Once Upon a Christmas (10 page)

“Sam,” she choked out, hardly able to speak. “Sam!”

This was it. A MSG reaction. She was going to die from
Chinese food. Holly waved her arm frantically.

He was beside her in an instant. “Here. Drink this.”

Holly gulped from the cup he held to her lips. When that was
gone, she gasped and pointed to his cup, and drank all of his tea, too. By the
time she’d finished the third cup Sam poured for her, she was starting to
believe she wasn’t going to die after all.

“My mouth is numb.” Setting the cup back in the
saucer, she gave Sam an accusing glare.

He retreated to his side of the banquette. “Sorry. It
didn’t even occur to me you might never have tried Chinese food. I guess it
is
a little spicy, if you’re not used to it.”

“A little spicy? That stuff could be used to keep peace
between nations.” She picked up her plate and pantomimed hurling it at an
invisible enemy. “Watch out, or it’s the Kung Pao Chicken for you!”

Laughing, Sam refilled both their tea cups. Holly pushed her
plate away. Far away.

“Maybe you ought to tell me what other things you haven’t
tried,” he said, “so we can avoid disaster in the future.” He
gazed thoughtfully at her. “How about Indian food? Ever tried curry?
Chicken Vindaloo?”

She shook her head. “All these new things you’ve got
planned for me to try—are they all food-related?” she asked, curious to
know what else he’d suggest.

Sam smiled. Wickedly. “Not all of them. Ever try
skinny–dipping? It’s a lot of fun, especially if you can find a heated pool.”

There’s a sensuous woman inside you, Holly.

It was dizzying to keep up with him. One minute she and Sam
were laughing. The next he was gazing at her as if he wanted to devour her. No
man had ever looked at her that way, not even Brad—
especially
not Brad.
He was too self-disciplined for that.

“Of course, I’d never ask you to do something you didn’t
want to do,” Sam was saying.

Holly smiled. “I get the feeling we’re not just talking
about Kung Pao Chicken anymore.”

“I’m not. Where this takes us is up to you. But I think
I can convince you to give us a try.”

He unwrapped a fortune cookie and handed it to her, then
selected one for himself.

“You know, some people believe fortunes like these are
really suppressed wishes.” He cracked his fortune cookie open. “What
do you think?”

“I think whoever is paid to write these things at the
fortune cookie factory would be surprised to hear that.” Holly slid the
thin paper fortune from her cookie.

“What does it say?”

“Your happiness is intertwined with your outlook on
life.”

“See? That’s dead-on.”

“No, it isn’t. It could apply to about a million other
people,” she said pragmatically. “Yours is probably just as vague.”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think it’s
right on target.” He held up his fortune so Holly could read it.

“Your present plans are going to succeed
,”
she read.

Suddenly, inexplicably, her heartbeat quickened. With a deep
breath, she glanced up from the paper fortune. Sam’s eyes met hers and held.

“So,” she asked, trying to sound lighthearted, “what
are these big ‘plans’ of yours?”

“To make you fall in love with me.” Sam brushed
his fingertip across the tip of her nose, then smiled. “I think it’s
happening already.”

Chapter Five

Sam couldn’t keep his romantic Chinese food dinner with
Holly out of his mind. He tried, but it was no use. He liked her, plain and
simple. And since he wouldn’t be in town long enough to take things slow, there
was only one thing to do.

Accelerate the process.

It was almost ten–thirty, on a November day sunny and warm
enough to heat the black asphalt shingles that topped the house he and his crew
were re–roofing. With a longing glance at the swimming pool glittering in the
house’s yard below, Sam swiped his sweaty forehead with his forearm and turned
his attention to his four–man crew.

“There’s fifty bucks in it for each of you,” he
said, taking out his wallet, just to ensure their attention, “if we can
get this job finished and cleaned up by eleven o’clock.”

There was nothing like cold cash to motivate a person.

Before the hour was up, Sam was home in the shower. A half
hour later, he drove up to the business complex where Holly’s office was. His
hair hadn’t even dried all the way before he approached the receptionist’s
desk.

She kept her head bowed as she penned a note in her
spiral–bound message pad.

