Heating up the Holidays

by Jill Shalvis

  But of all the cards for Ryan to have picked…Yeah, she could see why he’d come straight here, looking all earnest and sorry.

  She felt the cheese grater slip from her hands as she looked back at him.

  “Wow, weird coincidence, huh?” she said casually, as if she didn’t already know it was the hand of fate telling her to get laid and overcome her past.

  “Totally weird. I have to admit, it kind of freaked me out.”

  Lorelei turned her attention back to the cheese. She scooped the shreds up in her hands and dumped them into a bowl. Then she began washing and chopping vegetables.

  “I guess, being a doctor, you probably don’t believe in anything mystical,” Ryan said to her back.

  She shrugged, thinking again of Kinsei. “Back in medical school, I would have said no, but being a doctor, I’ve seen all kinds of things I can’t explain. The only thing experience teaches me is that there’s a lot I don’t understand.”

  She mixed eggs with the frittata ingredients, then greased a pie pan, poured everything in, and put the dish in the oven to bake. It was her lazy-cook’s method for making a frittata, since it didn’t require her to stand over the stove and watch anything.

  Once she’d poured them each a cup of coffee, she set the table with sugar and cream, then pulled up a chair across from Ryan.

  “What about you?” she asked. “Do you believe in fate or ghosts or UFOs or anything?”

  “I’m probably in the same camp as you. Experience has taught me to be open-minded.”

  “So,” she finally dared to ask, seeing now how easy her resolution with the past might be. “Do you think fate is telling us we need to go back to the hot springs?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice sounding a little odd. “I feel silly saying it, but I do.”

  6

  R YAN COULD hardly believe his luck. He’d never expected his apology to Lorelei to go so smoothly, and better yet, to end with her asking him to the hot springs. It would be the perfect way to make up for the past. He’d show her-and himself-that he wasn’t the jerk kid he used to be.

  As he sipped his coffee, he relaxed. With the heat from the kitchen stove and the morning light pouring in through the big picture window, the room felt cozy and intimate. If he closed his eyes, he’d have felt like he was home.

  But with Lorelei sitting across from him, the last thing he wanted to do was close his eyes. He could hardly stop staring at her. She held such familiarity, this nearly forgotten piece of his past, like an old beloved toy that had slipped from his memory until he’d stumbled upon it by accident. Except, of course, she hadn’t been sitting around in an attic waiting to be rediscovered. She’d been wandering the world, having what had no doubt been an interesting life, and he wanted to know what had filled the space between then and now.

  Not that she owed him any such information. They’d had sex exactly once-he’d even been her first lover, which kind of blew his mind now that he’d had the fact confirmed-but everything he knew about her was based on his very limited perspective of who she had been fifteen years ago.

  He wanted to know more, but she spoke up first.

  “It must have been a busy night for you guys last night, with the storm and all.”

  “It was the most calls in one night that we’ve had all year. And that’s saying something considering the fire season we had this year.”

  “Wow. I hope no one was hurt.”

  “Luckily, you were the most endangered soul I encountered,” he said with a grin. “There was an oak tree branch that caved in a roof over on El Segundo Avenue, but no one was in the part of the house that was affected.”

  She smiled into her coffee. “I was horrified when you showed up to get me off the roof.”

  “I don’t blame you. That was a pretty spectacular screwup, with the pj bottoms and all.”

  “I’m not as handy as I think I am sometimes.”

  “So you just moved in here a few weeks ago, huh?”

  “Yes. For the past two years I was serving in the Peace Corps, in Kenya, and when my tour ended, I felt…drawn back home, I guess.”

  “That must have been an incredible experience.”

  “It was life-changing. I thought for a while that I’d never leave Africa. I had this dream of joining Doctors without Borders, but lots of different things…signs…whatever…just kept telling me I needed to come back here to Ocean Harbor Beach.”

  “I’m glad you did. It’s great to see you again. I’m not really in touch with many people from high school anymore, but I always wondered what happened to you.”

  Which was true. He might have been a shallow, self-centered shithead as a teen, but Lorelei was unique enough that she had come to mind now and again, and he couldn’t help wondering what had become of his most brilliant classmate.

  “What have you been up to since high school?” she asked.

  “Oh, the usual. Going to college, surfing, backpacking around Europe, getting married, getting divorced-perhaps not exactly in that order, but you get the idea.”

  “You’ve been married?”

  “To a girl I met in college. Bad idea. It lasted two years, and then we realized we hated each other. Or, at least, I realized it when she told me she thought she was in love with my best friend.”

  “Ouch. I’m sorry,” she said, wincing.

  “It’s okay. We already knew the marriage wasn’t working when it happened. But it still hurt like hell. Definitely humbled me, made me realize I’m not God’s gift to women or anything.”

  He grinned ruefully, and she smiled back.

  “That’s always a healthy realization. How long since you got divorced?”

  “Five years.”

  “Dating anyone?” she asked, and if he had been his younger, cockier self, he’d have said her tone was kind of…provocative.

  Could it be that after how horribly he’d behaved, she might still be attracted to him?

