Hating Christmas (Holiday Series)

by Carol Rose

  He came up only a step or two behind her.

  “Okay,” she said in an exaggerated voice. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.” Levi positioned his sled in the now-trampled snow at the top of the hill.

  “Are you sure you’re ready?” It was a taunt and she shifted her sled with a boot.

  “Yes,” he said with similar exaggeration. “I’m sure and thank you for making sure.”

  “No problem.” She knelt on the snow in front of her sled. “I wouldn’t want you to be at a disadvantage—even though you don’t give a fair shot to the little guy yourself.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Are we talking about Mac here? Cause I didn’t think the issue was fair play. Seemed more like you thinking you were above the rules.”

  “Just sled down the hill, Harper.”

  Kneeling down on his sled next to her, he said, “No problem, Fitzgerald. See you when you get to the bottom of the hill after I do.”

  “In your dreams.” Placing both gloved hands on the sled—the steering rope clutched in them—as she knelt on the sled, she said, “Ready-set-go!”

  Throwing herself down on the frame, Holly sailed over the crest of the hill and raced down the slope. With the path having been flattened some by the first run, she flew even more quickly over the frozen ground. The wind rushing up in her face as she hurtled toward the house, she remembered the joy of this childhood pleasure.

  Again steering to the left to slow the runners as the ground rose a little under her, she glanced over her shoulder to check on Levi’s descent.

  He’d made it further this time, almost reaching the bottom of the hill before having apparently fallen off his sled.

  Getting to her feet, Holly crunched over to him.

  “Don’t you know how to play fair?” He sat on the snow next to the sled.

  “What’s the problem now,” she asked with an exaggerated sigh.

  He gave her a mock grimace, looking even less like the guy in the perfect tux. “I had an equipment failure. Did you know this sled was the more rickety one? Is that why you gave it to me?”

  “What happened to your sled?” She ignored his questions to take a couple of steps closer to the sled, sitting to one side next to him.

  He looked over. “I don’t know. I was trying to steer the thing the way you showed me and all this snow came up in my face all the sudden.”

  She bent to flip it over, “Looks like one of the runners came off. It must have been loose.”

  Pulling the knit cap back over his short hair, Levi bent to examine the sled. “Well, that explains it. You got the good sled and mine fell apart.”

  Holly laughed. “Yours might have lost a runner, but I don’t think that had anything to do with my winning.”

  “Of course not. And yet, here my sled sits—incapacitated.” His response was smug as he stood and brushed the snow off his jeans.

  “It’s just been in the shed too long.” She straightened to see him standing next to her with a disturbing smile on his face.

  “What?”

  “You wouldn’t want to deprive me of the only fun this silly holiday season has to offer, would you?”

  Following his gaze, Holly looked down at her sled. “Hey, Harper. If you’ve messed up one sled, why would I give you mine to tear up?”

  Levi shook his head mournfully. “You mean you don’t trust me?”

  “No. Not at all,” she returned, laughing a little at his tone.

  “You could go with me. I’d even let you steer.”

  “What?” She glanced at him quickly. “Both of us? No, not a good idea.”

  “Come on,” he cajoled. “Don’t you feel—given your sneaking behavior with my client—that you owe me this one? Or maybe you’re too afraid to go down the hill with me and you’d rather me just go alone on the one working sled?”

  Her answer was a scoffing laugh. “Fat chance. I don’t owe you anything because Mac Toledo has a right to make his own decisions—and you suck at sledding.”

  “All the more reason for you to take me down the hill.” He looked at her with the smirky smile she was coming to recognize.

  “Oh, alright,” she caved in. “But only because we’re both here having to share the crappy holidays—“

  “—that we both hate.” Levi finished for her.

  “Come on,” she started back up the hill, “but here, you have to drag the sled.”

  “Great. Thanks for taking pity on your step-brother—“

  She stopped and looked back at him.

