A Little Christmas Magic

by Sylvie Kurtz

  He wanted her to be afraid, but she refused to comply and stared right back at him.

  He crowded into her, lowered his face, leaving an inch of space between their noses. His restless energy wrapped around her in tentacles. The scent of soap and coffee and man spiraled around her on the waves of his checked temper.

  He was hurt, angry, and she'd pushed the wrong button. She knew that, on a logical level, but something about the animal ferocity of his gaze stirred an echo of fear, anyway.

  "I killed my daughter. That's what you're fishing for, isn't it? All the low-down dirt."

  Oh, God. A greasy knot tightened her gut. His guilt cut deeper than she thought. No wonder he sought isolation. He bled with the worst kind of remorse, and needed her—the world—to believe the worst of him.

  "You could never hurt anybody."

  She knew that with certainty—knew it by the way he'd cared for her after she'd cut her hands, knew it by the sensitivity with which he treated Jamie, knew it by the way he looked after Max, knew it by his selfless action in saving those schoolchildren, knew it by the love shining in his eyes for his daughter in that photograph. Knew it by his soul-deep grief.

  "That's where you're wrong, Beth." His voice vibrated, low and gritty. "I've hurt everybody I've ever cared for. I will hurt you."

  He crushed his hard, unyielding body against hers and plundered her mouth. Her thoughts dervished. Her heart boomed. Her pulse zigzagged. She tasted his guilt, tasted his pain, tasted his grief, and rebuffed with tenderness the ruthlessness he wanted to assert. Seeking to soothe, she reached out to him, circling his neck with her arms.

  "Logan," she murmured against his cheek, "stop pretending you're a monster. I don't believe it."

  He shuddered and gasped, then reached back, trapped her hands in his and pinned them against the wall. His chest heaved. From grief, from anger? She couldn't tell. "I will hurt you, Beth."

  Regret tormented his voice. He tried to move away, but she grasped his thumbs and held onto them. The wound in his eyes slashed her. She leaned forward, feathered her lips against his.

  "The only person you're hurting is yourself."

  A choked sound of anguish keened from him as he pitched back. Pure agony squalled in his eyes. She'd amplified his hurt, cut him to the bone.

  "Logan, please..." She had no idea what she was asking for, only that she desperately needed to undo the damage she'd caused. She reached toward him palm open, begging.

  He jerked away from her poisoned offering, turned on his heels and left.

  * * *

  Relief. That's what he should be feeling. But it wasn't. Logan slathered another brushful of paint onto a cupboard door propped on a sawhorse in the cellar. God knew he'd tried, but nothing could distract him from the tenderness of that kiss. He'd wanted to hurt her, wanted to show her the empty darkness rattling inside him. Instead she'd shown him that part of his soul still lived.

  How often had he kissed her in his dreams? Yet nothing had prepared him for the reality. Her scent was an awakening. Her touch was a quickening. Her taste was a salvation. Unwanted sensations had rushed through him in a prickly pain. He'd wanted to let the river of tears trapped in his soul flow onto her capable shoulders.

  But the last time he'd given in to that yearning to have and to hold, it had proven an illusion. His love hadn't been enough to reach Julia. His love hadn't been enough to save Samantha.

  In the real world, wives left, children died, criminals went free.

  And hearts broke.

  He slung the paintbrush into the can. Paint splattered onto the drop cloth. Max sat up, batted her tail once and cocked him a nervous grin.

  "Don't go getting all in a flap." What was wrong with that mutt?

  Max licked her snout and thumped her tail.

  "I just need to sweat, and painting isn't cutting it." He needed numbness to forget.

  He pounded up the stairs, Max at his heels. The kitchen offered no solace. With its yellow-tiled counters, it reminded him of Beth, which made him think of that kiss and had him shuddering with pain and pleasure all over again. Besides, the walls weren't finished, and he didn't have all the right equipment to start on the floor.

  "The living room," he told Max. "That faux walnut paneling has got to go."

  He snagged a pry bar and cat's claw from his toolbox. Max dogged him to the living room. At the first crack of paneling, Max's head sunk into her shoulders, her tail tucked between her legs and she shivered.

