A Proposal for Christmas: State Secrets / The Five Days Of Christmas

Holly wanted to die and she wanted to live forever. She wanted to stop and she drew him nearer, allowing him to shift her body and his own so that they were both prone before the crackling fire.

His hand left her thigh to move up over her hip, underneath her soft mulberry sweater, over the flesh at her waist, over her rib cage. He freed her from his sorcerer’s kiss to nibble gently, provocatively, at her earlobe and her neck.

“I want you, Holly,” he said in that forthright way of his, his voice a gruff caress against the base of her neck.

Holly shivered, even though there was a heat pulsing inside her that made her long to fling off her clothes. “David, I...we...”

“I know,” he chuckled, and his hand had found the catch at the front of her bra. There was a feeling of sweet, wanton freedom as her breasts were released, and then his fingers were soothing her, searching out a nipple that already awaited them at strictest attention. “Tell me to stop.”

If Holly hadn’t been so bedazzled, she would have slapped him. “I can’t...” she admitted, her words falling away to a groan as he found that arching nipple and rolled it gently between his fingers.

He drew her sweater slowly upward, his hand cupping the captured breast, shaping it for conquering. When he bent his head to lave the throbbing peak softly with his tongue, Holly gasped with pleasure and arched her back in reflexive surrender.

“We...can’t do this...” he managed to say as his mouth blazed a path from the conquered breast to the one that awaited sweet defeat. “We can’t...”

“I know,” Holly agreed. But when his tongue touched the untended nipple, she knotted her hands in David’s rich, mink-soft hair and held him close.

Holly Llewellyn was to wonder many times, sometimes with regret and sometimes with relief, what would have happened if the telephone hadn’t rung when it did. Its cold, jarring jangle made David thrust himself away from her as if in fury.

Stung and shaken and still needing, Holly hastily fixed her bra and stumbled off at a half jog to answer.

“Hello!” she gasped, winded and embarrassed. She could see David from where she stood and he was just staring into the fire, his broad back rigid.

“Sis?”

Holly wanted to cry. Not now, she thought frantically. Oh, God, not now! She lowered her voice. “Hello, Craig.”

“‘Hello, Craig’? Is that all you’ve got to say?”

Holly stiffened, very conscious of the man sitting before the fireplace. Her breasts were still heavy and warm with passion, their peaks moist. She tried to breathe properly. “What should I say, Craig?” she asked petulantly, forgetting this time to keep her tone at whisper level.

“I tried to pick up the money,” Craig rushed on angrily, frantically. “Guess what? There were crew cuts all around Cindy’s place!”

Holly trembled, then drew a deep breath. “Crew cuts?” she repeated, confused. David’s back stiffened almost imperceptibly, or was that a trick of the firelight? He didn’t appear to be making the slightest effort to hear what was being said, but appearances could be deceiving.

“FBI agents. Holly, they were everywhere! Did you turn me in?”

“Of course I didn’t!” At this outburst, David turned his head, assessing Holly with a look she could read all too well: it was full of stark, angry pity.

“Just listen,” Craig rasped. God in heaven, how desperate, how hunted, he sounded. “I’m going to need money, Holly, and if I have to come there and get it, I will!”

“You can’t do that! Toby would be—”

“Toby. Always Toby. Don’t you ever think about anybody besides that kid, Holly? What about me? I’m your brother, remember?” Craig stopped to draw a harsh breath and then began to cough. It was a frightening sound.

“You’re sick!” Holly exclaimed, watching David. He had turned his eyes from her again and was now gazing into the fire, one knee drawn up under his chin. “Craig, please—turn yourself in. They won’t hurt you, I swear it!”

“I’ll call again tomorrow!” Craig roared impatiently, and then he slammed the receiver down so hard that Holly flinched. She was on the verge of tears when she placed her own receiver in its cradle.

The silence in the living room was complete, except for the snapping merriment of the fire. David looked at Holly but did not rise from his seat near the hearth. Holly closed her eyes momentarily, in a vain effort to shut out the reality of Craig and his problems, then drew a deep breath to steady herself.

