Blush Duo - Marriage Under the Mistletoe & The Christmas Inn (10 page)

The Manning sisters were well into the Christmas cake and cranberry punch Evie had left out earlier, and she joined them for a glass. When Trevor returned downstairs he swiped some cake and dropped into a chair. It was their usual Christmas Eve tradition—drinks with Flora and Amelia, the retelling of old stories, the exchange of gifts with the sisters and then bed at a respectable hour.

Scott came back downstairs, still in his suit minus the tie, and Evie’s pulse jumped about erratically. She wondered how she’d ever find any man attractive again after he disappeared from her life. He held a carry bag and she recognized the name of the gift store in Bellandale. The sisters were delighted he had joined them and they all found a spot in the living room around the big tree and began exchanging gifts.

Trevor was blown away by the newest computer game Scott gave him, and the sisters appreciated the trinkets he gifted them with. Evie was touched, imagining him selecting presents for the elderly women. She didn’t say much as she accepted a beautiful linen tablecloth from the sisters and watched as each opened the set of small watercolors she’d painted years earlier of various scenes from Crystal Point.

“This is for you.”

Evie looked up. Scott held out a small parcel and she took it with tentative fingers. Instead of ripping open the wrapping as she was tempted to do, she passed him the gift she’d bought him, but had wondered if she’d have the courage to give him. It was nothing particularly personal—a traveler’s guide to historical facts of the local area, but he seemed to like it. Once everyone had finished unwrapping she felt all four sets of eyes focused on her. The gift in her hands remained unopened.

“Oh, of course.” She pried open the paper and then lifted the lid on the small box. On a cushion of blue velvet lay a ball of crystal, with an image of a woman cleverly engraved within. “How...lovely.”

“It’s Catherine of Bologna,” he explained. “Patron Saint of Artists.”

Evie’s heart flipped over. “Thank you.” She popped the lid back and stood. “Trevor—time for bed.” She looked toward the Manning sisters and not once in Scott’s direction. “Well, good night. I’ll see you in the morning. Breakfast will be at nine.”

She walked from the room with a stiff back, clutching the gift against her ribs.
Any moment now,
she thought...
any second and I will burst into tears.
She got to the kitchen in record time and didn’t relax until she heard the familiar thud of feet heading upstairs and the sound of doors closing at the front of the house.

Now I can breathe.

She snuck another look at the crystal globe and shut the box just as quickly. It was too much. That he should know her like this and enter her world with a gift so personal to her, a gift she somehow knew he’d chosen because it
was
personal. No one did that for Evie. No one saw deep inside her or thought to wonder what she needed. Her family and friends gave her crockery and linen and CDs. People who’d known her forever but didn’t really know her at all. Didn’t know how much pain she felt because her creativity had been zapped. Didn’t know how much she longed to be able to put all of her heart into her painting again and feel the passion in each brushstroke.

“You look really beautiful in that dress.”

She swiveled around. Scott stood in the doorway.

“I should have said so earlier.”

Evie clutched the gift and shrugged a little. “It’s okay. Everyone looks at the bride.”

He leaned against the doorjamb. “I was looking at you.”

Her feelings for him lurched forward, catching her breath with an unexpected intensity. “I thought you might have spent the evening at your sister’s. Your mother’s there and Callie would—”

“I wanted to be here,” he said quietly, cutting her off. “I’ll see my mom and Callie tomorrow.”

Evie swallowed hard. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. And I know Trevor appreciated it. He doesn’t get a lot of adult male company. Well, except for Noah and my father.”

And he misses his dad...
But Evie didn’t say it, she didn’t imply that her son was longing for another father figure in his life. Or that she wanted Scott to fill the role. She wasn’t about to start wishing for what could never be.

“You look really beautiful in that dress.”

She placed the gift on the bench top. “You said that already. Thank you for my gift.”

He smiled. “I thought she might watch over you while you paint. You know, to help with your muse.”

“I hope it will,” she replied. “I want to get back into it. I want to find myself in it again.”

He hadn’t moved. She looked up and spotted a piece of mistletoe hanging above his head, and it made her smile. “Looks like Flora and Amelia have been at it again.”

He looked upward. “I guess we shouldn’t disappoint them.”

She didn’t budge. He still hadn’t moved, still remained in the doorway, arms crossed, shoulder against the architrave, looking as if he knew she wanted him.

And she did. So much her whole body hurt.

“What if I can’t let you go?” she asked shakily.

“You will,” he replied. “You’re a strong woman. Stronger than you think.”

