Holiday Kisses: A Rare GiftMistletoe and MargaritasIt's Not Christmas Without YouThis Time Next Year

by Alison Kent

  “I’ve heard doctors make terrible patients anyway.”

  “You’ve heard right.”

  And then, not knowing why, she pried. “Bad dreams keep you awake?”

  “Not dreams. Memories. They’re worse than the nightmares.”

  “The war?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, but not really. It’s hard to explain.”

  Something told her he hadn’t explained it to anyone, that he needed to, that doing so would go a long way to helping him sleep. “Mother Nature’s made sure I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got time.”

  He turned, leaned against the table, crossed his arms. “Next you’ll be telling me you’re a good listener.”

  “I’m female. We specialize.”

  “So tell me more about nursing.”

  “Are you changing the subject?”

  He gave her a wink. “I’m male. We specialize.”

  She grinned at that, and at the crow’s feet crinkling at the corner of his eye. He was trying, and that had her grinning too. “I’m a nurse because of Gran and her stories. About her and my grandfather meeting in a field hospital. About working with the Red Cross at Pearl Harbor. But I also blame my folks. Medicine runs in the Keating family veins.”

  “The clinic in Malaysia.”

  She nodded. “This is the longest they’ve ever stayed in one place. But the clinic’s been a huge investment. I think this move was their last.”

  “Have you been there?”

  She nodded again. “They wanted me to stay. And if not for Gran, I might have. I even talked to her about moving with me, but she’s tied to the mountain.”

  “Most of the people here are.”

  “But not you.”

  “I wasn’t. I am now.”

  Interesting distinction. “Because of what you saw in the war?”

  “Because this is where I’m needed.”

  And yet, the only thing tying him here was his father. “Your skills, your experience, you could fill the need in a lot of places.”

  “I’ve done the ER thing. And this need is different. If I wasn’t here, some of the folks would never see a doctor.”

  “They trust you.”

  “They knew my father.”

  “But they trust you.”

  “That’s part of it, I guess.”

  It was a lot bigger than part of it. Trust was everything for the people Gran called friends. So why was Dillon reluctant to take the credit he so obviously deserved? And why had he chosen to live on his father’s land when he could write his own ticket to anywhere?

  “Did you get breakfast?” he asked before she could push the conversation further.

  She’d table it for now, but she wasn’t going to let it go. He intrigued her and puzzles were one of her favorite things. “No, and I’m actually starving.”

  “Mrs. Calhoun’s stew didn’t hold you?”

  Oh, he had so much to learn. “And here I thought Gran had told you everything about me.”

  Chapter Five

  Dillon got his wish. He got Brenna back to the cabin before she asked what he was doing in the barn. He could talk to her about the war, his life before the war, but he hadn’t talked to anyone about his life after. The life he was living now, though a by-the-numbers existence, seemed a better way to look at his days.

  Up at dawn, coffee and breakfast, seeing to Ranger then riding out for rounds. Most days he was back at the clinic for afternoon hours. Then he worked in the barn until exhaustion sent him to bed. Not that he slept when he got there, but he was a doctor and he knew, if nothing else, he needed the rest.

  He’d found the woodworking tools behind boxes of books when going through his father’s things. Up till then, he’d forgot about his father building the shelves he used in the clinic and the porch swing that creaked beneath any amount of weight. Forgot, too, about the toys his father had carved for the mountain kids—until he’d run across an unfinished pirate’s sword while cleaning, organizing. Looking to connect.

  Looking for forgiveness.

  Enough.

  He pulled open the refrigerator door. “Pancakes? Eggs?”

  “If you’ve already eaten, I can fend for myself,” Brenna said, shrugging out of her coat. “I don’t want to get in the way of your schedule.”

  His schedule could use a dust-up. “I had the last wedge of cornbread with my coffee, and both wore off a while ago.”

  “Then let me cook.” She came toward him, stopped, raised a brow in question. “Unless you’ve got a patient who’s bartered meal prep for your services.”

  Interesting that she was still ignoring his woodworking. He wondered how long before it became the elephant in the room. “No. You’re welcome to the kitchen. I try to cook as little as possible.”

  When he stepped away from the fridge, she moved to peer inside. “Because you can’t, or because you don’t want to?”

  He snorted. “Because I make a worse cook than I do patient. And because most of the time I don’t have to.”

  “How’s that?” she asked, coming out with bacon and eggs. “The bartering thing?”

  “Some of it, yes.” He pulled his gaze from her ass. Tamped down his lust. “But folks drop dishes by a lot. I’ve got a freezer full. It’s like I’m on a list, or something.”

  Setting the food on the counter, she pointed a finger his way. “I know exactly what list you’re on.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure. The mountain’s most eligible bachelors.”

  “I don’t think that’s it.”

  Her look called him on his denial. “Do these folks who drop by have daughters? Single daughters of marrying age?”

  His fault, this hell, for mentioning the list. “Some do.”

  She nodded sagely. “And others are single women themselves? Widowed young? Divorced even?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “I knew it. You’re the biggest catch around.” She frowned, bent again to look for a skillet, the position of her body giving him a whole lot of grief. “Which makes me wonder again why Gran hasn’t told me about you since she’s always asking about my love life.”