  Stopping, too, Levi exchanged a glance with her. “No. You’re right. That just feels too weird.”

  “You are not my brother, step or otherwise, and we’re breaking up this marriage if it’s the last thing we do.” She started climbing to the top of the snowy slope, ignoring the little niggling voice in her head that reminded her his dad had talked like he really loved her mom.

  “Absolutely we’re breaking this up and,” Levi followed after her, “that’s just one more reason to get our parents to see reality. We’re not siblings of any sort.”

  “Absolutely.”

  At the top of the hill, Holly stopped. “Right here,” she directed him, before sitting at the front of the small sled, “you sit behind me.”

  Squatting down, she glanced over her shoulder at him.

  “There’s not a lot of room.”

  In response to his comment, she made a face. “It was your idea.”

  “And we’ll make it work. Here. You sit in the front with your knees together and I’ll straddle you from the rear.”

  She gave him a deadpan look. “Sounding just like all the other guys I date. Watch yourself.”

  Levi chuckled. “If those are the kind of dates you’re having, you need to broaden your pool…and we should get to know each other better.”

  Perching at the front of the sled, she glanced up. “Don’t get your hopes up. We’re just sliding down the hill.”

  Kneeling down at the back of the small sled, he scooted forward to enfold Holly, balancing himself on the back of the sled. He braced his feet on the curved front runners and tucked her under his chin.

  He smelled good, hugging her tightly against his chest in the crisp afternoon air. They sat hunkered together unmoving, both huddled on the sled until Holly glanced up at him. “You know you have to push us off to get started, right? I can’t get leverage.”

  “Oh, right.”

  She felt him take a deep breath as he unwrapped one arm from around her to reach back and push them off the hilltop. And then he snatched his gloved hand out of the snow, clutching her as they went over the edge and everything was a blur of speed and snow and random bumps.

  “AEEEIIIII!!!!” The sound seemed to burst out of him as they slid over the edge.

  Their combined weight must have made the sled sink deeper into the snow because every little rise rattled them as they hurtled forward.

  Holly started laughing, holding tight to the rope as they pelted down the hill. Never would any of the pricy Hollywood executives have recognized the guy on the back of the sled—clinging to her for dear life—and screaming like a ten year-old. She registered his grip even as gravity pulled them down the slope and she grappled to direct the little sled aiming for the far side of the house, away from the hot tub deck.

  Laughing and shrieking, they flew over the snow.

  They hit one bump that sent them slightly aloft and came down with a crazy rush, only to immediately hit another rise in the snow that sent them spilling to the left, the sled under her fanny tilting over and sending them both flying. In a blur of snow and trees and even a little blue sky, they tumbled until they came to a stop in a snowy depression in the ground, Holly landing right on top of his chest.

  They’d both lost their hats. She only had one glove and he lay flat on his back in the snow with her body sprawled on top of his…and he was still shrieking.

  Holly just lay there on top of him, laughing so hard she could barely ca
tch her breath.

  Between laughs, she managed to get out, “You can stop hollering now.”

  Levi abated his shrieks enough to say over and over, “Ohmygod, ohmygod.”

  Perched there on his chest, she looked down at the most powerful agents in Hollywood and she wanted to kiss him. It made no sense and she was sure she was having an aneurysm or something from the fall, but at that moment, all she could think about was kissing Levi silly, right there on his shrieking mouth. When their snowball fight had led to his impulsive kiss, she’d been able to write it off as a one-time aberration. Unusual events could lead to strange behavior, but kissing him now would be a trend.

  What the hell! She thought too much. Bending to lower her mouth to his, Holly blotted out his shrieks and kissed him for all she was worth. His prayers muffled, he went still beneath her. And then he was kissing her back, tongues and lips and everything. He generally looked good and smelled really good, but he tasted wonderful. She remembered that, from the snowball kiss.

