by Mary Leo
She shook her head. “Umm, not yet. I’m still not sure—”
He was standing right in front of her now. “Of what? That I’ll betray your trust?”
She stood, and turned her back to him, walking out of the room. “Worse. That you’ll betray my love.”
He hurried over to her, took her by the arm, spun her around to face him and kissed her as if she were already his. As if they had always been lovers. Just holding her in his arms aroused him. Sent his pulse racing. When their tongues touched a fire smoldered deep inside him. He held her tighter, closer, needing to feel her body against his, wanting her more than he ever thought possible.
They separated, staring in each other’s eyes. “I could never hurt you, Jenny. You’ve got to know that.”
Her gaze momentarily fell to his nose, but Rudy knew he was telling the absolute truth. There would be no tells this time. No red nose to give his lying thoughts away.
Her face beamed with delight. “I believe you.”
Their lips met again, this time with more intensity, and more passion. She pulled away, guiding him toward the stairway that led to her attic bedroom. When they reached the stairs, she walked up backwards, pulling him along by the front of his gray sweater.
“We still haven’t found the book. That was our bargain.” She said it with that teasing little grin Rudy knew so well from when they were kids. It always meant she was thinking of something devious, something wily.
“You said it was in the attic. We’re going up there to look.”
He quickly moved up to her step and kissed her, again. A softer kiss this time, more romantic than dirty.
She turned away from him for a moment and walked up the final three steps. Her round hips swaying seductively as she went. “We can look while we’re in bed.” she said as she slipped out of her red T-shirt, revealing a black lace bra.
“Oh yeah. There will be plenty of looking.” He pulled off his sweater, and started working on unfastening his jeans.
“I have a surprise for you, Rudy Christopher Raindear.”
They were in her bedroom now, facing each other.
“I love surprises.”
He slid his arms around her waist, his hands caressing her silky skin. She wiggled out of her jeans and they fell to the ground. She stepped out of them. “You’re going to love this,” she told him. “If you even remember. I bought these especially for you.”
She turned in his arms. He let her go, watching as she swayed her butt showing off the cutest pair of red ruffled panties he’d ever seen.
“I don’t believe it. Finally! I used to drift off to sleep dreaming of those panties. But how—”
“Shh,” she said, holding a finger over his lips. “From the first time I saw you in the bar, I hoped this moment would arrive. Now that it’s here, I’m a little scared.”
He took a deep breath and let it out. “Me too.”
They kissed again and fell back on her bed with Jenny on top of him, landing on one of his grandmother’s needlepoint pillows. Something immediately jabbed his back. It felt hard and uncomfortable.
“Are you okay?” Jenny asked.
“No. Something’s poking me. What do you have on this bed, rocks?”
“Just some of your grandmother’s pillows.”
It was as if they both came to the same conclusion at the same time. “I’ll get a pair of scissors,” Jenny said jumping out of bed.
Rudy rolled over slipping the pillow out from under him, and felt for the square object in the center of the ornate pillow with Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer staring up at him.
Of course!
Jenny returned with the scissors and sat on the bed, cross legged, all full of little-girl-giggles and fun. As if she were opening a present on Christmas morning.
“Do you know how beautiful you are?” he told her, sweeping a strand of hair off her lovely face.
She leaned over and gently kissed him. “Thank you, but let’s open this. I’m so excited.”
Very carefully, Jenny cut the side of the pillow open, and pulled out the matting first, then she pulled out a book and held it out, reading, “T'was the Night Before Christmas.”
“She hid a Christmas poem book inside a pillow?”
“Your grandma was a clever woman.” Jenny opened the book, and fanned the pages until she came to a cutout of the remaining pages in the center, and tucked inside was a small, ancient looking journal entitled: Cookies Santa Loves.
“I knew it was here!” Jenny said, and jumped up on the bed clutching the book to her chest while she spun around using the mattress as a trampoline.
Rudy watched with complete delight. He’d never seen anyone so happy. He’d forgotten what that feeling could look like. Before long he was up doing a little dance on the bed with her, careful to avoid hitting his head on the slanted ceiling.
Moments later they were in each other’s arms, touching, tasting and caressing until Rudy thought he wasn’t going to make it through this alive. She had gently tossed the book to the floor, along with their underwear as they slid down onto the bed, the heat reaching a fever pitch inside Rudy’s body. He wanted nothing more than to love her, love every inch of her and for the first time in his life, Jenny Bells was willing to love him back.
Chapter Four
Making love to Rudy was like floating through the air on a silk cloud. Every touch, every kiss felt like heaven. Jenny’s fingers lightly danced across his ripped chest as his hands moved across her body making her arch her back in delight while she lay under him.
“You’re like a restless cat, Jenny Bells,” he said, and gently slid his fingers between her breasts, down her flat belly and stopped between her legs, lingering there, teasing with his touch.
“This cat wants her milk,” she whispered.
