Must Love Mistletoe

Chapter 3

It was after midnight when Bailey left the shop and headed toward Walnut Street and the sleep she so desperately needed. At the store’s closing time, she’d been in no hurry to return to Christmas Central with its cacophony of holiday sound and emotional caterwauling of ancient memories, so she’d busied herself by restocking. The day’s stream of customers had left gaping holes on the shelves and tables and under and on the half-dozen decorated trees inside The Perfect Christmas.

The last box she’d unpacked had contained St. Nicholas figurines from Germany. Dressed in old-fashioned robes of green, red, and white, they’d been frosted with a superfine glitter that she hadn’t been able to completely wash off her hands. As she adjusted the Passat’s rearview mirror, in the streetlight she could see the stuff dusted across her nose and cheeks and clinging to the strands of hair surrounding her face. She rubbed at it with the back of her hand and tried finger-combing it out of her hair, but then gave up.

Glitter girl was going straight to bed, so what did it matter?

Except one block from 631 Walnut, she had second thoughts about sleep. As in, she didn’t think she was going to get any right away. Maybe a teensy glass of Merlot and some crispy cheese straws would pull her overactive mind off its fixation with the past. And not just the past as in ten years ago, but also the past of sixteen hours ago. All day she’d been wondering what Finn had been doing with his life. She knew he hadn’t been living with his grandmother all this time, though she didn’t know anything else. For example, what was that eye patch all about?

And why did it give her the uneasy impression that he saw her clearer than ever? When he was a teenager, she’d catch him looking at her, sometimes with amusement, sometimes with bemusement, sometimes with a kind of heat that made her heart fall to her belly and throb there, low and hard. Though she’d tried to pretend that she managed all the dark, wild power in his bad-boy body, deep inside she’d known that he only let her feel that way.

A panther who tolerated the pretty girl riding him with ribbon reins.

Now he looked like a man who didn’t have any patience for pretending.

The thought would be hard to fall asleep with.

So she turned left and headed for the grocery store a quarter mile away, gratified to see that it was open 24/7 as she’d expected. Grocery stores restocked in the off-hours too, and there was no sense not making a sale or two if they had to have employees in the store overnight anyway.

Though as she pulled into the lot, the number of cars surprised her. Late-night sales must be brisk because apparently she wasn’t the only insomniac in town. Inside, the place was bustling with stockers and shoppers. Even with Bing warbling about snow and her wine and snacks quickly in hand, Bailey continued to wander around, in no hurry to return home to where the proximity of Finn was sure to plague her.

Here, at least, she could find some peace.

“Bailey? Bailey Sullivan?” said a female voice.

She swung around to find no one behind her, then adjusted her level gaze three inches lower to latch on to the gamine face of her oldest childhood friend. The only person who had ever made her feel tall. “Trin Tran?”

They let out identical squeals and rushed into each other’s arms, bumping and tangling plastic shopping carriers in the process. Laughing, they pulled back and went about disconnecting their baskets. Inside Trin’s, Bailey glimpsed Cheerios, a box of pediatric cold medicine, and small jars of something the color of melted purple crayons.

She looked into her friend’s almond eyes. “You’re a mother?”

Trin nodded. “To Adam-sleeping-at-the-moment-but-with-a-cold-that-makes-him-cranky. He’s not quite two years old. I’ve been married for three. My husband’s Andrew Truehouse. Remember him from high school?”

“Of course I remember him from high school.” A few years older than the two of them, he’d been student body president, as well as captain of the water polo and volleyball teams. Andrew Truehouse had been nicknamed “Drew So True.” Bailey started to laugh. “Oh my God, that makes you Trin Tran True!”

The other woman scowled. “It was almost a deal-breaker, I’m telling you. But then we agreed I’d keep my maiden name and the wedding went forward. I would have sent you an invitation if you’d ever bothered to make contact during the last decade.”

Regret and guilt gave Bailey dual hefty pinches. “I’ve made my visits home infrequent and extremely brief. Running from retail, you know?”

One of Trin’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, I’m perfectly aware of who you were running from.”

“I don’t know-”

“And I just saw him on aisle three.”

