THE NIGHTS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

by Vicky Lewis Thompson

  She put down the coffee and cleared her throat. "Jennifer, I don't want to pry into your personal life, but I know you spent some time with Greg, and it's very important to me to know—"

  "Oh, Greg."

  Suzanne looked into her shining eyes and her heart sank. "You, um, got along well with him?"

  "Absolutely. He's such a wonderful guy. He made me feel … like a desirable woman again."

  A lump dogged Suzanne's throat. He'd done the same for her. "I can't imagine you ever not feeling that way."

  "Are you kidding? Getting dumped by a guy, especially if you really liked him, can sabotage anybody's self-confidence. Don't you read the scab sheets? If Meg Ryan can get depressed, then think how vulnerable the rest of us are."

  "Right." Suzanne forced herself to sound positive. "And that's where a rebound man like Greg comes in handy." She even managed a tiny laugh. "I mean, I was so repressed, sexually. Greg took care of that in no time. What a guy.

  "Yeah."

  Now that she'd broached the subject, she discovered that she couldn't leave it alone. "That massage he gives is really something. It really blew me away."

  "Mmm."

  She might as well know the worst. Lowering her voice, she looked directly into Jennifer's dark eyes. "I have to ask you this. Did you feel an almost … well, a sort of spiritual connection when you … made love to him?"

  "Uh…"

  "Look, I realize this is very personal, and we don't know each other all that well, but I … I need to know."

  The longer Jennifer hesitated, the louder Suzanne's heart beat. It sounded like the drumroll as a condemned prisoner faced a firing squad, which summed up the way Suzanne felt.

  At last Jennifer blew out a breath. "Can I trust you not to say a word about this to anyone?"

  "Of course." Suzanne clenched her hands together on the table.

  "I didn't sleep with him."

  Suzanne blinked. "You didn't? But I thought—"

  "I didn't want to be the one he didn't sleep with, so I let on that I had."

  Dazed by this unexpected information, Suzanne tried to figure out what was going on. It was exactly the same story Terri had told her. A thought came to her, flashing like a diamond in a pile of sawdust. What if nobody had slept with Greg?

  "You won't tell anyone about this?" Jennifer said.

  "No. You can trust me."

  "He's such a hunk, and I would have loved to go to bed with him, but all we did was talk. Maybe that was for the best, because the relationship couldn't have gone anywhere, with him being the handyman and all." She paused and gazed at Suzanne. "I envy you the experience. I take it he was … good?"

  "Mmm." Now it was Suzanne's turn to be evasive.

  "What a fantasy, to have a brief affair with somebody like that, knowing you'll never marry him, so that it becomes this perfect little jewel of a memory to tuck away."

  Suzanne started to argue the point, but she quickly realized that a woman with Jennifer's mind-set wouldn't understand why Suzanne thought marrying Greg, no matter what his job, would be a privilege. No wonder Greg had been sensitive about this. He'd run into several women who thought being a handyman was an unacceptable job for their future husband. Oh, well. Their loss.

  She and Jennifer said their goodbyes and both left with boxes of cheesecake. Suzanne bought an extra one, even though the news from Jennifer had been surprisingly good. Maybe, just maybe, an occasion would arise that would demand a celebration. Chocolate-fudge cheesecake would certainly do the trick.

  That evening she tried Greg again, just because it had become almost a habit now, not because she expected to get an answer. Sure enough, his machine came on. "I'm leaving for Moline tomorrow," she said. "I won't be back until late Christmas night, so I wanted to wish you a merry Christmas."

  Then she paid a visit to Carolyn's apartment. Fortunately she was home, and although it took some skillful conversation on Suzanne's part, eventually Carolyn admitted that she hadn't slept with Greg, either. Suzanne's theory was sounding better and better, but she had no more leads and no more time to check them, anyway.

