Claustrophobic Christmas (13 page)

“I was,” James agreed.

“What do you mean, was?” Pop said. “She fire ya?”

She could feel James looking at her and stared fixedly at the crackling fire. What was his deal? She used to be able to cow her little brothers with a particularly evil knuckle punch in the biceps. She’d hate to have to break that move out on James, though her punch ought to have more impact now that she did zumba and yoga on a weekly basis.

“Something like that,” James finally said.

Pop turned his attention to Darcy, who wished she could sink between the cushions of the couch. “You fired a man at Christmas? What’d you go and do that for?”

“Not for his photography,” Chip said. “You do some fine work, James.”

“Thanks.” James was talking to Chip, but Darcy could tell he was watching her.

“You’re not going bankrupt, are you, Darcy?” Pop asked. “Cutting costs?”

“My business is solvent, Pop.”

“I can give you a loan.”

“I don’t need money.” Darcy rubbed her hands on her thighs and experienced a sinking realization. She was wearing the same lime green sweat suit she’d had on in the traffic jam. She’d done laundry yesterday, but it hadn’t improved the outfit’s appearance. No wonder James kept sneaking peeks at her. He was probably trying to figure out why he had
déjà vu
.

“What’s in the box?” Chip asked.

“This?” James held up the wrapped gift as if he’d forgotten about it. “It’s for Darcy.”

“What did you get her?”

“Not me, my mother.” James nudged the gift toward Darcy like he was trying to tame a wild beast with food, luring it close enough to pet. “She wanted you to have something under the tree in case you, ah…” He trailed off.

“So you didn’t get her anything?” Chip raised an eyebrow and sipped his whiskey.

“I, ah… I did, but…”

Twice in a row? James was so rarely at a loss for words. Darcy finally looked at him and he was, of course, looking at her.

His eyes didn’t project the disappointment she’d seen two nights ago, but she wasn’t sure what she was seeing.

Darcy licked her lips and tasted pizza. Great. She pretended to yawn and rubbed the area around her mouth with her fingers. James was going to think she was some kind of slob. Not that she cared what he thought.

Except…why was he here?

Bearing gifts?

Looking at her with that intense, needy stare?

“Chip,” Pop said suddenly, “let’s go make sandwiches.” He creaked out of the recliner and grabbed his cane.

“I’ll take a pastrami on rye.” Chip rattled the ice in his glass. “Bring that whiskey when you come back down here too.”

Pop thwacked the trunk with his cane. “Son, get off your ass and help an old man make sandwiches.”

“You’re not old,” Chip grumbled, but he followed Pop up the stairs. Wonder of wonders—or horror of horrors—Darcy heard the door at the top of the stairs slam.

So here she was, alone with a boy in the den. This was a first.

Darcy’s fake yawn turned into a real one. Then James yawned. She crunched herself against the arm of the couch as the fire popped and the Weather Channel backed down from its prediction of record snowfalls.

Sometimes, things didn’t go according to prediction.

“Darcy,” James began, but she interrupted him.

“I washed this sweat suit yesterday.”

“Didn’t you bring anything else home?”

“I did, I just like this sweat suit.” Darcy wondered if he was going to say anything about her missing panties. But he didn’t seem like he was in a joking mood. Well, neither was she. Seeing him again stung her heart like alcohol on a cat scratch. “What are you doing here, really?”

“I think you know.”

More lessons in honesty? “I have no idea.”

He sighed. “I owe you an apology.”

“Oh.” Darcy picked at the tomato stain on her cuff again. “Is that what the gift is for?”

“No, Mother did get you this.” This time, when he shoved the package toward her, she picked it up. “My family assumed you’d spend part of Christmas at our house.”

“Why would they think that?”

James scratched his cheek, averting his gaze. “I may have given them that impression.”

Darcy uncurled the fancy bow on top of the neatly decorated shirt box. Mall paper. She recognized it. Pop took all his gifts to the wrapping desk at Penney’s, and her Aunt Mavis fixed him up even when he hadn’t bought the stuff there. “I guess they figured out they were wrong.”

