She nodded, still without looking at him. Her short, blond hair was a mass of curls. Lamplight brought out the shades of gold in the strands. One small hand lingered on the blinds.
“I can’t do the sex thing,” she said without warning. “I know it doesn’t make sense to you. We’ve done it twice, so what’s the big deal, right? I mean it’s a new century and we’re all contemporary single people. Except I’m not. I didn’t mean to have old-fashioned values. I didn’t even know that I had them. Suddenly they were just there.” She glanced at him over her shoulder. ”I’m sorry. You probably want to go now.”
Mark tried not to think about the two condoms in his back pocket. He shoved his hands into his front pockets and stared at her back.
“What changed your mind?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I didn’t like what I was thinking about myself. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy the sex…I did, it was great. But there has to be more.”
He turned away and swore under his breath. This was just his luck, he thought grimly. He wanted sex and she wanted… He didn’t know but he was sure he wouldn’t like it. She was right—he should leave. Except, somehow, leaving seemed like the wrong thing to do.
“Mark?”
“What?”
“You can go. Really. It’s okay. You didn’t ask me out or anything. We have no emotional connection or hint of commitment between us. My inviting you here for Thanksgiving was entirely my idea. You don’t owe me anything.”
“I know.”
He did know. Yet he couldn’t seem to get his feet heading for the door.
He reminded himself he wasn’t looking for a relationship. He couldn’t ever trust her; he wasn’t interested in falling in love.
“What do you want?” he asked before he could stop himself.
She turned slowly, until she was facing him. Something that might have been hope flared to life in her eyes.
“I thought maybe we could be friends.”
Her voice was small as she spoke, as if she knew she was asking for the moon and she didn’t doubt he was going to laugh at her.
He reminded himself he wasn’t looking for entanglements and that she was a woman with secrets. Not that he’d cared at five-twenty that morning.
“Friends?” he repeated.
She nodded. “Nothing romantic,” she added hastily, making him perversely want to know why not. “Just friends.”
He didn’t say anything. Darcy swallowed. “I know that sounds weird, but I’ve been really busy since I moved here and I don’t really know that many people. You and I seem to get along, even outside the bedroom.”
She sounded sincere. He even almost believed her. Friends. It wasn’t anything he’d considered. There were complications. He didn’t want to get involved, and ironically a sex-only relationship had seemed far less trouble. Friends implied more than he was willing to give.
He knew he should tell her he wasn’t interested, but for some reason he couldn’t speak the words. Maybe it was because he’d been on his own since he’d returned to Whitehorn. He’d been meaning to look up old buddies, but somehow he never found the time. Besides, what was he supposed to say to them?
“Why not romance?” he asked. “Not with me, but with someone?”
She gave a rueful smile. “I don’t have really good luck with men.”
Her statement made him want to ask a half-dozen questions, but he didn’t. If they were just going to be friends, why did her past matter?
“We can give it a try,” he said at last.
“Really?” She smiled, her full mouth curving up, her eyes brightening with pleasure. “Great.”
“I do have a question.”
“What?”
“How do you plan to avoid temptation?”
Her smile faded slightly. “Yes, well, that is a concern, isn’t it? I suppose I won’t think about it.”
“What if I start to seduce you?”
Her steady gaze met his. “I don’t think I’d be able to stop you. I guess I’m going to have to risk it. Do you plan to seduce me?”
He shook his head and it was only half a lie. Strangely, it was enough for her to admit that he could easily tempt her into his bed.
“I’m depending on you to be a gentleman,” she murmured.
He groaned. “That hardly seems fair.”
“Imagine how I feel. I’ve just admitted you have all that power.”
They faced each other—still standing in the living room. Mark didn’t know about her, but he felt damned awkward.
“Now what?” he asked.
“It’s up to you. I have all the fixings for a great turkey stir-fry. We could have dinner and talk about our first friendship project.”
“We’re going to have projects?”
“Sure. Don’t guys like to get together to do things, while women like to sit around and talk? I thought we could start with something that would make you feel more comfortable.”
“Like what?”
“There’s a decorating party at the children’s wing of the hospital. I thought we’d go there.”
Damn do-gooder, he grumbled to himself. Typical.
“No way, no how,” he announced.
Darcy only smiled.
Six
Mark still couldn’t believe he was here, in the hospital, about to decorate a tree. It was humiliating.
“Don’t you know I’m a tough cop?” he muttered in Darcy’s ear. ”I’m supposed to be out subduing criminals, not participating in a decorating seminar.”
Darcy didn’t look the least bit impressed by his protests. “You agreed to this last night. It’s fun, it’s for a good cause, so quit complaining.”
They were in the main waiting area of the children’s wing. Several other people gathered around, listening to the director’s instructions. Mark recognized Janie from the Hip Hop Café, along with one of the younger deputies.
“You’ll break into groups of two or three,” the woman was saying. “The trees are on various floors. We’ve distributed the decorations as well, and the children who are mobile have been told they’re welcome to help.”
Mark felt trapped by circumstances. He hadn’t been thinking when he’d agreed to this. He wasn’t the tree-decorating type. He’d been avoiding polite society since he’d arrived back in Whitehorn and now he felt out of place.
