Rekindling Christmas (14 page)

“Good evening, sir, may I assist
you?” a young, blond white guy asked when Carson walked up.

“Sure can. Have you already put out
the list for the sunset sleigh ride?”

The man opened a binder and flipped
through until he got to a list marked Christmas Eve sleigh ride. “Just did,
sir. How many will be in your party?”

“Two.”

“Names?” He jotted them down on the
list that was already midway filled. “Will you all be joining in for the tree lighting
and caroling at the end of the ride?”

“Absolutely. Wouldn’t miss it,” Carson declared.

“Carson!”

He turned hearing his name and
praying it wasn’t Lanie attempting to get with him again. He hoped the woman
had gotten the message he wasn’t interested. However, when he turned he froze
at seeing the five-foot-six redhead moving across the lobby, dressed in pink
boots, a miniskirt, tights, and a low-cut V-neck sweater revealed between the
flaps of her black short fur coat. All male eyes trained on her.

“What are you doing here?” he
demanded in a low, angry tone when she stopped in front of him.

“I’ve tried to reach you. I had
nowhere else to turn. I need you.” She placed her hands on his chest and batted
her long, black false lashes at him.

He noticed that the redhead before
him was not only drawing attention from the males, but most people in the lobby
were drawn in by her exuberance.

He grabbed her arm and then pulled
her along beside him until he reached an empty office around the corner from
the front lobby, past the bank of elevators.

“This better be
damn
important,” he warned her.

*           *           *

Ryanne walked around her room
singing Christmas songs after she climbed out of the shower. Carson had left
over an hour ago to shower in his own room, telling her that if he got in to
shower with her, they’d ended up having sex and would never make it to the
sleigh ride down to the village for the Christmas tree lighting and caroling.
She laughed to herself as she rubbed lotion over her body, knowing he was
right. Even now, her skin felt both tender and alive from all of his attention
throughout the day.

They had spent the day locked away
in her suite, eating, making love, and playing board games that they’d had sent
up. They both knew that she was flying out in the morning to see her family and
wanted to make the most of their last day together. Following her wishes, they
hadn’t discussed how their relationship would continue once they were both back
in North Carolina, but she had no doubt that Carson would want it to continue.

Over the last few days, in his eyes
she could see an emotion hovering there. Words unspoken. She recognized those
silent emotions because she was feeling them as well.

Staring in the bathroom mirror, she
could see the passion marks on the various areas of her body—her breasts, belly,
and the insides of her thighs. If she turned around, she was sure she’d have a
few on her ass as well. Carson got off on tasting her anywhere, everywhere, and
she got off on each little mark he’d left “claiming her”. Even though they were
the only two people who would see the marks, it was their naughty little secret
and she loved it.

She loved him. It wasn’t much of a
stretch for her heart to open wide to him; he’d always been there. Over the
last few days, she realized why she’d never connected with any of her past
boyfriends. Why her commitments were so far apart from each other and she never
cried or was hurt when they ended. No one had measured up to even the
friendship she had with Carson and they definitely never sparked such desire in
her. She was high on Carson. She didn’t even want to picture him out of her
life again.

She finished dressing, thankful that
the day would come soon for her to dress in something else for him besides
jeans and a sweater or a bulky ski suit. She wanted to put on sexy dresses and
heels. Even though some of the women at the resort had on those types of
outfits the one night she’d gone down to the mixer, she only had pants suits or
slacks and tops in her suitcase from the canceled conference.

Tonight she would bring up the
subject of home. It was time they put their feelings out there and set up some
plans. In the morning she was flying out early to go to her parents’ house for
the holiday with her family. Her mother had been upset when she’d postponed her
arrival until Christmas morning, but Ryanne didn’t allow her mother to sway
her.

She had considered inviting Carson. Her parents knew Carson and liked him. Besides, Carson had mentioned always
wanting to be a part of her family during the holidays; it would be perfect.
However, she pushed that thought aside, not wanting to rush things between
them. She would fly back to Charlotte the day after Christmas and hopefully she
and Carson would soon be having their first real date.

Ten minutes later, Ryanne pushed
through the door out of the stairwell, opting to take the steps instead of
waiting by the crowded elevator on her floor. Seeing that there were just as
many people by the elevators on the first floor, she was happy she’d taken that
route. She didn’t want to keep Carson waiting and miss their ride. Her mother
had called right before she’d left the room, wanting to make sure she was still
coming in tomorrow. She reassured her, hearing the noise of her siblings and
their families in the background, then rushed off the phone.

Moving around a group and covering
the distance in steady strides toward the lobby, Ryanne passed a few offices,
ignoring them. However, when she heard Carson’s name, she stopped, turned, and
backtracked, happy she didn’t have to prowl around the lobby looking for him.

When she located the room she
stopped. The door was open, the wide window in it allowing her to see inside.
Carson was in the room, his back to her, but there was a woman with him, and it
wasn’t a hotel employee. Ryanne didn’t recognize the woman as anyone she may
have run into while at the resort this week. The short woman, very pretty with
Macintosh-apple-red hair, was dressed from head to toe in pink designer chic
apparel. Ryanne doubted if one thing the woman wore cost less than six hundred
dollars, from her knee-high full suede high-heeled boots to the pink Prada
purse that hung off her shoulder. Just looking at the woman made Ryanne feel
like she was dressed in a bargain basement special, and unattractive to boot.

“I miss you.” The woman had her hand
on Carson’s chest.

“You still haven’t told me why
you’ve been trying to track me down, Ashley.”

Ryanne was about to announce her
presence when the woman’s name rang a bell and caused her to pause. Ashley was
the name of Carson’s ex-girlfriend.
Had she been at the resort the whole
time?

