Home For the Holidays

by Lisa Plumley

  “So…” When she raised her head, her mischievous grin caught him off guard. “Still feel as though you’re screwed?”

  Reno couldn’t stand it. There was only one way out. “I already told you. I only said that because I thought someone else had snagged this prime spot by the Christmas tree.”

  “Uh-huh.” Her skeptical squint made her disbelief plain. “Right. And next year I plan to march in the parade nude.”

  “Nude? Mmm. Sounds good to me.” So did getting out of here. It was the least he owed Nate. Wrapping his arm around Rachel’s waist, Reno pulled her to him with his best caveman-style move. He loved the way she met him toe to toe, with no reservations. “Had enough of the Kismet Christmas tree? Because I have a party for two in mind, and it’s starting right now.”

  “Well, I think that’s everything,” Nate said.

  At the sound of the trunk slamming, Angela glanced up from beside Nate’s car, where she’d been daydreaming in the frosty, starlit night. After the big finale of the Kismet town Christmas tree lighting, she’d entrusted Kayla to her (now reunited) mom and dad, handed over her own sensibly sized overnight bag to Nate, and gotten herself prepared for the trip ahead.

  Featuring a hotel reservation with one king bed. One!

  “Great.” Staunching her smile, she watched with deliberate insouciance as Nate trekked from the rear of his Chevette to the passenger side. “I guess we’d better get going then.”

  “Hold your horses. I have one more thing to give you.”

  His grin made her giddy. “Oh? What’s that?”

  “A proper sendoff, of course.”

  Nate stopped at her side of the car, close enough that she could catch a whiff of the holly berry soap she’d bought him at the mall. Close enough that she could reach out and touch him. Close enough that she really, really wanted to.

  No. She had to play it cool. That was her plan, and Angela was definitely the kind of person who stuck to a plan.

  “What did you have in mind?” she asked. “As a sendoff?”

  He angled his head as if she’d asked him how many ice cubes he’d like in his beer. “Opening the door for you. Duh.”

  “Oh. Of course.” Disappointment assailed her.

  With a flourish, Nate crunched down two more footsteps worth of snow, then opened the car door with a squeal. In the light from her parents’ condo, his face appeared familiar and exotic all at once—probably because she was still getting used to imagining it on top of his fully naked body, a fantasy Angela had been entertaining more and more often lately.

  Including just a few minutes ago.

  He gestured gallantly with one gloved hand. “After you.”

  A hot flush climbed beneath her turtleneck. “Um, thanks.”

  Angela slid onto the cold vinyl seat, fastened her seat belt, then waited for Nate to join her on the driver’s side. He passed along the front of the car, his profile and his familiar way of moving suddenly seeming rough and tough and dangerous.

  She was going away on an overnight trip with a man! Angela realized all at once. She was embarking on a journey where one king-size bed awaited them at the end. At the thought, her whole body tingled. It had been a long time since she’d felt a man’s hands on her…a long time since she’d wanted that. With Nate, she wanted more than a simple touch. She wanted everything.

  Too bad she was being so adept at playing it cool.

  “Ready?” He clasped the steering wheel, having started the engine. It chugged in that way it had—that coughing, sputtering, my-parts-are-from-the-junkyard kind of way. “Here we go.”

  With his customary caution, Nate backed them out of their parking space, then sent them zooming along at two miles below the legal speed limit toward the freeway. His hands mesmerized her. So did his face. And his legs. With the help of the streetlights flashing overhead, she could see the muscle tighten in his thigh when he pressed the accelerator. That tiny motion was enough to make Angela feel a little bit exhilarated.

  Too bad playing it cool was definitely the way to go.

  She inhaled and squirmed, making the vinyl seat squeak.

  Nate glanced her way. “Everything okay?”

  Just the way he said it—so solicitously, so manfully, so respectfully—made her feel breathless. For a long time now, Nate had been her best friend. He’d been there hours after Kayla had been born. He’d been there when she’d cried at the bus stop after seeing her daughter off for her first day of kindergarten. He’d been there when Angela had been hired at KHS, when she’d struggled with the school bureaucracy, when she’d dated other men in an effort to find out what she’d been missing.