Bailey swallowed, trying to calm her suddenly rocking stomach. “Who…?” Then she gave up all pretext and clutched Trin’s forearm as if they were both still sixteen. “You saw Finn in here?”

“Mmm-hmm. He’ll see you your bottle of wine and raise you a quart of whiskey.”

Bailey searched the area around her, but there wasn’t any sign of him. “Are you certain it was Finn?”

“Muscles? Eye patch? Big-boobied redhead hanging all over his wide manly chest?”

A redhead? A woman? But of course Finn had a woman. Did Bailey expect he’d mooned around for ten years, remembering some starry-eyed first love and finding nothing near as dazzling? “Well, um…”

Trin wasn’t listening to her. “C’mon,” she said, dragging Bailey around a corner. “Let’s spy on him. It’ll be like old times.”

Of course Bailey would have never considered this on her own. She was too mature, too…uncaring about Finn and his probably fat redhead-the likely one with the equally plump wallet who had gifted him with that outrageous bake sale of a Nativity scene. But Trin, at barely five feet and maybe ninety-five pounds when wearing soaking wet winter clothes, was as strong as a freight train. She tugged Bailey behind a tall display of candy canes, red- and green-wrapped chocolate Kisses, and boxes of instant hot chocolate.

“There he is,” Trin stage-whispered.

Bailey worked hard not to look his way. “Really, Trin. I’m not the least bit interested in…” But then she heard his deep laugh and it compelled her to take a peek.

The redhead did have big boobies. But despite her tiny waist, her hips were definitely fat. Hah. At thirty, Finn had developed a taste for tall fat women with hair the improbable color of a tequila sunrise. That was the problem with men-they never once considered that no real female had breasts that big or hair that red.

Or maybe the actual problem was that they didn’t care.

Pigs.

The fake redhead had a loud voice too. “I know you must be a seal,” she declared.

Fat, stupid woman. Pig, not seal.

“A one-eyed special ops?” Finn countered. “Guess again.”

Oh. Navy SEAL. Since they trained at the nearby base, Bailey now could see where that guess came from. As if Finn would be in the military, though. She knew his rebel’s soul better than that.

Bailey bent to Trin’s ear. “What does he do, do you know?” At the other woman’s measuring glance, she hastened to add, “Not that I care or anything.”

But before her friend could reply, from the corner of her eye she saw that Finn had dis-octupied himself from Tequila Sunrise and was moving away from her. Moving in their direction. Bailey muffled a squeak of alarm and scurried away, this time with Trin in tow.

She took refuge in the feminine hygiene aisle, where the only masculine thing in sight was a display of condoms. A sudden memory seared her brain. Sitting in a car in a drugstore parking lot, trying to melt into the passenger seat as Finn went inside for the necessities. He’d come out, reached into the brown bag, and tossed an item into her lap, right there in front of God and everybody. She’d nearly cried in embarrassment.

Then looked down at the big bag of Reese’s minis he’d purchased as well. “Never say I don’t do foreplay,” he’d said with a grin, settling beside her.

But his foreplay had been better than chocolate and peanut butter. Of course, they’d had years of foreplay before they’d actually had sex. First kiss to hours of kissing, to caresses over clothes, to caresses under clothes. Hours of that, too. Then all clothes off. He’d come to her more experienced in the kissing and touching department-certainly less shy about bodily responses to such-but she presumed they’d discovered the actual act together.

That first time had been on a blanket in her back garden, with the warm summer darkness draping over them. She’d been afraid and eager and then uncaring about whether it was right or wrong or the right or wrong time for them to become lovers. He’d already made himself familiar with that mysterious territory between her thighs, a frequent traveler of all the hills and valleys and every little bump in between. Before, he had always touched her there with his lean fingers, his eyes on her face, watching for her reaction.

And she, being a dumb girl, had thought it was important to show no reaction at all. Good girls-even good girls who played on the wild side with their bad-boy boyfriend-wouldn’t gasp or cry out or show the pleasure that was shooting from his stroking fingers to run in rippling trails of tingling heat up her spine and down the backs of her legs. She wanted to arch into his hand, but wouldn’t that look slutty? So she would close her eyes and bite her bottom lip, tensing her body against the tremors of bliss.

