12 Men for Christmas

by Phillipa Ashley

  “This might sting a bit.”

  As he touched the raw skin on one of her hands and she nearly jumped ten feet in the air, he realized he’d just made the understatement of the year. She winced and tried to take her hand away.

  “Don’t be a baby,” he said brusquely, imprisoning her fingers in his. “It’s not that bad.”

  “You sit here and say that.”

  “I’m only trying to help, but if you don’t want me to…”

  “No, I’m grateful. Really. It’s just…so sore.”

  “I know it’s tender, Emma, and I’ll be as careful as I possibly can.” He crossed his heart solemnly. “Promise.”

  He could see she didn’t believe him, and she was right not to. He saw her bite her lip, her eyes glistening as he cleaned her hand, and he reflected on how this would be the perfect time to ask her out on a date. And if she’d been any other woman, he would have.

  But Emma? Now? It just didn’t seem, well, ethical.

  A horrible thought darted into his mind; maybe his conscience was coming home to roost. She looked so gorgeous, sitting there, her feet scraping the ground, her new boots muddy, a smudge of mud on her face. Trusting him. That last observation made his stomach flip and caused an unprofessional response lower down. He rubbed her hand harder than he meant, and she twitched in discomfort.

  * * *

  As soon as he’d finished sticking a dressing on her hand, Emma was ready to make her escape. That dark and sexy gaze met hers, and for a nanosecond, she thought she glimpsed something more tender than irritation or his professional manner. It might even have been tenderness, but it was so fleeting, she was already wondering if she’d imagined it. Whatever it was, Emma suddenly felt a strange pricking at the back of her eyes that made her want to get to the haven of her car right away.

  “Thanks so much, Will. Bye then,” she muttered and had already gotten three paces from the Land Rover when she heard him calling her, not unkindly but with a distinct tinge of amusement.

  “Emma—hold on a moment, please.”

  She turned around to face him. What on earth could he want now?

  “I hate to tell you this, but actually, I need to do your other hand…”

  * * *

  An hour or so later, both hands protected by attractive white dressings, Emma was nearly back at her apartment. The cuts were hurting but nowhere near enough to warrant the tears threatening to put in an appearance at any moment. She realized it wasn’t the fall that had caused them but Will’s unexpected care for her.

  His gentleness, however grudging, had reminded her how vulnerable she had become since Jeremy. Charming, handsome, shallow Jeremy had reduced her to this state when he’d laid her heart open six months before. Now it seemed that any man had the power to reduce her to jelly with a simple act of kindness, she chided herself. Any man, that was, whom she just happened to meet, minus his clothes, on top of a mountain. Especially one in a rescue team, with a body to die for, demanding she sit down and let him tend to her wounds.

  She was climbing the staircase to her flat now and scraping the key in the lock. Pulling off her boots and taking off her coat, she collapsed onto the sofa. She curled up and hugged the huge purple, star-shaped cushion that had been a flat-warming present from Jules and Sarah, two of the London friends who’d stuck by her after she’d been given the boot from Rogue and Jeremy all in the same day.

  Emma let out a little sob as she remembered how her friends had handed out the wine, the sympathy, and the tissues and helped her trawl the internet looking for a new job. They’d even driven all the way up to the Lakes to help her move in to the flat. But after a weekend helping her settle in, they’d had to go back, of course. She could see them now, jumping into Jules’s bloke’s van before heading home to London with promises of wild weekends to come and dire warnings about sheep shagging.

  Emma had smiled and waved and reassured them that the local sheep weren’t her type. And then she’d hauled herself up the stairs to the flat and done just what she was going to do now—have a bloody good cry.

  To her shame, the tears had soaked the cushion before she fell asleep, exhausted, as the afternoon reached its close. When she awoke, the purple star was still clutched to her like a favorite doll, the sun was starting to set over the lake, and the flat was still in disarray. As she dragged a tissue from the pocket of her jeans and wiped her sticky eyes, she decided to put the kettle on and give herself a motivational talk.