  The grief had him rubbing at his forehead. “Do you have a love life?”

  She turned, her eyes bright, curious. “Do you?”

  He thought about what she’d said. “I’ve got a freezer full of casseroles, if that counts.”

  “Then you’re doing better than me,” she said, biting off a sharp laugh.

  He found that hard to believe. She was smart, she was feisty. Her ass was as amazing as her legs were long. She’d made him laugh more in the last few hours than anyone had in a very long time. She’d also made him think, and forced him to revisit the past that had brought him here—when he avoided doing both because neither one did him any good.

  And, yeah, he liked the way she looked. Liked it a lot.

  “The guys you date don’t cook?”

  Shaking her head, she pulled strips of bacon from the package and lined them up in the pan. “And what guys would those be?”

  “You don’t date?”

  Her back to him, she asked, “Do you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Exactly.”

  He crossed his arms, leaned a hip on the corner of the counter. “Why don’t you date?”

  “You first,” she said, lifting a finger.

  “I don’t have time.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Nursing doesn’t take all day.”

  “Oh, yeah? I’ve got regular hours and volunteer hours, then I teach and grade projects and tutor privately. The rest of my time I spend catching up with housework, seeing friends. Reading, sleeping. The usual.”

  “So you do go out.”

  “With girlfriends, yes. And I have a couple of guys I tap if I need a male escort. But I quit the blind-date thing after a guy who paid for the dinner and the movie expected me to pay him back in bed.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that. He’d known men
who thought similarly. That picking up the check entitled them to more than a woman’s company. He enjoyed taking a woman to bed as much as the next guy, but he never expected or assumed, and he certainly never bartered for sex the way he bartered for other services.

  But that was him. He still didn’t get her. “What about dates that aren’t blind?”

  “You ask like it’s the easiest thing in the world to meet someone.”

  He shrugged. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to hit a sore spot.”

  She dropped the fork she was using, splattering bacon grease across the stove. “Oh, now my not dating is a sore spot?”

  That made him smile. “Want me to finish the bacon?”

  “I’m fine. I just thought we—” she picked up the fork, gestured with it, “—and by we I mean society, not you and I…I just thought we’d gotten past thinking there was something wrong with a woman who wasn’t attached to a man.”

  Ah, there was a sore spot. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Brenna. If that’s your takeaway from me wondering why you don’t date, I apologize.”

  Her mouth tight, she flipped the bacon slices, checked each and transferred those already crisped to a waiting paper towel. “No need to apologize. I just get that a lot, or did before I threatened bodily harm to the friends who kept hounding me about being single.”

  “Being single’s a good thing.”

  She spun on him, glared. “And now you’re patronizing me?”

  Prickly, wasn’t she? Prickly and cute, though dangerous with a fork and bacon grease. “Sorry. That wasn’t about you.”

  “Want to know the truth? This is why I don’t date,” she said with an expansive wave of her arms. “I’m a wreck at communication. The obvious come-ons I’m great at deflecting, but subtle is out of my league.”

  He could do obvious. “So if I wanted to kiss you I’d stand a better chance if I came out and asked?”

  One heartbeat. Two. “Are you asking?”

  He watched the beat of her pulse in her throat. “I dunno. Probably not a good idea when you’re holding a fork.”

  Time ticked between them as if a clock were winding down, the second hand reaching for one more notch on the face before stopping. Dillon stayed where he was, waiting for Brenna to choose, her gaze searching his…tick…tick.

  This wasn’t the time or the place for attraction. They were snowbound with very few options for staying clear of each other. He shouldn’t have pushed her into a decision that would change their dynamic. Because whatever happened next, this moment would always be in the way.

  He was still waiting when Brenna looked away and turned off the fire beneath the skillet of bacon. She set the fork on the paper towel with the strips that were cooling. She wiped her palms on the seat of her jeans, tucked her hair behind her ears. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed, and Dillon’s heart beat faster.

  A step in reverse took her away from the stove, another brought her closer to his side of the kitchen. She moved slowly, though he didn’t think her hesitance was uncertainty. Brenna Keating didn’t strike him as someone who had trouble making up her mind.

  He moved his hands to the counter at his sides, curled his fingers over the edge to keep from reaching for her and dragging her against him. He admitted to being a caveman, but that could wait. This was Brenna’s show. His job was to follow her lead, to ignore the lust coiling around the base of his spine.

  Her gaze was still on the floor when she reached him. She brought it up slowly, starting with his feet and taking in his legs, lingering between his thighs and his belt buckle, rising again to take her time at his chest and the hollow of his throat.

  He tried not to swallow, failed, watched her watch the movement of his muscles before she reached his mouth. She lingered there the longest, catching her bottom lip with her teeth, then finally, finally, lifted her gaze to his.

  “Are you sure?” Her husky voice scraped his nerves.

  He gave her a single nod in answer. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He’d say the wrong thing and scare her away. He wanted her right where she was, doing exactly what she was doing, even if she had yet to do anything at all.

  As she rose on her tiptoes, her lashes shuttered down. He hated that. He wanted to see her eyes. But then she was there and nothing else mattered.

