Mistletoe Mischief
(A Romancing Wisconsin Holiday Story)
by
Stacey Joy Netzel
Mistletoe Mischief
Christmas in July at the zoo is the last place single parents Eric Riley and Marissa Wilder expect to find love. Thanks to some mistletoe mischief in the form of their two young daughters and Santa, they discover Mistletoe Rules were not made to be broken.
Dedication:
Donna and Jamie,
Thanks for all the plotting sessions.
I look forward to many more!
Chapter One
A high-pitched squeal pierced Marissa Wilder’s ears.
“Daddy! You came!”
Marissa spun around as her daughter’s new best friend, Reese, streaked past and launched her little body into the arms of a tall man. He was dressed as if he’d just returned from a tour in Iraq. Combat boots, desert camouflage pants, and a white T-shirt that appeared a size too small for his impressive physique. Muscled biceps looked huge wrapped around the six-year-old’s tiny back. The only thing off with the homecoming picture was the fact that instead of a military buzz cut, his dark hair was long enough to reveal a hint of natural wave.
“Hey, sweetheart. Wow, what a welcome. I just saw you last night.”
The sexy deep voice matched the man’s devastating smile to perfection. Its smooth texture flowed over Marissa, leaving a warm feeling in the pit of her stomach even though he wasn’t talking to her. She glanced up at the blazing July sun, certain the temperature had risen a good ten degrees in the last twenty seconds. It certainly wasn’t hot flashes at age twenty-nine.
Oh, good Lord—she’d been too long without a date! Besides the fact that usually in Northeast Wisconsin heat variances to that extreme went the other direction, the zoo was the last place to start fantasizing about brandy-flavored kisses and a rock-hard body. At least he sounded like he’d taste as satisfying as a well-aged brandy—and she just knew without a doubt he’d be as solid as he looked.
Heather gripped her hand tighter. Marissa looked down at her own daughter, jarred from her inappropriate daydream about a married man. A married man expecting another child, no less—she’d spoken to Reese’s pregnant mother, Nina, while waiting to pick Heather up from school yesterday. Her gaze latched on Reese’s father’s left hand, found it bare, and narrowed in annoyance with the reminder that not all married men advertised their attached status.
She wondered if Heather compared her friend’s loving embrace with her daddy to the casual wave she’d received from her own father last month. Marissa wished Ted would grow up and be a better dad for Heather, but until that miracle happened, it was up to her to let their daughter know how much she was loved. She smoothed her free hand over Heather’s straight blond hair and hugged her close to her side.
Reese pulled her arms from around her father’s neck and frowned. “Mom said you were taking me to school this morning. Where were you?”
Marissa realized this guy was one of the no-show parent chaperones who’d caused the summer school program director to beg her for help this morning. With three important projects waiting on her desk, Marissa had started to apologize until she caught Heather’s hopeful expression from the corner of her eye. A mental recalculation of her own personal deadlines to align with the customers’ allowed her to stay and Heather’s jubilant smile was worth it.
But right now, Marissa tapped one high-heeled black sandal and waited for this man’s response to Reese’s question. He had to be close to her ex’s age of thirty, and though he looked ten times better now than Ted had at age twenty, missing field trips, kindergarten promotion programs, and birthday parties was exactly the sort of thing her ex did on a regular basis. Just thinking about Heather’s disappointed face when she blew out her birthday candles last week made Marissa’s jaw tighten.
“Ease up, Sarge,” Reese’s dad said. “I’m here now, and I’m all yours for the rest of the day.”
“All day?” Reese exclaimed, her pretty blue eyes wide. “You never stay all day.”
“All day,” he confirmed, setting her back on her feet and ruffling her dark, silky curls. Reese gave a loud whoop of delight.
He appeared well practiced at diverting his daughter’s disappointment. Either he lacked the imagination to come up with a good excuse, or he was too lazy. With Nina’s grumbles from earlier that morning of the man’s irresponsible ways echoing in Marissa’s mind, her irritation flourished even as a small voice inside whispered, at least he showed up.
Reese ran the few feet back to Marissa and Heather. “That’s my dad,” she proudly declared. “Heather, we’re both lucky today! Dad’s staying all day!”
Marissa smiled down at the excited girl until a battered pair of black boots entered her line of vision. Her pulse sped up. Her gaze drank in camouflaged-clad legs, trim waist, muscled chest and finally met a pair of smiling, smoky gray eyes framed by thick, dark lashes. Her heart thumped hard.
“Hi.” He extended his hand. “Eric Riley, otherwise known as Reese’s Dad.”
With the slide of his calloused palm against her softer one, the temperature rose another five degrees. She caught the faint scent of pine wood. From him, or had the scent released from the nearby trees in the July heat and carried to her on the slight breeze?
She swallowed hard and managed to say, “I’m Heather’s mom.”
He waited a beat before his gaze shifted to her side to focus on her daughter. “Hello—I’m guessing you’re Heather?”
“Hi,” Heather chirped.
He returned his attention back to Marissa with a wide grin. “Nice to meet you, Heather’s Mom.”
“Dad,” Reese giggled. “Her name is Mrs. Wilder.”
