12 Gifts for Christmas

by Various

  “I’m almost finished paying off the hospital and funeral bills,” she said with a shrug that made light of the crippling debts she’d worked two and three part-time jobs to pay off while struggling to complete her studies.

  The offer of a scholarship to Trinity College had come at just the right time. Sophie had jumped at it, hoping a change in scenery would heal the gaping hole in her heart.

  Ireland had eased some of the pain, but the holidays always hit hard. Very hard. Especially Christmas, when the campus emptied and everyone went home to their families. Trying not to think about the bleak days ahead, Sophie finished with a deliberate change of subject.

  “Waitressing at the Bull and Crown pays for life’s little extras. Now tell me about this business proposition you mentioned.”

  Clint leaned his shoulders against the high-backed oak booth. Despite the relaxed posture, he was still highly attuned to the instincts that had kept him alive through years of undercover work. Those instincts had gone on red alert when the tumble-haired waitress suddenly lost her Irish accent.

  Even after her explanation, he was still suspicious, so he decided to make a few calls when he got back to his hotel. If she checked out and she was who she said she was, he could sure as hell use her expertise.

  “I want to make the most of my visit to Newgrange,” he said slowly.

  That was certainly true. With any luck, the early-morning excursion would bag an international art thief and, through him, the drug czar Clint was determined to put away. To pull it off, though, he would need to sound at least semiarticulate about megalithic art. Which meant he needed an expert.

  “I want to understand the tomb’s history and that of the people who constructed it. If you have time after you get off work, perhaps you could instruct me. I’ll pay whatever the going rate is at Trinity for private tutoring.”

  “Would y’now?”

  She considered the offer, her lips pursed. Clint caught himself wondering how they’d taste. How she would taste. A sudden tightening below his belt had him rethinking his offer at the same moment she accepted it.

  “As it happens, I finish up at six this evening. We could work here at the pub. Or …” Frowning, she glanced around the jam-packed establishment. “Or at the library at Trinity College. It’s just a few blocks from here and it stays open until midnight, even during the holiday break.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “All right, then. Meet me in the small reading room in the Library for Ancient Books and Manuscripts. Six-thirty.”

  When she rose and made her way back to the bar, Clint pulled his gaze from her swaying hips and told himself it was possible for him to stay focused. Ignore this woman’s sexy curves. Tune out her musical lilt and blind himself to her full red lips.

  Or not.

  Clint realized his mistake shortly after they reconvened in a secluded alcove tucked away in a corner of the book-lined reading room some hours later.

  Clint had used the intervening time to check out Sophie’s story. Hadn’t taken long. Sophie Hawthorne’s life was easily traceable through the FBI’s access to public databases. Thanks to academic databases, he’d also skimmed a short summary of her master’s thesis. He was prepared for a session with an acknowledged scholar.

  He wasn’t prepared for the punch to his gut when she breezed in with a stack of books in her arms, her cheeks pink from the cold. Or the hip-hugging jeans and clingy sweater she revealed when she shed her well-worn pea jacket. Or the distracting way she hooked her hair behind one ear, leaving only a loose tendril to feather her cheek when they delved into the books.

  Worse—much worse—were her ready smile and sparkling green eyes. The woman’s engaging personality proved every bit as seductive as her trim curves and astounding knowledge of the great stone megaliths that dated back to one of the earliest eras of human history.

  Ireland and Britain were rife with these monuments, Clint learned as Sophie dived eagerly into the subject. Huge tombs, massive altars, mysterious circles such as Stonehenge and the Stones of Stenness in Scotland—many decorated with symbols and carvings that had to be protected against vandals and souvenir collectors.

  “You wouldn’t believe how these idiots chip away at history,” Sophie huffed. “I caught two of them myself. They got into the ancient documents section here at the library by passing themselves off as visiting scholars. Took me all of thirty seconds to realize how little the goms knew of eighth-century illuminated manuscripts. Another thirty to figure out they planned to rip off a page for a personal trophy!”

