All He Wants for Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  “Ah.” Jason appeared enlightened. Too enlightened. She hoped he knew she wasn’t serious about wanting to date someone wealthy. “The truth comes out. You want a rich man. Well, babe . . .” With a smoldering grin, he stepped nearer. He dipped his head to the side, gazing at her mouth. “I’ve got millions. Anytime you want it, you just come right here and get it.”

  Danielle wanted it, all right. She wanted him, as usual. Morning, noon, and night. Feeling her heart rate triple at their nearness, she inhaled. She looked up at Jason. The pull between them couldn’t possibly be as strong as it felt just then.

  Except it was. “I do want it. Where do I get it again?”

  Her teasing tone made his lips quirk in a fresh smile. Jason puckered up. “Right here,” he told her. “Right now.”

  “I don’t remember asking for a timetable.” Not when she was so busy savoring the anticipation between them. “As far as ‘right here’ goes, I’m a little confused. Do you mean your mouth? Or somewhere else? I thought I saw your lips move, but—”

  “Oh, the rest of me is interested, too. Believe me.”

  She did believe him. She was also intrigued by that “rest of him” business. Because from where she was standing, the rest of him looked fine. “Let’s start up here.” Gently, Danielle touched her mouth to his. She loved the feel of his lips against hers. “And we’ll just see where it goes from there.”

  “So slowly?” Jason stifled a frustrated moan. He kissed her again. “Let’s keep going. We don’t have time to dawdle.”

  “Oh yeah.” Feeling herself become twice as overheated in her fuzzy orange jacket and hat, Danielle sucked in another lungful of crisp, icy air. “You’re leaving soon. Well, maybe, since you’re the boss, you can find a way to fix that. Hmm?”

  She augmented her suggestion with another kiss. Responding instantly, Jason swept his hands over her jacket, over her shoulders, up to her hat. He clasped the back of her head, holding her closer and closer. Danielle opened her mouth wider. On a helpless moan of her own, she deepened their kiss. Ah. Yes.

  Kissing Jason was like everything she’d ever wanted. It was liberating, exciting, and very unexpected, all at once. It was fantastic . . . yet it always left her wanting more. Maybe it always would. Unless Jason really could find a way to stay longer.

  “With an inducement like that one,” Jason told her breathlessly, breaking off their kiss to rest his forehead against hers, “I’ll definitely find a way to get us more time.”

  “You could do that,” Danielle agreed blithely, not wanting to break the spell by demanding a promise he couldn’t keep. “Or we could just enjoy the time we have available right now.”

  Because, honestly, part of the appeal of being with Jason was that it was free of risk. If she hadn’t known he had to leave for the rest of his public-appearance tour the next day, she might have been hesitant to move as quickly as she had.

  Ordinarily, Danielle knew, she wouldn’t have allowed a new man to meet and spend time with her children as readily as this. She wouldn’t have allowed someone she’d been dating to move into her house, even temporarily. She wouldn’t have gotten caught up in kissing a man—in public!—so easily. She had, within seconds, become the new queen of Kismet public displays of affection.

  Hmm. Maybe she’d been a little too hard on Mark and Crystal. If they felt anywhere near the connection Danielle did with Jason, it was a miracle they ever got out of bed.

  “You’re right. Time’s wasting.” Jason squeezed her hand. He stepped away, then inhaled. He appeared to be mustering strength for . . . something. “We can’t just stand here kissing all day.”

  “We could sneak into the barn and keep kissing all day?”

  “Sounds good, but . . . no.” He squared his shoulders. “We have things to do together. Fun times to enjoy. A certain balky ten-year-old to find and get a puppy for.”

  Endearingly, Jason’s eyes gleamed with eagerness at the idea. Danielle loved that he wanted to be so generous. All the same, she had to say . . . “We’re not getting a puppy.”

  “But if Karlie would like it—” After mulling it over for all of a nanosecond, he nodded. “We should totally get a puppy.”

  “You’re not supposed to bribe children, remember?”

  “I’ve already committed a public scandal.” Jason shrugged. “How much worse could a simple bribe make things?”

