronizing me?”
“Nope. Just not contradicting you.”
“But you don’t agree?” Ryder shifted his weight, getting irritated. He needed to be on his way. They were waiting on Santa at the community center.
“I’d say any woman who gets you this hot and bothered is worth her weight in gold.”
“Who says I’m hot and bothered?”
“You haven’t stopped talking about her since I brought her up.”
“Clara,” he said, deepening his voice. “I’m not going to let you ruffle my feathers. Thanks so much for the cookies. I’ve got to head out.”
“Sure, sure.” Clara bobbed her silver head. “I know how you are. Don’t like to face your feelings. I’ll just scoot on out of your way. Thank you so much for the shawl. I love it.” She patted his arm. “Please try to have a good Christmas, and give some consideration to exploring what’s going on between you and Katie.”
“There’s nothing going on!”
Clara’s smile turned naughty. “Then why are you yelling?”
“I’m not . . .” Purposefully, he regulated his voice to a whisper. “. . . yelling.”
“Okay, but I still say you’re a fool, Ryder Southerland, if you let a quality woman like Katie slip through your fingers. And let’s face it. You’re not getting any younger, champ, and in my opinion it’s better not to wait until you’re too old to throw a ball to your kid before you have one.”
“I have no plans to have children.” He ushered her toward the door.
Clara looked horrified. “Why not?”
“I’m not the paternal kind.”
“Nonsense.” She sank her hands on her hips and glared at him over the rim of her glasses. “You’d make an amazing father.”
Because he had such a terrific role model? Right. “Clara, I’ve got to go.”
“Children are God’s greatest blessings.”
“I’m sure they are.” He shooed her out the door. “For other people.”
“Oh Ryder, Ryder, Ryder.” She clicked her tongue. “Whatever am I going to do with you? When you have kids yourself you’ll finally understand just how much love they bring.”
“Have a merry Christmas.” He waggled his hand at her.
“Okay, I’ll stick a pin in it for now, but this conversation is not over.”
“Merry Christmas,” he repeated, locking the door behind them.
Clara spread her arms, to draw the shawl more tightly around her. “You too. Although I doubt you will, since you’re working.”
“I like working.”
“I know. You like it too much. That’s the problem.”
“With the way you nag me, I swear, you could be my real grandmother.”
“Oh no, dear. If I were your grandmother, I’d box your ears for not spending the holidays with Katie.”
“She has family to be with.”
“Exactly,” Clara said, waved a hand over her shoulder, and disappeared back into her apartment.
Clara’s parting quip rang in Ryder’s ears as he dressed up as Santa and delivered toys to underprivileged families. He had no one special to spend Christmas with. Although that had been true for the last twelve years, somehow, this year, it bothered him.
When he got back home, he tried texting Katie using the phone number he’d looked up.
She didn’t reply.
Face it. She made it clear she didn’t want future contact.
Or, here was a thought. She was off enjoying Christmas Eve with other people and not near her phone.
But he’d made an attempt. He wasn’t going to bother her again.
He poured himself a whiskey, plunked down in a chair at the window, and watched his neighbor’s Christmas tree lights blink, blink, blink. Finally, he swallowed the remainder of the whiskey in one big swallow, picked up the phone, and called again.
This time, he did leave a message on her voice mail. “Have yourself a merry Christmas, Katie Cheek,” he mumbled, and hung up.
Chapter 6
Twilight, Texas
December 1, one year later
Out on the streets of Twilight, the annual Dickens on the Square parade came up Ruby Street to the town square, a procession of favorite characters—Scrooge, the Christmas ghosts, one-shoed Miss Havisham in her bedraggled wedding gown, Tiny Tim, the Artful Dodger, Mrs. Gamp. With the festival, Christmas in Twilight officially began. Three weeks of nonstop celebrating.
Toying with the snowman pendant on her necklace, Katie stared out the window of the top floor office above Ye Olde Book Nook on the west side of the square and remembered the year she played Little Dorrit, and Ryder Southerland had saved her from getting crushed under the wheels of Santa Claus’s float.
