His Christmas Fantasy

“Hi, I’m Felicity,” she said, introducing herself to Sam. “Are you two together?” Felicity’s voice grated, painfully perky after Giselle’s near-sleepless night.

Giselle kept her eyes trained on the magazine page in front of her, but she felt Sam’s quick glance in her direction. “We’re coworkers. This is a business trip.”

“What kind of business are you in?”

Giselle retrieved her iPod from where she’d stored it in the seat back ahead of her.

“I’m a photographer and Giselle’s a journalist. We’re working on a magazine article.”

“Ohh,” Felicity squealed. “A photographer. How fascinating.”

Giselle shoved in her earphones and turned the unit on. She’d flown often enough to zone out the flight attendants upcoming safety spiel. She’d rather be nibbled to death by vampire ducks than listen to Felicity flirt with Sam the entire trip. Thanks, however, to her foresight in charging her iPod, vampire ducks were totally unnecessary.

The opening chords of Ravel’s “Bolero” swelled in her ears, muting Sam’s low rumble and Felicity’s enthusiastic response. She closed her eyes, giving herself over to the music’s passion and sensuality.

She still sensed his body heat, the proximity of his leg, arm and shoulder. There was no escaping the subtle combination of soap and maleness that was Sam, but at least without seeing him and hearing him she hoped to maintain a little distance…and sanity.

Sam McKendrick was a sickness…and she desperately needed a cure.

SAM EMBRACED the silence filling the car as they left the remnants of suburban Phoenix behind and headed north on Route 17 to Sedona.

Giselle drove the rental SUV. It was her story, her project, and she wasn’t a woman who would put him behind the wheel of the car simply because he was a man. That was fine with him. He studied her profile as she navigated a lane change.

His ex-wife and her mother boasted classically beautiful features of high, sculpted cheekbones, flawless complexions, straight noses, thick curling lashes surrounding slightly exotic eyes, and lush full mouths. Giselle, however, had inherited the Randolph features. Her small, slightly snub nose bore a liberal sprinkling of freckles; her cheeks were more round than angular; wispy lashes framed her hazel eyes; and although wellshaped, her mouth lacked the pouting fullness of her mother’s and sister’s. However, Giselle exuded an innate sensuality.

It was as if Helene was so used to her looks commanding attention that she’d never bothered to develop any other attributes, whereas Giselle immersed herself in the world around her and it filtered back through her, lending her a depth and earthy sexiness his ex-wife didn’t possess.

“What?” She slanted him a brief look and then trained her eyes once again on the road. “Don’t stare at me.”

“I wasn’t staring, I was looking.” He couldn’t seem to get enough of looking at her.

“Well, don’t. Don’t look at me.” Her rigid shoulders and faint frown screamed Off Limits.

“Why not?” He ignored her off-limits order. “I like looking at you.”

She in turn pretended she hadn’t heard his declaration. If he hadn’t been watching so closely, he would’ve missed her almost imperceptible gasp. “It makes me nervous and you should never make the driver nervous.”

“Is it me in particular or people in general looking at you that rattles you? Most women like being looked at,” he said. Helene had seemed to crave it, in fact.

“I’m not most women,” she said on a husky note, “so you can stop.”

No. She definitely wasn’t most women. She was smart, sexy and slightly bohemian. She defied categorizing, which was why he hadn’t been able to forget her. What would she say if he told her he wanted to do so much more than simply look at her? He wanted to kiss her until she forgot that he’d once been married to her sister and that her entire family despised him. He wanted to hear her gasp with pleasure.

“I’m a slave to your happiness. Your wish is my command.” His rejoinder hung between them, bound them, thickening the air with a raw sexual awareness. An image clicked into his head like a film frame. Giselle naked in his bed, her sweet nipple in his mouth, his cock buried deep inside her, his hand between them, stroking her clit as he dedicated himself to bringing her to orgasm.

Color stained her face, as if she knew what he was thinking. “Then you should’ve stayed home, Sam.”

Rather than any real venom, he thought he detected a desperate note in her rebuttal. Or maybe he was just projecting his own sense of desperation in taking the assignment so he could see her again.