  She was a strong, independent woman who was getting her life back in order. Starting with her small flat, one of the few aspects of the whole sorry mess of her life that had turned out well over the past few months. OK, so it didn’t have a view over a buzzing main street bristling with the scent of coffee and ethnic food. It wasn’t six tube stops away from Jeremy’s favorite teppanyaki restaurant or three from the deli where the old woman ordered in his favorite pastrami because “he was so polite and so handsome.”

  This little flat, she reminded herself, was twenty minutes’ walk from a bottle of milk and several hours from a bowl of miso soup. Yet it had its own advantages. It had a view over the lake that made your soul soar, and most of all, it was as far as she could get from the glittering offices of Rogue Communications.

  Emma sighed as steam filled her tiny kitchen. Her new job as the tourist board PR officer was busy and steady rather than manic and thrusting. The people were just what she’d needed. Like a nice cup of afternoon tea, they were strong and warm and comforting.

  And Will?

  She’d only met him a few times, but her reaction to him was disturbing. He certainly wasn’t like a nice cup of tea. No, Will was more like a double espresso with sugar, unstirred. A mouth-searing caffeine jolt, laced with sweetness if you were lucky enough to get to the bottom of him. Once tasted, he’d be difficult not to crave. She would have to stick to tea.

  She certainly didn’t want to be jolted by anyone these days. Jeremy had done enough of that for a lifetime. Just because Will had made her feel unsettled and turned on and very confused didn’t mean anything. In fact, considering what had gone on today, a microwaved dinner, a glass of Shiraz, and her favorite feel-good DVD were just about all she could cope with. That and the chance to collapse into bed, her hands duly and painfully de-gritted as Will had ordered.

  Under normal circumstances, the film would have absorbed her until the credits rolled and her eyes rebelled. Until tonight. Tonight, her mind kept returning to the fellside, to Will. To his dark hair ruffled by the breeze and his hard body as she handed him his jacket, to his tough tenderness as he held her grazed hands in his. As she drifted off to sleep, she was in his arms on Black Fell as he laid his jacket on the grassy hillside, stripped her naked, and made powerful, mind-blowing love to her.

  Chapter 3

  “I hope you’re not looking for a hero, Emma. Because Will Tennant most definitely isn’t one.”

  Emma glanced up from the newspaper that was spread over her desk at the tourist office. Jan Edwards, the office admin manager, was standing in front of her with a cookie packet in one hand and a plastic cup in the other. At twenty-nine, she already had one divorce, six cats, and a shameful collection of cheesy rock CDs that she’d proudly shown Emma when they’d shared a curry and a bottle of wine one night after work. After just a few weeks, Emma had already realized that what Jan didn’t know about the Bannerdale social scene wasn’t worth knowing—although she also had to admit some of it was pretty dodgy.

  “Hi, Jan. Just doing the press cuttings.”

  “Oh really?” asked Jan innocently as Emma peered again at the article she’d been reading: “Outside Edge Reaches New Heights.” There on page three, appropriately enough, was a photograph of Mr. December, wearing a rather different kind of suit, Emma noted, from the one on the mountain top. A sharp business suit, shirt, and tie, to be precise.

  His designer stubble
was nowhere to be seen, and his hair had been tamed into some kind of submission. He wouldn’t have looked out of place on a city trading floor—if it hadn’t been for the climbing ropes and harnesses slung over his shoulder.

  Jan plonked her plastic cup on top of Mr. December’s head. Brown liquid slopped onto his designer suit, wrinkling his shirt and tie.

  “You did hear what I said, didn’t you, Em? Will’s no hero—if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking…”

  “I’m in no danger, Jan, and I’ve absolutely no desire to meet a hero or a villain—not after recent experiences. You know that,” she declared as Jan decapitated the cookie packet with her fingernail.

  Emma’s eye wandered back to Will’s photo. She had to admit he did tick all the usual boxes. Tall, dark, gorgeous, fit…and, according to Jan, single. What woman wouldn’t have him on their hit list? If they were looking, which she wasn’t.

