Harlequin Holiday Collection

by Leslie Kelly

  Damn, he should have called the police before heading up here. He’d just taken off, worried about the unknown lady who’d bought a Christmas tree possibly containing stolen diamonds pursued by at least one dangerous criminal. What would he have done if he’d known that woman was Holly Cavanaugh?

  Driven faster.

  He lifted his hand as if coughing, shielding his mouth from view of the window. “Is something going on?”

  Her face blanched—all the proof he needed. “Call 911,” he barked, tossing her his phone. Then he pushed the door open and strode inside to find—

  Nothing. Not a soul was in sight. The cheery foyer looked warm and welcoming, ready to greet holiday visitors, though judging by the empty parking lot and silence in the building, there were none.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Holly had followed him inside, and she looked…hot. Not just sexy hot, but ticked-off hot. He remembered that she really didn’t like any macho crap. Playing protector maybe hadn’t been the best way to win her cooperation.

  “I’m sorry. I thought… Has a tall, beefy man been here today?” She shook her head a little too quickly. “Nope. No tall, big guy. Now, listen, I might have to deal with you professionally, but just because we had a few sessions of grope-and-grab in the back seat of your rusted Chevy in the old days doesn’t give you the right to manhandle me now.”

  “Grope-and-grab?” Zach murmured, his voice throaty. He stepped closer, unable to help it, drawn to the fire in her eyes and the flame of her hair. “I think it was more than that.” They had, after all, dated for nearly two years during their senior year of high school and freshman year of college.

  Eight years ago. Could it really have been that long since he’d seen her, touched her, breathed her in?

  Zach lifted a hand to her cheek, running the tip of one finger over it, feeling the coldness of her skin. Cupping her face in his hand, he moved closer so their legs brushed and their chests met. Even through his coat he felt her heat. Gazing down, he noted the creaminess of her skin, revealed by the deep V of her sweater. And the fullness of her breasts, punctuated by her hard nipples thrusting against the soft fabric.

  “Don’t stand so close.”

  Her voice held no conviction. Holly’s breath was raspy, her lips parted. When she moistened them with her tongue, he groaned and bent toward her, knowing she’d probably punch him again but needing to kiss her too badly to care.

  A breath away from her lips, he was interrupted by a loud crash coming from the room to the right. “What the…”

  He couldn’t finish the question—Holly’s hands had come up and tangled in his hair. She pressed her mouth to his in a deep, hungry kiss that made Zach forget all about the noise, the diamonds, the robbery.

  There was only her.

  Being in Zach’s arms again for the first time in eight years would have been enough to drive just about anything out of Holly’s head. Anything except the dead guy on her living room floor.

  Although she’d grabbed Zach and planted a kiss on his surprised mouth to prevent him from going into the room and finding the corpse, she quickly realized she liked it. Oh, did she like it.

  He felt so good, the curve of his lips matching perfectly the bow of her own. Beginning to forget why she’d started this, Holly let her mouth open a little, enticing him to deepen the intimacy. He accepted the invitation with a slow stroke of his tongue against hers.

  Whimpering low in her throat, Holly tilted her head, wanting even more—and Zach obliged. He’d always been an incredible kisser, but she could recognize the sheer artistry of the man now that she was no longer a silly virgin determined to keep her hymen.

  When Holly had been dating Zach, her mother had been on her third marriage and her sixth suspiciously muscular gardener, while her father had just become engaged to his pregnant secretary. Sex seemed casual, selfish and often crude, leaving Holly determined that she would not play the same games or be another shoot on the Infidelity Tree. Of course, she grew up and realized the problem wasn’t sex but her parents’ own self-centeredness. But by then, Zach had been well out of her life.

  Holly had a few regrets, but she never dwelled on them. The only one she’d held onto was her sadness that her first lover had not been Zach—the only guy she’d ever really loved—rather than a frat boy she’d met when she’d transferred to a college in North Carolina.

  If she’d lost her virginity to Zach, she suspected she would like sex more. Judging by this deep, slow, sweet kiss, a lot more.

  Which left her wondering—since he’d come back into her life so unexpectedly, could she take him now the way she’d been too naive to do eight years ago?

  Chapter Five

  Zach was fully aware that Holly was kissing him only to distract him, but for the first minute of that kiss he didn’t care. She tasted the same—sweet and warm. But the last time she’d been in his arms she’d had an air of innocence.

  Now she exuded sensuality.

  She melted against him, meeting every thrust of his tongue, sighs of pleasure emerging from her throat. Zach’s body reacted strongly and she obviously noticed. Holly rose on tiptoe to rub against his rock-hard erection, quivering with sensation. He dropped his hands to the shapely curves of her ass, lifting her, increasing the heat.

  “Oh God, yes,” she whispered against his lips.

  He didn’t know which turned him on more—the feel of her or that wondrous tone in her voice. He knew from experience that she was incredibly responsive, that he could bring her to a shattering peak of pleasure with a few touches.

  He’d love to do it, knowing now there would be no stopping afterward, no hand job in the back seat of his Chevy before they both returned—unfulfilled—to their dorms. He’d make her come, then find the nearest soft surface and do what he’d wanted to do to her on those long, frustrating college nights.

