In Mistletoe

by Tammy L. Bailey

  He stepped back, his eyes narrowing. “So that’s it?”

  Confused, she shook her head. “What’s it?”

  He scoffed, pulling both hands down the length of his handsome face. “Come on, Grace. You mean to tell me you don’t have some antidote bouncing around in that wistful mind of yours about how to cure my cynicism regarding love?”

  Rising to his challenge, she crossed her arms over her breast and lifted her chin to a haughty angle. “No, McCabe, I have no antidote or potion or whimsical notion that will cure you of your cynicism. If I did, I’d reverse the recipe and use it on myself.”

  In the glowing sunlight cascading through the window behind them, his mouth lifted in a breathtaking, infectious smile. “Do you like ham and Swiss?”

  She dropped her arms to her side and nodded. “It’s my favorite.”

  A few minutes later, they settled back on the couch, a tad closer than they were before and drew their attention to the wide screen. Grace’s gaze began to blur when the man the Hawthornes had described ambled into view.

  Alert and cautious, she pushed forward and stared at the unfolding scene. With her heart drumming hard in her chest, she saw the faceless man the older couple described. He took less than five seconds to pick out the card before ambling toward the counter.

  Ayden sighed. “One thing’s for certain…he sure as hell didn’t want anyone to know who he was.”

  Grace agreed, realizing they weren’t any closer to locating Danielle now than they were five minutes ago. “So, I guess we’re back to square one,” she said, unable to hide the fact she wasn’t entirely disappointed in finding herself there, again. As she struggled with the guilt of placing Ayden before her sister, her phone began vibrating in her pocket.

  Half expecting Rick and half expecting her mom, she glanced down and gasped. “Oh my God.”

  “What?” Ayden laid a hand on her shoulder.

  Grace blinked and then blew out a long breath. “It’s a text message from Danielle.”

  Beside her, Ayden stiffened, an immediate reaction he quickly recognized and corrected. “What’s the message?” he said in a more detached tone.

  Grace read the cryptic text, her mind trying to decipher and process it at the same time. “I’m fine. Isn’t Mistletoe lovely? Wilhelmina is a hoot. Love, D.”

  “She knows I’m here,” Grace whispered.

  “She must have talked to your mom,” Ayden volunteered, trying to make sense of it in his own way.

  Grace nodded until a ding sounded and she glanced down to find a new text from her mom. Grace lifted her phone and read, “Any word yet? I’m running out of things to tell people.”

  Grace inhaled and tapped her fingers to text her mom a response. No word. Still searching. She hit Send and then replied to her elusive sister. Where the HELL R U?

  A heartbeat later, her screen lit up with a one-word answer. Mistletoe.

  Grace lifted her hands to her face and dropped back on the couch. None of this made sense, and certainly not the fact that Danielle claimed to be in a town where no one had seen her. “Is it possible to track her location?”

  The solemn glance Ayden sent Grace gave her little hope. “Only if she has the app, and even then, it’s highly likely she’s already had it disabled. Someone who doesn’t want to be found will find a way to cover their tracks.”

  For Grace’s sake, Ayden placed a comforting arm around her and brought her against him. She closed her eyes and allowed her head to fall on his chest. She loved being this close to him, hearing the steady and solid beat of his heart against her right ear. “I’ll see if Fitzy can determine her location, somehow. He has connections.”

  Grace didn’t say anything, unwilling to break the normal moment between them. They sat like this for a while, not talking, just breathing. She’d almost drifted off into a peaceful sleep when his voice reverberated against her cheek. She jerked herself awake and lifted up to see him.

  “Grace, I have to take the Christmas tree over to Maggie’s. You’re welcome to come.”

  She didn’t know if that was a good idea. She and Ayden still had fake relationship problems to iron out before an evening in Maggie’s company. “I like your sister, but it might be best if I see as little of her possible.”

  His face remained unreadable in the dim light. “In that case, I’ll be back as soon as I can. Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge.”

