Cole For Christmas

“But it’s Christmas,” Grandma Ziemanski protested. “Nobody works on Christmas.”

“And you’re his boss, Anna,” Rosemary said. “I know I raised you to be career-minded, but you can’t mean to make your boyfriend work on Christmas Day.”

“He’s not my—” Anna began.

“Of course Cole’s not working Christmas Day,” her father said. “He’s coming to Miranda and Peter’s house.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to come,” Anna said in what was obviously one last-ditch attempt to exclude him from her family’s plans.

“Nonsense,” Grandpa Ziemanski roared. “The boy wants to spend Christmas with us. Don’t you, Cole?”

Cole gazed from the expectant faces of Anna’s family members to Anna, who was imperceptibly shaking her head back and forth.

If he did her bidding and said no, he’d risk offending the people who had gone out of their way to make him feel welcome tonight.

Not to mention relegating himself to a lonely Christmas in his new apartment with nothing to keep him company except his miniature Christmas tree, the printouts of Skillington’s financial records his father had given him and the memory of the way Anna had felt in his arms.

He gave Anna what he hoped she could tell was an apologetic look before smiling at the people gathered around her.

“Thanks for thinking of me,” he said. “I’d love to spend Christmas Day with you.”

3

“THIS IS A DISASTER,” Anna said after she chased Cole into the cold, calm night. She shivered. She’d been in such a rush to right things that putting on a coat hadn’t occurred to her. “What are we going to do now?”

Cole stuck his hands in his pockets, looking maddeningly untroubled by their problem, not to mention impossibly handsome. She bit the inside of her lip. When had she started thinking of him in those terms?

“I thought we’d enjoy each other’s company tomorrow,” he said.

Anna threw up her hands. “I’d say we did a little too much enjoying tonight. Otherwise we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

“I thought tonight went well,” he said over his shoulder as he descended the three porch steps to the sidewalk.

The better to make a quick getaway to his car, she thought.

“Tonight did not go well,” she refuted emphatically as she chased after him. His legs were so much longer than her own long legs that she had to practically run to keep up with him. “You heard my family. They think we’re involved.”

He was halfway to the car before he abruptly turned to face her. When he spoke, she could see his breath. “So what? We know we’re not so I don’t see that it’s a problem.”

She knew her mouth had dropped open by the cold air that swooshed inside. “How can you say that? Didn’t you listen to them tonight? They’re probably inside right now talking about what they’ll get us for wedding presents.”

He laughed and skimmed his fingertips down her cheek. She wasn’t sure if her shiver was from his touch or her negligence in putting on a coat to walk him to the car.

“You’re exaggerating,” he said.

Clouds obscured the moon but the Christmas lights scattered over the property made it possible to read his expression. The harsh lines of his face had softened, and his eyes roamed over her with appreciation. This time her shiver was definitely not from the cold.

“You’re doing it again,” she accused.

“Doing what?”

She put her hands on her hips. At least she thought they were her hips. She was so frozen she could barely tell where one body part ended and another began. “Touching me. And looking at me like you want to kiss me. No wonder my family thinks we’ve got something going.”

He focused on her lips while his tongue flicked out and licked his bottom one. “I can’t help the way I look at you,” he said in a hypnotically soft voice.

Her heartbeat sped up but she wasn’t about to let him know that. She narrowed her eyes, which had begun to water from the cold. She only hoped her tears didn’t ice over. She tried to make her voice harsh. “Sure you can. You don’t look at me that way at work.”

His eyes roamed over her in the way she was talking about, the way that made her insides melt like chocolate in the sun. “You’re different around your family than you are at work,” he said. “Softer, more feminine. When I look at you right now, it’s easy to forget we work together.”

“Then you need to get a better memory, buster, because work is the reason we can’t get involved,” she said.

She might have sounded more convincing, she thought, if her teeth weren’t chattering.

“I agree,” he said.

“You do?”

“I do,” Cole said so reassuringly that she didn’t protest when he took her lightly by the forearms. His hands moved up and down her arms, creating a wonderful friction and chasing away some of the chill. “If you and I get involved, I’d find it too hard to concentrate at work.”

“Me, too,” she admitted.

At that moment, it was difficult to concentrate on much more than the feel of his hands on her. They were such large, wonderful, magic hands. How would they feel, she wondered, on someplace more intimate than her arms? Heavenly, she answered herself.

She cleared her suddenly clogged throat. “Can I ask you something?”

“Um, hmm,” he said absently as he continued the delightful massage.

“If we’re not getting involved, why are you trying to turn me on?”

“I’m not trying to turn you on.” His voice was husky and spiced with deep-toned laughter. “I’m trying to warm you up. It can’t be more than thirty degrees out here.”

“Oh,” Anna said weakly.

“Is it working?”

That depended on whether he was talking about warming her up or turning her on. Hot little pockets of sensation were erupting in places deep inside her but the outer layer of her skin still felt as though she’d been hanging like a slab of beef inside an industrial-sized refrigerator.

“Not entirely,” she said.

He let her go, making her fear she’d given the wrong answer. She fisted her hands so she wouldn’t reach for him and watched in confusion as he unbuttoned his overcoat. Before she could ask if he was crazy, he drew it open.

“Come here before you freeze to death,” he invited.

Said the spider to the fly, she thought. But the promise of warmth plus the chance to be close to him was more temptation than Anna could withstand.

“Oh, all right,” she muttered before letting him en-fold her in the flaps of his overcoat. Their bodies touched from chest to thigh. Delicious warmth spread through her, and she was honest enough to admit it was only partly due to the coat.

She wrapped her arms around his waist, pressed her cheek to the cool cotton of his shirt and heard his heart rate speed up. Hers was already galloping.