  “I don’t want to find out.” He might not be dedicated to working things out with his board of directors, but Danielle was. “Let’s just nix the puppy idea and go on from there.”

  “Okay.” He scanned the skyline again, obviously considering other ideas. “Ten is too young for a sports car, right?”

  “Jason!”

  Another shrug. “The trouble with being ridiculously wealthy is that you lose all sense of proportion.”

  “I’ll say, you do.” The trouble with being kissed by a gazillionaire, she’d learned, was that it was difficult to quit. “Besides, if anyone needs a new car, it’s me.”

  “Really? Because if you’re in the market—”

  “Kidding. I don’t want you for your money.”

  “Everyone else does.”

  “Karlie doesn’t. She’s stubborn. Like her mother.”

  “You Sharpe women know how to keep a man on his toes.”

  “The truth is,” Danielle mused, “you don’t have to impress Karlie. She’s a tough nut to crack. Besides, you’ve already added Aiden and Zach to your fan club. That couldn’t have been easy.”

  Jason disagreed. “Aiden already invited me to have a sleepover in his room tonight, instead of sleeping with you.”

  Oh. She probably should have been focusing on the pertinent part of that statement—that her son had already awarded Jason the high honor of a sleepover invitation, something Aiden didn’t issue lightly—but Danielle couldn’t concentrate on that part at all. All she could do was imagine her, Jason, her comfy double bed with its Christmassy patterned flannel sheets . . . and all three of them in a ménage à trois to remember. If Jason slept in her room, Danielle mused, that would really convince her kids that she’d moved on—exactly the way their Dad had done with Crystal.

  Except with 100 percent less inane giggling and groping.

  “Well,” Danielle said, sidestepping the question of who was sleeping where for the moment, “Karlie is different. If you want to impress her, you’ll have to let her impress you.”

  “Huh?”

  “She’s the oldest. She likes to be the leader,” Danielle explained. “She likes to feel that she’s in charge of things.”

  “She probably is in charge of things. Older siblings rule!”

  Aha. Danielle grinned. “I forgot you’re the oldest, too. You have two younger sisters and a younger brother, right?”

  Jason nodded. “Jennifer, Janelle, and Jeremy. But they’ve always needed somebody like me to be in charge. They need me to take care of things. To lead by example. To blaze a trail.”

  “If you say so, Lewis and Clark.” It was ironic that Jason considered himself to be an exemplar in his personal life, when his work life seemed so uninspired. Maybe the problem was that he didn’t feel sufficiently needed at Moosby’s HQ? “All I’m saying is that, if you want to win over Karlie, you’re going to have to fall in line. You’re going to have to let her lead.”

  Jason seemed baffled by the very concept. “How?”

  Danielle thought about it. “Let Karlie teach you something. Let her show you something. Let her be the one in charge.”

  “Well, if we were in California right now, she could show me how well she can learn to surf,” Jason said in an obvious (and off the mark) attempt to tackle the idea. “Or scuba dive. Or paddle-board. Because I could absolutely teach Karlie how to—”

  “No. You’re supposed to be the student here.”

  “I’m not sure you’re right. That sounds wrong to me.”

  Danielle grinned. “Spoken like a true CEO.”

  At that, Jason f
rowned. “You think I’m a true CEO?”

  Confused by his suddenly fraught expression, Danielle tried to backpedal. “You head up a successful multinational corporation,” she pointed out. “You are, as they say, the boss.”

  “But I’m only the CEO because I have to be. Because without me holding the line, Mr. Moosby would lose everything.”

  Danielle blinked at him. “Alfred Moosby? The founder? Is he still involved with the company?” Moosby’s HQ had always tried to keep a low profile in the media—except when taking advantage of Jason’s charisma to stir up positive press. After going public, they’d downplayed the involvement of Moosby’s original—but less dazzling and youthful—entrepreneur. “I had the impression he retired years ago.”

  “He did retire. But he entrusted Moosby’s to me. He still cares what happens to it.” Jason broke off. He squinted across the snowy landscape toward the B&B. “I’ve got it!” he said. “Ice-skating! I’ve never been ice-skating. Hell, I’ve never even been roller-skating. Or Rollerblading. I’m probably terrible at it.” He brightened. “Karlie can teach me how to ice-skate!”