  It turned out that what she’d been missing was Nate. No other man was like him. No other man even came close.

  “Pull over,” Angela said in a tiny voice.

  “What?” His startled gaze met hers. “Why?”

  “Pull over,” she repeated, more firmly this time. “Please.”

  He did. He was just that kind of guy. He didn’t need a reason—he only needed to know that she wanted him to do it. For a standup guy like Nate, that was enough.

  Looking worried, he steered his Chevette to the bus station parking lot, right at the edge of the highway. When Angela spotted the big lighted Greyhound sign outside, she almost laughed out loud at the serendipity of it all.

  “What’s wrong?” Nate asked. “Did you forget something?”

  She looked at him. Sweet, sweet Nate. How had she waited so long to get here? How had she waited so long for him?

  Angela nodded, feeling more certain with every heartbeat. “I did forget something. I forgot to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  She unbuckled. “Playing it cool is overrated.”

  Nate stared. “You’re going to have to buckle that again when we get going. You know I don’t move the car if everyone isn’t safely buckled up.”

  “I know.” With a sense of destiny, Angela glanced at the bus station sign. “This is the last place I saw you before you left for Scorpions’ training camp. Did you know that?”

  “Are you sure you’re feeling all right? Maybe you had too many candy canes. Maybe I should take you back.”

  “I sat right in my car, parked way back by the Dumpsters, and watched you get on the bus. Then I cried my eyes out.”

  “You cried?” Nate looked stricken. “Why? I mean, I don’t even get what you were doing here, really, but…why?”

  She looked straight at him. “Because I was afraid you’d never come back. I was afraid you’d go away and become a football star, and you’d forget all about everyone in Kismet.”

  Nate scoffed. “Fat chance. I wasn’t good enough.”

  “You are good enough! Don’t ever say that.”

  “Okay, okay!” Sheepishly, he held up his hands. He gazed through the windshield into the night, toward the taillights whizzing past on the freeway beyond the overpass. “Sorry.”

  For a minute, they lapsed into silence, Angela caught up in memories of the girl she’d been (and lost) and of the man she’d watched leave (and then found). Most people weren’t as lucky as they were. Which was why she felt brave enough to go on.

  “If you still want Rachel Porter,” Angela said, “if she’s still your dream girl, then you’d better just let me out right here. Right now. Because I don’t think I can stand watching you walk away again, knowing that you might forget me.”

  Wearing an astonished look, Nate stopped her. “Angela—”

  “Wait. Let me finish. Please.” She sucked in a deep breath, feeling herself quake with the immensity of everything she’d left unsaid all these years. “I’ve waited and waited, and I’ve tried to move on, but all I ever really wanted was you, Nate. I love you. It’s silly and it’s crazy, but it’s true. All true.”

  “Angela. Oh Angela.” Nate shook his head. “I—”

  He was turning her down! Panicking, Angela scooted sideways across her bucket seat. Waaay sideways, so that her shoulder bun
ched against the door and frosted-over window.

  “But you know, if you don’t return those feelings,” she said hastily, “I completely understand. It’s only natural that we would enjoy a certain closeness after all this time, but if you don’t feel anything more than that—if you’d, say, rather get frisky with Betty Crocker or Eleanor Roosevelt—”

  “Huh?”

  “—then there’s nothing I can or should or want to do to get in the way of that. Honestly. As they say, the course of true love never did run smooth, right?” She gave a choked laugh. “I can hardly expect to compete with an actual California glamazon, can I? I mean, I wear granny nightgowns, for Pete’s sake!”

  “I love your granny nightgowns. They’re sexy.”

  “And I say things like ‘for Pete’s sake,’ too! No, I understand where you’re coming from, Nate.” Distraught, Angela took off her hat and kneaded it in her hands. “My only excuse is that I let the sentimentality of the season get to me. My imagination ran wild, that’s all. Everyone has an ideal, and I’m not yours. I’m not one of those girls. I don’t wear miniskirts and I do understand grammar. I actually like it. Believe me, sometimes I want to get utterly wanton. I want to add random quotation marks to phrases that don’t need them. But I can’t, Nate. I’m just not that girl. I’m not one of your dream girls.”