  He hesitated at the door, giving her a perplexed grin. For whatever reason, she felt his reluctance to go and wondered if he’d had the same thought of seeing his sister again and having to react to questions with no legitimate answer.

  ****

  Ayden swung into Maggie’s driveway, his mind still on Hearth’s Gate and the guest who dwelled there. It had been less than fifteen minutes since he’d left Grace, and he already missed her. Like a windswept flower, she danced about in his mind, clueless of what she was doing to him. He hoped, however, his obsession did not show so obviously on his face. Maggie knew how to read him, sometimes too well.

  The first to greet him was his young nephew Collin. “Uncle Ayden,” the boy said, running and wrapping his small arms around Ayden’s knees. He was a child who desperately missed his father.

  “Hey there.” He ruffled the boy’s hair with his free hand. “Where’s your mom?”

  “On the phone. I’ll go get her.” Like a cannon shot out of a rocket, Collin spun around and ran, full sprint, through the living room. He disappeared into the kitchen, appearing a few seconds later, pushing his mother from behind.

  Maggie waved with a spaghetti-stained child on her hip. Ayden grinned at Ciara, his one-and-a-half-year-old niece, before turning to haul the rest of the tree inside the house.

  “Where’s Grace?”

  Ayden paused to grimace at Maggie, wishing he had thought of a good excuse regarding Grace’s absence. “She’s not feeling well, but she says hello,” he said, lying outright.

  Maggie sent him a skeptical smirk. “She doesn’t like me, does she?”

  He threw his hand out. “For the love of God, Maggie, she likes you. She’s just…having…a stomachache.”

  “What kind of stomachache?”

  He drew a hand down his face as Maggie covered Collin’s ears before whispering in a loud manner in Ayden’s direction. “You didn’t get her pregnant, did you?”

  Annoyed beyond reason, Ayden yanked the rest of the Christmas tree through the doorway, shut the door with a firm smack, and then dropped the bristly object at her feet. “How in the hell did you deduce that from what I just said?” He then tore off his gloves and threw them on a nearby end table.

  “Well, I just thought—”

  Ayden closed his eyes and lifted his head toward the ceiling in an exaggerated inhale. He hated overreacting, especially with Maggie so emotional with her husband away and raising two children by herself.

  “I’m sorry, Maggs. It’s been a long day.”

  She sent him a tired grin. “You can make it up to me by putting up the tree and then taking a peek at my washing machine. It won’t spin. Kyle is always so good at that sort of stuff.”

  For the next five hours, Ayden found himself repairing a slew of household problems. Between fixing the washing machine, a leak in the upstairs bathroom, and a squeaky door in Ciara’s room, he called the house to talk to Grace.

  “Are you checking up on me?”

  He smiled. “Yes. I was afraid you might have taken off with my big screen.”

  There was a pause. “No, it cost too much for a rental truck, and the darn thing’s too big to carry through the front door.”

  He chuckled and then imagined her tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “Why do I ask?” he teased.

  “I don’t know,” came her sweet answer.

  He closed his eyes and rested his head against the door of the kitchen. “I’ll be home soon.”

  “Okay.”

  He hung up the phone and turned to find Maggie staring at him, a whimsi
cal expression on her tired face. “Don’t,” he said before grasping Collin by the hand and leading him to the kitchen sink, a toy screwdriver secured in his toy construction belt. By the time Ayden checked his watch, it was half past eleven. “I have to go, Maggie. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Give Grace a kiss for me.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but quickly decided against it. The hour had grown too late and his mind too weary to go another round of questions from her. He kissed her and a sleepy Collin and drove home.

  A little less anxious than the night before, he entered Hearth’s Gate with quiet and careful steps. After a long shower, he lay awake, exhausted and freezing from the window he’d neglected to fix. For fifteen minutes, he rotated his head from Grace’s room, toward the ceiling, and back again. At last, he sat up with a relenting grunt.

  Before he’d put one foot on the ground, a soft knock sounded at his door. “Ayden?”

  “Come in.” He waited for the door to open. She appeared, scooting to stand in a splinter of moonlight, several feet away. He started to push himself out of bed when she held up her hand to stop him.

