The Christmas Keeper

by Jenn McKinlay

  “You’re doing it again,” he said. He didn’t look at her but kept scouring the pot in the sink, splashing sudsy water up onto his forearms, where the tiny bubbles clung to the fine hairs.

  “Doing what?” Her voice came out breathy and she cleared her throat.

  “Looking at me like that,” he said.

  “You’re delusional.”

  “Really?” He rinsed the pot in clean water and turned toward her. He leaned close and Savy knew he was going to kiss her. Her fight-or-flight response completely shut down on her and she felt herself leaning toward him in return. He reached one arm around her and deposited the dripping pot onto the dish rack behind her. Oh.

  When he leaned back and grabbed the next pot and dunked it into the sink, he was grinning as if he knew very well he could have kissed her and she would have let him. Savy felt her face get hot with embarrassment. She snatched up the pot and began to dry it with a vigor that wasn’t warranted. She didn’t care. Anything to hide the fact that for a few moments, she’d been his for the taking. It was too mortifying for words.

  “Quino, I have one more for you.” Desi, carrying a forgotten relish tray, entered the kitchen. There were only three black olives left and she polished them off before handing the delicate crystal dish to her brother.

  Savy noticed that the cut glass looked tiny in his large work-roughened hands. He put it on the counter and said, “Thanks, Des, do you mind doing dish recon and make sure nothing was left anywhere else in the house?”

  “On it.” Desi gave a mock salute.

  She was a beautiful woman, with the same arching brows, dark eyes, and sculpted features as her brother, but where Quino had fine lines around his eyes and skin that was bronzed from the sun, Desi looked unmarked by the trials and tribulations of life. Savy knew Desi was only four years her junior but the younger woman had a well of optimism that radiated out of her like sunbeams, making her seem even younger than she was.

  “Oh, and don’t forget I’m driving into Asheville tomorrow to shop on Black Friday,” Desi said. “I want to get a jump on the holiday bargains.”

  Joaquin glanced up from the sink. “Do you think that’s a good idea, Des? I don’t really like the idea of you alone in a town you’re unfamiliar with.”

  “It’s Asheville, I’ve been there a million times.” Desi smiled at him. “I’ll be fine.”

  “But there’s going to be traffic and tons of people will be out shopping,” he said.

  “Yep, it’s Black Friday—that’s kind of the whole point.”

  “Why don’t you wait until Sunday?” he asked. “I could go with you on Sunday.”

  “I don’t need you to go with me, plus, all the good stuff will be gone by then.”

  He studied his sister for a moment and then finally nodded.

  “Fine, but call me when you get there,” he said. He turned back to the sink. “Then call me when you leave Asheville, so I know when to expect you home. Make sure you leave early enough so you’re not driving in the dark, and—Desi, what’s wrong?” He dropped the pot and the sponge and hurried to her side.

  Desi had a hand at her throat and her mouth was open. She looked as if she was gasping for breath. Savannah felt her heart race. Oh, God, was she choking?

  “You’re . . . suffocating . . . me,” Desi gasped. Then she straightened up and laughed. “Quit worrying so much. I’ve got this.”

  “That was not funny,” Quino said. He blew out a breath.

  “It was a little funny,” Desi countered. She held up her thumb and pointer finger. “Right, Savy?”

  “Oh, no, I’m not getting in the middle of this.” She held up her hands as if they were passing a hot potato and she was refusing to participate.

  “I’ll be fine.” Desiree stepped forward and hugged her brother tight. She pressed herself into his side and grinned up at him. “How did I get so lucky to have such a wonderful older brother? I know I don’t tell you often enough, but I really appreciate everything you do for me. I love you, Quino.”

  “I love you, too, squirt,” he said. Then he kissed the top of his sister’s head, and Savy felt all of her insides cry Aw.

  Ridiculously good-looking, a charmer, and a caring older brother, Joaquin was proving much harder to ignore than she had thought. It had been a struggle over the past few months to resist him, but at least she’d been so busy throwing herself into the promotion of Maisy’s newly opened bookstore that she hadn’t really had a chance to appreciate the man he was, other than in a superficial, surface-good-looks sort of way. Now that she was seeing him with his sister, she found the stable boy had layers of attraction she hadn’t even anticipated. Uh-oh.

  Desi slipped out of the room and it was just the two of them again. Savy felt like she should say something but she was struggling not to say what she was thinking, which was, Oh, my God, you’re so hot. She tried to keep it friendly but with no wiggle room for shenanigans.

  “You two seem very close,” she said. There, that was nice and neutral.

  “We are. Desi is all the family I have, so I’m a little protective of her.” He looked rueful. “She’d probably prefer it if I backed off, but she’s—well, she’s my baby sister.”

  “I think it’s sweet,” Savy said. “Every girl should have an older brother like you.”

  Joaquin glanced at her. “Do you have older brothers?”

  “No, I’m the youngest of three sisters,” she said. “And I’m younger by quite a lot, so we’re not very close.”

  “Ah, you were a surprise,” he said. There was a smile on his lips as if he thought being a surprise suited her. She hated to disabuse him of the notion but she’d come to terms with her status a long time ago.

