Don't Open Till Christmas Read online

  That state of panic had never fully dissipated. She’d finally gotten him to keep his more dire concerns to himself by screeching at the top of her lungs that it wasn’t good for her or the baby to hear him muttering about toxic chemicals in drinking water and infants born with tails.

  Randy was a worrier. A worst-case-scenario type of guy.

  Sue was an optimist. A we-can’t-do-anything-about-it-solet’s-just-forget-about-it-for-now kind of girl.

  They usually balanced each other out pretty well.

  Until now.

  Because right around the time she’d gotten her sweet, protective husband to stop darkly muttering about the negative influence of C.S.I. on their unborn child—as if the kid was watching it through her belly button—she’d learned that there really was something to worry about.

  Placental Previa. She’d immediately recognized the technical term when the doctor had named it Thursday. If she hadn’t known it from her own cover-to-cover reading of the thirty-five pregnancy books Randy had bought the first month of her pregnancy, she would from her husband’s frequent out-loud reading from said books.

  Randy, it seemed, had been right to worry. This wasn’t going to be the free-and-breezy pregnancy Sue had assured her husband she was going to have. The pregnancy her mother, aunt, and friends had all assured her she was going to have.

  Nope. She was one of the lucky 1 in 200 or so women who developed the condition that had caused some bleeding—not to mention pure terror—a few days ago. Which was why she had to remain in bed for the rest of her pregnancy and hope the relative lack of movement would keep the baby safely developing in her womb for at least another week or two.

  Her stout, resolute, generous self knew it wasn’t a hardship at all because there was nothing she wouldn’t do to keep the baby safe. Heck, she’d stopped drinking anything with caffeine in it, stopped eating Snickers bars—her secret addiction—and had even stopped dyeing her shoulder-length hair, which had returned to its natural boring, sandy-blond color. So this should’ve been a piece of cake.

  It wasn’t. Because the bored, selfish part of her was whining.

  It was so frustrating, being stuck in this bed when she knew there were a million things she had to do to keep the inn running and get ready for her maternity leave. Randy was a born innkeeper in terms of keeping their guests happy and comfortable. He’d fallen right into the role of host when he’d left his own family’s local business to help her run hers shortly after their wedding.

  Unfortunately, her husband had zero business sense. If she didn’t get back on her feet and return to overseeing things, he would be letting anyone with a sob story, an empty wallet, and no credit card move on in.

  “It’s not just boredom and worry,” she admitted aloud, talking to the baby, as she often did these days.

  No. She was also grieving.

  Though Randy didn’t understand, Sue was truly grieving at the knowledge that she wasn’t going to be able to have the baby naturally. Silly, she supposed. But after the doctor had explained everything—stressing that her baby was fine and, at nearly thirty-six weeks, could be delivered soon if necessary—she’d been almost more upset knowing she was going to have to have a C-section.

  Her mother had thought it wonderful that she’d simply be able to schedule the delivery and avoid the whole painful labor thing altogether. “Great, Mom,” she muttered again, considering the source. Her mother had often griped about how angry she’d been to learn during her own pregnancy that they no longer routinely put women out, then woke them up when it was all over with. Sue firmly believed that was why she was an only child. Her mother didn’t like…messes.

  Sue, on the other hand, had been looking forward to the entire experience, from water breaking to pushing. She and Randy had been A+ students at all the childbirth classes and they’d already rehearsed for the big moment when it was time to leave for the hospital. “Well,” she whispered, “Daddy rehearsed. Mommy just nodded her head and laughed at him. But we won’t tell him that, will we, Mia?”

  This week she was calling the baby—whose sex she didn’t yet know—Mia, after soccer player Mia Hamm. The kid’s kicking abilities were astronomical. At six months, the baby had been Mary Lou, because she’d sometimes seemed to be swinging around Sue’s internal organs like a gymnast on the high bars.

  The point was, she’d worked hard to be ready to take on the biggest physical challenge of her life. All for nothing. She was instead going to lie in this bed for as long as she could stand it, then make an appointment like she was going to get her hair or nails done, and have her baby surgically removed from her body.

