Christmas Kisses For A Dollar

“Maybe. Everyone deserves that wild, impossibly insane first love. I’d hate to see you miss out on it.”

Anne watched Ellen become pensive, her smile bittersweet. Her friend had once been married, but it hadn’t worked out.

“Everyone should have that first sweet taste of passion,” Ellen continued. “For men, it’s called sowing their wild oats. For women, it’s gather ye rosebuds while ye may.”

“This advice from a doctor’s right-hand person? What about safe sex and all that?”

“I didn’t say not to be careful. Just have fun while you’re doing it.”

“Jon Sinclair told me he wasn’t a marrying man.”

Shock momentarily stopped Ellen, then she grinned in pure glee. “Arrogant beast,” she murmured. “So it has already gotten that far.” She gave Anne a purely speculative perusal. “From a kiss to talk of marriage in one breath. Impressive. You must have singed more than his eyebrows.”

Anne lowered her lashes demurely and murmured wickedly, “I hope so. I like to give as well as I get.”

Ellen looked momentarily disconcerted at this statement. “Can this be the Anne Hyden we’ve come to know and love?” she questioned, then she chortled. “Oh, this is going to be good,” she declared, clearly seeing the affair as the coming event.

Anne was tempted. “One passionate affair before settling into domestic bliss?” she mused, unable to keep from thinking about that wild, erotic caress.

“Bliss? Or boredom?”

“I’m very fond of Randall,” she said firmly.

“I’m fond of my dog, but I wouldn’t care to depend on him for witty conversation. Have you ever thought of being alone with Randall for days on end if, for instance, you were stranded on a desert island for a month?”

“Well, no.”

A picture came to Anne. Jon Sinclair, dressed in ragged cutoffs, his body lean and bronzed by the sun, standing ankle-deep in the ocean, homemade spear lifted to catch their dinner.

“So how does Jon Sinclair look standing on a deserted beach?” Ellen’s snicker broke into Anne’s musing.

“You’re putting ideas in my head,” Anne told her.

“It’s time someone did. I think Marge tried to make an old maid out of you from the day you were born.”

It was no secret the two women didn’t get along. Ellen thought Marge was too possessive and overprotective of Anne. Marge thought Ellen was a bad influence.

Anne thought her aunt’s attitude was because Marge had been there when Anne’s mother had died in childbirth. Uncle Joe and Aunt Marge had raised her from the time she was a toddler because her father traveled extensively in his job with an international corporation. He hadn’t been home in almost two years.

Aunt Marge meant well. She, too, had been affected by the family curse—two children had died in infancy from heart defects. Anne loved her aunt and tried not to resent the older woman’s interference in her life. Aunt Marge reminded her to be careful because she was concerned about Anne’s health.

Thinking of her reaction to the kiss, Anne shook her head ruefully. “I’m not sure my heart is up to an affair with Jon Sinclair.”

“But you won’t know until you try.”

“Have you ever had an affair?”

Ellen was silent so long, Anne thought she wasn’t going to answer. “Once. A long time ago.”

“Did it make your heart pound like it would fly right out of your chest?”

“Of course. That’s the point of the whole thing.”

Their coffee and muffins arrived. Anne changed the subject, but the memory of the kiss lingered in her mind. It stayed in the minds of her neighbors, too. Before Anne had finished her coffee, five people drifted over and asked if she was feeling better.

“It is the biggest raisin on the grapevine, or something like that,” Ellen advised when Anne grumbled about the avid interest in her love life.

Jon Sinclair kicked the sheet off and swung out of bed. Naked, he walked to the window and looked out at the dawn. From his bedroom, located on the second floor of the sprawling home of his youth, he could see the Sabine River chugging along on its way to the Gulf of Mexico.

He was restless and hungry. But not for food. Glancing down, he shook his head in wry exasperation. His body was erect and ready for a torrid session between the sheets.

The emptiness of his bed only underscored the problem. Last night, eating a lonely supper in a seafood place along the river, he’d passed up the chance to spend a few pleasant hours in another bed.

Wrong woman, wrong bed.

Truth was, he couldn’t get Anne Hyden out of his mind. She lingered like the annoying line of a song that wouldn’t go away. It was driving him crazy.

Frowning at his own stupidity, he dressed, ate a slice of bologna stuffed into a hot-dog bun and took his coffee to the field with him. He worked on the irrigation system until Pedro, Jon’s ranch manager, and his son arrived; then he left them putting PVC pipe together and went to town for more parts.

The first person he saw was Anne Hyden, looking like a perky pansy in a gold top and brown slacks. Her hair was clipped at the back of her neck with a fluffy gold bow. She was unlocking her shop door when she spied him. She stopped at the door and waved.

Her action surprised him. He’d thought she would be cool and standoffish for some reason.

He parked and jumped down from the pickup. Going to her, he nodded toward the restaurant. “How about some breakfast?”

“I’ve eaten.” The dimples winked saucily at him.

He thought of crushing them under his lips. “Then you can watch me while I eat.”

“Okay.”

Again, he was thrown slightly off-balance. She never reacted the way he thought she would. When she fell into step beside him, he took her hand and swung it between them.

“I’ve dreamed of you for two nights now,” he complained, giving her an oblique glance to see how she took this statement.

“Oh, too bad.” She laughed when he frowned at her.

A grin came over him in spite of his irritation at her cavalier attitude toward his sleepless nights. “You’re driving me up the wall,” he announced, guiding her into the restaurant.

“This your new office?” the waitress asked Anne when they were seated. The woman gave him a speculative glance.

“It looks that way.” Anne gave an attractive shrug. “I’ll have tea this time.”

Jon ordered the waffle special. When the waitress left, he asked Anne, “You’ve already been in this morning, I take it?”

She nodded. “Ellen Adamson and I were in earlier. We were discussing you.”

“Who’s Ellen Adamson?” He searched his memory for a face and came up blank.