by Diane Bator
Leo smirked. “Elves brought you a Christmas tree?”
“Who else could’ve fit through the mail slot?” She folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t know who brought the tree, but everyone in town keeps adding ornaments. I have no idea what I’m going to do with everything when the holidays are over.”
“Push them all back out the mail slot?” Leo suggested.
Christina raised her eyebrows and stared, then laughed out loud. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Clancy took a swig of his beer and belched. “You having fun, Chrissie?”
“Kind of.” She met Leo’s gaze. “I guess I needed a night out.”
“See, you get a drink in the girl and she loosens up.” Clancy raised his bottle to Leo. “At least you don’t have to work tomorrow and can have some fun. Leo, you do any Christmas shopping in the city?”
“I don’t have anyone to shop for.” Leo shrugged. “Just Lucy and the kids, really.”
“What do Lucy and the kids want?” Clancy leaned forward. “I want to do something nice for them. Did you see they helped me hand out hot chocolate at the Christmas tree lighting thing? That was great. I know the kids are into video games.”
“Yup. The music ones, the shooting ones, the sports ones, pretty much any game out there is on their lists.” Leo studied Christina, whose eyes seemed even more glazed than they had a short time earlier. He kicked her foot beneath the table. “You tired?”
“Yeah, just out of sorts.” She pushed her glass away. “Maybe I’m getting sick or something. I guess I have been overdoing it.”
“Maybe.” Clancy placed a hand on her forehead. “You are a little warm. Maybe I should take you home.”
She brushed his hand off. “No, I’m good. I’ll eat then go get some sleep.”
“You guys want to play darts?” Clancy headed to the bar before they could answer.
Christina grabbed her drink. “Why not?”
“Sure.” Leo pushed back his chair then walked around the table to help her to her feet. “Are you sure you’re okay? You really don’t look well.”
She leaned into him. “If you’re trying to get rid of me, just ask me to leave.”
“I’m not trying to get rid of you.” He stepped back to give her space. “I just want to make sure you don’t plan to maim me with sharp, pointy objects.”
Christina wavered and flashed a sarcastic grin. “If that were the case, I’d do it in private the next time you came to the bakery. I do have knives back there, you know.”
“Are you drunk?” Leo grasped her elbow. “How many of those things did you have before I got here?”
She nudged him away. “I’ve only had one drink before this. How could I get drunk off one when it usually takes me at least three?”
He wanted to sniff her drink. If she only had one regular drink with dinner, she should be fine. Instead, she wavered then stumbled across the bar toward the dart boards. He took her elbow before she could fall.
“What are you doing?” She spun around to pull out of his grip.
“Just trying to help.” Leo set his beer on the table then held both hands up at his sides. “You’re not very steady on your feet. Why don’t you sit? Clancy and I’ll play the first game.”
Christina flared her nostrils. “Why? Don’t you think girls can play darts?”
“No.” Leo placed his hands on her shoulders. “I think you’re under the influence of something other than rum and you need to sit down before you collapse.”
She rolled her eyes and sat on a stool. “Yeah. Lack of sleep. Insane life. Sniffing too much flour, sugar and spices. Do you want me to keep going?”
“Never mind. Clancy can make sure you get home later.”
Christina hesitated then waved him off. “Whatever. I’ll just sleep under the tree in my store if I can’t get up the stairs.”
Leo grinned. Christina was one gift he wouldn’t mind opening under a Christmas tree. He was tempted to tell her the truth about how he couldn’t get her off his mind.
“You’re a nasty boy, Leo Blue.” She threw a wadded up napkin at his head. “Stop thinking that.”
He chuckled. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“I’ve seen that look lots of times. You have bedroom eyes.” She sipped her drink then wrinkled her nose and pushed the glass away.
Leo bit the tip of his tongue to stop from saying something he’d regret.
Clancy appeared with darts and a fresh round of drinks. “Okay, who’s up first?”