“I’m a fraud,” she admitted, taking a step toward him. “I’m not really the sensible sister. In fact, right now I don’t feel the least bit sensible.”

“Because you know the odds of a long-distance relationship working out are virtually zero?”

Yes...that’s why.
And because she wanted it to work, the idea shocked her. Lust and desire had morphed into something deeper—something so deep she knew she was in danger of having her heart broken into inconsolable pieces. She tried to marshal her thoughts and feelings and tame the wildness within her blood. But she failed.

“Because I said I couldn’t do casual,” she said, and took another step. “And because I know that when this is over, I will have to let you go.”

He reached for her in three strides and hauled her into his arms, not roughly, but with enough force that Evie sucked in a startled breath as his mouth found hers. His kiss was hot and hard, his tongue a driving force against the softness of her lips. And she craved it. She craved it and took everything, every slide, every slant, every part of him he was willing to give her. She was hot all over, like a raging furnace, and she’d never been more alive in her life.

His hands gripped her shoulders, molding her against him, and still he kissed her. Evie pushed herself against him, wanting to feel as close as she could with clothes on. He groaned low in his throat and deepened the kiss, drawing her into his mouth.

Scott’s hands roamed down her body and settled on her bottom. “Did I tell you how beautiful you look in that dress?” he asked against her mouth, and ground their hips together.

Evie smiled. “You may have mentioned it.”

“But right now,” he growled, “I just wanna get you out of it.”

It took about two minutes to get to Scott’s room and about thirty seconds to remove their clothes. They made love quickly, passionately and without words. Evie clung to him, taking and giving, feeling him all over her, around her and finally inside her. She gave herself up to the pleasure and came apart in his arms. When he lost himself, too, she clung to him tightly, watching in amazement as his strong body shuddered and then lay still against her.

She touched his back, trailing her fingers up and down his spine. He was breathing heavy and took a few gulps of air before he rolled from her and flung himself onto his back.

In the darkness, with only the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks along the foreshore intruding on them, Evie let out a long sigh of contentment. She felt a lovely sense of lethargy. She touched his arm and was startled to feel the tenseness in his muscles.

“Evie?”

She held her breath for a second. Did he regret their lovemaking? “Yes?”

“I didn’t protect you.” His words echoed around the room. “I’m sorry.”

They hadn’t used a condom. She quickly did a math calculation in her head. “It’s fine,” she assured him, but tiny fingers of concern clutched at her veins. She stroked his arm. “No need to worry.”

“I don’t have unprotected sex, ever.”

She twisted her lips. “Except for just now.”

“Well...yeah. Is there any chance you might get—”

“No,” she said quickly. “No, I don’t think...no,” she said again. “Very little chance.”

Very little chance?
Just what did that mean? Scott couldn’t believe his carelessness. He never played roulette with birth control. He sat up in bed and flicked on the light. “You’re sure?”

Evie rolled onto her side and raised both brows. “I know my cycle.”

His stomach turned over. She looked so calm and it annoyed the hell out of him. “You’d tell me?” he asked, almost holding his breath. “If something happened?”

“Well, it’s not the sort of thing I could keep a secret, is it?”

She had a point. And the knee-jerk terror he’d felt gradually dissipated. He reached into the bedside drawer and grabbed a foil packet. “No more roulette,” he said, and tossed it onto the bed. “For next time.”

“Next time?” Evie picked up the protection and held it between two fingers. “You’re that sure there’ll be a next time?”

Scott smiled, rolled over and pinned her beneath him. “I’m sure,” he said, trailing kisses along her collarbone, “that I won’t get through the next hour unless I can make love to you again.”

Evie kissed his jaw. “So stop talking and get to it.”

Shortly afterward they made love again, this time with protection, and then they took a shower together.

“I have a spa bath in my ensuite bathroom,” she told him as she blotted her skin dry with a towel. “That could be fun.”

“Is that an invitation to enter the inner sanctum of your bedroom?”

She stopped toweling. “What does that mean?”

Scott wrapped a towel around his waist. “You know exactly what it means.”

She draped the towel around herself toga-style. “You think I’m keeping my bedroom off-limits?” She frowned. “And why would I want to do that?”

Suddenly, the steam in the room was coming off Evie and not from the hot water. “You tell me?”

“You know,” she said, twisting her hair free from the towel she had wrapped around it to keep it dry, “that’s a pretty adolescent answer.”

Scott felt the bite of her remark. “Are you denying it?”

“I’m saying I haven’t consciously acted that way.”

