by Lisa Plumley
But before she could formulate anything to bolster her heart against the lure of his caring, his intelligence, his good humor, Jack went and did something that endeared him to her even more. He set up the portable crib, set up the baby monitor, arranged everything in his bedroom, and then returned to gently retrieve Belle from her arms. With an obvious tenderness, he carried the baby to bed.
Moments later, he returned. “She wiggled when I put her down, so I waited to make sure she was still asleep. If she wakes up later—” He raised the monitor’s receiver. “—we’ll have this.”
“Good.” Think of something besides his naked chest, Katie ordered herself. Something besides his tight abs. Something besides the way he’s looking at you right now, as though…as though he’s thinking of you naked, too! She jerked upright.
“We’d better get busy,” she said, getting to her feet.
“I was thinking exactly the same thing,” Jack replied, stepping closer. “I’ve been looking forward to this all night. Our time. You. Me. Together. Alone at last.”
Katie gulped. He looked so good. Sounded so good. Felt so right, as he drew nearer and nearer. If Jack decided to kiss her again, she didn’t think she’d have the necessary bravado to pretend it wouldn’t affect her. In the office earlier, her knees had nearly buckled when he’d accepted her dare—and they hadn’t even gotten to finish their kiss!
She’d spent months trying to get over him. Months trying to convince herself they were better off apart. Now, after only a single evening together, her tough mental discipline had disintegrated to…to this. Faced with him, Katie felt like a dieter staring down the flashing Krispy Kreme “Hot Doughnuts Now” sign. When it came to her, Jack Brennan was the original glazed doughnut of temptation.
“Come on.” He held out his hand. “We have unfinished business to attend to.”
Chapter Six
Geez, Katie was skittish all of a sudden, Jack thought. He watched as she spritzed more mousse on his living room’s picture window, then stood back to judge the effect against the paper snowflakes she’d already taped on. She hadn’t sat still for more than two minutes at a stretch. Not since he’d held out his hand to her and mentioned their “unfinished business.”
He’d been referring to the paper-snowflake-cutting lessons she’d promised him, of course. But Katie’s shocked expression when he’d explained as much had sent him on another course. One of wondering what she’d been thinking of.
Could it be possible Katie had been hoping for…more? More closeness, more intimacy, more from the reunion they’d stumbled into? He didn’t know, and he—
Her cell phone rang. With a practiced gesture she answered it. After a few seconds, Jack heard the same gentle refusal she’d been giving all night.
“Nope, sorry. I’m busy tonight. Out of commission.” A pause. “Probably all week, actually. Maybe I’ll see you on Christmas Eve?”
A few more nods, some chitchat as she applied extra faux snow to the window. Then Katie said good-bye. This time, before flipping her phone closed and putting it away, she turned it off.
Jack stared. He’d never known party-girl Katie to deliberately cut herself off from potential socializing. In fact, her gala-a-day ways—and her refusal to do more than allow him a tiny corner in her life because of them—hadn’t done their fling any favors. Now, seeing her voluntarily check out of her social whirl was like seeing Santa turn up clean-shaven and buffed-up: unthinkable.
Of course, he didn’t have much room to talk, Jack recalled uncomfortably. He’d done his own share of backing away, of letting his career come first. Unlike Katie, he hadn’t had time for shopping and brunching and dancing ‘til dawn. Unlike Katie, he’d wanted to focus on working and planning and climbing the corporate ladder.
They hadn’t been able to reconcile their two contradictory views of life. Despite the good things between them, their differences had loomed larger. They’d split, each vowing to avoid the other as much as possible so the pain would be minimal.
Except it hadn’t been, Jack realized now. It had only been postponed. Seeing Katie now, so close and still so far away, made him realize how much he’d missed her.
She’d been wonderful with Belle. He still didn’t understand some of her reasoning (the miniskirts, the shoe economics theory, the Fendi bag baby hold and the Barbie philosophy all sprang to mind), but Jack couldn’t dispute her surprising effectiveness. Katie unfailingly managed to cheer up his cousin, to comfort her and bring a smile to her face. Watching the two of them together was enlightening.
