Buch lesen: «Cole For Christmas»

1

IF IT WEREN’T FOR Bobblehead Santa, Anna Wesley wouldn’t be in this predicament.

She stood next to her desk in the not-quite-deserted marketing offices of Skillington Ski Shops, clutching the eight-inch plastic doll in her right hand, for once not amused by the way its white-haired head danced.

With her left hand, she absently worried the tassel on the Santa Claus hat the family expected her to wear to Christmas Eve dinner that night.

Nobody expected her to bring Bobblehead Santa.

Nobody would know the difference if she’d shown up with a bottle of wine instead of the toy she knew would make her grandfather erupt into one of those belly laughs worthy of St. Nick himself.

But, no, she couldn’t do things the easy way. Instead of driving straight to her parents’ house, she had to return to the office to pick up the silly doll. An office that should have been empty aside from the once-gay Christmas tree that sat on her secretary’s desk, its lights no longer twinkling.

It was nearly seven o’clock. Everybody should have cleared out hours earlier to enjoy what was in Anna’s mind the most magical night of the year. Christmas Eve, a night full of anticipation and wonder, meant to be spent in the bosom of family and friends.

That’s where she’d be now if she hadn’t come back to the office and noticed the light shining under Cole Mansfield’s office door.

But maybe she was overreacting. Maybe the cleaning staff had inadvertently left on a light, never mind that it had never happened before.

The shining light didn’t necessarily mean her marketing assistant, who’d moved to western Pennsylvania from San Diego to take the job less than a month before, was working late.

She’d no sooner taken a step in the direction of the exit than she heard the whir of a computer printer. Darn. She looked down at Bobblehead Santa, who gazed back up at her with his merry eyes.

“You don’t suppose that’s the ghost of Christmas Past in there, do you?” she asked him.

He didn’t answer but his joy-filled expression remained unchanged. It’s Christmas, he seemed to say.

“Not everyone celebrates Christmas,” she reasoned with him. “He could be Jewish. Or Buddhist. Or Pagan.”

Except she remembered the darling red tie he’d been wearing that morning. Festooned with depictions of miniature decorated trees, it played a tinny version of “O, Christmas Tree” whenever he squeezed it.

“That doesn’t mean anything. The decorated tree was originally a pagan tradition,” she told Bobblehead Santa, but he wasn’t buying her excuse.

“All right already, I’ll go check on him,” she said grudgingly and headed across the large, airy space to his office.

She paused on the threshold, squaring her shoulders and putting on her title of marketing director of Skillington Ski Shops like a cloak. Then she drew in a deep breath, rapped sharply three times on the door and opened it a crack.

Cole was at his desk, his musical tie loosened, the sleeves of his dress shirt shoved nearly to the elbows of toned arms lightly sprinkled with dark hair. He gave a visible start, then got rid of whatever he’d been staring at on his computer screen.

By the time he turned back to her, he was the picture of innocence, making her think she’d imagined he didn’t want her to know what he was working on.

“Hey, boss.” He gave her a tired smile. “I didn’t think anyone else was still here.”

His wavy hair, as black as the image his name conjured, looked as tousled as it did at the end of every day. A faint shadow darkened his chiseled lower jaw. Wire-rimmed glasses dimmed but didn’t quite hide the beauty of his deep-blue eyes.

He was sitting down but she already knew he was well over six feet tall and probably topped two hundred pounds. He looked, in short, like a cross between Professor Higgins and the Rock.

Not that she was susceptible to the brainy, testosterone-rich type. Cole had pretty much cured her of that affliction during his job interview when she’d asked his goal and he’d announced that one day he wanted her job.

She hid Bobblehead Santa behind her back and squared her shoulders, summoning the professionalism that was an integral part of her office persona.

“Technically, I’m not still here. I left at noon with everybody else, like I told you to do,” she said.

He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a rebel.”

She gave a curt nod and tried not to be threatened by the fact that he was working late.

