By the time Guy came down, his hostess had the cards out and hot chocolate poured into mugs. More cookies sat on the plate on the kitchen table. Greeting card perfect.
She smiled up at him as she shuffled the deck and taunted, “Prepare to lose.”
“I don’t lose at cards.” He and his brothers used to play a lot of poker on those ski trips to Vail. He always came away with the pot.
She cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? Ever hear the expression pride goes before a fall?”
“Yeah, and I’m afraid you’re gonna fall big-time,” he said as he sat down. All those shiny curls, those pretty green eyes—someone else at this table was in danger of falling. Big-time.
She dealt three cards for the first round. “I almost feel sorry for you.”
“You that confident, huh?” he teased. Her perfume reached out with invisible fingers and tickled his nose. He wanted to play with a lock of her hair.
She looked at her hand and smiled. “I am.”
She must have gotten a wild card. “Want to bet on it?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Ah, not so confident after all. I don’t want that card, by the way,” he said, passing on the four of diamonds on the discard pile.
“Oh, I am. But on the off chance that you got lucky I wouldn’t have anything to pay you with. I’ve only got a couple of dollars in my purse. I don’t want that, either,” she said.
He drew and got a wild card, which gave him three of a kind. “So, wager something else.”
“More cookies?”
“You already gave me cookies.”
“Fudge?”
“Not that into fudge.” Looking at Livi, he had something much better in mind.
“Okay, then what?”
“How about a kiss?”
Her eyes opened wide and her face flushed. “A kiss?” she repeated as if he’d just proposed she sleep with him.
Okay, that had been stupid. What could he say? He’d been under the influence of perfume.
He bluffed it out. “Hey, I like to gamble big.”
“We hardly know each other,” she protested.
Wasn’t that the truth? If she knew he was Guy Hightower she’d spit in his face. But right now he was plain old Joe Ford, enjoying an evening with a pretty woman.
“We’re getting to know each other,” he pointed out. And he realized he wanted her to get to know him, to see that he was more than the stingy guardian of a company’s treasure chest. “One kiss won’t hurt. Unless there’s someone else?”
“No, no.” The words came out half assurance and half regret.
“Well, then?”
“What will you give me if I win?” she asked, her cheeks still flushed.
“If I lose, I’ll make breakfast tomorrow. How’s that?”
That was acceptable. Her smile returned. “Okay. We just happen to have plenty of eggs.”
“Good,” he said, then discarded and laid down his cards, faceup.
“You had a wild card,” she accused.
“But not up my sleeve.”
She frowned and drew. Then laid down. She’d had a wild card, too, but nothing else matched. Even when she played it on what he’d laid down, he still caught her with ten points.
“I’m looking forward to that kiss,” he teased, bringing back her blush.
“It’s only the first hand,” she said. “You got lucky.”
He’d like to get lucky with Little Miss Helpful. But that really wasn’t in the cards. He’d have to settle for a kiss.
She won the next hand, going out with a run of four, but only caught him with a couple of points and the third hand went to him. “I hope you’re a good kisser,” he teased as he dealt the cards.
“I hope you’re a good cook,” she retorted.
“Not really, but I can handle eggs.”
“You don’t cook much?”
“No time, really,” he said. “I put in pretty long hours.”
She examined her cards. “No one in your life to cook for you?”
She was fishing. He hid a smile. “Nope. Back to that time thing.”
“You have to make time for people somewhere in your life.”
“I have people in my life. I’ve got my mom and two brothers, a couple of nephews and a niece, a stepdad and stepsisters, people I work with.” His family was too busy to hang out outside of work. He rarely had time for his old college buddies. Most of his social life revolved around business.
It counted. “But really, when you’re working sixty and seventy hours a week, it doesn’t leave a lot of time for much of anything else.”
“That’s kind of sad,” she said, and drew a card.
“Sad?”
“Well, it’s good to have a job, but I’d think you’d want a little more balance in your life.”
This from the woman who couldn’t afford to take a vacation. “I don’t just have a job. I have a company. I’m responsible for a lot of jobs.”
“Of course,” she murmured.
“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing to be in business.”