  At that point, two thoughts battled for supremacy in Clint’s head. The first was that Sophie Hawthorne already had more experience nailing would-be antiquities thieves than he did. The second …

  Dammit! Did the woman have any idea how enticing she looked with her emerald eyes so indignant and her mouth all pouty like that?

  Hunger for her hit like a punch to the gut. Gritting his teeth, Clint ignored it and forced himself to focus on a drawing depicting the layout of the tomb.

  “Don’t you need those?” Sophie asked, nodding to the glasses tucked in his jacket pocket.

  Well, hell! He’d been so distracted by the woman he’d forgotten his cover.

  “Only for fine print,” he lied.

  She shrugged and went back to the task at hand. Clint took in the facts and dates and dimensions … until Sophie leaned closer to point out a prehistoric spiral design in one of her books.

  Her breast pressed his arm. Her hips nudged his.

  “This is the triple spiral you’ll see at Newgrange.”

  When he didn’t respond, she glanced up. Clint heard the little hitch in her breath, couldn’t miss the awareness that flared in her eyes.

  She felt it, too, he thought with a stab of fierce male satisfaction. The electricity. The heat.

  Giving in to the need that had grown steadily since their first meeting at the pub, he slid a hand under her hair and cupped the warm skin of her nape.

  Her eyes went wide. Her mouth parted.

  Clint gave her time to pull back, expecting she would, hoping she wouldn’t. When she didn’t, he bent and brushed his lips over hers.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SOPHIE couldn’t believe it!

  She’d indulged in only one rather tepid affair during her time in Dublin. Now, after less than three hours with Clint Walker, one taste of him made her want more. Much more. She tilted her head to give him a better angle and opened her lips under his. With a little grunt, he shifted in his chair, propped the back of her head in his palm and found her tongue.

  Jaysus, Mary and Joseph! The man was wicked with that mouth. Sparks ignited at flash points throughout Sophie’s body. Heat speared into her belly, her breasts …

  When she drew back, her breath came in hard, fast pants. So did his, thank heavens. She would have been mortified if she had been the only one who’d almost come unraveled.

  “Sorry.” Frowning, Clint shook his head. “That was …” Amazing. Unbelievable. Incredibly stupid! The adjectives raced through Clint’s mind as he willed his rebellious body into submission. Every part of him wanted to sweep this woman out of the alcove and take her back to his hotel room. Stretch her out in front of the fire and make love to her until she gasped and writhed in pleasure.

  Right! Like that was going to happen with all he had going down in just a few hours. “I’m sorry,” he said again, raking a hand through his hair.

  “Are y’now?” Her grin slipped out, as rueful and mischievous as her brogue. “I’m not. ‘Tis been a while since I’ve been kissed like that.”

  Clint knew he had to end this. Right here, right now. She looked too tempting, too seductive.

  And he would have ended it. He was almost certain of that. If he hadn’t dropped his arm too abruptly and knocked his stack of notes off the table.

  Cursing himself for his clumsiness, he went down on one knee to retrieve them. Sophie knelt beside him.

  “Here, let me hel
p you. We can put them in order easily enough if—”

  She broke off with a gasp. Clint glanced down and cursed again when he saw her staring at the holster strapped to his ankle.

  “It’s legal,” he said quickly.

  She scrambled up, uncertainty and a touch of fear on her face. “Who are you? Why are y’carryin’ a gun?”

  She looked ready to bolt for the nearest exit. Clint had only a moment to weigh his options. Should he let her go? Or trust her?

  The instincts that had saved his life on more than one occasion kicked in and he came to a swift decision. “I’m an agent with the FBI.”

  “What!”

  He reached into his pocket and produced his credentials. She studied them for several disbelieving moments.

  “What business does the FBI have in Ireland?”

  Thankful for the privacy of the small alcove, Clint gestured for her to take a seat and pulled his chair close to hers.