“You and me, Bro. Your sister needs to sit down before she hurts someone, namely me.” Leo moved the new drink away from Christina who scowled and leaned into him, flailing her arms to get it back. Her warmth and the scents of the bakery stuck in her hair caught him off guard. He sucked in a sharp breath, but didn’t dare move away in case she fell over. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what? Get close to you? I thought that’s what you wanted?” She sat back against the wall and sipped her third drink. “Why aren’t they playing Christmas music?”
“They are. Three techno pop versions of Silent Night in a row.” Clancy raised his eyebrows. “I thought you hated Christmas.”
“I do. It sucks.” She stared at the dartboard. “Who’s winning?”
“We haven’t started playing yet.” Leo waved his darts then took his first shot, which hit the wall, six inches away from the board.
Christina snorted. “You stink at this game.”
“You were never a cheerleader, were you?” Leo threw his remaining two darts, which both stuck to the outer edges of the board, then stood beside Christina while Clancy took his turn.
“Oh, hell no.” Christina shook her head so hard she lost her balance. She tumbled off the stool into Leo’s arms. She met his gaze. “Good catch.”
“Me or you?” His lips brushed her ear.
Christina laughed so loud other patrons in the bar turned to stare as she slid back onto her stool. “I’m not so sure about me. I don’t think I’ve brought Brady much luck so far, have I?”
“Brady’s the engineer of his own misfortunes, babe.” Leo chuckled. “Nobody asked you to be his four-leaf clover, did they?”
“Your turn.” Clancy nudged Leo’s shoulder, then wrote down the scores. He was winning by twenty points.
Leo whistled. “Wow, I’m going to have to pay attention to the game. One round and I’m losing horribly.”
“Then stop yapping and shoot.” Christina pushed him away.
Leo tried to focus on the game, but became distracted when Clancy leaned close to Christina and lowered his voice. He made out the words Newville and Brady before Christina slapped her brother across the face, her face red and tight with tears and anger.
When Clancy backed away, Leo draped one arm around Christina. “Everything okay?”
“Great.” She brushed him off. “I’m out of here.”
“I’ll walk you home,” Leo said. “Don’t you have to be up early to work tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday. The bakery’s closed.” She grabbed her coat. “Don’t worry. I’ll find my own way home, I’m a big girl.”
“I shouldn’t have given her those drinks.” Clancy groaned. “I only wanted her to tell me the truth.”
Leo kept one hand on Christina’s arm as she struggled to pull away. “Finish your beer and go home, Clancy. You and I’ll talk when you’re sober.”
“Fine.” Clancy swallowed the last of his beer and strode away, bumping into a table, then a waitress.
“You guys are crazy.” Christina tugged her arm out of Leo’s grasp. “Let me go. I’m going home to pack, then I’m leaving. I don’t need this crap.”
Leo refused to back down. “Come on, babe. Let’s go back to your place and you can get some sleep. You’re not leaving until we sit and talk.”
She shoved her arms in her coat sleeves. “I’ll be fine. Just leave me alone.”
“Christina, wait.” Leo threw his coat over his shoulder
and followed her out the front door.
“Go away.” When he reached for her, she pulled away. “I’m going home.”
“You’re not leaving alone. I told Clancy I’d make sure you’d get home okay.” He opened the door which led to her upstairs apartment.
“I’m fine.” She pushed past him.
Leo trudge up the stairs behind her. “You’re not fine. You’re acting like you’ve been drugged.”
“Drugged? Why would anybody drug me?” Christina laughed. “I’ve had a couple drinks, some crappy food, plus I’m dead-on-my-feet exhausted.”
He shrugged, sure there were a lot of reasons, but only one likely suspect.
She stopped in the middle of the staircase and turned to stare. “It was you, wasn’t it? Did you drug me so you could sleep with me? Oh my God, that’s so sad. Why didn’t you just ask?” She took a step forward then stumbled, falling against him so hard she knocked him back against the wall.
