by Jill Shalvis
Somehow.
She knew exactly how. She’d wasted the past few weeks making an idiot of herself on a regular basis. Then yesterday she’d spent most of the afternoon in the air.
In the air.
It gave her a secret thrill even now. It worried her, how she’d acted. One smile from Bryan and she’d followed him wherever he’d wanted to go.
So much for being the grown-up, mature one.
The airport was hopping with travelers. The staff watched the clock, and for some reason they all looked so darn merry it drove Katie crazy.
“You may not have heard,” Julie said halfway through the morning, “but we’re about to have one of those happy holidays. Lots of hugs and kissing and making jolly. It’s called Christmas. You might have heard of it?”
“Funny.”
Julie studied her for a moment. “You need another Christmas party,” she decided. “More mistletoe.”
When Katie’s head whipped up, Julie’s eyes were sparkling with amusement. “You could have told me you kissed Santa. I had to hear it through the grapevine. Was it yummy?”
“Who told you?”
“Holly. She said—”
“Don’t tell me.”
“—that you jumped Santa.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Did you really try to kiss him again? Is that how Matt got a concussion?”
Katie closed her eyes and groaned.
“Cool!” Julie grinned. “You’re a goddess among us office women, you know. We’re all trying to figure out what we’ll use at the Valentine’s Day party to kiss whoever we want.”
Katie sighed and bore the moment. But as soon as she was alone again, she picked up the phone and dialed her mother. “Hey, Mom. Yes, I’ll be there tomorrow night for ham, wouldn’t miss it. Oh, and, um, Mom? Why didn’t you ever marry again?”
Her mother was silent for a full ten seconds. “Well that’s a loaded question.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” Katie said quickly. “I don’t mean to pry, I know Daddy really destroyed your heart—”
“Damn right he did. No one should die that early.”
“I meant because he was never there for you.”
“What on earth ever gave you that idea?”
“Well—” Katie let out a little laugh “—he was always flying.”
“Because that was his passion. But I was his passion, too.”
“You…were?”
“I loved him heart and soul, no one else ever came close to giving me what he did.” She sighed. “What a beautiful man he was.”
Had she really gotten it wrong all these years? How could that be possible? Her mother had accepted her father, faults and all, and had loved him with a fierceness few ever experienced.
Could she do the same?
She said goodbye, and stared at the phone for a good long time. Finally she rose and headed down the hall toward the soda machine.
She needed caffeine, lots of it, especially if she was going to finish by a decent time. Tomorrow she’d go to her mom’s house, maybe they’d even talk more, but tonight she wanted to be home with her pretty little tree, her adoring cats—okay, not exactly adoring—and her annual video of A Christmas Carol.
She wanted to be alone to think.
Unfortunately Holly was standing at the soda machine, a huge cinnamon bun in one hand, delicious-smelling hot cocoa in the other, a secret smile on her lips.
Katie put in her three quarters, pushed the button for orange soda and eyed her nemesis. “Ruin anyone’s life today?”
“Now that hurts.” But she didn’t look insulted. “We could be friends, you know.”
Katie laughed. “Yeah. Right. Friends.”
“I care about you.”
“Don’t take this personally, Holly, but I find that really hard to believe.”
“Why?”
“Why? Gee, maybe because you’re always making a fool out of me?”
“You’re still upset about that fiancé thing.” Holly actually stuck out her lower lip in a pout. “I did you a favor. He was a quiet, mousy man.”
“So quiet and mousy he dumped me the moment you flashed him some cleavage.” Katie had thought it still hurt, but she realized as she said it out loud, nothing happened. No little pang in her heart, no resentment twisted her nerves.
Nothing.
“Well it took more than just a little cleavage—” Holly broke off at Katie’s frown and cleared her throat. “The point is, I was just saving you some heartache down the road.”
