Four For Christmas (5 page)

She hopped off the tire and walked as swiftly as her giant boots would let her, whistling for her dog before opening the door and disappearing inside.

That did not just happen. She’d had another fantasy. Only this time, she wasn’t waking up in Chris’s bed alone. She looked down at Roux. “What are we going to do now?”

***

“Are you trying to spoil us? Not that I mind, of course. Just curious.”

Georgia jerked in surprise, hot soapy water splashing on the front of her sweater. Her sweater. She’d come inside, showered and changed into her own clothes before heading into the kitchen to cook for her hosts.

She’d hardly spoken all night.

“Jimmy, you startled me. I was finishing up these dishes. Did you want more coffee?”

The tall officer walked over to the sink, grabbing an extra dishtowel and holding out his hand. “I’ll dry. I insist.”

She handed him a plate and studied the next as if it were the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. “I’m so glad I got trapped in a house with its own generator. I can’t imagine riding out that kind of storm without hot water and power, let alone cooking my Grandpa’s famous Bayou Stew.”

“Georgia.”

His tone was concerned. Determined. She turned her head to meet his gaze and he frowned. “What did Flynn say?”

She tried to shrug, handing him another plate to dry. “Nothing. But speaking of Flynn, I was curious. He called Connie’s house the orgy palace. Any particular reason?”

Jimmy appeared startled, then one side of his mouth quirked up. “I think you know, don’t you?”

“I do,” she muttered, not liking the idea of people talking about her friend behind her back, whatever the reason. “I didn’t realize everyone in the state did too.”

Jimmy sucked in his lower lip thoughtfully and Georgia tried not to salivate. He had full, sensual lips. Not that she’d been staring. He shook his head. “Not everyone in the state, no. But you just happened to be,
trapped
, as you put it, in the home of some people who do. We know about Simon and Charli and the others as well.”

Georgia knew her mouth had fallen open. “You do?”

“Sure,” he nodded. “Three of them co-own the best sporting goods store in Denver, and Connie works with Chris at the hospital. Plus, being an officer of the law has its perks. It’s not like they go out of the way to hide it.”

Why did this question feel so important? “And what do you think about it?”

“That it’s an orgy palace.” He laughed when her shoulders drooped. “Aw hell, I’m just kidding, Georgia. I think people deserve to find happiness wherever and however they can. As long as they aren’t speeding on my stretch of road, more power to them. From what I’ve seen, they are genuinely in love with each other. How can that be wrong?”

Now it was Georgia’s turn to smile. “That was very non-Neanderthal of you, Officer Jimmy.”

His brown eyes sparkled. “Impressed?”

“Terribly.”

He took the last plate from her hand, set it down and turned her toward him. “Then maybe you can tell me why you haven’t looked any of us in the eye since you went inside.”

She felt her cheeks heat. “I just think we’ve overstayed our welcome, Roux and I. You should be able to have your traditional Christmas together; I should be at Connie’s. You’ve all been so kind, but you hardly know me. You shouldn’t spend the holidays with people you hardly know.”

A dark expression crossed Jimmy’s features. “I spent every Christmas until I was seventeen with people I hardly knew. Or people I didn’t want to know. So I could agree with you on principle, I suppose. Though I thought we were all getting to know each other pretty damn well.”

He was staring at her mouth. “You, for example, know all of the words to every Christmas movie we’ve watched since you’ve been here. Don’t deny it, I was watching your lips move. So you love Christmas but pretend you don’t. You haven’t mentioned your family, other than your grandfather, and you’re going to a friend’s house in another state to celebrate, so I’m guessing either they are gone or you don’t get along with them.” He pulled her closer. “You look impossibly mussed and adorable in the mornings, but you shouldn’t be approached until you’ve had a second cup of coffee. You are, quite possibly, one of the sexiest, sassiest women I’ve met in my life—so much so that I don’t even mind the nicknames and teasing, or all this family togetherness, as long as you’re here.”

