One Night Before Christmas. Robyn Grady
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napkins from a craft cooperative in Gatlinburg accentuated amber stoneware plates and chunky handblown glass goblets that mingled green and gold in interesting swirls.
She poured each of them a glass of pinot. “There’s beer in the fridge if you’d prefer it.”
He tasted the wine. “No. This is good. A local vintage?”
“Yes. We have several wineries in the area.”
Their conversation was painfully polite. Almost as awkward as a blind date. Though in this case there was nothing of a romantic nature to worry about. No will he or won’t he when it came time for a possible good-night kiss at the front door.
Even so, she was on edge. Leo Cavallo’s sexuality gave a woman ideas, even if unintentionally. It had been a very long time since Phoebe had kissed a man, longer still since she had felt the weight of a lover’s body moving against hers in urgent passion. She thought she had safely buried those urges in her subconscious, but with Leo in her house, big and alive and so damned sexy, she was in the midst of an erotic awakening.
Like a limb that has gone to sleep and then experienced the pain of renewed blood flow, Phoebe’s body tingled with awareness. Watching the muscles in his throat as he swallowed. Inhaling the scent of him, warm male and crisp outdoors. Inadvertently brushing his shoulder as she served him second helpings of chicken and rice. Hearing the lazy tempo of his speech that made her think of hot August nights and damp bodies twined together beneath a summer moon.
All of her senses were engaged except for taste. And the yearning to do just that, to kiss him, swelled in her chest and made her hands shake. The need was as overwhelming as it was unexpected. She fixated on the curve of his lips as he spoke. They were good lips. Full, but masculine. What would they feel like pressed against hers?
Imagining the taste of his mouth tightened everything inside her until she felt faint with arousal. Standing abruptly, she put her back to him, busying herself at the sink as she rinsed plates and loaded the dishwasher. Suddenly, she felt him behind her, almost pressing against her.
“Let me handle cleanup,” he said, the words a warm breath of air at her neck. She froze. Did he sense her jittery nerves, her longing?
She swallowed, clenching her fingers on the edge of the counter. “No. Thank you. But a fire would be nice.” She was already on fire. But what the heck...in for a penny, in for a pound.
After long seconds when it seemed as if every molecule of oxygen in the room vaporized, he moved away. “Whatever you want,” he said. “Just ask.”
* * *
Leo was neither naive nor oblivious. Phoebe was attracted to him. He knew, because he felt the same inexorable pull. But he had known her for barely a day. Perhaps long enough for an easy pickup at a bar or a one-night stand, but not for a relationship that was going to have to survive for a couple of months.
With a different woman at another time, he would have taken advantage of the situation. But he was at Phoebe’s mercy for now. One wrong move, and she could boot him out. There were other cabins...other peaceful getaways. None of them, however, had Phoebe. And he was beginning to think that she was his talisman, his lucky charm, the only hope he had of making it through the next weeks without going stark raving mad.
The fire caught immediately, the dry tinder flaming as it coaxed the heavier logs into the blaze. When he turned around, Phoebe was watching him, her eyes huge.
He smiled at her. “Come join me on the sofa. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. We might as well get to know each other.”
At that very moment, Teddy announced his displeasure with a noisy cry. The relief on Phoebe’s face was almost comical. “Sorry. I’ll be back in a minute.”
While she was gone, he sat on the hearth, feeling the heat from the fire sink into his back. Beneath his feet a bearskin pelt covered the floor. He was fairly certain it was fake, but the thick, soft fur made him imagine a scenario that was all too real. Phoebe...nude...her skin gilded with firelight.
The vivid picture in his mind hardened his sex and dried his mouth. Jumping to his feet, he went to the kitchen and poured himself another glass of wine. Sipping it slowly, he tried to rein in his hunger. Something might develop during this time with Phoebe. They could become friends. Or even more than that. But rushing his fences was not the way to go. He had to resist the temptation to bring sex into the picture before she had a chance to trust him.
Regardless of Phoebe’s desires, or even his own, this was a situation that called for caution. Not his first impulse, or even his last. But if he had any hope of making her his, he’d bide his time.
His mental gyrations were interrupted by Phoebe’s return. “There you are,” he said. “I wondered if Teddy had kidnapped you.”
“Poopy diaper,” she said with a grimace. She held the baby on her hip as she prepared a bottle. “He’s starving, poor thing. Slept right through dinner.”
Leo moved to the sofa and was gratified when Phoebe followed suit. She now held the baby as a barricade between them, but he could wait. The child wasn’t big enough to be much of a problem.
“So tell me,” he said. “What did you do with yourself before Teddy arrived?”
Phoebe settled the baby on her lap and held the bottle so he could reach it easily. “I moved in three years ago. At first I was plenty busy with decorating and outfitting both cabins. I took my time and looked for exactly what I wanted. In the meantime, I made a few friends, mostly women I met at the gym. A few who worked in stores where I shopped.”
“And when the cabins were ready?”
She stared down at the baby, rubbing his head with a wistful smile on her face. He wondered if she had any clue how revealing her expression was. She adored the little boy. That much was certain.
“I found someone to help me start a garden,” she said. “Buford is the old man who lives back near the main road where you turned off. He’s a sweetheart. His wife taught me how to bake bread and how to can fruits and vegetables. I know how to make preserves. And I can even churn my own butter in a pinch, though that seems a bit of a stretch in this day and age.”
He studied her, trying to get to the bottom of what she wasn’t saying. “I understand all that,” he said. “And if I didn’t know better, I’d guess you were a free spirit, hippie-commune, granola-loving Earth Mother. But something doesn’t add up. How did you get from stockbroker to this?”
* * *
Phoebe understood his confusion. None of it made sense on paper. But was she willing to expose all of her painful secrets to a man she barely knew? No...not just yet.
Picking her words carefully, she gave him an answer. Not a lie, but not the whole truth. “I had some disappointments both personally and professionally. They hit me hard...enough to make me reconsider whether the career path I had chosen was the right one. At the time, I didn’t honestly know. So I took a time-out. A step backward. I came here and decided to see if I could make my life simpler. More meaningful.”
“And now? Any revelations to report?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Are you mocking me?”
He held up his hands. “No. I swear I’m not. If anything, I have to admire you for being proactive. Most people simply slog away at a job because they don’t have the courage to try something new.”
“I wish I could say it was like that. But to be honest, it was more a case of crawling in a hole to hide out from the world.”
“You don’t cut yourself much slack, do you?”
“I was a mess when I came here.”
“And now?”
She thought about it for a moment. No one had ever asked her straight-out if her self-imposed exile had borne fruit. “I think I have a better handle on what I want out of life. And I’ve forgiven myself