by Maddie James
A man cleared his throat. The two women simultaneously whirled to their rear. There, standing by the coffee pot, stood Jim Hamilton.
Hell’s Christmas Bells.
“Well, hello there, Patti. Long time no see.”
“Jim? Oh, hello.”
He stepped toward them. “Funny, I didn’t know you were coming tonight. You never mentioned it this afternoon.”
I didn’t know I was coming either. To a party, that is. “Slipped my mind.”
He nodded and lifted his coffee cup to his mouth and sipped. She watched his Adam’s apple bob a little bit as he swallowed. His head tipped toward the living room. “See you later.”
Then he left.
Patti watched him leave, balled up whatever confusion that was spiraling around just beneath her breastbone into a neat and tidy package, and slowly looked to Kate.
“This was your idea,” she said to her.
Kate shrugged. “What idea?”
“Jim. Are you trying to fix me up with Jim?”
Shaking her head, Kate responded, “Heck, Patti, why would I do that? I figure if you and Jim were ever gonna get together, you would have done it by now. How long have you known him? Six years or more.”
Patti waved her hands and circled around, pacing. “I don’t know. About that, probably. Then why is he here?”
Again, Patti shrugged. “I don’t know the answer to that, Patti. Why don’t you ask Suzie?”
Suzie?
It was then that her brain settled on the matchmaking idea that she and Suzie had talked about this morning.
Ah, shit. No.
And as she contemplated that all the more, she determined that she had to talk to Suzie pronto and get this thing straightened out. Jim Hamilton was not the man she needed to be matchmaked with. He didn’t fit her criteria, not at all.
And the second thing she needed to do was to tell him right straight flat out that this wasn’t her idea and that she was definitely not interested in a relationship with him.
She turned toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Kate asked, crowding close behind her.
Patti glanced over her shoulder, caught her friend’s gaze and held it for a sec, then said, “To undo stuff.”
Then she pushed back into Suzie’s living room before Kate could stop her.
****
The temperature outside was probably in the twenties, but Jim was sweating like a pig in a trailer outside a BBQ smokehouse. Reaching for his collar, he pulled it away from his damp neck, wondering why he’d worn a sweater. He didn’t wear clothes like this normally. He was pretty much into button-downed collars and trousers at school and t-shirts and sweats around the house; an occasional pair of jeans if he was out and about in town. And the sweater? Not his favorite choice.
But he’d been told to dress a little differently from the norm. That he might get noticed that way. Well, hell… This wasn’t him, and he was damned uncomfortable.
He moved away from the fireplace, let his gaze settle and linger over the room and the people in it for a moment. Next he eyed the front door. Everyone was pretty much engaged in conversation or eating appetizers, so he decided to go for it. Five minutes on the porch, breathing in the crisp, night air, would do wonders to chill the sweat on his brow and around his neck.
Not to mention cool off his libido.
Damn. One look at her. One glance his way from those sexy green eyes. One soft hush of her voice…and he was hard as a rock.
He had to get out of here. Moving with stealth, he headed for the door, turned the knob, and was out on the porch before anyone could ask where he was going.
Once there he let out a huge sigh of relief, closed his eyes, leaned against a porch pillar, and tried to get his mind on anything but the aching bulge in his pants.
He stayed that way for several minutes, soaking in the calm, the party chatter in the background. A thin sheen of snow had fallen within the forty-five minutes he’d been here, and he looked up into the clouds, wondering if more was on the way. He’d not listened to the weather all day, and sometimes, in this neck of the woods, the weather could change on a dime.
No matter. He wouldn’t hang around here too much longer. In fact, he wondered, perhaps he should go in, make a round, say his good-byes, and be off for home. But wait—that meant he had to face Suzie, and he wasn’t sure he could do that. And he had to face Patti, and that was out too.
Maybe he should just leave now, without saying anything to anyone. He could always call back and tell Suzie he’d been ill, decided to head on home, thanks for the party and the nice idea about Patti, but well…
Shit. What was he doing? Avoidance. He’d never acted this way before. He didn’t sneak around, and he didn’t lie. At least now that he was grown up. Forget those times as a kid. But he was about to lie his way out of leaving this party.
Was he that desperate to leave? And why, when lately it was all he could do to keep Patti Jo Baker off his mind, did he want to scramble away when she was put smack out before him, in a socially acceptable situation, for the offering?
“Because of the rules,” he said quietly. Better just to get on home. Plead forgiveness later.
Pushing away from the pillar, he took one hard step down from the porch. The next couple of steps were easier. Sleet hit his face as he moved into the wind and down the sidewalk.
Behind him, the party chatter suddenly got louder, he turned, registered a sinking feeling in his gut, and caught a pert silhouette in the open doorway.
Then he heard the following: “Jim Hamilton, where in hell do you think you are going?”
Busted.
****
Oh, freakin’ crap. He’s getting away before I can right this wrong.
“Jim!” Patti called out again. “Wait!”
Without a thought, she headed down the porch steps, her gaze fixed on the man who had just whipped back to look at her. In her right hand she held a really cool piece of spicy cinnamon candy—homemade by Suzie—that she’d snatched from a plate right inside the door. As she descended the steps, she popped the hard candy into her mouth, momentarily distracted by her quest. Good, the candy was awesome! She sucked the crisp night air in over her teeth.