“And what about the Barbie vacation house? When we were six? You told my mother I didn’t want it, that I hated it, when it was all I really, really wanted. She gave it to you instead.” God, she couldn’t believe that popped out of her mouth.
Holly couldn’t believe it, either. “You’ve been holding a grudge for nearly twenty years? Over a—a Barbie house?”
Apparently so. How pathetic. “Never mind.”
“No,” Holly said slowly. “I think we should talk about this. What else is going on in that mind of yours?”
“The Christmas party.”
“Oh, jeez…are you going to harp on that? Get over it, would you? You ended up in the right man’s arms.”
“How can you say that?”
“Bryan Morgan is hot, hunky, smart and funny—not to mention in-your-face magnificent—and he can’t keep his eyes or his hands or his mouth off you. I have no idea what you’re complaining about.”
Funny thing was, suddenly neither did Katie. But this confrontation needed to be handled, and now that she’d started, she might as well take it to the end and make a total jerk out of herself. “You didn’t know it would work out this way. Why did you encourage me to kiss the wrong Santa? I’ve been over it and over it, and it doesn’t make any sense. Why would you willingly let me kiss Bryan, when you want him for yourself?”
“But I don’t want Bryan, I want—” She broke off, looked down at her roll, then took a large bite.
“You want…who, Holly?”
In a surprisingly open moment, Holly looked at her, her gaze guileless for once. “Mmhphmm,” she said around her mouthful.
“Who?”
But Holly just took another large bite, then suddenly tipped her head into flirty mode as her eyes focused on someone coming down the hallway behind Katie.
Katie glanced over her shoulder, saw Matt, and winced. He’d been avoiding her, ever since The Incident, as the staff lovingly referred to it.
She whipped around to tell Holly she needed to hightail it back to work, mostly because she was a chicken, but Holly had flattened herself next to the soda machine so that Matt couldn’t see her.
Katie’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, but before she could speak, Matt saw her.
The expression of pure terror on his face as he realized he was alone in the room with her might have been comical, if Katie had any sense of humor left about the situation.
“Oh,” he said, stopping abruptly. “Hello,” he added, polite to the very end.
Katie wished just once he’d say what was on his mind, but then again, since what was on his mind undoubtedly involved her early demise, maybe his political correctness was good thing.
Katie took a step forward, intending to go around him and back to her office where she would once again willingly drown herself in work.
Matt jerked back.
“I’m just going around you.”
“Oh.” He let out a shaky smile. “Sorry.”
At that moment, Holly peeked out and sent Matt a sultry smile. “Hey there, stranger.”
Matt looked at Holly. Holly looked at Matt.
The air seemed to thicken.
“Well, this is fun,” Katie muttered.
But Matt didn’t so much as glance at her. Instead, every ounce of his concentration was on Holly, and how she ate her roll as she slowly walked toward him, making a big production out of licking her fingers clean. “Mmm,” she said with a secret smile. “Mmm, go
od.”
Matt’s eyes widened, and when Holly did it again, sucking her first finger into her mouth, the poor man nearly fell over in his haste to get closer. He recovered his balance, then walked directly into the wall.
The calm, restrained, quiet Matt blushed wildly, straightened and jammed his hands into his pockets, all the while staring at Holly’s mouth.
“You okay?” Holly asked him, her eyes half-closed, smiling sexily. “You hit pretty hard there, maybe I should…kiss it and make it better?”
“I— You— Well.” Matt closed his stuttering mouth and blushed some more. “If you’d like,” he finally said, his voice a little husky.
Holly’s smile spread across her face as she moved toward him. “Where should I start, Mr. Vice President? Where does it hurt the most?”
“Everywhere,” Matt said fervently.
Katie couldn’t believe it! She knew for a darn fact she’d never come close to making Matt lose his composure, and she’d pulled out all the stops! She’d certainly never, ever, seen him flirt, and he was most definitely flirting now. “What’s going on?”