His grip on her fingers loosened, and a flicker of what looked like regret flashed in his eyes. “Mrs. Wilder.”
Marissa pulled her hand away, feeling like an idiot. She was relieved yet oddly disappointed to be free of his warm, rough touch. Heather reclaimed her right hand, reminding her of their surroundings. Other parents and children strolled past them at this very moment. She raised her other hand to brush at a wayward strand of blond hair that had become glued to her glossed lips. “It’s Marissa.”
His gaze followed her hand down to her side. Then she felt the sweep of his gaze over her tan skirt and sleeveless black blouse on its way back up to meet her eyes.
“Pretty,” he murmured, the gray of his eyes a shade darker.
Did he mean her name…or her? A flirtatious smile lifted the corners of his mouth. Marissa flushed so hot she had to fight the urge to fan her burning face. Yep, three years was definitely too long without a date.
In the next instant, she stiffened. What was she doing? The man was married for heaven’s sake! And she’d just met him! A little harmless flirting among established friends may be no big deal, but this felt like something Ted would’ve done. Had done, one too many times.
Marissa looked pointedly at her watch and did her best to ignore Eric Riley. “Well, girls, we have about an hour to finish the scavenger hunt before it’s time to feed the giraffes.”
“Oh, oh, I wanna feed the giraffes! Can I, Mom? Please?” Heather bounced up and down, jerking on Marissa’s hand every time her feet hit the ground. From alongside her father, Reese mirrored her friend’s movements.
“Me, too. Me, too!”
It was impossible not to smile in the face of their exuberance. “Miss Patti assured me everyone gets to feed Larry and Lucy.”
“Yay!” The two girls grinned at each other before running ahead to the next zoo enclosure that housed the raccoons. Marissa pulled their alphabet score sheets from her bag and started after them as fast as her high-heeled sandals allowed. She’
d had a heck of a time keeping up with their endless energy all morning.
“Me, too?” Eric Riley teased, falling into step beside her.
His deep, seductive voice made her stomach flutter, so she purposely cast him an annoyed glance. The sight of him easily matching her hurried steps with long, confident strides didn’t help her awareness or her ire. What she wouldn’t give for a pair of her beloved tennis shoes right now.
She thrust Reese’s paper at her father without saying a word. His brows rose in surprise at her outright rudeness, but he accepted the paper and perused it. When they reached the raccoon exhibit, Marissa had Reese read the display out loud, and then she asked a few questions about raccoons based on what they’d just learned. After they’d answered, the girls wrote ‘raccoon’ in the box for the letter R.
“What’s with the Christmas lights and holly everywhere?” Eric asked on their way to the porcupine habitat.
Her gaze swept over numerous large candy canes and randomly placed decorated trees. If you asked her, Christmas belonged in December. With a mental eye-roll at the decorations and an inward sigh that she’d have to at least make small talk to avoid appearing like a total bitch, she explained briefly, “Christmas in July. After lunch they’re having reindeer wagon rides and a visit with Santa.”
“Oh, cool. The kids will love that.”
The smile in his voice made it sound like he’d love that. She risked a glance, found him watching her, and stumbled on the uneven pavement. Gol-darn heels. Eric caught her arm and steadied her, his lightning fast reflexes somewhat stunning.
“You okay?”
“Yes, thank you.” The huskiness in her voice contradicted her efforts to ignore the tingle of awareness that radiated from his hand, up her arm, and into the rest of her body.
“Don’t mention it.” Then he ruined his chivalrous act by smiling down at her aching feet. “Tennis shoes might’ve been a better choice for a field trip.”
Marissa pulled free of his grasp and stalked toward the porcupine enclosure where the girls waited. Condescending jerk. Went right along with the couple snide looks a few of the mothers had given her—like she’d purposely dressed up in a skirt and heels for the trip just to get attention. Trouble was, if she tried to explain her clothes and impractical sandals to Eric now, suppressed frustration would raise her voice, and she didn’t want to do that in a public place, not to mention in front of the girls.
She held her temper, put a hand on each of the little shoulders in front of her, and waited for Heather and Reese to find the ball of quills underneath a log on the side of the concrete-enclosed area. This time Heather read the display, Eric jumped right in and interjected with two questions about porcupines, and the girls added to their sheets. Onward they went to the lynx cage, then the wallabies, and the river otters.
Reese’s father continued to participate and Marissa had to fight a frown more than once at the silly questions he came up with.
“Wonder how they’d do on a trapeze?”
“Daad, it said otters are underwater acrobats.”
It didn’t help that though the girls seemed to have been having fun before Eric arrived, now they were having a ball.
On their way to the monkey cages, when the girls ran ahead again, he asked, “You said we had an hour to finish these?”
“Yes.”
He leaned until his shoulder brushed hers and indicated another group of parents and kids walking a few feet away from them. Pine scent flirted with her senses again. Although he stood too close to risk direct eye contact, Marissa caught the frown on his face from the corner of her eye before he said in a low tone, “They’re all done already.”
He might as well have stated she was taking too long. His apparent criticism of how she handled the scavenger hunt, coupled with his earlier comment about her shoes, put her simmering annoyance over the edge. She stopped dead in her tracks and planted her hands on her hips when he faced her. A deep breath helped her tone down the volume of her response.
