Baby, It's Cold Outside (13 page)

“She loved it. She’s here with me now. We’re at my apartment in SoHo.”

“That’s wonderful,” she replied, her knees shaking at the thought that he was so close and yet so far out of reach.

“Yeah, well, it’s great to have her here, but it would have been a lot more wonderful if she hadn’t insisted on bringing the puppy,” he said, sounding a little annoyed. “The damn thing’s already eaten two of my shoes—and from two different pairs.”

Kate coughed out a laugh, imagining the frown on his face, and wiped away another errant tear.

“Hey, don’t you start,” he said. “Those shoes cost three hundred dollars a pair.” She then heard him swear under his breath and say from a distance—as if he were holding the phone away from his mouth—”Gull, for chrissake tell Tyler to stay off the couch, he’s covered in mud.”

A childish giggle was followed by a high-pitched musical voice saying: “Don’t be silly, Daddy. How can I tell him when he doesn’t speak the human language?”

There followed a fairly lengthy discussion on how humans communicate with dogs, which Gully definitely seemed to win, before Ryder came back on the line. “Jesus, I’m sorry. She’s gone to give Tyler a bath. I’ve probably got about ten minutes tops before my apartment is totaled, so you’ll just have to listen to what I’ve got to say without interrupting. Got it?”

“Yes, okay,” Kate agreed, so touched by the tiny insight into his relationship with his daughter that her throat was too thick to talk anyway.

He sighed. “Right, here goes. As you know, Gully and I are going to Disneyland in a couple of days. We make a trip there every year, just her and me, and well, yesterday she asked me if she could bring a friend.”

He sounded a little despondent. Kate’s heart went out to him, knowing how precious his time alone with his daughter was. “Ryder, that’s tough. But I suppose it’s all part of her growing up.”

Was this why he had called? To get her input? The thought made her feel both flattered and sad.

“I was sad for a bit, I’ll admit it,” he said. “Seems that Cool Dad’s awesomeness is fading in favor of her new friend, Maisey, from ballet class.”

“Oh, Ryder,” she said, not sure what else to say.

“But then, you know what? It made me realize a couple of important things. First, I don’t want to miss any more big chunks of her life. She’s growing up so fast, I can’t afford to be gone for months at a time. So I’ve packed in my job. I want to be based in New York now, not traveling all over the globe chasing stories. I’ve got a contact at the Herald, says they’re looking for a staff photographer. I know the editor there loves my stuff, so I shouldn’t be unemployed for long.”

“That’s terrific, Ryder. I’m so pleased for you.” And she was—it sounded like he was sorting out his life. “I think you’ve made the right decision.”

“That’s good; so do I. But there’s something else I discovered, and you’re a big part of it, Katherine.”

“I am?” she asked, the optimism building, despite her best efforts not to get ahead of herself.

“Yeah, here’s the thing.” He paused, and she could have sworn she heard him swallow. “I need to get a life, apart from Gully and my job. In the last few years, I’ve kind of drifted in and out of relationships, because she was always more important and I never met anyone I could be bothered to make the effort with. Until…” He paused again, and her hand gripped the handset so hard she thought it might crack apart. “Until I met you. I want to see more of you, Katherine. A lot more.”

The tears welled again, but this time she didn’t make any effort to wipe them away because she was too busy concentrating on not getting knocked on her backside by the wave of emotion barreling through her.

“In fact,” he continued, before she managed to form a coherent response, “I was wondering if you’d like to come over to the apartment tomorrow. We could go to Central Park for the afternoon, and then I’ll make the three of us some supper. I’ve spoken to Gully about you, and she’s cool with it. I want you to meet her, get to know her. She’s a terrific kid. And I swear, I’ll make her lock Tyler in the bathroom while you’re here.”

She pressed trembling fingers to her lips, the tears flooding down her cheeks now, and she had to gulp down a sob. He was willing to give her not just himself, but his child, too. She wasn’t quite sure she could cope with the joy of it all.