“Oh, it’s not,” she said quickly. “Without businesspeople there’d be no one to help organizations like mine,” she said.
Damn straight.
“I guess I was just thinking that maybe there’s a difference between you being in business and business being in you so much that the rest of your life gets shoved off into a corner.”
She discarded and he picked it up. “It all goes together, Livi. I care about what I do as much as you do, and for good reason. Businesses give people jobs. Jobs equal security and happiness. Corporations get a bad rap, but when it comes right down to it, those corporations that give people a paycheck help them have a life.” So much for not getting into a philosophical debate.
“It looks like you’ve got a pretty good life,” she observed.
That hit a nerve. Yeah, he did. He had his condo and the family place in Vail. He had stocks and mutual funds and a nice 401K. But so what? His dad had worked hard and his father before him. Guy’s brothers worked hard and so did he.
“Should I feel guilty because I’m doing well?”
“No, not at all. I don’t begrudge anyone his success,” she said, keeping her gaze on the card she’d just drawn.
“Are you sure?”
“Really,” she insisted, sorting through the cards in her hand. “But isn’t it wonderful when you’re doing well to be able to help others do well, too?”
“I do that,” he insisted. It was his turn. He drew and discarded. Well, crap. There went a wild card.
She beamed at him. “I’m glad to hear that. I think generosity is the best quality a person can have. And speaking of, thanks,” she said, and scooped up his discard. And went down, leaving him stuck with twenty-five points. “I like my eggs over easy.”
“Don’t put your order in yet. The game’s not over.” And neither was this conversation.
“You know,” he said casually, as they organized their hands, “it’s easy for people to judge how other people manage their money but sometimes they don’t have all the facts.”
She frowned.
“You don’t agree with that?” he prompted.
“I do in most cases. But some businesses...” She pressed her lips tightly together and picked up a card.
“The major donor you lost?”
“It was wrong. The company’s founder was my great-grandmother’s first donor. He supported Christmas from the Heart wholeheartedly.”
Old Elias Hightower again. Guy frowned.
To hear Livi speak, you’d have thought his great-granddad was a saint. He may have looked like a saint to a lot of people, but the ones he’d cheated early in his life with shady business deals probably hadn’t thought so.
By the time Livi’s great-grandma had come along, Elias had managed to pass himself off as a solid family man and pillar of the community, all the while keeping his mistress hidden from the public eye. Family legend had it that Elias had tried to seduce Adelaide Brimwell, hoping to make her his new mistress. Adelaide had threatened to tell her husband, and the only way to shut her up was to make a hefty contribution to her charity. Elias forked over a sizable chunk and got to keep his false but good reputation and Adelaide found a champion for her cause. Thus began the relationship between the Hightowers and Christmas from the Heart.
“I’d say she pretty much blackmailed him,” Guy’s dad had once said when the subject of corporate responsibility came up. “But in her case the ends justified the means, and old Elias needed to pay for his sins anyway.”
This was one bedtime story Olivia Berg had probably never heard.
“His company has been there for us ever since,” Livi continued, warming to her subject.
Paying for Great-Granddad’s sins.
“He’s probably turning in his grave at the way they’ve abandoned us.”
More likely he was turning in his grave over how his great-grandkids had managed to screw up managing the company since taking over. “The company could be having problems you don’t know about.”
She sighed. “I suppose. It was just the way the whole thing was handled. It was so...heartless. And I bet if their CFO had looked hard enough he could have found some money.”
He probably could have. But instead he’d given their money to higher-profile nonprofits. Guy felt slightly ill. Cookies, hot chocolate and guilt didn’t mix well together.
“I guess I’m sounding...” She stopped and gnawed that kissable lower lip.
“What?” Guy prompted.
“Entitled. And I shouldn’t feel entitled to something that’s given and not owed.”
She had that right.
“But I am hugely disappointed. After so many years, being cut off, losing that funding—we were orphaned. And insulted, to boot. We’re not leeches,” she said with a scowl. “That was what the CFO called me. Picture that.”
He was, and it made him wince. “Maybe he was having a bad day.” Or maybe he was being a jerk. “They’ll probably make up for it next year,” he said, and vowed to do exactly that.
