A Bride For Saint Nick

by Carole Buck

  “So, you’re not always going to be around.”

  “And?”

  Leigh lifted her chin a notch, her beautiful blue eyes darkening with maternal determination. For all the fragility of her features, she looked quite fierce.

  “Andy’s become very attached to you, John,” she said quietly. “I’ve realized what was happening since day one. But seeing you together last night and today—Well, I’m concerned about how he’ll react when you leave.”

  Again, John wanted to ask about Andy’s mother. How attached had she become, assuming she would confess to being attached at all? And how would she react when—if—he left?

  Again, he choked back the queries as inappropriate and illtimed.

  “Maybe I won’t,” he replied after a few seconds.

  “Won’t…leave?”

  He nodded, holding her gaze. “I was telling the truth when I told Andy I could pretty much run my businesses from anywhere there’s a phone and an electrical outlet.”

  “But you live in Georgia.”

  “I have a house I own and occupy, Leigh. It’s not the same thing.” And it wasn’t. He hadn’t “lived” anywhere since the day he’d given up his claim on Suzanne Whitney. He’d simply been taking up space.

  “Are you saying you might decide to…stay…around here?”

  “How would you feel about that?”

  Leigh blushed, raising her hand to the base of her throat. “It’s not up to me.”

  “It could be.”

  “John—”

  “I know. I know.” He gestured. “It’s been less than two weeks.”

  “But it feels longer.”

  She hadn’t wanted to say it. He could see the resistance in her eyes. But he could also see that she hadn’t been able to hold back the admission.

  Tell her, dammit! his head commanded suddenly, switching sides in the battle he’d been waging within himself. Tell her the truth before this goes any further!

  Don’t! his heart contradicted, equally urgent, equally inconsistent. This is about Leigh McKay and John Gulliver, not Suzanne Whitney and Nicholas Marchand. Leave the past alone…at least for now.

  “What about dinner?” he asked after several seconds, returning to the original issue. “The three of us. Tomorrow night. We’ll try to find a middle ground between Hamburger Heaven and ‘Chez Bambi.”‘

  Leigh lowered her hand. The hot color in her cheeks receded a little. “I—um—we can’t. Andy’s going on a sleepover tomorrow night.”

  John cleared his throat, riveted by the shift in pronouns. He’d been rejected in the collective. Did that mean that there was a chance for an individual acceptance of his invitation? Just he and Leigh together? No Andy?

  “A sleepover?” he echoed carefully.

  “It’s a birthday party for one of his friends from preschool.” Her eyes strayed toward the front of the store. The elegantly sculpted line of her jaw fretted for an instant.

  “First time away from home?” he guessed.

  She looked at him, her expression holding a mix of vulnerability and ruefulness. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Andy will be okay.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he will. The question is, will I?”

  John smiled briefly, then succumbed to the temptation to lift his hand and touch her cheek. For one intoxicating instant, she seemed to turn her face into the curve of his palm.

  “You’ll be more than okay, sweetheart,” he said huskily.

  The endearment just slipped out. John’s breath snagged as he saw Leigh’s eyes widen in response to it. “Sweetheart” was what the man he’d pretended to be had called the innocent she’d actually been.

  What if—?

  He lowered his hand. His companion edged back a few inches. The look on her fine-boned face reminded him of the night Suzanne Whitney had made up her mind to surrender her virginity to Nicholas Marchand.

  “Leigh?” he questioned softly, wanting to underscore the identity of the woman he was with.

  “Why don’t you come over to the house tomorrow night,” she responded. “We can have dinner there.”

  “What do you know about this John Gulliver?” Donatella Pietra asked, stirring the pot of pasta sauce Leigh had left simmering on the back burner while she’d dashed upstairs to freshen her face and fluff her hair.

  “Enough.” Leigh consulted her watch. It was twenty past seven. John was scheduled to arrive in ten minutes. While she was grateful for the assistance Nonna P. had given her, she really wanted her to go. She was nervous enough without having the older woman hovering around, seeming to second-guess every move she made. Or was contemplating making. Or was contemplating contemplating. “He’s been wonderful with Andy and a perfect gentleman with me.”