  “I’m part of a counter-narcotics task force targeting a major drug lord in Miami. The agency knows who he is, but we haven’t been able to get into his circle to collect the hard evidence we need to nail him. But he does have an Achilles’ heel, which is why I’m in Dublin. The man is an avid connoisseur of prehistoric art.”

  “And he’s going to be at Newgrange tomorrow?” she gasped.

  “No, but we got a tip that the person who supplies him with stolen artifacts may be there. If so, I want to catch that person and put the squeeze on him.” He paused, probing her shocked expression, giving her time to absorb his startling revelations.

  “Well,” she said slowly, “I wish you luck. But you’ll have a devil of a time taggin’ anyone in that crowd.”

  “Crowd? I thought access was restricted.”

  “Only fifty people can go inside the tomb, but hundreds gather outside. You’ll have to wade through news crews, hordes of scientists, modern-day Druids, Wiccans celebrating the end of winter and rebirth of the sun, all sorts of locals and tourists alike.”

  Well, hell! He hadn’t counted on that. His contact in Ireland’s Arts and Antiquities Division had said he’d meet Clint at the site and had promised to alert the local constabulary who covered the event. He’d neglected to mention huge crowds, however.

  “I could … I could go with you tomorrow,” Sophie said hesitantly. “If you think I could help.”

  He paused, considering the proposal. The need to get to Mendoza had driven him across an ocean. He’d be a fool to turn down any offer of assistance.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to have another set of eyes and ears,” he conceded. “Someone to mingle with the crowd outside while I’m inside. Someone who knows this megalithic stuff as well as the dealer I’m looking for.”

  She blinked at hearing her life’s passion described as “stuff,” but nodded when he asked if she was sure she wanted to get involved.

  “I’m sure.” A sudden thought rippled across her expressive face. “Unless … uh … This person you’re looking for? He won’t come armed, too, will he?”

  “If he does, he won’t get far. My counterpart on the Arts and Antiquities Division says everyone has to pass through a metal detector before they’re allowed out to the site.”

  “That’s right. They do.”

  Her momentary concern allayed, she gave him one of those brilliant smiles that made Clint’s heart stutter.

  “Count me in, then.”

  “Good. If you’ll give me your address, I’ll pick you up at five-thirty tomorrow morning.”

  They left the library just before it closed. Clint trudged back to his hotel through lightly falling snow, trying to convince himself he’d agreed to her offer for purely professional reasons.

  But that didn’t explain why he spent the next hour with his arms crossed behind his head, staring up into the darkness and thinking about ways to get the delectable Ms. Sophie Hawthorne into bed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SOPHIE and Clint arrived at the Brú na Bóinne visitor center well before dawn on the longest night of the year. The visitor center controlled access to the three ancient tombs set on a high plain overlooking the River Boyne.

  Bundled in the thick pea jacket she’d purchased at a secondhand store, and a wool muffler wrapped around her throat, Sophie was prepared for the biting cold. So was Clint. In a camel-hair overcoat, a wool driving cap and the black-framed glasses she suspected he didn’t really need, he looked very much the eager tourist about to experience a once-in-a-lifetime event.

  Although the sun wouldn’t top the ridge to the east for another three hours, huge crowds were already waiting in line for transport out to the tombs. Sophie tucked her gloved hands in her pockets while Clint met his Irish contact from the Arts and Antiquities Division.

  Brisk and businesslike, Inspector Dennis Fitzgerald whisked them around the security checkpoint and onto a minibus. Their destination was the largest of the site’s three passage tombs—so called because of the shadowed, narrow inner passages that led to the burial chambers. There were hundreds of such tombs scattered across Ireland, including one on the magnificent Hill of Tara, which later became the seat of the Celtic kings of Ireland. But most scholars, Sophie among them, considered Newgrange the granddaddy of them all. Five hundred years older than the pyramids at Giza and a thousand years older than Stonehenge, the tomb dominated a high hill above the river.

  Inspector Fitzgerald got off the bus first to coordinate with the local constabulary. As they stepped onto the hill, Clint kept Sophie tucked against his side to shield her from the icy wind.

