Down Home Carolina Christmas (9 page)

Luke burst into the attic. “Something furry bit me. I thought you'd want to know.” He trained the light on a rivulet of blood running down his instep.

She stopped what she was doing and looked at it. “That must have been Killer,” she said.

“The name does not encourage me,” he said ominously.

Carrie hastened to explain. “Killer's a rabbit with a powerful one-two kick. He was probably scared and latched on to your ankle in the dark. I'm sorry, Luke. He has an aggression problem. He's into toes in particular.”

“Got any Band-Aids?”

“In the medicine cabinet in the upstairs hall bath. You'll find a tube of antibiotic cream next to the box.”

“A killer rabbit,” Luke mumbled as he clattered down the stairs. “Who ever heard of such a thing?”

“He didn't mean to hurt you,” Carrie called apologetically.

When Luke returned sporting a Band-Aid, she tossed him a towel. “Here. If you don't mind, put this in the dormer. I don't want the bottom of that old trunk to get wet.” He did as she requested, nudging the towel around with his uninjured foot so that it would soak up maximum water.

“I've got to empty these pots,” she said over her shoulder, seizing one and starting for the upstairs bathroom, water sloshing over the rim as she walked. “You can use any of those old clothes to wipe up.”

“There's so much water that I'm not making much progress,” Luke said after casting a doubtful eye at all the containers. Some were brimming over, and droplets spattered out of the others as water dripped in.

“I appreciate whatever you can do,” she said.

Downstairs, where she went to get more pots, Killer perched on the kitchen counter, munching on the outer leaves of a head of cabbage. “Get down,” she told him. “As if I don't have enough trouble…”

Killer kept munching until she scooped him up and set him on the floor. “How'd you get up there, anyway?” she asked, answering her own question when she spotted the kitchen chair that Luke must have moved over to the counter when rummaging in the old pie safe where he'd found the roasting pan.

Carrie moved the chair. “You stay on the floor, where you belong,” she told the rabbit, but he scooted under the table. She figured he was just biding his time until he could emerge and chew on something interesting, like an electrical cord.

When she returned to the attic for the next pot, Luke had spread out the clothes from the box in which she'd found the robe. “These should sop up a lot of rain. Do you mind if I use that old chamber pot to wring water into?” he asked.

“No, go on,” Carrie told him on her way out. The chamber pot had belonged to some long-ago relative and had been stored in the attic ever since she could remember. She and Dixie had played with it as children, Dixie wearing it as a helmet during a memorable joust. That had cracked Granddaddy up when he caught them at it.

They continued mopping up with rags, wringing them out in any available container, and emptying the pots, with Carrie running downstairs every now and then to deal with the leak on the porch. Finally the rain let up, becoming a drizzle and then stopping altogether around the time that the attic light came back on. When the streams of water dwindled to a mere trickle and the thunder subsided in the distance, Carrie collapsed on the Victorian settee, sending a gray plume of dust mushrooming upward.

“Oh, Luke, I'm sorry you had to get involved in this mess, but I'm mighty glad you're here,” she said gratefully.

His white shirt was stained with water and dirt, and he'd rolled his pants up almost to the knee. “I hope we've staved off inside damage,” he said, looking around in the gloom of the attic before sitting beside her. “I don't want anything to happen to this beautiful old house.”

“We won't find out until tomorrow or so if the water's made it through the ceilings. Thanks, Luke. I couldn't have managed without you.” She smiled at him, liking the way his hair curled slightly when damp.

He spotted the red dress she'd thrown over the dummy and grinned. “I've resorted to many ways to get a woman's clothes off, but this has never happened before,” he quipped.

A flush started low on her throat and worked its way to her face. This reminded her that the robe she wore gaped at the neckline, and she hastily pulled the robe closed.

“I wish you hadn't done that,” he said.

Her pulse kicked up a notch. She unsuccessfully willed it to stop. “How about something to eat? Something to drink?” she suggested in desperation, knowing that it was in her best interest to avoid a pass, which she was pretty sure this was. She supposed that it had been ill advised of her to take off her dress. It had also been stupid to offer food when they'd recently finished eating a huge dinner, but she was grasping at straws here.

