Must Love Mistletoe

Chapter 10

Finn watched Tanner slide a cup of coffee onto the bar in front of him, lining it up with the Coke, 7-Up, and glass of iced virgin Bloody Mary already waiting there. He’d been too restless to sit around Gram’s house all evening, but he’d made himself a promise to avoid hitting the alcohol. Two binges a month were his limit.

Not to mention the trouble he’d gotten into last time he was drunk. Tonight he was determined to keep himself jam-free.

Maybe a bar wasn’t the best destination for him, but after Gram had gone to bed, within minutes he’d been sick of his own company and the replays of past and recent life experiences that continued to run through his brain. The only relief he’d come up with was to leave the house in search of safe, like-minded company.

Tanner was the other most messed-up man he knew.

Finn cupped his palms around the hot ceramic mug. “The Mad Gift Giver struck again.”

Tanner shook back his newly long, pretty-boy blond hair. “What now?”

“Late Friday afternoon, when Gram and I came back from her doctor’s appointment-”

“Anything new there?”

Finn focused on his coffee, edging it closer to the Coke so that there was equal distance between his beverages. “No. I told you. She’s on the road to recovery. As I was saying though, when we came home from her doctor’s appointment, there was a set of knight’s armor waiting for me on the porch.”

“Need I ask? Real knight’s armor?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, though it looks museum quality to my admittedly untrained eye. It’s life-sized and filled with Tootsie Rolls from metal heels to metal helmet.”

Tanner swigged down half a glass of ice water. “Good candy choice, at least.”

“She must be nervous about coming by the bar because there was also something left for you.”

The other man carefully set the glass down. “Don’t tell me what it is.”

Finn couldn’t help his grin. It had been a good idea to come to the bar and hang with his buddy. “One of those big, five-pound-”

“I said don’t tell me!”

“-candy Kisses.”

“Shit.” Tanner rubbed his hand over his face, jostling all that Hollywood hair. “You had to do it. You had to tell me. My life sucks.”

Finn could only shake his head. Eleven months ago they’d been on the same diplomatic protective detail. But while Finn had been outside the fund raiser when the assassin had fired at the prince, Tanner had been stuck inside. Tanner Hart, the youngest member of the famous, multigenerational family of Hart military heroes, had become infamous for the big ol’ wet one the prince’s daughter had laid on him while all hell was breaking loose outside. Cameras had caught both ends of the action.

Tanner had been guilty of nothing more than following the plan and sticking close to the spoiled young woman who was the product of a brief marriage between the Middle Eastern prince and an American model. One look at the tabloid photos published all over the globe, however, and he had resigned from the Secret Service. It hadn’t cooled the international gossip for an instant.

Tanner had yet to get his head screwed on straight about his lack of culpability regarding the tragic results of that night, but Finn was giving him time. If something didn’t happen soon, though, he’d make it his New Year’s resolution to fix his friend.

One of them had to get back to normal.

“That woman is the devil,” Tanner muttered.

At that moment, his brother Troy passed by. “Who?”

Tanner busied himself with a bar rag. “That damn Desirée.”

“She might be a pain in the ass, but you have to admit she’s a looker,” Troy said.

The younger Hart froze. “When have you seen her?”

Troy shrugged, a mountain of shaved-head macho marine. “What do you mean? The photos, of course.”

His brother’s blue eyes narrowed. Like Finn, he’d been trained to discern the smallest thing out of place. There was an odd twitch along Troy’s jaw.

“Tell me she hasn’t been by here,” Tanner demanded.

“She hasn’t.”

Tanner groaned. “Well she will. And I’m warning you, Troy. Don’t even let her in the door. She’s trouble with a fucking, capital T.”

“Little bro, what is she, like fourteen or something?”

“She’s over twenty-one. And though she might look all innocent with those big eyes and long hair, I tell you, she’s the devil. Just wait, you’ll find out. I dare you to try kicking her out when she comes in and you’ll see just how pigheaded she is.”

Troy waved his brother’s warning away. “I’m a marine. I can handle one little half princess.”

Tanner groaned again. “Trouble, I’m telling you. With a capital T.”