  But another loud thump finally pierced through the lust-drenched cells of his brain. He pulled his hands off her and stepped back. Back toward reality and the present, where a dangerous situation could be going on in that unknown room. “Holly, tell me what’s happening,” he demanded.

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s just been a long time, and I’ve just…wondered.”

  That wasn’t what he’d been asking, but he knew what she meant. He’d wondered, too. Wondered why she hadn’t even given him a chance to explain that last night at the end of their freshman year when she’d found him lying near an old girlfriend. They’d dated for two years and she’d honestly believed he’d cheated on her after she said “no” one too many times.

  He’d wanted to tell her the truth. But he’d been furious and offended that she hadn’t even asked. And before he’d had a chance to get over that anger, Holly had left. Transferred, never to return.

  “It didn’t mean anything,” she insisted.

  Before he could rebut that, the brunette he’d seen earlier peeked out of the next room. Her eyes widened when she saw him and Holly and he imagined the sexual tension between them was thick enough to stick a fork in. If the woman dropped her gaze three feet, she’d definitely see his physical response. He didn’t know how his zipper was managing the strain.

  The girl grinned. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “You aren’t, Reggie,” Holly insisted. “I was just going to give Za—Mr. Weldon—a tour.”

  “Perfect,” Zach replied, feeling better about the situation given the amusement dancing in Reggie’s eyes. But not completely reassured yet, he strode to the now-open door. “We’ll start in here.”

  He heard Holly yelp, but remained undeterred. Striding into the room, he quickly looked around.

  The room was huge, once probably a ballroom in the old, historic mansion. Tasteful furniture was positioned to provide small conversation areas and holiday decorations graced many of the surfaces. In one corner stood an enormous, half-decorated evergreen. This must be it. He stared at the tree, wondering what secrets it held. Why wo
uld a diamond thief want it so desperately…and did it still conceal something within the tightness of its branches?

  “Good morning.” An elderly woman that Zach recognized as Holly’s grandmother was seated at a small desk, a hot-glue gun in her hand.

  From over the top of a high-backed, antique sofa, he saw a nearly bald head and a bright pair of twinkling eyes. Holly’s grandfather had turned in his seat to greet him. “Hi there.”

  “Hello Mr. and Mrs. Cavanaugh,” Zach murmured.

  “We’re just sitting here watching Reggie do all the work. These old bones can’t handle climbing ladders,” the old man explained. “Even stringing popcorn’s gotten to be too much for uh…Ernie here. He’s taking his morning nap.”

  Zach hadn’t noticed the top of another head, barely visible above the back of the sofa. Must be a pretty short guy….

  “I remember you,” the grandmother interrupted. “You’re Zach. You used to live in town. You and Holly were friends.”

  Friends? Yes, he supposed they had been. And so much more. “Yes. A long time ago.”

  “How nice. You go along and show him around, Holly,” Mrs. Cavanaugh said, smiling as she glued together some crystal ornaments. “By the time you’re finished, I’m sure Reggie will have the tree done.” Then she looked at Zach. “We had a bit of a tree disaster this morning but we’re working as fast as we can to get everything in tip-top shape.”

  A tree disaster. That explained why Holly had tried to prevent him from entering the room. But it didn’t explain everything.

  Like why Holly Cavanaugh was slack-jawed and wide-eyed, looking like she’d just seen a ghost.

  Chapter Six

  Her grandfather was cozying up to a corpse.

  Holly stared in horror at the scene in her living room. When she’d left twenty minutes ago, there had been a short, skinny man lying dead on the floor. Now that man was sitting on her couch, beside her irascible grandfather.

  Stringing popcorn.

  Oh, Grandpa, what are you doing?

  As if seeing Holly’s rising panic, her grandmother rose. “Holly, dear, there’s no point in trying to hide our crisis from your old friend, even if he is now a TV gentleman.” Dressed in one of her typical chiffon dressing gowns, Nana appeared elegant and serene. No one who didn’t know her would imagine her capable of playing hide-and-seek with a body.

  Holly, however, knew her. Just as she knew her grandfather. The two of them were the wiliest pair of octogenarians in Illinois.

  “TV gentleman?” Zach sounded confused, probably because he sensed the panic in the room. Even if it emanated only from Holly.

  “I can’t tell you how happy we are that you’ve decided to feature our home on your show. My granddaughter has worked so hard to make a success of it.” Nana looked as pleased as a little girl at show-and-tell. A secretly bloodthirsty little girl. “You must go with Holly, let her show you everything, from top to bottom.”

  The twinkle in the old woman’s eye, and the suggestiveness in her words, told Holly that Nana had picked up on the tension between her and Zach. Of course, she would—Holly might have been living with her father in town, but during high school, her grandmother had been the one she’d confided in. Just the heat in Holly’s cheeks probably announced that they’d been gobbling each other’s faces off two minutes ago. She was still almost shaking with the need for more. She wanted him top to bottom and wanted to give herself to him the same way.

  But that was a bad idea. Really bad.

