by Cat Johnson
I didn’t do any of that.
Instead, I slumped lower in my seat and watched him walk to a black sports utility vehicle parked beneath the streetlight.
He tossed the bag on the passenger seat and then climbed in.
His vehicle emitted a burst of exhaust into the air before he steered out of the parking lot and onto Main Street.
I threw the car into drive, flipped on the blinker and turned the same direction he had. I technically wasn’t following him. After all, he just happened to be heading the same direction I had to go to get home.
Nope. I wasn’t following him. And I definitely was not stalking him. Could I help it that he happened to be going to the house next door to where I lived?
In spite of all my repeated rationalizations, I passed my own driveway and slowed along the road as he turned into the drive for his uncle’s farm.
The house was set way back from the street, but I could still see the lights glowing in the windows once he got inside. Yes, I sat there along the road long enough he’d had time to park, unlock the house, get inside and turn on lights. Maybe I was stalking, just a bit. But I couldn’t help it. I had so many questions.
Why was he here? Had his family inherited the house? If he did own the farm now, what was he going to do with it?
This was crazy. There was absolutely no reason for me to be hiding in the dark wondering. We were friends. I could just ask him all this.
We had his Uncle William in common. We had all that time we’d spent together that summer. So much more than just those parting kisses. More than enough to base a nice conversation on. We could catch up with each other’s lives before he went back downstate and we both went on with our lives.
Done being a scaredy cat. Done acting crazy, I steered my car off the snow-covered shoulder, my tires spinning out before I finally fishtailed my way onto the gravel of the drive.
I parked right in front of the house, got out and strode up to the door before I changed my mind.
Heart pounding, I pushed the button for the doorbell . . . then I remembered the bell hadn’t worked decades ago and there was a good chance it still didn’t work now.
Doing the next best thing, I knocked. First on the flimsy glass and aluminum storm door, but I wasn’t sure he’d hear that, so I opened that and pounded on the thick wooden front door of the farmhouse. Apparently, when I committed to a bad idea, I went all in.
The sound of his footsteps inside had me nearly hyperventilating. And that was before the knob turned and the door swung in with a creak.
When Christopher saw me, his eyes flew wide.
“Surprise.” I attempted to joke even as I actively fought to not pass out from nerves.
I thought I saw guilt flash across his face as he said, “Elizabeth. Hi.”
Would he continue to hide the truth, even with me standing on the doorstep of the house where we’d met all those years ago?
He hesitated for so long, I was starting to wonder. Then he smiled. A small slight curve of his lips that somehow managed to look contrite.
“You knew who I was all day, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Yeah. The Chris—Christopher code wasn’t that hard to crack.” After a moment’s hesitation, I asked what I’d wanted to all day. “Why didn’t you say something?”
He stepped back and waved me inside before shutting the door to block out the cold and turning back to me. He drew in a breath. “I honestly don’t know. It was stupid. But once I started, I couldn’t figure out how to stop.”
I let out a short laugh. “I know what you mean.”
I’d been in the same position after I’d pretended I didn’t recognize him.
We were standing close in the narrow mudroom just inside the door. Close enough that, in the confinement of the small enclosed space, I could actually smell him.
Gone was the heavy sweet scent of Drakkar Noir from the early nineties. The scent my teenage memories of him would always be tied to. In its place instead was a subtle warm woodsy scent. The kind that made me think of hot toddies and winter fires. The kind of scent you wanted to wrap yourself in like a soft wool throw.
It had me leaning closer to absorb more of it. More of him.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” he asked. “I was about to heat up some canned soup on the stove. It’s not much, I know, but I didn’t feel like going out. I kind of felt like I wanted to be here.”
I knew what he meant about that too. Being back in this house, with him, brought back so many feelings. It was all kind of overwhelming. But he’d asked me a question and I had yet to answer.
Swallowing hard, I nodded. “Sure. I’d love some soup. If you have enough.”
He waved away my concern. “There’s plenty. They were on sale. Three cans for two dollars.”
I laughed. He certainly didn’t dress like he needed to pinch pennies. And that Land Rover parked in front of the house didn’t exactly say he was living on a tight budget. But the old Christopher I knew had been practical, almost to a fault. I was betting he’d never outgrown that practicality.
“Please. Step into my kitchen.” He swept his arm in a welcoming gesture. “The stove might officially be an antique by now, so let’s hope it works.”
I followed him in and remembered all the grilled cheese sandwiches we’d eaten there. I’d made them on that very stove. His Uncle William had been kind enough to indulge me as I tried to impress Christopher with my cooking skills and the one food I knew how to make.
Thoughts of the old man had me saying, “I’m sorry about your uncle. He was a good man.”
Christopher glanced back from where he was using an old crank can opener to open one of the two cans of soup on the counter. “Yeah. He was.”
As I sat at the old kitchen table, he dumped the contents of the two cans into a pot and placed it on the burner. A click of the lighter and the propane flame sprung to life.
Only then did he turn to join me at the table. “I have to tell you something. I want to explain.”
