The Christmas Keeper

by Jenn McKinlay

  Savannah sucked in a breath, taking a piece of coconut with it, which caused her to cough so hard her eyes watered. She put down her coffee. Joaquin, with a look of alarm, hopped off his seat and came around the counter to pat her on the back. It was a solid thump right between her shoulder blades, as if it might distract her from her newfound realization. No such luck.

  Chapter Four

  SHE held up her hand, picked up her mug, and took a long swallow. When her throat felt clear, she looked at him and said, “You watch all of those movies, don’t you?”

  “Me?” he asked. He gestured to himself even though they were the only two people in the room. “Well, you know, they’re on, like, all month. It’s impossible to avoid them.”

  Savannah arched an eyebrow and stared him down. “You like them.”

  “My sister, Desi—”

  Savannah shook her head. Her mass of red curls flew about her face and she puffed out her lower lip to blow one hank of hair out of her eyes. “This is not about Desi.”

  “Fine, so I like Christmas movies,” he said. He rolled his eyes. “Is that a crime?”

  “Only if you cry,” she said. She was kidding, but judging by the guilty look on his face, he did get emotional while watching. “Oh, wow, you do cry.”

  “No—maybe—okay, only at the really good ones that involve kids or dogs,” he said. “You know, some of the writing is just brilliant.”

  Savannah stared at him over the rim of her mug. “I don’t even know what to say to you right now. In my entire life, I have never met a man who loves Christmas. Usually, it’s something to be avoided at all costs and shopping, if there is any to be done, is finessed late at night on Christmas Eve at the local pharmacy. Seriously, I once had a guy give me a sports sock stuffed with beef jerky, batteries, and the matching sock.”

  Joaquin made a face like he couldn’t comprehend this breach of holiday etiquette. “Was he a student?”

  “Lawyer.”

  “Oh, well, that explains it.”

  She laughed at his dry tone and then said, “Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s sweet that you enjoy the holiday, but it just proves my point about us.”

  “And what point was that?” he asked. He moved away from her to pour his own cup of coffee, and Savannah tried not to stare at how small the mug looked in his big hands. She had a brief vision of those hands on her skin and she felt her entire body get hot.

  “That we are completely incompatible,” she said. “I’m a city girl and you’re a country boy, you’re a morning person and I like to sleep late, you love holidays and I feel like I’m being tortured. Complete opposites.”

  He blew on his coffee and Savannah watched the steam drift away from his pursed lips. She was staring. She knew she shouldn’t but her caffeine hadn’t really kicked in yet, and he did have the most fascinating mouth. Full lips that looked as if they would be good at softly sliding up the side of her neck to nestle in the sweet spot right below her ear.

  As if he knew the wayward path her thoughts had taken, Joaquin put his mug on the counter and leaned close. He was just inches away from her, studying her with those fathomless black eyes, when he said, “The only compatibility that matters, Red, is in the bedroom. And you and I both know we are way more than compatible there—we’re positively combustible.”

  He said it with such confidence that she found herself believing him 100 percent. There was definitely some hard-core desire crackling between them—in fact, she couldn’t remember a time when she’d been as attracted to a man as she was to him. The feeling lured her in and beguiled her with visions of late nights and rumpled sheets and sweaty sexcapades—

  “Wait a second,” she said. He was too close. The scent of him, a subtle cedar and bergamot, weakened her resistance to him as it made her want to move in closer and press up against him. She put her hand on his festive snowman chest and pushed him back a pace. Now she could think. Almost. “There is no way you could possibly know how it would be between us, given that we’ve never even kissed. Anything you say is strictly a hypothetical.”

  She picked up her mug and made her way to the door. Since everyone was here and she’d fortified herself with a donut and some coffee, she might as well go ahead and take her shower and prepare to face the day. She’d sent out notices to the local news outlets and on their social media that they were having a BOGO special today on all the used books. She expected that alone to bring in the Black Friday bargain hunters.

  Joaquin was right behind her as she pushed through the swinging door back into the bookstore. A stepladder was in her path but when she went to duck around it, the tie on her bathrobe got snagged in the legs. She reached out to tug it loose but his hand was there first.

  “Here,” he said. He held out the cloth belt and Savy took it from him, ignoring the awareness of his fingers brushing against hers. It was electric and she tried to convince herself it was just static from the area rug below their feet. Yeah, that was it. She turned away, trying not to run, but he caught her hand in his.

  “Hold up there, Red, we have a situation,” he said.

  She turned back around not because she wanted to, she told herself, but because it was the polite thing to do.

  “Really?” she asked. “And what situation is that?”

  “Mistletoe,” he said. He pointed up.

  Savy tipped her head back to study him. “Seriously? You’re going to kiss me now?”

  “I have to,” he said. He was the picture of innocence, which Savy did not believe for one second. “It’s bad luck to refuse a kiss under the mistletoe. You don’t want to risk that, do you?”

  “You’re making that up,” she said.

  “Nope.” He shook his head. His black eyes sparkled as if he’d gotten her right where he wanted her. It shouldn’t have been thrilling, but it was.

