Blame It On Christmas

Fat chance. Her heart stumbled at his teasing. And then she remembered. When J.B. was eight years old, he’d been playing in a junkyard with some friends and had accidentally gotten closed up in an old refrigerator during a game of hide-and-seek. He had nearly died.

The incident traumatized him, understandably so. His parents had hired a therapist who came weekly to their house for over a year, but some deep wounds were hard to shake.

She stroked his hair, telling herself she was being kind and not reveling in the chance to touch him. “We’re going to be okay. And I’m here, J.B. Take off your jacket. Let’s sit down.”

At first she wasn’t sure he even processed what she was saying. But after a moment, he nodded, removed his sport coat, and slid down the wall until he sat on his butt with his legs outstretched. He sighed deeply. “I’m not going to flake out on you,” he muttered.

“I never thought you would.” She joined him, but it was far less graceful. Her skirt was unforgiving. She shimmied it up her thighs and managed to sit down without exposing too much.

For an eternity, it seemed, they said nothing. J.B.’s hands rested on his thighs, fists clenched. He was breathing too fast.

Mazie was no shrink. But even she knew he needed to get his mind on something else besides their predicament. “How are your parents?” she asked.

J.B. snorted and shot her a sideways glance. “Really, Mazie? I’m having an embarrassingly public meltdown, and that’s the best you can do?”

“You’re not having a meltdown,” she said. “You’re fine.”

Maybe if she said it convincingly enough, he would believe her. They were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip with less than twelve inches separating them. It was the closest she had been to J.B. in forever. Close enough for her to catch an intoxicating whiff of his aftershave mixed with the entirely ordinary and yet exhilarating man smell of him.

He was big and strong and darkly masculine. Her stomach quivered. This was exactly why she normally kept her distance.

J.B. was dangerous.

When she glanced toward the ceiling, she saw tiny air vents up above. They were in no danger of suffocating. Even so, J.B.’s response was understandable. Her skin crawled, too, at the thought of being stuck here for hours.

J.B. was expending every ounce of concentration on not surrendering to the phobia. So any chitchat or small talk would have to be initiated by her. The trouble was, she knew J.B. too well, and not well enough.

Charleston wasn’t that big a place. Anytime there was a charity gala or a gallery showing or a theater opening, Charleston’s elite gathered. Over the years, Mazie had seen J.B. in formal wear on dozens of occasions, usually with a gorgeous woman on his arm. Not ever the same woman, but still...

Because he and Jonathan were best buds, she had also seen J.B. half-naked on the deck of a sailboat and at the basketball court and by the beach. If she really applied herself to the task, she could probably come up with a million and one times she had been in the same vicinity as J.B. and yet never exchanged two words with him.

That was her choice. And probably his. He had been inexplicably cruel to her at a vulnerable point in her life, and she had hated him ever since.

Now here they were. Stuck. Indefinitely.

The tile floor underneath her butt was cold and hard. She drew her knees up to her chest and circled them with her arms. J.B. was right beside her. It wasn’t like he was going to look up her skirt.

She sighed. “You doin’ okay, stud?” His shallow breathing was audible.

“Peachy.”

The growled word, laden with surly testosterone, made her grin. “Why have you never married again?”

The words flew from her lips like starlings disturbed by a chimney sweep. They swirled outward and upward and hung in the air. Oh, crap.

Her muscles were paralyzed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw J.B.’s head come up. He went perfectly still. Not looking at her. Gazing straight ahead. The seconds ticked by. A minute passed. Maybe two.

“My parents are well,” he said.

It took half a second for the subtext to process, and then she burst into laughter. “Very funny. Message received. The oh-so-mysterious J.B. Vaughan doesn’t talk about his private life.”

“Maybe I don’t have a private life,” he said. “Maybe I’m a workaholic who spends every waking hour trying to coax beautiful jewelry merchants into selling their property to me.”

With one carefully placed adjective, the dynamic in the room changed. J.B. added flirtation to the mix. Did he do it on purpose? Or was he so accustomed to schmoozing women that the word beautiful slipped out?

She pretended not to hear. “If you’re a workaholic at this age, you’ll be dead before you’re fifty. Why do you work so hard, J.B.? Didn’t you ever want to stop and smell the roses?”

“I tried it once. Roses have thorns.” He sucked in a breath of air. “Are you going to give me your property or not?”

“Did you lock me in here on purpose to make me say yes?”

“God, no. Even I’m not that desperate. Try your phone,” he said. “You use a different carrier. Maybe it makes a difference.”

She glanced at her cell. “Nope. Nada.”

J.B. groaned. “How long have we been in here?”

Mazie peered at her watch. “Twenty-two minutes.”

“Maybe your watch stopped.”

She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Think about something else. Do you have all your Christmas shopping done? What do your sisters want?” J.B.’s two siblings were both younger and female. That’s probably why he spent so much time hanging around the Tarleton house when he was growing up.

“They’re great,” he said. “Do we have to do this?”

“You’re the one who didn’t want to talk about anything serious.”

“Are those my only two choices?”

She hesitated half a beat. “We could talk about why you were such an ass to me when we were teenagers.”

J.B. cursed beneath his breath and leaped to his feet. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk at all.”

For the next five minutes, he paced the small space like a tiger in a cage. Mazie stayed where she was. His body language shouted louder than words that he was unraveling.

At last, he paused in front of the impregnable door and slammed it with his fist. He bowed his head, his shoulders taut.

“I can’t breathe,” he whispered.

The agony in those three words twisted her heart. J.B. was a proud, arrogant man. Having her witness his weakness would make his frustration and anger and helplessness worse.

Without overthinking it, she scooted to her feet and went to him. “Listen to me.” Fluorescent lighting was the most unflattering lighting in the world. It made both of them look like hell. His skin was sallow, cheekbones sharply etched. She took his face in her hands again. “Look at me. I want you to kiss me, J.B. Like you mean it. If you can’t breathe, I might as well join you. Do it, big guy. Make me breathless. I dare you.”

He was shaking, fine tremors that racked his body. But gradually, her words penetrated. “You want me to kiss you?”

“I do,” she said. “More than anything.” She touched her lips. “Right here. I haven’t been kissed in ages. Show me how J.B. Vaughan woos a woman.”

He blinked and frowned, as if sensing danger. “You’re not serious.”