A less-conscientious supervisor might not have hired Cole, especially because he seemed overqualified for the role of an assistant.

But business at Skillington Ski was stagnant, and Anna couldn’t afford to pass over the job candidate most likely to help her market the small chain of ski shops more effectively to western Pennsylvania winter sports enthusiasts.

Besides, she had to admit to a grudging admiration for the way he’d spoken his mind. She’d run into so many liars in her life that she admired people who were forthright about who they were and what they wanted.

Anna wanted to keep her job. Not only was she good at it, she loved it almost as much as the Christmas season.

She didn’t intend to let Cole Mansfield have it.

“You’re not working late, too, are you?” he asked before she could question him further.

“Not on Christmas Eve,” she said, hoping he realized this was the exception rather than the rule. She’d work around the clock to keep her job safe. Then she dredged up the excuse she’d invented in the hall. “I forgot some reports I wanted to look over during the holiday.”

Cole leaned back in his chair, a slow smile softening his sculpted features. “Did you remember to hitch your reindeer to a post before you came inside?”

She felt her brow knit, then immediately smoothed it. “Excuse me?” she said in a clipped, no-nonsense voice.

His grin grew wider before he lifted his index finger and pointed to her head, which was covered in…

Oh, no.

With a deft motion, she whipped off the Santa Claus hat and shoved it into the hand holding the bobblehead doll, inadvertently depressing the button at the back of its fur-lined red jacket.

“You sleigh me,” the doll said in a squeaky voice.

“Did you say something?” Cole asked, his posture straightening, his dark eyebrows lifting.

“Of course not,” she said. Heaven forbid he thought she was flirting with him. Or that he figured out she’d come back to the office for something as ridiculous as Bobblehead Santa. “I didn’t hear anything,” she fibbed.

“I heard something,” he said, then craned his head to the side in an attempt to look around her. “I think it came from behind your back.”

“Nonsense.” She repositioned herself and squeezed the doll harder to make sure she didn’t lose her grip on it.

“Ho, ho, ho,” the doll squeaked in its high, cheerful voice.

Cole grinned. “I know I heard that.”

Resigning herself to defeat, she thrust Bobblehead Santa out in front of her. “I thought my grandfather would get a kick out of him, okay?” she said, annoyed at herself for offering an explanation. She was the boss. She didn’t need to explain herself.

“Cute,” he said, but he was looking at her rather than the doll.

What was going on? she wondered as her face heated, her stomach lurched and her nerve endings tingled. She seemed to have stepped into an alternate reality where Cole was flirting with her and she was reacting to him. Like a woman reacts to a sexy man.

But that couldn’t be. They’d never before been anything other than utterly correct with each other. He lusted after the job she adored. She wasn’t attracted to him. She wouldn’t let herself be.

“What exactly are you working on?” she asked, bringing the conversation back to a professional level. Where it belonged. “We worked so hard leading up to Christmas that I thought you realized you didn’t need to be back in the office until January second.”

“I have some ideas for a new brochure rattling around in my head. I figured I should get them down before I lost them.”

As if to prove he’d been working, he reached over and pulled a sheet of paper from the printer. When he did so, his back muscles visibly rippled through his dress shirt. Not that she was looking.

No. She was trying to figure out why he’d turned the printout so she couldn’t see what was on it. If it had been any other day, Anna would have asked to inspect his work. But she couldn’t afford to get absorbed in what he was doing. Not on Christmas Eve.

“This can wait until after the holidays.” She made a mental note to jot down a few ideas of her own in the interim. “I can’t give the go-ahead on anything until then.”

“I know that, but it’s easier to concentrate when the office is empty. Until you came in,” he said, giving her a direct look, “there weren’t any distractions.”

There it was again. The flirting. Again she told herself she had to be mistaken. She’d only imagined the huskiness in his voice. The implied intimacy of the setting, with only the two of them in the office on Christmas Eve, must be affecting her brain. And her palms, which had started to sweat.