  “He stayed with you overnight.”

  “I’ve explained about that,” Leigh replied, crossing to the refrigerator and opening it. She still needed to make a salad, she reminded herself. Plus some kind of dressing.

  “He lives—where?”

  Leigh paused in the act of sorting through the contents of the vegetable crisper, her memory skipping back to a fragment of the extraordinary exchange she and John had had in her bookstore less than twenty-four hours ago.

  “But you live in Georgia,” she’d protested, telling herself she must have misunderstood his previous words.

  “I have a house I own and occupy, Leigh,” he’d responded, the expression in his dark, deep-set eyes hinting at a loneliness she comprehended all too well. “It’s not the same thing.”

  “Are you saying you might decide to…stay…around here?”

  “How would you feel about that?”

  She’d been shaken. Shocked. She’d felt her cheeks flame. “It’s not up to me.”

  “It could be.”

  “John—”

  “I know. I know.” He’d held up his hand, obviously anticipating what she was going to say. “It’s been less than two weeks.”

  “But it feels longer.”

  But it feels longer.

  She hadn’t intended to utter those words. Yet, having blurted them out, she’d found she couldn’t deny them or the essential truth they contained. At some inexplicable level, her relationship with John Gulliver transcended time. A connection had been forged—reaffirmed, she would be tempted to say if she believed in such things—the instant their eyes had met.

  “Leigh?” Nonna P. prompted.

  Leigh grabbed a head of lettuce, a basket of cherry tomatoes and a cucumber, her hands only marginally more steady than her pulse. “John’s staying at the inn on the outskirts of town at least until Christmas,” she said, shutting the crisper. Straightening, she closed the refrigerator door and moved over to the sink. “He has a house in north Georgia.”

  “You’d like it better if he had a house around here.”

  Leigh set down the vegetables, acutely conscious of Nonna P.’s gaze on her back. Taking a steadying breath, she turned around and looked at her young son’s beloved baby-sitter.

  “Would it be wrong of me if I did?” she asked simply. It occurred to her that this was the kind of inquiry she would never have dared put to her mother.

  The older woman’s expression was difficult to decipher. Finally she observed, “You’ve been alone for a long time.”

  Leigh thought of the look she’d seen in John’s eyes when he’d pointed out that there was a difference between occupying a house and living in it. She also recalled the rush of compassion she’d felt when she’d realized how terribly isolated Dee Bleeker had been as she’d struggled to begin her life anew. Finally, she remembered the sense of peace that had settled over her the first time she’d held her baby son.

  “I’ve had Andy,” she answered.

  Nonna P. smiled briefly, the curving of her wide mouth illuminating her plain features with a curious kind of beauty. Then the smile faded away, taking the transitory loveliness with it. Donatella Pietra suddenly looked older than her fifty-plus years, and unbearably sad. />
  “Sometimes children aren’t enough,” she said.

  The emotion in the other woman’s voice and face caught Leigh off guard. While Nonna P. had spoken of having been married and widowed, she’d never mentioned having had a child.

  “Nonna—” she began, genuinely concerned.

  At that point, the front doorbell rang.

  “You’re a good woman, Leigh,” Donatella Pietra said. “And everything I see and hear tells me this John Gulliver is a good man. Maybe more. So go answer the door. I’ll put another pinch of oregano in the sauce and leave by the back way.”

  “One sip.”

  “Well…”

  “Try it. You might like it.”

  Leigh smiled, uncertain whether she was continuing to refuse the Armagnac her dinner guest was offering because she genuinely didn’t want it or because she feared agreeing to drink would put an end to a very enjoyable coaxing process.

  John had handed her the brandy—plus two bottles of imported wine and a lush bouquet of cream-colored roses—when he’d arrived. She’d experienced a queer flash of déjà vu when she’d noticed the label on the liqueur. It had taken her a moment to realize that she’d seen the same label on a bottle in Nicholas Marchand’s apartment, nearly six years ago.