“Maybe.” He scooted next to her, and since she was already smushed against the arm of the couch, she couldn’t escape. His eyes were a particularly bright blue, and he’d shaved. His shirt had a collar and looked like it had been ironed.

She held up the box like a shield. “Do you want me to open this?”

“It’s a sweater.” He shimmied the box out of her grasp and tossed it behind him. He was too close for her to concentrate on anything but the shape of his lips forming words, lips that had kissed her everywhere, so delightfully. “About that apology. You want me to do it on one knee or maybe grovel on the floor or what?”

“Apology?” Darcy’s hands fluttered and her breathing sped up. She clasped and unclasped her fingers in her lap.

“I was wrong to talk to you like that.”

She tightened her lips, not trusting herself to speak. She could feel her whole body trembling. His heat poured over her. Maybe he should be groveling, on the floor, where she couldn’t smell his aftershave or see the three grey hairs glinting at his temple.

“I was out of line and insensitive and stupid.”

She nodded, tiny, quick jerks of her head.

“You don’t tell lies. You write wonderful stories that make people want to visit the places you’ve described. You have more knowledge about geography and cultures and travel packed inside that head than anybody I know.”

“Trivia.” Her voice came out thin and nervous, and she swallowed. “I read a lot.”

“You love your job, and you’re good at it. I was a jackass telling you how to do it and, worse, how to live your life.”

“I’m sorry too,” she whispered.

He took her hands. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, honey.”

“I’m sorry I can’t go to the Bahamas with you. Or Colorado.” She cleared her throat. If she cried, she was going to knuckle punch herself in the biceps. “I’m sorry I can’t go.”

“Then I won’t stay as long,” he said with a laugh. “Look, Darcy. Look at me.”

She pushed her glasses up her nose. “I am.”

“It’s been two days, and you’ve been on my mind constantly. I thought I missed you before, but now? It’s like half my brain is gone and I can’t think.”

She bit her lip. Was he saying that he’d changed his mind? That he wanted her, warts and all? That he accepted her as she was, without expecting some miracle cure?

“I thought of you a few times too.” A few times being all day yesterday and all day today.

“I want a future with you. I want to leave on my trips and come home to you. I want to be with you when I can and dream of you when I can’t.”

As apologies go, it was good, so much so that her throat had a knot in it as big as a fist. She tried to answer him, tell him she shared his feelings, but no sound came out.

“Baby, I need you to forgive me.” He slid to the floor, to his knees, as he’d threatened to do.

“I do,” she managed.

“I know our jobs will keep us apart a lot, and I don’t care. I’m in love with you, Darcy. Can you be with somebody who travels as much I do? Can you give me a second chance?”

“I can try,” she said. “I can sure as hell try.”

Epilogue

The gnome James had given Darcy for Christmas two years ago had the place of honor on the dashboard of her new car. He was a small gnome with an oddly evil glint in his eye, and the vivid orange and pink streaks in the sky behind him as the sun set across the rim of the Grand Canyon enhanced his demonic appearance.

Darcy nudged the handsome man in the passenger’s seat of her car. “Put down the camera and look at this. That gnome is evil.”

James trained the lens on the resin figurine, snapping a close-up. “He does look evil. What’s up with that?”

She propped her arm on the door and slid her large, dark sunglasses off her nose so she could peer at the statuette. “It’s like he knows something we don’t.”

“He might know something you don’t,” James told her. He nestled his leisure camera in the bag at his feet.

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” Darcy unwound the headscarf that had kept her hair in place, somewhat, and bounced to her knees so she could see over the windshield. Though this was the second time she’d seen the Grand Canyon—the first being yesterday—she couldn’t get over the panorama of tans and beiges and reds and yellows, the vastness of the earth and the buttes, the smell of dust and sage. She opened the door of the convertible and was about to head for the viewing area when James grabbed her hand.

“The gnome knows this is the biggest place in the world,” he said. “It’s the widest open of all spaces.”

Wind tousled her hair. She closed her eyes and felt the sun on her face, heard the murmurs of the few other tourists in this remote location. Was that an eagle crying or a kid? Eagle, surely. Because this moment was flawless. She, Darcy Burkell, was on the edge of the Grand Canyon. She’d driven here in a car without taking a single pill, and the journey had been wonderful, if bisected by a lot of pit stops.