  “More like my father’s last-ditch effort to have a boy,” she said. “The disappointment upon my arrival was great, or so I’ve been told.”

  Joaquin frowned. His black brows met in the middle of his forehead in a dark line of unhappy. Savannah wanted to kick herself. She hadn’t planned to share that much, or anything, really. It had to be the tryptophan from the turkey coursing through her system like truth serum. Sheesh, she sounded like a whiny brat. She tried to redirect.

  “That being said, I had a very happy childhood,” she lied.

  “And that’s a load of horseshit,” he said.

  Savannah blinked. “You don’t know—”

  “Yes, I do,” he said. He sounded so confident, so supremely arrogant, that Savy felt compelled to take him down.

  “No. You. Don’t.”

  “Then why didn’t you go home for the holiday?” he asked.

  “Because tomorrow is the biggest retail day of the year, and I’m working,” she said.

  She didn’t mention that her parents had told her not to bother since both of her sisters were coming home with their families and her parents’ house in the Hamptons would be full to bursting. They didn’t think they’d have room for Savannah. The hurt had cut deep but Savy was used to it.

  “That’s not the only reason.” He shook his head.

  “It’s mostly the reason,” she countered. “The truth is my sisters are both going home and my parents felt that the house would be overcrowded and they’re not wrong. Between them my sisters have seven kids between the ages of two and ten. It was going to be a circus and one more person would have been one too many.”

  “How is that even possible? One person too many. That’s ridiculous. You’re amazing, and I’ll bet they’re all missing you like crazy.” Joaquin’s frown returned and this time a really deep WTF line appeared in between his eyebrows, too. He looked at her as if he couldn’t imagine a scenario where she wasn’t missed. Although Savy had come to terms with the reality of her existence years ago—therapy helped—it was still a balm to her soul to have him so indignant on her behalf.

  “Thank you, but I’m fine,” she said. �
��I grew up in a house of privilege if not affection, so I learned to get by on shopping sprees and spa days.” When he didn’t smile, she put her hand on his arm. “My life really wasn’t that bad. I swear.”

  He glanced down at her hand on his arm and Savannah hastily let go, hoping it didn’t look as awkward as it felt.

  He shook his head as he studied her face. “As long as I live, I swear I will never understand some people. It’s like they don’t understand what a gift having a family is.”

  Savannah watched him as he turned back to the sink and scrubbed the pan as if it had done something to offend him. He attacked the grease and grit with a ferocity of repressed feeling that made her wonder about his story. She had learned from Maisy that his parents had been killed in a horrific car accident and that he had taken on the responsibility of raising Desi from that point on. No one talked about it, but she had caught on to the fact that Desi had some issues. She was twenty-five but still lived at home, had commuted to college instead of living there, and her days were spent working with the horses in their stable.

  Savannah wanted to ask him about Desi but she couldn’t figure out how to do it without being rude. It was none of her business, and if she wasn’t going to get involved with him then she’d best let it go. She put away the pot she’d dried and reached for the next one.

  “I think families are only a gift if you’re lucky enough to have a good one,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons I decided a long time ago to never marry or have children.”

  Joaquin stood up straight and snapped his gaze to her face. “You don’t want a family?”

  “Nope,” she said. “I don’t think I have the skill set.”

  “Sure you do,” he said.

  She raised her eyebrows at him. “How could you possibly know if I would make a good wife or mother?” She used one hand to pull the turtleneck sweater, which suddenly felt too tight, away from her skin. “Even the thought of it makes me rashy.”

  She thought she’d score a laugh off him. But no. Instead, he looked at her with an intensity in those black eyes that made her hold her breath.

  “You are so full of it,” he said.

  “Are you calling me out?” she asked. “Because it’s very rude to contradict a woman, who at the ripe old age of twenty-nine knows who she is, what she wants, and what she doesn’t.”

  “Fair enough. I can’t speak to your abilities at mothering, having never seen you with a baby or a toddler or a child,” he said. “But I know for a fact, you’d be an excellent wife, or life partner, if the word wife offends you.”

  Savannah propped a hand on her hip. She looked him up and down. He had some nerve.

  “What could you possibly know about me that makes you think I’d be a good little wife?” she asked. Her voice crackled with challenge.

  Joaquin dropped the pot into the sudsy water and grabbed another dish towel to dry his hands. Then he draped it on his shoulder and began to tick off reasons on his fingers.

  “One, I never said ‘good’ or ‘little,’ I said ‘excellent,’ which is way better. Two, I know that Maisy was in trouble when she opened her business and you came down here to help her. That’s selfless, which is a rare quality in anyone. Three, I’ve watched you with the customers in the shop—you go all in, trying to help. You care about them. They’re strangers and you care. Four, I’ve seen you use your online wizardry skills to help anyone who asks—from me and my website for the stables to Roger at the local hardware store and his newsletter. Five, you are without question the hottest woman I’ve ever seen, and I’m pretty sure it would take me a lifetime to get enough of you.”