“Can I help you?” she asked, tearing the message
from its perforated pad. She glanced up to put it in one of the boxes atop her
desk and saw him. She smiled widely.

Sam smiled back. “I hope so. I’m looking for Holly
Aldridge. Is she back there?” He nodded toward the rows of precisely
arranged cubicles behind the receptionist’s desk.

Her smile faded. So did much of her friendly attitude when
she answered. “Ms. Aldridge is away from the office for the day. Perhaps
another of our associates can help you?”

It was a rote reply. Sam tried again. “Can you tell me
where she’s gone?”

Holly hadn’t been home, or he’d have seen her after his
shower. And she hadn’t mentioned anything about taking the day off, either. He
wouldn’t have thought anything short of a national disaster could pull Holly
away from her desk. Even then she’d probably grab a briefcase of work to take
with her.

The receptionist frowned. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you
Ms. Aldridge’s plans, sir. Would you like to speak with someone else?”

Sir?
Brrr, it was getting chilly.

“Sam, is that you?” Clarissa popped her head over
one of the fabric–covered cubicle partitions. When she saw it was him, she came
around the corner.

“I’ll handle this one,” she told the receptionist.

After a quick hello hug, she took Sam’s arm and herded him
to her desk. Pushing aside some papers, her coffee cup, and a stack of CD jewel
cases, she settled her hip on her desktop.

“I thought I was hearing things,” she said with a
grin. “Turns out it really
was
you. You curious to know how the
other half lives, or what?”

“What other half?”

“The responsible half. The grown–up half. The happily
married and settled–down half.”

“Oh. That half.” Sam crossed his arms over his
chest and leaned back, mimicking his cousin’s relaxed posture. He added to it
an affronted look. “I’m plenty responsible and grown up,” he informed
her. “I’ve got a good job—”

“Which you treat like a lark,” Clarissa
interrupted with a toss of her hair.

“Like hell, I do.”

“It’s true. Look at that ethics charge that old
sour–butt Malcolm Jeffries brought up against you over changing your student’s
grade.”

He gave her a sharp look.

Clarissa promptly waved it away. “Your folks told me.
They worry about you.” Driving her point home with a jab at his
midsection, she persisted. “Did you take care of that little problem yet?
Huh?”

Sam felt a headache coming on. “The hearing’s not until
after Christmas, and it’ll never fly, anyway. This thing will blow over the
same way all of Malcolm’s stupid charges have.”

“You’re probably right. Still—”

“Still, all of that is beside the point.”
Unwilling to devote any more thought to Malcolm Jeffries’ petty machinations
than he had to, Sam moved back to their original conversation. “I have a
good job, which is more than can be said for most of the yucks in this town.”

“You have a job that allows you to feel like a student
for the rest of your life. Admit it, Sam.”

He didn’t want to be drawn into that old argument again. Sam
was the last person anybody in his family had expected to become a college
professor. He knew that. Hell, he was the last person anybody had expected to
go to college, period. The people close to him didn’t understand his reasons
for it, and he wasn’t holding his breath until they did.

“Don’t you have work to do?” he asked Clarissa.

She grinned. “It’s more fun to badger you.”

“I was afraid of that.” Sam sighed and decided to
get it over with. Clarissa wouldn’t let up until she found out what she wanted
to know.

“As for the rest of your accusations”—he shot her
a knowing grin—“I’ll get married and settled down just as soon as Holly
comes to her senses and says yes. Anything else?”

Clarissa shrieked. Several of her coworkers popped their
heads over the cubicle partitions. Red–faced, she waved them back down again.
She leaned forward and grabbed Sam’s shoulder.

“It’s true then! Oh, Sam—that’s so romantic. Love at
first sight. I’m really happy for you.” She gave a wistful sigh. “I
can hardly believe it, but I’m really happy for you.”

“Believe it. If you keep grinning like that, though,
your boss is going to wonder what you’re up to in here.”

Try as he might, Sam couldn’t maintain the disgruntled
expression he wanted on his face. The truth was, he felt like shouting from the
rooftops how he felt about Holly.

To him, she was the perfect combination—a woman who inspired
love, respect, and mind–bending lust in approximately equal amounts. He
grinned. The only thing stopping him from taking out a billboard to propose to
Holly was the fact that she’d probably laugh in his face.

