The Christmas Husband

by Mary Anne Wilson

  He pulled his dark overcoat more tightly around him, then pushed open the gates and stepped into a wide courtyard paved in worn bricks. This close, the house was almost Gothic looking, spreading out at the back and on both sides of the enclosed atrium.

  Towering trees laced with Christmas lights sat on either side, and in the middle of the space stood an elegant brass, life-size statue of two people locked in a swirling embrace. As he took a step closer, he realized that a real-life couple stood at the base, basically echoing the lines of the statue. They were lost in a deep, passionate kiss, molded to each other so closely that they looked as if they were one.

  He averted his eyes from the open display of need in the two people and tried to slip past unnoticed, but he never made it. He barely took a step before he heard the woman ask in a seductively intimate voice, “So have I convinced you it’s time to leave and go to the boat?”

  Steven glanced at the two of them as the man said in a low, rough voice, “I think you’ve done the job.” Then, as if he sensed they weren’t alone, he glanced over in Steven’s direction.

  The man, dressed in casual clothes, a leather jacket and jeans, looked back at the woman as he framed her face with both of his hands and said, “Looks like we have company, Chloe.”

  She slipped out of his hold to turn in Steven’s direction. Dark slacks and a red silk blouse set off dark shoulder-length hair that curled wildly around a face flushed by more than the chill in the air. And the tug of a frown between her eyes definitely made Steven feel more than a bit like a voyeur.

  When the man slipped behind her to circle her waist with his arms, she leaned back against him and covered his hands with hers. Steven experienced a flash of what could have been envy that the two people had such an obvious connection, one that had little to do with the hold they had on each other.

  “Are you here for the going-away party?” she asked.

  “No, I’m here to meet with the owner of the agency.”

  “Rachel’s up at the party on the top floor,” the man said as he rested his chin on top of the woman’s head. “Look for the woman dancing with a cowboy in the ballroom, or she’ll be in her living section packing. Just go on inside, through the foyer to the elevator and take it to the third floor.”

  “Thanks,” Steven said, then turned to head for the entrance set to the right. A massive wooden door with an arched-glass inset was framed with the soft glow of red Christmas lights and sat at the top of four half-circle stone steps.

  “One more thing,” the man called after Steven.

  Steven stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked back. “Yes?”

  “Do me a favor. When you find Rachel, tell her Chloe and Dalton had to leave. We’ve got to go and see the boat. But we’ll be in touch.”

  “Sure thing,” he said, then turned and took the steps in two long strides. As he reached for the door, the two people behind him called out in unison, “Merry Christmas.”

  With a wave of his hand, Steven went inside, into a reception area filled with welcome warmth, the scent of pine and woodsmoke and Christmas music that he knew was coming from the top floor. The space was at least thirty-feet square, with soaring ceilings, polished hardwood floors overlaid with Persian rugs and antiques that were touched with shades of teals, beige and rose. A huge Christmas tree decorated with ceramic apples, popcorn strands and silver stars stood in front of the windows.

  Steven crossed the room and spotted the elevator with its door standing open. As he got in, he had to admit that, so far, the whole setup here was one touched with class. The brass doors slid shut and the car silently started up. The house, the setting, even the statue. Class. But then again, he was sure there were bordellos that weren’t done in red velvet, garish gold leaf and pictures of naked women.

  The elevator stopped with a soft chime, and the door opened to a broad hallway with gleaming hardwood floors overlaid with Persian runners. Flocked gold paper covered twelve-foot walls trimmed with rich mahogany baseboards and cornices. Several panel doors leading off the wide space straight ahead and to the right were closed.

  The Christmas music filled the air, mingling with the sound of laughter and voices coming through a massive wooden archway to his left. It looked as if it led into the ballroom the couple in the courtyard had mentioned.

  He could see polished wooden floors reflecting back the lights from a huge crystal chandelier suspended from a high ceiling. People in casual to elegant clothes were milling around holding drinks, and a number of couples were in the middle of the room dancing to the strains of a recording of “Winter Wonderland.”

  As he started toward the archway, without warning someone stepped out of a doorway he hadn’t noticed by the elevator and ran right into him. He had an impression of a tangle of silky blond hair, heat and the scent of something light and fresh on impact. Then he reached out to keep the person he’d collided with from falling and found himself looking down into a face dominated by wide eyes the color of a clear summer’s sky. As her slender body swayed against his, he felt as if he’d been struck by lightning.

  Chapter Three

  Steven felt as if he were surrounded by the essence of the stranger, that the world had been blotted out by her softness and heat. Then the sensation was minimized as she moved back a bit, and he was almost thankful for that until he got a good look at the woman.

  He was faced with a slender female who was almost waiflike, maybe five feet five inches tall, with a veil of pale blond hair swept back at the sides from a delicately boned face with silver combs. A suede jacket with dark overstitching, jeans and leather boots emphasized what his senses already knew. She was tiny, but with high breasts, long legs and curves that fit against him with shocking precision.