Carson pulled the woman’s hand away.
Ashley pushed her red-painted lips out in a pout. “I didn’t want to interrupt
your trip, but I’m pregnant, Carson. I have nowhere else to turn. I think we
should get married.”

The world shifted beneath Ryanne’s
feet. If a baseball bat wielded by Jackie Robinson had hit her in the stomach
just then, she would not have felt more unbalanced. Carson’s ex was pregnant
with his baby and wanted them to marry. Carson would finally have the family
he’d always wanted, with a woman who’d left him but now had returned for the
father of her child.

Ryanne had begun to foolishly hope,
over the last few days, that those dreams of his would be fulfilled with her.
She needed to get away. She couldn’t continue to watch her dreams dashed before
her eyes. They had only agreed on a few days of fun, friendship, and sex, and
now it was over. She turned away.

“
What?
” Carson’s voice
erupted behind her, but Ryanne didn’t stop. She flew down the hall, bumping
blindly into people, and back up the stairs to her room.

*           *           *

Thirty minutes later, Carson was back in the lobby with only a few minutes to spare as they loaded up the last
sleigh. After hearing Ashley blubbering for way too long about her situation,
he took her to the front desk to try and get her a room for the night, but
discovered they were fully booked until after New Year’s. Now, Ashley was in
his room, resting in his bed. He knew he wouldn’t need it for the night because
he’d stay with Ryanne until she had to leave out for her early flight to Florida, where she’d spend Christmas with her loving family. They’d put off talking about
their future for too long. Tonight they’d discuss it. Just as he’d told
Phillip, he wanted Ryanne in his life permanently.

Frowning, he looked around, not
seeing Ryanne among the guests in line. He did see Phillip and his merry bunch,
though.

He went to his friend and placed a
hand on his shoulder, stopping him from getting into the sleigh. “Hey, Phil,
you see Ryanne out here?”

“No, I haven’t, but two other
sleighs just pulled off, she may have been on one of them and will just meet
you in the village.”

That didn’t make sense to Carson. He
thought Ryanne would be in it for the romance of the ride, the two of them side
by side as the snow fell around them. Perhaps she’d come down while he’d been
back upstairs and left with one of the other groups, knowing they’d end up
together by the tree for the lighting festivities.

“Sir, you boarding?” an older
gentleman in the front seat holding the reins asked Carson.

“Hm, yeah. I’m in.” He climbed up
and squeezed into the last vacant spot as they pulled off.

An hour later, the old man parked
the sleigh next to the two empty ones in the village. Carson rushed out. The
hour-long ride seem to take forever as he paid little attention to the
surrounding view, counting the minutes until he could see Ryanne and hold her
in his arms again.

Phillip and the other partiers
headed toward the shops, while Carson followed another group in the opposite
direction to the large fir tree. Once there, he weaved through the large crowd,
looking for Ryanne’s blue-striped cap.

After fifteen minutes of examining every
female out there, he realized Ryanne wasn’t among the people oohing and ahhing
as the tree now shined brightly. Deciding to go back to the resort and try to
find her, he headed up the path. Out of the days he and Ryanne had been
together, he wished he had asked for her cell phone number, but it hadn’t
seemed important when she had been by his side the whole time.

She wasn’t in the lobby when he got
back, so he took the elevator up to her room. Knocking on her door, he became
frantic, wondering if something had happened to her. Did she become ill with
some type of mountain fever? Had she slipped in the shower and hit her head and
was even now lying on the floor in need of help?

Back downstairs, he rushed to the
desk clerk, not caring how frazzled or out of sorts he looked. “I need you to
call Ryanne McCall’s room. If she doesn’t answer, I need someone to use a
master key to let me in so I can check on her.”

“Calm down, sir. I can call another
guest’s room, but unless I know it is an emergency we can’t enter it.” The desk
clerk, an Asian woman, patted her palms in the air as if to make him feel at
ease.

It didn’t. He took a deep breath. “I
understand your protocol, but she’s not answering her door.”

“Maybe she’s sleeping, or at one of
the activities.”

“She was signed up to go on the
sleigh ride.”

“Then she might be in the village.
That ride ended there, for the tree—”

“I was on the ride and in the
village and she’s not there.”

Another clerk at the other end, who
had been the one to inform Ashley there were no rooms, moved toward them. He
wore a tag pinned to his red uniform coat with
supervisor
stitched into
it. “Did you check the lounge? There are a lot of guests in there mingling.”

“It’s doubtful she’s there. Please,
just call the
damn
room.”

The two clerks must have picked up
on the low warning tone of his voice.

The woman glanced at the guy; he
nodded, giving his permission to her, and she began typing. “One second, sir.”

He waited while she went into the
guest log, Carson assumed.

She looked up at him and asked, “What
is her name and room number?”

“Ryanne McCall, room 623,” Carson supplied.

Before the woman could enter the
data, the male clerk said, “Ms. McCall checked out an hour ago.”

Carson
’s head turned with a snap in the
direction of the supervisor. “What do you mean she checked out? That’s
ridiculous! She wasn’t leaving until tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” The young man did
appear apologetic.

Carson
didn’t care.

“Did she say why she was leaving?
Did something happen with her family?” He slid down the counter in front of the
man, no longer needing the female clerk’s assistance. He wondered if Ryanne had
gotten a call from her family; maybe something had happened to one of them. But
why she wouldn’t wait to talk to him he didn’t know.

“What’s your name?”

Raising a single brow, Carson stared at him. “Carson Rodman. What does that have to do with anything?”