Romancing the Holidays: Twelve Christmas Romances - Benefits Breast Cancer Research

by Crista McHugh

  “Show woom!” Molly squealed in delight, and grabbed Dylan’s hand and tugged him through the kitchen and down the short hallway. Francie put the bread in the oven, then followed with Macy hanging onto her legs.

  Molly ran into her bedroom. “Mine Macy woom.”

  Francie blinked at the mess. Books, dolls, stuffed animals and various toys blanketed the carpet between the toddler beds. The room had been spotless when they’d left for the airport. It always amazed her at how quickly the house could go from clean to looking like a war zone. She supposed the girls took more after their messy father than they did her.

  Molly pointed across the chaos to the pink bed. The blankets and sheets hung halfway onto the floor, with part of the bare mattress showing. “My bed.” She pointed to the other bed that had yellow equally unmade bedding. “Macy bed.”

  Dylan turned to Francie and muttered, “Does it make me less of a man if those unmade beds are making me a bit OCD?”

  She laughed. “Who are you and what have you done with my husband?”

  He grinned back at her, white teeth flashing in his tanned face. “You can take a man out of the military, but you can’t take the military out of the man.”

  “Seriously, Dylan, if you’ve all of a sudden turned into a neat freak, I might have to keep you around.” Crap. Why had she said that? Dylan had made it very clear he wasn’t sticking around, and she’d agreed to his plan. She cleared her throat and started picking up some toys. “Girls, help Mommy clean up.”

  “Daddy help,” Molly said, tugging Dylan to the floor.

  After the bedroom no longer looked like Hurricanes Molly and Macy had blown through, Molly grabbed Dylan’s hand again. “Daddy woom,” she said, as if he’d never been in this house before. Of course, she wouldn’t remember that he had. She pulled him down the short hallway into the master bedroom, and pointed. “You bed.”

  Francie almost ran into Dylan’s back, he’d stopped so fast. “That’s new,” he said, nodding at the king-sized bed taking up most of the floor space.

  She wouldn’t tell him she’d ordered it after listening to the teensy tiny voice in her head that whispered their marriage had a chance. The old queen-sized mattress had always been a bit small for Dylan’s frame, and their bodies had constantly rolled into each other. And once their bodies touched, it led to more touching. Which had led to a serious lack of sleep for both of them. “I moved the queen bed to the spare room. It’s, um, where you’ll sleep,” she whispered, so the girls wouldn’t hear.

  The awkward moment stretched into a string of them, until Molly saved them again.

  “Kissmuss tee!” Molly grabbed Dylan’s hand. Macy peered up at him and blinked her wide brown eyes a few times. She still scowled, but at least she no longer hid behind Francie’s legs.

  The small artificial Christmas tree stood in front of the living room window. It was the only decoration she’d put up for the holiday. Francie caught Dylan’s amused smile as he looked at it.

  “I assume the girls decorated the tree?” he asked her.

  “Gee, how’d you guess?” All the ornaments hung on the bottom fourth of the tree, and all were bunched together near the front.

  “Wow!” Dylan said in an awestruck voice, kneeling in front of the girls. “Did you two decorate this yourself?”

  Molly clapped her hands. “Yes, yes.” Macy nodded and actually smiled.

  “I kept meaning to finish decorating it,” Francie whispered, “but I just couldn’t bring myself to change it.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” he said, grinning. “It’s perfect. I hope you took some pictures so we’ll remember this.”

  He’d said we.

  For the briefest of moments, she let herself fantasize about next year. The four of them decorating the tree together, while Christmas music played in the background. As she and Dylan drank hot, spiked wassail before falling into bed together.

  She let out a loud breath.

  She had no idea if they’d be together next Christmas, at least not in the way she wanted. Dylan had made it very clear when he’d proposed that their marriage would only be temporary.

  “Speaking of Christmas,” he said, clearing his throat then rubbing the day-old stubble on his strong chin, and for a moment Francie panicked that she’d said her fantasies out loud, but realized he was just making an awkward segue.

  She held up a hand. “I really don’t mind going with you up to Winter Lake. I mean, it’ll be a little awkward spending time with your family when… Well, you know.” A blush crept onto her face. “But it’s okay. I can handle it for one day.”