Luke placed a restraining hand on her arm, and magically his touch seemed to engender heat on her skin, like a sunburn or reckless exposure to a heat lamp. “I'm not hungry,” he said. “At least, not for the usual.”

The heat spread lower and much too fast. Carrie stared at Luke through the silvery dust motes swimming in the pale light from the one ceiling fixture. Her breathing almost stopped, and she forced herself to concentrate on getting enough air.

“Luke, I—”

He caressed her shoulder through the robe, ran a forefinger across a runnel of rainwater that had spattered across her cheek. “We've been talking all evening, and the best thing to do right now is be quiet,” he said practically.

Considering the lack of air in the attic, he might have something there. She shut her mouth, listening to the gurgle of the rain in the gutters, the drip of water into the pots under the leaks. Listening to the beat of her heart, which was too loud by far.

“I hadn't planned for anything to happen between us tonight. But this—” he gestured at their surroundings “—is where we are right now. And maybe it's okay.”

Carrie shook her head. It was all she could think to do with his head moving closer to hers and his eyes so intent upon her face.

“Is that a no?” he asked. “Or something else?”

“It's—it's not a no,” she said, the words snagging on her tonsils. At the moment there was nothing she wanted so much as Luke's lips on hers, their bodies pressed together. That was crazy and not a good idea at all, but it suddenly seemed so right.

“Oh, Carrie,” Luke said in the most heartfelt way imaginable. “Come here.” He opened his arms, and obligingly she fell into them. As if she knew she belonged, as if she'd planned it all along.

His arms, so strong and so welcoming, wrapped around her, and for a long time he held her close. He didn't move and neither did she. She didn't want to break the spell that bound them, and she liked being hugged by him, as opposed to being kissed by him. Hugging, she reasoned when she was capable of thought at all, should happen first. They'd kissed before they'd even known how it felt to hold each other.

“Have you ever just gone at this in an abandoned sort of way?” Luke asked, his breath tickling her ear. “Have you ever really let yourself go and enjoyed it?”

She chose not to answer, only turned her face more tightly into his shirt. When she opened her eyes, she saw an attractive whorl of chest hair and quickly shut them again. She'd always preferred a hairy-chested man, and Luke did not disappoint.

She wasn't sure how long it was before she lifted her lips for Luke's kiss. It seemed like forever, but also like the merest instant. When his lips closed over hers, feeling just as she remembered them from the kiss behind the refreshment stand, her arms went up around his shoulders, drawing him close. His shirt was damp against her chest where the robe fell apart, and she adjusted her sitting position to provide maximum contact.

He kissed her for a long time, and after a while she fell back on the settee so that it was easy to pull him on top of her, which is what she desperately wanted by this time. She ran her hands inside his shirt, easing the damp fabric away from his skin and, almost without thinking about it, off his shoulders. At the point where predictably the shirt dipped to the floor, he was working on her bra. Carrie was glad it wasn't a Wonderbra, no matter what Dixie and Joyanne said. It seemed unfair to lure a man with deep cleavage when he'd soon enough discover that it was nothing more than an illusion created by foam rubber and underwire.

The bra and robe disappeared somewhere, and Carrie didn't much care. Luke tipped a finger across one breast, its skin glistening with rain. She arched her back so that when he opened his hand wide, her breast fit into it. He drew in his breath sharply.

“You must be the most beautiful woman I've ever seen,” he told her, lowering his mouth to one nipple while he caressed the other. She didn't exactly believe he was correct about that, considering that he could have his pick of any number of Hollywood starlets, but she was willing to listen if he was inclined to tell her more. However, he soon stopped touching her so he could strip off his trousers, which made Carrie want to giggle. It might have been Dixie who wanted to know how Luke Mason took off his pants, but it was Carrie who was about to find out.

“You're smiling,” Luke said. “How about letting me in on the joke?”

“Can't,” she said, slightly astonished that he was standing before her wearing nothing but a Band-Aid. “It's too complicated to explain.” He was magnificently built. Those pictures on the Internet did not do him justice.

“Nothing's complicated anymore,” he said comfortingly as he settled between her thighs, the heat of him sending a delicious tremor rippling through her. As he made sure they were protected, she was still savoring it. He began kissing her from her temple all the way to the hollow at her throat, then moving enticingly lower. She threaded her fingers in his hair, her arousal growing as he stroked and nibbled and kissed her in hot spots she'd never known she had.