She’d been playing her part, Little Dorrit in rags, when she’d seen her brother Joe coming out of Rinky-Tink’s ice cream parlor, with his new friend, a tall, black-haired boy who rode the bus to school and looked like he didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of him.
They were eating ice creams cones, and it struck Katie as wrong. Her sense of fairness ruffled. Mama had said they couldn’t have any snacks, it would ruin their dinner, and here was Joe licking away.
Incensed, Katie had sunk her hands on her hips, forgetting that she was supposed to be Little Dorrit, and jaywalked right across the street to address the injustice. So intent was she on her indignation that she didn’t notice the float turning onto the square off Ruby Street.
But Ryder noticed.
His face had gone white as a Christmas ghost, and the next thing she knew, he’d thrown his ice cream cone over his shoulder and was tearing into the middle of the road to shove her out of the way of the Santa float, complete with a giant bobble-head Rudolph and his flashing red nose.
She ended up on her back in the gutter, staring up into Ryder’s green eyes, gaping like a landed guppy because he’d knocked the air from her lungs.
He stared at her somberly, but there was no judgment in his eyes about her dumb-assedry. Her gramps’s preferred terminology when anyone did something foolish.
“You okay?” he’d asked, just as he had when he’d knocked her down last year at the museum gala. Seemed the man had a habit of tackling her.
Truth was, sleeping with Ryder last year had changed her. She dreamed of him. A lot. And not just at night.
Sometimes she’d be in the midst of organizing a client’s space, and hot waves of memory would flood her body, spreading up from her pelvis to her stomach, chest, and neck. Settling at last in her head, a mental orgasm pushing loads of feel-good-hormones through her brain and blood.
Always connected to thoughts of Ryder.
If anyone noticed a change in her, she would smile pertly and shake her head, the movements setting off widening circles of intense pleasure reverberating throughout her cranium along with a joyous throb that pulsed to the beat of Ryder’s name.
It was freaky and disconcerting and scarily enjoyable.
Reliving the orgasmic waves that had overcome her after the night they made love—sometimes it happened when she was shopping at the grocery, stopping at a red light, thumbing throug
h her outgoing mail while standing in line at the post office.
She tried to suppress it. Shutting down her thoughts every time his name popped brightly in her head like a neon sign. But then hot frustration would swamp her womb, intense and heavy, and her pulse would pound at a terrifying clip.
What was happening to her? She had no word for it. Could not define it.
The problem kept her awake at night, her body lighting up as she lay in bed, her mind helplessly wandering to thoughts of Ryder. It was as if by making love with him, she’d plugged into a powerful electrical current that she could not unplug from, even when their bodies were separated.
What craziness was this? What was the cure?
When it happened at night, she came utterly, completely awake. Nothing could coax her eyes closed. Not music. Not warm milk . . . and later, not a glass of wine. One phrase kept rotating through her head.
I am alive!
She’d been asleep for so long. Moving through life without really planning anything, allowing the wants and desires of other people to push her this way and that.
Until California.
And Ryder.
Katie sighed, fingered her lips, and turned away from the window and the memory.
“What’s that smug grin all about?” Sesty Langtree asked. “Plotting on how you’re going to body check the other women at Gabi and Joe’s wedding so you can snag the bouquet?”
“Huh?” Katie blinked at her office mate. “Nooo.” She shook her head. “I have no interest in getting married.”
“Ever?”
“Not in the foreseeable future. No candidates on the horizon.”
“Hmm,” Sesty mused, but didn’t elaborate.
“No hmm. There’s no hmming.”
Sesty was married to retired NASCAR driver Josh Langtree. Since their businesses dovetailed, Katie and Sesty had decided to save money and rent office space together on the Twilight town square. Sesty was an event planner, and over the course of the past twelve months, after returning from her house swap adventure in LA, Katie had been steadily building a reliable reputation as a professional organizer.
“No always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride blues?” Sesty asked. “How many times have you been a bridesmaid, by the way?”