  It wasn’t fair, not for someone who’d worked so hard to be prepared. That sounded petulant, but frankly, with her whacked-out hormones, petulance was something she was feeling right now. Ten minutes from now, she’d be weepy. And tomorrow she’d be scared out of her mind again about the baby’s well-being.

  But for right now, petulance was doing just fine.

  “Honey?” Randy said tentatively, peeking his head in the door to their room. He was probably still nervous to be around her after she’d nearly ripped his head off earlier when he’d offered to get her some decaffeinated tea or rub her feet. He wouldn’t look directly at her, keeping his gentle eyes slightly averted. “You doing okay?”

  “No,” she muttered, sniffling a little.

  He hurried to the side of the bed. “What is it? What can I do? Do you need me to call the doctor?”

  She reached for his hand. “I’m fine. At least, as fine as I’ve been since I got sentenced to this bed. I’m just…bored. And lonely.”

  “I’ll stay with you.”

  “Is everything running okay?”

  He nodded. “Noelle’s been a big help. She stepped right back into the thick of things, as if she never left.”

  “Poor thing,” Sue murmured, knowing how much her cousin had sacrificed to come back here at this time of year. Particularly this year, when Noelle’s former fiancé was walking around town with his new wife, who so hadn’t had any baby. So much for Jeremy’s story that he’d gotten some woman from out of town pregnant when he’d come to the inn last December 22 to cancel the Christmas Eve wedding.

  She didn’t know whether Jeremy had made up the pregnancy story or if he’d been lied to himself. Didn’t really matter—either way, he deserved what he got. From what Randy said, Jeremy—who was her husband’s first cousin—was very unhappy. Which, frankly, sounded like divine justice to Sue.

  “She seemed okay when she got here,” Randy said. “I know she was happy to see you.”

  Yes, she’d been happy. Noelle had hugged her tight, and laughingly compared Sue to a giant beach ball with a head, arms and legs. “I hate that we had to ask her to do this.”

  “But she is good company for you.” He looked around, obviously just noticing she was alone in the room. “Speaking of which, I thought she’d be here with you. Where is she?”

  Good question. It was after eight o’clock, the inn was quiet, and Noelle was nowhere to be seen.

  “I’ll go find her,” Randy said, probably anxious to get out of here before she started crying again, or else threatened to throw him out the window for offering to plump her pillows.

  Hormones. What a bitch. And very aptly named.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Let her be…she’s worked since the minute she got here.”

  Before she could ask Randy to rub her feet now, because she was ready for him to, unlike twenty minutes ago when he’d offered, Sue was distracted by an unexpected sound. Voices, loud and jubilant, raised in song.

  Her spirits instantly rose. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Randy tilted his head to listen, then slowly nodded, obviously not sure whether this was a good development or a bad one. “Yeah, it sounds like the Christmas Carolers.”

  She clapped her hands together, suddenly feeling a lot better. The Carolers—a group of local performers who performed their well-rehear
sed repertoire all year long—had come at a perfect time. They were just the reminder she needed that her favorite holiday was just around the corner.

  But her happiness faded when she realized something: she couldn’t go to the door to greet them. Nor could she offer the traditional hot cider and goodies that she usually did. “I won’t be able to see them,” she said, her voice hitchy. She sniffled. “I can barely hear them.

  Randy rose to his feet, his sweet, kind face pulled into a concerned frown. Then he stiffened his shoulders and nodded resolutely. “Don’t worry, honey. If you can’t go to the music, well, the music will just have to come to you.”

  HEARING A TROOP OF PEOPLE marching past her bedroom door when her tongue was delicately stroking a man’s rock-hard erection was one way to kill a mood. Oh, it didn’t seem to kill Mark’s—he was every bit as big and ready after he swung around to make sure the door was locked as he’d been when she was about to gobble him up. For Noelle, however, the desire to get wickedly carnal and suck on the man’s sex as if it was one of those supersized candy canes shrunk just a tiny bit when she recognized the tune of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.”

