Unexpected Angel: Unexpected Angel / Undercover Elf. Kate Hoffmann
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“She wasn’t the woman of my dreams,” Alex muttered. “And neither is Holly Bennett. I won’t be making the same mistake twice.”
“I don’t know. This one’s different,” Jed said. “She didn’t screech and holler when she ended up backside down in a pile of steaming horse apples. Takes a special kind of woman to maintain her composure in the presence of manure.”
“She’s a city girl. All manners and sophistication. My guess is she can handle herself no matter what might come along.”
“Your guess?” Jed scoffed. “It wouldn’t hurt you to get to know her. That little girl is working her tail off for your son. She’s up at the house right now scurrying around like a squirrel in a nut factory. I’ve never seen a body get so worked up over Christmas cookies. She’s sent me to the store twice today to fetch her ingredients. Says we’re havin’ cocoa van for dinner. I figure that’s some kind of fancy chocolate dessert shaped like a truck.”
“Coq au vin,” Alex corrected. “Chicken in wine sauce.” His stomach growled in response and he realized that he hadn’t bothered with lunch that day.
“Oh, yeah? Well, that’s even better.”
“It would do you well to remember that you’ve got work in the barn,” Alex said, tossing the dandy brush into the bucket as he grabbed the handle. “Your job doesn’t include fetching for her. She can drive herself to the store.”
She could do a whole lot more than drive, Alex mused. His thoughts drifted back to that first morning, when he’d carried her in his arms and kissed her bandaged finger. Though the gesture had been instinctive, his reaction hadn’t been. In truth, he’d wanted to draw her into his embrace and cover her mouth with his, to see if the taste of a woman was still as powerful as he remembered.
Alex cursed softly. So he’d been a long time without feminine companionship. Hell, it went deeper than that. In his whole life he’d only had a handful of women. He’d met Renee nine years ago, when they were twenty. He’d asked her to marry him three months later. Not much time for sowing wild oats, Alex mused. Maybe that’s why he found himself so attracted to Holly. She was a confident and sophisticated woman, she was beautiful, and she was in close proximity. He dropped the bucket on the concrete floor with a clatter. And that’s exactly how it had all started with the fickle Renee.
He stepped out of the stall to find his father leaning against a post, a piece of timothy clenched in his teeth, his gaze fixed on Alex. “Don’t ruin this for Eric,” Jed warned. “Be nice to her or stay away. There’s no middle ground here.”
Alex shook his head, then stalked to the door, the faint sound of Jed’s chuckle echoing through the silent barn. Of course, he’d be nice! He wasn’t some rube from upstate New York, some farm boy lacking in manners. He could certainly maintain a cordial relationship with Holly Bennett—and without lapsing into sexual longing every few minutes!
He wasn’t prepared for the assault on his senses when he walked in the door. Christmas carols piped cheerily from the stereo in the family room, filling the house with music. The scent of baking was thick in the air and he followed his nose into the kitchen. She’d started a fire in the family room fireplace and the wood snapped and popped. But it was the kitchen that stopped him short.
Every surface, from countertop to table to the top of the refrigerator, was covered with neat rows of cookies, arranged in military precision, each regiment a different variety. Holly, humming along with “Silver Bells,” popped up from in front of the oven, a cookie pan in her hand. She froze at the sight of him, their gazes locking for a brief moment, before she smiled and set the pan down. “Hi,” she murmured.
“What’s all this?” Alex asked.
“I’ve just been doing a little baking. I had your father run to the store for some staples—flour, butter, eggs, chocolate.”
Alex’s brow quirked up, amused by her penchant for understatement. “A little baking? We could keep a small third world country in cookies for a year.”
Holly glanced around the room, as if she’d just realized how many cookies she’d baked. “Right. I—I guess I did get a little carried away. But you have to have variety. One or two different cookies on a plate doesn’t look nearly as festive as ten or twelve. Here, let me show you.”
She snatched a plate from the cupboard and artfully arranged a selection of cookies. Then she ladled a fragrant liquid from the battered crockpot into a mug and dropped in a cinnamon stick. “Mulled cider,” she said. She placed the plate of cookies and the mug in front of him, then crossed her arms. “Go ahead. Try it. The cider is a perfect accompaniment for the butter cookies.”
She watched him intently and he slowly reached for a cookie.
“No!” she cried.
Alex pulled his fingers away. “No?”
“Try that one first,” Holly said. “And then that one. The pecan shortbread is an acquired taste. More of a tea cookie. Not as sweet as the others.”
He took a butter cookie filled with jam and coated with toasted coconut, then popped it into his mouth. He was prepared to offer lavish compliments, knowing that Holly would be shattered if he just swallowed it and nodded in approval. But Alex stifled a soft moan as the impossibly fresh cookie simply melted on his tongue. He had to admit that he’d never tasted anything quite so good. Cheap store-bought cookies had been the norm in the Marrin household for years and since no one bothered to close the bag, they were usually stale after the first day.
“I’m going to make some gift boxes for them,” she said, turning back to the pan of cookies on the stove. “Eric and I can use some Christmas ink stamps to decorate them and then we’ll line them with cellophane and gold foil and tie them with a pretty ribbon and—”
“Why?” Alex asked, surreptitiously snatching a handful of cookies and dropping them into his jacket pocket. “You could have bought cookies. It wouldn’t have made any difference to us.”
“That’s not the point,” Holly said, clearly stunned by his obtuse views on the matter. “You can’t give friends and relatives store-bought cookies! It’s—it’s just not done.”
“Wait a second. We’re giving all these cookies away?” He grabbed two more handfuls and managed to hide them in his pockets before she turned around.
“With all the friends and relatives that stop by over the—”
Alex cleared his throat, after downing another cookie. “Ah, there won’t be any friends,” he said, his mouth full. “No relatives, either.”
“You don’t have any company? But it’s Christmas!” Holly cried. “Everyone has company at Christmas!”
He shrugged. “We live a pretty quiet life here.”
“But—but—what are we going to do with all these cookies?” She studied the countertop, then smiled. “What about the feed store? And Eric’s teachers? And his bus driver?”
He grinned, then snatched up another handful of the pretty little butter cookies with jam in the center. “And we can have cookies for supper. And they’re great for breakfast. And lunch. For a guy who usually eats toast two out of three meals, cookies are like gourmet fare.”
“Speaking of dinner,” Holly said. “I was hoping to take Eric out shopping tonight after we eat. We need to buy decorations for the house. I thought we’d start at Dalton’s and look for Christmas tree ornaments. Would that be all right?”
Alex circled the counter, examining another variety of cookie. Holly watched him, her wavy hair tumbled around her face, streaks of flour caught in the strands and smudged on her cheeks. He stood next to her and looked down into her eyes. Lord, she was pretty. “As long as he finishes his homework, he can go,” Alex murmured, his gaze skimming over her features.
“I—I used to make these