by Lisa Plumley
“Nice legs,” he said.
Her nightshirt. She’d forgotten she was wearing it. Its hem only came to the tops of her thighs. Its flimsy pink fabric didn’t leave much to the imagination, either. Katie resisted the urge to tug it lower as she stepped toward him.
She bit off some donut, chewed and swallowed while she looked him over. A familiar heat curled between them, encouraged by memories of everything they’d shared. It had been so long. Too long. Both of them knew it.
“Nice…everything.” Her reply echoed his, and so did the lingering look she allowed herself. “Did you put together that ensemble yourself, or does the Hunks-R-Us store deliver?”
His grin widened. “Actually, it’s Garanimals For Guys. One pair of jeans plus one white shirt plus one pair of—”
“I can imagine.” Katie advanced nearer. Her Yoo-hoo thunked on the coffee table near his hip, then was joined by the forgotten two-thirds of her donut. Her overnight bag landed near Jack’s booted feet. “But I’d rather experience it for myself.”
She leaned forward and took his mouth with hers. He tasted of coffee and donut, of desire and long-suppressed need. Groaning with pleasure, Katie deepened her kiss. This had definitely been the right move to make. Instantly, Jack’s arms were around her, pulling her down.
They landed amid the blankets she’d discarded, Jack beneath her and Katie thrillingly sprawled atop him. Their mouths met, explored, withdrew for nothing less than urgently-needed breath. Their coming together was old times melded with new discovery, longing joined with abandonment. Rolling, seeking, caressing, they remembered…everything.
She was falling, falling for him all over again. The dizziness of his kiss, the warmth of his skin, the solid press of his muscles against her…all combined to leave Katie with the sweetest sense of déjà vu. This was how they were meant to be. This, together. Eagerly, her paltry resistance gone, she grabbed his shirt placket in both hands and prepared to remodel Jack exactly as she wanted him: naked, with her.
He beat her to it. His hands, big and familiar and welcome, slid beneath her nightshirt. His palms cupped her; his breath slid past her ear as he whispered how good she felt to him. As though nothing had passed between them, as though Katie and Jack had never parted, they found every favorite rhythm, every sensitive place, every pleasure.
Almost.
Because just as Katie prepared to throw caution—and her nightshirt—to the wind, they both stopped. Froze. Sniffed. They shared a puzzled look.
“Ohmigod!” Katie clapped her hands over her nose and mouth.
Jack did the same. “Uggh! What is that?”
At the edge of the room, Belle babbled. With dawning comprehension, they looked her way. She squealed. She shook her baby bouncer with exuberant thrusts of her tiny legs. She grinned.
And the odor of a baby who (really) needed a diaper change grew even stronger.
“It’s a miracle everyone isn’t an only child,” Jack muttered, wincing.
“I guess it’s shower time for me!” Katie said at the same moment.
Of course, it sounded like, “I duess dit’s tower time for me,” because she’d pinched her nose between her fingers to block the stench. But that didn’t matter.
Their amorous intentions vanished. They parted with mutual speed, each headed in different directions. And really, Katie reflected as she picked up her overnight bag and rescued her breakfast before it could be reverse-aromatherapied, there wasn’t a damned thing new about that, now was there?
Over the course of the next few days, Jack realized several things. First among them was that Katie’s kiss had triggered a craving for her unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Second, unfortunately, was that they might never get an opportunity to repeat it. Although Katie seemed suddenly open to the reunion he’d hoped for, baby Belle kept them on the run every minute.
They stopped at the mall on that first morning (visiting Santa, of course), and made the rounds of everything remotely Christmassy during the days that followed. They spent the daylight hours soaking up Arizona’s December sunshine and mild sixty-degree weather, taking Belle to various holiday events. A parade (holding hands as the marching band passed). A crafts festival (cuddling behind the quilts). A Wild West holiday hoedown (laughing on a simulated sleigh). Then a Christmas train ride at the East Valley’s Desert Breeze park, followed by Christmas tree shopping at a central Phoenix lot.