Nice.
Jim caught her eye. She hated to admit it, but he was nice too.
He looked…different…this evening, standing there in the moonlight with little crystal flecks of snow on his shoulders, looking back at her. In fact she probably paid too much attention to how he looked to her because as her left boot hit the bottom step, she felt her knee give away, her body pitch forward, her right elbow go out, and from then on, it was rather an ugly scene, she figured, from the outside looking in.
“Oh, God…”
She groaned and lay in a heap on the cold sidewalk and lit into a coughing fit. Candy. She gagged and rolled the hard sugar piece in her mouth and tucked it into her cheek. Last thing she needed was to die from asphyxiation on Suzie’s front steps.
Within half a second, Jim was at her side, calling her name, feeling all her bones. Had she smacked her head too? Yes. She’d plonked the porch railing on the way down, and the pain in her forehead didn’t feel so good. Darn it….
She thought she heard Jim mumble a slew of curses—one that she’d never ever heard him say before—as he picked her up, carried her up the porch steps, barreled through the door, and into Suzie’s house.
“Really, Jim…this isn’t…” she slurred.
“Just be quiet, Patti. For once, just be quiet.”
It was all a blur. Her body was whisked through the room, and as the couples started exclaiming things like, “what the heck?” and “oh darn, is she all right?” she just let Jim take over and say things like, “yes, yes” and “took a little spill on the ice” and “I think so” to which she heard Suzie remark, “take her to my bedroom, just off the kitchen,” and that’s when Patti groaned for real, again, because not only did her elbow and head hurt like hell, bu
t there was some other feeling deep in her gut that told her she was in trouble.
Some sort of trouble. She just didn’t know what yet.
They rushed through the kitchen, the oak door swinging, passed through the small breezeway/sunroom—she’d always liked that room of Suzie’s—and then into their private bedroom quarters where Jim placed her on a gigantic, king-sized bed. The door shut behind them.
She expected the throng of couples to crowd in after, but she was wrong.
They were alone.
Jim sat next to her and brushed an unruly shock of hair out of her face. “Damn, that was a nasty spill. Let me look at you.”
His fingertips softly grazed over her forehead and temple, and involuntarily, Patti closed her eyes. For a moment, there was silence.
Too much silence.
Slowly she fluttered her eyelids open to see Jim leaning over her, his right hand still stroking the fine baby hairs away from her temple, and gazing down at her with concern and…and…and….
“You had me worried there for a moment,” he whispered.
“I think I’m okay,” she replied, her voice a little breathy.
“How is your head?”
She winced. “It hurts a little.”
“What else hurts?”
She was trying to figure that out. “My elbow. This one.”
With care she raised her right arm, and he leaned the opposite direction, bracing himself with his arm at her side, to examine it.
“I’m sure it will be fine. Ow.” He’d grasped right at the crazy bone.
“Tender?”
“A little.”
“Should we take you to the emergency room?”
She shook her head and wished she hadn’t. That hurt a little. “No. No, I’m fine.” She tried to sit up. He positioned himself so that she couldn’t.
“Patti, lay back and catch your breath. Give yourself a minute.”
Well I would, she thought, except that you are leaning over me way too close, looking into my face, and for some strange reason that makes me all squirmy.
So she closed her eyes again for a second, inhaled, exhaled, and opened them again.
Jim still watched her.
“Jim…”
He placed a finger on her lips. A tingle shot through to her chest.
“Patti, I’m going to tell you something, just so I can give you fair warning. This is a little awkward, maybe, and I hope you don’t clobber me or something, but I am going to kiss you. Kiss you hard. Right here. And right now.”
She swallowed. “Oh?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
And his lips descended.
Chapter Six
From the moment he put his hands on her, and while he had cave-manned his way through the house with her in his arms, up until this very moment in time, Jim hadn’t really engaged his pre-Doctorate degree brain or considered any serious consequences of his actions.
And he wasn’t considering any of that now.
While he had the chance, he was taking it. And as he leaned into Patti, his chest flattening against hers, his lips capturing those red, slightly trembling and luscious lips of hers, he wasn’t thinking about anything but pleasure.
Pure, unadulterated, pleasure.
She tasted like cinnamon.
Like sugar.
Like…candy.
Oh, yes….
At first he touched his lips to her sticky ones in a tentative and tender way, but before the kiss was through, he had inclined further, repositioning himself somewhat at her side, cradled her head in his hands, and deepened that kiss. His tongue sweeped inside—
Patti jerked away. “Um. Wait,” she mumbled.
Reaching up, she pulled a round, red candy out of her mouth and shrugged. “Sorry.”
“No problem.” She had the candy between her fingers, and on a whim he grasped her hand and sucked it right off her fingertips, taking it into his mouth. “Yum…” he growled.
Caution to the wind. Yes, for once in his life….
Patti’s round-eyed gaze never left his. “Wha—”
She tilted her head up, and Jim didn’t need anything more to let him know that she was open to this subject of kissing. Plunging straight ahead, he took her lips again, mingling and suckling and taking what he wanted to be his.