  No, he was imagining things.

  “Nope, how about you?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve become one of those career-obsessed drones who has no social life,” she joked. “Definitely not dating right now.”

  “I’ll bet you left behind at least a few Peace Corps volunteers who were devastated to see you go.”

  She smiled ironically. “Perhaps, if only because I’m a hard worker and it meant they’d have to pick up the slack in my absence.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said, but she ignored him and went to the stove to check on breakfast, which was smelling pretty damn delicious right now.

  She pulled the lightly browned egg dish from the oven, and Ryan’s stomach growled. He’d been too busy to eat last night, except for a sandwich he’d grabbed around five in the morning on the way to a call.

  A minute later she was getting toast out of the toaster. After preparing two plates, she placed one in front of him, along with utensils and a napkin. “It’s a frittata,” she said. “Would you like jam for your toast?”

  “No thanks. This looks delicious.”

  “So.” She took her place at the table again. “What do you do with yourself when you’re not fighting fires?”

  Ryan felt relieved that she really did seem to be genuinely interested in him as a person, because he was finding himself even more interested in her than he’d thought he’d be. Not only did she look dynamite in a tank top and panties, but she had an interesting career and past that he wanted to know more about. On top of the fact that she was brilliant, and, he thought, after taking his first bite of frittata-a great cook, too.

  He found himself wanting to impress her. “I play the guitar, write songs, play in a funky little blues band sometimes…”

  “Really? Is there anywhere I can see you play soon?”

  “Hmm…Maybe.”

  He was struck with an idea. Maybe a brilliant idea. He’d write a song. For her. And play it at the hot springs, to say he was sorry.

  It could be corny, or it could be the sm
artest thing he’d ever done to win a girl’s heart.

  Win a girl’s heart? Was that what he really wanted to do?

  Okay, so he didn’t know Lorelei all that well yet, but he had a gut feeling about her that he couldn’t shake. It had been settling in ever since he’d opened the gift certificate for the Linden Rock Hot Springs at the flower shop.

  No, actually, ever since he’d seen her there in the clinic. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. She was everything he wanted in a woman. Ever since his divorce, he’d made note of what he truly loved in the women he dated, versus the things he thought he’d loved but ultimately realized were just the things society told him he was supposed to want.

  He didn’t want to make the same mistakes he’d made in marrying Heather. He wanted to find his real, true dream girl next time around. Someone smart and quirky and original and beautiful in the not-so-obvious ways-well, and okay, the obvious ways didn’t hurt, either. Someone like Lorelei.

  He wanted to prove to her that he liked her for who she was, and that he would never, ever take advantage of her again. If they were ever lovers a second time, he’d make sure she knew it meant something to him.

  “You’re looking awfully deep in thought. It’s okay if you don’t want me to see you play. But I do like blues guitar, if that makes a difference.”

  Perfect. Then she was going to get her own private show.

  “It does,” he said, smiling. “I’ll let you know the next time I’m playing.”

  7

  L ORELEI checked herself out in the full-length mirror and was happy enough with what she saw. Her jeans were the rare, much-sought-after, perfect cut-the one pair she’d ever owned that made her ass look as if it belonged in a jeans ad. And her stretchy long-sleeved black T-shirt hugged her curves in all the right places. Her hair was sleek, and hung around her face in a stark contrast to how she usually wore it for work, pulled back in a haphazard bun.

  She’d made plans with Ryan to take an evening soak in the hot springs first, then have dinner at the spa restaurant. She didn’t suppose they were technically allowed to have sex right there in the springs anymore, not now that it was an official spa, but she’d been sure to wear her best bra and panties beneath her clothes, just in case the opportunity arose-and she had every intention of making sure it arose.

  If nothing else, she’d be naked with him in the hot springs, and if that didn’t put ideas in his head, she wasn’t sure what would. Linden Rock was still, thank goodness, notoriously clothing-optional, and she planned to use that fact to her advantage. In spite of her discomfort with being found pants-less on the roof, Lorelei had always loved being naked in the great outdoors. It was one of the best feelings she knew.

  Beside her, Thor the rabbit god stared at her rather disapprovingly.

  “What? You think I’m being a slut? Well, if you weren’t neutered, you’d be humping everything you could get your paws on, so I don’t want to hear it.”

  Okay, so she talked to the rabbits. It was therapeutic for them, and for her.

  A glance at the clock-thank God, the power was back on as of today-told her Ryan would be here at any moment to pick her up, so she slipped on a pair of boots, shrugged on a warm coat and headed to the living room. She caught sight of his headlights in the front window, flipped off the lights in her house, grabbed her purse, and headed out the door, feeling as if she was about to conquer the world.

  Or at least the ghosts of her past.

  She had never blatantly, intentionally seduced anyone before. She was a little surprised she even knew how. Not that she was the same awkward dork sexually that she’d been in high school. No, she’d never gotten any bad reviews on her skills as a lover, but she didn’t believe in using her feminine wiles for nefarious purposes, either.