  Besides, she had enough evidence to show that Greg didn't treat every woman the way he'd treated her. That seemed like enough to warrant giving Mr. Greg Stone the third degree about his original intentions toward her. There had to be a way to get him to come out of hiding. She had a train ride to Moline tomorrow and a train ride back on Christmas Day. That would be enough thinking time to plan how to do it.

  * * *

  Greg loved being home with his family on Christmas, especially now that the merriment had returned to the household. They had great fun opening presents on Christmas morning, and everyone pitched in to help with the huge meal that followed late that afternoon.

  Normally Greg stayed on into the evening playing board games or even a few rounds of poker. But as darkness fell, he grew restless and eager to get back to his apartment He told himself it was so that Matilda wouldn't be alone too long, but he knew she'd be fine. He'd left her plenty of food and water to carry her through the two days and one night he'd planned to be gone.

  It wasn't Matilda who drew him back to Chicago. It was Suzanne. She'd been far more persistent than he'd expected, and she was wearing him down. He'd just about decided that he might have to see her, after all. After Christmas, he'd told himself. After Christmas he'd call her and arrange a meeting, maybe at some neutral spot like a coffee shop, where he wouldn't be tempted to do or say anything dumb.

  But then she'd called to wish him a merry Christmas, and there had been something different in her voice. He couldn't put his finger on it, but somehow he expected … something to happen. She'd said she wouldn't be back until late tonight, so it was stupid of him to leave his family on the chance she'd come in earlier.

  But he did it anyway. When he walked into his apartment, Matilda meowed and made a pest of herself until he gave her a little bit of the turkey his mother had insisted he take home. He glanced at his answering-machine light, hoping it would be blinking with a new message from Suzanne. It wasn't.

  So, he'd been a fool to race back here on the strength of that little note of excitement or anticipation he'd heard in her voice two nights ago. It might have been nothing more than her eagerness to spend a couple of days with her mom. Even so, on impulse, he turned off his machine for the night. If she called, and she probably wouldn't, he would talk to her.

  Talk to her, ha. You'll go up to her apartment if she asks you to. Yeah, he probably would. Damn it, he wanted to see her. Even if seeing her was a bad idea he'd live to regret, he wanted to give it a try. She'd wished him Merry Christmas, and he hadn't returned the sentiment. It would be Christmas for a few more hours.

  Picking up his mother's gift—a leather-bound volume of classic love poems—he sat in his chair and began thumbing through it. His mother had always known what a sentimental sap he was. Every time he went home, she found a moment to draw him aside and ask if he'd found anybody "special."

  The question had been harder to answer this Christmas. And the more he'd evaded, the more she'd suspected. When he'd left early, his mother had waved goodbye with a knowing expression. He'd never been any good at fooling his mother.

  Matilda joined him in the chair, so he read her something by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which made her purr. But she seemed equally happy with one of Shakespeare's sonnets, so apparently she had a wide area of appreciation. As for him, he couldn't read any of it without thinking of Suzanne—her eyes, her lips, her hair, her breasts, the wonder of sinking inside her, the joy of making her cry out with pleasure.

  If only he hadn't gone to her apartment to ask her out for breakfast, he wouldn't have found her with Jared, both of them wearing incriminating lipstick smears. That picture kept superimposing itself over the others that he carried in his mental wallet.

  When the phone rang, his pulse ratcheted up several more beats per minute. Matilda leaped from the chair, but he took his time getting up. All the while he t
old himself this was probably a tenant with a problem, and probably not the tenant he wanted to hear from tonight.

  He picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

  "Greg!"

  He felt light-headed. It was her. Incredibly, it was her. "I thought you weren't coming back until later."

  "I took an earlier train, and thank God I did. I have a major leak up here, Greg. I'm talking major. I didn't expect to get you, but I thought I'd try, anyway. If you hadn't been home, I was going to have to look for a twenty-four-hour emergency services although I doubt anybody is working on Christmas night."

  "Probably not." His brain whirled as he wondered if she really had a leak or not. If she really had one, then this call was just what it seemed. In fact, wonderful Jared, the guy who didn't do plumbing, might be there with her. If he was, that would clinch things forever and ever.

