GINA WILKINS - Beneath the Mistletoe - Make-Believe Mistletoe / Christmas Bonus, Strings Attached

Setting the mug on the counter, she turned to follow Banner out onto the back porch, leaving Joan to see to Bobby Ray. The frigid air hit her like a hard kick, driving the breath from her lungs. It hung in a frosty cloud in front of her. She crossed her arms over her thick sweatshirt and shivered. “You found a tree?”

Pulling his hat back onto his head, Banner nodded. “A small cedar that managed to miss most of the ice because it was under several larger trees. It’s over by my workshop.”

“Do you need any help?”

“No, I can handle it. Looked as if you’re keeping things under control in there. Why don’t you go back inside? You don’t even have on a coat.”

“I feel guilty,” she admitted. “You’ve been out here in the cold and ice finding a tree you didn’t want in the first place while I’ve been in your warm house watching the kids make decorations you didn’t ask for. Bobby Ray got hurt and you—”

“Wait a minute.” He set his hands heavily on her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. “When those kids came into the kitchen this morning, they were the saddest sight I ever saw. Now they’re in there laughing and having a good time getting into the Christmas spirit, and all because you had the clever idea to have them make decorations. There’s no reason at all for you to feel guilty.”

She looked up at him through her lashes. “But Bobby Ray—”

“Bobby Ray bruised his butt,” Banner interrupted inelegantly. “I saw him fall, and I’m confident he’ll be fine. Just sore. And I’m sure he would risk falling again if it meant making the kids happy. He told me he hated seeing them so sad.”

Banner’s reassurances made her feel better. Though she was self-conscious about standing so close to him and having his hands on her, she found herself in no hurry to move away.

“If it hadn’t been for you,” he went on, “I wouldn’t have known what to do with everyone today. The kids would probably be whining and crying and bringing everyone else down, and it would have been miserable. Believe me, you have nothing to feel guilty about.”

She smiled up at him. “Thank you for saying that.”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”

That statement made her laugh. “Trust me, that’s one thing I have figured out about you.”

His gaze dropped slowly to her smiling mouth, then lingered there. She felt her smile fade in response to his expression. They stood so close together their breath mingled into a single hazy cloud—and there was something uncomfortably intimate about that observation.

“You’re cold,” Banner said after a moment. “You should go back inside.”

Cold? Funny, at that moment, he wasn’t at all aware of the cold. She actually felt a bit warm in some places.

But the shiver that ran through her wasn’t entirely due to sexual awareness. Reluctantly she took a step backward, and Banner’s hands fell to his sides. Suddenly she felt the cold again. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

He nodded, stuck his hands in his coat pockets, turned and headed toward his workshop, placing his feet with care on the icy path. Lucy watched him for a moment longer, until the cold drove her back inside.

* * *

While the others stayed busy making decorations, Lucy and Joan went into the kitchen at just before one that afternoon to prepare lunch. Even from in there, they could hear the slightly off-key strains of “Jingle Bells” being sung in the living room.

Pop, they had discovered, loved to sing, and he particularly loved to sing Christmas carols. Bobby Ray had pulled out a battered old guitar he claimed was never far from his side; he hadn’t left it in the truck because he said the damp cold was bad for the wood and the strings. Pop and Bobby Ray had been leading the children in familiar holiday tunes for the past half hour.

“Pop’s a sweet man, isn’t he?” Joan asked Lucy as they opened the pantry door. “He reminds me of my grandfather.”

Lucy smiled. “That’s what Bobby Ray said.”

Joan bit her lip. “Did he?”

“Yes. Bobby Ray’s nice, too. Very funny, and so kind to Miss Annie and the kids. Although he snores like a freight train and can’t carry a tune in a bucket,” she added with a chuckle. “But he does play the guitar well.”

“He does seem nice,” Joan agreed hesitantly. “I have to admit I was a bit intimidated by him at first. He’s so large and hairy.”

“Rather like Banner’s dog,” Lucy murmured.

Joan smiled a little. “Bobby Ray’s louder. I haven’t heard the dog so much as yip since we got here.”

“He snores almost as loudly as Bobby Ray.”

The other woman laughed, then looked into the pantry again. “Poor Banner’s getting low on supplies. We’ll all have to chip in for groceries before we leave.”

“Definitely.” But Lucy wondered if he would accept any money from them. Banner seemed to be the fiercely proud and independent type. “We could make sandwiches with chips and pickles on the side. I saw some lunch meat out in the cooler. It should probably be used soon.”

“Sandwiches sound fine.”

Lucy stepped out onto the porch, glancing toward the workshop as she did so. The doors were closed, but a thin plume of smoke rose from a small chimney in the roof, indicating a woodstove of some sort. She wondered if it was really taking Banner this long to craft a simple stand for the tree or if he was busying himself in his workshop to avoid entertaining his guests. She suspected the latter.

It was probably just as well that he was staying away, she decided. She was getting much too intrigued by that man. And with her tendency to tumble into trouble, she was likely to do something stupid if she spent much more time with him—especially as close as she had been to him on this porch earlier, she thought with a touch of pensiveness.

If she had ever seen a heartache waiting to happen, it was Banner—a man so private and reserved that he had only shared one name with her.

She carried the lunch meat back inside, closing the back door on the sight of Banner’s workshop.

Working in comfortable unison, Lucy and Joan assembled the ingredients for sandwiches. Lucy’s curiosity about Joan was growing, and she had never been very successful at reining in her curiosity. She would, however, try to be as tactful as possible with her prying.

“Your children are very well behaved,” she began. “Considering everything, they’ve been real troupers today.”

Joan’s brown eyes brightened in response to the compliment. “Thank you. I really appreciate everything you all have done to entertain them.”

Lucy shrugged. “It keeps us entertained, too. Are you a single mom?”

She had tried to slip the question in casually, but subtlety had never been one of Lucy’s talents. Joan stiffened a bit. “Yes,” she replied after a moment. “I’m divorced. The kids haven’t seen their father in several years.”

“You’re doing a wonderful job with them.”

“I do my best.”

It couldn’t be easy raising two children alone, Lucy mused. Which was why a solemn respect for the responsibilities of fatherhood was high on her list of husband qualifications. Lucy definitely wanted children, and it was her intention to provide those children with a good father.

“Have you ever been married?” Joan asked, turning the questioning around.

“No, but I’m looking,” Lucy replied cheerfully.

“Um, you are?”

“Yep. I’ve been on more blind dates than I can count during the past year. None of them has led to anything promising, but I haven’t given up.”

“So you really are looking.”

“Oh, yes. I concentrated on establishing my career first, but now I’m ready to establish a family. I’ll be twenty-eight in a few months.”