I'll Be Home for Christmas

by Dawn Stewardson

  Reaching up, she trailed her fingers slowly along his jaw, rough with stubble...then across his lips, so full and sensuous that just touching them started her fantasies simmering. Had it been only a day ago that he’d held her in his arms and kissed her? It seemed as if the memory of his kisses had been lingering in her mind for a long, long time.

  Finally, he gently brushed his fingers across her lips. His touch sent a hot little rush through her, and she rested her hand on his chest.

  “You fell asleep with your clothes on,” she murmured, smoothing a path across his sweater.

  He trapped her hand with his, then just sat looking at her.

  She smiled at him once more, realizing these were the first smiles that had felt real since Robbie had disappeared.

  “They get crumpled,” she finally said when he didn’t seem to be catching her drift. “Your clothes...when you sleep in them they get crumpled. So you should take them off.”

  “I should, eh?” He gave her a grin, but didn’t move.

  “Definitely.”

  “You sure, Ali?” he said quietly, his grin fading. “You’ve been in pretty rough shape, so you’re sure you’d feel okay about that?”

  “I’m sure I’d feel wonderful about it,” she murmured, leaning closer to kiss him.

  Chapter Twelve

  The kiss was hot and hungry, igniting a fire deep inside her. Not a simmering fantasy fire, but a molten sexual reality that turned her liquid with desire.

  “Oh, God,” Logan murmured at last. “I’ve thought about this for so long, Ali. I’ve wanted you so badly that I had to pretend I didn’t really care at all, just to keep hold of my sanity around you.”

  “You, too?” she whispered.

  That made him laugh out loud. Then, tugging his sweater off, he stood and quickly removed the rest of his clothes.

  He turned and gazed at her, and she drank in his gorgeous nakedness like a woman dying of thirst. Which she was, really, because it had been so long.

  Far too long. Yet until now, until Logan, she hadn’t realized that—hadn’t felt any desire. But he made her feel as if she wouldn’t be complete until they’d made love. He was all raw, real male, with hard muscles begging to be touched and hard arousal begging to be taken inside her.

  “What about this?” He leaned forward and rested his fingers against her throat, just below the top of her nightshirt. Then he slid them slowly along its neckline, the backs of his fingers brushing her skin. It burned beneath his touch, and a fresh rush of fire raced through her veins.

  “It would be in the way,” she murmured, raising her arms to let him pull the shirt over her head.

  When he sank back onto the bed she wrapped her arms around his neck, already wanting him so desperately she ached.

  He pulled her down beside him, cradling her face between his hands and covering her mouth greedily with his. He kissed her lips, her eyes, her throat—found the pulse just above her collarbone and started it racing with his tongue.

  She tangled her fingers in his hair, then ran her hands down his back, loving the feel of his body.

  Moaning when his fingers moved lightly to her breasts, she pressed herself against him as he began to caress her nipples. His body, touching hers, stoked the fire within her, making it hotter yet, while his clever mouth and hands made the flames dance.

  “Oh, Logan,” she murmured, “hurry, I can’t wait.”

  “Sure you can,” he whispered, his mouth so close to her breast that she could feel the warmth of his breath. It sent a ripple of unadulterated need through her.

  “After all this time, you can wait a little longer, Ali.”

  But when his mouth closed over her nipple and he began to tease it with his tongue, she couldn’t wait another second. Stronger ripples surged through her, coming so quickly, one after another, that they made her moan and whimper and cry his name. Fire sparked everywhere within her, her heartbeat was thunder in her ears, breathing became all but impossible.

  Then, just when she knew she was about to die, a final wave of heat rushed through her, leaving shimmering relief in its wake. She couldn’t move, could only gasp for breath, could only whisper unintelligible murmurs of love. And then he moved his hand lower and began to stoke the fire again, bringing her to the edge of madness with his touch.

  “Logan,” she whispered desperately. “Logan, please.”