  Flirting with Ryan the way she had over breakfast the day before-it was amazing how easy it had been. It felt natural, even. Probably because she really did want to sleep with him. He was as gorgeous as ever, and he wasn’t eighteen anymore. He was a real man now. He had to be more emotionally mature than he was back then.

  Even in high school, he’d had a sensitive air about him. He hadn’t jockeyed for attention and status, but had moved with the self-assuredness that showed he knew he didn’t need to. And he’d stood apart a bit from the crowd, always watchful, always noticing things. Well, noticing everything except Lorelei, apparently.

  But now, he’d finally admitted what a jerk he’d been and apologized. Perhaps that should have been enough for her.

  Yet she’d been so miserable during her high-school years, and Ryan had represented the culmination of her misery. After graduation, she’d fled Ocean Harbor Beach as fast as she could and never looked back. She’d gone so far as to attend a summer program at college just to get away as soon as she could.

  Moving here was the most time she’d spent back home since high school, and she still wasn’t quite used to it.

  Outside, Ryan was getting out of his pickup truck, a dilapidated old thing he probably owned solely to haul his surfboard around. When he saw her, he smiled and said hi.

  “Looks like we’ll have clear weather, at least,” Lorelei said, looking up at the star-studded night sky.

  She’d had the day off, and she’d spent it cleaning up after the powerful storm. Now her yard looked normal again-well, normal for a long-neglected rat’s haven of a front yard.

  The forecast was calling for clear weather through Christmas. Not that it mattered. She’d be spending the holiday alone, far as she could tell. Her mother had already planned a seniors’ cruise to Hawaii before she’d known Lorelei would be home for the holidays.

  Well, at least she might give herself a little pre-Christmas revenge sex tonight. That would help make up for work being her only other thing to look forward to.

  Ryan opened the passenger door, smiling down at Lorelei in a way that made her toes feel all tingly. “You look beautiful, as always.”

  “Thanks,” she said as she slid into his truck, kicking aside a can of surf wax in the process.

  The truck bore a bobbly dancing Hawaiian girl on the dash, and cracked vinyl seats that had seen better days. It felt familiar to her somehow.

  When Ryan got in and started pulling out of the driveway, she asked, “Is this the same truck you drove in high school?”

  “One and the same.” He grinned proudly and gave the dashboard an affectionate pat.

  “Wow, I can’t believe it still runs.”

  “Neither can I. I’ve made a hobby out of fixing the old girl-it’s become a labor of love.”

  So this was the same truck Lorelei had ridden in to the hot springs with Ryan all those years ago…Weird. And oddly appropriate, too, she supposed.

  “Most people would, you know, just buy a new car.”

  “Believe me, I’ve been tempted, especially when I find myself broken down on the side of the road. But I like the things in my life to have some character, some history-you know?”

  “Yeah. I guess it’s the same reason I’m fixing up my broken-down family house rather than living somewhere else. Well, that, and I can’t afford a mortgage anywhere in Ocean Harbor Beach.”

  She liked that he still had his same old truck after all these years. It suggested things about his character that were all good. Except, of course, genuinely liking him would make the whole revenge thing a bit more difficult.

  Lorelei bit her lip and pushed that thought out of her head as they turned off of her street and drove along the coast, with the ocean outside her window.

  They traveled along the coastal road toward the hot springs, chatting about mutual acquaintances and who had done what or gone where or married whom since high school. Ryan, having stayed here in town, knew a lot more about such matters than Lorelei did.

  When they reached the Linden Rock resort, he parked and turned to her. “I hope you don’t mind taking a little detour before we go for a soak.”

  “Sure, what’s the detour?”
<
br />   “It’s a secret.”

  Lorelei was intrigued. And when she saw him get out of the truck, reach into the rear and pull out a guitar case, she was even more intrigued.

  “There’s a little spot down this path I was hoping we could check out,” he said, nodding in the direction of the gardens.

  Lorelei followed him, and a moment later, they were standing in a gazebo draped with bougainvillea.

  “Have a seat,” Ryan said, as he removed the guitar from its case.

  Her throat went dry. He wasn’t really going to play music, was he? Right here? Right now? The thought made her nauseous, because it was just too romantic to be real. Where was the callous jerk she’d known fifteen years ago?

  He began strumming a slow, bluesy tune on the guitar, as Lorelei settled on the bench seat across from him and watched. She’d never had a guy play music for her personally before. Then he began humming along with the tune, his voice deliciously sexy and low, and the breath whooshed out of her lungs. By the time he was singing the first bar of the song, Lorelei could feel sweat trickling down her chest between her breasts in spite of the cold, damp night air.

  She watched, mesmerized as he sang about lost chances and lonely nights, about broken hearts and longing for redemption. It took her well over a minute to realize what he was singing about and she could hardly believe her ears.

  She strained to hear every word and make sense of it. Maybe she was mistaken. No way could he have composed this beautiful, soulful, melody in only one day.

  But when he reached the lines about her virgin skin in hot water, heat rising around them, and being sorry for the silence, she knew.

  This song…he had written it.

  For her.