The Christmas Keeper

by Jenn McKinlay

  A woman was laughing and she raised her hand in the air and waved at Quino. He waved back. She opened her arms and Jake gave his mom a huge hug.

  “You’ve just given that boy the best day of his life,” Savy said.

  “He’s a natural,” Quino said. “He’s got a real gift for animals. Even Esther likes him and she hates everyone.”

  He pointed and, sure enough, a gray horse was making her way across the corral to greet the boy. Jake let go of his mom and climbed up on the rail to pat the horse. Once he was finished, she reared around and set her sights on Quino.

  “Uh-oh,” Quino said. “I’m about to get shaken down.”

  Savy glanced from him to the horse. She was a compact gray mare with a lighter gray mane and tail. She approached the rail where they stood and gave Quino a look that was full of censure.

  He laughed at her as he reached over the rail and patted her neck. “Stop giving me stink eye, Esther. I just came in from a wagon ride. That’s why I don’t have anything for you.”

  Esther tossed her head in obvious pique, and Savy laughed. “She has a lot of personality.”

  Quino shook his head. “You have no idea. Still, I love her.”

  Esther was not satisfied and pressed her nose to all of Quino’s pockets. When she determined he really didn’t have any treats, she stomped off in a huff. Savy had never seen a horse have a hissy fit. It was, in its own way, charming.

  “Quino, why don’t you call it a day?” Luke said. “We’ll take care of the team for you. We have to take care of our horses anyway.”

  He was about as subtle as a hammer as he glanced between Quino and Savy. She smiled. She wondered how Quino would finesse the situation.

  “Well,” he said. He pushed back his Santa hat and studied her face. “Are you interested in having dinner with me tonight?”

  “Hmm,” Savy said. “I might be. What are we having?”

  “How do green corn tamales grab you?” he asked.

  Savy realized right then that she was starving. “Sounds amazing.”

  His grin was slow and he took her hand, and with a wave to Luke, they set off for the house. The lights weren’t on, but she could see that he had added even more to the exterior. She shook her head. She had seriously never met anyone who loved Christmas as much as he did.

  The inside of the house was cozy warm and the tree they had decorated shimmered even in the dim light. Savy felt her heart swell just a little as she recognized some of the sentimental ornaments she’d put on it. The house smelled of evergreen and cinnamon and it filled her senses, reminding her of the night she’d spent here in his arms.

  Quino took her coat and they both toed off their boots, walking in socks to the living room, where he flipped a switch that illuminated the tree and then hunkered down in front of the fireplace to light the fire. If there was ever a moment in her life that sparkled with perfection, Savy was pretty sure this was it. The tree shimmered, the man shined, and her heart felt full for the first time she could ever remember.

  Once the fire was crackling, Quino took her hand and led her back to the kitchen. It was a small space, the appliances were new but the counters and cupboards were older. She suspected not much had been changed since he was a teenager. She wondered if that was intentional.

  There was a picture on a shelf above the sink. It was a black-and-white of a beautiful couple on their wedding day. She knew without asking that these were Quino’s parents. He had his father’s hair and eyes, but the lips were his mother’s. She could tell because the woman smiling out at her had the same curve to her lips that Quino had when he smiled.

  “My parents,” he said. She looked to see what emotion came with this announcement but there was none. It was just a fact. “Beatriz Munoz and Victor Solis. Happiest couple I have ever seen in my life.”

  Savy glanced from him back to the picture. It was easy to believe that they’d been happy. The way they looked at each other in the picture made Savy think, That, I want that. Mercifully, she didn’t say it out loud.

  “Did your mother teach you to make tamales?” she asked.

  “No, these were sent to us by Tía Carmen, my mother’s sister. Every year since my mom died, she sends the tamales from Texas so that we aren’t missing out,” he said.

  “If you’re saving them for Christmas, please don’t use them on my account,” Savy said. “I can treat us to a pizza.”

  “Oh, no, trust me,” he said. “My aunt sends enough to feed twelve people, never mind two. Plus they take no time to heat up. Have a seat and I’ll cook up some tamales with extra red sauce and frijoles. Wine?”

  “Actually, beer, if you have it,” she said. She slid onto a seat at the counter.

  He blinked at her. “Excellent choice, madam.”

  He said it like a wine steward at a trending restaurant and Savy laughed. He grabbed two bottles of Green Man Brewery IPA out of his refrigerator and poured them into glasses. He lifted his in a toast and Savy clinked her glass with his.

  Before he took a sip, Quino lowered his glass and said, “So, about what Jake said.”

  “What about it?”

  “For clarity’s sake I have to ask, are you my girlfriend?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  DO you want me to be?” she countered. “Knowing that I’m likely leaving soon.”

  He sipped his beer, considering her over the rim of the glass. “What if I say yes?”

  Time stopped. Savy felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice, looking down into an abyss. She supposed it was an overly dramatic image, but she felt things with Quino she’d never felt before and she wanted to tread carefully on the off chance that the loose gravel beneath her feet sent her spiraling into the void.