He murmured her name, slid upward again and cupped her face between his hands.

“Carrie, are you okay with this? I won't do anything you'll regret later, but I want you to know that this is more than a one-night stand.”

“I don't do one-night stands,” she said, her voice quavering. A gnarly lump of horsehair bulged from the torn upholstery under her hip, but it was easy to ignore under the circumstances.

“I knew that,” he said, and she clasped her arms around him, mindlessly urging him closer, closer, the tip of him entering her ever so slowly. His breath was hot against her ear, and she may have cried out as he filled her, but maybe not. Since they weren't accustomed to each other's anatomy, it took them a while to adjust to a comfortable rhythm, but the proceedings were excruciatingly pleasurable while they sequenced through possibilities.

She concentrated on him, touching places he might like to be touched, putting his experience before hers. But finally the heat inside her grew in intensity so that she could no longer think about his pleasure, only hers, and besides, a peek at his closed eyes and intent expression revealed that he was as much into this as she was. She loved how he pressed his cheek against her in a closeness that measured the full length of their bodies, how making love with him was the only thing that remained in her consciousness.

The world exploded deep inside her, flowing outward in concentric rings that encompassed Luke and emotions hitherto unavailable. He held her fast as they descended from that incredible high, as heartbeats returned to normal and her previous mindlessness receded into a pleasant warmth throbbing through her veins. She would have liked to live in those moments forever, lost in sensation and feeling, at one with the wonder of the universe. Or at two with it, perhaps.

Luke kissed her cheek, kissed her mouth, kissed her eyes. “You're really something, Carrie Rose Smith,” he said softly.

She didn't speak, only pulled his head down to her chest and reveled in her unexpected happiness.

When Luke woke up in the big brass bed with Carrie draped across his torso, he thought he was still daydreaming. He'd imagined sleeping with her so many times that he couldn't believe this was real.

But she had real hair, a strand of which tickled his nose so much that he sneezed. And she had real lips, which kissed his earlobe and spoke his name. Also real breasts, one of which he was holding in his hand at that very minute.

He squeezed it gently and she moved against him, sighing in contentment.

“Did we really do what I think we did last night?” he said.

“We did.”

He was quiet for a moment before pushing himself up against the pillows. “It was wonderful, Carrie,” he said.

“I'd agree with that,” she murmured.

“How about if we go for it again?”

She sat bolt upright. “Later. I've decided something, Luke.”

“Haven't we both been too busy to make momentous decisions?”

“Yes, but last night after we came to bed, raindrops kept falling on my head. Like in the song.” She pointed upward, where a water stain had spread over the ceiling.

“We didn't get all the water in time,” he said in dismay. The stain resembled a part of a woman's anatomy that Luke found particularly fascinating. Carrie's was amazingly attractive, in fact.

“I'm going to rent Smitty's Garage to Whip Productions.”

He regarded her in amazement. “You mean it?”

“I have to. The roof needs repair. Now the ceiling needs painting besides. Will you tell Whip or shall I?”

“You'd better,” Luke said. “He'll be glad to hear from you.”

She scrambled out of bed. “Where'd I put his business card?”

He studied her with amusement. “It's eleven o'clock on Sunday morning. Wouldn't it be better to wait until he's got his eyes open at least?” Whip slept late every chance he got.

“Eleven o'clock!” Carrie exclaimed as her gaze fell on the clock. It corroborated Luke's statement. “I've missed church.” She sank onto the bed, seeming to notice for the first time that she was stark naked.

“Let me console you,” he said wryly as he reached for her. “The best way I know how. What's this?” He rubbed at a red mark on her hip.

“That's from a bit of stiff upholstery material sticking out of the settee. It'll go away soon enough.” She tugged the sheet up and rolled to curve herself next to him, his front to her back. “I haven't missed church in years unless I was sick or away,” she said.

“I'm sorry, Carrie. I'd have made sure you woke up in time if I'd known it was important to you.” His fingers began to lazily inscribe circles on her abdomen.

“You had a really good idea a while ago,” she said, shimmying one leg over his.