By contrast, Darcy practically quivered with anticipation. ”Isn’t this great?” she asked as they made their way to the elevator to take them to the fourth floor. Their tree was close to the playroom.
As they stepped onto the floor, familiar smells assaulted Mark. He’d spent too long in a hospital, not to mention rehab, after he’d been shot. He remembered bad meals, no sleep and plenty of pain. They weren’t good memories. As they passed open doors leading to patients’ rooms, he saw small children hooked up to IVs and lying still in bed when they should have been home running and jumping and laughing.
All those years as a New York City detective and a bunch of sick kids still got to him. Damn. He’d gone soft.
“Okay, so let’s see what ornaments we have,” Darcy said when they reached the bare Christmas tree in the corner by the entrance to the playroom. It was tall and the scent of pine helped overcome the smell of illness.
“We’ll sort them by type and color, then come up with a plan.”
He stared at her as she crouched next to the boxes of ornaments. “We need a plan?”
“Absolutely. We can’t just hang things wherever we want.”
“Why not?”
She didn’t even bother answering. Instead she rolled her eyes, as if he were being too dumb for words.
“I never realized you were such a control freak,” he said.
“I’m not. Well, sometimes. If I can’t always control the big things in my life, I tend to micromanage the little things. Decorating for Christmas is one of them. Maybe it’s because I’ve been responsible for doing it on my own since my folks died.”
Darc
y emptied the contents of all the boxes. When Mark squatted next to her, she handed him containers of wooden ornaments with instructions for him to sort them by size. She examined their strings of lights, even going so far as to lay them out in the empty playroom to calculate the exact length of each.
“You go to all this trouble at home?” he asked when she’d returned with the announcement that there were probably enough lights, but they were going to have to be careful to make sure every branch had a decoration.
“Absolutely. Decorating my tree is an entire weekend affair.”
He started to tease her that he would like to be out of town during that time, but the words got stuck in his throat. He had a feeling that he would enjoy spending that weekend with Darcy. She might even be able to exorcise some of his demons.
“Whatcha doin’?”
The soft voice came from behind him. Mark turned to see a small girl standing by the edge of the hall. She wore a worn pink bathrobe and cat slippers. One hand clutched a tattered teddy while the other held on to a kid-size IV stand. Two plastic bags dripped into lines that disappeared up her sleeve.
“We’re decorating the tree,” Darcy said with a smile. “I was thinking about putting her on top. What do you think?”
As Darcy spoke, she held up a white-and-gold angel. The little girl had a scarf over her head. Her eyebrows were gone, as were her eyelashes. But judging from the freckles marching across her pert nose, Mark guessed that she was a redhead.
The child tilted her head as she studied the angel. ”She’s pretty,” she said.
“I agree.” Darcy nodded. “Okay. We’ll put her on top and tomorrow you can tell everyone it was your idea.”
The girl smiled shyly.
“What’s your name?” Darcy asked.
“Brittany.”
“Do you want to help?”
Brittany hesitated, then shook her head. ”I’m gonna get a second chemo and it makes me throw up. But I’ll come see the tree tomorrow.”
Darcy nodded without speaking. Mark saw tears in her eyes.
Brittany waved, then turned and headed back toward her room.
Mark watched her go. “Now I see why you do this.”
Darcy sniffed, then cleared her throat. “I want to help. I don’t have a lot of money, so I can’t give very much.”
“Time can be more precious.”
She returned to sorting the ornaments. “No one should be in the hospital at Christmas. If they have to be, we owe it to them to make it special. The holidays are a time for connecting.”
He wondered who she would be spending the holidays with. After all, her parents were gone and she hadn’t had any family at Thanksgiving diner.
But he didn’t ask. There were things about her he didn’t want to know. They implied a closeness that made him uncomfortable. He was still adjusting to the fact that he’d agreed to be her friend. Growing up in Whitehorn, he’d never been much of a joiner. Since returning the only thing he’d gotten involved with was a weekly Sunday morning basketball game.
“What has you looking so serious?” Darcy asked.
“I was just thinking that I never fit in around here. I didn’t get the whole cowboy thing.”
“That’s really interesting. I mean, considering your sister tours with the rodeo.”
He stared at her. “How did you know about my sister?”
“I, ah, well…” Darcy stood and studied the tree. “We should really do the lights now.”
“Not so fast.” He grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. “Who told you about Maddie?”
“It wasn’t anything.” She stared at the center of his chest. “There was some talk about you when you returned to town and I might have recently mentioned you to Janie. I had issued a rather impulsive invitation to my house for Thanksgiving and I wanted to make sure you weren’t dangerous. At least not in the criminal sense.”
He leaned close. “You didn’t realize I’d be so irresistible in bed.”
She raised her gaze to his. “You have an overinflated ego.”
“You were the one screaming my name.”
She blinked first. “The lights.”
“Lead the way.”
They started at the top of the tree. Mark positioned the strands while Darcy gave instructions. He enjoyed the sound of her voice and the fact that she’d been curious enough to ask around about him.
