Christmas Kisses For A Dollar

Her mother’s heart had given out during childbirth. Two cousins had died from weak hearts almost at birth. She had a heart murmur, which wasn’t terribly serious in itself, but it was an indication of the family trait.

She wouldn’t pass it on to her children. To force them into a restricted life when all the world was there to be discovered, to watch them die before they’d hardly lived, to see them fall in love, marry, then die before their children had a chance to know them the way her own mother had? No, she simply wouldn’t, couldn’t do it.

But sometimes she thought of the possibilities.…

She stifled the regret. She’d learned long ago to be stoic about life, to laugh at its foibles before it laughed at hers.

She gave her companion a mocking smile. “My heart always beats fast when I’m being accosted.”

He stood, putting a couple of feet between them. His gaze licked over her like fire. “Accosted?” He gave a snort of laughter and his lashes dropped to dangerous levels over his eyes. “I’ve hardly begun. How about some lunch? The hot dogs at the bazaar looked pretty appetizing.”

She blinked at the change in topic. “Why should I want to spend my time with a known criminal?”

“I paid good money for that kiss. I didn’t steal it,” he reminded her, his mouth turning up attractively at the corners. He thrust his hands in his back pockets and rocked back on the heels of his scuffed boots as he watched her.

“I was speaking of your assault.” She stood and slipped her sandals back on. “Yes, lunch would be fine. My aunt and uncle must have heard about the kiss by now. It will reassure everyone to see me whole and well. Also, it might save you from getting beaten up by my more ardent protectors if we’re seen together.”

This time he blinked in confusion as she jumped from subject to subject with no pause. She grinned at him.

He lifted her left hand. “Those ardent pals of yours haven’t put a ring on your finger.”

“How observant of you,” she murmured, pulling away and running her fingers through her hair to smooth the heavy waves into place. She felt vibrantly alive, she realized. Strong and eager for life. She cast a wary eye on her companion, wondering what it was about him that affected her so.

“Let’s go.” He took her arm. “Don’t you lock up?” he asked when they went out on the porch.

“Not during the day. What would be the point? Everyone knows I hide the key over the door.”

He gave her a sardonic glance. “Is the whole town as trusting as you?”

“I’m not trusting,” she shot right back. “If thieves want anything I’ve got, they’ll get in anyway. If the door’s open, they can go right in without breaking anything. See? It’s simple logic.”

“I have a feeling nothing is going to be simple about our relationship.”

She cast him a startled glance from under her lashes. Again a vision of the future came to her—of her running across a field with this man, holding hands and laughing, a child and a dog running ahead of them…

Retreating to sober reality, she realized he not only disturbed her heart, he sent her dreams into a tailspin. She didn’t understand it.

“We don’t have a relationship,” she stated.

“We will,” he declared.

2

“Would it be rude to ask your name?” Anne asked. She placed the two cups of cola on the table. The cups, one red, the other green, heralded the season’s colors.

Her companion put the hot dogs and curly fries, seasoned with Tex-Mex spices, on the table beside the drinks. “Jonathan Sinclair—Jon to my friends.” He smiled as if at some secret thought while he pulled out a chair and held it for her.

“Sinclair? As in Sinclair Ranch?”

“Right.”

Instead of sitting, she held out her hand. “Anne Hyden, as in the Flower Garden.”

He shook her hand, then held it as he asked, “Should this mean something to me?”

“I’m one of your customers. In fact, I have a big order in for Christmas. That’s only a little over three weeks away,” she reminded him. “It is going to be ready, isn’t it?”

He had no idea. “Would I let one of my best customers down?” He sincerely hoped not. That might delay, although not impede, the relationship between them.

“It’s been known to happen,” she said wryly. She took her seat. He sat opposite her.

She bit into her hot dog. He did the same. She tried to keep her eyes off him, but it was difficult. He had no such qualms. He stared at her, an gleam of intrigue in his eyes, as they ate. A man to watch out for, she decided. A man who could be dangerous to a woman’s heart.

“So you own a flower shop,” he said when he finished.

“Yes. It was a dream come true to be able to buy it when the owner retired.” She’d had to fight her aunt every step of the way, right up to the final closing. She licked a smear of mustard off her lips.

“I’d like to do that for you,” he murmured, his gaze glued to her mouth.