Winded, Leo winced, the scent of cookies leaving him as breathless as the ache in his back. “You okay?”
“Yeah, except now my ankle hurts.” Her eyes watered when she met his gaze. “You?”
“I’m fine, but you’re not very steady on your feet.” He led her the rest of the way up the stairs. “I think you’d better get some sleep before you think about leaving town. Me too, for that matter.”
“I will.” As Christina pulled keys out of her pocket, they clattered to the floor. “Damn.”
Leo picked her keys off the floor and tried to insert one into the lock.
“Go away. I can do this.” She slid between him and the door. After fumbling with the keys in the lock, she dropped the whole key ring then leaned her head against the door. “Okay. So I can’t do this.”
Leo wrapped an arm around her then unlocked the door. “Come on, babe, let’s get you inside. You need to sleep it off. I’ll get you settled then I’ll leave.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“I don’t want to go to sleep and I don’t want you to go.” She clung to his jacket, her gaze meeting his. “I’m tired of being alone.”
Leo knew the feeling well. He slid her jacket off and draped it over a chair, unable to reach past her to the light switch. “I’ll stay with you, but you need to lie down and rest.”
“You don’t want me either, do you?” Her face fell. She pulled away from him and wandered to the window. “Brady married me, but he’ll never touch me. Gage painted me and slept with me, but in the end...he went and died. I was just another model to him anyway. Just another warm, naked body who posed for him and painted with him. I doubt he even knew who I really was.”
He hesitated. While he ached to tell her how much he did want her, he didn’t know her well either. At least, not the way he wanted to.
She stood across the room, a frail shadow framed by the snow falling outside the windows. “Brady set this all up, you know.”
“Oh, yeah?” Reminded of Gage’s paintings of the mysterious blonde woman, Leo closed the door and took off his jacket. “How do you figure that?”
“He broke up with Marty the same night my boyfriend dumped me. Marty and my boyfriend went to gamble and drink. Brady and I cried on each other’s shoulders while he got me drunk then married me.” She released a sad sigh. “The only reason I ever dated Gage to begin with was because I was mad about Brady’s stupid deal with Marty.”
“What deal?” The back of Leo’s neck prickled as he picked his way through the semi-darkness across the room.
Christina stared out the window. “Marty paid off Brady’s debt to a drug dealer before they broke up and Brady owed Marty a lot of money.” She leaned against the frosted window. “Once Brady married me, he sent me to work at Marty’s club. I kept the tips, which Brady used to cover our bills, but my paychecks went to pay off Brady’s debt.”
Leo clenched his jaw to keep from swearing. He stood in front of her, his arms ached to reach out, while the rest of him longed to hold her close. “So what did you do?”
“Danced my butt off. What else could I do?” She laughed. “Then I met Gage, who treated me like a princess. He took me to galleries, poetry readings, painted with me, and asked me to pose for him. When he said I was one of his favorite models, I actually fell for him. Not like a real love, more like a weird fascination. I guess he was everything I wanted to be.”
“Like what?” Leo stroked her hair, awed by the shadows that played on her face from the street lights. “An Andy Warhol wannabe?”
“An artist who was free to do what he chose and admired by everyone he met. Those were all things I’d worked for until...” Christina gazed out the window and clutched his hand, leaning her face against his fingers. “Until I married Brady.”
He cradled her chin between his thumb and index finger. “It doesn’t have to be that way. You can still have what you want.”
“How? Leave Brady?” Tears, silver in the dim light, trickled down her face. “I can’t. He’ll self-destruct.”
“I have a feeling Brady Ryan’s a lot more resilient than you know.” Leo pulled her close and kissed her. “He’s not the person I’m the most worried about.”
Christina slid her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his. “Are you worried about me?”
Leo picked her up and carried her to the couch bed. “Not at the moment.”
Chapter 14
Christina hadn’t had such wonderful dreams since she’d left Newville. When something scratched her face, she laughed. She’d never had a dream where she’d felt a man’s stubble before. Of course, she couldn’t recall a dream so real she’d worked up a sweat and had to shove most of the blankets off the bed either.