  Savannah blinked. She didn’t know what to say. She knew what she needed to say, but the words wouldn’t come. She cleared her throat. She pointed at him. She cleared her throat again. He looked smug, like he didn’t think she could argue his points. That, right there, proved he did not know her at all.

  “First off, excellent is subjective. What is one person’s excellent is another person’s waking nightmare, so that’s out. Second, I only came to help Maisy because I was out of work and she’s my friend. It was convenient. Third, helping customers in the bookstore is the whole point of working there. Fourth, of course I help people with their online presence and publicity questions. That’s just good business because then they refer you to other people. And lastly, you—” She was doing so well with her rebuttal and then she had no words.

  The man just called her the hottest woman he had ever seen, which was completely ludicrous—he was either a flatterer like no other or he really needed to have his eyes checked—but for some reason, she couldn’t, or didn’t want to, argue with him on that point.

  “You were saying?” he asked. The grin he directed her way was positively wicked.

  Chapter Three

  HEY, can I lend a hand in here?” Sawyer, carrying yet another plate, cruised into the room.

  Savannah blinked at him. She had completely lost her train of thought under the hot dark gaze of the man beside her. “Huh?”

  “No, we’re good, thanks,” Joaquin said.

  He reached out and took the plate from Sawyer. Joaquin wasn’t unfriendly but he wasn’t particularly approachable, either. Savannah sensed a current of tension coming from him toward the other man, but wondered if she was imagining it.

  “Okay,” Sawyer said. He glanced at Savannah and added, “Thank you, that was delicious.”

  “You bet,” she said. “There’s more if you’re hungry.”

  “Thanks, but I’m stuffed.” He raised his hands in surrender and backed out of the kitchen with a smile so like Ryder’s and Perry’s that she was struck by the strength of the Copeland family genes.

  Joaquin turned away and faced he sink. He began to scrub the remaining plate and Savannah moved beside him to grab it when he was done.

  She waited a moment and then said, “Okay, what gives?”

  “About what?”

  “You. Sawyer. The draft of Arctic air that blew through here when he stepped into the kitchen,” she said.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. He wasn’t making eye contact with her.

  Savannah wondered if she should push him since it really wasn’t any of her business, but really, when had that ever stopped her? “You, Joaquin Solis, are a horrible liar. Possibly the worst I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something since Maisy is my best friend and she can’t fib for beans.”

  “What are you talking about? I could lie if I wanted to,” he said. “I just choose not to.”

  “Except for a few seconds ago when you said you didn’t know what I meant when you clearly knew exactly what I was talking about. So what is your deal with Sawyer anyway?”

  Joaquin handed her the plate and she began to dry it, all the while keeping her gaze on him, waiting for his explanation.

  “I don’t have a problem with him,” he said. “I’ve only met him a couple of times. I don’t even know him.”

  “Try again.”

  “All right, maybe I have a small issue with the fact that he up and abandoned his brother when he needed him the most.”

  “Sawyer abandoned Ryder?” she asked.

  “As far as I could tell, he did. I was attending college and working on a construction crew in Texas with Ryder when he hooked up with Whitney, Perry’s mother,” he said. “Suddenly, Whitney was pregnant, they got married, and Sawyer just bounced out of the picture and off onto his own life.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “How old was he?”

  “Same age as me at the time, nineteen,” he said. “Ryder may be older by a couple of years, but he needed Sawyer and he wasn’t there.”

  “Maybe Sawyer felt like Ryder didn’t need him anymore because he had a wife and a kid,” she said. “Maybe he felt like the big brother he’d always been close to had suddenly abandoned him, leaving him
alone and adrift without a safety net or anyone to turn to when life got rough.”

  Joaquin leaned back and looked at her. Really looked at her. His voice when he spoke was soft and full of understanding. “Is that what happened to you with your older sisters, Red?”

  “No,” she snapped. “I’m just theorizing. And don’t call me Red.”

  “Your older siblings left to start families of their own and you felt totally abandoned and replaced,” he continued.

  “Stop! No. We’re not talking about me,” she said. “I am merely pointing out that maybe there are two sides to the story and Sawyer felt a bit cut loose when his brother unexpectedly started a family of his own.”

  Quino considered her. Then he gave a slow nod. “I never thought of it like that.”

  “Because Ryder’s your friend and Perry’s your goddaughter, and you are very protective of those you care about,” she said.

  “Maybe,” he agreed. “A little.”

  She didn’t laugh in his face. She thought she should get points for her restraint, given that calling himself a little protective was the understatement of the decade. But any thought she had about laughing at him vanished as he leaned in close. He was four or five inches taller than her, which was weird because given her own unusual height most men were either shorter than her or the same height. She rarely had to look up at anyone.

  She did it now and she wasn’t sure she liked the feeling. It felt as if there was a power shift of which she was unaware and it wasn’t in her favor. Joaquin must have sensed it, too, because he hunkered down so they were on the same level.

  When his gaze met hers, he said, “For the record, you’re a terrible liar, too.”

  “Ah,” she gasped. “That’s not true. I can spin a tall tale with the best of them. I mean, look at this hair. I’m half Scots and half Irish, so I’m thrifty and full of malarkey. Honestly, you can’t trust a word I say.”