She played with her half-empty cup. She couldn’t understand her reluctance to share her silly wish with Dawn. God knows, they’d shared everything else in their lives. She hesitated another few seconds before yielding her secret.
“Okay, here’s the deal. Remember when the three of us tossed coins in the Trevi Fountain that first time?”
“Of course I do. But you, Miss Priss and Boots, wouldn’t make a wish. You insisted that just throwing in a coin satisfied tradition and we’d all return to Rome someday.”
“Actually, I did make a wish.”
“Which,” Dawn guessed instantly, “involved Joe Russo.”
“How could it? We didn’t meet him until a week later, in Venice.”
“Okay, okay. If you didn’t wish for steamy, totally deviant sex with Mr. Macho out there, what was it? Please tell me it was something equally kinky.”
“Since when are any of us into kink?”
When Dawn wagged her brows, Callie gave a rueful laugh. “All right. The wish was a little...fanciful.”
“Are we talking satin sheets fanciful? Or whipped cream and melted chocolate? Or ice cubes and...”
“Dawn!”
“Ha! Do not go all prune-faced and prudish on me, missy. Just remember who advised Kate on the best brand of vibrator to buy when she and Travis separated.”
“It was the same brand you recommend to me.”
“Please stop annoying me with all these pesky details. Just tell me. What did you wish for?”
“Not what. Who. Louis Jourdan.”
Dawn understood the reference instantly. She should, since she and Callie and Kate had drooled over the stunningly handsome ’50s and ’60s–era star during several all-night movie marathons as teens.
“God,” Dawn breathed. “Do you remember him in Gigi? So suave and sophisticated and hot. The man made me want to jump straight from twelve to twenty.”
“I think he was better in Three Coins in the Fountain,” Callie mused.
She remembered the first time they’d watched the old classic. So many years ago. So many dreams ago.
“Did you ever notice how much Joe looks like him?”
That was met with a moment of startled silence.
“Now that you mention it,” her friend said, recovering, “I can see the resemblance. Aside from that fact that Joe’s eyes are gray, not brown, and he’s probably four inches taller and considerably more muscled than our boy Louis, they’re dead ringers.”
“All right, I may be projecting a bit.”
“Ya think? But, hey. Project away, girl. It’s so romantic.”
And so out of character. Despite the incident with Pimple Face Hendricks, Callie had always been the sensible, bookish one of the three. More into reading than boys in junior high. An honor student in high school. On scholarships all through college and her master’s program.
Majoring in psychology had given her great insight into the vagaries of human behavior. Unfortunately, it had also reinforced her natural tendency to stand off to the side and observe. Six years at the child advocate’s office, where she was sworn to protect her young clients’ rights and privacy, had only added to her natural reticence. The often heartbreaking cases she’d worked had taught her to wall off her own emotions. Except, of course, from Kate and Dawn.
And now Joe.
He’d pierced her shell in Italy when he’d convinced her to tell him about the emails. He’d taken another whack at it with that kiss before he’d zipped down to Australia. The one he’d laid on her just a few moments ago had pretty well completed the conquest. Watching him now, coaching Tommy in the fine art of boomeranging, Callie could almost feel her outer barriers trembling like the fabled walls of Jericho.
“Well,” Dawn commented in an obvious effort to validate Callie’s wish at the fountain, “Joe certainly has what it takes to star in a few movies. They’d probably be more shoot-’em-up action flicks than romances, though.” She hesitated a few moments. “It doesn’t bother you, what he does?”
“It might, if I could pry more than the most superficial details about his clients out of him.”
“Brian says Joe and his people were prepared to take a bullet for Carlo in Italy. Evidently the prince led a special ops raid that rescued some UN workers in Afghanistan. Or maybe it was Africa. Anyway, the group’s leader put a bounty on Carlo’s head. That’s why he required beefed-up security when we first met him in Italy.”
“Kate told me a little about that raid. Travis took part in it, too.”
Dawn nodded. “I know I don’t have to remind you that the constant fear and uncertainty, the never knowing where Travis was or how long he’d be gone or who was shooting at him, almost broke up Kate’s marriage.”
“No, you don’t have to remind me.”
Callie had been right there. She and Dawn both. Lending support and shoulders to cry on when Kate made the agonizing decision to end her marriage to the man she’d loved since high school. They’d been there, too, when Travis refused to let her go, insisting nothing else mattered if he didn’t have her.
“Joe and I are nowhere near that stage,” Callie said. “Or any stage, really.”
“Tell that to your action hero.” Dawn tilted her head in the direction of the window. “He looks like he has more than a kiss in mind.”
Callie followed her nod and caught Joe’s glance through the wide windows. He and Tommy and the pooch had finished and were heading in. When he jerked his chin in the direction of the gatehouse, she slid off the counter stool with more haste than grace.
“Kate said she’ll leave work early,” Callie reminded Dawn. “She and Travis should be here by six or six thirty.”
“Brian’s leaving early, too.”
“Buzz me when they get here.”
“You sure you want to be disturbed?”
