by Alison Kent
“I’ll make coffee. I refuse to waste a second of our night together sleeping.” With that, she scooted out of his arms and tugged at the blanket underneath him. “Come on. You don’t want to sleep, do you?”
“No, Josie. I don’t want to sleep.” Not until he was assured he wouldn’t get the boot in the morning. Grabbing the blanket, he rolled off the bed. “I’m all yours.”
For as long as she’d have him.
He’d no sooner wrapped the blanket around her than she took off toward the door, leaving him standing on legs still obscenely weak from lovemaking.
“Grab the pillows. I’ll get more blankets,” she shot back over her shoulder before disappearing into the hall.
He couldn’t decide how to interpret her eagerness. On one level he was flattered. By her own admission, she didn’t want to waste a second, but there was something else. Josie was almost too determined, and he wanted to interpret that to mean she didn’t want to think about tomorrow.
Because she knew he’d disappoint her?
She had every right to think he would. He’d done nothing in the past ten years to make her, or anyone from his past for that matter, think he could have a change of heart.
He hadn’t let anyone know he still had a heart.
Max had no easy answers, but he could hope. And use every means he could think of to get her to talk to him.
Unfortunately, Josie didn’t want to talk.
By the time he joined her in the living room, she’d fashioned them a comfortable nest beneath the Christmas tree. He dropped the pillows in the middle then talked her out of coffee in favor of hot cocoa like his grandmother used to make them long ago.
He only had a few tricks up his sleeve right now, and their shared past topped the list. Sex was a close second.
He’d use both to get what he wanted.
Josie.
When he returned from the kitchen with two steaming mugs, she accepted hers with a smile. “You remembered I like extra marshmallows.”
“Hard to forget when you used to hog the entire bag.”
“Hog?” she demanded, but he could see the smile twitching around her mouth that he’d pleased her by remembering, which was another step in the right direction as far as he was concerned. “I never hogged the marshmallows.”
“You made me look generous with my ‘love note’ sugar cookies.”
“I don’t think so.”
“A matter of opinion.”
“A matter of memory, and a faulty one at that.”
He set his mug on the nearby coffee table and sank to the floor beside her, enjoying the way she looked breathless and lovely with the blanket tucked under her arms, her shoulders bare in the twinkling lights.
She’d replaced the music with another CD of Christmas carols, and he watched her rummage under the tree while a version of “O Holy Night” played softly in the background. The gift was small and neatly wrapped with foil paper and a bright bow, and he felt that long-forgotten zip of pleasure again when she handed him the present.
“Merry Christmas, Max.”
She’d already gifted him with so much more than she could possibly know, but now wasn’t the time to share that. So he just accepted the gift and removed the wrapping.
Scooting onto her knees, she watched him, scarcely containing her excitement, and he stared down into the box to find a gold ornament in the shape of a star.
The photograph in the middle showed Josie, Lucas and their parents along with Max and his grandmother in front of a twenty-foot tall Christmas tree that he recognized as Court du Chaud’s own. That tree still stood in the courtyard and had for as far back as Max could remember. It was court tradition.
Each weekend after Thanksgiving, the residents would erect and decorate the tree. The men climbed up on the ladders to string lights. The women provided a feast of holiday goodies and supervised what always turned into a weekend-long party. They’d repeat the whole process again after the New Year to take the tree down.
He recognized the year, too—the Christmas before he and Lucas had gone off to college. They’d been applying to colleges and caught up in the full swing of being seniors raring to graduate, planning for the future. They’d all been one big happy family then—it hadn’t been until a few years later that he and Lucas had run into trouble and all their lives had changed.
He stared down at his grandmother’s image. She’d been old for as long as he could remember, but while packing up the house, he’d come across photos of her in her youth. He’d barely recognized the beautiful woman she’d once been, a very striking stranger who’d lived and loved and given so many years to him.
Josie’s parents looked the same as they always had, while he and Lucas looked carefree and full of themselves. Max couldn’t help feeling regret for the closeness they’d lost. But he’d talked to Lucas and started the ball rolling on working his way back toward the people he’d cared about. Another start.
Then there was Josie…He stared into her young face, so familiar even with the wild hair and glinting braces.
Despite the events of the past few weeks, he was more familiar with this young face than the gorgeous woman who stared expectantly at him through the same green eyes. This woman had captivated him when he’d least expected to be captivated, when he hadn’t realized how much he needed to let himself feel again.
“A Christmas keepsake from a happy time.” He understood what she wanted to do here. The gesture was typical Josie, and her caring hadn’t changed as she’d grown. “You don’t want me to leave again and forget.”
She gave a casual shrug, and he knew she had no idea that he would never be able to forget what he’d found with her, whether she gifted him with a keepsake or not.
He wanted past, present and future.
“I just want you to know that you always have people who love you, Max. Even Lucas. He’s another one who’s drowning himself with work.” She gave a wry laugh. “I don’t know what happened between you all those years ago, and it’s not important anymore. I just know that whenever your name comes up, whenever we come across a picture of you together, Lucas is sad. He doesn’t have to say anything. I see it, and it breaks my heart.”