There they bought a spindly, four-foot, mostly-needle-less tree (“It just needs a little love!” Katie insisted when Jack speculated about evergreen-patterned-baldness), then followed up their purchase by making red and green construction paper chain garlands for it. They strung popcorn and cranberries, hung foil icicles, and established a baby-proofed protective gate around the resulting masterpiece when Jack set it up on a table in his living room.
In the evenings, they walked through nearby neighborhoods with Belle in her stroller, ooing and ahhing over the houses’ elaborate Christmas light displays. They assembled homemade luminarias with paper bags and sand and stubby candles, and arranged them along the sidewalk to Jack’s house, where they glowed in the darkness like hope gone alight.
They feasted on gingerbread people (“Are you kidding me?” Katie had asked him when he’d suggested they bake, rather than buy, them. “In my world, baking your own cookies is like making your own shoes. Possible, but not advisable.”), and hung knitted stockings on Jack’s entertainment-center-turned-mantle: one big one, one smaller one, and one teeny one.
They joined together in ways they never had before. For Belle’s sake, he and Katie somehow managed to put their ordinary priorities on hold…and their relationship flourished because of it. Katie abandoned her parties for the week. Jack donated his drafting table for use as command central in his house’s ongoing Christmas makeover. His usual holiday unease faded, pushed aside by Katie’s caroling, mulled-cider drinking, and jingle bell ringing.
He was happy.
So was she.
He could tell. She smiled. She laughed. She greeted each day with boundless energy, a Yoo-hoo, and a new idea for how they could bring the holidays alive for Belle. Her generosity surprised him—and so did the realization, when it came, of exactly why Katie loved socializing.
They’d been visiting a local landmark, the East Valley’s very own tumbleweed Christmas tree in Chandler. Uniquely Southwestern, the forty-foot structure was made up of light-bedecked white-painted tumbleweeds atop a chicken wire tree-shaped frame, and Katie had insisted they take Belle (“a native Arizonan, after all”) to see it. While craning their necks to see the star at its tip, Katie had struck up a conversation with a group of tourists nearby. After the group had gone on its way, Jack glanced at Katie.
“You look happy.” He nodded toward the departing tourists. “Friends of yours?”
“Not for long.” Cheerfully, she gave them a wave. She helped Belle do the same. “Bye! Merry Christmas!”
He didn’t get it. “Then why…?”
“Because, Jack,” Katie said as she turned to him, “it makes everyone feel good to chat for a little while. I like making contact with people. I like knowing our days are brighter for having talked for a few minutes, even if we’ll never meet again.” She shrugged. “That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
She nodded and adjusted Belle on her hip.
“But that’s…amazing.”
Her gaze turned puzzled. “What is?”
Katie honestly didn’t know, Jack realized. She didn’t understand what was so special about reaching out to complete strangers and befriending them, if only for a few minutes. Watching her wrinkle her nose in confusion at him, he felt himself fall in love with her, all over again.
“You,” he said. “You’re amazing.”
She ducked her head and grinned, making a fuss over Belle’s latest holiday hair bow—a confection of snowy lace and stitched-on fabric ornaments. “Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself.”
They shared a sm
ile. Belle ooo-gooed. And suddenly, Jack saw Katie’s constant social whirl in a whole new light. Not as something taken, but as something given. As something given freely, with only good thoughts behind it. He realized, in that moment, that he could never ask her to give it up—especially not to the extent he used to expect.
Things had changed. And now, so had he.
Unaware of that fact, Katie strapped Belle into her stroller, discussing the merits of wardrobe color therapy as she did. The baby spoke animatedly back, babbling as though she understood. And maybe, given that they were both females and thus perpetually mysterious, she did.
They waved good-bye to the tumbleweed tree and all its glittery-“branched” glory, then walked past the downtown Chandler shops to their car. That was when Jack spotted it: the perfect Christmas gift for Katie. With a hurried excuse, he handed the keys to Katie and promised to meet her and Belle in the parking lot. This was simply too good to pass up.