  It was a first contact that hummed, that danced and arced, that sizzled. Her lips were as soft as he’d expected, but they moved on his with purpose. She hadn’t come to play or to tease or to test the waters. The kiss was real and she meant it.

  Dillon wondered what was going through her mind, but he only wondered for a handful of seconds because he was a man, and she was pressing her body the length of his, and it had been a very long time since he’d felt what he was feeling now.

  He couldn’t put words to what that was, and he didn’t stop to try. Instead, he kissed her back, slanting his lips over hers, wrapping her in a loose embrace. He kept himself from asking for too much too soon, even if he wanted her naked beneath him.

  That thought had him kissing her harder. She responded in kind, parted her lips, invited him to do likewise and to use his tongue against hers. She didn’t have to ask twice, and he didn’t have to think about it at all. Nature took over. He just gave in.

  He tightened his hold, his hands sliding down her back to the pockets of her jeans. He slipped his fingers deep inside to keep her as near as she’d let him. She wiggled, letting him, and she brought up her arms to loop around his neck, one hand cupping the base of his skull. Her fingers massaged him there, and her tongue learned the length of his.

  Heat rose between them, a hazy column of lust and surprise. He’d never expected this, never expected her, but hell if he was going to question any of what was happening, or stop to define whatever this was making him feel so alive.

  The coil at the base of his spine squeezed and desire grew. As close as she was, she had to feel him, lengthening, hardening, going thick. And when she pushed against him and sighed into his mouth, he had his answer. He dug his fingers into her backside, wanting to strip away the denim and get his hands on her skin.

  The kiss changed then, becoming frantic, needy, the press of her lips to his harder, the thrust of his tongue against hers fevered. His thoughts raced, but he couldn’t catch a single one. All he knew was this kiss, her body, his body. He wanted her. She wanted him. He tasted it. He smelled it.

  He pulled his hands from her pockets and lifted the hem of her shirt. When he reached her bare back and the hooks of her bra, her shoulders went rigid, and she took a single step away.

  It was enough.

  She wasn’t ready to take this trip. Not now. Not with him.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled, returning to the stove, the fork, when she lifted it, shaking in her hand. “I don’t know why that ever seemed like a good idea.”

  He cleared his throat, willed down his erection, though the room’s tension kept his nerves singing, his blood racing. He pressed his lips together, but she was still there.

  The fork bobbled again, and she set it down. “I think I’m going to get my things out of the living room and change into some clean clothes. Maybe wash these if that’s okay.”

  “Washer and dryer are in the utility room out that door.” He inclined his head toward the kitchen’s exit, even though she was looking at the skillet of unfinished bacon instead of at him.

  “Thanks,” she said, her head down as she left him standing there wondering how the hell they were supposed to get through the rest of the week after that.

  Chapter Six

  Oh. Oh. What in the world was that?

  What was wrong with her? What was she doing? Where was her brain?

  Why did that have to be unlike any kiss ever? And with Dillon Craig, a man with baggage she didn’t have the strength to lift?

  A man her grandmother hadn’t even wanted her to know.

  Slumped against the door, Brenna pressed her fingers to her mouth, to her breasts, squeezed her thighs tight
, but he remained. She felt him along her body, smelled him when she breathed in, tasted him when she dared touch her tongue to her lips.

  For the love of Pete. She had no business kissing the man whose bed she was sleeping in!

  Things between them were already tense. Now they would only get worse. She had to find a way to get to Gran’s. And then she wondered what had gone through Gran’s mind when she’d learned where Brenna had holed up to wait out the storm?

  On a whim, she picked up the phone on the bedside table. Just as dead as Dillon had told her. That made her feel a little bit better. He hadn’t been lying to keep her here. But he wouldn’t need to lie, would he, when she was obviously open for business.

  She fell into the center of the bed and stared up at the ceiling. And then she frowned. Like in Gran’s house, Dillon had a fan over his bed. The blades hung without moving, the tip of each carved, a date cut into the abstract pattern. The design was repeated on each. But the dates were different, all earlier than the 2007 carved into the base of the lamp.

  What she’d seen in Dillon’s barn this morning left her with no doubt that he’d done the work. At the time she’d held off asking, the haunted look in his eyes tearing at her and the only thing that mattered. But now she wanted to know the meaning of the dates. Not that he’d tell her anything after that kiss.

  Her brain had to be frostbit. Nothing else made sense. She did not kiss men she didn’t know. She did not goad or dare or push men into letting her crawl all over them. And, no, she hadn’t really crawled all over him, but God had she wanted to.

  She pressed both fists to her forehead and groaned. She was snowbound with the man, dependent on his hospitality, and it hadn’t taken her but twelve hours to go insane. She was sticking with the frostbit story. The hours she’d spent in the snowbank had to be at the root of her bizarre behavior.

  Except she wasn’t buying it. Dillon was at the root of her behavior. Her attraction to him. Her curiosity about who he was and why Gran had kept him a secret. Her empathy for what he’d suffered overseas, what his return to civilian life had cost him. Her interest in the drive behind his art. And now the kiss.