  The truth was a week had gone by and Destiny hadn’t called. It was early December and the author wasn’t likely to do a signing at the bookstore, and Savy wouldn’t be going back to New York because she felt compelled to stay with Maisy until the bitter end when the bookstore failed completely and had to be dismantled and sold. Gah, that was a depressing thought. She sipped her beer. But what if in all this failure, she could find one spark of happiness? Was she willing to take it?

  She studied the dark-haired man across the counter. Wasn’t it best to make the most out of the access she had to him now?

  “If you say yes, then I say yes,” she said.

  He straightened up. The surprise on his face was almost comical but she didn’t laugh because the intensity with which he was staring at her made her mouth dry. He glanced up at the ceiling, then back at her with a fierce light in his eyes.

  “So, I’m thinking if you’re my girlfriend, I don’t have to look for mistletoe to kiss you,” he said.

  “Sounds about right,” she agreed.

  He was around the island in three strides, snatched her up in two more, planted his mouth on hers while depositing her onto the counter so he could move in close, hang on tight, and make her moan with his mouth.

  Savy was all in. She pushed their beer bottles and glasses out of the way. Then she dug her fingers into his hair while wrapping her legs around his waist. She hauled him in close, feeling the spark between them ignite into a desire so fierce it bordered on painful.

  Quino slid his lips down the side of her neck and Savy let her head fall back, enjoying the feel of his soft mouth on her skin. She wanted more and more. She reached for the front of his sweater and began to tug at it. She wanted to be skin-to-skin with this man and she wanted it now.

  “Dinner can wait?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  She barely got the words out when he hauled her up into his arms and carried her through the house and up the stairs to his bedroom. He was halfway up the stairs when he paused to kiss her. Savy was a bit afraid he’d lose his footing and they’d tumble to the bottom in a pile of broken bon
es, but he wasn’t even breathing heavy. The man was as steady as a rock.

  Instead, once he’d finished kissing her, he pulled back and said, “We might have to skip breakfast, too. I don’t think I’m going to be done with you for a long, long while.”

  Dizzy. The man made her positively dizzy. She had never felt as connected to anyone as she did to him. He was warm and kind, funny and considerate, with broad shoulders, chiseled features, and a deep laugh that reverberated down her spine in the most delicious way. If things were different . . . but she wasn’t going to think about that now.

  Instead, she tightened her arms about his neck, pressing herself against him. She kissed his jawline all the way to his ear, where she gently bit down and whispered, “Make me yours, Quino.”

  * * *

  * * *

  SO hot. With her mass of tumbled red curls, green cat’s eyes, and siren’s smile, he was toast. Burnt toast. He hauled her up close and finished the walk toward the bedroom.

  He was actually a bit stunned by his good fortune. Savy had been insistent that there would be no repeats but his patience had been rewarded and now here they were, and he’d gotten her to level up on this relationship. From the moment he’d first seen her, he’d known she was it for him. And now she was his girlfriend. Quino wasn’t sure what had made her change her mind about him, about them. He didn’t much care. He just knew that he was here with her and suddenly his world seemed infinitely brighter.

  Everything melted away when he was with her. His worry about his sister, his melancholy about the holiday, his dislike of change, all of it was pushed back by the force of nature that was Savannah Wilson. She filled his senses and he couldn’t see or feel anything else.

  He was consumed by her. The sound of her laugh, the feel of her fingers as they skimmed his skin, the way her hair caught the light as if it actually trapped and held sunshine in its depths. He strode into his bedroom. It was at the back of the house and offered a view of the mountains. At the moment he didn’t care other than to be relieved that it was clean. That was one perk of his nervous energy. The house was the cleanest it had been in months.

  He slowly released Savy, letting her slide down his body until her feet touched the floor. He kept one hand on her waist while he flipped on the lights. He used the dimmer to set them to low. He didn’t want to ruin the mood with harsh lighting, although he was pretty sure he’d be able to make love to Savy anytime, anywhere, even with his boots on. Of course, he knew better than to say that to her.

  Instead he cupped her jaw, stared into her eyes, and kissed her long and slow. He let his hands roam over her curves, memorizing the soft feel of her in his hands, from the flare of her hips to the nip of her waist and up along her sides to the generous curve of her breasts. She was perfection.

  “Now can we lose the sweater?” she asked. Her voice was low and it rubbed across his senses with just the right friction. She tugged at the hem and he obliged her by pulling it over his head. Then he reached for hers. She lifted her arms and he tossed aside the pretty pink sweater and pulled her close.

  He wanted to hiss at the contact, the sizzle of skin to skin, as he inhaled the delicious scent of her, which reminded him of cinnamon sugar. He lowered his mouth to the exposed skin of her throat and it was her turn to hiss. He smiled against her skin.

  This. He wanted this. Her coming apart in his arms while he loved every single inch of her. He moved his lips across her collarbone, nuzzling the vee between her breasts until she arched back with a low groan, buried her fingers in his hair, and whispered, “More.”

  He nipped her gently on the peak of one breast through the sheer lace of her bra. She gasped. He kneeled before her and kissed his way down, over her taut abdomen, to pause at her waist, while he unfastened her waistband and slid her pants down the long, shapely lengths of her legs.