“That sure doesn’t help us this year. Honestly, if I had that man here right now I’d...” She sputtered to a stop. “I’m sorry. I’m being completely unprofessional.”
“It’s okay,” he assured her. “This isn’t a business meeting.”
“Still, you’re right. I don’t know what’s going on at the company. For all I know the man’s had to take a pay cut.”
Not yet.
“He’s probably got a family to feed.”
Not even a cat.
“You never really know about people.”
Thank God she didn’t know about him. Guy was so rattled he missed picking up a card he needed.
On her turn, she drew and went down. “Ha! Gotcha,” she crowed.
Yes, she did. She had him, hook, line and sinker, and he was flopping at her feet.
“So, let’s quit talking about all those evil businessmen,” he said as they started their next hand. “Tell me what you do for the holidays.”
That put her in a happy mood again. “Well, on Christmas Eve day we’ll be delivering Christmas stockings and turkeys to homes here in town and in Gold Bar and Skykomish.”
Back to Christmas from the Heart again. The woman lived, ate and breathed it. Guy found himself envying her passion. In spite of the long hours he worked he didn’t feel that kind of passion for his company.
“Then my brother and his wife will come up to spend the night,” she continued, “which means as soon as those deliveries are made I’ll be busy baking red velvet cake and heating ham for Christmas Eve dinner. We always play a couple of games after dinner and then stay up late watching Christmas movies. Of course, my brother will still wake us up early to open presents.”
“Yeah, I was always the one who did that.”
“You’re welcome to join us for dinner if you’re still stranded here,” she offered.
“Thanks.”
If he hadn’t promised his mom he’d be with her, he’d have loved to. He could easily envision Christmas in the Berg household—eggnog, presents, lit candles, and a smiling, happy family. It was the kind of holiday his mom had created for them growing up, only with more expensive presents. The kind of holiday he’d loved before his dad died and it all fell apart.
“You probably have your own Christmas traditions, too,” she said.
“We did. When my dad was alive. Things changed after he died.” And not for the better.
Guy had just gotten his MBA when his father had his heart attack, forcing his sons to shoulder burdens they weren’t yet ready for. Mike had already been working at Hightower for four years, learning the business, and wife number one was spending his money as fast as he could make it. Their dad had been grooming him to take over the company but that was supposed to have been much further down the road. Bryan had gone to the Hightower salt mine right after college and he’d been there for two years and was still pretty much clueless and only mildly invested in his job. Then there’d been Guy, the boy genius, the third member of the young Hightower triumvirate that would someday control the family empire. He’d been in no hurry to come on board. He’d worked hard in school and wanted time off to play. There was time. The old man would be around forever.
Except it didn’t turn out that way. Their father was an old man, seventeen years older than his wife and worn-out. He’d thrown a clot when he had the heart attack and that had left him paralyzed on one side and in rehab.
“We spent our last Christmas as a family at the rehab center.” Guy remembered how the place had smelled—pine-scented cleaner trying to overpower the scent of urine. A little old lady had hobbled past him, leaning on a walker and grimacing. She wore a Santa hat on her head, probably stuck there by the woman who was with her and talking about the wonderful turkey dinner that would be served later.
Neither Bryan nor Guy had stuck around for turkey dinner. Bryan had stood around helplessly for twenty minutes while Dad sat in his wheelchair, unable to talk, and Mom tried to smile through the tears washing away her makeup, then he’d bolted. Guy hadn’t lasted much longer. After some inane comment on how Dad would be out of that thing and back on top soon, he’d kissed Mom on the cheek, promised to take her out to eat the next day and then beat it, leaving Mike to eat turkey dinner with the aged and infirm. It went with being the oldest. Guy had gone back home and found Bryan there, making serious inroads into a bottle of Scotch. He’d joined his brother and they’d drunk their way through Christmas. His dad died two days later and they’d drunk their way through New Year’s, too.
After that Mom dived into mourning, Mike stepped into shoes still too big for him and got his first divorce. Bryan got serious about work and tried to keep up. Guy joined the Hightower Empire, put his shoulder to the wheel and went to work.