  “Should I hold my nose?” she teased, remembering Andy’s story about his initial reluctance to taste John’s crispy potato pancake.

  “Hold your—” her companion began, then stopped as he obviously realized what had prompted the joking query. After a moment he smiled and said, “No, sweetheart. You shouldn’t hold your nose. You’ll miss the bouquet if you do.”

  The endearment sent a quiver streaking through a nervous system that had been vibrating with a volatile mix of anxiety and expectation all evening. Leigh shifted her position on the sofa, her thigh brushing against John’s. She exhaled on a shaky breath, her body suffusing with a sudden rush of warmth.

  “All right,” she managed after a moment or two. “One sip.”

  The appearance of a faint flush along the angles of John’s cheekbones made it obvious that he, too, had been affected by the accidental contact. “One sip,” he repeated huskily, bringing the snifter to her mouth and easing it between her lips.

  She took a small, cautious drink. Her taste buds tingled at the Armagnac’s potency. Her throat actually burned for an instant. But then a curious transmutation occurred and she found herself savoring the headily complex flavor that lingered on her tongue.

  “Better than smooshed-up Tater Tots?” The query was silken.

  “Smooshed-up—?” She blinked, placing the absurd reference. “Oh. Oh, yes. Definitely better than smooshed-up Tater Tots. It…mmm…glows in your mouth, doesn’t it?”

  John chuckled deep in his chest. Rotating the snifter, he took a long, slow drink of the brandy. A split second later Leigh realized that by turning the glass as he had, he’d ended up placing his lips on exactly the same spot from which she’d imbibed a few moments before. She also realized that John knew she’d realized….

  “Glows in your mouth, hmm?” he echoed, the gold flecks in his dark eyes turning molten with possibilities.

  “I don’t drink very much,” she felt compelled to say.

  “So I noticed.” John set the snifter aside with great care. “Only one glass of wine with dinner.”

  “It was very good, though.”

  “Thanks.” Turning slightly, he reached forward and ran a caressing fingertip down the curve of her cheek. “I picked it out myself.”

  “D-did you?” A tremor ran through her. She struggled against an urge to let her eyelids flutter closed. “I…I didn’t want you to think I didn’t d-drink because I didn’t…like it.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Leigh swallowed, registering that her right hand had apparently lifted of its own volition and settled against the front of the flannel shirt John was wearing. She could feel the heat of his skin through the soft, subtle-plaid fabric. “I don’t have much, uh, tolerance for…alcohol.”

  “You wanted to keep a clear head this evening?”

  Her fingers flexed involuntarily at the question. The ripple and release of the tautly muscled chest beneath the shirt offered immediate testimony to the power her touch had over him. A clear head? she thought dizzily. How could she keep a clear head in the presence of a man whose scent affected her like a narcotic?

  “Something…like that,” she eventually agreed.

  John’s hand drifted down to stroke the side of her throat, then eased back through the curtain of her hair and cupped the nape of her neck. His fingertips caressed the nerve-rich nob at the top of her spine, sending a sweet flurry of sensation cascading though her. “So you could be sure of what you’re doing.”

  Another flash of déjà vu.

  Another disorienting surge of the been-here-before familiarity that had tantalized and tormented her by turns for nearly two weeks.

  “Yes,” she whispered, gazing deeply into a pair of eyes that seemed capable of penetrating to the center of her soul. “Y-yes…”

  Did John kiss her then or did she kiss him? Leigh wondered about this much, much later. But in the breathlessly beguiling moment when their mouths met, the issue of who’d initiated and who’d acquiesced became irrelevant.

  Lips mated.

  Breaths merged.

  Tongues intertwined, supple and sinuous as lovers.

  “Yes,” she murmured, tasting the primal flavor of male desire through the sophisticated tang of the Armagnac. An alluring warmth kindled deep within her, radiating outward with a promise of unalloyed bliss. “Oh…yes.”

  The kiss grew hotter. Hungrier. The fingers of the hand that had caressed the back of her neck splayed suddenly, then spasmed in the tumble of her hair. Leigh angled her face, offering a more intimate access to her mouth.

  She wanted.