  “What the hell is going on?” Mark asked, looking stunned and frustrated. Listening to the laughing voices and the singing in the hallway, he buttoned his jeans. Grabbing for his zipper, he tried to ease it up without injuring himself.

  Noelle would have offered to help, but frankly, she didn’t think she’d have the strength. The next time she touched that man’s zipper, she wanted to be yanking it down to finish what she’d just about started. Not pulling it up and hiding all that yummy male goodness she could still almost taste on her tongue.

  “Who are those people and why are they singing?” he asked, still watching the door in disbelief, as if expecting it to swing open at any moment.

  Knowing the Christmas Carolers—who had to be the ones invading the inn—she wouldn’t put it past them. If they’d known Noelle was in town, she didn’t imagine even a locked door would have kept the merry band of miscreants out. “They’re apparently going to serenade Sue in bed,” she murmured, instantly realizing why Randy would have let the twenty-something strong musical group into the inn. “She’s always loved them.”

  He gaped. “Are you telling me those are a bunch of carolers? Good grief, Christmas is three weeks away!”

  Noelle geared up for his response to what she knew was going to sound crazy. “They’re an organized musical choir—‘The Christmas Carolers’—and they perform all year round. In elf costumes.”

  Mark looked stunned. “You are shitting me.”

  “Nope, I’m afraid I’m not,” she said with a rueful shake of her head. “From January through October, they go out one Saturday a month, rotating neighborhoods in Christmas, just to keep everyone mindful of the fact that they live in holiday hell.”

  His jaw fell open.

  “In November, it’s weekly,” she explained, feeling his shock. “And starting December 1, they are out every single night of the month.”

  “How…un-holiday like,” he sputtered, appearing really offended by the idea. “What’s the point of having a special day if people are determined to take all the uniqueness out of it?”

  Which was exactly how Noelle had always felt about the town’s overdoing of everything related to the Christmas holiday. Funny that he’d so quickly and easily verbalized it.

  He was still frowning. “Stores shouldn’t have aisles full of wreaths and garland before Halloween. And there oughta be a law…no Christmas songs any time after January 5 or before Thanksgiving.”

  She totally agreed. “And The Christmas Story shows only once in December, not ninety-five times a day so we no longer even care if Ralphie gets his Red Ryder BB gun.”

  “Or if the Bumpus hounds eat the turkey,” he said with a deep chuckle. He suddenly looked so boyish and cute that she wanted to pull him down beside her on the bed and kiss him to bits.

  No kissing to bits she reminded herself. No. Only sucking, licking, biting, scratching and thrusting were allowed when it came to Mark Santori. No sweet, playful romping! In fact, they shouldn’t be having this light, friendly conversation at all. He was supposed to be just her sexy stranger. Her lover—not her friend. Not her romance, that was for sure.

  “I hear ‘My Favorite Things,’” he muttered, shaking his head in disgust. “Who, I would like to know, decided that was a Christmas song? The song doesn’t say red and green paper packages with strings, they’re brown. Hell, they could have sex-toy catalogs in them for all we know.”

  Oh, no, he’d done it again—made her laugh by grumpily saying something she’d thought a million times, though maybe not so descriptively. Still, their instant connection, the outlook, attitude and sense of humor…they made all kinds of strange, much-too-dangerous visions flash in her mind. Like the idea that maybe they were compatible in more ways than physically.

  No, Noelle. You’re going to have him. Not like him.

  “I can’t believe your cousin’s husband actually let them in. Is he hard of hearing?”

  Noelle rose to her feet, feeling selfish for leaving her cousin alone this evening, her first night here. How rotten she’d been to ignore Sue, just so she could go have wild, hot sex with a gorgeous, black-haired man she wanted to tie up and lick all over like a giant postage stamp.

  Hmm. When looking at it that way, she seriously believed her cousin would understand.