  Given the choice between dealing with the dead guy or dealing with her own shockingly weak inhibitions to the guy who’d broken her heart, she’d choose the stiff. Though she’d wondered what it might be like to give in to her desire for Zach, she now knew that was impossible. Taking him once would not remove the temptation borne of wondering. Instead, like a kid raiding the cookie jar, it would only whet her appetite for more.

  Unfortunately, judging by the glitter in his eyes and the half-smile on those well-kissed lips, the bloody man knew it.

  Zach began to put everything together.

  Holly’s comments when he’d first arrived about his “crew” and what her grandmother said about his “TV show” added up to a new explanation for Holly’s odd reaction to his arrival. They thought he was some kind of TV travel reporter.

  The slamming doors, the reluctant welcome—they’d had everything to do with a news story and nothing to do with him, his past, his relationship with Holly.

  Plus, hopefully, nothing to do with a diamond thief.

  “All right, I’ll take you around the house,” Holly mumbled, sounding anything but pleased. She cast a quick glance at her grandmother. “Do you think you’ll have everything taken care of in, say, an hour?”

  The old woman waved an unconcerned hand. “Oh, of course. Everything will be in perfect condition, especially that…tree. Not a hair—I mean, branch—out of place.”

  “Good.” Holly turned on her heel and left the room, shutting the door firmly the moment Zach joined her in the foyer. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “I think we need to talk….”

  She put a hand up, palm out. “No. I don’t want to talk about it. It was a stupid kiss and I’m sorry it happened.”

  Zach wasn’t. But he sensed she wouldn’t want to hear that.

  “I have to deal with you professionally, since the story on the inn is so important. Other than that, we have nothing to say to one another.”

  “You’re still angry at me for some crap that happened when we were kids?” He couldn’t believe it, especially because he hadn’t been as guilty as she’d thought.

  “Of course not. It’s history. You’re here to do a job and I’m here to convince you that this inn deserves a lot of attention. That’s it.”

  So she thought. Zach suddenly suspected that if Holly found out he was not doing the feature on the inn, she’d use that same cool tone to invite him to get the hell out of her life.

  Maybe that would be the smart thing to do. But there were two reasons he wasn’t going to. First, there could be a criminal out there who wanted something he thought Holly had.

  And second—he couldn’t walk away from her after that kiss.

  Chapter Seven

  For the next hour, Holly led Zach around the Hollyberry Inn, critically eyeing every room, silently praying that he’d see past the few kinks to the jewel just waiting to be exposed to the world—before it was foreclosed on and put out of business.

  The importance of the story Zach was doing was the only thing that could have kept her focused on anything except his nearness—on the reality that she was, once again, alone with the guy who’d introduced her to all her most interesting body parts. If not for that, it would be much too easy to think of the wicked things they’d done during their steamy teenage nights. She and Zach had walked hand in hand toward the sexual cliff, all the way to the very precipice. Only when she’d refused to leap off it, Zach had gone out and had sex with the nearest willing bimbo.

  That memory helped keep her shoulders stiff and her mood aloof. Well, that and the knowledge that her elderly grandparents and her maid were downstairs trying to hide the body that had fallen out of the Christmas tree.

  “You’ve put a lot of work into this place. And it shows.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How long have you been running it as an inn?”

  Finally, they were getting down to it. “We opened for business three months ago after six months worth of construction and remodeling.”

  “So you’ve been back in Illinois for almost a year. I have to admit, Hol, that’s pretty surprising considering how eager you were to leave and run off to North Carolina.”

  He was the reason she’d left school so quickly and he damn well knew it. When she realized that she didn’t have much to stay for she’d made the decision to go live with her flighty mother rather than finish school with him. Not liking that he flustered her, she lifted a nervous hand to her hair, willing he
r fingers not to shake. “My grandfather was ill and couldn’t keep up with the place.” She did not add that the roof needed to be replaced and the foundation reinforced. Or that the only way she’d had to accomplish those things had been to take out a huge loan—which Holly had intended to pay back out of the profit once the inn got up and running.

  It was up. And it was running. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to realize it.

  But they will.

  “So is it just you, your grandparents and that…Reggie?”

  “And Manny, a part-time maintenance guy.”

  “Other than that, you’re out here, completely alone, pretty far from town?” His tone was subdued, a frown tugging at his handsome brow.

  “We do have guests,” she shot back, not appreciating his pointing out just how empty they were only one week before Christmas. God, she hoped he didn’t mention that on the air. “But most people make their holiday plans long in advance. We weren’t even open for business until Labor Day.”

  Zach stopped, though they were halfway down the staircase leading from the second to the first floor. “I didn’t mean that…I mean, damn it, Holly, it’s remote out here. What would you do in case of an emergency?”

  He was worried about her? The realization caused a flash of warmth—she shoved it down, grabbing the handrail to keep from nervously touching her hair again. “Don’t be ridiculous. What could happen?”

  Uh…except dead guys in trees. That, however, had to have been just a freak accident. Like Reggie had said, the guy had been playing a game of dive-through-the-tree-binder and had gotten tangled up in the plastic.

  How he’d ended up in a tree, she didn’t know. Nor was she ready to dwell on it. She’d leave that for the police…when she called them.