  In the flash of a startled minute, she kissed him for all she was worth, lingering on the texture of his lips…and then the world went crazy around her as Levi flipped her on her back in the snow and took their kiss to another level. Holly grabbed at his snow-wet jacket, straining against him. His mouth tasted so right against hers, breath tangling. He was clearly a man who knew how to kiss. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the snow melted under them. She ripped his jacket open—without any consciousness of how she did it—and pressed herself against his sweatered chest.

  This was so incredible, his mouth against hers.

  In some dim recesses of her brain, the reality of what she was doing ping-ponged around. She was making out with Levi Harper?

  “Wait a minute!” She panted when he lifted to angle another kiss on her mouth.

  “What?” Above her, he was framed by a cloudy blue sky. Looking as flushed and aroused as she felt, his brown eyes were even darker.

  “Wait.” Holly struggled to lift herself to her elbows. “What are we doing?”

  His stormy gaze shifted as he seemed to gather himself. “Yeah. Yeah, right.”

  Straightening, he pulled back and sat down next to her. “So, want to take this upstairs?”

  She could tell by the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth that he was only half-serious. As ridiculous as it was, the suggestion pulled at her senses and she had to get a grip on herself. Holly yanked her jacket around her—again she had no memory of the zippered anorak having been opened—and sat up. “We need to remember why we’re here…and who we are.”

  Levi glanced toward the picture window at the back of the house. “I get that we might be seen from the house as we’re not in the most private spot, but you lost me on the ‘who we are’ part,”

  Struggling to sit up completely, she zipped her jacket and said in a hard voice. “Levi, we don’t even like each other a lot. Sex doesn’t seem like the best option.”

  He pulled his jacket down and leaned toward her to say in a lowered voice, “I don’t know what was happening to you, but it seems like a really great option to me. And I never said I didn’t like you. I actually like you a lot.”

  Holly drew in a long breath, ignoring his last comment. “Unfortunately, sex seemed like a great option to me, too, until I remembered that we’re trying to get our parents to recognize they need to get a divorce and, oh, you happen to resent my having talked to one of your actors.”

  Leaning back against a nearby tree truck, Levi said, “Oh, yeah. That.”

  He slanted her a grin. “I don’t suppose you’d want to try hooking up and see if our parents get all mad, choose sides and divorce over that?”

  Holly had to hide a smile. “No, I don’t suppose that we need to go that far to break them up—

  “I wouldn’t mind. Anything for my dad.”

  “—and that wouldn’t help us resolve our other problem.”

  He cocked a questioning eyebrow and she went on. “You know, the issue of Mac doing my project or the bigger money one?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure.” His gaze brooded on her a moment. “Might have been worth it.”

  “We’ll never know.” She got to her feet, trying to sound as firm as a school teacher, but she sure as hell couldn’t help wondering.

  ***

  “Are you sure you don’t want to help us with the Christmas cookies for the party tomorrow?” Michael stuck his head through the door to the kitchen.

  “No, Dad. I certainly wouldn’t want to wear an apron like that.” Levi used the fireplace poker to rearrange the logs that were burning in the brick enclosure, careful not to send embers onto the rug or over to where Holly sat in a nearby chair.

  His dad looked down at the frilly white “maids day off” apron. “I’ll bet we could find you a more manly one. I’ll ask Audrey.”

  “Don’t bother,” he called out. “Christmas cookies aren’t really my thing.”

  Michael poked his head around the corner again. “If you’re sure. What about you, Holly? We’ll let you decorate them?”

  Her mother’s voice could be heard from the kitchen. “No, we won’t, Michael. These are for the Christmas party and Holly somehow missed the decorating gene.”

  Holly face look solemn as she said. “She’s right, Michael. I’m dangerous with frosting and a spatula.”

  Levi couldn’t help but grin at the image. Sadly, he’d like to see Holly with some frosting and a spatula, but cookies had nothing to do with his picture. He gave the fire a final poke, assuring his father.