Scott didn’t push the issue, but he certainly felt her reluctance to share her room with him. “Okay. Let’s forget it.”

Evie tucked at her towel. “I should probably go to my room anyway,” she said quietly as she walked from the bathroom and into the bedroom. “Trevor normally comes to see me first thing—you know, it being Christmas in about an hour.”

“Sure,” he said with about as much enthusiasm as a rock.

He stayed by the door and watched as she collected the dress he’d stripped off her earlier. She grabbed her shoes and underwear and headed for the door. She turned before she grabbed the handle. “Well, good night.”

Scott remained where he was and pushed back the fierce pounding inside his chest and the urge to ask her to stay, and the need to take back his stupid comment about her bedroom. He’d never been the jealous type—maybe because he’d never cared enough to feel the gut-wrenching emotion before this...before Evie. But he was jealous. He was jealous she’d kept that part of her from him...from
them.

At that moment, as if he’d been hit with a thunderbolt, Scott realized just how powerful his feelings for Evie had become.

“When this is over I will have to let you go.”

He knew that. She wouldn’t make a scene. She’d don her Sensible Evie hat and send him on his way, back to his life in L.A., back to everything and everyone who was familiar to him—and not one of them, he knew, could hold a candle to the woman in front of him.

“Good night, Evie,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”

She left the room without another word.

Chapter Ten

C
hristmas at Barbara and Bill Preston’s house was a daylong celebration that started in the morning and only finished when Evie’s dad fell asleep in his favorite recliner and the kids started dozing off because they’d consumed copious amounts of pop and candy. But it had been a good day. With her entire family in attendance, plus the whole Jakowski clan, the Manning sisters and a few other people long regarded as family, it was a day to remember.

Of course, Evie hardly spoke to Scott. She made sure she was well away from him at the long table when dinner was served, and avoided eye contact as much as possible. No one could know they were lovers. No one could know she craved him in ways she hadn’t imagined possible. There was no point. He’d be gone in a week and she’d go back to the structured and predictable life she’d had before he’d entered her world. And she fooled everyone.

Except Grace.

Her smart, mostly aloof sister was onto her.

“You’ve been to L.A., haven’t you?” Grace asked quietly. She’d sidled up to Evie as she scraped plates of uneaten food into a plastic bag. “I went to a conference there a few years back. Good weather, friendly people. Quite a lot like here, actually. You’d probably like to go back and revisit the sights, right?”

Evie continued her task and didn’t flinch. “Is there a point to this conversation?”

Grace raised her perfect brows. “Of course. You’d need someone to show you around. Quite the coincidence that Scott is—”

“Would you stop,” Evie demanded. “We’re not—”

“Oh, spare me,” Grace said, cutting her off. “Despite how hard you’ve tried not to show it, if you two were any more into each other I’d have to get the hose out.”

Evie’s face burned. “I can’t believe you just said that.” She tied the plastic bag in a tight knot. “It’s impossible, anyhow.”

Grace moved alongside her. “So you’re involved?”

“We’re something... I’m not sure what.”

“Lovers?” Grace asked.

Evie’s cheeks flamed. “It’s new for me. I’ve never had a lover before. I mean, other than Gordon. But Scott makes me feel so...so...” She shrugged.
“Whoosh.”

Grace’s faultlessly beautiful face creased in a frown. “What?”

“You know,” Evie explained. “That thing...that feeling. Not that I’m an expert, but Fiona and Callie assured me it’s called
whoosh.
”

Her sister looked mildly amused. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Do? Nothing. Just get back to my real life when it’s over.”

“Perhaps this is your real life,” Grace said.

Evie gave her younger sister a startled stare. No, she thought. Her real life was the B and B and being a mother and a friend and a sister and a daughter. Being Scott’s lover was only ever going to be temporary. She raised her hands and twirled them in the air. “This is my real life.”

Grace smiled and exposed perfectly white teeth. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

She found it a strange comment from her usually tight-lipped sister—it was Mary-Jayne who always dispensed advice on romance. “I won’t.”

“Not that I’m an expert in the area,” Grace said. “In fact, forget I said anything. Perhaps I’m feeling more optimistic than usual at the moment.”

“Really?” she asked, knowing there was something going on with her sister. At another time she would have asked. She would have donned her
sympathetic
cap and listened with an open mind and heart. But not today. Her heart was full. Her mind was muddled.

And later that night as she lay snuggled up to Scott after making love with him, Evie experienced the profound realization that she wanted to stay in his arms for the rest of her life.