Finn couldn’t help but silently laugh at the note of concern in Tanner’s voice and the ill-fated confidence in Troy’s. Poor guys. The things that a woman could do to a man.

Then a feminine voice sounded in his ear. “I hope Tanner doesn’t mean me.”

Finn’s head whipped left. His amusement died. She’d come up on his blind side. Bailey-his own personal devil-Sullivan.

“Whoops. Gotta go,” he said, starting to slip off the bar stool. He’d left Gram’s because it made him edgy being so close to the Girl Next Door. Getting snarled with her had already proved to be too damn easy, and being her bar buddy would only make it easier.

She grabbed his wrist. “Finn…” Her voice trailed off and she frowned at his hand. “I just realized. Where are your tattoos?”

He flexed his fingers. They were bare of embellishment, except for the heavy signet ring he wore on his left pinkie. In the old days, his knuckles had been perma-inked with skulls, dots, and cryptic messages, most of which only made sense if you were young, stupid, and drinking beer.

“I had them lasered off before I applied to the Secret Service.”

“Ouch.” Bailey winced. “So they’re all gone?”

“Mmm.” Pulling his hand free of hers, he stood. “Now I really do have to go.”

“A date with Fran?”

“Huh?”

“You know, The Nanny.”

He looked into Bailey’s upturned face and noted the sleek fall of her blond hair, the darkened lashes, the kiss-me color of her mouth. His gaze dropped. Since she’d returned to Coronado, he’d yet to see her in anything beside pants and jeans.

Now here she was, in a red sweater and a short black skirt that exposed plenty of her slender legs, one crossed over the other. Swinging back and forth was one small foot encased in a dominatrix shoe that was all tall stacked heel and B &D black straps.

His eyes narrowed. “What do you want, GND?” Despite her second appearance at Hart’s, he didn’t think she’d come for the ambience, unless the sound of clacking billiard balls was suddenly a Bailey turn-on.

“Well…” She leaned her elbow on the bar, and her tongue swiped the gloss on her lower lip.

His blood rushed south, as well as the intelligent instinct to run. He rubbed his palms on his jeans, but that didn’t erase the tactile memory of the silky softness of her bare legs. Making love with Bailey had always begun with slow, heated kisses. The kind of kisses he never tried to rush, even though his teenage hormones were screaming, In! In! In!

Once her mouth was red and swollen, her lips trying to follow his as he lifted them away, he’d allow himself to touch her body. A hand over her breast or his fingers sliding along the damp small of her back. More kissing. When he’d finally move to bare her, she would squeeze shut her eyes, tight enough to make sunburst lines at their far corners.

He’d unbutton her shirt. Unhook her bra. Catch the elastic edges of her panties and draw them down her legs. And because Bailey was still flying blind, he found he could deliberately run his palms up her legs and spread them without her protest or any sort of modest resistance. Maybe she pretended it was happening to someone else. Maybe she avoided embarrassment that way.

Whatever the reason, his heart would be slamming against his chest and his blood would be rushing in his ears as he pushed against the silky skin of her inner thighs…and then looked his fill. He supposed she didn’t know how his heart would stop, his air back up in his lungs as he traced with his eyes the blond curls and the petaled wetness of her sex.

Then he’d reach out a finger-one of his rough fingers with its even rougher-looking black tattoos-and bathe the tip in her arousal so he could paint her folds with it. One finger became two and he didn’t think she ever knew that he would always suck her taste from them before donning a condom and beginning the slow slide inside her heated body.

Then her eyes would fly open, but only for a moment. As if reassured that it was her bad boy covering her, she’d release a little sigh and he’d complete the journey. The In! In! In! screamers inside him would sigh too, and settle.

Inside Bailey, they’d say, as if all was right with the world. Inside Bailey.

“You were so…cute with the little kids the other day at The Perfect Christmas,” this open-eyed Bailey now said. “I should have thanked you more. Several people have stopped in to comment on what an excellent job you did.”

The kids had been cute, not Finn, and she knew it. He sighed, even more wary. “Back to the original question. What do you want, Bailey?”