Jack slipped into his home office that evening, shortly after they put Belle to bed. He ducked beneath the garland draped in the doorway, picked his way through the jumbo rolls of red and green and gold wrapping paper Katie had left for safekeeping, and moved aside a stack of holiday movies on DVD. Then he got down to work.
Pulling out fresh paper and pens, Jack let loose his feelings in the best way he knew how: through drawing. He sketched and considered; examined, re-drew, and then lettered. This was a Christmas card for Katie, and it had to be perfect.
He was halfway finished when a rustle in the doorway alerted him he wasn’t alone. Jack froze, then with deliberate casualness drew a blank sheet of paper atop his design and turned to face Katie.
She blinked. “You’re working?”
The disappointment in her face hurt him to see. “Not exactly.”
“Yes, you are. You’re drawing new plans or something.”
“Or something,” he agreed. He put down his pen and went to her. “I can do it later. Let’s go…look through the Pottery Barn Christmas catalog again. You had fun doing that last night.”
He tried to look enthusiastic about decorative throw pillows.
Katie wasn’t having any of it. She folded her arms. “Why do you shut me out like this?”
“Like what?” There was no way he was showing her her Christmas card before it was ready. “I’m not shutting you out.”
“I thought—” Her voice rasped. “I thought we’d moved past this. This week…I thought this week was special.”
Plaintively, she gazed up at him. Helplessly, Jack gazed back. How could he be hurting her, when all he wanted to do was make something special for her?
“This week has been special.” He saw her lower lip quiver, and forged onward. “I thought you weren’t interested in work, that’s all. I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again.”
Just please, please stop looking at me as though I made a midnight snack of Santa’s milk and cookies.
“Never do what again?”
She had him there. He was well-intentioned, but, “Uh—”
“Oh, Jack.”
“Never shut you out again?”
Katie’s smile was wobbly, but it was there. He suddenly felt mighty enough to hoist the tumbleweed Christmas tree with one hand. Instead, he reached for the woman he’d dreamed of.
“Come here. I have some things to show you.”
Chapter Eight
Watching Jack pull out plans and preliminary drawings, cover his desk with neatly-penned imaginings and share them with her, Katie was struck by two things that had never occurred to her before. First, that Jack’s architectural drawings were really art. Beautifully-rendered, creative art. Second, that he loved creating it. Really, truly loved it.
Jack unrolled his work with the enthusiasm of a kid diving beneath the tree on a pre-dawn Christmas morning, with the reverence of a hairdresser encountering a real natural blonde. He talked about it passionately, knowledgeably, generously. Seen through his eyes, Jack’s work held meaning far beyond furnishing Brennan’s home buyers with inviting, beautiful places to live. His work…spoke, for lack of a better word.
It spoke of Jack. His imagination. His precision. His ability to see things in a way few others could. And looking at it with him, Katie saw Jack in a way she never had: as a man captivated by creating. His wasn’t a world of automatic ambition or endless corporate wrangling. It was a world of giving of himself, over and over again, on paper.
All at once, those times she’d resented his decisions to work late, to put in overtime on a new project, took on new meaning. Suddenly changed, she understood.
Katie nodded as Jack took her hand. She trembled as he guided it across the paperbound pathways of a new house design, explaining how the rooms would feel to the people who’d one day occupy them. She ached as he paused, looked sideways at her, smiled.
She could never ask him to give this up, Katie realized. Not the way she’d always expected him to when they’d been together before. If she was to love Jack, she’d love him this way…exactly as he was.
And she did.
Turning, she cupped his jaw in her hand, savored the intimate prickle of his razor stubble against her palm. “Thank you for showing me this,” Katie said. “I love…it.”
Coward, her newly-enlightened self said. Tell him what you really mean! But she couldn’t. Not yet.
He looked surprised. “You do?”