So was watching her transform his house.
A few feet away from his position at the kitchen table, Katie stepped away from the picture window with a flourish. “What do you think?”
He examined the mousse-turned-snow and the paper blizzard. “I think it’s terrific. Very Christmas-y.”
She beamed.
“And I think you should come over here, like you promised, and help me.” Jack raised the paper and scissors in his hands. “My snowflakes keep falling apart.”
She bit her lip. She hesitated. Then she entered the dining room and cautiously took a seat.
He dragged her chair closer. Their shoulders touched. In response, Katie jerked. She laughed, nervously.
“It’s been a while since we were alone,” she said.
“Believe me. I know.”
Her gaze lifted. Something sparked between them, something familiar and intoxicating. Something sweeter than Christmas cookies, spicier than cinnamon sticks, brighter than a tree star. For some reason, the “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Klaus,” song spiraled through his head. Jack looked around for some mistletoe.
Katie spoke. “I’ve been thinking. Since we’re going to be together for the next few days, we should have some kind of a game plan. Something to keep us on the straight and narrow.”
“The straight and narrow? Nah. It’s overrated. I just decided.”
“I mean, something to keep us apa—” She paused. Regrouped. “Busy, as much as possible.”
“Busy.” He waggled his eyebrows teasingly. “I like the sound of that. Busy doing what?”
Kissing leapt to mind. So did caressing, talking, laughing, snuggling beneath a nice toasty blanket, making up for lost time….
“Making a really wonderful pre-Christmas week for Belle,” Katie said. “Showing her lots of neat holiday stuff, getting a Christmas tree, decorating your place—”
Confused, Jack gestured toward the picture window.
“A drop in the bucket,” she assured him. “There are lots of Christmassy things we haven’t even touched on yet. Holiday parades. Visiting Santa at the mall. Shopping for gifts.”
She brightened, sitting up straighter. “I’ll bet I can find just the thing for you!”
Gift shopping. Oh, no. Like a reindeer facing a foggy Christmas Eve without Rudolph, he froze. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to find great gifts for the people he cared about. He did. It was just that…well, he was terrible at actually doing it. And Jack hated doing anything he wasn’t good at.
“Do you have—” He swallowed hard. “—a wish list, or something?”
Katie waved her hand. “Oh, you don’t have to get me anything!”
Oh, yes he did. No man was idiot enough to buy into that line. At least Jack wasn’t. “I want to.”
She smiled. Seeing her happiness, he really, really wanted to.
“Let’s concentrate on Belle for now,” Katie said. “Okay? While I was decorating the windows, I came up with a list of holiday things we could do together. Let’s see….”
Forging onward with tinsel-bright enthusiasm, she ticked off one Christmas-related activity after another. Jack’s head swam with visions of evergreens and flashing lights and fruitcake and stockings and—
“Pin The Nose On Rudolph?” he asked, raising his brows.
“It’ll be fun! I promise. So, are we in agreement?”
“To give Belle the best pre-Christmas week ever?”
<
br /> She nodded, eyes shining.
“Sure. Why not?” Grinning, Jack picked up his paper snowflake—which looked more like a deranged doily—and set to work again. “If we’re lucky, I might even remember more Christmas carols to sing.”
“On second thought….”
“Hey!”
“Kidding.”
They both smiled, cozily together amid the drifts of paper scraps. Then, with a businesslike air, Katie grabbed a fresh sheet. Folding and cutting rapidly as she spoke, she said, “Here’s how you make a snowflake. You cut here, fold here, cut some here, unfold, and—voilà!”
“Voilà?” But his hadn’t even….
“Voilà.” Covering her mouth with her hand, Katie yawned noisily. Her chair scraped as she stood. “Well, I’m bushed. It’s off to bed with me. The couch? Yes? Here I go! I’ll just get some linens and a blanket from the hall closet. No, don’t get up. I remember where everything—I mean, everybody stores spare bedding in the hall closet, don’t they?”