  “I know.” His voice sounded indescribably sincere. “And you never, ever will be one of my dream girls either.”

  Angela straightened. “You don’t have to rub it in!”

  “No!” Nate’s face beamed at hers, bright with what appeared to be…hope? Joy? Love? “Will you quit talking for a second? You’re confusing me. That’s not what I mean. Don’t you get it?” He leaned toward her, earnest and intent. “Those dream girls were all just standins. Until I found you.”

  “Wha…?” Oh no. He’d reduced her to incoherence.

  “They weren’t real. You were! You are. I was just too boneheaded to realize it. Until you left me there to make fudge all alone and went out with Patrick the Prick. On a Wednesday! Then the light finally went on.” Nate hung his head, his crazy eyebrows briefly catching her eye. “I wanted to prove to myself that I was really over my nerdy past. I thought that snagging a girl like Rachel Porter would help me do that. But it can’t.”

  Angela hardly dared to breathe. “It…can’t?”

  “No. Well, maybe it could. For a while…” Dreamily, he stared at the dashboard, apparently lost in macho reveries.

  “Nate!”

  “But that wouldn’t really be a solution, because I’m the only one who’s bugged by my geek past. You aren’t.”

  “Of course I’m not.” Angela scooted the merest millimeter closer to him. “I joined the Calculus Club with you, remember?”

  “I remember.” He gave her a goofy grin. “So I guess what I mean is…” Nate paused, darting a glance at her as he drew in a deep breath. “If you think you could be happy with a guy who wants to dedicate all the rest of his days to making you smile”—he broke off, gleefully pointing at her—“yeah, just like that! Then I’m your man. I mean I want to be your man. Please?”

  “Nate, I—”

  “Angela, I love you. From now on, you’re it for me.”

  Sniffling, Angela scooted the final few inches to meet him. She bumped her head on the Chevette’s rearview mirror, but it was worth it to see the unabashed joy in Nate’s face—and feel that joy reflected in her own unstoppable smile. “Yes. I feel very sure that I would like that. I’d like that very much.”

  “Oh, Angela—”

  Their first official kiss (as a real official couple) was silly, jubilant, and tender…all at the same time. It felt to Angela as though she’d waited a very long while to feel Nate’s mouth against hers this way—to feel free enough to kiss him with all the passion she’d been holding back thanks to her plan. Her ridiculous, misguided, abandoned plan.

  Nate lifted his head. “Wow. Where did you learn to—”

  “You can’t learn passion like this.” She pressed her lips to his again, straining across the Chevette’s console to meet him. Blissfulness soared through her. “Not even with a very good teacher. It has to come straight from the heart.”

  “I dunno. I know some pretty good teachers.”

  “Be quiet, please, and kiss me some more.”

  “Yes, ma’am. My pleasure.”

  After a few long minutes, while the windows fogged up and the little clunky car rocked and traffic zoomed by outside, Nate and Angela lost themselves in another amazing kiss. It wasn’t innovative, and it wasn’t inventive, but it was heartfelt. It was perfect. Perfect for the two of them…together.

  At last their mouths popped apart. Nate appeared dazzled. Angela knew she must look the same way—disheveled, crazy-haired, and breathing hard. Her sweater was hiked up to her rib cage, her body felt tingly again, and both of them breathed rapidly.

  “So…” Nate grinned at her. “I’m not sure if I still need to go to the crafts fair to sell my nest egg or not—”

  “That was for me? Oh Nate! Please don’t sell Rudolph.”

  “But do you still want to go to Grand Rapids with me?”

  “Go to where the king-size bed is? Where we’ll be all alone?” Angela swiveled to buckle her seat belt. “While the babysitting is already booked for two whole days?”

  Eagerly, Nate nodded.

  “Yes I do,” Angela told him. “Floor it, baby!”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Sprawled on the floor of Reno’s living room, bathed in weak but cheery midmorning Michigan sunlight, Rachel gazed up at the Christmas tree she and Reno had decorated together two days ago. It was considerably smaller than the official Kismet tree that had inspired them, but it was prettier and (even better) it was located in a much more private, more enjoyable spot.

