Merry Christmas, Baby

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  Jared remembered the story from when he and Trish had first gone to dinner with Nick and Gus.

  Nick shrugged. “We managed. But thank goodness there’s no flu outbreak this Chrismoose season.”

  Teddy nodded. “Yeah, knock on wood.” She rapped lightly against the bar’s surface for good measure. “I’ve never been so sick in all of my life. Last year it was a mess with the flu going around.”

  Jared liked how genuine she was. “That’s what I heard.”

  Lucky called out another order up and Teddy was back in work mode. “Okay, I’ll see you guys later.”

  Jared stood rooted to the spot and watched her walk away, her ponytail swinging and her neat tush swaying.

  Nick laughed and elbowed him as they closed the distance to the connecting door between the restaurant and the terminal. “Easy there. You’re about one step away from drooling.”

  Jared shook his head slightly, trying to clear it. They walked into the deserted terminal. A sled dog curled next to the stove raised his head long enough to look at them then lowered it and closed his eyes again. Jared heard someone moving around upstairs.

  Leave it to Nick to have summed it up so neatly— Jared wasn’t even going to try denying being damn close to drooling over Teddy Monroe. “Hey, she’s pretty. Very pretty. What can I say?”

  Nick grinned. “It’s good to see you back in the land of the living.”

  “She have a boyfriend?” Not that it would particularly make a difference. Competition was healthy and if she had a boyfriend, Jared would give him a run for his money—he was that damned attracted to Teddy.

  “Not as far as I know.” Good answer. “In fact, not only does she not have a boyfriend, she’s moving to New York next month.”

  “Are you serious?” Jared grabbed his suitcase. What the hell was wrong with Nick that he hadn’t mentioned any of this? Jared immediately felt sheepish. Uh, maybe it was because Nick was getting freaking married.

  Nick nodded. “Yep. She wants to go to acting school. She stayed here to help Lucky get on his feet and sock away some extra cash. Gus is going to hook her up with a restaurant job while she’s in school. And we found her an apartment just around the corner from my cousin Angela. Remember Angela?” Jared nodded. Of course he did. Angela and her brother Mark had spent nearly as much time at Nick’s house as Jared had.

  Dammit. Wouldn’t you know it? He was ready to check out of the city and a woman who totally blew him away appeared on his horizon? “That’s cool. I may not be there by then, but good for her.”

  “You’re really serious about leaving New York?” Nick opened the door leading outside and even though Jared was accustomed to New York winters, the cold hit him like a slap in the face. Snow drifted down in a desultory fashion.

  “Yeah, I’m serious.” The snow crunched beneath their feet as they walked the length of the building, crossing to a set of stairs on the far rear corner of the building. Small planes sat in the dark on the other side of the small runway to the right.

  The muted activity from the restaurant and bar was audible but out here the evening was cold and calm. In the distance a wolf howled. Within seconds the call was answered. Jared looked up. Without the city lights, the sky seemed vast but at the same time close enough that he could touch the velvet darkness.

  “This is the other entrance to Gus’s…I mean, Teddy’s apartment,” Nick said.

  They climbed the stairs and entered the apartment. Jared stopped in surprise. An open floor plan, sleek furniture, and the odd touch of whimsy here and there reminded him of a Soho loft. This was a definite departure from the frontier décor in the terminal and bar below. A four-foot tree sat on one end table next to the sofa, winking and blinking Christmas cheer from its colored lights.

  “Wow, this is definitely not what I expected here.” Jared closed the door behind him, shutting out the cold and lightly falling snow.

  “That’s the same reaction I had the first time I saw it.” Nick looked around. “Gus left the big furniture here because it was damn expensive to ship it. She just took photos and artwork. Teddy’s brought in her own stuff.” The artwork on the wall was all black-and-white prints of theaters and stages and a couple of playbills. Jared itched to pick up and examine more closely a framed photograph on the other end table of three females, one of which looked like a very young version of Teddy. “She’s a little more free-spirited than Gus. I love my woman but she can be uptight.”