Leave, she told herself. Make like Rudolph and his leggy friends and skedaddle.

But she couldn’t move. Not before she found out what she’d come into his office to learn. She knew she shouldn’t ask. She even bit her bottom lip to prevent it, but the question still came tumbling out of her mouth. “Don’t you have any plans?”

“Nah,” he said.

What did he mean by nah? Everyone who celebrated Christmas and even some of her friends who didn’t had holiday plans. Gathering with friends and family was integral to the spirit of the season.

But Cole Mansfield was from California. He’d taken the job at Skillington barely a month ago, a month in which the marketing staff had worked late nearly every night on a sales campaign geared toward Christmas. Cole wouldn’t have had time to make friends.

“But surely you must have a family,” she said, peering at him intently.

“I’m single,” he said, his beautifully shaped dark eyebrows dancing.

“I was referring to your nuclear family,” she explained quickly. “You know, brothers and sisters—”

“Don’t have any,” he interrupted.

“And parents,” she continued. “You must have parents.”

He laughed, a deep pleasant sound. “I have parents. Two sets of them, in fact.”

He didn’t offer anything more, which meant, God help her, that she would have to ask. “Didn’t either set invite you over for Christmas?”

“Nope.”

She tried to keep the shock from her face but was afraid she couldn’t quite manage it. He’d proved his arrogance by blithely stating he was gunning for her job, but certainly his parents had managed to overlook that character flaw.

“But surely with four parents…” She paused, trying to think of a tactful way to get her point across. She finally decided there wasn’t one. “At least one of them must have wanted you around on Christmas,” she finished.

“They would have,” he said, “but they’re away on vacation.”

“Together?” Again she heard the incredulity in her voice.

“Separately.” He chuckled. “We’re not quite that modern.”

Don’t do it, her brain screamed. She shouldn’t jump to conclusions just because his two sets of parents were off gallivanting somewhere and he was working late on Christmas Eve.

“You weren’t planning, by any chance, to spend tonight…” Her voice faltered, and she cleared her throat. Don’t say it, she thought. “Alone?” she asked.

“Not alone. I’m going to hang with Jimmy Stewart.”

Every cell in her body sagged with relief and she sent a silent thank-you to his friend Jimmy.

“I’d be surprised if It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t on TV tonight,” he said. “Although I’d rather see Jimmy in Rear Window or Vertigo.”

She nearly groaned aloud. He was referring to Jimmy Stewart, the actor. She must have made a pained expression, because he tilted his head quizzically.

“What’s the matter. Don’t you like Hitchcock?”

“I love him, but even I wouldn’t spend Christmas Eve watching his movies,” Anna admitted miserably.

“Then what are you doing tonight?”

Walk away, she ordered herself. Walk away while you still can.

“I’m having dinner at my parents’ house,” she answered, then swallowed the huge lump in her throat before she asked the question that had been inevitable since she’d seen the light shining under the door. “Want to come?”

COLE FOLLOWED THE taillights of Anna’s Christmas-red Miata through the hilly streets of Shadyside, which looked so different from the flat, palm-tree-dotted southern California landscape that it felt surreal.

But then nothing had been routine for Cole since seven months ago when he’d inadvertently discovered that the man who raised him wasn’t his biological father.

The man who’d helped to give him life had been equally in the dark until Cole had picked up the telephone and called him. After he’d gotten past the initial shock of discovering Cole was his son, they’d instantly hit it off.

Within three months, Cole had a second man in his life he called Dad. Before six months had passed, he’d relocated to the Pittsburgh area in order to fill in the blanks that had always been missing in his life.

That feeling of unreality continued tonight as it sunk in that he was looking forward to the evening ahead.

After scratching plans to fly back to California for the holidays when his parents announced they were taking a Christmas cruise, Cole had originally planned to spend Christmas Eve with his biological father.

