Santa, Honey by Hill Sandra & Nash Joy & Angell Kate

Author:Hill, Sandra & Nash, Joy & Angell, Kate [Hill, Sandra]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: fiction
Publisher: Love Spell
Published: 2009-09-29T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Later that afternoon, they were all in the living room, decorating a huge blue spruce tree that Luke and the kids had dragged in from the woods behind the house. Christmas carols played on the radio in the background, interrupted repeatedly by storm warnings.

Aunt Clara was reclining on the sofa in front of the fireplace where Luke had carried her two hours ago. She gave them gentle instructions as to which ornament went where while her knitting needles clicked away at one of her perpetual afghans.

“Are you still mad at me, honey?” Luke said close to Jessica’s ear, causing her to jump about two feet.

“Criminey, do you have to sneak up on me all the time?” she snapped.

She’d been avoiding the rascal all day, along with his knowing looks, his disarming smiles, and “accidental” touches. Luke had laughed, and stalked her just the same.

She couldn’t believe she’d actually made love with a man she’d met the night before. She hadn’t been thinking. It had happened too soon. It shouldn’t have happened at all.

She had to get rid of the tempting hunk soon or lose her sanity. Or something worse. Her heart.

“What do you call a nun with one leg?” he asked with a glimmer of humor in his flashing eyes, slanting a glance at Aunt Clara to make sure she didn’t overhear.

A joke? She tried to look at him disapprovingly.

“Hopalong Chastity.”

She giggled reluctantly, and Luke used that opportunity to put an arm around her shoulder and squeeze her close.

Despite the thrill of excitement engendered by that slight embrace, she ducked and escaped, putting several feet between them.

He chuckled.

“Maybe you can still leave tonight…if the roads get cleared,” she suggested.

Why did her heart constrict at the possibility? He’d have to leave sometime. If not tonight, then tomorrow. Everyone she’d ever loved left eventually. He would, too.

Not that I love him.

And there he went again, looking at her with such hurt, and longing, in his beautiful eyes. He did it every time she rebuffed him.

It’s not as if he really loves me.

But what if he did?

“No way!” Willie protested. “Uncle Luke can’t leave tonight. He’s makin’ Philadelphia cheese steaks for dinner.”

That was another thing that made Jessie mad. No one would eat her peanut butter sandwiches. They were scarfing down all the junk food Luke had bought, including minute steaks and rolls for a Christmas Eve dinner. He must have spent a hundred dollars in that Uni-Mart.

And Aunt Clara wasn’t even protesting that they would miss Vilia, the traditional Slovak Christmas Eve dinner she always prepared, where everyone must taste at least twelve of the many dishes assembled, presumably in honor of the twelve apostles. The merry meal always included, at the least, the core items of oplatky, the Christmas communion wafers dipped in honey; bobalky, braided homemade bread; red wine; pierogies, the little cheese-stuffed pies; several kinds of fish; mushroom soup; poppyseed rolls; sauerkraut; nuts; and fresh fruit.

Well, she had to give Luke credit. In the spirit of improvisation, he

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