She made another swipe of her mouth with her tongue. Witch. “Would you consider a reprise of your role as Santa?”

“No.”

Tanner had quit arguing with his brother and turned his attention to them. He was smirking. “Finn? Santa?”

“Ho ho ho,” he answered. “But I’m not doing it again.”

“Please, Finn.” She put her hand on his forearm. “I didn’t want to have to ask, but Byron’s surfing at Swami’s Beach tomorrow, so I’m desperate. It’s either you or me, or…” Her head turned so that her gaze included Tanner.

Finn stood. It wasn’t that it bothered him she was looking farther afield. It was that it released him from looking at her anymore: her mouth, that skirt, those legs. So “See you later,” he said, and made for the exit.

Damn if Gram’s T-Bird wouldn’t start. He’d taken it instead of his SUV because its battery needed the workout, but now it heh-heh-hehed like a barking seal instead of catching with its usual powerful vroom. Rather than sticking around to coax it to life, he decided to leave it in case Bailey struck out with Tanner and went for Finn again.

And if she didn’t, if she found her knight in Santa’s clothing within Hart’s bar, then Finn wouldn’t have to know anything about it.

There wasn’t a reason in the world he couldn’t make the less-than-a-mile home on foot. Lucky him, he was wearing his running shoes.

He took off at an easy jog. A turn or two and there weren’t a lot of streetlights to go by, but he continued at a decent pace. At the hospital, he’d been taught to move his head slightly from side to side to compensate for the loss of peripheral vision on his left. The first attempts at walking briskly or running outdoors had freaked him-in the same way as weird vibes could creep up on him while snorkeling. In the ocean, there was that foreboding awareness of great depth and darkness lurking somewhere ahead. Without one eye he would perceive a similar shadowy looming well to his left.

Picking up speed, he shoved the uneasiness away by congratulating himself on his escape from Bailey. Then a slow-cruising car approached him from the rear. It wouldn’t be…it couldn’t be…

He glanced over his right shoulder, groaned.

She must have spotted him. He increased his pace, but she accelerated to get even with him. Then her window rolled down. He kept his gaze focused ahead.

“Hey, Finn,” she called out.

He pretended deafness.

She tooted her horn.

And scared something out of the darkness on his left. He heard its rustle, but he didn’t see it-cat-until its path bisected the visual field of his remaining eye. Too late to avoid the tangle.

Too late to avoid the tumble.

He went down on his knees, hands, and elbows, hard. He kept the position for a few minutes, to catch his breath and to curse black cats, black shadows, blindness, Bailey.

“Finn!” Her high heels clattered on the sidewalk. “Are you okay?”

Yeah, but of course he had to accept her apologetic offer of a ride back to Gram’s-unless he wanted to look even more like a graceless idiot. Then he let her talk him into allowing her to play nurse.

Trailing him through Gram’s house toward the kitchen, she spared a single glance for the set of medieval armor with the wide gold bow tied around its chest that he’d propped up against a wall in the living room. There really was no sane way to explain it, so he didn’t bother.

First aid supplies had always resided in the narrow cupboard to the right of the sink. He settled into a kitchen chair, holding a paper towel against the worst wound on his left elbow to staunch the bleeding. When Bailey approached, a box of bandages in one hand and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in the other, he drew back in his chair.

“I just remembered,” he said, eyeing the brown bottle with distaste. “You used to enjoy this kind of thing.”

She laughed. “I’m not the one into self-tattooing.”

“They’re all gone now.” The ring on his left hand squeezed his finger. “And that was a long time ago.”

Her citrusy-flowery smell filled his head as she neared. He watched her saturate a cotton ball with the peroxide, and then she pushed his palm toward his shoulder and pulled the paper towel away from his elbow.

Finn focused on the kitchen faucet and waited for the first sting.

It didn’t come.

He glanced up at pseudo-Nurse Sullivan. She was staring at the wound on his arm, sticky with blood. A single tear ran down her cheek.

“Bailey?”

She blinked, then rubbed her face with the heel of her hand. “I’m okay.” Another tear spilled over.

“GND? What’s the matter?”

