Christmas in Harmony Harbor

by Debbie Mason

  He smiled. “Is that what I’ve been doing, Dr. Christmas? And here I thought I was having sex and making money because of how much I liked doing both.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said, flustered by the heat in his gaze and her own desire.

  “And I know what you want. What we both want. Are you going to let me kiss you, Evie?”

  “It won’t stop at a kiss.”

  “It will if you want it to.” He leaned around her to open the door with one hand while wrapping his other around her to keep her from falling. “Say the word and I leave.”

  She fisted her hand in his coat. “Stay,” she said, and kissed him.

  * * *

  Evie lay beside Caine on the queen-sized bed in the guest bedroom. She’d been right; they hadn’t stopped at just a kiss. She’d never understood the words basking in the afterglow until now. If she weren’t a woman who was intrigued and entranced by the man beside her, a woman who after making love with Caine didn’t want it to end with one night, she would have continued floating on a cloud of ecstasy for the next several hours without rocking the boat.

  But she was a woman who wanted to shine a light on the places inside him that he’d rather hide. And between frantically kissing and tearing off each other’s clothes as they made their way upstairs, she’d gotten him to tell her about the day he’d been trapped in the basement with the rat. In the telling of that story, she’d learned about his own Max. The dog his parents had bought him in hopes it would help him deal with the loneliness of moving to yet another town.

  “Now that I’ve told you my deep, dark secret, are you going to tell me yours?” he asked, rolling on top of her but using his elbows to keep his full weight off her.

  “Your grandmother refusing to let you bring your dog when you moved in with her was heartbreaking, but it’s not your deep, dark secret, Caine.”

  “And how do you know that?” He nuzzled her neck until he made her squirm. Then he lifted his head to look down at her, his eyes a glittering, gleaming blue beneath long, dark lashes that unfairly curled at the tips.

  He was beautiful, a dark and tortured angel if she wasn’t mistaken. Which should scare her, she knew, and she prayed that she could trust Theia and the part of herself that said the darkness inside him would never harm her. But it had—and it would continue—hurting him unless he brought it out into the open.

  Aaron had used her empathy, her need to help and to try to heal, against her. Caine didn’t want her help or her sympathy. He wanted to lose himself inside her, in pleasure, but she wanted more…from a man who had the power to steal her dreams. She didn’t hold out hope that whatever he felt for her right now would result in him changing his mind about the office tower. He’d told her repeatedly that he didn’t allow emotions to factor into his business decisions, and she believed him.

  She lifted her hand to stroke his beard-stubbled face. “I know it’s not your deep, dark secret because it’s how I once made my living.”

  He lowered his head and kissed her, long and deep, his hand stroking her side.

  Breaking that kiss was perhaps the most difficult thing she’d done in quite some time, but she did. “Please, Caine.”

  “I must have lost my touch if you’d rather talk than make love.”

  His frustration thickened his accent, and for a second she almost relented. But she knew he was vulnerable now, and as much as she didn’t like to use that against him, she would. It was for his own good. Tomorrow his walls would be up again.

  “Tell me, and then we’ll make love for the rest of the night.”

  “Until the sun comes up?”

  “Or when we hear Seamus come in, whichever comes first.”

  “He won’t be coming back before the sun comes up. He’s found a place more comfortable than your St. Paddy’s Day room to lay his head.”

  “You can’t distract me, you know.”

  “I should know better. You’ve been driving me mad for the better part of a year.”

  “And yet here we are. Here you are. Ready to tell me your deep, dark secret.”

  “It’s not that deep or dark,” he said as he rolled off her to lie by her side. His voice was flat, and he raised his arm to cover his eyes.

  She turned on her side to wrap an arm around him, tucking herself close.

  He lifted his forearm to look down at her. “You’re a snuggler, aren’t you?”

  She couldn’t tell if he thought that was a good thing or a bad thing, and she lifted a shoulder. “My dad’s nickname for me was Snugglebug.”