He felt himself responding and kissed the back of her neck. “What was that, sweet Carrie?”

“We should make love again.”

“I'm in favor of it,” he said as she drew his head down to hers. He leaned into the kiss, gathered her close. One thing about her—she really knew how to kiss. She knew how to do everything else, too.

Well, he did, too, and so he put his whole heart into it. Not that it was too difficult. With Carrie, it almost had to be that way. Otherwise making love with her would be so pointless. He wanted their lovemaking to mean something, to be something she'd remember long after he'd gone. He'd never made an enemy of a former lover yet, and he wasn't about to start now.

“A
RE YOU READY
for something to eat?” she asked some time later as she sat up and rumpled her hair. She looked like a tousled sprite or maybe a charming elf, but she made love like a tiger. Not that Luke had ever made love with one, but if he had, he suspected that he'd rather have Carrie. He was astonished at her virtuosity, not to mention her versatility. She'd invented several positions he'd never tried before.

“Not hungry yet,” he said, pulling her close again.

“We should keep up our strength,” she said teasingly.

“In that case, maybe we should try something that's comparatively low energy,” he told her.

“Like what? Watching TV? Listening to the radio?”

“Or reading the paper.”

“I don't have the paper delivered. I usually read it at the garage.”

“We could talk,” he said.

“Talk. About what?”

“About you,” he suggested, circling one of her nipples with a forefinger.

“Not about me,” she said.

“Well, then anything.”

“About you,” she replied. “About what you like to do. Who you really are.”

“I think you know what I like to do by this time,” he said.

“Mmm. Maybe you're right.” She kissed his cheek, the tip of his earlobe, the place where his pulse beat in his throat.

“Besides, we omitted the whole past-history thing. How many boyfriends you've had, how many starlets I've bedded.” He figured they might as well get it over with while still protected by the mantle of postcoital pleasure.

“Do we have to go there?” Carrie asked plaintively. “I could skip it with no trouble at all.”

“I don't like baggage that falls open and dumps things out over a period of days, weeks or years,” he told her.

“What is this—baggage inspection time? And if I don't pass, I miss the flight?”

“I meant what I said about not wanting a one-night stand,” he said apropos of nothing.

She treated him to a sobering look. “I meant it when I told you I never do them.”

“Meaning you tend toward long-term boyfriends,” he ventured. “As in serial monogamy.”

Clearly he wasn't going to back off this baggage business. She emitted a lengthy sigh and decided to level. “Okay. In high school there was Brandon Quigley. We broke up before we graduated and went our separate ways. Then I didn't have a real boyfriend for a couple of years, but after I took over the garage I fell in love with an ad salesman from WYEW, the local radio station. We were a couple for two years or more. I got out when he started talking about moving to Charleston. I was into perpetuating the business and was starting to fix up the home place, so he went on without me.”

“Didn't he visit occasionally?”

“Not much, and after he got engaged I dated a divorced guy who eventually went back to his wife. There was a junior executive at Yewville Mills who moved to Virginia after the mill shut down, and later three men in rapid succession—a pharmaceutical rep, a watermelon farmer from Pageland and a mobile-home installer.”

“No engagements? Nothing became permanent?”

“Nope. I couldn't imagine settling down with any of them. I was young and stayed flighty for a while, though I really liked Mert, the mobile-home installer, and was sorry when he moved to Spartanburg. We tried a long-distance relationship, but it sputtered and died.”

Luke studied her, taking in the way the corners of her mouth drooped uncharacteristically. “He broke it off, or did you?”

“I did, but—oh, Luke, it all seems so silly now.”

“Go ahead.”

“I always wanted more than any of my boyfriends did. Most of them were into quick, easy sex, no strings attached. I envisioned a real relationship that wouldn't be put on hold every time hunting season rolled around or when they wanted to go camping or biking or on a golf weekend that couldn't include me. I wasn't thinking marriage, exactly. Just consideration. Shuffling their lives around so I'd be a priority. Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” he said, touched by her words. He knew guys like the ones she'd described; men who were so into themselves that no woman could compete.

“Anyway, that gets me over with, so how about you?”

The last thing he intended was to come across like the men who had hurt her, so he had to figure out what he wanted to say and how much to reveal.