  Oh, Lord, she wanted.

  And she wasn’t afraid. At least, not yet.

  John lifted her. Shifted her. Settled her firmly on his lap. She moved once, conscious of the bold rise of his arousal. He groaned harshly, his free hand closing hard on her hip.

  “Don’t…” he implored, raising his mouth from hers for an anguished half-second.

  Except for the frantic beating of her heart, she went still. His lips came down again, more insistent than before. She opened to him, welcoming the suggestive intrusion of his tongue once again. This time the flavor she tasted was partly her own.

  The kiss went on. And on. Endlessly enticing. Erotically evocative. John ate at the acutely sensitized flesh of her lower lip, the nipping pressure of his teeth exquisitely calibrated. She shuddered, rocked by the most powerful sense of need she’d ever known.

  And still, she felt no fear.

  Yes, Leigh thought as John’s tongue captured hers again and drew it into his mouth. She closed her eyes, yielding up hei sweetness with a tremulous sigh of pleasure. Oh, yes. Oh please…

  Giving. Taking.

  Offering. Receiving.

  And wanting. Wanting so much she almost hurt with it.

  Leigh’s eyes flew open as she felt John surge to his feet, lifting her in his arms and cradling her to his hard chest as he rose.

  “Wh-wha—?” she stammered, her sensation-jumbled brain spinning.

  “Not here,” he said, his voice thick with passion, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps. “Upstairs. In your bed.”

  John took the steps to the second floor two—maybe three-at a time. Leigh clung to him, her fingers kneading his strong shoulders through the fabric of his shirt. He moved down the hallway to her room at the same precipitous pace, shoving the partially closed door open with one foot and striding into the pale, pristine room that had been both sanctuary and prison to her.

  He crossed to her quilt-covered bed and laid her down with infinite care. Then he reached over and flicked on the bedside lamp. She blinked, an instinctive protest rising to her lips. John silenced her before she could utter it by brushing a ge
ntle fingertip against her quivering mouth.

  “Just one light, sweetheart,” he told her huskily, his dark gaze moving over her in a way that both soothed and stirred. “I need to see you.”

  She swallowed hard, staring up into his compellingly imperfect face. Slowly, she lifted her hand and traced the outline of the scar on his temple. She regretted its existence not because of how it looked, but because of the suffering it implied.

  Andy had said he’d wept because of the pain.

  “I need to see you, too,” she said in a hushed voice, brushing back a lock of his thick, silver-threaded hair.

  With kisses and caresses, John Gulliver divested Leigh McKay of every stitch of clothing she had on. There was nothing hurried about the procedure. Indeed, her lover-to-be seemed inclined to loiter over each newly revealed inch of skin.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered, brushing the cups of her bra away from her breasts. Her dusky rose nipples were already crinkled into aching peaks. John fondled them gently. Almost reverently. She closed her eyes for a moment, stunned by the potency of what he was making her feel. “So…beautiful.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered again as he slid down her panties, baring her completely. He stroked her belly, his palm warm and firm against her skin. Then, slowly, he moved his hand downward and slipped it between her thighs.

  He seemed to know exactly where and how to touch. Leigh arched up as his passion-slickened fingers slid over the petaled secrets of her femininity. An inarticulate cry of response erupted from her throat as pleasure detonated through her intensely primed senses. She’d never…ever…felt anything so glorious.

  John stood, undoing his flannel shirt with more speed than finesse and casting it aside in a single, seamless movement. He kicked off his shoes. Reaching into his left pants pocket, he pulled out his wallet. Flipping it open, he extracted several foilwrapped packets. He placed them and the wallet on the nightstand. Then he unbuckled his belt and shucked off his trousers.

  It was at this point that the woman who’d once been Suzanne Whitney experienced a flash of panic. She levered herself up into a sitting position as atavistic instincts coalesced with memories she’d done her best to suppress for nearly five and a half years. For a few shattered seconds, the identity of the man who seemed to be looming over her didn’t matter. All she saw was the blatant, even brutal, thrust of his arousal. All she sensed was the threat inherent in his superior size and strength.