Cole For Christmas

She was tall for a woman, probably five eight or nine, with a curvaceous figure and long, shapely legs that were, at the moment, mostly hidden by her calf-length coat.

Her eyes were big and brown, her face heart-shaped and her curly brown hair just long enough to brush her shoulders. She was wearing the Santa hat again but, underneath it, her expression was anything but merry.

“Something wrong?” he prompted, reaching out to touch her on the sleeve of her red coat.

When she stepped away from him and nodded, his stomach pitched to the frozen ground. Could she have guessed his secret? Had he done something tonight to give away that he wasn’t exactly what he seemed?

“It struck me while we were driving over here,” she said and paused, “that you’re a man.”

Relief poured through him. She didn’t know.

“Last time I checked, that was true. I am a man,” he said and wiggled his eyebrows. “You want proof?”

“Of course not,” she said in her businesslike office voice, but he thought he caught a fleeting glimpse of something in her doelike eyes. Had it been awareness? “You don’t understand. I don’t bring men home to my family.”

“Ever?” he asked, alarmed that the prospect pleased him.

He’d felt the zing of attraction for her at his job interview, an instantaneous pull that had his loins tightening before she’d said much more than hello.

He’d thought his immediate reaction to her would be a problem, but it had paled over the next month when she’d treated him with an air of detached professionalism.

The coolness was still there, but now the attraction was back. Maybe it had reignited that instant in the office when he’d noticed her brown eyes contained warm golden lights.

“Ever,” she confirmed with her customary firmness. “But especially not on holidays. I can’t have them jumping to conclusions.”

“Aaah,” he said as understanding dawned. “You don’t want your family to think I’m the boyfriend.”

“Exactly.” She nodded in the direction of his SUV. “Listen, I’ll understand if you make a quick getaway. Unless they’re peeking out the windows, nobody’s seen you.”

She wanted him to nod and go meekly into the night, which would have been the safe choice considering what he was hiding and the way he was reacting to her.

Had they been at work, no doubt she’d have issued an order in that confident way of hers. But they weren’t at work and he didn’t feel particularly cautious.

“I can handle your family,” he said, planting his feet and crossing his arms over his black wool overcoat.

“You don’t know my family,” she countered, her jaw set at a stubborn angle.

“Then introduce me,” he said just as steadfastly.

He would have taken her elbow and steered her toward the door, but she pivoted on her heel and headed for the house without any help from him.

“Fine,” she called over her shoulder, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He followed her up the sidewalk, inexplicably annoyed that she didn’t want her family to think of them as a couple.

It didn’t seem to matter that up until she’d invited him to dinner, he’d tried very hard not to think of her as anything other than his cool, standoffish boss.

Because now…now his perception of her was changing.

He frowned, uncomfortably aware that he couldn’t afford to get too close to her. If he did, he might let it slip that he’d only recently discovered his biological father.

Then her view of him would change, too, only he doubted it would be for the better.

Not when that man was Arthur Skillington, owner and chief executive of the half dozen stores that made up Skillington Ski.

ANNA GAVE HER ELBOW a little shake as she preceded Cole through the door of her parents’ house, the better to dislodge his hand, but he held fast.

Didn’t the man understand he was adding tinder to a fireplace bound to be blazing without it?

“Let go,” she whispered, but evidently not loud enough to supersede the buzz of conversation and the carols that played through the stereo speakers.

“What did you say?”

Cole bent his dark head close, bringing his face so near that she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. Her parents’ house smelled of pine needles and pecan pie, but his scent was stronger. Warm wool mixed with something outdoorsy, like the smell of a winter breeze tempered with the heat of his skin.

“I said…” she began and promptly lost her train of thought when he bent closer still. He was so tall that the gesture seemed intimate, as though he couldn’t get close enough to her.

Her pulse give a pa-rum-pum-pum-pum worthy of the sticks the little drummer boy pounded in the Christmas carol. Cole grinned, his eyes lighting like the slash of the moon that shined down on the night. Could he have guessed the bizarre effect he had on her?

“Anna, who’s that with you?”

It was her mother’s voice, so loud and clear it put the silver bells of Christmas to shame.

Anna sprang apart from Cole, feeling the red flame of guilt stain her cheeks. Never mind that she had nothing to feel guilty about.

The foyer opened into a large living area where the family—her parents, aunt and uncle, sister and brother-in-law and grandparents—had congregated beside a tree strung with popcorn, shiny ornaments and colored lights.

Conversation had stopped, leaving only the crackle of the wood in the fireplace and the soft melody of the carols.

“This is Cole Mansfield, Mom. We work together,” Anna said, aware that, darn him, he still had hold of her arm. “Cole, this is my mother, Rosemary Wesley.”

Her family members emitted a collective hum which, darn them, sounded speculative. Her mother, a small woman with salt-and-pepper hair dressed in a red velour pantsuit, swept to the front of the room where Anna stood with Cole on the hardwood of the entrance-way.

Even though she was married to an obstetrician and lived in a posh part of town, her mother didn’t put on airs. She was who she was. A down-to-earth girl from a hardworking Polish family who’d married a prosperous man but had never forgotten her roots.

“My, my, aren’t you the hunky one,” she said in her too-loud voice as her gaze appreciatively scanned Cole from the thick, black hair on his head to the expensive-looking leather shoes that covered his toes.

Her mother had also never forgotten her family’s tendency toward bluntness, Anna mentally added with a silent groan.

“Thank you,” Cole said, smiling as though the greeting were perfectly normal.

“I should be thanking you,” her mother said, taking both of his hands in hers so that he had to release Anna’s elbow. Her mother’s eyes danced in her round, friendly face. “You don’t know how long we’ve been waiting for this.”

“For what?” Anna asked fearfully.

“You know what.” Her mother smiled more brightly than any light in the house. “I had high hopes that you’d finally give in and date Brad Perriman, but this is just as good. Maybe better.”

“What’s just as good?” Anna asked, not bothering to state that she had zero interest in Brad Perriman. Since her parents had tried to fix her up with him by inviting him to dinner, she’d already said so a half-dozen times.