  “Um, I’m not sure you ought to do that.”

  But Jason was already gesturing toward the boys, to make Aiden and Zach join them. Excitedly, he grabbed Danielle’s hand.

  “She’s bound to feel like an expert,” he explained. “Because I’m going to look like the rank beginner I am.”

  It was gutsy, Danielle had to allow. Still, for a die-hard California man like him, maybe ice-skating wasn’t a genius idea.

  “If you break your leg,” she told him discouragingly, “you won’t be able to finish your Midwestern Moosby’s media tour.”

  Jason cheered up even more. “It’s a win-win!”

  Hmm. Maybe he had a point. A broken leg would be problematic and painful, of course. But it would also require an extended in-town recuperation period. Wouldn’t it?

  Also, did that mean Jason wanted to stay in Kismet awhile?

  No. She couldn’t hope for that. “Karlie is a really good ice-skater,” Danielle warned Jason as their foursome crossed the B&B’s glittering snowdrift-dusted grounds. “She’s taken figure-skating lessons for the past six years. She plays on Edna Gresham’s peewee ice-hockey team. She can do a double lutz!”

  “Sounds cool.” Jason kept going. “I can learn that.”

  “No, you can’t. It’s a toe-pick-assisted counter-clockwise jump. The best you could even hope for is a flutz. Even then—”

  “Look, I get it,” Jason said patiently. He glanced at the boys, making sure they followed. “Ice is hard. Skates are sharp. Falls are inevitable. But I like the sound of that flutz thing.”

  She didn’t want to say it, but . . . “A flutz is the cheater’s version. It’s not supposed to happen in correct figure skating.”

  “With a name like that? It sounds like fun!”

  “Of course it does. To you.”

  She didn’t mean to sound disapproving. But Danielle knew she did, thanks to the defensive glance Jason tossed her.

  Well, that was the story of their (admittedly transitory) relationship, wasn’t it? Danielle tried to be the voice of reason, while Jason went right on behaving irresponsibly.

  She sort of loved his enthusiasm, though. Especially since it was aimed at making her daughter feel content with things—specifically, with her mother moving on with dating.

  Tardily realizing that must be Jason’s motivation for all this, Danielle experienced a fresh wave of affection for him. No wonder people melted whenever Jason came near. He couldn’t help wanting to give people exactly what they needed—attention, praise, excitement . . . or, in her case, new hope for the future.

  “All I mean is,” she amended, “you ought to be careful.”

  “Or what?” Jason grinned. “I’ll get hurt?”

  “Yes!” It was unfathomable to her that someone wouldn’t want to do all they could to avoid being hurt. “Of course.”

  He only shrugged. “You can’t live life in a box.”

  That felt like a dig at her. At her “plan first, then plan again, then act, then feel haunted by regret” way of living.

  Well, Danielle couldn’t help that. She’d been hurt.

  Jason had obviously never invested himself in anything long enough or seriously enough to get similarly hurt. Which was nice for him, of course—and only made him an ever safer choice for a fling. A nice, jingle-bell-jangling, under-the-mistletoe fling.

  “Fine,” she agreed as they reached the B&B and clomped up its back porch steps in unison. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “You warned him, like, six different ways, Mom,” Zach informed her. “If he doesn’t get it by now, he’s an idiot.”

  “He’s not an idiot!” Aiden declared indignantly. “He knows all about fish and how awesome they are when they poop!”

  At that, Jason grinned. “See? My wingmen have my back.”

  “We’re your wingmen?” Zach asked. “That’s sick!”

  “I like wingmen,” Aiden said loyally. “They’re the best.”

  Danielle doubted her younger son had any idea what that meant. But his allegiance to his new buddy apparently ran deep.

  Despite her wariness, she couldn’t help liking that. Zach and Aiden’s reactions to Jason only proved that they would be okay when, someday, she decided to date in earnest. Until then...