  He threw the broken panel into the middle of the room. She flinched. "What's wrong with you?"

  She licked nervously.

  He crouched. "Come here."

  She hesitated and went to him, hunkered as if she expected a slap for her trouble. He scratched her behind the ear, felt the tension in her little body. "No one's going to hurt you here."

  You could never hurt anybody. Beth's voice haunted him.

  "This has nothing to do with you. I just need to sweat."

  He straightened, then attacked the paneling once more. Max watched his every move with a mixture of kicked-puppy and mother-hen intensity, refusing to leave even though being there seemed a trial.

  So he talked to his little guardian angel with the crooked halo while he ripped and tore and sweated. Watched her out of the corner of his eye until the edginess relaxed from her shoulders. Finally she lay in the doorway, head on paws.

  He wanted to tear the head off whoever had put so much fear into this animal.

  Stop pretending you're a monster. I don't believe it.

  Beth was wrong. He held secrets no one knew. "You'd better believe it, Beth. I'm the devil himself."

  Better for him. Better for her.

  That way there would be no shattered illusions.

  The only person you're hurting is yourself.

  And that was the way he wanted to keep it.

  He couldn't love her. He couldn't love anyone.

  The pain would be too much.

  * * *

  "School's been canceled again," Beth told Eve over the phone.

  She slipped a batch of candied fruit and spice muffins into the oven. Fresh coffee percolated on the counter. Jamie, happy with the unexpected freedom, watched usually forbidden cartoons in the living room.

  "I saw it on the news. That's three days in a row I haven't been able to get out. I'm starting to get cabin fever." Tippety-tap, tippety-tap-tap went the keys on Eve's keyboard. "I'm down to the last of my paperwork, too. Once I'm done with this letter, I'll have nothing to do. Except get down on my hands and knees and scrub that rotten kitchen floor."

  Eve made a shuddering sound and Beth laughed.

  For more than a week the weather had played ping-pong, dumping a mixture of rain, sleet and snow over Rockville. Because of the hazardous driving conditions, even the Holiday Fair was postponed until next weekend. Today a glaze of ice frosted everything in sight and bowed the limbs of the maples in her yard.

  "Don't you dare go out there and try to drive on that stuff," Beth said as she capped the flour canister and pushed it back against the wall.

  "I'm stir crazy, not insane. Have you talked to Logan yet?"

  "No. He needs—"

  "A swift kick in the rear. I've never seen a more stubborn man. A week of moping is more than enough."

  Beth put the candied fruit and raisins back into the pantry. "Eve, it's not like that. He's really hurt, and if I push him, he's just going to retreat even more."

  "How's he going to know you're available if you don't tell him?"

  "I'm not available." At least not in the way Eve wanted her to be. Beth frowned, then gathered measuring cups, measuring spoons and bowls and placed them in the sink.

  "You know what I mean. He should know he can count on you."

  "That may be a tough sell." After that disastrous display of ill-timed self-righteousness, he knew he could count on her to add to his misery. She'd deliberated over an apology and had finally decided that giving him space would be th
e best thing she could do for him. For her, too.

  She'd missed him, though, missed talking to him over a meal, missed cooking for him. But she wouldn't admit that to Eve.

  Tippety-tap, tippety-tap-tap. "Wish I'd been a fly on the wall."

  Beth chuckled as she pried the cotton out of a new jar of vitamins. She set two smiley-shaped tablets at Jamie's place along with a glass of orange juice. "Good thing you weren't. Jamie loves a good fly hunt and he'd have swatted you flat."

  The typing stopped abruptly. "How are you going to get that man to smile in time for Christmas if you won't even talk to him?"

  "I don't know."

  "You're too nice, Beth." Eve's chair squeaked. "That's the problem. You won't stand up for anything you need or want. You're so afraid of putting anybody out. How long did it take me to convince you I wanted to take care of Jamie in the morning? That it wasn't an imposition?"