  She peeled the cup off Will’s face and braved a sip. “How do you know so much about him, Jan?” she asked as the coffee made her shudder. “And thanks for the…er…what is it exactly?”

  “It says cappuccino next to the button,” supplied her colleague, pulling a face. “But they all taste like washing-up water to me. As for Will, I don’t know him that well personally…but I’ve heard plenty from his conquests.”

  OK. Fine. Emma’s mental pen was hovering above an extra box on the list. The one she didn’t want to tick. The one marked “philandering love rat.”

  “Conquests? Have there been many?”

  “Oh, dozens,” said Jan airily. “Well, three that I can actually swear to—since he finished with Kate Danvers, that is.”

  Emma braved the cappuccino again and cringed. “Who’s Kate Danvers?”

  “His ex-fiancée—a local solicitor. He dumped her a couple of years ago. The morning of their wedding, to be precise.”

  “Bloody hell!”

  “I know,” said Jan, clearly delighted with the dramatic effect.

  “And he actually jilted her? On the day?” Emma was stunned. Will was definitely cynical, maybe a bit of a lad, but dumping his bride almost at the altar? It was the stuff of Victorian melodrama, with him as archvillain.

  “Oh yes,” Jan continued airily. “Everyone round here knows that Will wanted to graze in pastures new.” Noticing their boss look up from his computer in his glass-walled office, she lowered her voice a decibel.

  Emma glanced at James and smiled. James looked like he couldn’t decide whether to smile back or come out and tell them to keep the noise down. She felt a bit sorry for him. He’d slunk into the office sporting red eyes and crumpled trousers that looked like he’d slept in them.

  “James looks a bit grumpy for a new father,” murmured Emma, torn between guilt and a desperate desire to hear more gossip about Will.

  Jan gave their boss a friendly wave, then turned her attention straight back to Emma. “He’s off on paternity leave tomorrow, so we’ll get a bit of peace for a week. Now, where were we?”

  “Will, I think,” said Emma as casually as she could manage.

  “Oh yes. The git. He must have done the dirty on Kate. Why else would she have rushed off down south so suddenly? He’s never denied it either.”

  Emma’s stomach lurched. So this was the man she’d almost developed a crush on. What a pig. And what a lucky escape, not that he’d made a move on her or anything. Well, one thing was for sure. The love-rat box had a thick black check mark.

  Jan offered her a cookie and added conspiratorially, “I’m not one to gossip, but if you had any ambitions in that direction, it’s only fair to warn you what he’s like.”

  “Believe me, I do not and never will have any ambitions of the kind.”

  Jan was almost level with Emma’s ear now, one huge hoop earring brushing against her face. “It’s when he asks you to his cottage that you really have to worry…”

  “I can’t think what you mean.”

  “This is purely hearsay, mind,” Jan whispered, “but he’s got a massive four-poster bed, and he isn’t lacking in the other department either. Though you’ve already seen everything he’s got to offer, haven’t you?”

  “Jan!” Emma hissed. “You’re absolutely outrageous!”

  “I’m only going by what the girls in question said.” She straightened up. “Seriously, Em, I’d watch him. He’s a woman-hater. Takes you out a few times, gets you back to the cottage, then ‘wham, bam, thank you, ma’am,’ and you won’t hear from him ever again. You’ll just be another notch on his impressive bedpost.”

  “There is absolutely no way I will ever be a notch on anyone’s bedpost, least of all Will’s,” cried Emma. She caught Jan’s raised eyebrows. “Stop looking at me like that! I mean it. I don’t do commitment-phobes or jilting love rats, no matter how well provided for, financially or otherwise.”

  “Methinks the lady doth object too much.”

  “Protest. It’s ‘methinks the lady doth protest too much.’”

  “Protest? Hmm. I’d like to see you doing that faced with the gorgeous Will… Anyway, I must get back to the budget spreadsheets.” Jan snatched up the cookies giving Emma a glimpse of an amazing design on one of her nail extensions.