It turned out his father’s wife had an impromptu vacation to the Hawaiian islands on the mind. Reluctant to leave Cole alone, he’d offered him a plane ticket to Hawaii.

Cole had refused the gift. As much as he burned to get to know his father, he hadn’t wanted to be the odd man out at anyone’s celebration—until Anna Wesley had walked through his office door wearing her red winter coat and Santa hat.

She’d looked so festive standing there with her cheeks rosy from the cold and her hands clutching the bobblehead doll that going home to an empty apartment had suddenly seemed extremely unappealing.

Anna, surprisingly, had struck him as the picture of appeal.

He followed the Miata through city streets festooned with tiny colorful lights and lampposts hung with Christmas wreaths, refusing to think about the very valid reason he shouldn’t fraternize with anyone from work. Especially Anna Wesley.

Surely he wasn’t expected to keep the Skillington Ski employees at arm’s length on Christmas Eve, he reasoned. Having a holiday dinner with Anna wasn’t the same as becoming involved with her. It didn’t mean she’d get close enough to him to discover his true motive for taking the job at Skillington.

Eventually they reached a neighborhood of wide, handsome streets and large Victorian homes with candles burning in nearly every window.

After a couple of turns, he followed Anna’s example and pulled his SUV up to an already crowded curb next to one of the houses, which was set back on a rectangular lot.

Cole didn’t know which was more impressive, the stately beauty of the two-story house or the hundreds of twinkling white lights that turned the place into a winter fantasy land.

He got out of his SUV and joined her on the sidewalk in front of the home, where she seemed to have frozen in place. In addition to the bobblehead doll, she carried a dark-green overnight bag.

She was tall for a woman, probably five eight or nine, with a curvaceous figure and long, shapely legs that were, at the moment, mostly hidden by her calf-length coat.

Her eyes were big and brown, her face heart-shaped and her curly brown hair just long enough to brush her shoulders. She was wearing the Santa hat again but, underneath it, her expression was anything but merry.

“Something wrong?” he prompted, reaching out to touch her on the sleeve of her red coat.

When she stepped away from him and nodded, his stomach pitched to the frozen ground. Could she have guessed his secret? Had he done something tonight to give away that he wasn’t exactly what he seemed?

“It struck me while we were driving over here,” she said and paused, “that you’re a man.”

Relief poured through him. She didn’t know.

“Last time I checked, that was true. I am a man,” he said and wiggled his eyebrows. “You want proof?”

“Of course not,” she said in her businesslike office voice, but he thought he caught a fleeting glimpse of something in her doelike eyes. Had it been awareness? “You don’t understand. I don’t bring men home to my family.”

“Ever?” he asked, alarmed that the prospect pleased him.

He’d felt the zing of attraction for her at his job interview, an instantaneous pull that had his loins tightening before she’d said much more than hello.

He’d thought his immediate reaction to her would be a problem, but it had paled over the next month when she’d treated him with an air of detached professionalism.

The coolness was still there, but now the attraction was back. Maybe it had reignited that instant in the office when he’d noticed her brown eyes contained warm golden lights.

“Ever,” she confirmed with her customary firmness. “But especially not on holidays. I can’t have them jumping to conclusions.”

“Aaah,” he said as understanding dawned. “You don’t want your family to think I’m the boyfriend.”

“Exactly.” She nodded in the direction of his SUV. “Listen, I’ll understand if you make a quick getaway. Unless they’re peeking out the windows, nobody’s seen you.”

She wanted him to nod and go meekly into the night, which would have been the safe choice considering what he was hiding and the way he was reacting to her.

Had they been at work, no doubt she’d have issued an order in that confident way of hers. But they weren’t at work and he didn’t feel particularly cautious.

“I can handle your family,” he said, planting his feet and crossing his arms over his black wool overcoat.

“You don’t know my family,” she countered, her jaw set at a stubborn angle.