  She backed up even more as her blue eyes blinked, and she stammered, “I...I’m so sorry. I wasn’t paying any attention. I was so distracted.”

  He realized he was staring at her at the same time Martin’s words echoed in him. “You need to get a life. Meet someone interesting and have fun.” He knew immediately that this blond woman could be interesting if she were Rachel Harrington. In fact, he knew she’d be interesting if she weren’t Rachel.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  “It’s my car. The throttle linkage sticks open sometimes, and if I forget to jiggle the accelerator when I stop the car, it floods the carburetor when it sits open like that. I’ve had the car forever, and you’d think I’d learn, but I totally forgot this time.”

  The car knowledge that rolled off her tongue as if she were a mechanic was almost as odd as the gentle ethereal look that clung to her. An angel who knew about cars and probably ran an escort agency. An intriguing combination, almost as enticing as the way the mellow light touched shadows at her cheeks and throat, or the way wisps of hair had fallen free of the combs to lie against her cheeks.

  He kept his hands at his sides as a strong urge to reach out and brush at the errant strands of pale hair all but overwhelmed him. “I take it from all of that that your car won’t start?”

  She nodded. “It’s flooded. I just called to have someone come get me and tow the car to the garage.” She rubbed at her arms with the flats of her hands. “Wouldn’t you know it had to happen on a night like this.”

  “Can I do anything to help?”

  “Thanks, but I just have to wait for about fifteen minutes for the truck to get here. Rachel let me use the phone, and that’s about all anyone can do for now.” He realized she wasn’t Rachel at the same time she moved abruptly to pass him to head for the elevators. “Sorry I almost ran you over,” she said over her shoulder to him as she approached the brass doors.

  “You can’t wait outside for the truck.” He spoke before he even knew he was talking. And his words stopped her with her finger inches from the Down button.

  The blue eyes met his gaze. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s freezing out there and the fog’s as thick as pea soup.” He hesitated, wishing his concern
was truly altruistic, but it wasn’t. The woman touched him on a level he’d almost forgotten existed until recently. And he didn’t want her to just walk out of his world. She was probably an employee or friend of Rachel’s, but he didn’t even know her name. “If your car won’t start, you won’t have a heater working.”

  “You know how Californians are, don’t you?” she asked with a slanting glance.

  “No, how are they?”

  She drew her hand back and turned to face Steven. “They never admit to any discomforts with the weather. When it’s the coldest day of the year, they go out in shirtsleeves and take a picture just so their family back East can see how wonderful California is. And if it rains, they don’t carry umbrellas or wear raincoats. They just shrug and say it’s uncharacteristically humid outside.”

  As he smiled at her words, he realized that it had been a while since he’d let humor skim through him so easily. Or that he’d flirted with anyone. And that’s what he was doing as he asked, “And how do Californians explain fog?”

  “Low clouds,” she said without hesitation.

  That brought a chuckle from him and a sense that this woman probably had the ability to make sunshine appear at will.

  “I think the clouds are going to get really low tonight,” she murmured and a smile came, a slow, easy expression that made his breath catch in his chest. “You know, welcome to the City by the Bay. Low clouds and a slight cooling tonight. Expect some humidity tomorrow. And have a very Merry Christmas.”

  For a flashing moment, he had the oddest feeling that he’d met this woman before. But that was ridiculous. If he’d ever met her, he wouldn’t have forgotten, not when she was drawing her to him like a moth to a flame and all he could think of was a way to keep her here a bit longer.

  “Tell you what. Why don’t you let me buy you a drink while you wait up here so you don’t have to venture into the low clouds? Then you can go on down in ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “It’s an open bar.”

  “Sure, of course, I knew that. But if it wasn’t, I’d ask to buy you some brandy to fend off the chill before you have to go.”

  She hesitated, and he knew real relief when she nodded. “Brandy. That sounds good,” she said as she shrugged out of her suede jacket and crossed to the archway to put it on a pile of coats on a bench. She was wearing an ivory-colored full-sleeved blouse that clung to high breasts and looked as if it was made of some soft material.

  Steven quickly took off his overcoat, laid it by her jacket and looked down at her, feeling the full impact of her blue gaze. “Brandy?”

  “Lead the way,” she murmured.

  He almost wished Rachel Harrington wouldn’t show up or would get lost with her cowboy. As she went with him into the ballroom there was no direct contact, but he could sense her at his side. Every atom of his being seemed alive and aware. And he fought the urge to put his arm around her and draw her to him again.

  He stopped with her just inside the entrance, saw the bar across the way with bottles of champagne set out along with bottles of other alcohol. He looked down at her by his side and spoke up to be heard over the music. “Is it brandy or would you like something else?”

  “Brandy’s fine.”

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, then walked away, making his way past the dancers to the bar on the far side of the room. After he ordered the two brandies, he leaned closer and asked the man serving the drinks, “I’m looking for Rachel Harrington.”

  “You just missed her. She went into the living quarters to get some presents. But she should be back any minute.”

  His wish to put off his meeting for a few minutes had been answered and he wouldn’t question it. “If you see her, could you tell her Steven York is here for the appointment?”