Breathless, I said, “Okay.”
“When I got home that September, it was to find my parents were getting a divorce. My father was living in an apartment. My mother was a mess. She was talking about selling the house. All they did was fight. And I was stuck in the middle. I was beginning my senior year, not sure if we’d be moving out of the district. I applied to colleges and just started to live my life for the day I could move out and get away from them.” He drew in a breath. “You. Here. It all seemed so far away. Almost unreal. Like a fantasy, when it was all I could do to deal with my reality. It wasn’t until later that I figured out Uncle William had invited me here to get me out of the fray of what was going on with my parents.”
“I didn’t know any of that.” The explanation made me feel moderately better. At least there was a reason for him dropping so completely out of my life. Something other than my not being good enough.
“I guess William kept things to himself.” Christopher glanced around the kitchen. “He left it to me in his will. All of it.”
My eyes widened. “He did?”
“Yeah. My mother, as his only niece, was his closest living relative, but he left it to me alone.”
“Maybe because he could see how much you liked being here that summer.”
He looked sad. “If I loved it so much, I should have come back. I didn’t.”
“I know.” I knew very well, because I’d waited for him to come back for a long time. I pushed past that hurt and said, “But you’re back now.”
“I am.” He looked sad.
I reached out and touched his fingertips with mine. “It’s really good to see you.”
“You too.” He squeezed my fingers and then pulled his hand away to stand and go tend to the soup.
“So tell me. What’s going on in your life?” I asked. “What do you do for a living?”
“I work for an investment firm on Wall Street. I heard you’re a teacher?”
“Glad to s
ee the Mudville information highway is as fast as ever. Yes, I am a teacher.” I didn’t want to talk about me and my underwhelming life, so I brought the subject back to him and the one thing I so badly wanted to know. “So do you have a wife? Kids? Husband or any other sort of significant other?”
He glanced back, brow raised. “Um, no. None of the above.”
Two bowls of steaming soup in his hands, he came back to the table, only to set them down and then go back and grab two soup spoons out of a drawer.
“You?” he asked, when he returned.
“No wife, kids, husband or other for me either,” I answered, taking the spoon he offered me.
I reached for the plastic napkin holder on the lazy Susan in the center of the table and pulled out a paper napkin for each of us.
“So you’re saying we’re both just a couple of loners?” His gaze met mine through the steam of the hot soup rising in the chill air of the kitchen.
“Seems so,” I said, my appetite long gone as I sunk into the depths of his dark eyes.
He set his spoon down. “Can I be completely selfish and say I’m happy to hear you’re not married?”
I fought the smile I felt taking over. “Yeah. I’ll allow it.”
His chest rose beneath the oatmeal-colored sweater covering his broad chest. “Elizabeth?”
“Yeah?”
“I really, really wanna kiss you right now.” His voice was like drinking cold bourbon-spiked eggnog in front of a fire. It warmed me while sending a chill down my spine at the same time.
There was no way I could say no, even though I knew saying yes was going to hurt like hell tomorrow, or the next day, after he left again.
My chest tightened until there was no room for air but I managed to draw in just enough to say, “Then kiss me.”
FIVE
CHRISTOPHER
Everyone had regrets. Hindsight was full of them. Those should haves that haunt us for a lifetime.
I wasn’t going to let Elizabeth become one of those for me a second time.
When a beautiful woman asks—no, tells—you to kiss her, a smart man complies. But more than that, when the first girl to steal your heart gives you a second chance, even though you don’t deserve one, you take it.
I pushed my chair back from the table, about to stand and go to her, but she stood first and came around to my side. Then, damned if she didn’t straddle me right there, facing me as she wrapped her arms around my neck.
The old wood of the chair creaked from our combined weights. I should have probably been concerned about that. I couldn’t bring myself to worry about it as I got lost in the deep blue pools of her eyes.
When she leaned in and brushed her lips over mine, there wasn’t anything short of a blazing inferno around us that could have inspired me to ask her to move.
Her mouth a breath away from mine, she said, “I’ve been wanting to do this since we sat in the sleigh this morning.”
Good thing she hadn’t. Her comment brought to my mind images of some pretty irreverent role playing. Of me in my Santa suit and Elizabeth in the role of a naughty woman bound for coal in her stocking. Only in this scenario, bad girls got whatever they wanted from Santa.
As she ground against my lap, which was now no longer camouflaged by the long coat of the Santa suit, what she wanted from me was very apparent.
Judging by the hard length I was no longer trying to hide, I wanted the same thing she did.
I ran my hands up her back, pulling her close so I could reach her lips. I sucked her lower lip into my mouth. The soft sound of need that move drew out of her had me answering with a groan of my own.
Canned soup, be damned. I was no longer hungry for anything except for her.
I went back in for another taste of her lips, loving that I could still remember our first kiss and the feel of her mouth beneath mine. But a kiss like those when we’d been teenagers, no matter how intense it seemed to us then, wasn’t going to be enough this time.