  At last he covered her with his body and buried himself in her. She locked her legs around him and clung to him, each deep thrust sending her to the brink, each stroke back leaving her weak and senseless.

  Her body arched against his, seeking release again. And suddenly his control was gone, taking the shreds that remained of hers with it.

  She was lost in a blinding explosion of dark heat that carried them both over the edge—into an electric rush of free-fall. Then, as their fall gradually slowed, as the shudders within them began to still, Logan sagged against her.

  She drank in his weight, his earthy male scent, the ragged sound of his breathing. Their bodies were slick with love, and the scent of it hung in the air around them. The scent of love. She was in love with Logan Reed. The realization had just kind of snuck up on her over the past few days. But now that it had, simply thinking about it made her smile.

  He curled onto his side, pulling her so close her breasts were pressed against his chest. She rested her head in the pillow of his shoulder and lay dreamily in his arms. “Why did we wait so long?” she finally whispered.

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “Because I didn’t think you wanted me. Because I was pretending I didn’t want you. Because I kept refusing to admit you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”

  “I’m not,” she said, delighted that he thought she was.

  He propped himself up on his elbow and gazed at her in the dim light of the bedside lamp. “Let’s see...gorgeous coppery gold hair.”

  Pausing, he brushed a few strands of it gently back from her face. “Strawberry blond...that’s what it’s called, right? Plus big brown eyes, long lashes and skin like silk.” He ran his fingers down her nakedness, making her tremble. “Not to even mention those sexy bunny slippers you wear. And a mouth...”

  He leaned closer and gave her a deep, drugging kiss. Impossible as it seemed, that started a new throbbing of need within her.

  “Nah,” he whispered, snuggling back down beside her. “Nothing beautiful about you at all. Nothing a man would ever even think about falling in love with.”

  “Not a man like you, at least,” she murmured, trying her hardest to sound as if she was teasing, not fishing.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, Ali. You aren’t counting on it, are you?”

  She tangled her fingers in his chest hair, not wanting to meet his gaze because he’d be certain to see the truth in her eyes.

  “Hey,” he finally said, tucking his fingers under her chin and forcing her to look at him. “I don’t want to play this game anymore. I think we’ve been playing it for longer than either of us want to admit and...well, I love you, Ali. So how does that strike you?”

  She tried not to smile but couldn’t help it. “It strikes me as fair enough. Perfectly fair, in fact, considering the way I feel about you.”

  * * *

  ALI WOKE UP feeling so euphoric she was certain she was still dreaming. Then she cuddled against the warmth of Logan’s body and knew she wasn’t. No dream could possibly make her feel that good.

  The bedroom was still dark. Not even the palest fingers of dawn had begun to creep through the crack between the bedroom curtains. But daybreak came late at the end of the year, and the bedside clock told her it was morning.

  The morning. The morning Robbie was coming home. Thinking about that made her happier still, and she couldn’t resist kissing Logan. “Good morning,” she whispered when he stirred.

  “Mmmrrrppphhh,” he mumbled, wrapping his arms around her and taking charge of the kiss.

  “God,” he finally murmured. “Yo
u beat the hell out of an alarm clock. You think you could wake me up like that every morning?”

  She snuggled as closely as she could to him, feeling so warm in the shelter of his arms, so protected from the outside world, from any thoughts she didn’t want intruding. And then some of them insisted on forcing their way in, reminding her that every morning wasn’t a possibility. Not a very long-term one, at least.

  They, Logan had told her, wanted him in L.A. by the end of January. And today, assuming her brain was working right, was the twenty-first of December. She pulled the quilt more tightly over her, hating the anonymous they. She wasn’t so protected from the outside world after all. Its cold chill had just reached right into her bed.

  “What are you thinking about?” Logan asked, trailing his fingers down her arm.

  “The truth?”