When the lights were arranged to her picky satisfaction, they switched to ornaments. Despite her diminutive stature, Darcy insisted on hanging decorations near the top of the tree. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach, which meant her sweater crept up, exposing a strip of bare back and belly. Mark stood back and enjoyed the view. As he wasn’t likely to get any from her anytime soon, he would take what crumbs he could find.
They argued over where to place painted gingerbread men, and he deliberately moved several paper cranes to a different branch. Outraged, Darcy planted her hands on her hips.
“I cannot work under these conditions,” she exclaimed, raising her voice slightly when she caught sight of a boy on crutches. He was about nine or ten, and thin.
Dramatically Darcy tossed her head, then stared at the heavens. “I am an artist. You must not disrupt my flow.”
“I’m going to get out of the way before I step in it,” Mark muttered under his breath.
The boy laughed.
Mark inched toward him, then dropped into a crouch. “Women,” he said. “Do they drive you crazy, too?”
The boy nodded.
Mark pulled two more wooden ornaments out of his shirt pocket. ”I’ll distract her and you hang these, okay?”
Big brown eyes brightened at the thought of a conspiracy. Mark sensed Darcy’s attention and knew that she’d heard him, but that wasn’t a problem. He didn’t doubt she would play along with the game.
“Oh, Darcy,” he said, his voice loud enough to carry. ”We’re missing a box of ornaments.”
She turned toward him, careful to keep her back to the boy who was moving slowly toward the tree.
“Did you lose them again? I thought I could trust you. Where did you last see the box?”
Mark rose and shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe you lost them.”
“Me?” She pressed a hand to her chest. ”I’m crushed you would say such a thing about me. Simply crushed. Mortified. Broken.”
She sagged into a nearby chair and buried her head in her hands. The child finished hanging the two ornaments and made his way to Mark’s side.
“Good job,” Mark said, touching the boy’s shoulder. ”I’m impressed.”
Darcy looked at the tree and sprang to her feet. “My tree. It’s perfect. And yet. No! Someone has touched it. Someone has…made it better. Was it you?”
She turned to the boy. He grinned in delight. She returned to her chair.
“Done in by a child.”
Still smiling, the boy gave a little wave then started back to his room. One of the nurses stepped into the hall.
“Jon-Anthony, you get back here, young man. You just got your crutches today and already you’re running marathons. I told the doctor you’d be trouble, but did she listen?”
“Nice job,” Darcy said, rising and surveying their tree. ”You’re really good with kids.”
“You, too.”
They stared at each other. It was too much like a moment for Mark to be comfortable. “Maddie was always breaking something when we were growing up. It was never fun for her to be slowed down by a cast or crutches. I used to entertain her.”
Darcy stared down the hall. “I feel badly for the children who have to spend Christmas here.”
“You’re helping.”
“I want it to be enough, and I’m not sure it is.”
She looked a little lost as she spoke. He had the thought she was the kind of woman who should be married with a couple of kids of her own. That might keep her from wanting to rescue the world.
As he stared at the lights on the tree, he reme
mbered when he’d had his own dreams about children. It had been a year ago, right after he’d met Sylvia. By their second date, he’d been ready to propose, having already named their children. He’d never been happier.
Suddenly he could hear the sound of Sylvia’s laughter. He recalled how she’d looked waiting for him to come home from work. Usually she’d been naked and in his bed. It had taken nearly three months after he’d gotten out of the hospital for him to stop expecting to see her. Even when he’d stopped caring about her, she’d still managed to invade his dreams. Even now she haunted him, reminding him to be wary.
“Mark?”
He turned to look at Darcy.
“Want to come back to earth?” she asked with a smile. “Sorry.”
Suddenly he was uncomfortable in his own skin. He recognized the feeling, hating it, knowing that there wasn’t anything he could do about it except wait it out. His bullet wounds began to ache and he wished it wasn’t so cold out. He needed to go for a run.
“I should go,” he said, grateful he’d met her at the hospital so he could make a quick exit. Who knew the ghosts would follow him back to Whitehorn?
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You look—I don’t know—unhappy.”
“I’m fine. I just need to get home.”
She nodded. “Do you still want me to come to your basketball game tomorrow?”
He’d nearly forgotten. “Sure. Eight-thirty sharp.”
She groaned. “Sunday is my only day to sleep in.”
He pointed at the tree and she sighed.
“I’ll be there,” she promised.
As he walked to his truck, he found himself oddly pleased by the fact that she was coming to watch the game. All he had to do now was survive the night and not let the demons win.
Darcy arrived at the basketball courts a little before eight-thirty. She came bearing gifts. Something about the way Mark had left the hospital the previous night had made her uncomfortable. She wanted to make things right between them—difficult to do when she wasn’t sure anything was wrong. Regardless, she used the only fix that she knew was bound to work with a bunch of guys playing sports.
Cinnamon rolls.
The smell of the freshly baked breakfast treat nearly made her crazy while she drove the few miles between her place and the new gym facility. But she’d been determined to resist. Eating with the guys would be her bonding experience.
Montana Mavericks Christmas Page 24