First Flynn and now this? “Wow.” A part of her was ready to melt into a puddle at his feet, but she didn’t trust it. She’d known she was flirting with them, all of them, a little bit. Enjoying their attention. But two of them in one day, three if she counted that powerful moment with Chris when she thought he was going to kiss her. It was just too surreal. “Are you sure you don’t want another coffee?”

Jimmy’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sure. I’m also sure I’m not letting you out of this kitchen until I do this.”

Georgia felt her feet leave the ground and her bottom hit the counter an instant before his mouth was on hers. His hot, hard stomach pressed between her thighs as he kissed her with a skill that had her shutting her eyes to stop the room from spinning.

His lips felt as good as they’d looked. Taste as delicious as she’d imagined they would. Her hands slid up the thick ropes of muscle on his arms and shoulders, clutching the fabric of his shirt for balance as he gripped her hips.

It was so easy to imagine him taking her. Right here, with his brothers in the other room, wondering where they were. He could drag her body to the edge of the counter, pull down her loose fitting pants and unzip his jeans.

He was so strong he’d have no problem lifting and lowering her onto his cock. Was it as big as the rest of him? She may not know for sure but in her mind it was. And God, was it a tight fit.  He would bend his head to take one of her nipples in his mouth, and then she would notice that they weren’t alone.  That Chris and Flynn were watching her. Wanting their turn. Wanting her.

She came back to reality as her body shuddered with the first signs of her impending orgasm. Just from kissing Jimmy. And the blanks her imagination was desperate to fill in. She tore her mouth from his. “Stop.”

He was as lost in the moment as she was. “Hell, Georgia. Don’t ask me—“

She leaned back, pressing against his shoulders with her hands. “Please.”

His jaw dark with arousal and his lips pursed, he nodded and took a step away from her. Georgia looked down. Oh lord, it was as big as the rest of him. The fit of his jeans was leaving nothing to her imagination.

“I’m sorry, Jimmy, I—” What? I can’t go on kissing you while I’m thinking about two other men joining in? I can’t be as bold and fearless as they all seemed to be? Luckily she didn’t have to finish her sentence.

Chris walked in and froze in the doorway. “Everything okay in here?”

Jimmy didn’t turn to greet the new arrival. “Fine, Chris. Is it time?”

Time for what? Chris’s expression was closed in a way she’d never seen it before. Did he know what they were doing? How could he not? Her lips felt swollen, her cheeks scraped…and she was sitting on the kitchen counter.

Chris ran a hand through his hair. “It’s time. Georgia, we’re trimming the tree you saved. I thought you might want to join us.”

“Sure, okay.” There was something going on, something beneath the obvious embarrassment and tension she was feeling. All she knew was that she couldn’t refuse. It felt important.

Trimming the tree. Flynn’s tree. Maybe it would help her forget what she’d just let herself do. What she wanted to keep doing.

Maybe it would help her forget the look in Chris’s eyes when he’d walked in on them just now.

The last thing she wanted was to cause conflict between them because of her misplaced, multiple attractions. Bad holiday karma? Yep. Still there.

Chapter Four

Georgia cradled her wine as she sat on the couch in front of the fire. This was the den, the heart of the five-bedroom cabin. Chris had built this room first, he’d told her, after purchasing the small patch of land with his savings from working the two jobs he’d always made sure he had from the time he was fourteen.

It was a big room. Vaulted ceilings adorned with large wooden beams, a fireplace with a knotted, rustic mantle that seemed sadly empty. A home should be filled with pictures of family vacations and birthdays. It shouldn’t be lived in only on weekends or holidays. It should always be loud with the sound of laughter and life.

Instead the three men were silent as they brought out that small Charlie Brown Christmas tree from Flynn’s room. She’d wondered where it had been.  They didn’t bring out boxes of colored balls or strings of lights to decorate it. She didn’t even see any popcorn to be threaded. What were they planning to trim the tree with?