Shaking her head, she swiped at her cheek again, then under her nose. “Lost…” With a little cough, she cleared her throat. “Lost my clinical detachment for a moment, I guess.”

Finn frowned. “It’s not that bad. Really.”

Nodding, she sank to her dominatrix heels and made quick work of cleaning, then bandaging his elbow. Without looking at his face, she moved on to his hand, then his other elbow. His right palm, the least injured, she saved for last, dabbing it with peroxide on a clean cotton ball.

He stared at her bent head, bemused by her odd mood and uncharacteristic silence. She threw the used cotton onto the table but kept hold of his hand, studying it as if she was reading his fortune.

Weird, he thought, frowning again. “Bailey?”

She made a choked sound and pressed her face to his fingers. More tears.

“God, Bailey.” His pulse jacked up and he touched her hair with his free hand. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

Her voice was thick. “Something happened to you.”

Now he felt even more like a graceless ass. “It’s just a little case of road rash.”

“You could have died, Finn.”

“Not even cl-”

“Not t-tonight. Then.”

Oh. She was crying about, thinking about, talking about, the assassination attempt.

Sometimes he wondered if maybe he should have died. Maybe it would have been easier than to live with the screwed-up mess the assassination attempt had made of his life and his future. At least it would have saved him from the damn agony of feeling Bailey’s hot tears and not knowing what the hell to do about them.

“But I’m okay,” he said. “I’m okay.”

Tears continued to drip between his fingers. Hating this helpless feeling, he pulled her up and onto his lap. She buried her face against his neck, whether for comfort or out of embarrassment, he didn’t know.

“Shhh,” he said, stroking her soft hair again. “I’m right here.”

Her shoulders continued to shake, and a sick sense of panic rose inside him. He couldn’t remember ever seeing her cry. She’d never been that kind of girl.

He cupped the back of her head, trying to curb his anxiety. “What can I do to make it better?”

“Nothing.” Her mouth moved against his wet skin. “I’m sorry, and I f-feel so d-dumb. I’m not usually sloppy. I’m tired, I g-guess. J-just really tired.”

“You’ve been working too hard,” he said, relief calming his heartbeat. He could fix tired! Anything to stop this emotion leaking all over his shirt. “Tell you what, I’ll do that Santa gig for you.”

When she didn’t immediately respond, he promised more. “I’ll do that Santa gig and anything else you want from me at The Perfect Christmas.”

“What?” Her voice was still muffled against his shirt.

“I’ll help you out at the store. Whatever you need.”

Her head lifted. His nose touched her pink one. Her lashes were wet and spiky, and he thought he could execute an Acapulco cliff dive into the drenched blue of her eyes.

Her forefinger reached out to trace the outline of his eye patch. Her pretty mouth turned down. “You don’t want to do that.”

He wanted her to stop looking at him with something that looked suspiciously like pity. He pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger and adjusted her head so she was looking at him, and not at the stupid patch. “I offered, didn’t I? I’ll help you with The Perfect Christmas.”

It was as if the sun had come out. A smile broke over her face. “Oh Finn. Oh Finn.”

Oh fuck.

Too late, he realized he’d held out a noose and offered to tie it around his own stupid neck. It was crazy to tangle himself up with Bailey again! He thought of that damn knight suit in the next room and wondered if he could blame it for his rescuer impulse. Or…had she planned this herself?

Damn it.

In years past, she’d had plenty of practice getting him right where she wanted him.

“Finn?” Her nose wrinkled. Smelling the renege in the air.

But going back on his promise would be stupid too. That would show weakness. To both of them. There was another way to handle this.

“Yeah, I’ll do it,” he decided, pushing her off his lap so they were both standing. But he’d do it for a price. His price. “In return, you’ll go on a date with me Tuesday night and you’ll tell me exactly why you ran out on me ten years ago.”

Bailey Sullivan’s Vintage Christmas

Facts & Fun Calendar

December 11

The original “White Christmas” had an opening verse about a shining sun and swaying palm trees, as writer Irving Berlin was in Southern California when he wrote the immortal song that became a holiday standard.