“Y-you’re a lawyer,” she began, speaking as casually as she could. “If someone is wanted by the law, and another person...a person close to them...knows where they are and sometimes gives them money...”

David rose slowly to his feet with the grace of a predatory animal, but he kept his distance. And it was more than a physical distance. “Then that person is guilty of aiding and abetting a fugitive,” he said evenly. “They could, under some circumstances, be imprisoned.”

Holly trembled and bit her lower lip. When she closed her eyes against the possibility, her already precarious balance was affected and she swayed. David was instantly clasping her shoulders, holding her upright. And while there was a gentleness in his touch, there was little sympathy.

“I can help you, Holly,” he said hoarsely. “If you’ll just allow yourself to trust me, I swear I can help you.”

Holly longed to pour out the whole ugly story, to tell him how scared and confused Craig was, to explain that he hadn’t meant to do all those awful things. But she didn’t dare. The fact that she had almost given herself to David moments before, making a joyous offering of something she held dear, changed nothing.

David Goddard was still a stranger.

5

The rest of that week was dismal for Holly. She couldn’t concentrate on her work and she was short not only with Elaine but with Toby. When Skyler called, offering an innocent-sounding invitation to lunch, she all but bit his head off.

In the evenings, of course, she taught her cooking class, and David was always there, always attentive—and never friendly. He might have been a total stranger, answering what casual questions Holly could contrive to ask with flat, clipped banalities. Not once did he stay to help with the cleanup, as he had those first two nights, and he certainly made no effort to contact her outside of class.

Holly was devastated and she was scared, too. Craig had nearly been caught in Los Angeles. How could the FBI have known where he would be if not for David’s seeing the address on that letter she’d mailed? And that night, that shattering night when they had almost made love, David had said, “I can help you, Holly. If you’ll just allow yourself to trust me. I swear I can help you.”

He knew; she was sure he knew. And as far as Holly was concerned, that was reason enough not to see him again. Ever.

Except that she needed him, wanted him. Perhaps, though she couldn’t often bring herself to examine the possibility rationally, she was even beginning to love David Goddard.

On Friday night, Skyler called to ask her out for dinner and a movie. Holly refused, pleading a headache, and went to bed early, setting the answering machine because Skyler had a tendency to be persistent. The telephone rang twice during the night, and a sleepless Holly timed the calls at eleven thirty-five and twelve-ten.

The next morning was one of those springlike days that sometimes creep into winter. Though there were still ragged patches of snow on the ground, the sun was bright and the sky was a painfully keen shade of blue.

The weather did much to bring Holly out of her doldrums, and to make up for some of the stresses of the past week, she suggested to a rather wan and distraught Toby that they take his airplane to Manito Park and fly it.

“I’m going to the Ice Capades this afternoon,” Toby reminded his aunt, running his spoon glumly through the dish of oatmeal before him. “My whole class is going.”

“I remember,” Holly said softly. It hurt, this restraint between herself and Toby. It was a sad, pulsing ache. “You’ll be back in plenty of time, I promise.”

Toby brightened. “Okay,” he chirped. “Let’s hurry up with breakfast and go!”

His ebullience made Holly laugh, easing the bereft feeling inside her. “Let’s do that. Be sure to wear your mittens because it’s cold.”

Toby nodded. As he passed Holly’s desk, his oatmeal gleefully abandoned on the trestle table, he stopped. “Mom, there’s messages on the machine. The light is flashing.”

Holly glanced uneasily toward the telephone. Between Craig and Skyler, it was getting so that she didn’t like to answer the thing at all. It wasn’t likely that David had left those messages, she told herself, and she was in no mood to hear a lecture from Skyler or a lot of pathos from Craig. “I’ll listen later. Right now, I’m in the mood to fly your Cessna.”

“Me, too!” Toby agreed, and he was off again, in search of the warmer clothes he would need for a morning in the park.

Perhaps too conscientious for her own good, Holly went to the answering machine and frowned down at the little red light blinking so industriously, her finger poised over the “play” button. What if the calls had been from Craig and he was in terrible trouble? What if—

She stopped herself, sighed and drew back her hand. It could wait. Whatever it was, it could just wait. Any kind of hassle at this moment would be too much.