Ignoring her friend’s salacious grin, Callie met the three males at the back door. The pup danced around her while she dutifully praised Tommy’s skills. Then Dawn lured her two boys into the main house with an offer of hot chocolate and whipped cream.
“Lots of whipped cream,” she said with a wicked glance in Callie’s direction.
Joe caught the less than subtle byplay. “Something going on I should know about?”
“Nothing important,” she said as she led the way along the covered flagstone path to the gatehouse. Escaping the chill December air, she ushered him inside. “Here, let me take your coat.”
She hung it beside hers on an empty hook. The well-worn bomber jacket carried his scent, she thought as she took a discreet sniff. Sharp and clean and leathery. It felt like him, too. Tough and resilient.
Oh, Lord! She had it worse than she thought if she was standing here smelling his jacket. Hoping to heck he hadn’t witnessed the sniff test, she turned. Thankfully, he was looking around with interest.
“This is nice.”
It was. Bright and cheerful, with floral chintzes and bay windows that invited the outside in. The gatehouse had provided Callie a cozy safe haven for almost two months now. She hated the idea of leaving but knew she had to pick up the threads of her life again.
The problem was, she had no desire to return to Boston or to her former career. Despite all the courses and training and advice to the contrary, she’d let too much of the heartache experienced by her young, helpless and too often abused clients get to her. Even before the emails, she’d decided to quit. Now all she had to do was figure out what to do with the rest of her life.
She had no idea how much Joe might play in that. If at all. The thought made her uncharacteristically nervous. To cover it, she responded to his comment with a lively patter.
“The Ellises had the whole gatehouse gutted and redone for Tommy’s former nanny, Mrs. Wells. The one who broke her ankle in Venice. I don�
��t think you met her.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Dawn’s totally conflicted over that. She’d never wish anyone harm, but she wouldn’t have met Brian and Tommy otherwise.”
“And I wouldn’t have met you.”
Ohh-kay, Callie thought as he curled a knuckle under her chin. So much for small talk.
He tipped her face to his. “As I was saying before I got dragooned into boomerang duty, it wasn’t just those damned emails keeping me awake these past weeks.”
His voice got lower and huskier with each word. Combined with the brush of his thumb along her jaw, he managed to get every one of her nerves bucking.
“You’re so beautiful.”
The compliment touched a secret place deep inside her. She didn’t lack confidence in herself or her abilities, but she’d spent a lifetime in Kate’s and Dawn’s more flamboyant shadows.
“When did you have your last eye exam?”
“I’m not talking the externals. I’m talking about what’s inside. The quiet self-assurance. The serenity.”
The happy glow faded a bit.
“I haven’t felt all that self-assured or serene in the past few months.”
“You hid it well, even from your best friends.”
“There was so much happening in their lives. I didn’t want to add to it.”
“So you drew on your own inner strength, Callie. I admire that.” His thumb made another pass. “You’re the kind of woman I’ve been looking for. The kind I could come home to.”
She didn’t know why that doused the glow completely, but it did. She pulled back and searched his face. The scar didn’t so much as enter into her thought process as she tried to interpret his expression.
It hit her a second later. Affection. That’s what she was seeing. Admiration tinged with warm, genuine affection. Humiliatingly similar to what she saw on Dawn’s and Brian’s faces when they played with their son’s pup. The fact that Joe’s was spiced with an unmistakable dollop of desire didn’t soothe the swift, lancing hurt. Concealing her dismay, she eased out of his arms.
“Sorry, but I’m not sure I understand. What, exactly, do you mean by ‘come home to’?”
“Well...” He paused, obviously searching for the right words and opted for a demonstration instead. “How about I just show you?”
He reached for her again and drew her closer. When his head lowered, Callie hesitated for just a moment before meeting him halfway. Her lips molded his. Her palms found his shoulders, circled his neck. It wasn’t just affection, she told herself. She could taste his hunger, sense it in the arms that tightened around her waist.
When he widened his stance and positioned her between his thighs, she couldn’t quite stifle a groan. She could feel him against her belly. A minor distraction at first. Then a hard, rampant bulge that shot heat from her midsection to every other part of her. She wanted this man. Ached for him. Would take him any way she could have him.
And when he scooped her into arms, she didn’t hold back before responding to his gruff, “Which way to the bedroom?”
* * *
He undressed her with a skill that might have given Callie pause if she hadn’t been so intent on matching him button for button, tug for tug. Her heart melted when he took time to sheathe himself. If she hadn’t already been a little in love with him, his determination to protect her even in this most intimate act would’ve done the trick. That, and the fact that he drove her to sensual heights she’d never experienced before.
Every stroke, every kiss, every scrape of his late-afternoon bristles on her breasts and belly and thighs pushed her higher. She was panting when he parted her legs. Almost mindless with need when he entered her. Just enough sanity remained for her to take him along on the wild ride.
Her belly tight, she locked her calves around his. Her muscles contracted. Every muscle! She thrust her hips against his again, once more, and gave herself up to the roaring tide of sensation.