  “A week ago that would have surprised me. Not anymore.”

  “Did your mom have a nickname for you?” she asked to nudge him in the direction she wanted the conversation to go. Both Seamus and Caine spoke about his father’s death, but they didn’t speak of his mother’s.

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t have given up your job poking into people’s minds. I have a feeling you were very good at it.”

  “What happened, Caine?”

  “After my father died, things went downhill. It hadn’t been good for months, but Uncle Seamus took my da’s death hard and disappeared into the bottle. He rarely came around. There was no one else. No family or friends to speak of. We’d gotten kicked out of our last place and had only been in town for less than a year. As you obviously know, I was a lot like Jamie. Acting out, getting in fights. I didn’t have someone like you standing up for me, and I got kicked out of school. My mother had had enough of me. Looking back, I can’t say I blame her.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t lie to me. Not while you’re lying in my arms.”

  “You’re right. I did blame her. She sold me. Sold me for fifty thousand pounds to my grandmother and then left and never looked back. I never heard from her again, not a word.”

  Evie tightened her arm around his waist, pressing her lips to his chest as she fought back tears. “I’m sorry,” she murmured on a hoarse whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

  He lowered his arm from his eyes to wrap it around her and stroke her hair. “Don’t cry for me. It was a long time ago, Evie.”

  “Don’t try to pretend it didn’t hurt then or it doesn’t still. The pain doesn’t go away just because you want it to or you demand that it does. You have to acknowledge it.” She lifted her face from his chest. “And then you have to find a way to forgive your mother so you can move on.”

  “I thought I had. About six months after she left me with my grandmother, I made up a story in my head about why she’d had to leave me. I had to do something or I knew it would eat at me forever. Over time the story took root, and I began to believe it. Then, a couple weeks ago, my uncle came back into my life and brought it all back. But being around Jamie these past few days, and then watching him with his mother tonight…If someone in Mrs. Murphy’s family had offered her fifty thousand dollars for Jamie, she wouldn’t have taken it.”

  “Does she know that you’ve paid her rent for two years and Rosa DiRossi will be making her meals?”

  “Bloody small towns,” he said without heat.

  She reached up to curve her hand around his neck, drawing his mouth to hers. “You are a good man, Caine Elliot,” she murmured against his lips.

  “I’m still the same man I’ve always been, Evie. Tonight doesn’t change that, you know.”

  “I know. I’m still the same woman I was last week.”

  “I might argue that a bit.” He rolled to his side and brought her close. “You’re much softer and sweeter in bed. Maybe I should keep you here.” As though he sensed that she wanted to ask more about his mother, he said, “Let it go for now. I just want to hold you.” He glanced around the room. “But seeing as how I’ve told you my secret, it’s only fair you do the same.” He lifted his chin at the battery-operated twinkle lights she’d decorated the room with. “Are you afraid of the dark, Evie?”

  “Yes.” And she left it at that because they’d had enough of the dark for one night.

  “If I promise to sta
y by your side the whole night through and chase your nightmares away, can I turn off the lights?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Caine felt like he’d been hit by a truck that had taken its time running over him. Not how he typically felt after spending the night making love with a beautiful woman. It certainly wasn’t the outcome he’d been hoping for when he’d left the Murphy house last night.

  As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he’d been seeking comfort from his past, from the emotions stirred up by being with Jamie and his mother. Emotions that Caine didn’t want to face or acknowledge. Clearly, he hadn’t been thinking straight. Because the last person a man who wanted to bury his emotions should be with was Dr. Evangeline Christmas. The woman who’d set him on the road down memory lane in the first place.

  He glanced at her curled into his side. Took in the way her silky, dark mane spread over his chest and wrapped around his bicep to ensnare him. Took note of the sweet innocence of her profile, long lashes puddling on her smooth, creamy skin, delicate pink lips softly parted, warm, womanly curves that had offered both comfort and wanton pleasure. They were a lie, a deception. She wasn’t sweetly innocent; she was dangerous.