“Of course they’re done,” she ground out. “Their kids ran from cage to cage without taking the time to read anything. I’d rather the girls only get half of it done and learn something about the animals we see than finish the hunt without learning anything new at all.”
His brows rose, along with his hands. “I only meant to—”
“Next time you want to do it your way, try showing up on time.”
Chapter Two
Eric snapped his slack jaw closed when Marissa Wilder swept past him in a huff. Wow. Someone had a major attitude, and she’d decided to direct it at the bull’s-eye he must be wearing on his chest.
The sultry scent of vanilla lingered in her wake, continuing the relentless seduction his senses had ineffectively dealt with over the past hour. He’d had a feeling he was in trouble the moment he saw the woman his daughter had been laughing with when he arrived. In the looks department, the tall, leggy, blue-eyed blond was the exact opposite of his Italian-descent ex-wife, but they matched each other with their tempers, and their ability to get pissed off at him with a simple misinterpreted sentence.
Or in this case, probably two.
He’d been teasing her about the shoes, even though he was genuinely curious what possessed her to wear such sexy sandals to chaperone a field trip, and the comment about the scavenger hunt had been intended as a compliment. He liked that she didn’t race the kids through the project like many of the other parents seemed to have done. Not making the extra effort to teach is exactly what Nina would’ve done—in addition to wearing something guaranteed to attract as much male attention as possible.
Marissa’s slim-waisted, flowing, knee-length tan skirt and v-neck, sleeveless black blouse definitely garnered their share of attention from a number of men in attendance, yet since Eric arrived, she’d focused solely on their two girls—with the exception of a few words tossed toward him when he’d asked a direct question. Was she truly oblivious to the interested looks directed her way?
Eric stuffed Reese’s half-completed score sheet in his back pocket and followed the three girls to the giraffe exhibit. If Heather’s mom was aware of the male attention, she did a heck of a job of ignoring them all—including him. When he’d openly flirted with her on his arrival, there’d been a moment when she’d been receptive. She let him hold the handshake a few heartbeats longer than necessary, her cheeks flushed, and when she spoke, her voice had that slight breathless quality that told him he wasn’t the only one affected.
His pulse had raced with excitement until Reese called her Mrs. Wilder and reminded him he had no business hitting on a married woman. Thank goodness her bare left ring finger quickly put him back at ease. If only it’d done the same for her. She shut him down before he could get past the hellos and move on to getting to know her.
Although one of the most important things was clear, she loved her daughter. For real—not because a judge or social worker watched her Mother of the Year performance. Any time Marissa hugged her cute-as-a-button miniature look-a-like, she never once glanced around to see who caught the touching show. She was just as wonderful with Reese, too.
Reese giggled with Heather, and Eric’s chest tightened. Despite everything Nina had put them through the last year and a half, his little girl still smiled. He prayed with all his heart she stayed like that forever and didn’t pick up any of her mother’s less desirable traits.
If only he’d been able to win more time with her in the custody battle. Familiar frustration and resentment rose up at the thought of Nina’s lawyers and friends dragging everything out into the open in court. They hammered home the fact that he worked a lot, either on call as a volunteer First Responder, or building his carpentry business. The kicker was, the only way Nina had gotten the alimony she needed to afford her custody lawyer was because he’d worked his tail off to establish his business.
It’d taken some time to get over his bitterness, but he could now admit the divorce wasn’t completely Nina’s faul
t. He took responsibility for burying himself in his work when the marriage started to go south, and then he spent even more time in his workshop when he found out about her affair. And a good father would’ve been around more for Reese when she needed him.
That guilt would never completely ease. But at least his current efforts to make up for his mistakes were paying off. His older brother’s platoon had returned safely from their second tour in Iraq, and once Mark ended his Term of Service and moved back home come November, there’d be more volunteer First Responders to cut back on Eric’s on-call days. Better yet, his woodworking reputation had reached a place where he could charge higher prices for the elaborate pieces and work less hours, freeing him up to spend more days like today with Reese.
Everything was in place for him to re-petition for joint custody at the hearing scheduled in August. With Nina remarried, and now almost five months pregnant, he just wasn’t so sure which direction she’d swing. Hopefully he’d proven he could be depended on for more than just money. As tired and moody as she’d been lately, he prayed she’d be receptive to him dealing with Reese’s energy for half the time instead of just every other weekend.
“Daddy, come on! We have to get in line,” Reese called, curving her little arm in an arc for him to hurry up.
He smiled and increased his stride to catch up, anticipating a similar expression on her face at home later when she saw he’d finished the tree house in the backyard. He’d bought marshmallows too, so they could make s’mores at the campfire before climbing up to sleep amongst the leaves. It’d been far too long since they’d done something like that.
He took the steps two at a time to stand behind the girls on the raised platform that put zoo-goers at eye level with the fourteen-foot tall giraffes. An accidental brush of his arm against Marissa’s made him feel more alive as a man than he had in over a year. The awareness coursing through him convinced him not to give up the chase just yet, even if her sideways glance remained less than encouraging.
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