She wiped her lips with a napkin. “You’re disconcerting.”

“Do I make you nervous?”

More than that. He conjured up old dreams of forbidden things as a magician conjured up a hatful of Texas-size rabbits. “Yes. You’re rather unpredictable.”

“I’m not dangerous…only fascinated.”

“Do you always come on this strong?”

Jon wondered about that, too. It was unusual for him. Her forthright manner put him at ease. “Only when I know it’s going to be stupendous.”

“What?” She brushed her hair away from her face, another nervous gesture, he surmised.

“Our coming together.” He realized that could be taken more than one way and grinned when she fidgeted with her hair. He did make her nervous. It wasn’t a tenth of what she did to him. He could hardly wait to show her. But first…

“I’m not a marrying man,” he told her bluntly and watched to see how she’d take it.

“Has anyone ever asked you?” she inquired with only a token of polite interest after the briefest of pauses.

A surprised second ticked past. He threw back his head and laughed in delight. “This is going to be fun.”

“The chase or the seduction?” The imp danced in her eyes as she looked him over as an old-maid schoolmarm might.

“Both,” he promised, meaning it. He hooked an arm over the chair and pushed it onto the two back legs while he watched the thoughts dart through her eyes. He wished he could read them. She was an interesting woman.

“Oh-oh,” she said sotto voce. “Here come my relatives.”

He glanced over his shoulder. A man in a lightweight suit, a blue shirt and striped tie came toward them. The woman beside him wore a beige lace dress. They seemed to be dressed for a formal wedding rather than a bazaar. They were around fifty, a handsome couple actually, the man a tad thin, the woman a tad plump, but both energetic and healthy-looking.

He got to his feet when they approached the table.

Anne introduced them before they could speak. “My aunt and uncle, Marge and Joseph Pauly. Uncle Joe is the mayor. Aunt Marge is on the city council. She opposed him on a land-use tax and got elected. This is Jon Sinclair.”

“Marge. Joe. Glad to meet you.” Jon shook hands with them. He felt like a suitor on display as they looked him over.

As on the tax issue, he realized they had assessed him and come up on opposite sides. The mayor smiled benevolently; the councilwoman smiled coldly, disapproval in her eyes—which were the same intriguing blue as her niece’s.

The defiance he’d felt as a teenager surfaced. One thing he hated was being censured by self-righteous harpies, male or female.

“Are you all right?” The aunt turned to her niece as soon as the amenities were over. She peered at the younger woman so anxiously that Jon studied her, too.

She looked fine to him—a woman of many charms, all of which he’d like to sample. Also, she was levelheaded. She’d taken his announcement about marriage without a blink. Good. He liked savvy women.

“Of course,” Anne replied. “Did you know that Jon has taken over the Sinclair Ranch? It supplies the mums I get in for fall and the poinsettias at Christmas. He’s supplying the plants I’ll need for the country club dance during Christmas week.” She gave him a significant look that said those flowers had better be ready. Jon vowed to check on them first thing.

“You raise flowers?” The aunt was frankly disbelieving.

Jon assumed a broad grin and tried to look the part. “Yes, ma’am, I do, on one of the prettiest little spreads in all of Texas,” he drawled.

Anne nudged him with a sharp elbow. “Laying it on too thick, Sinclair. These are astute politicians.”

He tried to look subdued by her reprimand, but a smile kept blooming on his lips. He hadn’t enjoyed himself this much in years. Anne was a challenge he couldn’t resist.

The uncle grinned at him, but the aunt looked annoyed. Hmm, he’d have to work on the old biddy and see if he couldn’t thaw her out a little. However, before he could compliment her on her dress, she turned to her niece, effectively tuning him out.

“I went by the booth. Ellen said you’d had all the kisses you could stand for one day,” her aunt said anxiously. “Snooze Allyn said you fainted.” She put a hand on Anne’s forehead. “I knew you shouldn’t be standing around in the sun like that.”

“Well, it was for a good cause.” Anne beamed a smile at Jon and moved a step away from her aunt’s solicitous care. “And I made almost a hundred dollars.”

“Yeah, you still owe me,” he reminded her.

A tiny thrill worked its way down Anne’s back. His eyes issued a dare. She wished… “You got your kiss, cowboy.”