  Sophie’s breath caught at the sight of the massive cairn illuminated by floodlights. Two-hundred-thousand tons of grass-covered earth formed the rounded roof. Beneath the roof was an upper ring of white quartz “pebbles,” polished to a lustrous sheen by centuries of river water before being gathered by the ancient tomb builders. Beneath the glistening quartz ring stood the base, consisting of ninety-seven monstrous curbstones weighing five or more tons apiece, silent sentinels to man’s determination.

  As Sophie well knew, Newgrange was much more than a burial site. It was a holy place that housed the spirits of the ancestors and thus provided a link to the gods. Religious rituals such as the one taking place this morning had been held at the site for millennia.

  “Just think,” she murmured to Clint, “the people who built this tomb had no clock, no watches, no calendars. Yet every winter solstice for more than five thousand years, the rising sun shines through that box.” She pointed to a square opening directly above the tomb’s entrance. “Sunlight inches its way along the blackness of the passage and illuminates the inner burial chamber for fifteen or twenty minutes. As brief as it is, that phenomenon signals the end of the long, dark winter and the coming of spring. In a more mystical sense, it celebrates the rebirth of the earth and of the king, who the ancient builders believed would lead them again in the afterlife.”

  “Like Christians celebrating the birth of Christ,” Clint murmured.

  “Exactly.”

  She smiled up at him, pleased he’d paid attention to her somewhat lengthy discourse last night about how modern religions incorporated many pagan beliefs. She would have elaborated further but remembered this visit represented more than a mystical event for Clint.

  He maintained a casual stance, one arm hooked loosely around Sophie’s waist, but she could feel the tension in him as he scanned the crowd. Her nerves fluttered as she, too, searched the faces muffled by wool scarves and warm hats pulled low on foreheads.

  “Do you have any idea what this person we’re searching for looks like?” she murmured.

  “Not a clue.”

  Slowly they wove their way through media crews, families sipping hot chocolate, serious sun-and-star worshippers, even two bridal parties where the soon-to-be newlyweds wanted to start their life together on a day sacred since ancient times. Sophie gave the happy brides an envious glance as she and Clint circled the base of the tomb.

  Each giant curbston
e was decorated with prehistoric art—spirals, zigzags, concentric circles, triangles: all images that represented the sun, moon and stars. Sophie knew there was no way a thief could steal one of these five-ton slabs unless he drove up with a bloody crane. Nor could she imagine that anyone would try to chip out one of the designs with so many uniformed police among the crowd. Still, her anxiety ratcheted up with each passing minute.

  Gradually, the predawn darkness gave way to thin, gray light. Snow glistened on the surrounding hills and mist swirled up from the River Boyne. Excitement grew by the moment.

  At seven-thirty, the floodlights switched off. At eight o’clock, the lucky fifty who’d won a place inside the passageway were asked to assemble at the tomb’s entrance—fifty-two including Clint and Inspector Fitzgerald.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t wrangle an extra ticket for you,” Clint said.

  “Auch, weel.” She slipped into a smile and heavy Irish accent. “‘Tis enough t’watch the sun come oop from here. Go on now. Do what you must. I’ll wait for y’here.”

  “You can sit on the bus if you get too cold.”

  “And miss the sunrise? Are y’daft, man?”

  He turned away, took two steps, turned back.

  “We’re an hour early yet but …” Sweeping her into his arms, he cradled her against his chest. “Happy solstice, Sophie.”

  Her heart thumping, she beamed up at him. “Happy solstice.”

  He kissed her with a passion that left her melting inside even while her breath steamed on the icy air. She must be the daft one, she thought as he strode toward the entrance. She’d met the man just yesterday, for God’s sake! Yet the view of his broad back and long, sure stride stirred a hot, sweet lust she had no business feeling. Not to mention the sparks he ignited with every touch, every kiss.

  Shoulders hunched against the cold, she watched him duck under the stone lintel at the entrance and disappear inside the tomb. Slowly, her internal heat yielded to the frost outside.