Marry-Me Christmas (13 page)

S
AM WAS FORCED
to go straight home. Earl refused to drop her off at the bakery. He told her in no uncertain terms that it was Christmas Eve and no fool in her right mind worked the night before Christmas. “And you, my dear Sam, are no fool,” Earl said. “You have yourself a merry Christmas. I’ll get your Jeep on December twenty-sixth, and fix it up, good as new.”

“Thanks, Earl.” Sam left the truck, and traipsed up her stairs, Flynn behind her. She unlocked the door, then paused. “Do you want to come in for a while?”

Earl tooted his horn, then pulled away, tossing Sam a grin and a wave as he did. “Looks like my ride has left me,” Flynn said.

“Everyone in this town is a matchmaker,” Sam muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Flynn cast a glance at the dark sky. “I should probably get back to Betsy’s. Finish my article, get packed…” His voice trailed off. He toed at the porch. “Earl’s got my car ready, so I can get on the road.”

“It’s Christmas Eve, Flynn. Surely you aren’t thinking of driving home tonight.”

Flynn flicked out his wrist and checked his watch. “It’s a fourteen-, or fifteen-hour drive back to Boston. The longer I stay here, the longer it is ’til I get my article turned in. I could take a chance on getting it e-mailed from here, but the Internet connection is too spotty. So I should—”

“Should what? Hurry home for a Christmas that’s no Christmas at all?” She leaned against the open door and faced him. No way was she going to let him go without making a good attempt to get this man to enjoy the holiday. Not after what he’d told her back in the cabin. He, of everyone she knew, deserved more than that. “What’s waiting for you back in Boston? An empty apartment? A half a bottle of wine in a refrigerator filled with take-out boxes?”

“I doubt my fridge is filled with anything. I don’t eat at home often enough to even leave the leftovers in there.”

“Exactly my point.”

He thumbed in the direction behind him. “My car is—”

“Still going to be ready the day after Christmas. You should stay here. And have a Christmas, a real one, for once. Look at this town. It’s Christmas personified. Where else are you going to find a bed-and-breakfast owner wearing jingle bells, for Pete’s sake?”

He quirked a grin at her. “Are you trying to convince me to stay?”

“I’m offering you the deal of the year. A holiday you won’t forget.” She’d do whatever it took tomorrow—bake a ham, light the candles, sing the carols—if it would give Flynn the Christmas she suspected he had yet to have.

He shook his head, the slight smile still playing at his lips, as if he could tell he was being beaten at his own game. “And what will
you
be doing this Christmas?”

“Spending the morning with my Aunt Ginny and then…” Sam’s voice trailed off. She may want to give Flynn MacGregor a Christmas, but in the end, he was still a reporter, and she was still a woman who wanted to keep a few personal details private.

“And then what?”

“I visit other family members.”

He studied her. “You don’t trust me.”

“Should I?”

“Why shouldn’t you?”

“Let’s be real here, Flynn. You want me for the story, not for me. And you’ll be gone after the holiday. I can’t afford to have my heart broken.”

“So instead you don’t risk it at all.”

She met his gaze, seeing in him the same distance that he had maintained from the minute he’d pulled into town. Every once in a while, Flynn had let down his guard—like he had back in the cabin—but most of the time, he had a wall up as unscalable as Alcatraz. “I say what we have here, Mr. MacGregor, is a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black.”

He chuckled. “Touché, Miss Barnett.” Then he took a step closer, winnowing the gap between them into inches. “Perhaps we should just say goodbye now, rather than delay the inevitable.”

“Maybe we should.”

“That would be the wisest course.”

She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. “It would.”

“And yet…” He paused. “I’m not leaving.”

“You’re not?”

“I want what you’re offering.” A shadow flickered in his eyes, like he’d briefly wandered into a bright room that exposed every vulnerable corner of his soul. “I want a Christmas. Just this once.”