  “How was Maggie?”

  “Nosy,” he answered.

  “Hmm, does she think I’m—”

  “Pregnant? Yes.”

  “What!” The distance Grace had tried to keep between them disappeared in a blink as she sprang toward the bed. With eyes as big as the sun, she gazed down at him. “You cannot be serious?”

  “Oh, I’m dead serious,” he said, unable to hold back a chuckle.

  She grasped him by the shoulders. “Tell me you don’t think that’s funny?”

  For the first time, he noticed what she wore under the blanket, and it wasn’t much. The slinky tank top she continued to tease him with rose to reveal a powdery pale midriff. He lifted his hand, grazing his fingertips against the velvety smoothness of her skin.

  “Grace,” he whispered, closing his eyes, unsure if the blood rushing through in his veins came from his physical attraction of her or some emotional need. Either way, he wanted her; he just didn’t know the consequences that would follow.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Grace’s plan was to say hello, keep her distance, and pretend she didn’t want to jump in bed with him so he could make love to her the rest of the night. When he hauled her underneath him, however, her plan disintegrated like a sand castle under a tidal wave. Clean, masculine heat radiated from his body, and she ached to connect to him, to feel his bare skin pressed against hers. Impatient and shaking, she lifted the ends of his T-shirt, breaking their kiss to pull it over his head.

  Above her, his dark blue eyes changed to an almost black hue. If she wanted him to stop, she had to say something now. She didn’t. Instead, she lifted her fingers up to weave through his thick hair and to pull his lips back to hers. Her eyes closed, and her head spun as if she’d eaten too much of Wilhelmina’s sinful rum cake.

  Despite how they met or the physical versus emotional terms of their agreement, he kissed her with an eternal promise. For this moment, they had no reason to ever part ways. She clung to the thought, opening to him, welcoming his velvety tongue and the whimpers of pleasure he elicited with each stroke. She believed they’d evaded each other for too long, the urgency to get to know one other pulling them closer.

  Under his deliberate and careful prowess, clothes fell away, leaving Grace naked underneath him.

  “You don’t know how much I want you,” he said, his voice hoarse and breathless. She did know because she felt her own want for him pulsing deep inside her.

  With his kisses driving her desires deeper, he cupped her left breast, his thumb teasing her nipple into a hard bud. She arched upward, every sensation heightened, every sensible thought gone.

  Adrift in his wondrous and warm caress, she allowed herself to let go of the past and the future. This was her time, their time. He seemed to read her thoughts, his mouth growing more possessive and his hand sliding down below her waist. Her legs opened, allowing his fingers to explore and taunt the soft flesh between her thighs. She cried out when he found the most sensitive place at her core, her body trembling for a shuddering release.

  “Please,” she begged, sucking in a shallow breath.

  He withdrew his hand, eliciting a protest deep in her throat. “Not until I’m inside you.” He shifted their bodies, their hearts pounding with anticipation. “I can’t wait,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and trembling. She nodded and stared into his dark blue eyes.

  “Ayden,” Grace said his name on a tattered exhale. He brought his mouth to hers, kissing her with a fervency that drugged her senses. She wanted to give back to him, to make him feel the same delicious pleasure. Unbridled, she glided her tongue over his lips before plunging inside his mouth. She matched his intensity, moving in and out in a tantalizing dance.

  “God, Grace,” he rasped, moving his knees to spread her legs further apart. She dug her short nails into his back, pressing him closer to her. He lifted his hips to push forward when she froze underneath him.

  “Grace, are you all right?” he asked, lifting his beautiful face above hers.

  “I…I think there’s someone banging on your door,” she whispered, wishing she had chosen to ignore it. There was still a blissful place she wanted Ayden to take her, a place she might always wonder about if they found Danielle, and she had no more reasons to stay.

  They lay perfectly still until the banging started again. “Son of a—” Ayden hissed. “I have to go.”

  “I know.”