  “You guys go ahead and bake away. We’ll just sit here and enjoy the fire.”

  “That’ll be nice. A fire and a Christmas tree. We might have carolers stop by, too,” his dad enthused before disappearing into the kitchen again.

  “I certainly hope not.” Holly’s prayer was fervent.

  “What? You don’t like being sung to?” He sank into the chair on the other size of the fireplace.

  “What the hell are you supposed to do when they’re singing?” she demanded. “What do you look at and do you offer to make them coca or give them a brandy? Is it appropriate to offer them a tip? I just never know.”

  Laughing, he said, “Well, it’s good there aren’t many carolers in L.A. or wherever your filming takes you. Kind of a local, Midwest thing.”

  “True. You have no idea how welcome that is. It’s one of the reasons I live in Southern Cal.”

  “Where do you usually film? Do you try to stay around L.A.?” He knew documentarians worked all over, but some specialized in certain areas.

  She looked at him for a long moment, as if trying to ascertain whether his interest were genuine. “Are you just trying to find out if Mac will be in this area, should he get the nod on the bigger movie project?”

  Levi laughed. Her suspicion was understandable. “No. There are airplanes that can get him quickly from one place to the other—should that scenario develop. I asked about your work because I’m interested.”

  He wouldn’t have admitted it, but Holly and her red hair were occupying more and more of his thoughts.

  “I work all over.” She tucked her legs under her.

  “I think I might have seen your last documentary,” he said. “It was about the foster care system in the states, right?”

  Looking surprised, she nodded. “Yes, I’m shocked you even saw it. Now that project took me all over. Different states handle the foster care system differently, so we filmed in different locations.”

  “I learned a lot. Until I mentioned to one of my friends that I’d seen it, I had no idea he grew up in the foster system. I think he said he ‘aged out’ at eighteen.”

  She frowned at the mug in her hands. “It’s really sad. These kids are raised by foster families—the ones who don’t return to their parents because of drugs or neglect—and when they turn eighteen, they’re on their own. Some foster families are great and they maintain their relationship, supporting the child financially and emotionally, but
not all of them do that.”

  “Didn’t your film say some states give them free college tuition?”

  From the kitchen, his father could be heard laughing and talking with Audrey, the scent of freshly-baked cookies sneaking in to mingle with the wood smoke from the fire.

  Sitting across from him with her auburn curls reflecting the fire light, Holly looked both serious and sweet as she shook her head in response to his question. “Free college tuition doesn’t make up for not having family support. I mean, it’s great and a lot of people wish they were so lucky, but eighteen year-old kids need some loving adult in their lives.”

  Levi couldn’t help the warm feeling that stole into his chest as he sat there with Holly. “You care a lot about them, these—what did you call them in the film—‘lost kids’?”

  Her laugh was rueful. “I think it’s part of making documentaries. The medium is slanted toward getting emotionally invested. After all, we’re telling small, intimate stories.”

  “This is true.” He sat back in his chair, watching her.

  She sat there speaking with passion about her work, the light from the fire gilding her fiery hair and casting warm shadows on her beautiful skin…and something unacceptable stirred in him. More than his sexual interest in her, he had to admit that Holly was both smart and engaging...and wrong for him in every way.

  They had different lives and different agendas. Hell, they couldn’t even agree on the Mac Toledo situation.

  “Documentaries are about telling factual truths,” she was saying. “They aren’t fluffy and don’t have special effects that blow things up—unless that’s the story’s focus. It’s real and some folks don’t want to see films about real things. That’s why I wanted someone with a name to do the voice-over in this one. You know, appear in a few shots and narrate the rest—“

  “I know why you want Mac,” he said abruptly. “Let’s not argue about that. Tell me why you hate Christmas. You must have some good memories. Kids usually love Christmas.”

  Holly looked startled by his suddenly switching the subject, but she answered his question, saying slowly. “Well, most kids don’t have their dads die at Christmas.”