  “Yeah, about that…”

  The buzzer went off in the kitchen. “Bread’s ready.” She motioned for him to follow her. “Go wash your hands, girls.” The twins raced into the kitchen and pulled the stepstool in front of the sink. Francie turned to Dylan. “Sorry. You were saying?”

  “They know we’re married.”

  She stopped with her hand over the kitchen timer on the stove. “What? How…?” She turned it off, then glanced over to the sink where the girls washed their hands side by side. “I thought we weren’t going to tell them.” She failed to keep the annoyance and accusation out of her voice. She stepped up behind the girls and made sure their hands actually got clean, then handed them a towel to share. “Could you take the bread out?” she asked Dylan. “Potholders are in the drawer to the left of the stove.”

  “I had to tell my mom,” he said as he opened the oven and pulled out the steaming bread. “She’s, um, sick.”

  Her gaze flew back to him. “Wait. What? Your mom is sick? Do you mean…?”

  He nodded. “Breast cancer. She’s doing the whole chemo and radiation thing.”

  She pressed a hand over her heart. She’d been through this with her own mother. Cancer had taken her last year, right before Dylan had been deployed and right before they’d gotten married. “Will she be,” she swallowed, forcing the words out, “okay?”

  Francie knew he must be pushing aside all the worst-case scenarios in his mind, trying not to think of her mother and how that ended, not allowing himself to go there. His time in the Afghan desert had probably taught him how to compartmentalize. “They caught it early, so her chances are good, but Pete told me the treatment’s a total bitch.”

  Oh, boy, did she remember those days with her mom. She wouldn’t wish that treatment on anyone. “Dylan, I’m so sorry. Your mom’s strong and healthy. I’m sure she’ll be fine.” But that’s what she’d thought when her mom had gotten sick, too. No. Her mom had an aggressive form of lung cancer. Breast cancer, while still horrible, was more treatable. At least that’s what she would keep telling herself, for Dylan’s sake.

  She ran her hand down his arm, meeting his eyes. Worry and fear burned in the pale blue depths. “She’ll be okay,” she said again.

  She got the girls settled into their booster seats then grabbed some bowls from the cabinet above the crockpot. “Would you mind cutting the bread?” She told him where the cutting board and knives were. “But what does her illness have to do with you telling them that we got, um, married?” She ladled out two big bowls of spaghetti and meatballs for her and Dylan, and two pint-sized bowls for the twins.

  He slid the hot bread out of the foil wrapping. “When I told her you were coming with me and the girls for Christmas, she asked when I planned to make an honest woman out of you. She said it really bothered her that you and I weren’t married—you know how moms are—and how it would relieve so much of her stress if we were, and it just, ah, popped out.”

  Hmm. She could sorta see that. When her mom was sick, she’d have told her anything if it made her happy. She cut the girls’ pasta and meatballs into bite-size pieces.

  Uh oh.

  “Wait. So she thinks we’re married married.”

  “Well…” He had the decency to blush. “Yeah. She does. I assume the whole family does. And they, um, are expecting us there tomorrow.”

  She blinked and
stared at him, slowly realizing the implication. “Tomorrow?” Gulp. “So, that’s three days of pretending to be married married.”

  Somewhat dazed and sick to her stomach, Francie set the bowls down in front of the girls. They immediately dug in. She didn’t bother asking them to wait or say grace first. “Your family thinks everything’s all hunky dory with us.”

  “Yep.”

  Wonderful. Just…wonderful. “We should have just told them the truth from the get go.”

  “If we’d told them, somehow my mom would have finagled a big ceremony for us,” he said, bringing the sliced bread over on a plate and setting it in the middle of the table. “She would never believe we married for practical reasons and not, um, love.”

  The knife twisted in Francie’s heart. There it was. Clear as the mountain air in Idaho. Any hope she might have clung to that he’d changed his mind about their relationship while he was overseas just crashed and burned.

  Chapter Two

  Francie stared up at the dark ceiling, unable to sleep. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go to Winter Lake with Dylan. No way.