Sweet, mother….
A moan curled up from deep in his throat, and he passed it off to her through his open lips. Hers responded, and he raked the tip of his tongue over her smooth teeth. It was she, then, who echoed his moan right back at him, and arched up to meet his tongue, thrust for thrust.
Hot. Friggin’. Damn.
With a gasp she broke away. Her hands had worked their way up to his shoulders. Jim jerked back.
They stayed frozen there for a moment, eyes wide, peering into one another’s face.
“Oh my God,” said Patti, clasping a hand over her mouth. “Oh. My. God.”
“Bad idea?” He surely hoped she’d say no.
She pushed at his chest and scooted up toward the headboard somewhat. He reared back to let her. “Oh, Jim. Oh, crap. We have to talk.”
“Patti, let me start, I…”
“Jim, I’ll confess, I did hire Suzie for a matchmaking job.” Suddenly she appeared very alert and coherent. Bump on the head healed already? “…but I did not ask her to go after you, to hook me up with you, I mean!” She slid out from under him and stood next to the bed, wringing her hands and glancing about.
“What?” He sat still, looking up at her. This was about to be his worst nightmare come true.
“It can’t be you,” she told him, her eyes still wide. “It can’t. It. Just. Can’t.”
“I…I…”
“I didn’t hire her to fix me up with you. You have to believe that. Oh, God! What must you think? Jim, I’ve never, ever once been interested in you. Not once! You have to believe me. I did not plan this. I didn’t even know there was a party here tonight and now…now…”
She headed for the door, and all Jim could do was stare after her. Then she turned abruptly, clenched the hair on either side of her head into her fists, and said, “Now it’s all screwed up! What you must think of me! I can never be in your presence again. Oh, shit. I am going to have to quit my job. I am sooooo embarrassed! Oh Hell’s Christmas Bells…”
And with that, she was gone.
Jim sat in the quiet room for several long ticks of the bedside alarm clock and contemplated his next move. Exiting through the front door meant forced conversations with all of the people out there. Exiting via the kitchen door meant he was a coward.
In the end he said the hell with it and snuck out the back way.
He went home. Where he should have stayed all along.
****
Sunday came and went, quick as a whistle. Patti barely got out of bed. She slept late, stayed in her jammies all day, and read books. Mysteries. Not romance. Reading seemed to be the only activity she could engage in to keep her brain busy, and not get immediately embarrassed by her actions of the previous night.
On Monday morning she faced the inevitable. She had to go to school, had to get the decorations up in the gym, and had to get the booths, tables and chairs arranged around the perimeter. She needed help, sure, and a lot of people had signed up. But she had to lead the charge, and damn if she did not feel like leading anything.
Not one bit.
Embarrassed, still, her biggest worry was coming face-to-face with Jim. This whole Jim mess was something she’d rather not think about at the moment. And Suzie, well, when she got a chance to have a heart-to-heart with her….
But now was not the time.
She had one strategy today: to stay out of the front part of the school and Jim’s way, and hope to hell if he came in the gym, someone would snag him and get him busy so she wouldn’t have to speak with him at all.
It was the best she could come up with. Otherwise she was going to have to move to Alaska. Tomorrow.
/> For the first half of the day, all was well. She managed to use whatever volunteers were available to get the heavy work done right up front. All of the tables were set up and several of them had their booths constructed on top of them. Decorations were in the hanging process, and for the first time this Christmas season, Patti felt like she might just pull off another fantastic Winter Carnival.
Then all hell broke loose.
The commotion came from the big double entry doors to the gym. What kids were there scampered off first. The adults lifted their gazes a little more slowly as the word spread.
“Cupcakes.” Someone said.
“Cupcakes!” Another proclaimed, louder now.
“Cupcakes! Cupcakes! ” Came the chant once more.
And within seconds all of her help had dissipated, converging on Legend’s own hostess with the mostess, Suzie Matthews, the Matchmaking Chef, and the best damned cupcake baker in town, who was holding one humongous box of delectable cupcake confection. Her sister, Chelly, brought up the rear with another just like it, followed by Sydney with a third.
“Great.” Patti stared her way. “It will be hell getting these people back to work later,” she said out loud, although there was no one near to hear. Sugar rush and a nap was what she could see in their futures.
Then her gaze lifted over Suzie’s shoulder, and her eyes connected straight-away with the one set of eyes she did not want to see this day, not at all—Jim Hamilton’s. It was all she could do not to jerk away, break the stare, and go running blindly out of the building, mortified. As it was she simply slipped her gaze sideways, lingered for a moment, and then quietly and efficiently exited the gym, strolled down the hallway, and locked herself inside her classroom—in the far, way back corner, sitting between the wall and a very old and tall storage cabinet.
Then she cried the most confused tears she’d ever cried in her life.
****
Well he had avoided the inevitable long enough.
All weekend he had mulled over the situation, and after taking some time to ponder, he finally figured it all out. After he cajoled Mike and Kate into confirming his suspicions, he knew at some point he was going to have to have a serious talk with Ms. Patti Jo Baker.