“One. That leaves nineteen to go.”

She caught her breath at the thought of nineteen more of those kisses. “I can’t hold my breath that long.”

“We’ll take short breaks,” he assured her.

Their eyes met in a duel of laughter and desire. He was a man to steal a maiden’s heart, she acknowledged. Longing flowed through her like wind through a willow.

“Is Randall coming home this week?” the aunt interrupted.

“Uh, no. Not that I know of.”

Silver eyes narrowed on her. “Who’s Randall?” Jon asked, ignoring her aunt and uncle, both of whom listened in on the conversation with blatant interest.

“The senator from our district,” Anne replied. “He’s in Austin while the state legislature is in session.”

“Oh, a politician.”

With these words and a casual shrug, the senator was dismissed as being unimportant in her life. “Yes. We see each other.” She waited for Jon’s reaction to this statement.

“As in exclusively?” he demanded, his gaze spearing into hers, thrilling her with his quick concern.

“Really,” Aunt Marge said indignantly. “It’s hardly any of your business.”

He shoved his hat off his forehead, stuck his hands in his rear pockets and rocked back on his heels. A posture he assumed when he was considering things, Anne decided, remembering his doing the same at her house.

The action pulled his jeans snug across his lean hips. She recalled the feel of his hard body against hers when she’d fallen against him at the kissing booth. He’d been aroused.

Heat surged through her in tiny star bursts of reaction to his masculine stance. She was attracted to him…in a way she’d never been to Randall. Her heart had never gone out of control when the handsome politician kissed her. It was worrisome.

Did she dare take Jon Sinclair on as an opponent? He’d made it clear he was looking for adventure. Was she? One mad adventure before eternity closed over her?

“Would you care to join us?” he asked her aunt and uncle. “I’ll be glad to get you a hot dog or whatever you like.”

A polite maverick. She gave him a smile of approval.

“We’ve had lunch, but a tall, cool lemonade would taste real good right now,” the uncle spoke up.

Jon noted the mayor’s Texas drawl had thickened a bit. When he glanced that way, the mayor smiled. Jon thought he saw an imp of mischief in Joe’s dark brown eyes. Uncle and niece shared the same sense of humor.

“Yes, that would be nice,” Marge said, her gaze darting from Anne to him. “I’ll help you get them.”

Jon raised one eyebrow but followed along at the woman’s heels as she led the way across the lawn. As soon as they were out of hearing of the other two, she turned on him in squinty-eyed disapproval.

“Anne has a heart condition,” she told him in a low, intense tone. “She mustn’t be upset in any way.”

This wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. He glanced over his shoulder. Anne looked the picture of health to him—pink cheeks, clear eyes, a smiling mouth, a firm, luscious body. His heart kicked up at the thought…as well as other parts.

Was this warning some kind of ploy on the aunt’s part? She didn’t exactly keep it a secret that she favored the senator as the companion of choice for her niece. But that was for Anne to decide. She was a mature adult.

He spread his hands in an innocent gesture. “I wouldn’t think of upsetting Anne.”

“This isn’t funny, Mr. Sinclair.”

“I’m not laughing.” He leveled a steady gaze on her as the old rebellious spirit stirred in him. Being told not to do something had always set him on a direct path for it. Of course, rebellion sometimes led to disaster.

“Just what are your intentions toward my niece?” the older woman demanded, stopping in the shade of the oak tree and out of sight of the other two.

He gave her a cool glance. “I think that’s between Anne and me. She is of age, isn’t she?”

“She’s twenty-five. And a virgin.”

“I’m thirty-one. And I’m not.”

Ignoring her indignant gasp, he headed for the lemonade stand and ordered four drinks. The gorgon gave him the silent treatment on the return trip. Which was okay by him.

Anne glanced from one expressionless face to the other. She sighed dramatically. “My aunt give you the medical diagnosis?”

“Yes,” Jon admitted, looking her over.

“Still planning to seduce me?” she asked, mostly out of curiosity. Men fled when they found out she might turn into a liability rather than a lover.

“Anne!” her aunt admonished.

“Yes,” Jon said, meeting her eyes. He grinned.

Anne placed a final spray of greenery in a bouquet of yellow and pink roses, then stepped back and eyed the arrangement. She nodded in satisfaction at its loveliness.