  "Eve—"

  "No, don't you 'Eve' me. You're being a fool. Do you think Jim would want you staying at home, taking care of everybody but yourself?"

  "That's not the way it is." She'd never heard a stern word come out of Eve's mouth and her friend's uncharacteristic anger strung a clothesline of tension down her spine.

  "Really? When was the last time you went on a date I haven't pushed on you?"

  She took two bowls out of the cupboard, searched for spoons in the drawer. She didn't want to date. All that meaningless small talk, trying to impress a stranger with her worth. All the little flaws she had to camouflage. Going through the dating game as a teenager had been bad enough. Now as an adult, just the thought made her shudder. And she had Jamie to consider. He would—had to—come first in any decision. "Dating sucks."

  "That's what I thought. Jim wanted you to go on, Beth. He made you promise."

  She had to remember not to confide so much in Eve. She didn't like having her own words used as ammunition against her. "He made me promise not to cry."

  "And you haven't. Not one tear. That's not normal, you know."

  She opened the pantry and scanned the contents, but couldn't seem to locate the cereal. "I'm honoring his last request."

  "But he didn't mean it literally, sweetie. He meant he wanted you to rejoice in the time you had together and find someone else to share the rest of your life."

  Had he? Jim was a generous husband. He'd meant for her to be happy. For Jamie's sake, so his childhood would be filled with happy memories and not the sadness of loss. But had this man, who'd once confided he couldn't stand the thought she might one day want to leave him, meant he wanted her to marry again? "I don't know."

  Eve sighed. "You can be exasperating at times."

  "Me? You're the one who's being pushy."

  "Well, someone has to be. You don't have any family to take care of you." Her voice softened. "I'm trying to save you the heartache of learning this lesson too late. Like me. I just want to see you happy again."

  Beth closed the pantry and strode to the fridge. "I am happy. I'm content. I have Jamie, a terrific job, friends and great plans for the future."

  "But no one to share them with."

  "Eve..."

  "Logan is a good man. You two have a lot in common. I know you could make each other happy."

  Beth seized a half-gallon of milk from the fridge and thumped the plastic jug on the table. "He says he killed his daughter."

  Nine slow bongs from the grandfather clock in Eve's living room filled the long silence between them. "What do you think?"

  She sunk into a chair. "I don't think he could. It's the pain talking."

  "Exactly. That's why you need to draw him out again."

  Beth toyed with the poinsettia place mat. "He won't talk about his past. Maybe if you gave me a hint as to what happened to him."

  "It's not my place. It needs to come from him."

  "Then we're at an impasse." Beth rose abruptly and poured a mug of coffee. He wouldn't talk, and she couldn't make him. Not when so much confusion stirred her mind with more speed than a blender on high.

  "Maybe you're just using Jim as an excuse to stay exactly where you are. Safer that way."

  Beth cracked her cup against the countertop. "Don't get Jim mixed up in this."

  "Oh, but, sweetie, he is. And the reason for your habit of keeping so busy taking care of everybody else's trouble is so you won't have to feel that empty corner of your heart."

  "You're wrong. My life is fine the way it is." And she had a feeling Logan thought his was, too. She took down her recipe file and thumbed through it.

  "He came into Gus's store a couple of days ago. Bought some paint and tape."

  "Did he now." That was a good sign, wasn't it? He couldn't be mired in the depths of depression if he was working on his house. Which just went to prove he didn't need her meddling.

  She tabbed past the soups and stews, past the fish and poultry, past the breads, and didn't slow down until she got to the desserts. What did it matter if he never smiled again?

  Then a picture of him and his daughter flashed through her mind. She bit her lower lip and shuffled through the dessert recipes. It didn't matter. Not one bit.

  "Yellow, brown, green and white. What do you suppose he's going to do with that?"

  "Since when is Gus such a gossip? At this rate he'll give Laura Darlington a run for her money." Chocolate caramel bars. She lifted the card from its slot. Did she have any walnuts left?

  "You should check out Logan's plans for the paint."

  "He's a big boy. He knows he should have good ventilation while he's working. There's a fine line between helping and meddling, and I don't want to cross it." Not when she'd already dipped more than a toe on the other side and had found such a bewildering reaction.