* * *

Scott was certain the days got shorter the closer he came to leaving Crystal Point and returning to Los Angeles.

“I like your mother,” Evie said to him one night, curled up against him after they’d made love. “We got to talk a bit today. She’s nice.”

“Did you?” He trailed his fingers along her shoulder. “Do you think she’s worked it out? Us, I mean?”

Evie shrugged. “I’m not sure. Would she mind?”

“About you?” He smiled. “Hardly. She’s happy if I’m happy.”

Evie’s inside jumped. It sounded so incredibly intimate. Scott was happy with her? She didn’t dare imagine what that meant. “And she never remarried after your dad passed away?”

“Nope.”

“She must have loved him deeply. I mean to never have another man in her life.”

“She did,” he replied, and suddenly he was thinking about Evie and not his mother. Evie hadn’t remarried. Evie had stayed true to her husband. Except for now, he thought, feeling the smoothness of her lovely skin against him. Feeling Evie all over him, inside, as if she were the air in his lungs. How would he ever breathe again once he left her?

“How did they meet?”

Scott shuffled his thoughts to her question. “They met when they were twenty. My dad and his twin sister moved to L.A. when they were twenty and got jobs working with a telecommunications company. They were only meant to be gone twelve months. Turns out they stayed for good.”

Eve cuddled closer. “Was he sick for a long time?”

Scott’s chest tightened. “Yes. He’d been in a bad accident a few years before and afterward was plagued by the side effects and related illnesses.”

“What kind of accident?”

“He was a climber,” he said, thinking that would be enough. “A mountaineer.”

Evie shifted on her side and looked at him. “Tell me about his accident.”

Scott closed his eyes for a moment, remembering what had happened as though it were yesterday. “He was on an expedition to Nanga Parbat, the second highest peak in Pakistan. He suffered from high-altitude edema and almost lost his life. Fortunately his team got him down in time. He came home to us and died a couple of years later. He didn’t have the lungs to climb again. Sometimes I think that
not
climbing was more responsible for his death than the peak itself.”

“I didn’t realize he was an—”

“Adrenaline junkie?” He cut her off gently. “Yes, he was.”

“Did you ever climb with him?”

“I did not.” It came out harsher than he liked, but a swell of feelings washed up in his chest, mixing with the sudden desire
not
to talk about his father.

Evie picked up on it immediately. “You didn’t approve?”

Scott shrugged. “It wasn’t my place to approve. It was his life.”

“A life he risked?”

Scott felt the truth burn through his blood. And the lingering resentment for a man who was essentially a good father—although sometimes a reckless one. “Like I said, it was his—”

“You don’t believe that,” she said, cutting him off as she sat up. “I don’t get it—you obviously have a problem with what your dad did and yet you chose to become a firefighter.”

“One has nothing to do with the other.”

Evie made a huffing sound. “Yeah—right. One is
all
about the other.”

“My father climbed mountains for the thrill of the climb—I do not fight fires for that reason.” He pushed at the bedclothes and sat up. “It’s a job, Evie.”

She scooted across the bed until she was in front of him. The light of the half-moon shone through the open curtains and when the sheet she’d been trying to hold slipped away, Scott got a great look at her rose-tipped breasts. His body stirred instantly and he grazed the back of his hand over one nipple.

“Stop doing that,” she said, probably not as sharp as she wanted as she pulled back. “I want to talk with you. Don’t distract me.”

Scott’s eyes widened. “You’re distracting me,” he assured her as he looked at her breasts.

Evie unexpectedly reached out and touched his face, lifting his cheek upward so their eyes met. “Tell me why you really became a firefighter.”

Scott took a breath. “Because I wanted to run into burning buildings.”

“And that’s all?”

“Isn’t that enough?” he asked. “It’s what you believe, anyway—isn’t it?’

“I’m not so sure anymore.”

“Believe it,” he said, but the truth suddenly jumped around in his head. He reached for her, dragging her against him as he pushed back against the pillows. Enough talk, he thought. Enough truth. He took her mouth in a searing kiss that was so hot it practically scorched the air between them. Her mouth was sweet and tempting and luscious. He’d kiss her and forget the days were closing in. He’d make love with her and disregard the taunting voice in the back of his mind reminding him that the heaven he’d found in Evie’s arms was only ever going to be temporary. She
would
let him go. And he would have to leave and return to reality.

* * *

Evie got home to an empty house on the Tuesday after Christmas. When she reached the upstairs kitchen she found a note stuck near the telephone written in her son’s neat handwriting.
Have gone out with Scott—be back later.