He let out a deep groan and she knew he would enter her now. She wrapped her legs around him as he made the first gentle thrust, going deep inside her. She was on fire as they moved with the rhythm of pleasure, deeper, and quicker, their bodies slippery and slick with sweat.
They moved like this, faster, tighter, even deeper until Rudy called out her name and the shudder of climax ripped through each of them releasing years of desire.
When they were spent, neither moved as minutes ticked by. Tears streamed down the sides of Jenny face and dotted the pillow as she tried to control her emotions, scared that Rudy would leave again. That he would break her heart, just as he had once before.
This time, she didn’t know if she could survive it.
He rolled off of her, and pulled the blankets up over them, noticing that she was crying.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
She turned toward him. “Not yet.”
He slid a strand of hair off her face. “I told you I would never hurt you, and I meant it.”
She smiled, and nodded. “I know. I’m okay. Really. Just a little emotional.”
“Wow. I’m better than I think.”
She gave him a nudge, “You wish,” then she snuggled up beside him. She wanted nothing more than to sleep in his arms for the rest of the night, and if she had it her way, the rest of their lives.
***
For the next few days Rudy and Jenny rarely separated. Not only did they spend each night making love, but they spent each day at Sugar Plums, baking and selling cookies, cakes and bread. Rudy hadn’t felt this happy since he was a kid hanging out with his grandparents.
At the same time, the town started to perk up. The Santa over at Always Christmas was drawing in kids from all the neighboring towns, and because of it, the department store was doing more business than it had in several years. At one point there was a line out the front door and around the corner to see Santa, who just happened to be Rudy’s friend, Kris. It seemed that no one else knew Kris was under all that white hair and red Santa suit, and Rudy wasn’t about to give the secret away. It was fun watching all the kids line up just like they had when he and Kris were growin
g up.
Never would Rudy have ever imagined Kris as a department store Santa, but there he was, ho-ho-hoing and doing a mighty fine job of it.
The town square was perking up as well, thanks to Nick who was on some kind of repair mission. Rudy didn’t know what had gotten into him, but Nick seemed to inspire everyone in the town to help. At one point, Rudy had gotten out there and helped clean up some of the rubble that had built up in the last few years. Even the weather seemed to be cooperating with the season, and had turned downright cold.
Gramps was loving it.
In the spirit of the season, Rudy hired a couple of the local house painters to spruce up the gazebo, and to hang more twinkling lights around the square. The place was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Now if it would just cool down enough to snow.
The town was changing right before Rudy’s eyes, and he was changing right along with it. He even spruced up the town’s Webpage, announcing Santa’s favorite cookies were made at Sugar Plums and Gramps had already gotten so many orders the three of them could barely keep up.
The recipe book not only contained recipes that dated back to the early eighteen hundreds, it contained letters from the very first baker in the family, Stan Raindear who claimed to have met Santa one Christmas Eve while he was all alone in the bakery.
A fact Rudy never knew about and had to admit, believing in all this magical stuff was getting easier to do, especially since his own encounter with Santa.
“Taste this and tell me what you think,” Gramps said as the two of them stood in the back of the bakery surrounded with trays of cookies stacked on the large cooling racks, three large ovens and long wooden tables covered in a fine mist of flour from rolling out cookie dough earlier that morning. It was still early in the morning, before the sun was up. Too early for Rudy, but he’d adjusted. Jenny had helped with that adjustment waking him with kisses and more often than not, sweaty, dirty sex. He could get used to this lifestyle with no problem.
Rudy took a bite of the bar-shaped cookie decorated with vanilla frosting and dusted with silver sprinkles.
“Anise, vanilla, and I want to say there’s more anise in the frosting. Am I right?”
Gramps nodded, smiling.
“I haven’t tasted this cookie since I was a little boy. Brings back a lot of memories. It’s really good. Different.”
“It was your gram’s favorite. I ain’t baked it since she passed. Your gram didn’t think people would like this here cookie, so we never baked it for our customers. I couldn’t remember what was in it, and didn’t care much that I didn’t. You changed that, son. You and Jenny. She’s a special girl. I hope you’ve come to know that.”
“I do,” Rudy told him. “Very special.”
“Then this whole thing between you two is real?”
“Yes, Gramps, it’s about as real as it can get.”
His grandfather was staring at him making Rudy uncomfortable, wondering if for some reason his nose was turning red again.
“Okay then. I don’t see nothing happening to your nose, so you must be telling me the truth. And if that’s the case, I got something I want to tell both of you. Where is she?”
“Out front, working on the display cases.”
“Then get her back here, son. This can’t wait,” Gramps said and sat down hard on high metal stool.
Rudy walked out front. The shop wasn’t officially open yet, but customers were already lining up. Rudy could hardly believe it.
“Gramps wants to talk to us. Can you come on back?”
“Sure,” she said, and she joined Rudy giving him a little kiss on the cheek. She wore the new red apron with the Sugar Plums logo emblazoned on the front. Rudy had commissioned a local tailor who was more than happy to fill the rush order for a dozen aprons.
