The Gift-Wrapped Groom (18 page)

Her explanation concerning Cade Patterson had also opened his eyes to many things. He understood clearly now what Noel's “unfortunate experience” and “wounds” were that Winsome had once warned him of and how false his own assumptions had been.

But there was pain along with the pleasure of this discovery. Because keeping his promise to her, his solemn oath, now waged a struggle inside him every second, testing everything he had ever believed himself to be.

“So, Baranov, you ready to get started on making the sets for
A Christmas Carol?
”

Nicholas turned, hearing the eagerness in Tucker's tone. The same kind of eagerness reflected in the others now, even Babs and Edward Renner, who seemed to have forgotten that what was left of the burned-out bakery they ran no longer belonged to them but to CMC. William Winsome's words had made it theirs again, if only for this Christmas festival.

Nicholas stood before the man with the bushy mustache and toothpick between his teeth, feeling an undeniable prickling of that same kind of eagerness. “Yes. I am ready.”

But as he turned to follow Tucker, Nicholas caught a glimpse of Kurt Haag out of the corner of his eye. The man's face formed a heavy scowl as he watched Noel walk up to her grandfather and give him a quick hug. Then Haag turned and let himself surreptitiously out the back of the community center. Some instinct that Nicholas could not define had him starting out after the man.

“Baranov? The sets?”

He halted, turning back to Tucker. Yes, of course, the sets. Haag would have to wait.

“Please, show me what it is you wish me to do.”

But as Nicholas worked along with the others on the Christmas committee, his attention frequently strayed to Noel, and his mind continued to replay the uncomfortable image of Kurt Haag's scowl as he watched her and her grandfather hug.

That last image grew more and more uncomfortable as the hours passed.

“N
icholas, it's not brucellosis! That was Doc Mallory on the phone. The state lab finally called with the results.”

Noel came bouncing toward him and Nicholas caught her in an all-too-brief hug before she bounced right back out of his arms. He dropped his hands, taking a deep, steadying breath as he watched her twirl around the living room, matching the beat of “Jingle Bells” singing out from the stereo in the corner, Mistletoe barking at her heels. She had no idea what she had just done to him. None.

“It's been five days, Nicholas! Five dreadfully long days.”

Yes, it had been five long days since he had touched her, since he had had an excuse to touch her. Five dreadfully long days.

His hands burned with the need for more. He shoved them into his pockets and tore his eyes away from her gently swaying form, the happy beat of the music, the living-room light dancing across her skin, through her hair. He forced his attention to return to the ornaments he had been handing to her before the call had interrupted their progress. His thoughts were selfish. He should be happy for her and her village.

“It is good news, Noel. But if we do not hurry, we will not finally finish decorating this ugly pine tree you have left bare for so long. It is already after midnight.”

Noel stopped her twirling and turned to her stone-faced husband, a little flushed, a little out of breath.

“We're almost done. And you have to admit, it's hardly bare anymore. One or two bulbs and this angel on top, and I believe it will be all set.”

She took the last two shiny silver bulbs out of his hand, surveyed the tree and then decided on precisely the branches where they would hang, although how she made this decision he had no idea. Then she picked up the pure white angel with sequined wings.

“The top is too high for you to reach. I will do it,” he said.

Her eyes were drawn to his and stayed there. As always, his hands began to burn with the need to touch her. He shoved them into his pockets. Finally, she turned to the tree, shaking her head, a small smile lifting her lips.

“No. I'm certain I'd bring on the wrath of dear old Saint Nick himself if I dared to let a nonbeliever top my Christmas tree.”

“Saint Nick? Who is this Saint Nick?”

She walked over to the hall closet and drew out a small step ladder. “Saint Nicholas. Alias Santa Claus. A jolly, fat, bearded man in a red suit who, myth tells us, brings gifts to all the good boys and girls on December twenty-fourth, Christmas Eve.”

“
Myth
is right. Saint Nicholas was not a jolly, fat, bearded man. And his feast day is December sixth, not the twenty-fourth.”

She positioned the stepladder next to the tree as she flashed him a look. “Oh? You're an authority on the subject, are you, Dr. Baranov?”

Her tone was taunting, carrying that superior edge it often did when she spoke of this special holiday of hers. He smiled inwardly.

“Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of Russia, a holy man of our earliest legends.”

She had started up the stepladder. She nearly toppled over as she twisted around at his words. “Russian? Holy? You're kidding.”