When they untangled, she came within a hair of succumbing to his offer of tomorrow and forever. Most likely would have, if he hadn’t tucked her against him and stroked her hair. Slowly. Lazily. Again, with the same absent affection Dawn or Brian might stroke their son’s puppy.
She didn’t draw away. Didn’t vocalize the return of her insidious doubts. Instead, she buried them deep as she and Joe took turns in the shower. He’d brought his carryall with him from the airport and changed into jeans and a misty-blue cashmere sweater that softened the steel gray of his eyes.
In deference to both the season and the occasion, Callie dressed up a bit in ballet flats, black tights with just a touch of silvery sparkle and a Christmassy green wool tunic. Twisting her hair up, she caught it with a jeweled butterfly clip she’d picked up on a foray to one of the DC area’s many malls.
She was wearing her usual smile when she and Joe joined Dawn and Kate and their respective spouses to celebrate the end of her harassment.
* * *
Her calm smile stayed in place even when Kate and Dawn dragged her into the kitchen, using the excuse of making coffee for a tête-à-tête. Kate barely waited for the door to swish shut before she pounced.
“Details! The fat, pregnant sow wants details!”
Neither Dawn nor Callie bothered to point out that her tiny pooch barely even qualified as a baby bump.
“Rumor has it you and Joe got all close and cuddly this afternoon,” Kate said. “Then you disappeared for several hours.”
“Rumor being our gossipy friend here?”
“Hey!” Dawn protested. “Since when is any area of our lives off-limits? Seems like I can recall you two demanding every intimate detail when I got engaged the first time.”
“And the second time,” Kate admitted.
“And the third,” Callie conceded.
“There! See? Turnabout’s fair play. So how was it?”
“Pretty amazing, actually.”
“You can do better than that, girl. On a scale of one to ten?”
“Twelve and a half.”
“Way to go, Joe!”
Kate raised both palms and got slaps from the other women. Callie’s was just a fraction slower than Dawn’s, but the other two women picked up on that millisecond instantly.
“What?” Kate asked. “Twelve and a half didn’t ring your bells?”
“They rang. Several times.”
“But?”
She’d shared too many ups and downs with these women to hide her silly, niggling doubt from them. Still, she felt foolish even putting it into words.
“Turns out I want Louis Jourdan, and he wants Lassie.”
Chapter Three
Dawn understood the reference to their earlier conversation, but Kate was totally confused. “Lassie? What’s she got to...? Oh!” Her eyes popped. “Calissa Marie Langston, you sly thing! Just how kinky did you and Joe get this afternoon?”
“Kate! I was speaking metaphorically.”
“Okay, now I’m really lost. How about translating for the verbally challenged? Where does Lassie come into this equation?”
Callie searched for the right words to frame her confused thoughts of a few hours ago. “Joe said I’m the kind of woman he could come home to. Not conquer worlds with. Not stand side by side with to battle the forces of evil.”
“Okay,” Kate said dubiously. “I guess that’s a start.”
“Some start,” Dawn snorted. “I like Joe. What I know of him, anyway. And I love how good he is with Tommy. But he’s not half as smart as I thought if he hasn’t figured out Callie’s the toughest one of the three of us.”
“You and I know that,” Kate agreed. “Travis, too. You gave him the most verbal abuse when he and I split, Dawn-O, but Callie sliced and diced him. The problem is, Joe hasn’t se
en that side of her.”
“True.” Dawn aimed a frown across the counter. “He stepped right into the role of big, strong hero to our helpless heroine. Okay, maybe not helpless,” she amended when her friends opened their mouths on a simultaneous protest, “but you have to admit you haven’t been yourself, Cal. Not since you quit your job.” She cocked her head. “It wasn’t just stress or the emails, was it?”
“No. I was... I don’t know.” She rubbed absently at a spot on the marble counter with a fingertip. “I guess the best way to describe it is feeling restless. As though life was passing me by. I needed a change.”
“You don’t think getting involved with Joe would provide enough of a change?”
“Yes. Of course it would.” With a determined shrug, she shook off her odd mood. “Assuming, that is, he wants to get involved.”
“Yeah, right,” Kate drawled. “As if you can get more involved than twelve and a half.”
“Maybe not,” Callie agreed, laughing. “We’ll see. In the meantime, we’d better put that coffee on and get back to the guys.”
* * *
As much as Callie hated to admit it, Kate and Dawn were right. She had played the helpless heroine. Worse, she’d been more than willing to let Joe step right into the role of the big, strong protector while she hid out here in DC. It was time to take charge of her life again.
But first, she decided as her gaze rested on the man she’d opened her arms and the quiet corners of her heart to, she needed to find out just where Joe thought things between them might go. That could well color her decision on where to live and what new career paths to explore.
She approached the issue in her characteristically straightforward way. Serene and unruffled on the outside and nervous as all hell inside, she invited Joe to the gatehouse after they’d finished their coffee. The door barely closed before he had her backed against it.
“I like your friends,” he muttered, nuzzling her hair. “But they talk too much.”
“It’s...uh...called conversation.”
Oh, for pity’s sake! All the man had to do was blow in her ear and she stumbled over her own tongue.
Callie's Christmas Wish Page 3