Doc Adamson had ordered an impressive array of flowers for his cousin’s thirty-ninth birthday. Ellen Adamson had directed his office and business affairs for the past two years with cheerful efficiency, but this was the first time he’d sent her flowers. Perhaps this signified a change in their relationship.

For a tenth of a second, Anne was wistful, then she pushed aside the feeling. If she ever married, it would be to a man like Randall, someone who wouldn’t expect too much from her.

Her aunt and uncle liked him and had encouraged their dating. Randall had hinted several times of late that he wanted to ask for more from her, but she’d managed to evade the final question. She wasn’t quite ready to commit herself.…

A restlessness stirred in her, a longing for something more. Excitement. Danger. Romance. Oh, sure.

She shouldn’t expect fireworks, rainbows and all that. She knew wild romance was only in books and movies. Still, she wondered about it sometimes. A startling thought came to her—Jon Sinclair could give her all those.

But then, what about commitment and mutual respect and common goals? Excitement and danger were childish fantasies. And wild romance was not lasting devotion. Randall was a much better choice. If she ever decided to marry.

Another wild idea intruded. Wasn’t a person entitled to one mad fling before settling down to marital and family bliss and responsibility?

She was shocked at the errant ways of her mind. She had always been the soul of respectability. After all, Randall had two sons—one in his first year of college and one a junior in high school who still lived at home. She liked the boys and would be a model parent for them. If she married.

The bell tinkled over the door, announcing a customer.

She stuck her head around the corner. “Ellen, hi,” she called, seeing her friend. “Be right with you.” She quickly hid the bouquet with a covering of colorful foil paper and walked into the front part of the flower shop.

“I thought I’d see if you had time for coffee,” Ellen Adamson said, admiring a wreath made of Christmas bows with cinnamon sticks and sachets of cloves to add a holiday scent. Monday was the day the doctor did routine surgery. The office was closed, and so Ellen had the day pretty much to herself.

“Give me a second to freshen up.” Anne renewed her lipstick and checked her hair. She wore it clipped out of the way with a big bow at the back of her neck while she worked. “Okay, let’s go.” She stuck a Be Back Soon sign in the window.

The two friends walked two doors down the block to a restaurant and took a free table amid a myriad of hanging plants. Anne picked a couple of dead leaves off a spider plant and checked its moisture level before taking her seat.

“That was some kiss Saturday,” Ellen commented after the waitress had departed with their order.

“Yes.” Anne tried for a nonchalant manner and failed.

“I was coming to rescue you, but you fainted before I got there. Quick thinking, that.”

Anne cleared her throat. “Thanks, but it wasn’t all an act. I sort of panicked, then things went dark. When I realized what had happened, I decided to go along with it. I was afraid my aunt would club him if she saw him kissing me like that.”

“A couple of guys were ready to step in when you made your dramatic move. I was worried about you for a minute.”

“You were?”

“Mmm-hmm. Until I saw your face.” Ellen laughed softly. “You looked totally blissed-out. Was the kiss that wonderful?”

Anne hesitated. “Yes.”

“Oh.” Ellen studied her a second. “That sounded like a very serious yes.”

Anne lifted the bangs off her forehead. “Is it suddenly hot in here or am I blushing?”

“Blushing. This gets more interesting by the minute. What are you going to do about Jon Sinclair?”

“I don’t know,” she hedged. “Got any advice?” She wasn’t sure if she should confess, even to her best friend, the insane idea that kept occurring to her.

“Go for it,” Ellen announced.

“Go for it?”

“Right.”

Anne frowned at her friend. “Are we talking about the same thing?”

“I hope so. I think you should have a torrid, tempestuous affair, one that will singe your eyebrows.”

Anne had to laugh. “That kiss nearly did.”

Ellen became serious. “I don’t want to see you settle for…oh, I don’t know, less than you deserve. Randall is almost twenty years older than you.”

“Does that matter?”

“Maybe. Everyone deserves that wild, impossibly insane first love. I’d hate to see you miss out on it.”

Anne watched Ellen become pensive, her smile bittersweet. Her friend had once been married, but it hadn’t worked out.

“Everyone should have that first sweet taste of passion,” Ellen continued. “For men, it’s called sowing their wild oats. For women, it’s gather ye rosebuds while ye may.”