When they reached the back, Gramps started right in. “I have’ta say, I was thinking this day was never gonna come, but now that it’s here, I’m a happy man. Your gram would’a been happy, too, but I’m sure she’s lookin’ down with a smile on her pretty face. Your gram was so pretty, just like Jenny here. Pretty and sweet.” He smiled over at Jenny, and Rudy noticed the tears already staining Jenny’s cheeks. He put an arm around her and pulled her in tight.
Gramps continued. “Yesterday, I went over to the bank and got the paperwork going to turn over this here business and this property to the both of you. Equal shares. The way you two been carrying on, I’m thinking it’s just a matter of time before my boy here pops the question. I don’t know how much longer I got, so it’s time to turn this business over to the two people I know who will keep it going just like all us Raindear have done for generations. Baking’s in our blood. And even if you deny it, it’s still there like a virus that won’t go away.
“All you two gotta do is go over to the bank and sign them papers and everything is yours. The only thing I want is to be able to stay right here until it’s my time. I ain’t moving anywhere where the winter’s the same as the summer, son. Sorry, but them’s the terms. You two can take ‘em or leave ‘em. But you better do it fast, cause them Smart-Mart folks are trying to buy up this whole town and turn it into some kind of freak show, with everything imported and nothing made right here, locally. They offered to take my recipes and have the cookies made in China of all places! My cookies, made someplace else. I know you don’t want that to happen, son.”
Rudy’s nose itched.
His phone rang. When he pulled it out of his pocket to look at who was calling, of course, it was his contact at Smart-Mart.
Rudy sneezed five times in a row.
Jenny pulled away.
Gramps stood, a look of total disbelief on his face.
For the first time in days, Rudy’s nose throbbed. “It’s not what you think,” he said.
“No,” Jenny said. “It’s worse.”
She walked away from him, through the bakery and out the front door leaving the sound of the jingle bells ringing in Rudy’s ears as a throng of customers marched into the bakery.
Chapter Five
That evening, Rudy paced inside his hotel room, trying to figure out what he should do. He had been so wrapped up in Jenny and the bakery that he’d completely forgotten about his dinner meeting with the execs from Smart-Mart. Which, only a few days ago, would have seemed impossible to forget. Yet, that was the cold hard truth.
The meeting had completely slipped his mind.
How could this happen?
He’d been working non-stop for almost an entire year trying to put all the pieces together to close the deal, and because of sex—unbelievable, earth-moving, to-the-moon sex—and his grandfather’s cookies the whole mega-deal could now potentially fall through.
He had it bad: for Jenny, Gramps and the whole damn town.
Not only had he forgotten about the dinner, but he’d forgotten to send a driver to the airport to bring the execs back to town, an unforgivable mistake. Now they were here, put-off with having to hire their own transportation, staying in the same damn Inn with Rudy, probably right down the hall, and he had no idea what he was going to say or do with these people.
By now he figured the entire town knew what he was up to, and were most likely banding together to form a protest in the square, or better still, to hang him at dawn. But when Rudy looked down at the square from his window, all he saw was his friend Nick and a few other locals setting up some chairs for tomorrow’s Christmas Eve festivities.
I should be out there helping.
But he knew, at this point, no one would want his help. He was a traitor to his own home town, the Benedict Arnold of North Pole, Maine.
How would he ever live it down?
Impossible.
His parents would, of course, be proud if he could still manage to pull off the deal. He’d be a hero in their eyes, a true entrepreneur, his own man.
Fortunately, at this point, he didn’t care what his parents thought.
He turned away from the window and threw himself across th
e bed, disgusted by his entire adult life. All he had ever cared about since he was five years old was Jenny Bells, and his grandfather’s bakery. When did he lose his dreams, lose the magic?
There was no getting around it, he was in deep reindeer shit, and the only way out was to lie through his cherry-red nose.
***
“You have to trust me on this,” Rudy told Jenny as she stood behind the counter at Sugar Plums.
“I don’t have to do anything. Especially not with you,” Jenny snapped back.
“You tell him, girlfriend!” Holly McClaussen said, picking up a phone order. She stood next to Rudy at the counter. All three of them had gone to school together and Holly’s mom used to baby-sit for Rudy after school until he was almost ten years old.
He turned to Holly. “You’re not helping.”
“Why should I help? I heard what you’ve been doing, Rudolph Christopher Raindear, buying up all our property to sell it to Smart-Mart. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“I am, and I want to do something about it, but I need Jenny’s help.”
Jenny stared at him. “I don’t know how you’re controlling it, but your nose isn’t turning red anymore. Maybe even Santa gave up on you.”
“No, he didn’t. At least I don’t think he did. I’m telling the truth this time.”
Jenny boxed up Holly’s cookies, a Christmas Spice cake, bagged two loaves of French bread then placed everything on the counter and rang up the total on the register. “We’re busy here. I can’t talk to you now. I have to close up for the night.”