  She’d poked and prodded and hadn’t let up. She’d dug things out of his head and his heart and made him remember. For what? She hadn’t erased his pain; she’d made it worse. He’d thought he was free of his past, but she’d exposed the truth, found its hiding place, opened the door and…let it out.

  “So maybe you’re a miracle worker after all, Evie Christmas,” he whispered, trailing the tips of his fingers along the dip of her waist and the curve of her hip, wishing he’d met her in New York when she was Dr. Evangeline Christmas and not the owner of Holiday House.

  Nothing good would come of this. The odds were stacked against them. Caine only gambled when they were in his favor. He had too much to lose. So did Evie, only she didn’t know just how much. With Emily dealing from the bottom of the deck, the game was too dangerous to play. Despite the pleasure, and there had been hours of pleasure interspersed with the pain, he wouldn’t put his future or Evie at risk. Last night, he’d done what he hadn’t done in years: He’d acted on his emotions. His wants, his needs.

  He lifted his arm to glance at his watch, surprised to discover it was seven thirty. He was usually up by five. But he understood the draw of remaining in bed with the woman snuggled against his side. Looking down at her, he wanted nothing more than to remain in her bed for the rest of the day.

  At the unexpected thought, he felt the same clutch of worry in his chest that he’d experienced when he’d told her he’d spend the night and chase away her nightmares. If he wasn’t careful, he would become her nightmare. In some sense, he supposed he already was, or had been.

  But this time it would be worse. Emily would ensure that it was. The tightness in his chest increased at the knowledge that this would be the last time he held Evie in his arms. The last time he’d kiss her, he thought as he lowered his head, unable to resist one more touch of his mouth to hers.

  She smiled against his lips and stretched, wrapping an arm around his neck and pressing a shapely leg between his thighs.

  “You don’t make it easy for a man to leave your bed, Evie.” Especially when he knows it’s forever.

  “I don’t want you to leave,” she murmured, kissing him back.

  He nipped her bottom lip, drawing away with a smile he had to force. “I promised Jamie I’d drop him off at school. And you have a shop to run.”

  She reached up to comb her fingers gently through his hair, her eyes searching his face. “Are you okay? You look tired.”

  He leaned back, lightly swatting her behind so she wouldn’t take offense or read more into his need to get away from her searching eyes and gentle touch. “Says the insatiable woman who wore me out. Though you, Ms. Christmas, look none the worse for wear. You’re glowing.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “Well, I—” She broke off, her eyes going wide when her mother’s voice came from down the hall. “Evangeline, have you lost your mind? What on earth were you thinking buying all of those lights?”

  Caine cursed and dove back into bed, meeting Evie under the covers they’d pulled over their heads. “Get out there and send her away.”

  “I’m naked!”

  “So am I, and she’s your mother. She’s seen you naked before.” At the sight of Evie pressing her lips together and the crinkles at the corners of her watery eyes, he whispered, “It’s not funny. I’m warning you, Evie, don’t you dare”—he bowed his head when she cracked up—“laugh.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said between hoots of laughter.

  “Evangeline, what in the world is the matter with…?” Her mother whipped back the covers. “Oh, I…This is a surprise. Hello, Caine.”

  “Good morning, Lenore,” Caine said, which made Evie laugh all the harder. He was just glad he’d grabbed the covers when her mother pulled them back. They weren’t completely indecent.

  “What’s going—” His uncle walked into the room, and his mouth fell open. It didn’t take him long to recover, as the smile now lighting up his face proved. “This…you two together”—Seamus moved his hand back and forth—“I can’t tell you how happy you’ve made me.”

  Caine frowned when his uncle lifted his hand to wipe away…a tear? Was he crying, or did he have something in his eye?

  “You’ll have to excuse me for getting emotional. It’s just that I didn’t expect this. Not in a million years.”

  “You and me both,” Lenore said, pursing her red-painted lips as she glanced down at them, her dark-penciled, judgmental eyebrows disappearing beneath a helmet of wavy silver hair.