My heart pounding, I cradled her head in both hands, angled my mouth and kissed her like I’d wanted to then. Like I’d wanted to since I’d recognized her this morning. Like a full-grown man kissed an adult woman.
Her passion matched my own as she kissed me harder, deeper, as our tongues tangled. She pressed closer, forcing me against the back of the chair.
It was a full body kiss that put us both in jeopardy of bodily harm as the wood beneath us groaned with the strain. Still we didn’t stop.
“Want you,” I confessed against her mouth.
“I never stopped wanting you,” she gasped.
Those were the only words I needed to hear. When she reached between us to unfasten my pants, I not only let her, I helped.
The unbelievably amazing feel of her hand wrapped around me was only surpassed by the anticipation of my being inside her. It seemed crazy that this was finally going to happen, here and now. But there was no doubt about it when she stood and pushed her jeans down her legs.
Getting tangled, she did a little dance as she kicked off her boots and then the pants.
When her underwear hit the ground my mouth went dry. Then my hands were full of warm soft flesh as she straddled me again.
“We really doing this here?” I asked.
“Yes. I’ve waited too long for you already.”
I couldn’t argue with her on that point so I gripped her hips and guided her over me.
Her mouth covered mine in another kiss as she slid down my length, her body engulfing me in wet sanity-robbing heat.
At forty years old, this wasn’t my first time. Far from it. But it might as well have been. I had skills in my sexual repertoire, but Elizabeth would never guess that. Not from this encounter when all I could do was clutch her tight as she moved over me.
I felt her start to shake, heard her cry out as her body gripped mine, and I said a silent thank you that at least she was coming, even though I hadn’t done a whole lot to help her over the edge.
Breathing out her name as I buried my face in her neck, I held on and rode her orgasm right to the very end, before I came myself.
When we were finished, we were both panting and breathless. Although the word finished wasn’t exactly accurate. Elizabeth was still sitting half-naked on top of me. I was still buried inside her and, judging by the state of my cock as it became increasingly ready for round two, I wasn’t nearly done yet.
I reached between us and dragged a fingertip down her slit. She sucked in a sharp breath at my touch and gazed at me from beneath heavy lids.
“You wanna go find a bed or are we staying here?” I asked.
“Actually . . .” She glanced behind her at the table. “I’ve had lots of fond fantasies about this very table over the years.”
How could it be that I’d had those same teenage sex fantasies about this table and her? Fantasies of Elizabeth on her back on the table, her legs wide as I stood between them and pounded into her. And Elizabeth, bent over the edge with me behind her and buried deep.
Christ. I was hard as a rock just from the thought. In case she needed more of an answer than that, I said, “I can have it cleared off in two seconds.”
She smiled and I knew there was a good possibly that when I sold the farm, I was going to have to keep this table. I’d fit it into my modern décor somehow, just for the memories alone.
Then again, after tonight, did I really want to sell?
SIX
ELIZABETH
I woke up in my own bed, alone, but that was okay, because I was deliciously sore in all the right places.
That didn’t mean I didn’t miss Christopher already, even though I’d only left him—I glanced at the clock—nine hours ago.
Wow, I’d slept late. But it was understandable, given the circumstances.
Sneaking into my room after midnight as I tried not to wake my parents after having crazy kitchen table sex with Christopher gave the whole episode a surreal feel.
I needed to shower. And I rea
lly should stop by Santa Station to check on everything before the start of day two of the festivities. Although, maybe I didn’t have to. Agnes had texted me we had a different Santa volunteer confirmed for today as well, as an apology from the originally scheduled Santa from yesterday, who’d come down with the flu.
What I really wanted to do was play hooky today from all my volunteer responsibilities and go see Christopher. Actually, I wanted to do more than just see him.
Maybe I could just text Nicole and tell her to text or call me if she needed me for anything.
It seemed like a good plan to me and I was all about plans. Of course, the one thing I hadn’t planned on was Christopher reappearing in my life. But that’s why plans were flexible.
Flexible . . . that word brought to mind an image from last night. Me on my back on the kitchen table. My one leg braced on Christopher’s shoulder. His dark eyes focused on my face as he plunged into me . . .
I let out a shaky breath as my heart pounded. I reached for my cell phone on the nightstand and scrolled to find the photographer’s number, punching in a text telling her not to expect me there.
There was no doubt in my mind the only place I was going this morning was next door.
An hour and a half later, showered and fueled with breakfast, I made some small talk with my parents, answered their questions with some vague noncommittal answers and then finally headed out.
The drive was so short I really didn’t want to even bother warming up the car. But if I didn’t, I’d get a lecture from my father, who was no doubt watching out the window.
Why did I still live with my parents again? Oh yeah, that’s right. The free rent.
I sighed and forced myself to sit in the driveway with the engine running for the entirety of the Christmas song playing on the radio. I waited right through to Mariah Carey’s final note before I threw the car into gear and sped down our drive.
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours I steered into the driveway of William Hatchett’s place. Or, what I suppose I should now start thinking of as the Nunes place since Christopher had inherited it.