That night, he’d done more. He’d bent his head to touch her with his mouth. In half agony, half excitement, she’d screwed her eyes shut tighter. How could he? Why would he? It felt so incredible. So good! Don’t let him know!

And so she’d yanked him up by the shoulders. The unexpected movement had caused him to collapse on top of her, his erection pressing against that wonderful wet place that he’d set to pulsing. He’d groaned-no concern about sluttishness from him, weren’t boys so lucky?-and she’d loved the sound of it, and she’d so loved him, and she was so afraid of letting him know that she wanted his mouth back right there, that she’d whispered, “Oh, Finn,” and shifted the tiny bit that took him to the entrance to her body.

And bad-boy Finn had surprised the heck out of her by practically leaping into the air. “Condom,” he’d gasped and dived for his pants. That’s when she’d figured out that like Boy Scouts, even bad boys were always prepared.

She was still pulsing, still loving, still battling her body and its responses so that when he’d come back to her, latex-protected, and uttered a breathy “Are you sure?”-that she was. In part to hide from Finn all that he could do to her with a simple touch.

“Earth to Bailey, Earth to Bailey.”

Landing back in the present, she jerked her gaze down to Trin. “Sorry, I was drifting.”

Trin snorted. Amazing how such an indelicate sound could come out of such a delicate-looking woman.

“What?”

“Dreaming, more like. I’d love to pursue what about, but I have to get going. Adam hasn’t been sleeping more than a couple of hours without waking up, and he’s due for another dose of kiddie cold stuff in twenty minutes. Sick babies make Drew panic.”

Bailey frowned. “I thought I heard he was a pediatrician.”

Her friend waved a slender hand. “Like I said, sick babies make Drew panic.” She started up the aisle, hurrying in the direction of the checkout stands.

Hurrying off with the answers that could put all Bailey’s questions to rest…and then maybe Bailey herself. It had to be close to one in the morning and she’d been up since before seven. With all these questions about Finn still clamoring in her mind, she’d never get any sleep. She trotted after her. “Trin, wait!”

The other woman turned around, but continued to pedal backward. “What?”

“Finn.”

“Finn? What about Finn?”

The smile on Trin’s face told Bailey she was enjoying making her beg. Some things never changed. “I’ll tell Drew what you did on your seventeenth birthday,” she threatened.

Trin had a dimple when she grinned and she was still moving toward the stands. “Unless what?”

Bailey hustled to keep up. “Unless you tell me everything. What he does, how long he’s done it, who he’s with, who he was with. The works, Trin.”

“The 411 on the F-I-N-N?”

It was cruel to treat an old friend so. “Yes,” Bailey hissed, then her voice rose. “I want to know what’s up with his eye, and what he…”

Her voice trailed off as Trin’s shoulder blades bumped into someone. Someone with muscles, an eye patch, and a wide manly chest. Trin squeaked, spun around, then shot Bailey an apologetic look.

“Hey there, Finn,” she said. “What an, uh, coinky-dinky.”

Coinky-dinky? Bailey stared at her friend.

Trin made a wild gesture in her direction, so wild that her arm whapped Bailey in the stomach. “Here’s, uh, Bailey. You remember her. Bailey Sullivan.”

Make that breathless Bailey. Speechless Bailey. But a Bailey who could still hear perfectly well. And see that cold stare that Finn leveled at her.

“If you’re interested in knowing everything about me, GND,” he said, “you’re about ten years too late.”

GND. If he wanted to slice her through with anything more than his chilly look and those flat words, then that was it. It was the nickname he’d given her before she’d left him, before they were lovers, before they’d ever even kissed. It reminded her that first he’d been the sulking boy she’d made smile and that once she’d been his pesky Girl Next Door.

The one who had grown older, fallen in love, then run away from him. The one who was perfectly willing to run again, leaving behind the Merlot and the cheese straws, as well as her oldest best friend and her very first boyfriend.

Not to mention any chance she’d get a decent rest that night.