  "I hate to bother you on Christmas, but can you come up and take a look?"

  "Yeah, I can come up." He tried to sound bored with the idea, but although the words were the right ones, his tone probably gave him away.

  "Great. See you soon."

  He left so fast he forgot his toolbox. Halfway to the third floor he remembered it and had to go down again. On the way back up he made those metal fire stairs sing. He was pumped. He was ready. If Jared was there, he'd fix the damn pipe and then he'd tell Ms. Suzanne Talbot what he thought of her.

  If Jared wasn't there, he'd … well, he'd figure that out when the time came. His heart was racing and he was breathing hard by the time he rang her doorbell. He took a deep breath, and wiped one sweaty palm on his jeans. Pumped was one thing, but frazzled and panting would not be cool.

  She threw open the door, and she'd never looked more beautiful to him. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair was loose and sexy, her feet were bare and she wore the cutest Christmas sweatshirt with angels all over it. The sweatshirt was splotched with water, but that didn't spoil the look of it. If he hadn't been holding the toolbox he might not have been able to resist grabbing her and kissing her. He gripped the toolbox and told himself to stay calm.

  "I thought you'd never get here," she said.

  "Is it the bathroom sink again?"

  "Yes. Those little lines that go to the faucet, you know? One's broken, and I don't know how to turn off the water, and it's squirting everywhere."

  "Broken?" He frowned as he walked into the apartment and headed back toward her bedroom. Nothing had been wrong with that copper tubing when he'd been under there a few weeks ago.

  "Broken." She followed him.

  He took the time to glance around and saw no sign of Jared. He'd expect the jerk to be hanging around if he and Suzanne were back together. After all, it was Christmas. Maybe he was in the bathroom holding his finger against the leak, acting like some macho hero. In that case, Greg thought, he'd pretend that he needed to go back downstairs and get some other part before he could do anything, just so Jared had to stay in a cramped position a while longer.

  Jared wasn't in the bathroom, but sure enough, water was spraying out from under the sink. The place was a mess.

  "See? I wasn't kidding, was I?"

  "Nope." Greg waded in, getting himself soaked in the process. He crawled under the sink and turned off the water. Then he wiped the water from his eyes and peered at the line. Unless he was hallucinating, somebody had taken a hammer and chisel to it.

  He eased himself out from under the sink and stood. Pulling a towel from a nearby rack, he dried his face.

  "Can you fix it?" she asked.

  He hung the towel back where he'd found it. "Yeah," he said. "I can fix it."

  "Thank goodness."

  He nudged off one sneaker and stepped over the wet floor to the dry carpeting of her bedroom. Then he repeated the process with the other shoe. "The question is," he said, turning to her, "why did you break it?"

  She took a breath and looked ready to deny it.

  "I know you broke it, Suzanne. Just tell me why."

  She let out her breath slowly. "Because I had to see you, and you seemed determined to avoid me. I went over to my dad's today and borrowed a plumbing-repair book, so I had some idea how to do it."

  "You went over to your dad's? I thought you were afraid to do that and get your mother upset."

  "I was, but Mom and I worked that out."

  "Good." He was happy for her. Even if they weren't destined to be together, he wanted her to have a nice life.

  She smiled. "Yeah, it was a good thing. I spent Christmas Eve with Mom and Christmas morning with Dad and his family." She pulled the front of the sweatshirt away from her body. "They gave me this."

  "I like it. Even wet, it looks good." He thought it would look good lying on the floor, too, but that was getting way ahead of the game. "So, did Jared go with you down to your mom's?"

  Her eyes darkened. "That's what I had to talk to you about. Jared came over uninvited that night."

  "Really? You sure looked happy to see him."

  "You mean the lipstick."

  "I mean the lipstick, and the fact that you showered while he was here, and come to think of it, he was sort of rumpled up, like he'd been involved in some fun and games."

