Darlene Gardner - Cole For Christmas

Again, he took his time answering. “Not far from here.”

Interesting, Anna thought. “Is that why you moved to the Pittsburgh area? To be closer to your father?”

“I moved here to take the job at Skillington Ski,” he said, which made her remember why she shouldn’t let him touch her with such familiarity: he was after her job.

“If your father’s in town, why did Anna say you didn’t have anywhere else to go tonight?” Uncle Peter asked, frowning.

“My father and his wife are vacationing,” Cole said. “My stepsisters live in Texas, and my mother and her husband are in the Bahamas on a cruise.”

“So that left you ripe for Anna’s picking,” Aunt Miranda observed, looking pointedly from one to the other.

“Miranda,” Peter said in a warning voice.

“Get with the times, Peter,” Aunt Miranda said. “Women pick up men all the time. It’s a perfectly acceptable dating practice.”

Anna ignored the delicious sensations Cole’s gentle massage was causing and figured she’d better distance herself from him, both physically and verbally.

“I didn’t pick him up,” Anna said, stepping away from him. “I asked him to dinner.”

“Am I glad she did.” Cole reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather be.”

The tenderness in his touch was reflected on his face, which was quite a feat considering it was made up of hard angles and planes. Not that there wasn’t a certain softness around his mouth, which was really quite beautiful when you examined it closely.

The sheer loveliness of that mouth had the power to draw her in. Closer and closer. Until she wondered what it would be like to kiss him.

“What does everybody say to some Christmas carols? Rosemary? You up for some piano playing?” Her grandfather’s voice boomed the questions, causing Anna to jerk back.

Her eyes flew to Cole’s, which she couldn’t read because of the twinkling Christmas tree lights reflected in the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses.

Had he guessed that she was thinking about kissing him? More to the point, why had she been thinking about kissing him? He was hardly her type.

“Oh, no. Not the Christmas carols.” Her father let out a melodramatic groan, then whispered to Cole out of the side of his mouth, “My dear wife plays the world’s worst piano. And my mother-in-law has a singing voice that could sour wine.”

Uncle Peter shuddered. “Never heard anything worse than the two of them together.”

“Quick, Cole. Say you’d rather we didn’t do the Christmas carols,” her father urged. “You’re a guest. They might listen to you.”

Cole laughed, such a joyous, infectious sound that it seemed to run through Anna’s veins along with her blood.

“Not on your life. I might not be much of a singer but I like to sing,” Cole said before he walked toward the gleaming mahogany piano at the corner of the room.

Five minutes later, while her mother pounded enthusiastically on the piano keys, Cole led their group in a truly tuneless rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

The tassel from the Santa hat he’d plucked from Grandpa’s head swung as he swayed to the music, such as it was. A few bars into the song, her mother stopped in midstanza.

“Those are the wrong lyrics,” she said crossly and tapped the music on her stand. “Can’t you read? I’m playing ‘All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.”’

A great belly laugh escaped from Grandpa Ziemanski and suddenly Anna couldn’t stop herself.

She looked from her indignant mother to her roaring grandfather to a puzzled Cole and burst into laughter. His lips twitched and, after the barest pause, he joined in.

The result was contagious. One by one, everybody in the room began to laugh until there was no sound save the combined chortling of ten people.

Anna’s eyes watered and her sides ached. She leaned her head weakly against Cole’s chest, thankful when his arms came around her shoulders to support her.

She felt the rumbling inside his chest through her ear and unthinkingly put a hand on his shirt to feel the vibrations.

She could feel the heat coming off his body through his clothes. Experimentally, she moved her hand over the crisp material of his dress shirt. He felt warm and solid, hard muscle covered by smooth flesh. Flesh that no longer vibrated with laughter.

She raised her head to look at him. Her eyes lingered on his mouth, which was no longer laughing, then lifted to his eyes. Even through his glasses, she could see the heat in them.

He was looking at her as though all he wanted for Christmas was her.

Sexual awareness shimmied through her, the same way it had in the office when he’d flirted with her. She’d ignored it then, but she couldn’t any longer. Not when it was as plain as the Santa hat that covered his lush, dark hair.

Wrenching her gaze from his, she stepped back. He let her go but not so far that she wasn’t still in the loose circle of his arms.

“Don’t go, sugarplum,” he whispered. “You felt good exactly where you were.”

She started to pull back despite his words, but her body tingled everywhere it came in contact with his. She hesitated at the same time that her mother crushed the piano keys and the family belted out the lyrics of “Jingle Bells.”

She knew she was right about the identity of the song because she glimpsed the music on the piano stand. Cole grinned at her, then sang along in his truly awful baritone.

By the time they were well into another carol, Cole’s arms circled her from behind. Before they’d finished for the night, her back was against his chest with his chin resting on the top of her head.

Somehow, she never did muster the will to move.

“I HAD A GREAT TIME,” Cole said as Anna’s family gathered around him in the foyer. “I can’t thank you enough for having me.”

Anna’s mother handed him the black wool overcoat she took out of the coat closet.

“We’re the ones who should thank you for impressing Anna enough that she wanted us to meet you,” she said.

Anna didn’t rise to that particular bait, possibly because she was occupied with helping him put on his coat. She applied pressure at the small of his back, the better to shove him out the door.

He stubbornly held his ground. He’d bonded with her family over dinner, caroling and midnight services. He’d be damned if he cut his goodbyes short.

“Me, impress Anna?” he asked rhetorically. He ignored the warning look Anna shot him. “You got that wrong. Anna’s the impressive one.”

“What a nice thing to say,” Grandma Ziemanski offered. “Anna, you better keep this one. When you’re as old and set in your ways as you are, there aren’t many good ones left.”

“Thank you for that thought, Grandma,” Anna said wryly. She tapped the face of her watch. “It’s late. Cole needs to leave so we can all get to sleep. If we don’t, we’ll be too tired to enjoy Christmas day.”

She pushed at his back but not hard enough to budge him. He didn’t spend hours at the gym for nothing.

“Say good-night, Cole,” Anna said.

“Good night, everyone,” he said, mostly because he couldn’t prolong his leave-taking indefinitely. “And Merry Christmas.”

“Speaking of Christmas, Cole, what are you doing tomorrow?” Miranda asked. “Peter and I are having everybody over to our house. You’re more than welcome to join us.”

“Yes,” her husband immediately added. “We’d be happy to have you. You and I never did get a chance to talk about the stock market.”

Cole’s lifting spirits had nothing to do with the Dow Jones Industrial Average. He realized he was reluctant to leave because spending the rest of the holiday alone had lost its appeal.