  Pretending to be in love with him would be the easy part, because it wouldn’t be pretend. But if he somehow found out she really was in love with him, he’d gently scold her and remind her of their agreement, that their marriage was only temporary. He’d be forced to tell her he didn’t love her back.

  Just as her father had when he’d left.

  She rolled to her side and curled up in the fetal position with her pillow. She couldn’t go to Winter Lake. Being in the same house with Dylan right now and trying to act like she wasn’t in love with him was hard enough.

  Especially knowing he was in bed just twenty or so feet away, in the very next room.

  Did he still sleep naked?

  Shit. Now she was picturing him naked. Just on the other side of that wall. Okay, so she’d been picturing him naked since the moment she’d laid eyes on him at the airport. She pounded her pillow. Her pulse raced and her skin burned, and she squirmed under the comforter to ease the aching need between her legs. She pulled a Macy and squeezed her eyes shut, as if that would make the image of naked Dylan go away.

  Naked Dylan, naked Dylan, naked Dylan.

  Dammit!

  She pulled the pillow over her head and thought about her To Do list for tomorrow: train two clients in the morning; finish packing for Winter Lake; wrap the last gifts for Dylan’s family; load up the car—

  Naked Dylan, naked Dylan, naked Dylan.

  She sat up, her heart racing, her body so ripe for sex she was about to burst. He’d been in Afghanistan for nine long months. If she was horny, he had to be absolutely dying. She’d be doing him a favor by having sex with him, right? And he was her husband, whether he wanted to stay in that role or not. And wives were supposed to have sex with their husbands, right?

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and paused to think about it again. Nope. Don’t think. She just needed to do before she exploded. Sure, she could use one of her sex toys, but who needed toys when the real thing was so gloriously naked almost within touching distance.

  She stared at the wall separating their bedrooms, took a deep breath, and stood. She padded across the floor and quietly entered the hallway.

  If he was asleep, she’d just turn around and head back to her room, and hope her sex toys had working batteries. The door squeaked softly as she pushed it open and stepped into his room.

  “Everything okay?” came Dylan’s deep voice from the dark.

  She jumped. “It’s fine.” Liar! I’m horny as hell and can’t sleep, but otherwise all is good. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  “Ah, no.” His voice sounded amused and a bit strained. “To be honest with you, I’ve been trying to talk myself into heading to your room and begging for sex. How pathetic does that make me?”

  She laughed softly. “No more pathetic than me, I suppose.”

  “That’s why you’re here?” The streetlight in the cul-de-sac filtered through the blinds, illuminating the room just enough for her to see him scoot into a sitting position against the light-colored sheets and comforter.

  “You sound surprised.” She crossed the room and slipped into bed beside him, the sheets already warm from his body heat. At least she didn’t have to worry about him rejecting her. If he’d turned her away, her body would’ve burst into flames and disintegrated into a pile of burning embers. Poof, she’d be gone and he’d be raising the girls by himself, all because he wouldn’t make love to her.

  “Things are kind of, um, weird between us,” he said, reaching out to slide his arm around her waist and pull her against him. “I didn’t think you’d want to.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  A feral sound came out of his throat as he flipped her onto her back and straddled her. Yup. He still slept naked. Gloriously, hugely naked. And he was very happy to see her. Francie couldn’t stop staring.

  He noticed. “Baby, my dick’s been hard for you since I stepped off that plane and saw you in your sexy ass shoes.”

  “You’ve always had the most romantic bedroom talk,” she muttered, glad she wasn’t the only one who’d been suffering.

  He tugged her shirt over her head and tossed it aside. The cool air pebbled her nipples.

  “I’d ask you why the change of heart,” he murmured, looking down at her. Even in the dim light, she saw the lust on his face. “But frankly I don’t give a flying fuck why you’re here, just that you’re here.” He dipped his head and sucked a nipple into his hot mouth.

  Francie gasped at the wonderful sensation. “You were serving our country in a hell hole for nine months,” she said in a breathy voice. Mmm, that felt good. “This is the least I can do to repay you.”

  “So doing me is your patriotic duty?” He looked up at her and grinned.

