A Mummy for Christmas

He walked over. From where they stood, they could see over the top of the sectional sofa. The video had barely gotten started, but all four kids were sound asleep, lying snuggled up to each other like a pile of snoozing puppies.

Travis chuckled, too. “I’ll have to carry them home and put them to bed,” he said.

Holly tipped her face up to his. Once again, she looked so content. His heart filled with admiration and something else—something sweet and satisfying—he wasn’t sure he was quite ready to identify.

She propped her hands on her hips, obviously as reluctant to spend another Saturday night alone as he was. “Want to have a cup of decaf first?”

He liked the spark coming back into her aquamarine eyes, the generous, easygoing attitude she exhibited whenever they hung out together. A wave of tenderness swept through him, as potent as it was unexpected. “Sure.”

She fell into step beside him as they moved toward the kitchen, both of them reveling in the peace and quiet after a very noisy, tumultuous, busy day. She reached the coffeemaker, then paused to look into his eyes. “By the way, thank you for everything. It was a great day,” she told him softly. “A really great day.”

Happiness warmed his soul. “I thought so, too,” he admitted. And it could be even better if they said to heck with what had been till now, and followed their instincts.

Holly started to speak. Travis didn’t know what she was about to say—all he knew for sure was that it was going to have to wait.

HOLLY SAW THE KISS coming and knew she could have stopped it. All she had to do was put a hand to his chest, keeping distance between them, or turn her head and step back. She did none of those things. Instead, for once in her life, she followed her deepest impulses, which led her straight into Travis’s arms.

When his mouth descended, she wreathed her arms about his neck and went up on tiptoe to meet his lips. Before she knew it, she was lost in a storm of heat and need, tenderness and yearning. He caught her upper lip between the two of his, rubbing it softly, then did the same to her lower lip. Holly responded. Together, they found all the ways their lips could fit together, torment and caress. Until that wasn’t enough, and his tongue slipped inside her mouth, to stroke and play with hers. Warmth swept through her; tingles centered in her middle and spread outward. Lower still, she felt the pressure of his need against her. And the desire welling up inside her, unchecked.

“I thought we weren’t going to do this,” she reminded him, trembling.

“So did I.” He smiled down at her with lazy familiarity. “We thought wrong.”

Travis wrapped his arms around her again, hauled her close and kissed her once more, really kissed her. And this time, when the embrace finally ended, Holly didn’t want to list all the reasons why they shouldn’t be giving in to recklessness and pure, unadulterated physical need.

It was Christmas.

This was a gift.

They really didn’t need to know more.

Except…

A self-conscious flush moved from her neck to her cheeks. “I want you to promise me that if we go down this road, embark on something…casual…that fits our situation…we’ll just go with it, without worrying about all the implications.”

His eyes turned serious and he shifted her closer once again. “Sounds good.”

Panicking a little at the fierceness of her emotions, she pushed him away, drew in a shuddering breath. “But if for some reason it doesn’t work out…” Acutely aware how much was on the line here, she gripped the hard muscles of his biceps urgently. “I can’t lose you.” Her voice caught. “I can’t lose all this…and if our going down this path brings up even the possibility of that…then I can’t.”

Nor could he.

Travis held her eyes with his. Sifting his hands through her hair, he vowed, “Nothing will come between us—I promise you that.”

Chapter Four

A blue norther roared in overnight, whipping up the wind and dropping the temperature twenty degrees in a matter of hours.

The abrupt change in weather mirrored Holly’s mood. She’d gone to bed still feeling the glow of Travis’s kisses, and their decision to let whatever happened along those lines happen.

She had awakened wondering if she’d made the right decision, after all. She had never been the kind of person who acted impulsively or had a fling, never had sex with a friend. So her inclination to do so now was disconcerting, to say the least.

She knew the decision to add passion to the platonic friendship she and Travis shared felt “right” at the moment. Especially since neither of them was interested in dating or remarrying. But how would it feel in two days, two months or two years? She couldn’t help but wonder. Would they one day regret this? Want more? Less? If they eventually had to backtrack, would doing so hurt their friendship, or make their relationship so awkward they would never feel the same in each other’s presence? If so, how would they explain that to the kids?

She was still wrestling with her ambivalence when her phone rang early Sunday afternoon.

“I need to go to the pharmacy to pick up some prescription allergy medicine the pediatrician called in for Sophie,” Travis told her over the phone, sounding so harried her heart went out to him. “I was going to take the girls with me, but I don’t think that’s an option.”

In other words, Holly thought, it was Meltdown City over there.

“Any chance you might be able to come over for fifteen minutes and spot me?”

Glad to be able to help lighten his load the way he often had hers, she said, “Sure. Let me round up the boys and I’ll be right there.”

Tucker and Tristan were delighted by the chance to see “their best friends in the whole wide world.” They promptly got into their jackets and raced across the frigid yards to get to Travis’s front door, where they punched the doorbell with childish vigor.

Holly winced, imagining what that sounded like inside. “I think that’s enough, boys.”

Travis opened the door with an amused grin. Three-year-old Mia had hold of one of his legs. Tinsel decorated her blond curls. She peeked around to greet the boys, squinting her eyes and wrinkling her nose. They did the same back, then all three burst into riotous giggles and raced off.

“I’m coloring!” Mia shouted over her shoulder, as the tinsel she’d been wearing as a crown went every which way. “Want to color, too?”

“Sure!” the twins enthused in unison.

Travis stepped back to let Holly pass, and bent to pick up a few errant strands of silver. “Come on in.”

She grabbed a couple strands, too, and handed them over to him, to be returned to the tree. “Where’s Sophie?” It was unusual for the four-year-old, self-proclaimed leader of the Baxter-Carson posse not to appear at the door, too.

Abruptly, the light went out of his eyes. Travis pressed his lips together in parental concern. “On the sofa in the family room,” he said quietly.

Knowing something was up, Holly stopped midstride and curved a hand around Travis’s biceps to halt his progress. That was all it took to remind her of the kisses they’d shared, and her reaction to them. Forcing herself to ignore the jolt of attraction zipping through her, she concentrated on the problem at hand.

Her back to the breakfast room table, where the three younger kids were madly coloring, laughing and talking all at once, she asked with the bluntness of a close and trusted friend, “What’s going on? I mean, aside from the fact Sophie’s under the weather?”

Travis held Holly’s glance, seeming relieved that she was there. “I’m not sure what’s going on with Sophie. She’s been cranky and glum all day. Part of it is her allergies—I know she’s not feeling good.” He frowned in concern. “But there’s something more bothering her, too.”

It was frequently easier, Holly knew, for children to unburden themselves to someone other than a parent, whom they were often trying to protect. “Want me to see if I can figure out what it is?”

“That would be great,” he told her gratefully. He strode over to the sofa, where Sophie lay curled up on the throw pillows, her favorite baby doll in her arms. He hunkered down beside her and patted her shoulder consolingly. “Holly’s here, sweetheart. So I’m going to take off.”

Sophie’s lower lip curled out and she demanded pitifully, “I want to go to bed, Daddy.”

“All right. I’ll get you tucked in…”

“No! I want Holly to do it.” Sophie coughed until she could barely catch her breath. Her nose ran and her eyes watered. The little girl was clearly miserable, and Holly’s heart went out to her. “That darn cedar pollen,” Holly said sympathetically. “It gets you every year.” And it had been really stirred up by the winds the night before.

“I know.” Sophie sniffed again and lifted her hands, signaling that she wanted to be carried.

Travis hoisted her into his strong arms, and she dropped her head in the curve of his neck. “I want Holly to carry me,” she protested weakly.