He saw his opportunity to come clean about the past, but Josie cut him off when she pressed a kiss to his mouth and whispered against his lips. “Maybe if you have an ornament to remind you, you’ll send me a Christmas card so I won’t have to read the newspaper to find out how you’re doing. I don’t have Nana anymore to fill in the blanks.”
Her words shamed him in ways he hadn’t known he could be shamed. She thought he could make love to her and then walk away. What hurt most was that until his return to Court du Chaud, until she’d seduced him across the alley, she’d have been right. He’d traveled so far from everything she considered important. He had forgotten.
But Josie was helping him remember.
“Now it’s your turn.” Hanging the ornament on the tree, he pulled out one of the gifts he’d brought for her.
She made short work of the gift-wrapped box, and he found her enthusiasm charming as she lifted out the stack of yellowed love letters bound in gold ribbon. “What are these, Max?”
“Real love notes. I was reading them the first night I saw you across the alley.”
“Nana’s?”
He nodded.
“She told me so much about falling in love with your grandfather. They sounded like quite a pair. I was always sorry that I never knew them together.”
“Me, too.”
Her smile grew wistful. “Are you sure you want me to have these?”
“Yes, and my grandmother would want you to have them, too. She loved you. Even though I didn’t visit often enough, I was in constant contact with her. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to bring someone in to help her, a companion with some medical training, someone who’d keep an eye on her and do all the things she couldn’t. I didn’t like her living alone.”
“I’m sure N
ana would have no part of that.”
“You’re not kidding. She told me if I sent anyone, she simply wouldn’t let them in. She had you right next door, and that was all she wanted.” Slipping his hand over hers, he threaded their fingers together. “Thank you for caring so much and for being here for her when I wasn’t.”
Josie lifted her gaze to his, and those beautiful green eyes glistened with tears. “She always knew how much you loved her, Max. Don’t ever question that.”
Lifting her hand, he brushed his mouth across her knuckles, grateful for the reassurance he didn’t deserve. “I wish she knew that I’ve been rethinking so many of my choices.”
“Have you?”
“I’ve realized a lot since coming home, about where my life has been heading and where I’d like it to go.”
“I’m sure she knows. And she’d be happy.” A tear rolled down her cheek, and he thumbed it away, couldn’t resist pulling her into his arms.
She melted against him, and he held her close, feeling connected by grief for the woman who’d been such an important part of their lives.
When Josie lifted her mouth to his, the taste of tears in her kiss, Max unwrapped the blanket she wore, exposing her creamy skin beneath the jeweled Christmas lights. He touched her almost reverently, reassured her in the only way he could—through the magic they made in each other’s arms.
7
THE BLARE OF THE telephone jarred Josie from sleep, and she opened her eyes and looked around, drowsy and disoriented. She lay tangled around Max on the floor in the living room, his knee buried snugly between hers, his arm possessively around her waist. The light seeping through the plantation shutters revealed their night together had finally ended.
They must have fallen asleep after making love, but Josie didn’t get a chance to feel disappointed for the wasted dawn when the phone rang again. Max stirred sleepily beside her, tried to pull her closer, but she slipped away, scooting across the floor to lift the receiver.
Grabbing a throw from the couch, she wrapped it around her and glanced at the display. “Merry Christmas, Lucas.”
“Merry Christmas, sunshine. You should be here with us. As usual Mom made enough cranberry pancakes to feed the block, and she’s expecting me to eat yours and mine.”
Josie laughed. Cranberry pancakes were a tradition with the Russells, just as celebrating Christmas together. They rotated between her home in New Orleans, her parents’ in Florida and Lucas’s on the West Coast. She’d intended to head to her parents this year, too, but had made up a last-minute excuse to spend the holiday with Max.
“I wish I was there, but I just couldn’t get away.” Okay, a little white lie. When she eyed the man stretching contentedly on the floor, the blanket falling aside to reveal his toned thighs and tight belly and the yummy terrain in between, she hadn’t wanted to get away. “You know how it is sometimes.”
There was a beat of silence on the other end and then, “Oh, I do. I really do.”
There was something in his voice…something that sounded suspiciously smug. But Josie didn’t get a chance to dwell on what her brother might be lording over her because Max chose that moment to roll toward her in a breathtaking display of shifting muscle, tanned skin and dangling parts.
Pressing her finger to his lips, she gestured him to stay quiet. About the last thing she needed right now was Lucas hearing a man’s voice, and not just any man, but this man.
“Did my gifts arrive?” She tried to sound casual as he twirled his tongue around her finger before sucking it inside his mouth suggestively.
He shot her a purely roguish grin, and her whole body melted on a wave of awareness that made her glad she was sitting. Amazing how he could affect her when she still felt achy and satisfied from all their sex last night.
“I’m sorry, Lucas. What did you just say?”
“I said your gifts arrived. Is everything all right? You sound distracted.”
“No, no, everything’s fine. So did you like the computer game?”