Ten minutes after his favorite bar closed and kicked his reluctant ass out, Finn pulled slowly up to his grandmother’s. Thank God it was legal in California to drive with only one 20/20 eye. Losing his license after losing so much else would have flattened him. Gram had left the icicle lights on for him, and he checked over his surroundings in their silvery glow. It was dark next door, and Bailey’s Passat looked as if it was as long asleep as the rest of the neighborhood.

With grocery bag in hand, he opened his door, climbed out of the SUV to come around the front of his car, then froze. In Finn’s business, the goal was to thwart an assault before it ignited. To that end, the men and women he worked with talked openly about their sixth sense-that combination of instinct and training that made them aware when something was out of sync. Hours of drills coupled with innate self-confidence taught them to rely on their ability to foresee danger in order to take quick preventive action.

While Finn had good reason to doubt the strength of his own sixth sense, he couldn’t deny that it was screaming at him now. He gripped the bag tighter, but kept his back turned.

“What do you want, Bailey?” Every hair on the nape of his neck said she was standing directly behind him.

“Well…I…”

He was going to turn right, he decided, walking past her to head straight into the house. Trading old times with Bailey would be like pulling a thin scab off a new wound. Though the hurt she’d given him was ten years gone, he had recent injuries he was doing his damnedest to heal.

“I’m not-” he started, turning.

It was the glitter that did him in. With it dusted across her cheekbones and sparkling in her hair, she looked like something that had been dipped in the Milky Way before landing on the driveway beside him. That had always been the way of it between them. Finn with his feet in the gutter, Bailey looking as if she hovered above the ground.

With his willpower weakened by two whiskeys and a chaser of beer, how could he walk away?

Still, this was going to be her show. Drawing the liquor bottles in their brown paper wrapping closer to his side, he leaned his hips against the car and said nothing.

She didn’t either, not at first. But he doubted she possessed the deep well of patience he’d developed over the years that he’d stood post.

To prove him right, she cracked in less that sixty seconds. “Hey, look,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For tonight, at the store, of course.”

Well, of course. She wasn’t apologizing for stamping her size sixes all over his heart and soul ten years ago, and he’d be dead before he let her know he cared about that. Before he let her know anything, damn it.

Be cool, Finn. Ice.

“I was naturally curious,” Bailey went on. She’d put on a parka over her sweater and jeans, but the very tip of her nose was pink with the cold.

He lifted his free hand to his eye patch. “Everyone is.”

“Oh.” Her hand reached out, as if she would touch him, but then it dropped. “I’m sorry for that too.”

The glitter in her hair framed her fine-etched features as she continued to study his face. She’d been petite as a child, and though she’d grown taller during adolescence, it hadn’t been much. He’d been endlessly fascinated by all the femininity contained in that small body of hers. “I…lost the original and fake eyes aren’t that comfortable,” he heard himself offer.

Damn. He hadn’t meant to volunteer a scrap.

Though instead of the pity he dreaded, his admission caused her to aim a cheeky little grin his way. It curved up the pink fullness of her baby-doll mouth. “Oh, be honest, Finn Jacobson. Admit you also like the whole Jack Sparrow pirate look-alike thing.”

“I’m taller than Johnny Depp.” And no one had been cheeky with Finn since his injury. Hell, since years before that.

“Oh yeah.” She was still razzing him. “And you have lots more muscles too.”

“What? So you ambushed me to issue compliments?”

Her teasing smile died, as did the sparkle in her eyes. “Finn…”

He wouldn’t regret his refusal to play. “What is it you want, Bailey?”

She gave a shrug. “I’m trying to be sensible, okay? I’m guessing we’re both here for the holidays.”

He nodded.

“My mother said your grandmother’s been sick.”

Finn tightened his grip on the bottles again. “She’s on the road to recovery. I’m here to see to that.”

“My mom and Dan are having some…problems, so I’m working at the store for them until the twenty-fifth. Not a day later, but still I’m sure we’ll be running into each other from time to time.”

He nodded again, but offered nothing more.

Her mouth turned down. “Do you have to make this so hard?”

“What do you mean? I’m not doing anything.”