  “Let’s warm up inside the B&B first,” Danielle suggested. “We can see the decorated Christmas trees”—The Christmas House boasted several different kinds and sizes of holiday evergreens situated around the property—“look at the snow globe collection, check out the gingerbread houses . . . maybe even have lunch in the B&B’s dining room. Every year, they decorate it with candles and fancy linens and dozens of snowy white amaryllis flowers.”

  Jason winked at her. “I know where I’m taking you for Christmas next year. Judging by the way you looked when you just described all that, The Christmas House is your Disneyland.”

  Snapped from her reverie, Danielle shook her head.

  The Christmas House wasn’t her Disneyland. It couldn’t be, because she—as a townie—was inured to all the holiday hoopla in Kismet. Even if she had begun feeling a little bit jollier lately.

  Also, Jason wouldn’t be in Kismet with her next year. He would be back to his regular life of traveling the world, making executive decisions, behaving like a playboy, getting into trouble . . . and not settling down with a small-town divorcée.

  This fantasy was going a little too far, all of a sudden.

  “Hey, I see Karlie!” Danielle waved toward the B&B’s parlor, where her daughter sat beneath a Christmas tree with a few other children. Digby the dachshund had flopped on her lap with his traditional holiday sweater on. “Let’s get this party started.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Jason tried not to feel bugged by the way Danielle had shut him down when he’d joked about taking her to The Christmas House next year. But he couldn’t help it. He did feel bugged.

  What kind of woman didn’t want to be treated to a special experience in a special place at Christmastime? What kind of woman didn’t want her dreams to come true, no matter how potpourri-scented and over-the-top they were? What kind of woman, most of all, wasn’t wowed by big, showy gestures?

  Those were his failsafe. Jason had always known, in the back of his mind, that he could use his millionaire card, if he ever needed to, to get the interest of almost any woman.

  Except Danielle.

  What use was his fortune if it didn’t even impress her?

  He knew damn well that she’d sidetracked him on purpose, too. She’d hustled him and the kids into the B&B’s parlor as though her snow boots were on fire, refusing to even entertain the idea of Christmas next year. Or the year after that. Or, you know, forever. Which was what was sounding pretty good to him.

  Not that an overblown attitude like that made sense. Clearly, all the sentimental Kismet coziness was getting to him, because Ja
son had never before felt so smitten with a woman. Even now, more than an hour after they’d all left The Christmas House together, he was proving his devotion by strapping ugly boots equipped with steel blades to his feet—all for the express purpose of making a good impression on Danielle’s daughter.

  This had better work, Jason told himself as he yanked his skates’ laces tighter. Because he was forgoing a whole lot of potential kissing with Danielle in order to bond with Karlie.

  Still, as he watched Karlie skate along the ice at Kismet’s outdoor rink in front of the old-fashioned white stone courthouse, Jason couldn’t help feeling sympathetic toward her. It wasn’t easy being a ten-year-old girl. Karlie reminded him of Jennifer and Janelle at the same age—all coltish arms and legs, messy braided hair, and uncertainty covered up with girlish bravado. He liked Karlie . . . but she didn’t want to like him.

  Wearing an affectedly blasé expression, Karlie skated past the bench where everyone else was getting ready. Jason couldn’t miss the hasty peek she cast them all, though. She didn’t want to be seen needing attention or confirmation of her skills. But, just like everyone else, she craved them. Seeing Karlie’s hopeful glance made him feel twice as determined to make this work.

  Beside him, Zach got up from the bench. Wearing his skates, he took a few careful steps on the rubberized mat bordering the space between the outdoor benches and the ice-skating rink.

  He stepped onto the ice. Several bigger kids almost veered into him. Jason leaped to his feet, worried about Zach. “Hey!”

  The kids missed him. Expertly, Zach pushed off.

  He swerved into a backward skate, then gave Jason a quizzical glance. Obviously, he’d overheard his alarmed shout.

  “Good job!” Jason held up both thumbs. “Keep it up!”

  Zach saluted him with one mittened hand, then skated away. Jason watched him for a second. Then the truth hit him.

  “Zach is on Edna Gresham’s peewee ice-hockey team, too, isn’t he?” Jason asked Danielle. “He wasn’t ever going to get mowed over by all those big kids out there. Or the adults.”