  “Gus is good for you,” Jared said with a smile but he meant it. Nick’s family had always kept him rooted and he needed a woman who did the same. And there was a huge difference in being rooted and being tied down.

  “Yeah, she is good for me, isn’t she?” Something about Nick’s goofy expression touched Jared. He was damn glad his buddy had found Gus. “Well, ace, this is where you’re bunking for the next couple of nights. Gus and I are in here,” Nick said, walking into a bedroom to the right. “This was Gus’s room all along so when Teddy moved in she just took over what had been the guest room.” The other bedroom was to the left, with a bathroom in between the two.

  Jared sat down on the couch and asked the question he’d wanted to ask since meeting Teddy. “So what’s the deal with Teddy? What’s her story?”

  Nick gave him a quick rundown, bullet-pointing in journalistic fashion. Her father had abandoned the family and then the mother had died. Teddy’s older sister had raised her. The sister made a living raising and training sled dogs on the outskirts of town. From what Nick knew from Gus, Teddy hadn’t dated much, focusing instead on her family and friends and saving her money for the move.

  “So, she not only looks good but she has integrity, too,” Jared said.

  “And she’s a damn nice girl to boot,” Nick said on a teasing note. “So, what do you want to do? Shower? Crash? Check out the tube? They have satellite. Or head back downstairs?”

  That was a no-brainer. He wanted to check out Teddy Monroe some more. “Definitely head back downstairs.”

  “OKAY, DONE, AND THANKS so much you guys,” Teddy said at ten-twenty. Instead of the customary forty-five-minute cleanup, it’d been done in twenty. Gus, as she had the last several nights, had insisted on helping for old times’ sake. Nick had laughed and said he wasn’t about to be left out of the party and Jared had good-naturedly claimed he didn’t know what he was doing but he could follow directions as well as the next Joe. Not only had it gone fast, but it had been fun.

  Teddy admitted it. She was smitten. Jared Martin was the total package. From his sophisticated, but casual good looks, to his sense of humor, to his crisp accent, he was like a Christmas package that had shown up early, wrapped in charm and sexiness. She’d been almost painfully aware of everything about him during their cleanup—where he was, what he was doing, the fit of his shirt over his broad shoulders, the crisp cadence of his voice, the faint whiff of expensive, sophisticated aftershave, and the heat of his gaze. More than once she’d felt him looking at her. It was enough to weaken a woman’s knees—well, this woman’s anyway.

  And while Teddy didn’t have a ton of experience, she had enough sense to know when a man was flirting with her and Jared had been flirting all during the cleanup operation.

  Gus and Nick stood in the restaurant, holding hands. “If you guys don’t mind, we’re going to stay down here for a bit. We’ve got a date,” Nick said.

  Teddy smiled and sighed inside at how romantic it was. Because there wasn’t anywhere to go in Good Riddance on a date in the winter other than Gus’s, Nick and Gus had “dated” after hours in the restaurant when Nick had first arrived.

  Teddy’s heart beat a little faster and harder at the thought of having time alone with this handsome man.

  “No problem,” Teddy said.

  Together she and Jared crossed to the door at the back of the restaurant that opened to the interior stairwell leading to her apartment.

  “Don’t wait up for us,” Gus said with a smile.

  “You kids d
on’t do anything we wouldn’t do,” Nick tacked on, smirking.

  On any other given day Teddy might’ve been embarrassed by Nick’s comment but she and Jared had shared one too many heated glances throughout the night. She’d been about five degrees warmer simply with him in the room tonight. And face it, men like Jared Martin didn’t come her way every day—well, basically never before.

  Teddy closed the door behind them, shutting out the restaurant, plunging them in close-quartered intimacy in the stairwell. Her heart thudded against her ribs and her breath caught in her throat as Jared’s arm brushed her waist in the dark, his breath stirring against her hair. The air between them seemed to pulse with awareness.

  Teddy flipped on the light switch in the hallway. Laughing at Nick’s comment, they climbed the stairs to the apartment.