Evie’s heart stilled. Trevor was with Scott. And Scott, she knew, was at the Emergency Services Station, speaking with the volunteers and the local Rural Fire Brigade.

Anger quickly filled her blood and she grabbed her car keys.

He wouldn’t do that. Surely he’d know I’d never agree to that.

The drive took only a few minutes. Evie parked outside and jumped out of the car. She saw Scott’s motorcycle and the vehicles of the other volunteers. Her blood pumped, her thoughts suddenly centered on Trevor being here, with these people.
These people I’ve considered the enemy for ten years.
Maybe not consciously, but in her secret place, her darkest heart.

She reached the doorway and stood beneath the threshold. The big shed was filled with people and she felt the gut-wrenching pain she always felt when confronted with this place. She always stayed outside, never going into the big, cold building with its corrugated walls and concrete floor. Memories bombarded Evie’s thoughts. Memories of Gordon’s lifeless body lying on the floor—and thoughts of well-meaning colleagues hovering around him, trying to revive him, trying to bring him back.

By the time Evie had arrived, he’d gone. There were no goodbyes. Just his battered body left stretched out on the cold floor, covered in a plastic tarp so she wouldn’t see the extent of his injuries.

She hated this place.

There was a group of people behind the fire truck, positioned in a half arc. Scott stood in the center beside a long white board and was talking to the Rural Fire Brigade volunteers in a quiet voice. She loved his voice, loved hearing him whisper things to her as they made love. Loved hearing him say she was beautiful, desirable...loved the soft pleas of encouragement against her skin when she touched him a certain way or in a certain place.

But he wasn’t speaking those words now. Now he was all-business, pure firefighter and every inch the man who risked his life daily because that was his job. Evie watched for a moment, half absorbed, half repulsed. Until she spotted Trevor. Her son was listening intently and wearing a yellow jacket, the same type of high-visibility gear the volunteers wore.

She saw red immediately. “Trevor?” About a dozen sets of eyes zoomed in on her, including her son’s. But it was Scott’s gaze she felt snap through her with blistering intensity. He stared at her, frowning, and she turned immediately back to her son. “Let’s go home.”

The silence continued. Everyone there knew her of course—she was poor Evie Dunn who’d lost her husband. They offered pity in their stares and it made her so mad she wanted to shout and tell them they were all reckless fools.

“But I was just—”

Evie raised her hand and beckoned him forward. “Come on,” she said, before she swiveled on her heels and headed back to the car with Trevor in tow. He was complaining, but Evie was in no mood to listen. She told him to take off the jacket and he handed it to her after a few seconds of resistance.

“Evie, wait up.”

She stilled instantly, told Trevor to get into the car and then turned and took the dozen or so steps to reach Scott. “How could you do it?” she demanded, her voice higher than she wanted, her heart pounding the blood through her veins.

“How could I do what?”

Evie glared at him, so angry she could barely get the words out. “How could you bring my son here?”

He looked at her oddly. “I don’t—”

“You had no right,” she said, and pushed away the hotness behind her eyes. “I don’t want him here with these people.”

“What people?”

Evie pointed toward the building. “The people who knew his father. People who did what Gordon did. People who were with him
that night.
”

“Evie,” he said quietly, “I had no intention of—”

“Don’t you get it?” she snapped, and tossed the jacket into his chest. He caught it immediately. “I don’t want him here.” She waved her arms. “He can’t want this like his father did. I don’t want him to be like Gordon. And I certainly don’t want him to be like you.”

* * *

The pain in Evie’s voice cut through Scott.
“I don’t want him to be like you.”
He wasn’t sure what to think. He heard her anguish and fought the instinctive urge to take her in his arms.

“Evie, I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I didn’t realize you’d have a problem with Trevor coming with me.”

She made a huffing sound. “You should have asked permission. He’s
my
son.”

“He asked to come with me,” Scott explained. “I didn’t drag him here.”

“He’s a child. My child!” She crossed her arms jerkily, her anger palpable. “And I decide where he goes and who he goes with.”

“Okay,” he said, feeling less than agreeable but refusing to trade any more heated words with her while they were out in the open and at risk of being overheard, not only by Trevor but also by the dozen volunteers inside the shed. “We can talk about this later.”

She seemed to calm for a moment, and took a step forward. But she wasn’t calm at all, he noticed; she was furious—and all her fury was absolutely aimed toward him. “Don’t try to pacify me, Scott.” She planted her hands firmly on her hips. “You can play superhero with these people all you like—but don’t ever involve my son.”