Her voice trailed away. She returned bearing an armload of sheets and a spare blanket. “‘Night, Jack. Sleep well.”
He gaped after her. Before he could so much as stand to help make up her temporary bed, Katie had outfitted the sofa like a vintage four-poster and was rummaging through her overnight bag.
“I should have offered you the bed.” Jack moved to the pass-through between the dining and living rooms. He pushed a hand through his hair, watching her. “But now with Belle sleeping in there—”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind the sofa.” She straightened, something pink and flimsy in her hand.
At the sight of it, Jack’s interest—and interested parts of him—perked up. “You can have the bed tomorrow night.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
He lingered, reluctant to leave. He imagined the slide of that delicate pink fabric against his skin as she came to him, imagined the wondrous impact of Katie’s body joining with his as he stripped it away. She would smile when he looked at her, the way she always did. He would—
“Would you mind turning out the light for me when you leave, please? Thanks.”
She turned away. Not quite smiling. Not quite naked. Not even wearing the pink thing. Disappointed, frustrated with his own inability to resist her, Jack did as she’d asked.
It wasn’t until he reached the end of the darkened hallway—and heard Katie sigh—that he realized the truth: she wished he hadn’t.
He smiled. Maybe, just maybe, there was hope for them yet.
Alone in the dark, Katie finished shedding her jeans and sweater. She cast them aside. Pulled her pink nightshirt over her head. And sighed. Two conflicting thoughts assailed her:
Whew! That was close.
I wish Jack hadn’t gone.
Not that his leaving wasn’t what she’d intended, all along. It was. After all, being alone with him would only make her want him more. It would only make her wish for more, only make her hope that Christmas contained enough magic to overcome their differences. And that was ridiculous, wasn’t it?
All Jack was interested in was work. Work, work, work. Not her, not life, not fun. When she’d entered his home office to get the snowflake paper earlier, Katie had realized immediately his workaholic ways hadn’t changed a bit. Architectural plans still littered every available surface, interspersed with drawing tools and cardboard carrying tubes. Design awards lined the walls, evidence of his dedication.
Signs of anything non work-related had been nonexistent, and not just in Jack’s office. His whole house seemed a testament to how little time he spent there—bare walls, spotless functional furniture, no embellishments save framed family photos and a few houseplants. Probably, Katie thought as she turned over in her solitary sofa-turned-bed, he’d hired a service to keep the greenery thriving.
He’d been amazing with Belle, though; she had to admit it. Caring, thoughtful, funny. With his tiny cousin, Jack had cut loose (“You’re a foul one, Mr. Griiiinch!”). He’d worked to figure out what the baby needed. He’d made time to be with her.
To Katie’s surprise, Jack had even arranged time off from the office for both of them, lasting until Christmas, if necessary. Listening to him make those arrangements with Gil Brennan over a crackling international phone line tonight, she’d hardly been able to believe her ears. Honestly, Jack taking time off was like…like Charlie Brown scoring the biggest, fanciest Christmas tree on the lot: highly unlikely.
She and Jack were so different from each other. So why, Katie wondered, did she still want him back?
You love him, her heart whispered. You do.
So? Smacking her pillow, Katie turned over again. So what? So what if without Jack, she felt like a Christmas ornament with no bough to rest on, like a festive wreath with no door to hold onto? That didn’t mean she was just going to cave in.
Their breakup had hurt. Losing him had hurt. And losing him all over again would be even worse. Until she found some evidence he’d do more this time than squeeze her into his life between design meetings and drawings, Katie intended to do all she could to resist Jack, and all his charms.
Piece of fruitcake, she assured herself. After all…how irresistible could one man possibly be?
Chapter Seven
Jack was seducing her with Christmas, Katie realized when she awakened the next day. He knew it was her favorite season, and he was taking advantage of that fact. While she’d slept (whoa, was it really ten o’clock already?), he’d apparently zipped down to the nearest discount store with Belle in tow…and obliterated the Holiday Décor section.