She snuggled up to the warm, strong body lying beside her on the bed. His arms slipped around her and his lips wandered over her skin. The heat that radiated off his toned body reminded her of the ovens in the bakery downstairs. At least the shop was closed Sundays and she could ignore the ovens. She couldn’t ignore the tingles in her body.
“Oh shit.” She stuck out her arms and pushed with her palms. “What are you still doing here?”
“What’s wrong?” Leo’s face was flushed and the length of his body remained pressed against hers. Sweat and all.
“This isn’t a dream, is it?”
His eyes narrowed. “Um, no, but up until now it was a great fantasy.”
“What happened last night?”
“Are you kidding me?” He raised his eyebrows. “What do you remember?”
Christina was fully aware he hadn’t moved away. His body touched her curves all the way to her toes, which wasn’t a bad thing. “I met Clancy at the Tipsy Duck for a drink since he wanted to talk. He ordered a bottle of beer and I had a rum and cola. You were there when I got back from the washroom. After that, I don’t remember much of anything.”
Leo rolled away onto his back. “Are you sure you only had one drink up until then?”
“Yes.” She missed his body heat immediately and shivered.
“I was right.” He covered his face with both hands. “Somebody drugged you and I took advantage of you.”
Christina blew out a long breath. “Not someone. Clancy.”
Leo peeked at her through his fingers. “Your brother? Why would your brother drug you?”
Christina had the urge to jump out of bed and throw him out the door, but couldn’t bring herself to do so. Lying there beside him studying Leo’s profile seemed as natural as sweating in the hot bakery kitchen. “Because maybe he figured that was the only way he could make me tell him the whole truth.”
“I don’t think us getting together is what he had in mind.”
She gazed at the well-defined muscles of his chest. “Nope. I think he’ll be peeved when he finds out.”
“He doesn’t have to find out, does he?” Leo trailed a finger over her bare arm. “I’m not about to tell him.”
“Me neither.” She met his gaze.
“Good,
then our butts are covered. Figuratively, at least.” He tugged on the blankets. “I’d better get out of here before Clancy tracks me down.”
“No, don’t go.” Christina bit her lower lip. “Is it bad to say I don’t want to get out of bed just yet?”
“Not in my books.” As he pulled her closer, his lips touched hers. He kissed her until she was breathless, hands roaming like he already knew every inch of her from memory. “So, what won you over? My sense of humor? My charm? My rugged good looks?”
“Your pecs.” She giggled when Leo snorted and flipped her off.
Somewhere across the room, a phone rang.
Christina moaned. “That’ll be Clancy.”
“He can wait.” Leo wrapped his long arms around her as he murmured against her neck.
“But he won’t.”
“But he’ll have to.” When another phone rang, Leo cursed. “He’s persistent, isn’t he?”
Christina closed her eyes. “He’ll knock on the door next.”
He groaned. “You’re not helping any. Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“No. I’m being realistic. I’d better get up before he gets here or we’ll be busted.”
“You stay. My clothes are closer. We left yours by the door.” Leo kissed her forehead, then sat up. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d just had a couple of drinks and let your guard down. I never actually thought your brother would stoop to drugging you.”
Christina hugged a pillow and watched him pull on his jeans. She didn’t ask about the scars, not sure she wanted to know how he got them. “Did I come on to you? Is that why you...we....you know.”
He pulled his jeans on and zipped the fly. “I brought you home. You didn’t want to be alone so we talked.”
Embarrassed, she buried her face in the blankets. “Yeah. Well, apparently, we did a lot more than talk.”
“Oh yes, we did.” The bed shook when he fell next to her again and pulled her into his arms. “You’re amazing, babe. You know what? You should get your brother to put a tattoo right here.” He tapped a spot between her heart and her shoulder. “A miniature cinnamon bun.”
She laughed, pushing him away. “Get out.”