  As she tried to concentrate on her press release on the village’s new Wordsworth Center, all she could think of was Will. What an absolute pig. Still—there were a lot of them about, and she’d just met her second, by all accounts. What kind of a guy jilted his fiancée on their wedding day?

  Fortunately, Emma reflected, he hadn’t so much as asked her for her phone number, let alone tried to lure her to his cottage. All she’d had was a businesslike, “Goodbye. See you around,” as she’d left him packing the first aid kit away. He obviously didn’t fancy her, so there was no chance of her name ever being etched on his four-poster.

  Or ending up like Kate Danvers—cast aside like a piece of trash on the fellside when he became bored. Well, if he ever did try anything, she knew exactly what she was going to say to him, and it wouldn’t concern the size of his boots.

  At lunchtime, she drew the newspaper out of her desk drawer again:

  The driving force behind Outside Edge is local businessman Will Tennant. The 34-year-old entrepreneur has built up the company from scratch into one of the fastest growing chains of outdoor stores in the country. Now he’s planning to branch out into a lucrative new area—property development.

  It’s become Bannerdale’s worst-kept secret that Tennant has his eye on the former Lakeshore House. The man himself won’t be drawn on any possible plans for turning the building into luxury apartments, but any plans like that are bound to be met with strong opposition.

  “No comment”—but no denial either, was the best response the Gazette could get from Tennant when asked about his interest in Lakeshore House.

  Local folk will be watching this space…

  Checking that no one was looking, Emma snipped out the article and stuffed it in her handbag.

  * * *

  “OK, Max, what do you think? Is it viable?”

  Two weeks after his photo shoot, Will was giving Lakeshore House an appraisal with his friend Max Coleridge. He noticed the wisteria and ivy were already threatening to smother the building and smiled ruefully. Two years of neglect could take its toll on any structure—heart or home.

  “If you can get planning permission and the finance, then yes—I think Lakeshore House would make a great outdoor center,” offered Max.

  “Finance won’t be a problem.” Will had laughed at the article in the Gazette. “Planning to branch out into property development,” the reporter had “revealed.” Well, he’d branched out into that area some years ago and long before the market had gone ballistic, and his best deal had been his home, Ghyllside Cottage.

  He turned his attention back to Max. He’d liked him ever since they’d first met
or, rather, beaten each other up in the playground of Bannerdale primary school. Fighting over a girl as he recalled. By the end of the bout, they were swapping football cards, the nine-year-old siren forgotten. Twenty-five years down the line, Max was a successful architect, and they were still sparring.

  They’d spent two hours going over the whole building, looking at its potential. Bedrooms, seminar rooms, kitchen facilities, parking: every aspect had been weighed up coolly and critically.

  With his contacts from his teaching days, Will knew he could provide a really great place for youngsters whose idea of the great outdoors was the parking lot outside a fast-food place. Taking off his hard hat, he wiped away a trickle of sweat from his forehead with his arm. It was humid for mid-April, and as his eyes rested on the mountains, he could tell a storm was threatening.

  “So it’s not a pie-in-the-sky idea?” he repeated.

  “How many times have you asked me that?” Max grinned.

  “Only a few,” Will conceded. “Most of my mad ideas have actually turned out rather well—eventually.”

  He smiled to himself. He’d had many mad ideas in his time. Like managing to pass his A levels and get a place at university even though he’d spent most of his study leave climbing. Like training to be a teacher, then leaving immediately afterward to get Outside Edge off the ground.

  Will cast his eye over Lakeshore House one last time. Through the trees and overgrown shrubs in the grounds, he could just glimpse the lake in the distance. It would be perfect if he could fend off any property developers. The planners should be on his side, but one never knew, not when so much money was involved. He never took anything for granted in business or otherwise these days.

  “Are you up for it, then?” asked Max.

  “What? Buying this pile?”

  “No. Our next mission. Can you cope with it?”