“It’s a little late for me to stay home. Plus I’d miss seeing this part of the country.”

“Then try looking out the window,” she said dryly.

He laughed because that was definitely the Giselle he knew and he was just damn glad to be here, sharing a ride with her. “Fine. You drive and I’ll watch the scenery.”

He unzipped the equipment bag he’d stored on the floorboard and pulled out his camera. Even when he wasn’t looking at her, she seemed to surround him.

In his mind, he slid the straps of that red bra down her shoulders, his fingers dragging along the soft warmth of her skin. Where did her freckles end? What did her breasts look like without her bra? Prominent or small nipples? Rose-hued or darker, duskier? Was she a pubic waxing fanatic or was she more au naturel?

He didn’t need to be thinking about her naked, or it could be damn embarrassing when it was time to get out of the car or if she happened to glance over and down.

He spent a few minutes adjusting the settings, cleaning the lens, and then resolutely looked out the passenger window. On both sides of the divided highway, towering saguaro cactus dotted the arid brown landscape like green giants. “It is spectacular, isn’t it?”

“It must’ve been something to travel through here by stagecoach back in the day,” Giselle said, her voice low and reflective.

“Yeah. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter.”

“Very funny.” Amusement sparkled in her eyes and he knew a moment of intense satisfaction that he’d been responsible for putting it there.

Wind gusted through the canyon and buffeted the SUV. “And windy.”

“Obviously you’re not channeling the pioneering spirit.”

He grinned at her dry wit, one of the things he’d liked so much about her from the beginning. “’Fraid not.”

“So you had some ideas you wanted to bounce around on the article?”

He might’ve railroaded his way into this assignment, but they still needed to be on the same page with the article. When a writer and a photographer “spoke” at cross-purposes it resulted in substandard work. Sam didn’t do substandard.

He’d resolved as a kid that if people wanted to slap a label on him, he’d make damn sure that label was Excellence. He demanded it of himself and expected it from others, as well.

“So, the way I understand it from your outline, there’s an urban legend taking shape that couples who show up at this particular vortex on the third day after the winter solstice fall in love.”

“There’s a little more to it than that, but that’s the gist of it. You don’t actually have to be a couple. Singles apparently show up there,” she shrugged, “and sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“Sounds like the power of suggestion to me. It’s hard to believe someone falls in love because of winter solstice at a Sedona vortex. That just seems like a lot of hocus-pocus, but I’ll still be glad to take photos.”

“So you don’t believe in magic?”

He leaned into the space between them, narrowing the distance. He caught another whiff of her perfume. If scents were translated to pictures, this one evoked a dark, erotic blend of swirls and curves in shades of ruby red and purple against a blanket of yellow-gold. Complex and evocative beneath the surface. It suited her. “Do you believe in magic?”

“I trust you’re a better photographer than you are interviewer.”

He chuckled. “Am I interviewing you?”

“If you were, you’d be doing a lousy job. You’re obviously biased.”

“And you’re hedging.” She was a crafty one, Giselle was. “Do you believe in magic?”

“I believe in forces of energywecan’t necessarily see.”

Forces of energy. Something stirred inside him, a resonance, an acknowledgement. “I take it that’s a yes. Have you ever experienced magic yourself?”

Her hands tightened on the wheel and he felt her hesitation, as if she might refuse to answer. She was right. He was a lousy interviewer. She tilted her chin up. “Maybe…once…I’m not sure, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

Gooseflesh prickled his skin and the first time he ever saw her came to mind, swiftly followed by that Christmas night two years ago. Forces of energy. That summed it up exactly.

He asked the question that had been bugging him ever since he’d skimmed Darren’s assignment notes. “Are you coming with a personal interest? Are you looking to fall in love?”

“It crossed my mind.” Her smile had an edge to it. “Who couldn’t use some help in their love life?”

That made him want to grind his teeth. “Come on. You’re writing this story, but you don’t really believe this, do you?”

“How are you so sure it’s not real?”

“It’s not an issue for me. I can take the photos all day long but it doesn’t mean I believe this magic nonsense.”

Before she could respond, a massive wind gust barreled through the canyon. One minute they were driving along in their lane and the next a trailer swaying behind a pickup in the lane beside them bounced off the SUV, metal screeching against metal, sending them spinning out of control.