  She returned his grin and pulled his head back to her chest. “Something like that.”

  He chuckled. “I can live with that.” He kissed his way down her torso and paused to dip his tongue into her belly button as he tugged her panties slowly, slowly down her legs.

  Francie’s breathing skipped, realizing his plan.

  He glanced up at her, grinned, then lifted the sheet and ducked under it. She squeezed her eyes in anticipation.

  “Hi Daddy.”

  Francie gasped and Dylan bolted upright, his head popping free of the sheet. “Holy shit!” he barked. Her sentiment exactly.

  Both girls stood on his side of the bed. Francie scrambled to cover herself with the sheet as Dylan did the same, scooting up next to her.

  “Hey, ah, girls,” he said to their daughters.

  She bit back a smile. “Molly, Macy, what are you doing awake?” She reached for her discarded T-shirt and pulled it over her head.

  “Miss Daddy,” Molly said.

  Francie could practically see Dylan’s heart turn inside out at those two little words. “Which one said that?” he muttered to Francie from the corner of his mouth.

  She grinned. That’s right. He couldn’t tell them apart yet. “Molly,” she whispered.

  “Daddy missed you, too, baby.” He picked her up and deposited her on top of the comforter between him and Francie. He turned back to Macy, who still hadn’t spoken a word directly to him. She scurried around the bed and crawled up from Francie’s side, then climbed next to her sister.

  “Sleep your bed,” Molly said, not asking but telling, as she lifted up the sheet and both girls crawled beneath it.

  Dylan scrambled out of bed faster than Francie had ever seen him move. He snatched up his boxers and tugged them on in warp speed.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered across the bed. “They’re too young to remember this. It won’t traumatize them to see you naked for a few seconds.” It is killing me, however.

  “Yeah, well, it’ll traumatize me.” He crawled into bed and lay back on the pillows.

  He kissed the top of Molly’s head. Francie kissed Macy’s. Her h
air smelled of baby shampoo—one of the best smells in the world.

  Francie remained sitting up. She hadn’t planned on staying in Dylan’s bed all night; she’d planned to get some quick nookie then go back to her own bed. But with the girls here…

  Macy grabbed her shoulder and tugged her down to the pillows. “Come, Mommy.”

  “Not tonight, Mommy won’t,” Dylan muttered.

  She reached over the girls and slapped his arm. “Thanks for rubbing it in,” she muttered back.

  Dylan adjusted the covers over the four of them as Molly jabbered on about ice cream and kitty cats and a whole bunch of stuff they couldn’t decipher. And for the first time since Dylan had come home, Francie had a small taste of what their family would be like if their marriage was ‘real.’

  “Daddy?”

  Dylan met Francie’s eyes, clearly just as surprised as she was that Macy spoke to him.

  “Yes, sweetie?” He rolled to his side.

  Macy crawled to her knees, reached over Molly, and cupped Dylan’s face in her chubby little hands, her face earnest.

  Francie expected her to say she loved him or something equally precious and heartwarming.

  Instead, she said, “Holy shit,” kissed him, then snuggled next to her sister and closed her eyes.

  Francie knew from Dylan’s groan that he’d learned his first lesson about toddlers—they repeat whatever you say.

  * * * *

  Eighties rock music blasted from speakers hung by the ceiling, and the clanking sounds of barbells hitting the floor and muscle heads grunting from the free weights area echoed through the nearly empty gym. Holiday weeks were notoriously slow.

  Francie handed her client a white hand towel. She and Darlene had been working together for almost six months. Darlene had lost more than ten pounds, regained a lot of self-confidence, and Francie had gained a friend.

  “I know you don’t like to talk about yourself much…” Darlene wiped the sweat from her face. “But you don’t seem very excited to have your husband home.”

  The “husband” who was still sound asleep when Francie’d left for work this morning. He looked so peaceful—it was probably his first good night’s sleep in months—she hadn’t had the heart to wake him and leave him with the girls. So she’d left him a note telling him she was at work, and brought the girls with her. They were in the gym’s daycare right now. Darlene was her last appointment this morning, then she’d head back home. To Dylan. Then Winter Lake. Aka her worst nightmare.