Katie didn’t realize she’d asked the question out loud until Holly, her gaze still on Matt, said lightly, “You had your Christmas wish, and I have mine.”
Holly wanted Matt.
Holly had always wanted Matt.
It had never been about Bryan at all, but making sure Matt had been free for Holly. “Oh,” she said, but neither Holly nor Matt spared a glance for her. The two silly fools were staring at each other with stars twinkling in their eyes.
Well…good. They deserved each other. Disgusted, Katie turned away from them and went back to her office, trying to get her mind back on her job, but it was difficult. Seeing the way Matt looked at Holly, and seeing the way Holly looked back, had caused an odd ache inside her.
She still wanted what she’d always wanted, a nice, happy, cozy future. Only there wasn’t one coming.
Given her luck and aptitude for scaring men with mistletoe, there might never be one coming.
Bryan came into her thoughts. Bright, funny and most vexing Bryan. And because she was very human, she wished that she could…that he would…that they might…
She had no idea what was happening to her. They were completely unsuited, she knew this. And yet, she wanted to see him, darn it, irrational as it was. She wanted to see his crooked grin, hear that bone-melting voice. She even wanted to kiss him again.
But—and this might be a blessing in disguise—she had no idea what his itinerary was. Good. To go into the control room and actually check would require her facing how far-gone she was.
She went anyway.
Chet, one of the maintenance crew, was sweeping the empty control room. Casually, she flipped through the flight records searching for Bryan’s entry… Ah, there it was—
“Whatcha looking for?”
What was she looking for? “Um…just checking.”
“For…?”
For what? Good question. Her sanity, maybe.
“Bryan is already back,” Chet said helpfully.
“Sure am,” came that deep voice she couldn’t stop thinking about.
She whirled and faced him. He wore his pilot’s uniform. His aviator sunglasses hung off his collar, and his mouth curved in that welcoming just-for-her smile. “Want to greet me properly?”
“Uh…” Just like that, every single thought flew right out of her head.
Why had she needed to see him? For the life of her, she couldn’t remember. She could hardly remember her name.
Bryan laughed softly, and mindless of their audience, tugged her close. Instead of the heated, passionate, wild, out-of-control kiss Katie half expected, he tucked her in tight to his body and simply hugged her. “Missed you, too,” he whispered, and nodding to Chet, he led her out of the room.
“I did not miss you,” she said, stiffly.
“Okay.”
“I didn’t.”
He turned her to face him. He was grinning, the jerk. “You were looking for my flight plan.”
“So?”
“So…you want me.” His eyes went hot. “I want you back.”
Her resistance deserted her. “Look, Bryan, it’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is. Spend tonight with me, Katie. Let’s ring in Christmas Day together.”
“That’s for New Year’s. The ringing.”
“Okay, we can do it again next week. Say yes. Let’s banish your Christmas curse and have a great time while doing it.”
“You mean sleep together.”
“I didn’t say anything about sleeping,” he said wickedly.
“Bryan.”
His fingers lifted to caress her cheek, his gaze softened. “You’re nervous. I won’t hurt you, Katie.”
But he would. He could. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Come on, it’ll make Christmas morning special.”
“I…don’t have a present for you,” she said lamely. As if that was her only concern! She had a million of them! “I can’t think of anything in the world you could want that you don’t already have.”
His eyes darkened, and for a moment she thought he was going to say you.
How silly that would be. This man could have anyone, anyone at all.
“No presents,” he said quietly. “No pressure. Just you and me.”
“Bryan—”
The intercom buzzed. Katie was needed at the front desk for a “disturbance.”
Saved by the bell from her own hormones.
Bryan followed her.
Two of their biggest clients waited for her, Rocky and Teddy. They’d been both best friends and enemies for nearly sixty years. Short, chunky and balding, with matching deep squint lines from long days in the cockpit, not to mention identical perpetual scowls, they could have been twins separated at birth, except for the fact that Rocky had lily-white skin and Teddy was African American.