  "I came home and found him in the apartment, and—"

  "He still had a key?" No matter how much Greg wanted this story to come outright, he wouldn't be taken for a fool.

  "Yes, and that was my fault I should have asked him for it months ago, but I didn't, because until I became involved with you, part of me must have wanted him back."

  Greg's heart wrenched. "You know what? I don't need to hear this. In fact, use your kitchen sink for a few days. I'll fix this while you're at work." He reached for his toolbox.

  "Wait!" She grabbed his arm. "Didn't you hear me? I said until I became involved with you. You helped me see that Jared is all wrong for me, that I can do better than that."

  He sighed. At least he'd been good for something. "I take it you discovered that when you kissed him."

  "I didn't kiss him. He kissed me, and I bit his tongue."

  He stared at her. "You did what?"

  "I bit his tongue. I told him he was lucky I didn't knee him in the balls."

  In spite of his heavy heart, he had to smile. "Congratulations. Sounds like you're going to be fine, Suzanne. I'm glad I could be of service." He glanced down to where she was clutching his arm. "So now you've told me how it was, and I'm happy for you. You can let me go now."

  "Not yet."

  He looked into her eyes. "Suzanne, it's better if we—"

  "I did some checking, and now I know you didn't sleep with all the women you've dealt with in this apartment building."

  He stared at her in confusion. "What in hell are you talking about?"

  "When Terri first told me about you, she implied that you cheered up women who'd been dumped by taking them to bed."

  "What?"

  "Then Terri finally admitted that she hadn't slept with you, but she figured everyone else had. Now I know of two others you didn't sleep with, so—"

  "I haven't slept with any of them!" he roared. "I can't believe this! Are you telling me I have a reputation for being some kind of … of … gigolo?" He was so upset he could barely think, let alone talk. All along he'd thought he was acting as an unpaid psychologist, and these damn women had been saying that he'd slept with them? It was too much.

  "You haven't?" For some strange reason her face had begun to glow and she had a huge smile on her face. "You mean I'm the only one?"

  "Of course you're the only one!"

  "Greg, you're really red in the face. Maybe you should sit down or something."

  "I'm not going to sit down, I'm going to pay a visit to every damn one of those women and tell them what I think of their—"

  "You can't."

  "What do you mean, I can't? I most certainly can."

  "They told me this in confidence. If you confront them, they'll know that I blabbed to you."

  He was having a very ha
rd time making sense of this. "Which makes no difference, since I'm the one who's supposed to have been treating this apartment building like some damn harem! Since I'm the last to know, I think I have a right to ask what the hell they think they're doing, dragging my reputation through the mud like that."

  She took a firmer hold on his arm. "Not through the mud. They rave about your abilities." She blushed. "I expected you'd blow me away with your expertise, and you did. I thought it was because you'd had so much practice."

  "It was because I loved you!" Too late he realized what he'd said. He stood there staring at her, knowing there was no taking it back. "But don't worry about that I'll get over it I—"

  "You will?" The light faded from her eyes. "How can you get over something like what we've shared? I'm sure I won't."

  He went still. Then his heart began hammering triple time. "You won't?"

  Her voice was soft, her eyes misty. "Nope. That's really what I wanted to tell you. I love you. Greg. Even when I thought you might have gone to bed with a bunch of other women, I hoped that this time with me was special."

  He searched her eyes and found everything he needed to last him a lifetime. Then he scooped her into his arms and showered her with kisses. "You can't even begin to know how special. But I was afraid to hope that you'd want a handyman."

  She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back. "Of course I do. How else will I get my sink fixed?"

  He couldn't stop kissing her. "I can fix anything you need repaired."

  "Then you'd better do something about my heart. It's beating something fierce."

  "That could become a chronic problem." He lifted her in his arms and carried her the short distance to the bed. "I think I need to assess the situation right now."

  "Me, too." She smiled up at him. "And I'm convinced I'll need regular maintenance, like for about the next seventy years or so."

  He rolled on top of her. "Are you proposing to me?"

  "Yes. Will you marry me?"