“I do not kid. We are not a young nation of a mere two hundred years like...some. The wealth of Russia's rich history spans many centuries before the Bolshevik revolution. St. Nicholas attended the Christian Council of Nicaea in A.D. 324 and performed many important deeds.”

Her voice held a breathless quality of new discovery. “Santa Claus. Evolving from a saint of Russian legend. Who would have thought?”

“And he is not this fat, bearded man. His height is tall, and his hair is dark. Glorious icons have been made in Saint Nicholas's image. And the giving of presents is only one of the legends surrounding him. He protects the fisherman from being swallowed by the sea, the forest wanderer from being devoured by wolves. He answers prayers for help.”

“Answers prayers for help? Are you saying even Russians believe in miracles? Well, well. How enlightening.” Her voice had become taunting again and full of mischief.

Nicholas's shoulders straightened as the defensive growl deepened his voice. “For Russians it is struggle. Always struggle. It may have gone underground since 1917, but the hope for miracles has always had its place in the Russian heart. Parents do all they can for their children. Sometimes all they can do is provide them with the protection of the name of their patron saint.”

“Name of their patron saint? Nicholas, are you saying...did your parents name you after
the
St. Nicholas?”

Nicholas shook his head sadly. He could tell by the rising delight in her voice that he had told her too much. Still, he felt a pleasant pull in his chest at the happy discovery he saw in her eyes. He decided he needed to add more growl to his deep voice.

“My parents were loyal Soviet citizens. But they were simple peasant people, too. They faced a hard world and a hard life and held on to whatever they could, including the beliefs passed on to them by their ancestors.”

“I can barely believe it. My bah-humbug husband named after the real, original Santa Claus.”

Nicholas flashed her an appropriate stone-faced scowl, although he found it somewhat difficult to keep in place.

The lightness left her voice. Her tone turned soft, almost wistful. “My dad named me Noel because I was born on Christmas Eve. He told me that every Christmas Eve deserved a miracle, and I was the one he and Mom received that year.”

She turned more fully toward him, her eyes the color of the soft, silver mint of her sweater. “I wish I could have met your parents, Nicholas. I think they might have had a lot in common with my own. How did they die?”

“My father was injured in a logging accident. He bled to death. My mother's appendix burst two months later. Neighbors were unable to get her to help in time.”

“I'm...so sorry. You weren't with her at the time?”

“I was away at school when both my parents died. It was many months before I heard of their deaths.”

“
Many months?
Why did it take so long?”

“The schoolmaster had not passed on the news because it was exam time. He did not wish for my mind to be distracted. In Soviet Russia, achievement for the state was more important than family.”

“That's awful,” she pronounced emphatically. Then she turned her back to him, but not before he saw the sadness in her eyes. Nicholas liked seeing that sadness that she tried to hide. It was a window to the heart that rested so soft and full inside.

For a moment, she just clutched the stepladder. Then slowly she ascended the final step and stretched to place the white angel on the treetop.

Nicholas felt uneasy watching her off-balanced stretch. He stepped behind the ladder and reached his hands around her waist to steady her.

She felt small within his large hands. But her impact ripped through him as though he were but a hollowed caribou antler buffeted by the full force of a windstorm. He felt her enter every nerve in his body. Every tensed muscle. Every beat of his blood.

He had been very foolish to touch her again, but it was a foolishness he had no desire to end soon. Finally, after she seemed satisfied with the placement of the silly angel, she lowered her arms to her sides and began to descend the ladder. He kept his hands around her, telling himself she might still need his assistance, knowing she did not.

When she stepped off the ladder and turned at its base to face him, he still had not removed his hands. Her eyes raised to his questioningly.

She felt so warm, so soft. She smelled so sweet. Her thigh brushed lightly against one of his, sending a sharp shaft of need through him.

He removed one hand from her waist to sweep back the fiery strands of her silken hair. His hand proved too unsteady for the simple task. He dropped it to his side, removed his other hand from about her waist and stepped back, afraid to touch her a second more.

“Would you turn on the lights, Nicholas? That switch over there?”

If she had asked him to jump over this silly tree, he probably would have done it. Nicholas knew a sudden fear.

Fear was not an emotion Nicholas Baranov had ever known well, but it was one he was getting to know only too well with this woman who taxed his control every moment he was around her. Still, if he could have ended this marriage now, he knew he would not—and that realization was the most fearful one of all.

He leaned over to flip the switch. The second he did, the tree came alive with twinkling lights of every color that sparkled over the ceiling and walls and furniture, bathing the room with dancing movement and merry warmth.