“Can’t wait to play it, but I want to know where you found a computer game about Captain Gabriel Dampier and his pirates. From a local company? I didn’t recognize the name.”
And Lucas would know. As the owner of his own software empire that wrote programs for law enforcement agencies all over the country, he had a bead on the industry. “Actually, Thibault Enterprises is a one-man operation. John Thibault is a computer geek I know from school. I had him write the program.”
Lucas laughed. “Only you, sunshine. I suppose you wanted to remind me that I owe you a Mardi Gras visit this year.”
“Of course. I’m Krewe du Chaud’s president, and I’ve got everyone I know on the float committee. We’re building the captain’s ship. Wait until you see it. It’s absolutely brilliant.”
“Wouldn’t miss it. Now Mom’s chomping at the bit to talk to you, so before I pass you off, let me talk to Max.”
Josie blinked. “Wh-what?”
“Max,” Lucas repeated. “There’s something I need to tell him before Mom gets you on the line. I’ll never get a chance then. He is there, isn’t he?”
“How did you know?”
There was a beat of silence on the other end. “He didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what? You’ve talked to him?” She stared at Max, who gazed back unrepentant.
Josie couldn’t decide whether to hand him the phone or hit him with it. Surely he wouldn’t have told Lucas about their fantasy night?
“Put him on the line. I want to give him a Christmas present. You can call Mom and Dad back later.”
She covered the receiver. “Did Lucas tell you where I keep my spare key?”
Max nodded and, scowling, she handed him the phone, smelling a big fat setup that reminded her of days long gone by. Or so she’d thought.
Curling up against the sofa, she tried to make sense of the one-sided conversation.
“I plan to tell her,” he said. “But I wanted to give her a Christmas gift first. You called before we got around to it.”
Josie watched as Max cocked his head to the side, listening to Lucas on the other end before he said, “Okay. Tell me.”
Whatever Lucas said sent a play of emotions across Max’s face, and she was forced to sit there watching, burning with curiosity while Max held the phone in a white-knuckled grip.
“No, I had no clue,” he finally said. “I’m sorry you thought I did. But, well, at least everything makes sense now.”
What was everything? Josie wanted to ask, especially when he lifted his gaze to hers. The transformation was amazing. In a heartbeat the tension on his face melted into a smile.
A very satisfied smile.
“Apology accepted. How long did you say again?” he spoke into the receiver. “That long?” He gave a laugh. “Call it the oblivion of youth, but I was way too self-absorbed to notice. And, yes, sometimes things do change.”
Josie turned away and blinked hard against the tears threatening to fall. Listening to him talking with Lucas again was like an unexpected Christmas gift. While she didn’t know what Max had told Lucas about them, she considered anything that brought these two together a good thing.
Max finally ended the call, and she felt his hand on her shoulder, felt him squeeze gently.
“You okay?” he asked.
She turned toward him, suddenly back in control. How could she not be with Max and Lucas up to their old tricks again, ganging up on her? Josie wasn’t anyone’s pesky kid sister anymore, and Max would do well to recognize it.
“I’m fine,” she said. “But I want some answers. What’s going on? What do you want to tell me, and when did you talk to Lucas? You didn’t say anything about what’s going on between us, did you?”
Max knelt before her, took her hands in his. “Deep breath, and I’ll explain.”
“Just tell me.”
“I called Lucas right after you accepted my invitation for Christmas Eve and, no, I didn’t tell him anything abo
ut us except that we wanted to resume our friendship.”
“I thought we agreed to keep the past and the family out of us.”
“You came up with that rule when I got here last night. I didn’t agree to anything. I couldn’t because I’d already talked to Lucas.”
“You didn’t mention that.”
He smiled. “Would have ruined the surprise.”
“What surprise?” She scowled harder. “Please explain what’s happening here because I don’t understand what you’re doing.”
He squeezed her hands a little tighter. “I’m not interested in one night with you, Josie. We’ve found something special and, if you’re interested, I’d like to see where it leads.”
“But…” Her voice trailed off as full impact of that statement hit. “See where what leads? You live in New York and I live here.”
“I own the company. I make home base wherever I want. And being home again has made me look at all the reasons I’ve stayed away. They don’t seem like very good reasons anymore.”
“Are these some of the decisions you mentioned last night? Are you thinking of relocating?”
He nodded.
She could only stare at him, not at all sure what to make of this turn of events. She hadn’t considered more than a night together, hadn’t dared to go there.
“What did Lucas want you to tell me?” she asked, stalling, needing time to sort through this crazy feeling suddenly ballooning inside, making it hard to draw a decent breath.
“The reason we fought.”
“Now? After all these years?”
“You need to know. I did something that I thought was a good thing, but Lucas didn’t agree. Now I understand why.”
Lifting the chain around her neck, he fingered the silver angel with a strange smile.
There was something so wistful about his expression, something so wry and amused…then it hit her. “You were my secret Santa.”
He nodded, meeting her gaze with a wealth of emotion, and she vividly remembered that Christmas. A hallmark year for memories she’d rather forget.