As for Christmas? At first they tried to re-create what they’d had as a family, everyone gathering at Mom’s, but sadness tarnished it. After the first Christmas without their dad, Bryan’s wife had stepped into the role of holiday hostess, insisting everyone come to their house. That had really felt wrong. The Hightower version of the holiday eventually turned into skiing with the brothers when they were in between women or taking Mom out for dinner.
Guy doubted he’d find that greeting-card-perfect Christmas with his mom’s new family. She was determined to try, but really, it was like trying to patch up something broken. You always knew it was cracked. You were always aware of the patch.
He hadn’t realized he was frowning until Livi laid a hand on his and murmured, “I’m sorry, Joe.”
He shrugged. “Stuff like that happens in every family.” Then he remembered her mom. “I guess you already know that.”
Her hand slid away and she looked at her cards, blinking back tears. “It’s hard to lose people you care about. But it sure makes you appreciate the ones who are left all the more. And it’s important to honor their memories and keep those special traditions alive.”
Or maybe make new ones. Hard to make new traditions when you didn’t have anyone special to make them with.
He got his head back in the card game. Christmases past were gone and out of reach. Better to stay here in the present, playing cards with a little cutie who, so far, thought he was a good man.
He didn’t want to go too far into the future, either. Except maybe he could change it. Maybe he could change her opinion of him. His was changing toward her. Olivia Berg, he was coming to realize, was something special.
They played out a few hands, the score remaining close. Until the last hand. Oh yeah, luck was being a lady tonight. He stuck Livi with thirty points and that won the game for him.
She looked stunned. “I can’t believe you beat me.”
“Well, you know what they say. Pride goes before a fall,” he teased.
She stuck out her lower lip. Oh yeah, he was ready for that kiss. “Hey now, no pouting just because I’m not making breakfast.”
“You got lucky.”
Oh, how he’d like to get lucky. “Okay, time to pay up.”
Her cheeks turned pink again.
“I promise I’ll make it painless,” he murmured with a smile.
He leaned across the table and she did the same. Then he slipped a hand behind her neck and drew her to him. He could smell that peppermint perfume. Her hair was so soft. So were her lips and they tasted like hot chocolate. She sighed into the kiss and he let the moment stretch out, threading his fingers through her hair. Her hands slipped up to the nape of his neck, her fingers soft and warm against his skin.
He could have gone on like that all night, moving them away from the table and out onto that living room couch, deepening their kiss, pulling her close, enjoying the feel of her curves, inhaling her scent. But that wouldn’t have been right. Even what he was doing was sure to put him on Santa’s naughty list for life.
It had been worth it, though. He pulled back. “You’re a good loser. And a good kisser,” he added, making her cheeks turn pink. “Now, you have to have had other men tell you that,” he said.
She shrugged.
“There’s been no one special?”
“In college. And Morris and I once, when we were younger. But...” She sighed. “I don’t know what I’m waiting for.”
“The right one?” Someone who deserved her. Which instantly disqualified him.
“I guess. How about you?”
“I thought I was in love once. Turned out I was wrong.”
Okay, they were wandering into chick territory. Next they’d be sharing their every heartbreak. He stood. “I’ve had enough sitting. How about a walk?”
She smiled up at him. “I love walking in the snow.”
Of course she did. He sensed a holiday movie scene coming up.
Sure enough, the scene came to life when she turned on the Christmas lights and they stepped outside. Between her house and the neighbors, the street looked like a set on the Universal back lot. A light snow was falling to add to the already-thick white coat frosting yards and houses. Rooflines, bushes and trees all dripped with colored lights like jewels on a woman’s neck.
The woman he was with needed no jewels. Her smile sparkled more than any diamond ever could.
“Mrs. Newton lives in this house,” she said as they strolled past a little cottage with an ancient station wagon parked in the driveway. “She’s on a fixed income but she gives a hundred dollars every year to Christmas from the Heart.”
Guy remembered the check he’d sent off and felt squirmy.
The curtains of the place were open to show off a skinny artificial tree in the window. A fuzzy little dog perched on the couch caught sight of them, jumped up and put its paws on the window, and began barking, tail wagging.