  But no way was she going to find out. This whole secret fling thing needed to remain a secret. Exposing it to the light of day would be putting too much emphasis on it. Too much importance. It needed to be completely casual and guiltless for Noelle to go all-out with her carnal plans and prevent herself from imagining that she and Mark would ever have anything more than sex.

  Because they wouldn’t. Period. Not as long as that little voice in her head kept whispering reminders of her painful track record with love.

  “Sue must be feeling so left out of things,” she said as she glanced into her mirror and tried to fix her wild hair. It still showed evidence of Mark’s hands tangled in it.

  Those hands. She wanted them touching her everywhere.

  “So maybe someone could bring her a cake and a book of crossword puzzles,” he muttered. “Not thirty carol-singing nutjobs.”

  Oh, Lord, it was too late. She already liked this man. Maybe too much. That wasn’t supposed to be part of the deal. “I’d better go.”

  Mark stiffened, eyeing her with disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Sue and Randy will wonder where I am.”

  “That didn’t seem to matter ten minutes ago.”

  Ten minutes ago. That’d been right around the time when she’d been licking at the moisture on his briefs, loving the musky, masculine taste, dying for a much deeper sample. She was still quivering, deep inside, at the memory of it.

  That was just one of the things she’d never done—taking a man all the way to the edge and swallowing every bit of what he had to offer. And it was definitely something she wanted to do with her sexy stranger. This sexy stranger.

  Of course, she’d never say that out loud, no matter how much he tried to get her to confess her most sensual, secret desires. Any more than she’d admit that she wanted his tongue licking her to the same explosive heights at exactly the same time.

  Her legs shook a little bit and she had to close her eyes, having absolutely no doubt Mark would be delightfully daring. Unlike her ex-fiancé, Jeremy, who, when it came to oral sex, was like Randy Moss of the NFL—strictly a receiver.

  Shaking off the images filling her head, she sucked in a mind-clearing breath. “Ten minutes ago there weren’t thirty carol-singing nutjobs in the house. If nothing else, I have to make sure Marnie Miller doesn’t swipe any of Sue’s good Christmas china.”

  He gaped. “What?”

  “They don’t make the pattern anymore, and Marnie knows Sue has it. There’s always fierce competition whenever somebody discovers
an odd piece here or there and points it out to either of them. No china is safe when Marnie’s in the house.”

  Crossing his arms in front of his broad chest, he leaned against the doorjamb. “So there are potential thieves here in Christmas?”

  She immediately realized what he was talking about. Shifting in her uncomfortably tight pants, which had fit just fine before this man had gotten her all wet and swollen at the thought of making love with him, she shook her head. “Well, even with Marnie’s sticky fingers, I do not believe this town has thieves who’d dress up as Santa Claus in order to steal from children. Just the kind who’ll pilfer a sugar bowl or teacup, knowing it’ll eventually be stolen by the person you took it from.”

  “So your cousin might someday steal to get her sugar bowl back?” He tsked. “I’m shocked.”

  “Aunt Leila, Sue’s mother, started the whole thing twenty years ago. She publicly accused Marnie Miller of having no sense of originality because Marnie went into the city and bought the same pattern after she saw it here at the inn. Then, when Uncle Ken—Sue’s father, who died a year and a half ago—accidentally knocked over the cake platter and broke it, Aunt Leila desperately tried to get Marnie to sell her hers.”

  His eyes were twinkling. “Don’t tell me. Aunt Leila pinched it.”

  She couldn’t help reacting to his good humor, liking the way his eyes sparkled that pale green when he was in a good mood. Not the dark forest color she saw when he was aroused. “So the story goes.”

  “A real Hatfield and McCoy feud, hmm?”

  “Yep. And Sue is determined to keep up the tradition.”

  “I suppose it’s safer than raiding each other’s stills.”

  She nodded. “But don’t even ask about the fruitcake recipe wars.”

  Mark met her stare, laughter spilling out of those succulent lips. Mercy, how she wanted a kiss…the kiss she’d told him he couldn’t have for fear he’d distract her.