Looking around, Katie elbowed herself upward against the sofa’s armrest. She blinked groggily. Sure, the overall look Jack had achieved wasn’t Martha Stewart. It wasn’t even Martha Stewart Does K-Mart. But the multicolored lights, buckets of candy canes, plastic plug-in-light-up Santa, cellophane-wrapped pots of poinsettias, and everything else he’d purchased and arranged did possess a certain hokey charm. Sort of like Jack himself.
And she loved it.
She smiled sleepily. As she did, a donut with red and green sprinkles drifted into her vision, held by Jack and bringing with it the intoxicating scents of sugar and at least four thousand calories. Katie wasn’t entirely sure calories contained aromas, but in her imagination they did. The more enticing and forbidden—and more numerous they were—the better they tended to smell. So far, aromadieting hadn’t steered her wrong.
“I absolutely shouldn’t eat that,” she said.
But of course, she was going to anyway. What good was aromadieting, if not to guide her toward the most delectable ways to treat herself? Party-hopping burned plenty of calories, Katie reasoned. And probably, so did resisting Jack—who’d brought the temptation and even now was seated on the coffee table to her left, looking irresistible himself.
Since she couldn’t allow herself to have him, she accepted the donut in its paper bakery wrapping instead. It was a poor substitute, but it would have to do. Thanking him, Katie lifted the glazed-and-sprinkled sweet higher. She inhaled. Mmmmm.
Indulgences, after all, were meant to be savored. Otherwise, they were just routine diet infractions.
“I brought you one of these, too.” Jack lifted a yellow-labeled bottle.
“Yoo-hoo!” Katie squealed with delight. She seized the bottle he offered, overcome with a sense of homecoming. The chocolaty drink was her secret treat, her non-sophisticated rejoinder to a world that sometimes let her down. She clutched its beloved coolness against her chest and gazed at Jack. “Awww. You remembered.”
“Don’t go getting all misty on me. It’s just a drink.”
“And an instant Christmas, to go with it.” Refusing to let him downplay the importance of all he’d accomplished while she’d been logging beauty sleep, Katie gestured toward the haphazardly-hung decorations. “You’ve really gotten into the spirit of things. I’m impressed.”
He shrugged. “Just sticking with the plan. For Belle’s sake.”
J
ack nodded toward the baby, who was happily playing a few feet away in her Mary Kay-colored bouncer. Then he looked back at Katie, a certain earnestness in his face, in the press of his palms between his knees.
“And for yours,” he added quietly.
“Oh, Jack.”
Awash in the warm feelings his confession aroused, Katie gave up on opening her drink. Her fingers wouldn’t work. Neither would her sense of anti-Jack resistance. Evidently, it was susceptible to warmhearted Christmassy gestures, too.
Silently, she passed the bottle to him, as she’d done so many times in the past. Helplessly, she admired the flex of his forearms as he opened and returned it. Desperately, she slugged back some sweet Yoo-hoo, hoping it would clear her head.
It didn’t. Because next Jack gazed toward the poinsettias, resplendently red in their baby-proofed hanging baskets, and nonchalantly said, “I thought we’d go to the mall today.”
“Oh, Jack!” How was she supposed to resist this? A man who brought her breakfast in bed, remembered her secret childlike favorites, and voluntarily shopped? Boy, oh, boy. If only Maya and the girls down at Boondoggles could—”
“It opened at ten,” he went on, “so whenever you’re ready—”
He understood Mall Standard Time. She’d never known that about him. With thoughts of caution fading, Katie flung back her makeshift sofa bed’s blankets.
“I’ll be ready in a jiffy,” she promised. Still clutching her Yoo-hoo, she stuck the donut in her mouth and then grabbed her overnight bag. A quick shower, a date with the blow dryer, and a little lip gloss, and then—
She rose, bag in hand, to find Jack watching her. Hunger had darkened his eyes, straightened the sensual line of his mouth. He looked both languid and ready, open and unreadable. He looked…
…like everything she’d ever wanted.
His gaze met hers. A corner of his mouth lifted, as though Jack meant to pretend he hadn’t just been ogling her like a starving man staring at sugared Christmas cookies.