Nicholas could barely believe the transformation of the ugly pine tree. It glimmered and shimmered almost as though it were happy to be draped with these crazy bulbs and bubbling lights. Beneath it, the engine of a model train whistled as it pulled its freight cars across its miniature tracks, stopping impatiently at a railroad crossing with flashing red lights, then quickly dashing around the tree again when the restraining bar was lifted. The little engine actually looked and sounded as if it were having fun.

Nicholas shook his head at these absurd, fanciful images. Until his eyes shifted and he again saw her face—lifted to the tree. All the wonder and beauty of what she saw was reflected in the glowing silver-green of her eyes, her flushed cheeks and the moist parted lips of her smile.

* * *

N
OEL TURNED
to her stone-faced husband. She was continually fascinated by the heat she found in his black eyes— both afraid that heat might be for her and more afraid that it might not be. Her curiosity was becoming unbearable; wishing to find out, while at the same time, caution warned her to be careful what she wished for because she might just get it.

Curiosity was once again pushing caution aside.

“Dance with me, Nicholas. A waltz.”

“This ‘White Christmas' tune that plays is not a waltz.”

“We can make it one. With a little imagination.”

“There is not much room—”

She took his right hand and wrapped it around her waist. She slipped her right hand firmly within his left. “We'll have room enough.”

He hesitated just a beat more before bringing her closer to him and whirling her in a slow tight loop around the small living room.

Ah, it was glorious to feel his arm around her again, his hand in hers, to be this close that her chest brushed up against his. Quivers ran up and down her spine, through her arms and legs—delicious exciting quivers. She felt so light, so alive. The lovely Christmas tree lights danced with them around the room as her heart beat strong and far too fast.

Mistletoe barked his happy bark, darting at their feet, trying to become part of the glittering, spinning world.

She closed her eyes, content to just feel Nicholas this close—this exciting man who had so quickly become a part of her life. With each passing day, it became harder to remember the time when this house had not been filled with his presence, with that deep growly voice.

Her own voice came out breathless and dreamy. “You dance so well. My father taught me to waltz. He always said it was the happiest and most graceful of dances. But I never imagined it could be...I mean, with you it's...who taught you?”

He didn't say anything for such a long time that Noel thought he might not have heard her question. She opened her eyes to see his stone face, the change in his eyes.

“My fiancée ran a school of dance. She taught me to waltz.”

Fiancée?
Noel halted to a dead stop. She slipped her hand out of his and stepped back, away from the warm steel of his body.

“I thought you said you'd never been married.”

“I have not.”

“But you have a fiancée.”

“I had a fiancée.”

“You left her back in Russia?”

He paused and she watched as the lingering light seemed to fade from his eyes.

“She died.”

“When?”

“Four years ago.”

“How?”

“Dotnara had cancer. By the time it was diagnosed, it was too late. Her life ended over the following eleven months.”

Dotnara.
As Nicholas said her name, she materialized before Noel. Young. Dark. Exotically beautiful. Tragically lost.

Noel's knees began to shake. She reached behind her to grab at the edge of the couch. Now she knew. Dotnara was the answer to all those questions she had never asked. Like why he had been so willing to give her his word that their marriage would not be consummated. Why he only wanted her assurance she would stay married to him long enough for him to receive American citizenship. Why his new American wife did not tempt him.

Dr. Nicholas Baranov was still in love with his dead Russian fiancée.

Noel felt a weight falling over her—a very heavy weight that sapped the strength from her arms and legs. She lifted her wrist, as she might lift a lead pipe, and read her watch. Her voice sounded like a spidery whisper.

“Look how late it is. I'd better be getting to bed. Thank you for helping me with the tree, Nicholas. I'd appreciate it if you'd put out the lights. Come on, Mistletoe.”

She did not look at Nicholas again. She could not. She turned her leaden body and trudged down the hall, stepped into her bedroom and closed the door behind her and her dog.

She felt so very tired. It seemed to take her forever to get out of her clothes and into a pair of flannel pajamas. Wearily, she fell into bed. Mistletoe jumped onto the bed and snuggled beside her.

She lay back on the pillow, her hand resting on the little dog's soft, furry back, so thankful for his comforting warmth. She felt as though she could sleep for a week—just as soon as she closed her eyes.

But she did not close her eyes. She lay in the dark for a long while. And when she did finally drift off, it was only to be plagued by dreams of Nicholas waltzing with the beautiful, tragic Dotnara, who clung to those broad shoulders as though she might never let them go.