  When they got upstairs, she ushered Jared inside. The lamp was on at one end of the sofa and the Christmas tree lights twinkled in the other end, but other than that the room was cast in shadows.

  The air seemed to shift around them and cocoon them the same as it had in the stairwell. “Thanks for pitching in tonight,” Teddy said, suddenly at a bit of a loss now that it was just the two of them. She had the totally alien notion she didn’t want to sit about making small talk. She wanted to do what she’d longed to do since her first glimpse of him—she wanted to kiss him and be kissed by him.

  “It was no problem,” Jared said.

  It felt different in the apartment with him there. It wasn’t as if he was a piece of furniture but it was as if she’d just discovered what had been missing. He should’ve seemed as out of place as a guy from New York City could seem in an Alaskan village. But, instead, he fit right in with the apartment.

  “Are you ready to drop?” she said.

  “Actually, I’ve caught a second wind and I’m wide awake. What do you usually do after you wrap up work? I don’t want to interrupt your schedule.”

  Teddy usually showered when she finished up for the evening but she simply couldn’t bring herself to do that now—no way she could strip naked in the bathroom, knowing Jared was one closed door away. The mere notion sent a shiver through her. That felt far too suggestive and intimate and she just couldn’t do it, not until Nick and Gus were up here with them.

  So, she skipped the showering part and fast-forwarded to the next thing. “I usually have a glass of wine and just sort of decompress,” she said, moving toward the dark kitchen. “Would you care for a glass of wine?”

  She didn’t keep anything stronger in her apartment. She’d noticed he drank bourbon and ginger ale earlier. She’d also noted he’d cut himself off after one pre-dinner drink. She was always aware of stuff like that. Her few memories of her father invariably involved too much alcohol and the unpleasant aftermath. That particular situation had never ended well regardless of what was going on. It had actually been a relief when he’d taken off one day and never come back. How much a man drank and how he handled himself was an issue for Teddy.

  Jared stepped into the dark kitchen and seemed to fill it with his presence. “Sure, I’ll join you in a glass of wine. And either red or white is fine as long as it’s not real sweet.”

  Teddy laughed breathlessly. “Okay, no Moscato for you.”

  She poured each of them a glass of shiraz and turned on the iPod docking station. Bing Crosby crooned about a white Christmas. Teddy loved classic Christmas tunes by Bing, Nat King Cole and Perry Como.

  “Here you go,” she said, handing Jared his glass. Her fingers brushed his and the air seemed to sizzle between them. She settled on one end of the sofa, leaving him the option of the other end or one of the two armchairs. She found it somewhat gratifying he chose the other end of the sofa.

  Teddy tucked one leg beneath her, angling in his direction and settled back against the couch’s arm.

  “So, you’re a stockbroker,” she said.

  “So, you want to be an actress,” he said at the same time.

  They both laughed.

  “You first.”

  “You first.”

  “How about ladies first?” he said with a smile that fanned the heat inside her.

  That helped to break the ice a little and Teddy found it was easy to talk to him, despite the sexual awareness that seemed to dance through her. She gave him the abbreviated version of her upcoming plans. She was surprised, however, when he knew the school she wanted to attend. It wasn’t as if she’d selected the Julliard of acting schools. “You’ve actually heard of it?”

  “I have. It’s a great school. My cousin studied there. He’s doing some off-Broadway stuff now. When you get to the city I’ll introduce you to Gaylord.”

  “Gaylord?” she parroted without thinking.

  Jared grimaced. “I know. Aunt Claudine named him after her favorite grandfather but could she have possibly hung a worse name on him, especially for a theater actor? And by the way, he’s not. And there’s no good way to shorten his name. He doesn’t want to be called Gay and Lord doesn’t work either. When he was a kid Aunt Claudine insisted on him going by Gaylord. He goes by Chuck today.”

  Teddy laughed. “I can see why. And I’d love to meet him this spring.” But it wasn’t springtime she was thinking about now.