  He helped her to step out of her pants and then tossed them the way of her sweater. He ran his hands up the backs of her legs until he had one hand on each thigh. She was looking down at him, with kiss-swollen lips and eyes that were half-closed with desire. Her hair was wild around her face, which was flushed with want. He was quite certain that in his last moments on this earth, just before he punched his ticket for good, this would be the last image he would see in his mind’s eye. This gloriously beautiful woman looking at him just like this.

  As much as he had wanted to draw out every second of this celebration of their new status, he found that the need to have her beneath him, calling out his name in that way only she could, was overriding any other thought in his head. He simply needed to make her his. Now.

  He stood up, hauling her into his arms as he carried her across the room. He put her gently on the bed. Against the dark-blue comforter, she looked like a vibrant flame with her faintly freckled peachy skin and red curls.

  “You have a wicked look in your eye, Joaquin Solis,” she said. Her voice was husky. It made him sweat. In seconds, he had shucked off his own jeans and was climbing up onto the bed. She greeted him by opening her legs and pulling him down on top of her.

  Quino couldn’t help but feel as if he was coming home. He kissed her long and deep, ran his fingers through her hair, and when he couldn’t stand the barrier of their underclothes between them anymore, he unfastened her bra and slid her undies down her legs. By the time he slipped off his own boxers, he was on the razor edge of pleasure and pain. On the one hand he wanted the torment to go on forever but the idea of slipping inside her welcoming warmth was almost more than he could stand.

  Savy was in the same fevered state. She kissed him, ran her fingers through his hair. She tugged him close and pressed up against him in a blatant invitation. Quino wasn’t answering it, however, not yet. Instead, he kissed his way down her body, determined that she know that she wasn’t just his girlfriend but she was his for all time. He was going to absolutely ruin her for any other man. It seemed only fair since she’d ruined him for any other woman.

  He settled himself between her legs and lowered his mouth to her most sensitive flesh. She shot upright at the first shock of contact. She was shaking and panting and she looked a little crazed. It was a good look on her.

  “Shh,” he said. Then he tugged the backs of her knees, which flattened her before him, and he said, “Behave.”

  “I don’t think I can—” Whatever she was going to say got lost in a garble of “oh, my,” “yes, please,” and “there, right there.” At least those were the words that were intelligible. When her back arched and she ground her hips into the mattress, her words turned into a series of moans that he was pretty sure would ring in his ears for days to come.

  He reached for a condom in his nightstand and made quick work of sliding it on. He wanted this woman more than he had ever wanted any woman ever. Savy reached for him, pulling him into her as if what she needed wasn’t just the release he had given her but the connection she found when they were joined—at least that’s what he told himself he saw in her. He didn’t want to be the only one caught up in the magic that was the two of them. He wanted her to feel it, too.

  He tried to keep it slow, let it build, make it last, but the momentum between them was too great. She fit him perfectly, clenching around him in a tight, hot grip that had him seeing stars. He pulled out a bit, trying to maintain his cool. He should have known better. Savy hooked her legs around his waist and pulled him in. She arched her back, drawing him in even deeper, and Quino lost it. The need to thrust into her was too much. He couldn’t fight it.

  He planted one hand by her head, and used the other to lift her hips up into the perfect angle, and then he drilled into her again and again until he felt her go rigid as another orgasm rocketed through her, making it impossible to resist his own. He felt the fire shoot down his spine, tighten his balls, and surge out of him. He pulled her in close and tight, while his release throbbed out of him and into her, connecting them on the most elemental
level.

  The force of it left him dizzy and he was almost afraid he was going to pass out. He collapsed onto the bed, rolling so that they were on their sides, still joined and pressed together while their hearts beat crazy messages to each other as if trying to tell each other what they felt without having to use words.

  Savy tucked her head beneath his chin, and Quino reached over her to pull the edges of the thick comforter over their rapidly cooling skin. He wished he could stay in this cocoon with her forever. Was it possible to be more than in love with another person? He didn’t know. He just knew that Savy was becoming his everything, and when she left, he wasn’t certain he’d survive.

  * * *

  * * *

  SO, since you’re my boyfriend, I feel I have to ask you, Why are you such a nut about Christmas?” Savy asked.

  Quino had rolled back the comforter, cleaned up, and then tucked them into his supersoft flannel sheets. Of course these were his Christmas ones that had snowmen exchanging presents on them. He supposed it could be worse. He also had a set that had reindeer flying with Santa in his sleigh.

  He glanced down at her nestled in the crook of his arm. He didn’t particularly want to talk about this, so he let his hand roam. When she let out a gasp and then a sigh, he thought he had successfully diverted her. No such luck.

  She captured his hand in hers and laced their fingers together. “You can’t distract me.”

  He sighed. He pulled her close and kissed her. She kissed him back and he almost got her off the topic, but after several long kisses, she put her hand on his chest and said, “Stop it. It won’t work. I am a woman on a quest.”

  Quino slid his free hand down her spine and cupped her behind, bringing her up close and personal. “So many quests to take here, are you sure you want that one?”