They never agreed on anything, unless it was how much they detested everyone else. Both of them held envelopes and glared at her as she came closer.
“Merry Christmas Eve, gentlemen,” she said. “Is there a problem?”
“You betcha, little girl,” Rocky grumbled, waving his envelope, which Katie recognized as the monthly statement she’d recently sent out in the mail. “You charged me the going rate for fuel last month.”
She didn’t understand the problem until Teddy grinned. “I got the favored customer discount.” His amusement dissolved as he, too, waved his bill. “But I got charged full price for tie-down fees, and missy, I never get charged full price.”
“I didn’t get charged full price there.” Rocky beamed. “Because I got your preferred customer discount.”
“You—” Teddy’s face turned beet red as he grabbed for Rocky’s bill, but Rocky lifted it high over his head, chortling as the portly Teddy leaped up and down like a bullfrog, trying to grab it. Rocky wheezed with amusement, coughing from his forty year old cigar habit as if he intended to lose a lung.
Bryan grinned at the spectacle, and when Katie glared at him, he only laughed. “They’ll get it out of their systems in a minute,” he told her. “Once they get in a good punch or two. Happens all the time.”
“Well, I can’t let them duke it out here,” she said firmly, thinking of insurance premiums and lawsuits.
“Katie—”
“I can handle this.”
“But—”
“Let me do my job,” she insisted. “Gentlemen!” When they didn’t appear to hear her, she reached over the counter for the envelopes, which were being waved by two greedy fists, high over the men’s heads as they danced up and down trying to outmaneuver each other.
“Katie, I could just—”
“No,” she said to Bryan over her shoulder. “Believe it or not, I can take care of this on my own.”
“I realize that, but if you’d just—”
“Please.” Envisioning two heart attacks, or even a stroke or two, Katie
reached out farther, but the counter hampered her. Teddy and Rocky weren’t just grabbing for their bills now, but actually starting to wrestle, and picturing the calamity when one of them clobbered the other, she became all the more alarmed. “Come on now, let’s settle this reasonably—”
That’s when Teddy slid in low and punched. Rocky evaded, and in a comical twist that rivaled any raunchy television wrestling show, Teddy swiveled with the follow-through that ended up going nowhere. He fell on his butt on the lobby floor. With an enraged bellow, he went for Rocky’s feet, wrapping his pudgy arms around them just as Katie leaned all the way over the counter and grabbed both envelopes. Her toes left the floor, making her gasp at the loss of balance. She felt Bryan grab her legs, heard his worried voice calling her name.
But naturally, as this day was not one of her best, she overcompensated for her leap up. And as the laws of physics state, what goes up, must come down.
So it was only a matter of a second or so after Rocky tumbled to the floor in a heap over Teddy that Katie lost the battle for balance.
She would have toppled headfirst over the side of the counter, except that Bryan held her legs.
So actually, the only thing that fell was her skirt.
Right around her ears.
As she hung there, held by Bryan, his arms around her thighs, his face only an inch from her proffered tush, her plain white serviceable underwear flashing him, she was fairly certain that nothing else could possible go wrong for the rest of the day.
Naturally, she was wrong about that, too.
Because that was the exact moment that Holly and Matt made their reappearance. No one seemed to notice that Holly’s lips were pleasantly swollen, or that Matt had untucked his shirt to cover the front of his pants.
Why should they, when the upside down, dress-flapping-in-the-breeze Katie easily stole the show?
11
BRYAN SHOULD HAVE followed his heart’s desire. He should have taken a bite out of Katie’s tight, curvy and oh-so-temptingly close rear end.
But he hadn’t, he’d actually followed society’s unspoken rule—do not bite a lady’s bottom unless invited to do so.
And now he was alone on Christmas morning.
Christmas mornings were typically pretty darn good for him. They had been all his life. For one thing, he was the baby of a very large family who believed in lots of love and laughter.