“That’s Juniper, her watchdog.”
“More like watch rat,” Guy said. If you were going to have a dog you should have a dog—a Lab or German shepherd or a golden retriever.
“I think he’s cute,” Livi said in Juniper’s defense. “Do you have a dog?”
“I did when I was a kid.”
It had broken his heart when their golden died. She’d been fifteen. “It was her time,” Mom had said. “All living things die, but remember that doesn’t mean they’re gone from our hearts.” Small comfort.
It had been the first time he’d experienced death. As time moved on he’d lost a set of grandparents in a car wreck and his other grandpa. And then Dad, and that had been the worst of all. His dad had been Guy’s hero, tough in business, soft on his family. Having someone in your heart was a far cry from having that person with you.
“But no dog now?” Livi asked, bringing Guy back into the moment at hand.
“I’m not home enough to have one.” No one special in his life, not even a dog. What did that say about him?
“We had a dachshund when I was growing up,” Livi said. “I think I’d like to get a dog again at some point, maybe a cockapoo.”
He shook his head and said, “I’m sorely disappointed in you,” which made her smile.
He liked making Olivia Berg smile. If only they’d met under different circumstances. Or earlier, before that disastrous phone conversation and the ensuing emails. He could have easily written a check for five times as much as what he’d sent her. Why hadn’t he?
On they walked, her giving him the scoop on various neighbors. There were the Twitchams, who had been divorced and then remarried twice. Then there was the Williams family. “She’s a single mom with three little boys. She’ll be getting a stocking and a turkey from Christmas from the Heart,” Livi said. “And she’s planning to share her holiday meal with the little old man next door, who’s fast becoming a surrogate grandfather for her children.”
“Is there anyone in this town you don’t know?” Guy asked.
Livi thought a moment, then said, “I don’t think so. It’s good to know your neighbors.”
He didn’t know any of his, but he said, “Yes, it is.” And after agreeing on that important point it only seemed right to take her mittened hand in his.
She didn’t pull away. Instead she smiled up at him. “I’m glad you got stranded here, Joe.”
“So am I,” he said, and wished he really was Joe Ford. Joe anybody.
Back at the house, after they’d hung up their coats, they sat in the living room, warming up with more hot chocolate and talking. Favorite books. He loved Grisham, so did she. She also loved Jane Austen, Agatha Christie and someone named Jillian George. Favorite movies. He wanted action. She wanted romance.
“But I did love all those Jack Reacher movies,” she said. Of course she did. Jack Reacher, save-the-day hero. Favorite foods. Steak for him, cake for her. “I like to have my cake and eat it, too,” she quipped.
Pretty, sweet, good sense of humor, kindhearted. Livi Berg was the whole package. Except everyone had their faults. What was hers?
That was easy. She was quick to judge. It had showed in that email she’d sent Guy and in the way she talked about him. Man, would she be happy to pass judgment on him, sentence him to a million years of hard labor in the North Pole. And here he was, playing cards with her, going for walks, even kissing the woman. He was out of his mind.
That was the only explanation for what he did when they got back to the house. At the foot of the stairs he put his arms around her and drew her to him. “I had a good time tonight.”
She smiled up at him. “I did, too.”
She wanted to be kissed and he wanted to kiss her, so of course he put his brain in lockdown and did exactly that.
And she kissed him back, her arms around his neck, her body pressed up snug against his deceitful heart.
“You only won one kiss,” she teased after they’d come up for air.
“One for the road,” he said, and then went upstairs. One for the road was right. If she found out who he was, he’d be hitting the road whether his car was fixed or not.
And he’d deserve it. Not so much because he’d pulled the plug on her nonprofit—he’d made the best decision he could at the time—but because of his cowardly deception. Here he was flirting with Olivia Berg, kissing her, staying at her house and eating her cookies and not telling her the truth.
He should have from the very beginning, should have said, “This is who I am and if you think what I did was wrong convince me otherwise.”
“What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” The poet was right and Guy had trapped himself in a sticky holiday web. How on earth was he going to get out of it?