Mistletoe and Holly (16 page)

His glance ran over her, searching and testing before sliding away without finding what he wanted.
“We’d better get started to the clinic or you’ll be late for your appointment.”

It was a short, but silent drive to the medical clinic. Tagg seemed preoccupied, an absent frown creasing his forehead.

Almost as soon as they arrived, Leslie was ushered into an examining room. It had been simpler to have all her medical records forwarded to her aunt’s physician than to make the drive all the way back to New York to see her doctor. It was merely a routine checkup to make sure her leg was mending nicely.

The doctor was a young, bearded man named Hornsby. After he’d finished his examination, he picked up her chart. “How long has this cast been on? Five weeks?”

“Yes,” Leslie nodded.

“How would you like an early Christmas present?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“From everything I’ve seen today, the bone has healed. There’s no reason why your cast can’t be taken off a week early,” he explained.

“That’s wonderful news.” But she didn’t feel as elated as she thought she would. Like Tagg and his first prospective client, she couldn’t get excited about her cast being removed either.

It was a strangely naked feeling when she limped into the waiting room without the cast and crutches, supported with the aid of a cane. Surprise pierced the aloofness of Tagg’s expression when he noticed her freed leg.

“Congratulations,” he said.

“I feel as if I’ve lost twenty pounds,” she admitted. Suddenly they both ran out of things to say. The silence was back, thickening until it seemed impenetrable.

“I guess we’d better go,” Leslie suggested finally. “Holly will be getting out of school soon.”

“Right.” It was a grim sound, like his expression as Tagg escorted her outside to the car.

When they drove onto the highway, Leslie stared out the side window. She didn’t see the mud-spattered snowbanks along the road. She didn’t see anything. Tension knotted her stomach into a tight band.

His sudden braking startled her. She looked around, thinking they were about to hit something. But the road before them was free of traffic. Tagg shifted the car into reverse and backed up to turn into a lay-by.

“Why are we stopped?” She frowned at him.

Both hands rested on top of the wheel as the engine idled, keeping warm air blowing into the
car’s interior. Tagg breathed in deeply, then turned his head to study her hard.

“Because we need to talk,” he stated. “What’s the matter, Leslie? Have I been taking too much for granted?”

“I think so.” She nodded, lowering her chin.

Shifting his position, he sat sideways in the seat, his arm lying along the back. Without any advance signal of his intention, Tagg leaned over and caught her chin between his fingers, lifting it so his mouth could cover her lips. His kiss was roughly demanding, licking through her like heat lightning.

Her fingers curled into the virile thickness of his hair in a response she was helpless to deny. There was a potency of feeling in his embrace that made her overlook other considerations. When she finally dragged her lips from the moistness of his, she lowered her head in a shaky reaction.

“Do you expect me to believe that when you kiss me like that, it means nothing?” Tagg demanded in a voice thickened by his disturbed state. “Why won’t you admit it? Are you afraid?”

“I’m terrified,” she whispered.

“Of what?” He pulled back, a darkening frown gathering on his features.

“Of you—of me. Of being wrong,” Leslie admitted.

“So you aren’t going to take the chance of finding out it’s right?” he challenged angrily.

“You seem to be forgetting about your daughter,” she retorted, her temper flaring from the sparks of his. “At church the other night, she was telling her friend that I was her mother. If I hadn’t come along, who knows how many more of her friends she might have decided to tell.”

“Holly did that?” he frowned skeptically.

“Yes.”

“I’ve never known her to make up stories,” he insisted.

“Well, she did. I was surprised, too, but I realized how easily she can be hurt. I know what it’s like to want something so badly that it hurts inside. You pretend to yourself and others, hoping that if you pretend hard enough it will come true.”

“Your parents,” he guessed.

“Yes, my parents. The situation isn’t the same. I know that. But I wanted so desperately for them to be happy together—for all of us to be happy—instead of constantly shouting and yelling.” All the old hurt was back, twisting at her heart and squeezing her chest until it was difficult to breathe. “Even when they separated, which they did many times, I wanted them to get back together. I wanted it to all work out right—the way it did in the books.” She
stopped, lowering her head. “But it didn’t. It still hasn’t.” There was a hint of moisture in her eyes when she looked at Tagg. “I don’t want Holly to start hoping for something that might never be.”