A lot of pit stops.

But that was life, right?

James’s fingers twined through hers, and she felt a rush of triumph in the perfection of this moment, this setting, this man and her achievement. He placed something small and cool in her hand and closed her fingers around it.

“He knows the biggest place in the world is the best place for me to ask you if you’ll marry me.”

Darcy smiled. She didn’t open her eyes. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

“In Las Vegas?”

“Sure.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I suppose.”

James acted like he was relieved, like he didn’t already know what she was going to say. She let him have his fun. She’d picked out the ring, after all, and the dress, and the route, and the dates, though she’d allowed him to pick the chapel. She might have learned to love car trips in a convertible, but that didn’t mean she liked surprises.

About the Author

Ellie Marvel is published in romance fiction under the names Jody Wallace (fantasy romance) and Ellie Marvel (erotic romance). She has always lived with cats, and they have always been mean.

To learn more about Ms. Wallace, please visit
www.jodywallace.com
or the cat’s website,
www.meankitty.com
. You can also send an email to
[email protected]
.

Look for these titles by Ellie Marvel

Now Available:

What She Deserves

Claustrophobic Christmas

Writing as Jody Wallace

Now Available:
 

A Spell for Susannah

Liam’s Gold

The Fey Realm

Survival of the Fairest

One Thousand Kisses

Then: Geeky science nerd. Now: Most Likely to Fall in Love!

What She Deserves

© 2009 Jody Wallace

At seventeen Winifred Sampson was sure of three things. She was a nerd, she hated Peter Duvall, and her crush on the quarterback would never be reciprocated. Ten years later, she can safely revise two of those constants. She’s a sexy, self-confident woman, more than woman enough to seduce a former high school football player. She doesn’t spare a thought for that turkey Peter…until she sees him at the reunion.

My, how he’s grown!

Peter never cared that he and Winnie were the class nerds. So they were smart. So they didn’t have dates. Big deal. Now they’re both smart and successful. She was always his fantasy girl, and he’s decided to make a few of his own dreams come true…in the most carnal way possible.

All he has to do is convince her he’s graduated—with honors—from dud to stud.

Warning: This title contains explicit sexuality, bad dancing and man-on-door violence.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
What She Deserves:

Peter held up his arm again and summoned the bartender. “Two champagnes, please.”

“Good choice.” The bartender served up double flutes of bubbly. “What are we celebrating tonight besides the obvious? High school sweethearts?”

Winnie accepted the fizzy champagne and took a sip. The bubbles tickled her nose. “We’re so not. Why do people keep thinking we’re together?”

The man wiped the bar before draping the towel over his shoulder. “I’ve seen my share of couples. You two have an eye for each other.”

The bartender was obviously talking out of his hind end. What couples argued all the time? Unhappy ones, that’s who.

“Listen to the man, Winnie.” Peter laughed and clinked his glass against hers. “We’ve got eyes for each other.”

“I’d like to punch you in the eye,” she grumbled.

“Wouldn’t be the first time. I had a huge shiner after that football game our junior year.”

“Finally, a pleasant memory.” Winnie grinned, remembering the incident. Peter had tied the sleeves of her shirt in a knot while she was wearing it, strapping her arms to her body. She’d blacked his eye as soon as she’d gotten free.

The band struck up a rockabilly tune and Peter tucked his arm around her waist, whirling her in a circle. “Come on, Winifred. Let’s dance.”

She was surprised to find herself tempted. “I’ll spill my drink.”

“Can’t have that.” He slowed, his hand burning through the silk of her wrap.

Alumni squeezed past them to access the bar, and Winnie was jostled so close to Peter their bodies were almost touching. There wasn’t much on her slender frame that stuck out, but if she’d been one cup size bigger, there would have been contact.

Peter sipped his drink, never taking his gaze off her. Ok, she could admit it. He wasn’t being horrid and he looked good. Really good. There was a vibe here beyond their historic animosity. But she couldn’t get distracted trying to find out what it was.