“Then introduce me,” he said just as steadfastly.

He would have taken her elbow and steered her toward the door, but she pivoted on her heel and headed for the house without any help from him.

“Fine,” she called over her shoulder, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He followed her up the sidewalk, inexplicably annoyed that she didn’t want her family to think of them as a couple.

It didn’t seem to matter that up until she’d invited him to dinner, he’d tried very hard not to think of her as anything other than his cool, standoffish boss.

Because now…now his perception of her was changing.

He frowned, uncomfortably aware that he couldn’t afford to get too close to her. If he did, he might let it slip that he’d only recently discovered his biological father.

Then her view of him would change, too, only he doubted it would be for the better.

Not when that man was Arthur Skillington, owner and chief executive of the half dozen stores that made up Skillington Ski.

ANNA GAVE HER ELBOW a little shake as she preceded Cole through the door of her parents’ house, the better to dislodge his hand, but he held fast.

Didn’t the man understand he was adding tinder to a fireplace bound to be blazing without it?

“Let go,” she whispered, but evidently not loud enough to supersede the buzz of conversation and the carols that played through the stereo speakers.

“What did you say?”

Cole bent his dark head close, bringing his face so near that she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. Her parents’ house smelled of pine needles and pecan pie, but his scent was stronger. Warm wool mixed with something outdoorsy, like the smell of a winter breeze tempered with the heat of his skin.

“I said…” she began and promptly lost her train of thought when he bent closer still. He was so tall that the gesture seemed intimate, as though he couldn’t get close enough to her.

Her pulse give a pa-rum-pum-pum-pum worthy of the sticks the little drummer boy pounded in the Christmas carol. Cole grinned, his eyes lighting like the slash of the moon that shined down on the night. Could he have guessed the bizarre effect he had on her?

“Anna, who’s that with you?”

It was her mother’s voice, so loud and clear it put the silver bells of Christmas to shame.

Anna sprang apart from Cole, feeling the red flame of guilt stain her cheeks. Never mind that she had nothing to feel guilty about.

The foyer opened into a large living area where the family—her parents, aunt and uncle, sister and brother-in-law and grandparents—had congregated beside a tree strung with popcorn, shiny ornaments and colored lights.

Conversation had stopped, leaving only the crackle of the wood in the fireplace and the soft melody of the carols.

“This is Cole Mansfield, Mom. We work together,” Anna said, aware that, darn him, he still had hold of her arm. “Cole, this is my mother, Rosemary Wesley.”

Her family members emitted a collective hum which, darn them, sounded speculative. Her mother, a small woman with salt-and-pepper hair dressed in a red velour pantsuit, swept to the front of the room where Anna stood with Cole on the hardwood of the entrance-way.

Even though she was married to an obstetrician and lived in a posh part of town, her mother didn’t put on airs. She was who she was. A down-to-earth girl from a hardworking Polish family who’d married a prosperous man but had never forgotten her roots.

“My, my, aren’t you the hunky one,” she said in her too-loud voice as her gaze appreciatively scanned Cole from the thick, black hair on his head to the expensive-looking leather shoes that covered his toes.

Her mother had also never forgotten her family’s tendency toward bluntness, Anna mentally added with a silent groan.

“Thank you,” Cole said, smiling as though the greeting were perfectly normal.

“I should be thanking you,” her mother said, taking both of his hands in hers so that he had to release Anna’s elbow. Her mother’s eyes danced in her round, friendly face. “You don’t know how long we’ve been waiting for this.”

“For what?” Anna asked fearfully.

“You know what.” Her mother smiled more brightly than any light in the house. “I had high hopes that you’d finally give in and date Brad Perriman, but this is just as good. Maybe better.”

“What’s just as good?” Anna asked, not bothering to state that she had zero interest in Brad Perriman. Since her parents had tried to fix her up with him by inviting him to dinner, she’d already said so a half-dozen times.