  He'd wanted to scare her, wanted her to think the worst of him. But that hurtful kiss had swiftly changed to something potent. Before he'd pushed away from her, he'd responded to her tenderness with the ardent male hunger she'd spied in his eyes earlier that evening. It had lasted only a moment, but the moment had taken her breath away, melted her bones, and flooded her heart with a river of warmth—and confusion.

  She ripped open the pantry door and searched through the shelves. Surely she had some chocolate chips somewhere.

  "You could bake him a casserole. When was the last time you fed him?"

  Feed a man, starve his grief?

  The lights cut off. Beth put a hand over the speaker. "Jamie, are you okay?"

  "The TV's not working," he called from the living room.

  "The power's gone out. Why don't you come in here and have some breakfast?"

  "What if Dragon Knights comes back on?"

  "Then you can go back."

  "Okay."

  "Beth, are you there? The electricity just went out."

  "Here, too. Are you going to be all right?"

  "I'll walk over to Gus's."

  "You'll do no such thing." Jamie shuffled in, dragging his stuffed panda by one paw. He slipped into his chair and reached for the chewable vitamins. Beth held up two boxes of cereal, and Jamie pointed to his selection. "It's much too icy out there. I don't want you to fall and hurt yourself. You have wood?"

  "Gus brought a stack a few weeks ago. You might want to check on Logan. He's not used to winters like these."

  "He can take care of himself."

  "And you can take care of yourself. I guess I'm the only one who needs somebody else to keep her warm when the power goes out. I'm going to Gus's."

  Eve was a stubborn old mule. She would head out in this weather just to prove she could and end up breaking a leg or a hip when she fell on the ice.

  "Tell you what," Beth said, "you call Gus and make sure he comes to you, and I'll call Logan. Deal?"

  She could hear the smile in Eve's voice. "Deal."

  Was Eve right? Had she been hiding behind Jim's memory, behind her busyness to keep the promise she'd made to a dying man?

  Looking back over the past five years, she chewed on a mouthful o
f Cheerios. No, she wasn't hiding. She simply wasn't looking. Relief slunk through her.

  For the past week she'd feared she was half in love with Logan, but Eve's pointed probing made her face what she'd been afraid to look at.

  Logan wasn't becoming a prospect; he was still just a project. She wasn't looking for a husband. The dating rules didn't apply.

  Only an hour ago the thought of seeing him again would have spiked panic in her blood. But now a strange kind of anticipation licked at her. She would make him smile before Christmas.

  First she owed him an apology, then he needed a quick introduction to Winter Storm Survival 101.

  Chapter 10

  Logan had no idea what he was doing in Beth's entryway. When the power had gone out, his first thought had been for her and Jamie. Before he knew it, he was heading to her house. He'd just about convinced himself he'd have done the same thing for any neighbor, when Beth opened the door.

  Her voice held no rancor, her eyes no spikes of hatred. If anything, she seemed glad to see him, and the notion cracked the wall of objections he'd expected to have to batter to assess their degree of safety. And now she peppered him with questions and ushered him toward the living room as if she'd expected him. Jamie greeted him brightly, asked about Max, then went back to his handheld electronic game.

  "Do you have any wood?" Beth asked as she crouched beside the glass-fronted wood stove fitted into the fireplace.

  "Acres of it."

  She looked at him over her shoulder and smiled. Smoke poured from the stove's opening and wet logs sizzled. "You made a joke! I'm so proud of you."

  The compliment warmed him more than it should have. He almost smiled. It felt good to see her again—too good. No, not her, her home. The bone-thawing warmth and the baked-in aroma of welcome was a childhood fantasy.

  And Beth was a grown man's fantasy with her sparkle, softness and sweet curves. But he'd found a way to deal with that. After he finished the house, he'd put it on the market and head farther north.

  "Eve hardly ever used her fireplace," Beth prattled on. "Don't know what shape it's in. You might want to have it swept."

  "You want some help with that?" he asked, reaching for the long match in her hand.