“You are too!” She stepped closer, so that the toes of her soft suede boots were an inch away from his own scarred black leather.

“How?”

“Oh, please.” Her small hand wrapped his flannel-covered sleeve, and his forearm went steely at the touch. “I know you, Finn Jacobson, and-”

“Do you?” Suddenly it was too much. Her unexpected return home, the glitter on her beautiful face, the way he couldn’t ignore her touch. So much for ice.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand off his arm, using the movement to yank her closer against him. The sides of her parka parted and the white sweater she wore underneath met the buttons of his shirt. “What the hell is it you think you know about me?”

Her eyes went wide and her pouty lips parted. He silently cursed himself for the loss of control, but he wasn’t letting her loose. Though his sixth sense was screeching at him like a parrot now, because he was trained to prevent attacks, not initiate them, the Princess Next Door didn’t have a clue who he’d become, and he needed to make that clear.

Maybe then she’d avoid him. Maybe then he’d find peace.

“What do you think you know, Bailey?”

She was breathing fast, and he could feel her small breasts rising and falling against him. He pressed his hips against the cold metal of the car so that she wouldn’t know what that small movement was doing to his cock. He hadn’t been this close to a woman who wasn’t a nurse in months, so it wasn’t his damn fault, but he didn’t want her to guess she was getting any more out of him than annoyance.

“What do you expect I do for a living?” he demanded.

She licked her lips, and he tried forgetting what they’d tasted like. “I don’t know. Do you…work on cars? Motorcycles?”

He released a short laugh. “I work around cars and motorcycles, I’d guess you could say.”

“Nice. Good.”

The light glinted off her wet lips, and he couldn’t look away from them. “Yeah. It would fit your expectations if I’m a dirt-under-his-fingernails grease monkey, wouldn’t it? And that years ago I knocked up some chick and had to marry her.”

She blinked. “You’re married? You have a child?”

“Three. Their names are Cobain, Grohl, and Novoselic.”

Her mouth pursed. “You named them after Nirvana band members? Now how come I don’t believe you?”

“Which part are you suspicious of, Bailey?” Not the notion he changed oil for a living, he bet. She’d run away from him ten years ago because she thought he wasn’t good enough for her.

“Make your point, Finn.” She struggled to get free of the shackle of his fingers, but he didn’t let go. “Tell me what you want to say and get it over with.”

How could you fucking leave me? How could you walk away without a word and leave that raw, gaping hole in my chest behind?

It was hurting like it happened yesterday, but he knew that was because of Spencer. It was Spencer who had ripped him open again.

“I’m a Secret Service agent.”

Bailey had been struggling to pull away again, but now she stilled. “What?”

“I went to college, got a degree in criminal justice, then joined the Secret Service.” He gave a shake of his head. “Your obvious shock isn’t flattering, GND.”

“But…but…” Now she was shaking her head. “Rules, Finn. You were never good with rules.”

“Still a struggle.” Especially with the ones he made for himself. Regarding her. “However, I like the sense of purpose.”

“But…the Secret Service?”

“It was Tanner Hart who introduced the idea to me.” He didn’t bother reminding her of the Hart family. There was a San Diego thoroughfare named after Walter Hart, Tanner’s grandfather, who had been a World War II ace. Tanner’s father and uncle had distinguished themselves in Vietnam, his brothers in Afghanistan and Iraq. A family peopled by famous military men. “Tanner and I met that summer I was twenty. Later, we entered the Secret Service Academy together.”

“I didn’t know…no one said.”

If Finn had to guess, it would be that she’d never bothered to inquire. “Gram is quiet about it. The service likes us to keep a low profile. When asked I most often tell people I have a government job.”

She stared as if seeing him for the very first time. He let her look, enjoying the idea that he’d knocked for a loop the girl who’d once knocked him on his ass and left him for dead.

“So, sweetheart, you don’t know me so well after all, do you?”

She rubbed at her forehead with her free hand, and he realized he was still holding her other one. He couldn’t seem to let it go. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Tanner. Tanner was involved with-”

“Don’t mention it if you see him.” Finn dropped her wrist and shoved his fingers in his pocket. It was time they both went to bed.