Resisting those four words was impossible. Even if it meant opening her heart, being vulnerable and maybe being left alone—and sorry—at the end of all of this.

She’d do it for the boy who hadn’t had a Christmas. She’d do it because she saw something in his eyes that bordered on the same longing she had felt ever since Grandma Joy had left.

“I can give you that,” Sam whispered. “I can.”

Flynn MacGregor had stepped into the one fantasy he’d never allowed himself to have.

A seven-foot Christmas tree stood in the living room, hung with unlit multicolored lights. A string of gold beads draped concentric festive necklaces down the deep green pine branches. Not a single ornament matched. Every one of them, Flynn was sure, from the tiny nutcracker to the delicate gilded bird, was the kind that had a history. A story behind it. An angel held court over the tree, a permanent patient smile on her porcelain face, arms spread wide, as if welcoming Flynn to the room.

Beneath the tree, dozens of wrapped presents waited for tomorrow. For loved ones, for friends. There wasn’t one, Flynn knew, for him, but for just a second, he could pretend that this tree was his own. That he would wake up tomorrow in this house and the sun would hit those branches, gilding them with a Christmas morning kiss. That Sam would flick on the tree lights, he would make a wish—

And it would come true.

Damn. He was getting sentimental.

And most of all, forgetting why he had come to this town in the first place.

“I can make some coffee,” Sam was saying, “or if you’re hungry…”

“Do you have…” He paused. This was insane. He was a reasonable man. A man who never, ever, got emotional. Out of sorts. But something about that tree, that damned tree, had him feeling—

Nostalgic.

Craving things he’d never desired before.

“What?” Sam asked.

Flynn swallowed. Pushed the words past his throat. “Hot chocolate?”

She laughed. “Of course.”

He followed her into the kitchen and found this room just as festive as the other. Instead of annoying him, as the town and Betsy’s house had when he’d first arrived, Sam’s home seemed to wrap him with comfort. Her kitchen, warmly decorated in rich earth tones of russet brown and sage green, held a collection of rustic Santas, marching across the top of the maple cabinets. A quartet of holly-decorated place mats waited for guests at the small oval table, which was ringed with chairs tied with crimson velvet bows. It was beautiful. Picturesque, even.

Oh, boy. He was really getting soft now. Next, he’d be breaking out into song.

Outside the window, a light snow began to fall, the porch light making the white flakes sparkle against the night like tiny stars. Flynn shook his head and let out a soft gust.

“What?” Sam asked, handing him a mug of hot chocolate.

Flynn looked down. Whipped cream curled in an
S
on top of the hot liquid. In a snowman-painted mug. “Of course.”

“Of course, what?”

He turned toward her. “It’s like you ordered up a Christmas, and it arrived straight out of the catalog, and into your house.”

“This? This is nothing. I didn’t have enough time this year, because the publicity from that article has kept me so busy at the bakery, to even put up all the decorations. I haven’t even turned on the lights once yet. You should see my house when I really—”

He cut off her words with his own mouth, scooping her against him with his free arm. Just as fast, he released her. What had come over him? Every time he turned around, he was kissing her. “Sorry.”

“Sorry for kissing me? Was it that bad?”

“No. Not for that.” He turned away, heading for the back door. He watched the snow fall and sipped at the hot cocoa. Perfectly chocolately, just the right temperature.

Suddenly, guilt rocketed through him. Here he was, standing in the perfect kitchen, enjoying the perfect cup of hot cocoa, with a woman who could be anyone’s wife, when he was far from the kind of man who would make a good husband.

For a moment there, he’d actually pictured himself staying. Enjoying the holiday. Being here, in this crazy town for longer than just one more night.

Who was he kidding? Flynn MacGregor was a nomad. A man who didn’t stick, any more than the flakes falling to the ground. In a month or two, or even three, they would melt and be gone, as if they had never existed.

He would be wise to do the same. Instead of thinking he could have what he’d never even dared to dream of.