  He reached out and took her coffee cup from her hand and put it on a bookcase. Then he took the ties of her bathrobe and used them to pull her inexorably closer. Savy felt her breathing get short in anticipation as if she were winding up the slow side of a roller coaster. Her hands were suddenly sweaty and she wasn’t sure what to do with them. Joaquin was going to kiss her. Now!

  She glanced around the shop but none of their friends were in the vicinity. In fact, judging by the muted sound of conversation coming from beyond the front door, she suspected they were all outside decorating the front of the shop. Great.

  Joaquin didn’t seem to care if their friends were around or not. In fact, he didn’t seem put off by anything. But he should be. Savy did a quick inventory. She hadn’t showered. Her hair was a rat’s nest. She had no makeup on, and she was pretty sure she smelled like the leftover pepperoni pizza she had consumed as a midnight snack. In fact, she glanced down. Yep, there was a splat of sauce on her pajama top that she hadn’t quite sponged clean. The man was crazy if he thought any kiss between them at this moment was going to be anything other than utterly underwhelming.

  Wait! That was it. This was perfect. Joaquin had been sniffing around her for months, and Maisy had been doing her level best to throw them together. If Savy let him kiss her right now in this sloppy state it would absolutely squash anything he thought might be between them. Sure, it was likely going to be awkward and weird, but she could totally put up with that if it shut down this misguided attraction she had for the stable boy once and for all.

  “All right,” she said. “But I’m going to kiss you and not the other way around. I don’t want to feel like I’m being mauled by a bear under this parasitic vegetation.”

  Joaquin let out a deep chuckle and let go of her sash. “Have it your way, Red.”

  Oh, the arrogance. He must really think he was something special, Savy thought. She took a deep breath and braced herself to put her mouth against his. There would be no parted lips or tongue here. This was going to be swift, a one and done, and then she was
off to take her shower, possibly a cold one, but she could live with that.

  She stepped close but he didn’t. Hmm. She was going to have to go up on her toes to reach his mouth. Being a tall girl, this was a new sensation for Savy, especially when the man in question was not bending down to meet her halfway. In fact, if she went up on her toes, she was going to have to grab ahold of him to maintain her balance. She considered her options. She could grab his forearms or his upper arms, but that seemed weird. There was no help for it. She put her hands on his shoulders. He kept his hands at his sides, not budging an inch.

  Savy considered the logistics. She was going to have to lean up against him and pull him down at least a little bit in order to kiss him. She wondered if she could get away with kissing him on the cheek. She glanced at his freshly shaved face and noted he had some spectacular cheekbones.

  “No,” he said.

  “No what?”

  “Unless you’re family, mistletoe kisses are on the lips,” he said. He gestured between them. “We are not family.” His eyes crinkled in the corners in amusement. He was enjoying her conundrum. If they were in a Regency novel, he would without question be a rogue.

  “I bet you’re making that up, too,” she said.

  He winked at her and she bit her lip and shook her head. Fine. Enough games. She tried to pull him down to her level so she could plant a swift smooch on him, but he was as solid as a marble statue. She couldn’t budge him, and it occurred to her that she was going to have to climb the big galoot like he was a tree if she hoped to have a chance at kissing him on the mouth.

  As if sensing her dilemma, he asked, “Need a hand?”

  That did it! If the boy was going to insist on playing with fire, Savannah was going to make sure he felt the burn. She shook her head, sending her curls spinning. She rolled up on her toes and slid her hands over his shoulders, pressing herself against him as she curled one hand around his neck and dug the other into his thick, inky black hair. She pulled him down while she rose up and then planted her mouth on his in a firm, lip-to-lip kiss that she hoped was seared into his brain for the rest of his natural-born days.

  It was supposed to end there. She was supposed to let go, release his hair, uncurl her hand from around the back of his neck, let her hands slide down his shoulders as she lowered herself back to the floor. Small problem—she didn’t do any of those things.

  The shock when her mouth met his rendered her instantly stupid. Suddenly, she didn’t know which way was up or down; all she knew was the feel of his soft sweater beneath her fingers, the hard, lean line of his body where her curves leaned against him, and his mouth. The firm press of his lips beneath hers. It wasn’t enough.

  Instinct overrode common sense and Savy parted her lips, wanting to get just the smallest taste of him. It was a drive, a need, a longing that couldn’t be ignored. Joaquin responded by parting his lips, too. It encouraged Savy to deepen the kiss and she let her tongue run along his full lower lip in a taunt or an invitation, she wasn’t sure.

  The man beneath her fingers didn’t move. Whether it was from good manners or shock, Savy didn’t know and she didn’t much care. She was too caught up in the scent of him and the taste of him to remember that this was supposed to be a nothing kiss, a throwaway embrace, an awkward interlude between two people who’d been circling each other for months, undecided about what exactly was between them. It wasn’t that at all.

  Instead, it was an exploration, a discovery, a moment in time when everything in the universe suddenly made sense because his mouth fit hers perfectly. His lips were firm and persuasive, opening beneath hers and inviting her in to explore the taste and texture of him, which made her knees buckle and her heart rate kick up into high gear. He didn’t touch her in any other way—his hands stayed fisted at his sides—but his mouth made love to hers with small sips and soft kisses, willing a response from her that she couldn’t suppress.