“Mmm-hmm.” At some point, he’d put his arms around her, Katie realized. They snuggled together automatically, with practiced ease. She could have stood in the warmth of his touch forever. “I do. You must be the best architect ever.”
“Hey, I don’t have to be.” Jack’s powerful shoulders rose on a shrug. “My uncle’s the boss, remember? But thanks.”
Katie narrowed her eyes. “Everyone knows you’re at Brennan’s because you’re talented. Not because your last name’s on the letterhead.”
He shrugged again, then turned away to gather up the things he’d shown her. Watching him in astonishment, Katie learned the truth: everyone knew that…except Jack.
“It’s true,” she said fiercely. “Really, really true.”
He rolled a set of plans, slid them into a tube. Didn’t look at her.
Katie touched his arm. “It’s true.” She kissed him. “You have a rare talent. We all see it.”
“Katie—” He ducked his head, obviously uncomfortable. “You don’t have to—”
“Oh, yes. Yes, I do.” She grabbed his shoulders, turning Jack to face her. His pain, however buried, hurt her, too. She needed to make him feel better. “I’m telling you the truth. Believe it.”
“Okay, I do. Now quit manhandling me.” With a cocky grin that belied the shadows in his eyes, Jack nodded toward his navy knit shirt. “You picked out this shirt yourself. You probably don’t want to ruin it.”
“Oh, I don’t?” Katie raised her eyebrows. She grinned. Then she picked up the scissors she’d stowed with the wrapping paper and deliberately snipped his shirt’s neckline.
“Hey!” Jack goggled at her. “What’d you do that for?”
“So it would be easier to do this,” Katie replied.
Then she seized both frayed edges she’d created, drew in a deep breath…and ripped Jack’s shirt right down the middle.
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” she said, giddily pleased with herself.
He stared, obviously unable to believe what had just happened. His shirt hung in two raggedly-bisected halves. Between were revealed sculpted chest muscles, the lower edge of one shoulder, and those amazing abs, too.
While she watched, the sense of seductive fun returned to his eyes. “I think I’ve always wanted you to do that.”
Katie smiled. If there was one thing she’d learned about men, it was that talk was cheap. Men like Jack understood action. In that spirit, she moved closer again.
“Now,” she murmured, “I want you to believe me when I tell you this: I’m in awe of your talent as an architect. I know yo
u’re a star at Brennan’s because of it, and not because of any currently-skiing-in-Switzerland family connections. And if I have to hold you down and make love to you to prove it,” Katie concluded with mock ferocity, “then I’m prepared to do exactly that. Exactly that.”
Jack’s grin widened. An unmistakable heat flared in his gaze, igniting a similar heat within her. They’d been down this road before…and this time would be even better.
His stance took on an obvious, teasing challenge. “In that case…I don’t believe you.”
She cocked a brow, anticipation whirling inside her. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Hmmm.” Katie advanced, then indulged herself in a hands-on examination of his newly-bared chest. “I’ll give you something to dream about.”
His hands cupped her derrière, hauling her against him. Their hips made contact. “That goes double for you.”
Geez, but she loved this man.
“I hope that’s a promise,” Katie said.
“You’d better believe it.”
Those were loving words—and they were the last words Jack said that night…unless you counted the naughty ones.
Katie definitely did.
There was just something about the morning after, Jack decided as he made his way to the kitchen the next day. Something amazing. He felt better than he had in months.
Seven months, to be exact.
He’d awakened this Friday morning—the day before Christmas Eve—to find himself in bed alone, with Belle’s crib empty beside him. His first thought had been to find her, and Katie.
Katie. After a night spent loving her, Jack knew he couldn’t let her go. Whatever it took, they had to try again. Their time together would only last until Gil and Amber returned to pick up Belle, but that might still be days from now. Possibly not until after Christmas, Jack had begun to hope. Until then, he and Katie could be together.
A babyish squeal came from the kitchen. At the sound of it Jack picked up speed, looking forward to seeing his cousin—and the woman who’d left him to awaken with a smile.