“This advice from a doctor’s right-hand person? What about safe sex and all that?”

“I didn’t say not to be careful. Just have fun while you’re doing it.”

“Jon Sinclair told me he wasn’t a marrying man.”

Shock momentarily stopped Ellen, then she grinned in pure glee. “Arrogant beast,” she murmured. “So it has already gotten that far.” She gave Anne a purely speculative perusal. “From a kiss to talk of marriage in one breath. Impressive. You must have singed more than his eyebrows.”

Anne lowered her lashes demurely and murmured wickedly, “I hope so. I like to give as well as I get.”

Ellen looked momentarily disconcerted at this statement. “Can this be the Anne Hyden we’ve come to know and love?” she questioned, then she chortled. “Oh, this is going to be good,” she declared, clearly seeing the affair as the coming event.

Anne was tempted. “One passionate affair before settling into domestic bliss?” she mused, unable to keep from thinking about that wild, erotic caress.

“Bliss? Or boredom?”

“I’m very fond of Randall,” she said firmly.

“I’m fond of my dog, but I wouldn’t care to depend on him for witty conversation. Have you ever thought of being alone with Randall for days on end if, for instance, you were stranded on a desert island for a month?”

“Well, no.”

A picture came to Anne. Jon Sinclair, dressed in ragged cutoffs, his body lean and bronzed by the sun, standing ankle-deep in the ocean, homemade spear lifted to catch their dinner.

“So how does Jon Sinclair look standing on a deserted beach?” Ellen’s snicker broke into Anne’s musing.

“You’re putting ideas in my head,” Anne told her.

“It’s time someone did. I think Marge tried to make an old maid out of you from the day you were born.”

It was no secret the two women didn’t get along. Ellen thought Marge was too possessive and overprotective of Anne. Marge thought Ellen was a bad influence.

Anne thought her aunt’s attitude was because Marge had been there when Anne’s mother had died in childbirth. Uncle Joe and Aunt Marge had raised her from the time she was a toddler because her father traveled extensively in his job with an international corporation. He hadn’t been home in almost two years.

Aunt Marge meant well. She, too, had been affected by the family curse—two children had died in infancy from heart defects. Anne loved her aunt and tried not to resent the older woman’s interference in her life. Aunt Marge reminded her to be careful because she was concerned about Anne’s health.

Thinking of her reaction to the kiss, Anne shook her head ruefully. “I’m not sure my heart is up to an affair with Jon Sinclair.”

“But you won’t know until you try.”

“Have you ever had an affair?”

Ellen was silent so long, Anne thought she wasn’t going to answer. “Once. A long time ago.”

“Did it make your heart pound like it would fly right out of your chest?”

“Of course. That’s the point of the whole thing.”

Their coffee and muffins arrived. Anne changed the subject, but the memory of the kiss lingered in her mind. It stayed in the minds of her neighbors, too. Before Anne had finished her coffee, five people drifted over and asked if she was feeling better.

“It is the biggest raisin on the grapevine, or something like that,” Ellen advised when Anne grumbled about the avid interest in her love life.

Jon Sinclair kicked the sheet off and swung out of bed. Naked, he walked to the window and looked out at the dawn. From his bedroom, located on the second floor of the sprawling home of his youth, he could see the Sabine River chugging along on its way to the Gulf of Mexico.

He was restless and hungry. But not for food. Glancing down, he shook his head in wry exasperation. His body was erect and ready for a torrid session between the sheets.

The emptiness of his bed only underscored the problem. Last night, eating a lonely supper in a seafood place along the river, he’d passed up the chance to spend a few pleasant hours in another bed.

Wrong woman, wrong bed.

Truth was, he couldn’t get Anne Hyden out of his mind. She lingered like the annoying line of a song that wouldn’t go away. It was driving him crazy.

Frowning at his own stupidity, he dressed, ate a slice of bologna stuffed into a hot-dog bun and took his coffee to the field with him. He worked on the irrigation system until Pedro, Jon’s ranch manager, and his son arrived; then he left them putting PVC pipe together and went to town for more parts.

The first person he saw was Anne Hyden, looking like a perky pansy in a gold top and brown slacks. Her hair was clipped at the back of her neck with a fluffy gold bow. She was unlocking her shop door when she spied him. She stopped at the door and waved.