  When he nodded, she simply continued to gaze at him. He was utterly gorgeous, but she loved him for far more than his looks. She loved how solid and steady he was, loved that she knew she could rely on him. But that would only be the case for such a short while longer.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me?” he asked.

  She hesitated for another moment, then said, “I was thinking about Robbie coming home today and about you leaving.”

  “Leaving?”

  “For California.”

  “Oh...yeah. I’ve been forgetting all about that the past few days.”

  She waited, but he didn’t go on. Didn’t say the words she wanted to hear—that he was having second thoughts about being so far away from her, that the way things had changed between them made an important difference.

  And when he finally did speak, he still didn’t say the right words.

  “I have to go, you know,” he said quietly. “My agent went through hell to convince the producers I could do the job, and it’s the chance of a lifetime.”

  “I know.”

  “If I didn’t show up, I’d be blowing any hopes of a career in the film industry. Instead of maybe being rich and famous, my name would be mud.”

  “I know,” she murmured again, hating his agent—the faceless Connie, who’d worked so hard to get him his chance to do that screen adaptation. Would it have hurt her to have worked just a little less hard?

  Ali stared at one of the swirls of hair on Logan’s chest, knowing she was being utterly selfish. Just as he’d said, this was the chance of a lifetime. So had she really thought he’d consider throwing it away because the neighbor lady had let herself fall in love with him? Foolishly let herself, knowing all along there was no future for them?

  Come the new year, she’d go back to her classes and Logan would go to L.A. And, in no time flat, those Hollywood starlets would make him forget all about the neighbor lady.

  “Hey,” he said, pulling her close again, “I love you, Ali. And you love me, right? You haven’t changed your mind since last night, have you?”

  She shook her head against his shoulder, breathing in the masculine scent that was uniquely his.

  “Good, then as long as that’s the case, we’ll work something out. Hell, maybe I’ll be a total failure as a scriptwriter, and they’ll ship me back here in only a week or two. If it turns out I’m going to be gone for a long time, though—”

  “Or forever,” she murmured.

  “Or forever,” he repeated quietly. “But how long isn’t the point. The point is that I don’t want to lose you. You believe that, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. But it was one thing believing when he was here in her bed, with his arms securely around her. It would be another thing entirely when he was gone.

  “Good. So we’ll work things out somehow. Right?”

  “Right.”

  Logan tilted her face to his and kissed her.

  It was a long, loving kiss full of promises. But she couldn’t help wondering if there was any chance those promises would become reality. Couldn’t help thinking about the old song that said absence makes the heart grow fonder—for somebody else.

  * * *

  “SITTING THERE staring at it won’t make it ring, you know,” Logan said gently.

  Ali glanced over to where he was leaning against the kitchen counter and shrugged.

  “Hey, try to stop worrying. It’s only ten after nine, and Bob didn’t say exactly when he’d call, did he.”

  She shook her head. In fact, he hadn’t specifically told her he’d call at all.

  “I’ll set things up” was what he’d said. So maybe he’d just have somebody drop Robbie off.

  Resisting the urge to run to the front of the house and check the street, she sat right where she was and concentrated on trying to ignore the anxiety gnawing away at her. Then she looked at the phone again and the gnawing grew worse.

  After Logan had talked to his parents and Cody this morning, he’d connected the tape recorder once more. She hadn’t asked him why, though, because she knew she wouldn’t like the answer. Despite his nonchalant act, why would Logan care whether he could replay this call—assuming there was going to be one—unless he thought something still might go wrong?

  She was trying to force that question from her mind when the phone rang. The recorder’s light flashed on. Across the room Logan tensed, his nonchalant act clearly forgotten.

  Ali took a deep breath, picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”

  “Hello,” a woman replied. “Is this Ali Weyden?”

  “Yes.” Her heart was hammering in anticipation. Did the call have something to do with Robbie or not?

  “I have a message for you, Mrs. Weyden. From your husband.”

  Oh, Lord, this was it. “Yes?” she managed to say again.