  He kissed her lips and pushed himself up, reaching down to pull his discarded pajama bottoms on with a quick, forceful jerk. Before he crossed the threshold into the hall, he stepped back with a warning. “Don’t. Move.”

  Of course, Grace lay alone, not flinching, and aching for Ayden’s return. Unavoidably, she strained to listen, praying she didn’t hear a muffled female voice drifting up the stairway. Of course, five minutes later, she did. After spending a frantic moment finding her shirt and shorts, she lay back down and pulled the pillow from behind her head, burying her face into the spicy scented down. Loath to eavesdrop on a conversation she had no business hearing, she brought the heavy pillow to clamp around her ears.

  Feet shuffled, furniture moved, and doors opened and shut until she felt the bed wiggle.

  “Grace?” Amusement settled into his subdued voice.

  She shook her head, afraid to come out of hiding, afraid to glance over and see a woman wearing a trench coat and holding a dreaded can of whipped cream. With little effort on his part, Ayden gently pulled the pillow away from her face, a devilish smirk touching his lips. “Afraid of the dark?”

  She blinked. “Something like that.”

  He kissed her nose and rotated on his side, propping his head in his hand so his elbow rested on the bed. “I wanted you to know we have company.”

  She scoffed and then shrugged, trying to feign indifference. “So, is it one of your many admirers?”

  He nodded. “Hmm, three actually.” He lifted the covers and then scolded her in a mocking tone. “I thought I told you not to move.”

  Dazed he’d take his charismatic reputation so lightly, and her gullible presence for granted, she pushed away from him, only to find herself pinned underneath his solid form for the third time in four days.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered, bemused by his words and actions. The dark room outlined the devilish grin spreading across his enthralling face. Entranced by him, she let his hand brush back a wisp of hair from her lashes.

  His features softened. “You’re so beautiful.” He bent to kiss her, and suddenly remembering who lay next door, she angled her head away from him. How could he think of making love to her now?

  With his hard body pressing her into the mattress, she expected him to coax her into submission, to slide his mouth to the sensitive part below her ear and murmur words of pleasurable promises. Only he didn’t, and after a few moments, she f
elt a rumble start to build in his chest. Was he actually laughing?

  “Unbelievable.” She pushed at his chest. “I think I should go sleep on the couch.” She didn’t have to shove too hard before he relented and let her go—too easily she thought. She scrambled off the bed and stepped toward the door before whipping around, walking back, grabbing his pillow and yanking it from under his head.

  “Oh, you are a sight to see when you’re jealous.”

  Too incensed to notice the chilled air touching her skin, she spun toward him, charging at him with purpose and annoyance. “I’m not jealous!” She tried to keep her voice low, but her throat hurt from either the whispering or the truth of his words.

  Even in the muted light, she could see his eyebrows lift above his blue eyes. “No, I’m fairly certain that what I’m witnessing is jealousy.”

  Grace opened her mouth to say something and then clamped it shut. It hit her like a tumbling Christmas tree that he’d been playing her the entire time and loving every minute of it. She closed her eyes and brought in a calm breath before addressing him.

  “Maggie and your niece and nephew are over there, aren’t they?”

  She flipped her eyelids back open in time to see him nod. She struggled to understand her feelings. Embarrassment? No. Exposure? Yes. He’d made her reveal just how…what? How much in love with him she’d fallen. In the dark, in a matter of a few minutes, she’d bared her heart and soul to him without thinking. He, of course, appeared no worse for wear.

  “Are you quitting on me, Grace?” His smooth, tranquil voice washed over her. She held back a shiver, forcing herself to remain impassive and aloof. He was her teacher, nevertheless.

  After several quiet moments, she puffed out a response. “No, I’m running.”

  He grinned wide, and she knew the more she stood staring at him, the further in love she fell.

  “Stay with me.”

  She clicked her tongue, unsure of what to do. While her heart wanted one thing, her mind screamed another. “You’re just saying that to keep me from waking Maggie or making her suspicious.”

  “No,” he said, his gaze serious. “It’s freezing in here, and you’re a hell of lot warmer than my blankets.”