Flynn looked over at her for a moment before turning back to the tree. The playful man, who couldn’t be more than a year or two older than her, seemed suddenly ancient and achingly sad.

“Let’s get this over with, Chris,” Jimmy snarled softly. He poured four small shot glasses of tequila from a bottle she hadn’t noticed until that moment. The fourth glass wasn’t handed to her. She sat up straighter, alert, watching them all closely.

Chris nodded. “Agreed.” He glanced at Georgia almost apologetically. “We made a promise a few years ago, that we’d do this, on this night, every year.”

“Do what?” She was speaking in hushed tones right along with them, as if the cabin had become a cathedral. As if someone were listening in.

Flynn answered. “We remember. And we decorate the saddest, ugliest little dwarf tree we can find. The one no one else would pick to take home if you paid them. The one that, without us, would be alone.”

Her eyes welled up at the lost, ragged sound in Flynn’s voice, and she knew. It had something to do with their time in foster care. She tried to smile. “Lucky tree.”

Flynn smiled back and Chris gave her a look of approval. “Nicholas always thought so. He would insist, even when we could afford better, that we got a tree that would remind us that we were different. That we would look after that tree the way we looked after each other. I think it was because none of us were ever adopted.”

Nicholas? Jimmy noticed her confusion, the way he’d noticed everything else. “Nicholas is the reason we made the promise. He was our brother too.”

Was. It was clear from his tone that they’d lost him. “When?”

“Three years this past May.” Flynn looked down at the tree as if remembering. “He joined the Marines about ten years ago now. Kept volunteering for new tours. He always said that serving his country, being a part of something greater than himself, was the second best decision he’d ever made.”

Georgia wanted to put her arms around him. Comfort him. “What was the first?”

Flynn’s voice was raspy with emotion. “Leaving with us to come to Colorado. Making our own family.”

Jimmy put his hand on Flynn’s shoulder, and Chris stood up to stare into the fire, hands in his pockets. “I always wondered if I did the right thing, taking the rest of you with me. I was nineteen, already out of the house when Flynn, the youngest, turned sixteen. The courts considered that old enough to decide where you want to live. Nick was the one who gave me the idea to come here. He carried that damn postcard with a picture of the snow-covered Colorado Rockies in his pocket for as long as I knew him. His good luck charm.”

Georgia was crying now. How could she not? They were breaking her heart. She tried to imagine what her life would have been like if she’d never known Grandpa Bale. If she’d never known her family, as distant as they were. Despite her usual abilities…she couldn’t. Or she didn’t want to.

“Read it already.” Jimmy was fiddling with the full shot glass, obviously waiting, obviously impatient.

Chris pulled a folded letter out of his pocket. “Our yearly note from Nick. We have two to read for every year we lived here together. One when we trim our unwanted Christmas tree, and one on Christmas morning, along with his present to us.” He glanced at Flynn. “He had one of his friends in the corps promise to bring the packages and instructions to our younger brother if he…if he didn’t make it home.”

He opened the sealed envelope and cleared his throat. Georgia watched the fire cast shadows over his body, his handsome face, and she felt like she could see the weight he was carrying. Like she knew this Chris, knew all of them, better than she imagined someone could after so short a time.

He began to read. “Hey guys, it’s me again. Year three. I remember our third Christmas in the cabin like it was yesterday. Chris was hardly home, working full time and going to college. He still managed to scrape enough money together between us to make it a wonderful Christmas. Even tried to cook a goose, since we’d finally gotten around to seeing A Christmas Carol. We all agreed we would stick with turkey or ham after the fire in the kitchen.”

Flynn laughed quietly at the memory. Even Chris smiled at that before continuing.

“Jimmy decided he wanted to be a police officer that year. No one was surprised. Flynn had decided he wanted to do whatever Jimmy was doing. Again, no one was surprised. And me? I think that was the year I realized we were really a family. We fought, but we stayed together. We struggled, but we worked through it.”