  “Sure thing,” the man said as he handed Steven the two snifters.

  As he took the drinks and turned to start back across the room, Steven spotted the blonde right away over by the wall. And the thirty or so people in the room might just as well have not been there as he wended his way back to her. All he could see was her, and when he got there, he held out one of the snifters to her. “Here you go.”

  When she took the brandy from him, her fingers brushed his and the unexpected contact only underscored the fact that she fascinated him. Then she had the glass cradled in both hands and lifted it to her lips. He watched her take a sip, then the blue eyes met his gaze over the rim. “Aren’t you drinking?”

  “Of course,” he said, taking a quick sip of the warm alcohol and letting it slip down his throat. “Good brandy,” he murmured.

  “Yes, it is.”

  There was a momentary pause in the music before “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” came over the speakers. Steven looked at the woman in front of him, and knew he might be acting like some teenager in the throes of puppy lust, but he wanted to feel her against him again. And there was only one way he could think to experience it.

  “Would you like to dance?” he asked.

  She looked past him at the others dancing slowly and intimately, then her blue gaze touched him again. He thought she was going to refuse and he said quickly, “Dancing’s a great way to warm up.”

  “Okay,” she said softly.

  He took her snifter and put it along with his on a side table, then he turned to her to hold out his hand. And he knew in that instant, when she put her hand in his, just how much of an understatement those words about warming up by dancing had been.

  Her fingers were cool to the touch, yet heat licked through him where theirs met. And the world shifted to slow motion as he went to the dance floor with her. Then, as he turned and drew her to him, that feeling he was being surrounded by her came again, even though she kept a bit of distance between them.

  “Nice party,” she murmured as they moved in unison to the music.

  There had to be a better description of these moments, but he was at a loss to find it right now. Instead, he settled for, “Yes, nice,” and knew how lame it was as soon as he said the words.

  When her hips brushed against him, he slipped his hand over the silky material on her back down to her waist and lightly kept her from moving back. When she glanced up at him from under the veil of her lashes, he knew that she felt it, too, and he almost missed his step. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I haven’t danced for...a long time.” And I haven’t flirted like this or felt like this for what seems forever.

  “You’re doing just fine,” she said softly.

  He wanted to say he wasn’t usually like this. That he was a man never at a loss for words, that he was usually in control. But he said something mundane and meant to just fill the spaces. “It’s foggy.”

  “Low clouds,” she said with a smile that made him miss a step again.

  He stopped without letting her go, and he realized they had crossed the room and were in an archway near the windows. If he’d never come here, he never would have looked into her blue eyes, he never would have felt her against him. And he never would have realized how flat and dull his life had been before.

  Madison stood very still while the music kept going. She’d been so lost in the feeling of being in this man’s arms that the rest of the room had diminished to a blurred background.

  From the moment she’d walked out of the side room after making her call and run into him, she’d felt as if a day that had lacked focus had suddenly become crystal clear. And with that clarity came an abundance of emotions that she could barely deal with.

  As she looked up at him, she tried to figure out what it was about him that had made her act against reason and stay up here. Then dance with him. His looks weren’t spectacular, but arresting on some level. With hazel eyes that narrowed when he looked at her, the set of his jaw and the slightly long hair that lay on the collar of the gray suit jacket.

  But there was more. She felt something about him that had made her forget about the Mustang being dead as a doornail at the curb. Something about him that was almost uncom
fortably male. If she had been one of her listeners calling into the show, she would have told the doctor the man exuded sex appeal with five feet between them, and he was overwhelmingly attractive this close. The man conjured up images of closeness and touching that no man had ever managed to produce in her.

  He’d said something to her, and she didn’t have a clue what it was. “Excuse me?” she asked, her hand still in his and the feeling of his touch on the small of her back burning through the blouse she was wearing.

  “I asked if you believed in Christmas traditions,” he said, his gaze alive with a fire that echoed in her.

  “Yes, I do. I always have. I believed in Santa until I was nine years old and one of my brothers told me he wasn’t real.”

  “How about mistletoe?” He glanced above them at the archway, and Madison followed his gaze.

  A sprig of mistletoe was over them, tied to a bright red ribbon. Her heart lurched as she looked back at him and found him even closer, so close she was sure she could feel the heat of his breath touched with the richness of brandy as he exhaled.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Good,” he said as he slowly moved his hands up until he was framing her face with heat and strength.

  She managed to whisper, “Very good.”

  She knew he was going to kiss her. She knew she should move back, maybe object or simply say no, but she didn’t do any of that. Instead, she stood very still, filled with anticipation as the world narrowed to just the two of them and he dipped his head toward her.

  When his lips touched hers, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to move closer and open her lips in invitation. The ballroom with the partyers fell away in a second, and all that mattered was this man’s touch, the taste of him and the feeling of his body against hers. She knew it was madness, but it was beyond her to move away from the pleasures he brought with him. And when he drew back, she had to fight the impulse to hold on to him more tightly and pull him back to her.