  Yawning, Rachel stretched. She and Reno had spent the whole weekend holed up together—now that Tom Wright had decamped for his retirement condo with his happy wife, Judy—subsisting on hot cocoa, the neighbors’ gifts of Christmas goodies, and delivery pizza, going gaga for each other in a way that she had never experienced before and likely would never experience again.

  Now it was Sunday morning, and Rachel could feel the rest of the world about to intrude. Resisting the idea, she snuggled more deeply into the double sleeping bag Reno had spread on the floor. She hadn’t expected it to be comfortable but it had been, cocooning them together with the scents of fir tree and cinnamon sticks, with twinkling lights glowing above them on the tree.

  With a smile, Rachel sent an angel ornament swinging on a low-hanging branch. She watched as it sparkled. “You know, I have the weirdest feeling something wonderful just happened.”

  “Something wonderful did just happen.” Lazily, Reno smiled as he trailed his hand up her naked thigh. “You were on top of me, and I was touching you”—he moved his hand a languid few inches—“right here, and then you did that twisty maneuver—”

  “I don’t mean—oh!—that.” Giggling, Rachel squirmed.

  “I do. And I intend to mean it again and again and again.”

  With a sigh, Rachel watched Reno as he levered himself on his elbow and gazed into her face, looking happier than she could remember seeing him. Coming here, getting away from everyone else, had done something to him—it had loosened him up in a way that no amount of bourbon-laced eggnog could have done.

  Although they’d tried that, too. Last night, while snuggling on the sofa to watch A Christmas Story together, both of them laughing over Ralphie’s adventures and indulging in holiday sentimentality in a way neither of them would have admitted, they’d tried eggnog laced with bourbon. And rum balls made with Captain Morgan’s best. And fruitcake that must have been soaked in eighty-proof brandy. None of those tipsy treats had made Rachel feel as drunk with contentment as she did right now.

  “I love Christmas,” she said, hugging him. “I don’t think I’ll ever look at the holidays the same way again.”

  “
Me either.” Reno lowered his head to kiss her. His mouth felt wonderful, his jawline raspy with unshaven beard stubble. His body felt taut above hers. They fit together like the heirloom nesting ornaments he’d shown her—collectibles from a Wright relative whose passion had been traveling. “For one thing, I’ve never gotten lucky beneath a Christmas tree before.”

  “You’re kidding. Poor baby.”

  “You have?”

  “Well…” Rachel hadn’t. Although now that she had, she could verify that making love in the glow of shimmering lights and vivid ornaments had a romantic charm that was hard to beat. Admitting as much would have put a serious crimp in her rebellious image though. So all she said was, “Not until you.”

  Whoops. With Reno, it seemed she couldn’t hold anything back. Except for one very crucial part of her recent past—her encounter with Tyson and Alayna and her subsequent job meltdown.

  She couldn’t tell Reno about that though. What would he think of her? Stripped of her fabulous job and super-cool L.A. life, Rachel was just another girl. Just another girl with nothing to make her special except a knack for creativity and an apparent skill at helping out people with their problems. But that was something she liked to do. That wasn’t a quality that people tended to brag about on their dating-site profiles.

  Busty brunette single woman, overflowing with helpfulness and a talent for seam-ripping, seeks sensitive, 25-40-year-old man for long walks in the snow and occasional tree-trimming.

  “Rachel, there’s something I want you to do for me.”

  At Reno’s serious tone, Rachel started from her reverie. She gazed up at him, then ran her hands reassuringly over his shoulders. It was hard not to be distracted by the yummy muscles she found there, but she did her best. “Sure, what is it?”

  He glanced away, his throat working with effort. Whatever it was that Reno needed, it was hard for him to ask for it.

  “Really,” she urged. “Whatever it is—”

  “Help me finish decorating for the Glenrosen holiday lights contest.” Reno blurted the words, appearing startled to hear them come from his lips. “I’m way behind this year—”