“Katherine, I know we said what we had was just for one night— Why are you crying?”

“Because I’m so happy,” she managed at last.

He chuckled, that deep lazy chuckle she was sure was the best sound she’d ever heard. “I knew promising to keep the puppy in the bathroom would swing it.”

She laughed then.

“So what’s your official answer?” he asked, but she could tell he already knew.

“My official answer is absolutely yes,” she said. “To seeing more of you and meeting Gully. And you really don’t have to worry about Tyler. I’d like to meet him, too,” she added, her heart swelling to impossible proportions. “I may be scared of the dark, but I’m remarkably brave when it comes to puppies.”

“Good to know,” he said, lowering his voice. “But I’m reserving judgment on the Shoe Terminator. You may not be scared of him, but my Gucci loafers sure as hell are.”

She giggled, the light, carefree sound mixing with the rough chuckle she had come to adore. “Why Ryder, I had no idea you were so precious about footwear.”

“I’m precious about a lot of stuff,” he countered, his voice dropping to a seductive hum. “Including you.”

They made arrangements for the following day when she would get to spend time with him and his daughter—and Tyler the Shoe Terminator—and then said their good-byes. She was still grinning from ear to ear when she put the handset back on the receiver.

She took a deep breath in and felt the wave of happiness bowl her over at the thought of what the weeks, months, and hopefully years ahead might hold.

Collapsing onto the sofa, she gazed at her little blue spruce with its twinkle of snowflake lights and realized that the first Christmas wish she’d ever dared to make had just come true.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks go to Aimee Carson, Amy Andrews, and Kate Hardy for being so supportive and inspiring to work with while we devised the theme, brainstormed our individual stories together, and wrote them at breakneck speed. And also to the wonderful Liz Pelletier for being so enthusiastic about the idea from the get-go and encouraging us every step of the way. It’s been a ball.

About the Author

USA Today bestselling author Heidi Rice is married with two teenage sons (which gives her rather too much of an insight into the male psyche). She also works as a film journalist and loves her job as an author because it involves sitting down at her computer each day and getting swept up in a world of high emotions, sensual excitement, funny feisty women, sexy tortured men and glamourous locations where laundry doesn’t exist… Not bad, eh.

Then she gets to turn off her computer and do chores (usually involving laundry!)

’Tis the Season to

be Kissed

Amy Andrews

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Amy Andrews. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Edited by Heather Howland and Tahra Seplowin

Cover design by

ISBN

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition November 2012

The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: South Park; Popsicle; Cheetos; Tylenol; Greyhound; Jersey Shore; Pop-Tarts; Twinkies; Blue Hawaii; Pop Rocks; Calvin Klein; Scrabble; Technicolor.

To Heidi, Kate, and Aimee. Thanks so much for the fun times while we worked on this anthology. I am so proud and lucky to be part of this project with such incredibly talented and incredibly generous women.

Chapter One

Fifteen hours ’til midnight

Tamara was already three-quarters of the way through the pitcher of eggnog before she realized she was a little on the tipsy side.

At nine o’clock in the morning.

She sighed. She’d never been very good at holding her liquor. But at least the delicious, nutmeggy rum had managed to do what every piece of clothing she’d packed—plus the patchwork quilt off the bed—hadn’t. She was warm right down to her bones. Even if she did look like Kenny from
South Park
with the faux-fur lined hood of her parka pulled tight around her face.

Her head flopped over the arm of the couch as the alcohol buzz bathed her in its glow, a stark contrast to the winter wonderland outside. So what if she was drunk at breakfast? There was no one here to judge her and, besides, it must be five o’clock somewhere in the world.

Australia? It had to be well past five in Sydney. In fact, they’d probably already rung in the New Year by now.
Did they have a ball that dropped somewhere?
she wondered, and then smiled and shut her eyes as the room rocked from side to side.