Especially when this was his last chance to get what he had really come for. What he needed, if he hoped to make that final payment on Liam’s tuition, and do what he’d promised Liam he’d do since that day on the beach.

Take care of his brother for as long as he needed him.

Flynn took another sip of hot chocolate, but the drink had lost its sweetness. He shifted position, and something poked him in the chest.

His notepad.

His job. He was supposed to be asking questions. Somehow, he’d lost his compass, forgotten his focus, and Flynn knew exactly when that had happened.

When he’d lost the tight hold on his emotions, let down his guard and kissed Samantha Barnett. He cleared his throat, tugged the notepad and pen from the breast pocket of his jacket and flipped to a clean sheet. Back in work mode, and out of making-mistake mode. Hadn’t he learned his lesson back in June? He couldn’t afford another mistake like that.

He turned around, back to Sam. “You owe me a few answers, Miss Barnett, remember?”

He worked a smile to his face as he said the words, but he knew Sam caught the no-nonsense tone, the formal name usage. Shadows washed over her features.

Flynn had done what he wanted. He’d erased those kisses, undone them as easily as if he’d painted over the past with a wide brush. Leaving this room, filled with so many rich colors, as pale as an old sheet.

He was so tempted to put the notepad back, to leave the subject alone. Just walk out that door and write a nice, sweet article about a happy baker in the middle of Indiana making cookies that had made dozens of couples fall in love.

And watch his career go right down the toilet.

“Yesterday,” he began, clicking his pen on, “I wrote up a draft of my article, and when I finished the piece, I realized there were a few holes.”

“Holes?” Sam crossed to the refrigerator, pulled out a selection of cold cuts and condiments, then headed for the breadbox. “Like what?”

“I wanted to ask about your grandmother.”

Sam bristled. “I told you. She doesn’t work at the bakery anymore.”

“Because she lives in a rest home now?”

Her features froze, and a chill whipped through the room. “How do you know about that?”

“This is a small town, like you said. Everyone knows everything.” A flicker of regret ran through him. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. Clearly, this was a subject Sam wanted him to leave untouched.

But he couldn’t. Every instinct inside him told him this was where his story lay. If he didn’t pursue this line of questioning, he’d surely run his career into the ground.

“I don’t want to talk about my grandmother,” Sam said. She opened the package of ham, unwrapped a couple slices of cheese, all the while avoiding looking at him.

“She founded the bakery,” Flynn said. “She’s where everything began. I think people would want to know—”

Sam wheeled around. “I don’t give a damn what people want to know! Let them remember her the way she was, not as this—”

She cut off the words, as if realizing she’d let too much slip already.

“As this invalid who doesn’t remember the very dream she helped create?” Flynn finished.

And hated himself.

Tears pooled in Sam’s eyes. “Don’t. Don’t print that.”

“It’s the truth, Sam. It’s—”

“I don’t care what it is. I don’t care if this is the story that gets you the big headline.” She snorted, disgust mixing with the beginnings of tears. “That’s all I am to you, isn’t it? That’s all this was about? A headline?”

“No. That’s not it. There’s more to this story than that.”

“Right.” She shook her head. “Tell me you weren’t planning on writing some dream falling into a tragedy? Or are you going to pretend that you had something else planned from the beginning? Some happy little piece? I read your articles in the magazine, Flynn, but I kept thinking—” her voice broke and damn, now he really hated himself, really, really did “—you’d be different, that you wouldn’t do that to
me
.”

The man in Flynn—the one who had kissed Sam, had held her in front of the fire in that cabin—wanted to retreat, to end the conversation before he hit at the raw nerves he knew ran beneath a difficult subject. Hell, he could write the book on raw nerves. And he could see, in Sam’s eyes, in the set of her shoulders, that this wasn’t something she wanted to talk about. But the reporter in Flynn had to keep going. “I’m not trying to hurt you, Sam. I’m just trying to get to the truth.”