“I've dated a lot in Hollywood. Many dates were arranged by my press agent and meant nothing to me. Most of them, in fact. In college, I had a girlfriend who refused to accompany me to L.A. when I got my big break.”

“Did you love her?” Carrie asked.

“I thought I did at the time.”

“But did you?”

“In retrospect, yes. We weren't right for each other, that's all.”

“And the others? The women you met in California?”

How to explain this? It wasn't easy for someone who wasn't in the business to understand.

“I cared about them,” he said. “Unfortunately they all had their own agendas, and often I was in the way.”

“Oh, like the guys I dated—self-absorbed, thoughtless?”

He nodded. “Similar. The women I met usually planned careers in show business. Before anything could develop between us, they'd go to some faraway island for a magazine shoot, or if they managed to stay in town, I'd have to go on location without them. That kind of life is certainly not conducive to settling down with one person.”

“I guess not” was all Carrie said. She nestled closer, and all of a sudden he couldn't recall the faces of any of the women he'd dated back in California. And the men she'd gone out with were idiots if they didn't understand what a prize Carrie was.

He liked holding her in his arms, and he must have dozed before she suddenly pulled away.

“What's wrong?” he asked drowsily.

She shot him a wild-eyed glance. “I completely forgot that I invited Memaw and the rest of my family for Sunday dinner! I have to start the pot roast.” She jumped out of bed, agitated. Her hair was in a tangle and she wore no makeup, but she was gorgeous.

“Does this mean I have to go home?” he asked, studying her.

“Yes. I mean, no.” She grabbed a robe off the back of the closet door. The closet was small, the room big. It had wallpaper with tiny pink roses scattered on a cream-colored background, and the cheval mirror in the corner reflected the bed. Last night it had reflected them
in
the bed, and he longed to hit the replay button.

He sat up and smiled at her. “Stay or leave, Carrie. That was the question.”

She moved to him and placed her hands on his shoulders. She smelled like vanilla, and he longed to bury his face in her hair and take her back into bed. “How about if you go home and let me start cooking. Come back around three o'clock and have dinner with my family.”

“I'd like that,” he said honestly.

“They won't know how to treat a movie star.”

“I'm just Luke Mason,” he said. “An ordinary guy.”

“Yeah, like Godiva is ordinary chocolate. Speaking of which, are you ready for breakfast yet? I don't do eggs.”

“Something to eat would be good.” He was thinking waffles or pancakes or even granola.

“Come downstairs and help yourself to a chocolate banana on a stick from my freezer,” she said, moving away and tying her robe around her.

“That's breakfast?”

“'Fraid so,” she said, smiling back at him. “I buy them by the dozen at the Southern Confectionery Kitchen downtown. I figure that the banana is a healthy food. As for chocolate, researchers have lately discovered that it has health benefits. Plus, a chocolate banana is easy to eat when I'm in a hurry to work in my garden in the morning.”

Luke followed along without comment, stopping at the kitchen door when he spotted the rabbit chowing down on rabbit kibble.

“I don't know,” he said doubtfully. “Maybe I'll just have what he's having.”

She tossed him a foil-wrapped missile from the freezer. He peeled off the foil, stared at the frozen banana for a moment and concluded that he was happy to be eating breakfast with Carrie no matter what it was. The banana actually made an excellent breakfast, and at least he wasn't required to pretend he liked grits. That was a big plus.

C
ARRIE WAS TOUCHING UP
her hair with a curling iron when the phone rang shortly after Luke left.

“What was it like?” Dixie said. Carrie switched her cell phone to speaker and set it on the vanity top as she considered how to answer that.

“Carrie?”

“It's a fine restaurant. You and I should go there sometime,” Carrie said.

“Not the restaurant, silly. The
people.
And did you peek inside the limo?”

“There's no dirt. You know how sometimes bits of leaves cling to your shoes and they'll be on the floor of your car? Well, this limo was spotless. No dirt on the carpet, no fingerprints on the doors. The driver must spend all day polishing it.”

“What did you and Luke Mason talk about?”

“The usual,” Carrie said.

“What's usual?”

“He's coming for dinner today. Are you still bringing dessert?”