Gradually Tamara became aware of scraping and then thudding at the door, like something—or someone—very big was stamping its boots. Her head snapped up, and her pulse took off at a gallop. Unfortunately, the room took a few seconds to catch up.

Who the hell could that be?

Georgia had told her the place was hers. It was written on the note. The one she’d attached to the pitcher of New Year’s eggnog she’d so thoughtfully whipped up before making the long drive to New York City early this morning during a break in the awful weather.

Something thumped against the door. Tamara leaped from the couch, quilt dropping to the floor. There’d been reports of looters around with all the unprecedented wild weather they’d been having along the Eastern Seaboard. Not in the deepest darkest corner of Vermont, sure, but maybe this looter had champagne tastes?

The door handle rattled. Her pulse spiked as she wildly scanned the room for some kind of weapon with vision that seemed to turn everything double. She spotted a bag of golf clubs by the door and scrambled over to them.

Something metallic scraped at the lock.

She froze. Was he picking it?

Didn’t they usually just throw something heavy through the window?

She whipped out the closest golf club, her breath loud in her ears as she stood behind the door and watched it slowly open. A blast of cold wind and a flurry of snow preceded the tall, hooded intruder. A surge of adrenaline shot into her system, mixing with the rum. The door slammed shut and she brought the putter down in the direction of the intruder’s head, yelling, “Yaaaaaaa!”

She wasn’t quite sure what happened next but there was a deep muffled curse, then somehow she was flat on her back, pinned to the floor by a hulking weight. Thankfully her parka and multiple layers of clothing cushioned the fall.

For a moment, neither of them moved or spoke and she noticed two things at once. This man—she had no doubt he was male—didn’t feel like some skinny, looting teenager. And he smelled like soap, pine needles, and the wild blue yonder. Looters didn’t smell like that, did they?

An errant part of her, possibly the part that hadn’t had a man on top of her for a very long time, or the part of her that was really feeling the effects of the rum, wanted to stay right where she was and just sniff him. Damn, she’d missed the way men smelled.

But then he shifted and sense returned to her sluggish brain. “Get off me!” she demanded and began to struggle.

Sergeant Luke Jackson had gone straight into combat mode at the sound of the blood-curdling banshee yell, and it took several seconds for the adrenaline spike to release him from its grip long enough to compute the fact that there was no danger. He had no idea who was beneath him, but the landing had been too soft to register it as a threat.

Still holding firm to the attacker’s splayed wrists, his father’s old putter discarded and well out of reach, he looked down into stormy gray eyes. He may only have been able to see an oval cut-out of her face from the confines of the hood she had pulled tight around her head, but it was definitely a woman. No man owned such delicate bone structure and had a nose as cute as that.

“What the hell?” he demanded back at the woman moving ineffectually underneath him. He’d just trudged two miles through a freaking blizzard from the bus depot to be greeted like this?

“Get off me right now you...giant...ass!”

“Who the hell are you?”

The woman stopped struggling and glared at him. “Hey buddy, this is
my
house. I get to ask the questions and you”—she struggled some more—“are”—more interesting squirming, shoving, and pushing—“squashing me!”

Luke pushed away immediately and stood towering over her. She looked like a felled Eskimo in full winter regalia. “Ma’am, I don’t know who you are, but I think you’ll find that this is
my
house.”

She gave him an indignant look as she lay there waving her arms and legs like a stranded beetle. “While I appreciate your manners,” the beetle with the elfin nose and pixie cheekbones said, “I’ll have you know that this cabin belongs to the Jackson family.”

Luke nodded. “Yes. Edward and Sophie. My parents. I’m Luke. Luke Jackson.”

He offered her his hand to help her up, fearing that with all those clothes thwarting her attempts she would never make it unaided.

The angry pixie’s eyebrows knitted together as she glared up at him, but reached her mittened hand for his anyway. “Nice try. Luke Jackson is in Afghanistan and I think impersonating a US soldier on active duty is”—she paused as Luke pulled her to her feet—“beneath contempt.”