He wasn’t Doctor Brad the Bad, after all.

Clarissa examined him closely. “Ohmigod! You really do
mean it, don’t you?”

He meant it like he meant to go on breathing, like he meant
to wake up tomorrow morning. Like he meant to make Holly feel exactly the same
way.

“When have you known me to be hesitant about something?”

Clarissa’s eyes widened.

“Point taken.” She hopped down from her desktop. “In
that case, you’d better hurry.”

“Why?”

“Because Holly’s with Brad right now.” She scanned
the yellow sticky notes on her computer monitor. “That’s the reason she
took a personal day today. She’s at the golf course, trying to talk him into
giving it another go. It’s part of her plan.”

“Her plan?”

“Holly would kill me if I told you any more. Just trust
me, okay?” After peering at a yellow sticky note, Clarissa tossed it aside
and squinted at pink one. “She left me the golf course’s number in case
some work-related emergency came up. Brad’s tee–off time is noon. Ah-hah! Here’s
the number.” She dialed the phone. “If you hurry, you can still catch
up with them.”

“And I want to do that because…?”

His cousin offered a self–satisfied little smile, then
thrust the receiver in his hand. “Because you and Holly belong together,
that’s why. Why do you think I pestered you into moving in with her? Sheesh!”

“You set us up?”

His cousin, a born matchmaker, nodded. Smugly.

“You’ve got to stop her, Sam. If I know Holly, she just
might be able to wrangle Brad the Bad into a new commitment. One turn around
the fairway—alone—might be all it takes.”

At that, Sam hung up the phone. He’d make all the necessary
arrangements with the golf course when he got there. After all, there was only
one course in all of Saguaro Vista. Right now there was no time to waste.

Her new golf clubs hadn’t seemed nearly so heavy in the
sporting goods store, Holly thought as she struggled to push through the
clubhouse door at the Saguaro Vista golf course without dumping the whole set
on the terrace. Slung over her back by the golf bag strap, they were awkward to
carry. Held in front of her, they blocked her vision.

She tried tucking the bag partway beneath her elbow like a
gigantic clutch purse and nearly poked her eye out with a putter. Maybe hiring
a caddie to help her would have been a good idea after all.

Then she saw Brad, standing just a few feet away. He gazed
across the fairway as though searching for someone, one hand shading his eyes
against, Holly supposed, the blinding glare of the green. Despite the hundred
and twenty dollars he’d paid for them, apparently Brad’s designer sunglasses
were no match for the immaculately kept, unnaturally green grass surrounding
him.

Holly tried not to feel vindicated by that, but it was hard.
She’d lobbied to spend that hundred and twenty dollars of joint–checking
account money on something worthwhile, like new shoes. Brad had vetoed that
idea in favor of the fancy sunglasses, although to his credit, he’d bought
Holly a pair, too. Never mind that she’d never held onto a pair of sunglasses
longer than three months without laying them down someplace and forgetting
them. Sometimes Brad just didn’t made sense.

Today Holly was banking on Brad making sense. She needed him
to listen to reason. It was the first phase of her plan. They still hadn’t
discussed the issues behind their separation, and Holly was through waiting for
Brad to initiate that conversation. She wanted to get to the bottom of whatever
the problem was and solve it.

She felt sure that, whatever Brad came up with, she could
find a way to work around it. Just to be doubly certain, she’d even prepared a
list of possible rebuttals. She’d stashed it inside her golf bag for quick
reference, in case she got flustered and forgot one of the points she wanted to
make.

Holly felt you could never be too prepared.

Brad headed to the first hole. With a mighty effort, she
hefted her clubs again and hurried after him, dodging several groups of
retirees discussing the weather. Apparently, they didn’t miss Minnesota winters
at
all
since coming to Arizona. Also, in their opinion, chipotle-glazed
grilled turkey made an excellent Thanksgiving Day meal.

She set one espadrille–clad foot onto the fairway just as
Brad disappeared behind a hill. Keeping her gaze fastened on the spot she’d
last seen him, Holly quickened her pace. It wasn’t easy to hurry wearing a
dress and cute new sandals and carrying a big leathery–smelling golf bag, but
she was encouraged by the thought that she looked nice.