  There was a slight pause, a few rustling, whispering noises in the background, then the woman went on. “The message is that your package is waiting for you, and you should go pick it up at Mr. Velarde’s cottage.”

  The line clicked dead. It was over. She knew where Robbie was. She felt both weak with relief and numb with shock.

  “It was Vinny,” she whispered. “He was the one helping Bob after all.”

  “What?” Logan demanded. “What’s the deal?” He pushed the rewind switch, then played back the tape.

  “At Vinny’s cottage?” he snarled, hearing the message. “That’s where they’ve had Robbie? That lying bastard! Dammit, Ali, I’m going to kill him. I swear, I’ll go back down to his office and kill him with my bare hands.”

  Ali sat gazing across the table, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. She was too happy about Robbie to be as angry as Logan seemed. That would come, she was sure, but she could handle only so much emotion at once. And right now, knowing where her son was seemed like all that was important.

  “Could we go get Robbie first?” she said at last. “Could you wait and kill Vinny later?”

  The muscles in Logan’s jaw relaxed and he grinned at her. “Yeah, yeah, I guess we’d better keep our priorities straight.”

  He strode around the table, pulled her up out of her chair and swung her around in his arms. “We did it, Ali,” he murmured against her throat. “We did it. Robbie’s almost home.”

  He gave her a quick kiss, then said, “I guess we’d better save any serious kissing for later and get going. You know exactly where Vinny’s cottage is?”

  She nodded. “Bob and I used to go up there for the odd weekend, years ago.”

  “How far? How long will it take us?”

  “A couple of hours. Maybe just a little longer. It’s on Lake Muskoka.”

  A couple of hours. The phrase began merrily playing in her mind. In hardly no time at all, she’d have Robbie back. She felt like hugging herself and dancing in the street—both at once.

  “We’ll take the Jeep,” Logan said, grabbing Ali’s hand and starting for the front hall. “The roads up there might not be very well plowed.” He shrugged into his jacket, then waited impatiently, with the door open, while she tugged on her boots. “The voice,” he said as she locked the door behind
them. “The woman who phoned. I guess you’d have said something if her voice had sounded familiar.”

  She nodded. “It didn’t. Not at all. You think it was the woman who’s been looking after Robbie?”

  “Could be. She could easily have been calling from Muskoka.”

  As they headed through the cold morning air, down Ali’s driveway and along the street to Logan’s, he was already thinking about which route would get them up to Muskoka fastest. He wanted to reach Vinny’s cottage as quickly as possible. Because he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was, but something was bothering him about that phone call.

  Then, suddenly, he had something else to worry about. Just as they were about to get into the Cherokee, Nick Sinclair’s black Caddy rolled along the street. It slowed almost to a stop as it passed his driveway, then continued on toward College.

  “Hurry up,” he said, practically pushing Ali into the Jeep. “I just want to get going,” he added, when she looked at him strangely.

  He quickly climbed in the driver’s side and started the engine. She hadn’t noticed the Caddy and he sure as hell didn’t intend to tell her it had been by. But he’d obviously been too quick in thinking the guy was through staking out her house. Or maybe he’d been coming by to have another talk with her.

  Whichever it was, in case Sinclair decided to follow them, he wanted to be out of sight and halfway to the Parkway before that Caddy had a chance to turn around.

  * * *

  SNOW-COVERED FIELDS stretched along both sides of Highway 11, but the pavement was clear and they’d made good time—had almost reached Gravenhurst, at the southern tip of Lake Muskoka. So far, so good, Logan was thinking. If Sinclair had tried to tail them, he’d blown it. There’d been no sign at all of the Caddy.

  “It’s really a winter wonderland up here, isn’t it,” Ali murmured. “Look at the sun on all that snow. You know, we should take the boys someplace like this next week and do a little cross-country.”

  “Good idea,” he said, glancing over at her, then ahead at the road again.