But she was frowning now and rubbing her forehead as if coaxing a memory to the surface. “That assassination attempt.”

Finn took a step around her. “As I said, don’t mention it if you see him.”

She caught his elbow in her own viselike grip and turned him toward her again. “Finn?”

Secret Service agents were known for their flat, cool stares. He could still do it one-eyed. “What now?”

Her gaze cataloged every feature of his expressionless face. Then her hand tightened on him as she spoke. “What did that have to do with you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, Finn,” she whispered.

He didn’t like that odd gleam in her eyes, or that she was touching his arm again, or the fact that he wanted to bury his face in her blond, glittering hair and lose himself in her scent. Damn those whiskeys!

“There’s nothing more,” he ground out, wrenching his arm from her grasp.

“There’s more. I know you, Finn.”

She didn’t, goddamn it. No one knew him anymore, least of all himself. He’d been a damn fine agent, dedicated to the job, one who never wearied of the constant training and the constant stress of searching for that one face in the crowd. Cool and collected in his dark suit and his dark glasses. But his usual detachment was so damn hard to find and hold on to now.

“You were there,” Bailey said. “Somehow. Somewhere. I’m trying to think…I’ve seen the video.”

“The whole damn world has seen the video.” Though the Secret Service had studied the tape over and over, it had also played for months on the news channels, the entertainment channels, everywhere.

“Until then I didn’t know that the Secret Service had a Dignitary Protection Division.”

Finn half turned, looking off down the dark street. “Besides the president and family and the vice-president and family, we’re charged with protecting foreign dignitaries visiting the U.S. Prince al-Maddah was assigned some of our best agents.”

“And the agents saved him.”

Seeing red, he rounded on her. He couldn’t help himself. “Is that all you remember?”

Her eyes went big again, but he couldn’t bleed the bitterness from his voice. “An agent lost her life, Bailey. An agent on my detail.”

“A woman,” she said.

“Ayesha Spencer. She was twenty-five years old and her name was Ayesha Spencer. When the murderer took his first shot, she did exactly as she’d been trained to do-stood tall and made herself a target for the gunman-then took a bullet in the neck, above the protection of her Kevlar vest.”

“Like I said, I’ve seen the video. She was a hero.”

“But green as grass and wholesome as apple pie to boot,” he couldn’t stop himself from muttering, though he managed to stop the next words from rolling out. Shouldn’t I have sensed something was about to go down?

Hell!

He was supposed to be icing all this emotion over, but the feelings continued boiling up inside him.

The Secret Service had an in-house team of shrinks who’d have happy hard-ons if only he’d let them out in a session, but that wasn’t going to happen. He could take care of himself. Service training involved learning to discern warning signs of severe stress, and he’d self-diagnosed himself just fine, thank you very much.

He’d prescribed the cure too. These few weeks with Gram, getting her well again, and then he’d be as good as before too.

“So you were there,” Bailey said. “Where, Finn?”

“You’ve watched the video,” he answered, suddenly too tired to avoid talking about it any longer. “The Service kept my name out of the press, and it’s mostly my torso caught on film. I’m the one you see shoving the prince into the limo. At the same time, I glanced over my shoulder to check if the enemy was closing in.”

“Go on.”

“Before a couple of other agents tackled him, the gunman got off his next bullet. It shattered my left orbital bone, destroying my eye in the process.” He knew he sounded offhand about it. It made everyone more comfortable that way. “Hence your old friend Finn is now Finn the Fucked-up Pirate.”

He watched her swallow, then again. Bailey, obviously, finally, thankfully, silenced.

Tucking his whiskey and his wine under his arm, he at last turned from her and hurried off. He’d revealed more than he liked, damn it all, but at least it was something that shut her up long enough for him to make his escape.

Bailey Sullivan’s Vintage Christmas

Facts & Fun Calendar

December 4

In the sixteenth century, devout Germans brought decorated trees into their homes. If trees were hard to come by, they built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles. Not until the mid-1800s, however, did Christmas trees become popular in the U.S., thanks to the influence of Queen Victoria and her German husband, Prince Albert.