  He shrugged, his shoulders appearing all the more broad in his button-down shirt with the Christmas tree lights behind him. For one insane moment, with the tree behind him, it looked as if he were under the tree. And to further her crazy train of thought, Teddy knew without a doubt that Jared Martin was just what she’d like to find under her tree this Christmas. Well, more specifically, she’d prefer to find him in her bed…preferably without all of those troublesome clothes he was currently wearing.

  She smiled privately. She’d had the flu last Christmas and it seemed as if she had a fever again now. However, this was a different kind of fever altogether. And she knew precisely what she needed for a cure.

  Him.

  4

  WHAT THE HELL WAS HE thinking? He was alone with a woman he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of all night and he’d brought up his cousin? Not only had he mentioned Gaylord, who would have lots in common with Teddy, but then he’d gone out of his way to reassure her Gaylord was straight and offered to introduce them.

  “I’m open to meeting as many people as possible,” she said, her smile rocking him.

  He smiled back. She’d just told him she wasn’t caught up in meeting Gaylord because he was a straight guy.

  She held her wineglass in one hand and the other arm she stretched along the back of the couch. She rubbed small circles with her finger. Her hands were elegant with short, functional nails. There it was again. It was subtle but she had an energy about her that drew him.

  Jared sipped at his wine and copied her, stretching his arm along the back of the sofa, as well. He lightly traced his finger along the back of her hand, leaving her every opportunity to pull her hand away. She didn’t. She simply smiled at him over the rim of her wineglass, her brown eyes taking on a smoky quality.

  Her skin was soft and smooth like warm velvet beneath his fingertip. Tension wound between them, beckoned them.

  “We just met,” he said, leaning in closer.

  “I know.” Her husky tone stroked through him.

  “This is crazy.”

  “Insane,” she agreed. “And I bet you never opt for insanity.”

  “I never have before.”

  They both placed their wineglasses on the coffee table and moved toward one another on the couch. Jared leaned in and her breath fanned against his face. There was something almost miraculous about Teddy Monroe, something that got next to him, that tugged at him.

  “Would you take your hair down? I’ve wondered all night what it would feel like.”

  “You have?”

  “I have.”

  She reached behind her head, her movements sensual and languid, and pulled the elastic out of her hair. With a slow shake of her head, her hair tumbled about her shoulde
rs. She threaded her fingers through it, as if combing it. “Better?”

  “Much.” He fingered one of the blond swaths. In the lamp light it looked like molten honey and felt like silk. “You have beautiful hair,” he said.

  “Thank you.” She leaned in closer.

  He buried his hand in her hair and his fingertips brushed against the back of her neck. She shivered faintly beneath his touch.

  And it should feel kind of crazy considering he’d just met her but the strong urge to kiss her simply felt right. He pulled her to him. Her lips were warm, soft…and potent. Even though she tasted faintly of red wine, the effect was like a shot of smooth, aged whiskey going down. Heat spiraled through him and went straight to his head…both of them.

  Teddy deepened the kiss and Jared ran with it. Her mouth opened beneath his and he swept the moist recesses with his tongue. He explored the soft, wet heat of the inside of her cheeks, the velvet length of her tongue. She moaned into his mouth and he swallowed her sound, absorbing it.

  Her sweet, hot mouth wasn’t enough and he slaked kisses against the line of her jaw, down the column of her neck to the area just below and slightly behind her ear. “Oh, oh, oh,” she said, half gasp, half actual words.

  Her neck was incredibly sensitive. He teased his tongue against the soft skin and she arched her back and canted her head to one side, allowing him greater access. She grabbed his shoulders and held on to him, her fingers digging into his muscles. Her impassioned response turned him on all the more. Jared felt more alive, more in tune with her than he’d ever felt with anyone before.

  He nuzzled at her neck, kissed, and then sucked at the tender spot. It was as if he couldn’t get enough of her. He lapped at the delicate shell of her ear, then traced the line with the tip of his tongue.

  Meanwhile her touch was warm and arousing as she kneaded the muscles in his shoulders, down to his chest. She found his male nipples through his shirt and teased her fingers against them, the sensation arrowing straight to his penis.