  Caine cleared his throat, not sure what to say that wouldn’t offend Evie or her mother. “Perhaps you could let us get dressed first.”

  “I will. But this is important. It’s best said in the moment.”

  “Uncle, I don’t know what kind of moment you think this is, but I’m willing to wager it’s not—”

  “Ho, and how’s that wager working out for you, nephew? You didn’t count on Evie, did you? She beat you at your own game, she did. I didn’t think you were his type, lass, but I canna tell you how glad I am to be proved wrong. Now”—Seamus walked over to sit on the end of the bed—“have you settled on a date yet?”

  “A date for—”

  His rheumy eyes focused on Evie, who appeared to be frozen to the bed, Seamus went on as though Caine hadn’t spoken. “I don’t want to put any pressure on you, and it’s not like I’ll be going to meet my Maker anytime soon. Though I admit I’m a little too fond of Jameson and greasy spoons for my own good.” He winked at Evie’s mother. “But we’re working on that, aren’t we, love?”

  Evie stared at her mother. “You and Seamus?” Then she stared at Seamus. “You and my mother?”

  “Perhaps this conversation would be better off had downstairs,” Caine suggested, leaving out the two most important points, in clothes and without him. When none of them moved, Caine held the covers to his waist and swung his legs off the mattress. “I have to get Jamie to school.”

  His uncle patted the bed. “Righto. We’ll discuss the date for your wedding later. And like I said, I plan on being around for a while. But I would like to spend some time with your children before I meet my Maker, so perhaps you can keep that in mind.”

  It was too bad his uncle hadn’t saved the last until Caine had gotten both his feet on the floor. As it was, his uncle mentioning them having children after they’d spent the better part of the night having sex, albeit safe sex, caused Caine to jump from the bed without ensuring his foot wasn’t tangled in the sheet, and he fell on the floor.

  “I’m fine,” he muttered when Evie’s cry was joined by her mother’s and his uncle’s. He glanced over his shoulder to send them a look that would shut them up. Couldn’t they see he was embarrassed? It was sheer luck that he wasn’t lying on a heap on the floor with his bare arse in the air. But as he looked ove
r his shoulder, he discovered luck didn’t have anything to do with it. He’d pulled the covers down around him. All of the covers.

  Her face in the pillow, Evie said, “I can hear you laughing.”

  “They’re gone.” With her whole body flushed, he couldn’t resist one last pat to her rosy behind before tossing the blankets over her. “Too bad we hadn’t thought to flash your mother when she first walked in. We could have gotten rid of them sooner.”

  “And saved your uncle from jumping to conclusions. Who’s going to break the news we’re not getting married and there are no babies in our future? You or me?”

  She lifted her head from the pillow to look at him, and it took him a moment to answer. Because right then he saw what his uncle had. Hope. A future. “You. I don’t have time to argue with him.”

  “Right. Because you’re busy buying up the world while I’m just the owner of a little Christmas store.”

  “Not the world.” He leaned across the bed to kiss her. It would be the last time, he promised himself. “Just a resort in the Rockies. And you’re far more than just an owner of a Christmas shop.”

  “And you are more than a billionaire businessman.”

  “You’re the only person I know who makes having money sound like a bad thing.”

  “It is when it becomes the entire focus of your life.” She sat up in bed, her hair a dark cloud around her earnest, heart-shaped face. “You know what drives you, don’t you, Caine?”

  “Can we not do this? I have to grab a shower.” He turned to gather up his clothes, closing his eyes at the sound of her moving off the bed. Sighing when her arms went around his waist from behind. “I don’t know why I thought you’d let this go.”

  She rested her soft cheek against his back. “All the money in the world won’t protect you from being hurt again.”

  “If you think my ambition has something to do with my mother abandoning me, you’re wrong.”

  “I’m not wrong. Your past drives you, and you know it does. But contrary to what you think, I don’t believe money is the root of all evil. It’s everything we attach to it that causes the problem.”