  “More,” she whispered with a shiver.

  Joaquin pulled back just slightly and glanced at her. Any teasing from earlier had left his eyes and he looked at her with an intensity that should have fried her hair.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  She didn’t overthink it. She nodded. He held her gaze, staring into her eyes as his hands left his sides and circled her waist, gently pulling her up high and tight. Savy found herself lifted off her feet and locked against him with his arm supporting her lower back while he dug into her thick mass of curls, holding her still while he kissed her with a thoroughness that left her gasping for breath even as she wanted more and more and more.

  He lowered his lips to her throat and Savy let her head drop back. He moved his mouth in a soft sensual slide from her collarbone up the side of her neck to the sensitive spot below her ear. It was a good thing he was holding her or she was sure she would have slid down his body and dissolved into a shallow puddle of desire at his feet.

  “Admit it,” he said. His voice was a sexy growl in her ear. “This thing between us is crazy hot.”

  He slowly lowered her to her feet, pressing his forehead against hers while they both gasped for breath. His hands cruised up the curve of her spine and over her shoulders, moving to cup her face so that she was forced to meet his gaze. He looked like he wanted to devour her and didn’t the thought of that give her the thrill of a lifetime? Savy knew instinctively that if she let this man into her life, he would ruin her. There was only one way out. She had to lie.

  She pulled back, giving herself some space while holding his gaze. Then she tossed out a careless shrug. “Meh.”

  His eyes went wide. Then he blinked. Then his gaze lowered to her throat, where Savy knew he could see her pulse pounding triple time.

  “Liar,” he said. His grin was a slash of white and it curled up on one side as if in delight at the challenge she presented. Before she could track him, he’d lowered his head until his lips were right on that fluttery pulse point in the softest, sexiest kiss she’d ever received. Her heart thumped hard in her chest and she knew that he knew she was responding to him on the most elemental level.

  Savy thought she might faint. Probably, her eyes would roll back into her head and she’d make some unintelligible grunt before she splatted right onto the floor. Except he was still holding her face as if she was something rare and precious and she was clutching his forearms as if they were a life raft in a choppy sea.

  He pressed his mouth to hers one more time and she made a sound that resembled a groan of longing, possibly even a moan of desire. When he pulled back, she couldn’t help but notice the satisfied look on his face. She’d given herself away with her response to him. Damn it.

  She didn’t want any complications when she left Fairdale to go back to New York, and a lovesick stable boy was definitely a complication. She had to get it together. She shook her head. Her curls went everywhere and she dug her hand into the mass and pushed it off her face.

  “Fine,” she said. “Are we good now?”

  “Not quite,” he said. He reached up and plucked one of the berries off the mistletoe. He held it out to her. “You’re supposed to pick one every time there is a kiss under the mistletoe, and when the bough runs out of berries, there are no more kisses.”

  “How do you know this stuff?” she asked. She opened her hand and he dropped the hard berry into her palm.

  He got a gentle look in his eyes. “My parents. My dad loved to catch my mom under the mistletoe. He used to string it up all over the house just so he’d have an excuse to kiss her. I used to be so embarrassed to catch them smooching, but now I’m glad I have that memory.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t think she’d ever seen her parents kiss other than a perfunctory peck on the cheek, never mind any shenanigans under the mistletoe, which was a weed she was pretty sure her mother would never allow into her house. “Well, I’d better go get dressed.
We’ll be opening soon.”

  She grabbed her coffee cup from the bookcase and hurried for the stairs. For her own good she had to put some space between them. She’d let him kiss her and it had been amazing. What had she been thinking?

  “Oh, and Red,” he called.

  She was three steps up the staircase. She thought about ignoring him but good manners wouldn’t let her.

  “Yes?” she asked. She glanced at him over her shoulder.

  “Just so you know, by my count there are about thirty berries left.” He pointed up at the mistletoe and then winked at her.

  She felt her face go hot. She crushed the berry in her hand, knowing that things had just gotten way complicated.

  * * *

  * * *

  SAVANNAH scraped her hair back into the most unattractive headband she could find. She didn’t put on any makeup. She dressed in a baggy gray sweatshirt and brown cargo pants, which she actually loved because . . . pockets! Whoever in fashion had decided in this age of cell phones that women didn’t need pockets in their clothing was a sadist. Then she pulled on a pair of white high-top Converse sneakers. It was quite the look, and if Joaquin was still in the shop, it should scare him into the next county, no question.

  She hurried downstairs to join Maisy in their office on the first floor. While she herself wasn’t much for decorating, Savannah figured the holiday bling was social media gold and she could take some pictures of the decorations and send out reminder posts to let their customers know that today was a happening sale day at the Happily Ever After Bookstore.

  She scanned the area when she reached the first floor, but there was no sign of the stable boy. She assured herself that the twinge she felt was relief. Still, she took the long way around the bough of mistletoe that was hanging in the center of the lobby. She wondered if she should talk to Maisy about moving it, possibly outside. After all, if someone got kissed under the mistletoe who didn’t want to be, it could be a cause for a lawsuit or some other nasty publicity, and who needed that?