“Him,” her mother said, indicating Cole with the sweep of her hand. “But Anna, you should have told us you were dating someone at work.”

“Oh, no.” Anna waved her right hand back and forth for emphasis. “We’re not dating. I’m Cole’s boss.” She nudged the solid thickness of Cole’s arm with an elbow. “Tell them you work for me, Cole.”

“That’s true,” he said, and Anna could breathe again. “Anna’s my boss.”

“Well, well, well. Who would have thought Anna would get involved in an office romance.” Aunt Miranda, her father’s svelte, self-assured sister, came forward on three-inch heels. Her frosted blond hair, combined with winter-white slacks and matching sweater, projected a cool, sophisticated image and made her appear younger than her forty years. “Not that we’re not thrilled to finally meet one of her men.”

“Anna has a man?” Grandma Ziemanski, who wasn’t any taller than Anna’s mother and had recently dyed her hair jet black, crossed the room to stand between the other two women and peered up at Cole. “He’s kind of big but he’s cute. Good going, Anna.”

“He’s not my man, Grandma,” Anna denied sharply.

“If he wasn’t your man, you wouldn’t have brought him home to meet us,” Grandma Ziemanski said brightly, then turned and issued a general invitation. “Hey, everybody, come meet Anna’s man.”

One by one, like the guests in a receiving line at a wedding, the rest of her family came forward. Her grandfather, uncle and brother-in-law shook Cole’s hand, her sister Julie gave him a friendly elbow squeeze and her father slapped him on the back.

If Cole had been her boyfriend, Anna could have tolerated the welcome. Except Cole wasn’t her boyfriend. He was the employee with designs on her job.

“Excuse me,” Anna said yet again. “Isn’t anybody paying attention? Cole and I are not dating.”

Her father, who was standing closest to them, winked at Cole. He was slender as a reed, with thinning blond hair and an open manner that endeared him to his patients. “That’s what she said about Larry Lipinski, and she dated him for six months.”

Anna turned to her father in surprise. “You knew I dated Larry?”

“Who’s Larry Lipinski?” Cole asked.

Somebody—Anna wasn’t sure who, considering most everybody was still congregated at the head of the room—jarred her, causing her to bump into Cole. His arm came around her shoulders, creating such a rush of heat to shoot through her that she was startled into staying where she was.

“Nobody you need worry about, considering that hold you have on my daughter.” Her father gave Cole another wink, making Anna wish the pair of them would rise up the chimney, like St. Nick. “She never brought Larry home to meet us.”

Considering Larry had lied to her about everything from where he’d gone to college to how many miles he’d logged on his daily run, that wasn’t surprising. But she didn’t have time to get into that now.

“But—” Anna began again.

“Let me take your coats,” her mother said, practically peeling Anna out of hers. Anna felt a little less warm, but not much. Cole shrugged out of his overcoat, revealing his tree-dotted tie. He squeezed it, and a riff from “O, Christmas Tree” sang out.

Grandpa Ziemanski, connoisseur of all things corny, rumbled with laughter. His most prominent feature was his shaven head, but Anna noticed he was the only man in the room that Cole didn’t dwarf. Grandpa, however, lacked Cole’s muscular build. But not many men who didn’t make their living playing professional football were as muscle bound as Cole.

“I like him, Anna,” her grandfather said heartily.

“But he’s not—”

Grandpa didn’t let her finish. “What’s that in your hand?” He reached out and took the Bobblehead Santa doll from her, pressing the button at its back.

“Hee, hee, hee,” said the Santa doll, his head bobbing crazily. Grandpa mashed the button again, and the doll said, “And I bet you were expecting me to say ho, ho, ho.”

Grandpa erupted into more joyous laughter, which was so infectious that Anna couldn’t help but chime in. She glanced at Cole to share the moment. Cheerful, masculine rumbles seemed to come from the very center of his being and his blue eyes crinkled behind his professor glasses.