“Leslie.” Involuntarily Tagg muttered her name and closed his eyes, a taut frustration hardening his features.

His hold tightened to gather her against his chest, his fingers burrowing into her hair to press her head to his shoulder, as he tried to comfort her and take away her fears. She trembled, haunted by the ghosts of things past, and shut her eyes to let the sensations of his solid warmth claim her. His head was bent to her, the side of his jaw, chin, and mouth rubbing against her forehead in an absent caress.

“It’s perfectly normal for Holly to want a mother.” His low voice was thick with tautly checked emotion. “I’d be more worried if she didn’t. Instead of being upset that she picked you for the role, you should be flattered. It’s quite a compliment when someone chooses you to be their parent, even if it’s only pretend.”

“I know,” Leslie whispered, but that wasn’t the point.

“God knows I approve of her choice,” Tagg muttered as he turned his mouth against her face, trailing rough kisses over her eyebrows and temples.

His fingers tightened in her hair, gently tugging her head back so he could find her lips. They parted under his hungry pressure, the blood drumming in her ears. She strained toward him, wanting to be absorbed into him forever and escape these doubts.

Equally frustrated in his attempts to feel her against him, Tagg let go of her briefly and shifted his hold to pull her across his lap where there was no more awkwardness of position. Her arms went around his neck and shoulders as she came back to seek the heady stimulation of his drugging kiss.

With his arm supporting her shoulders and back, his hand pushed its way inside her coat, spreading across her waist and ribs to feel and caress with roaming interest. Desire fevered her flesh with raw and wild longings as she sought the excitement of his tongue, deepening the kiss with fierce pleasure.

There was a growing pressure in her loins, a need for assuagement. It swelled within her, expanding her breast under the cupping caress of his hand. He dragged his mouth from her lips to graze along the skin of her throat. She tipped her head back to allow him greater access, a moaning sigh coming from her lips.

There were too many clothes, too many layers of material to give either of them the closeness they desired. Their temperatures were rising. Between
their combined body heat and the warm air blowing from the heater vents and their own passion, the windows were steamed over. Leslie could taste the perspiration on his skin.

When his hand invaded her sweater, it was prepared for the camisole she wore underneath and slipped under the loose garment to glide onto the naked skin of her breast. She shuddered under the sensual stimulation of his stroking thumb, circling the hard point.

His mouth returned to her lips to mutter against them, “I didn’t intend for this to happen when we met, any more than you did. But it has. You can’t change it.” The moistness of his breath was in her mouth, filling every hidden corner.

“I know.” The attraction was too strong. It wouldn’t be ruled by caution, but it was its very strength that troubled her.

He dragged his hand away from her breast, faint tremors quaking through him as he made a shaky attempt to control his desires. Lifting his head, Tagg traced his fingers over her flushed and softened features. His expression was taut, a nerve twitching in his jaw while his searching gaze probed with a tearing earnestness.

“I’ve done everything but come right out and say it, Leslie,” Tagg murmured. “Before a man tells a
woman he loves her, he likes to have some indication that she feels the same. When you offer someone your heart, you don’t want them to refuse it. You said I was rushing you, so I’ve waited. How much longer is it going to be?”

“I don’t know.” They were troubled words coming from a wary heart.

His mouth tightened. “All right, I’ll say it then. I love you.”

She looked at him with a sad skepticism that challenged. “How can you be sure?”

His breath came out in a short, humorless laugh, as if concealing his hurt at her doubt. “Well, I don’t hear any bells ringing and I haven’t noticed any fireworks displays, but I know what I feel. It’s love.”

“But you were wrong once before,” Leslie reminded him in a quietly reluctant voice. “You separated from your first wife … and only reconciled after you found out about Holly. You must have known a child can’t hold a marriage together once it’s fallen apart.”

“Yes, I knew there was only a remote chance that my marriage to Cindy could be salvaged,” Tagg admitted with a hard glitter in his blue eyes, a hint of impatient anger showing. “But I owed it to our unborn child to find out, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” she conceded that point. “But you must
have thought you were in love with her, too, when you married her. If you were mistaken then, you could be mistaken now.”

“I made a mistake—once.” He stressed the last word. “Does that mean I’m not entitled to another chance?”

“It means you could be wrong again,” Leslie murmured.

“I’m not,” he stated. “There isn’t any way I can prove it. You’ll just have to believe me. Part of loving a person is trusting them.”

“That isn’t easy.” Her protective instinct was too strong; there were too many scars and too much potential for more pain for her to lightly accept his word. Leslie shifted out of his arms and moved to her own side of the car seat, straightening her coat. The silence grew, finally pulling her glance to Tagg.

“Love doesn’t come easy—not the kind that lasts,” he said quietly. “It requires work and effort from both parties involved. It only
seems
to happen on its own. I think you love me but you’re afraid of it. You have to be willing to take that last step. I can’t take it for you.”

He didn’t seem to expect a reply from her as he shifted out of parking gear to drive onto the road. Instinctively Leslie knew that he was speaking the truth. Yet it didn’t ease any of her misgivings. Tagg
believed he loved her but did he? Until she was sure, how could she risk taking that last step?

Turning into the driveway to her aunt’s house, he stopped the car and let the engine idle. “I have to pick up Holly at school,” Tagg said to explain why he was letting her out here.

“Of course,” she reached for the door handle, but his hand on her arm stayed her.

When she looked back, he leaned across the intervening space and kissed her, tasting the soft curves of her lips and lingering on them for a moist second before drawing back. “I’ll see you Christmas Eve.”

His remark had the sound of a deadline, that she had to make up her mind by then or lose him. She silently railed at the unfairness of putting a time limit as she climbed out of the car, moving more freely without the cumbersome cast. A threading and weaving tension wound through her nerves when she watched him reverse out of the driveway.

“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” Holly chimed the happy greeting to Leslie and her aunt in turn as she bounded into the kitchen, almost running Leslie down when she opened the door. “You should see all the stars in the sky. Santa Claus won’t need to have Rudolph show him the way tonight,” she declared.

After avoiding a collision with the red-bundled whirlwind of Christmas cheer, Leslie swung her attention to the man who followed, too conscious of the hinted deadline to listen to Holly’s mythical observations. By then, Tagg was almost beside her.

“Merry Christmas.” His swooping mouth kissed her startled lips with tormenting swiftness and moved away. An eyebrow danced above sparkling blue eyes. “Mmm, that was nice. Maybe I should try it again.”

“Tagg.” She was stunned, in a delightfully reluctant way, by his boldness in stealing a kiss not only in front of Holly but her aunt as well.

He chuckled at her halfhearted protest and came the rest of the way into the kitchen. “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Evans.”

“Merry Christmas. What’s this? Presents?” her aunt declared, drawing Leslie’s glance to the gift-wrapped packages Tagg carried.

“Just a little something from Holly and me.” He shrugged lightly and handed them to her while he took off his coat.

Holly had already scrambled out of hers. “Why don’t you open them now?” she urged the woman. “One’s for you and one’s for Leslie.”

“Why don’t we all go into the living room by the fireplace?” her aunt suggested. “I believe I remember
seeing a present in there with your name on it and we can open them together.”

“With my name on it?” Holly asked with wide-eyed wonder. “Really?”

“Yes. Come. I’ll show you.” Patsy Evans curved a hand on the little girl’s shoulder to guide her into the living room.

Which left Leslie to walk with Tagg. Although her leg was still weak, the exercises she’d been doing since the cast had been removed had strengthened it so it could bear her weight without relying on the cane. She still favored it, walking with a slight limp. Tagg’s hand rested on her waist, for support if she needed it.

In the living room, Tagg guided her to the sofa and sat on the cushion next to her, casually resting his arm along the back. When Patsy Evans handed a rectangular-shaped gift to her, Leslie was reluctant to unwrap it, thinking it might in some way compromise her position. Instead she watched Holly eagerly tearing away the paper on her present.