4

“ARE YOU okay?” Sam’s voice came to her as if it were muffled by fog. “Giselle?” His urgent tone snapped her out of what must have been mild shock.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. You?”

“I’m good.”

They sat on the shoulder of the road, the SUV’s motor still running, the vehicle upright but facing oncoming traffic. Adrenaline kicked in. Her heart pounded. Her hands shook. “What the hell just happened?”

Sam raked an unsteady hand through his hair. “The wind blew that trailer into us, they sideswiped us and kept going. Nice job of handling the car, by the way.”

Giselle laughed abruptly. “I didn’t handle anything. I just held on to the wheel and it was all a blur.”

“Exactly. We’d have rolled if you’d overreacted and tried to fight it.” He released his seat belt. “Sit tight. I’ll check out the damage to the vehicle. We may have to report it as a hit-and-run for the insurance to cover it.”

Sam opened his door and cold wind whistled into the car. Giselle tugged her down vest tighter about her while he climbed out and rounded the front of the vehicle. She powered down her window and stuck her head out into the bracing December air, expecting to see dents and scrapes along her side. Nothing. She blinked. Nothing marred the white paint along the entire driver’s side. Sam moved to stand beside her door.

“Am I missing something here?” She looked up at Sam. “Are you not seeing the same thing I’m not seeing?”

He dropped to his haunches and ran his hand lightly over the front panel and her door. “No dents. No scrapes. Not even a scratch.” He slowly stood up.

“But that trailer hit us…I heard it…felt it…how can…”

“I don’t know.” Sam skirted the vehicle again and climbed back in.

“That’s weird,” Giselle said before he even got the door closed.

Frown lines creased his forehead. “When we stopped one-eightying, my first thought was we were lucky to be upright and unhurt. I don’t know how there’s not even a mark on your door.”

A tingling rippled through her body and the hairs on the nape of her neck stood at attention. There was only one explanation as far as she was concerned. “Do you believe in magic now?”

“I’d mark it as luck,” Sam said. She wasn’t going to argue the point but…“I guess we keep going since there doesn’t appear to be any reason not to,” he continued. “You want me to drive?”

“No. I’m fine…” Her voice petered out as an eighteen-wheeler rumbled past and she realized they could’ve been sitting squarely in the path of an equally big, equally lethal truck when they stopped spinning. Six feet to the left and they’d have been…

She wasn’t fine. The aftermath of being behind the wheel while the vehicle spun in circles—it could have been one or twenty, she had no clue—set in and her hands began to shake so hard she couldn’t steady them. Sometimes owning the power was all in knowing when to hand it over. “No. I’m not fine, and yes, I think I’d like you to drive.”

Sam closed the gap between them and slipped a comforting arm around her shoulders and squeezed. His enveloping scent and touch set off an altogether different kind of trembling inside her. “No problem,” he said. His warm breath stirred her hair against her temple, and the thought flitted through her mind that she’d be content to stay there forever. “It shook me up and I wasn’t the one driving at the time.” For one mesmerizing moment she thought he dipped his head, that his eyes flickered with an intent to kiss her, and then it was gone. He withdrew his arm and she immediately missed his touch, his warmth. “You slide over. I’ll go around.” He had his door open before he finished the sentence.

He got out once again and Giselle sat statue-still, momentarily frozen with disappointment over a kiss that didn’t come from a man she had no business wanting it from anyway. Pulling herself together, she clambered on unsteady legs over the console and gearshift to the passenger seat. She settled back in the seat, the upholstery still warm from his body heat. The thought danced through her head that it was a bit like having him hug her from behind. Her hands shook slightly as she clicked her seat belt into place.

Sam adjusted the seat and mirrors, U-turned and they were once again on their way.

“Tell me about Barry.”

His directive caught her unawares. “What?” She shook her head to clear it. “I must be more rattled than I thought. I could swear you just asked me about my exhusband.”

He smiled without looking at her, his attention firmly fixed on the highway. Some people smiled and it was a mere quirk of their lips. Sam’s smile engaged his entire face, plowing lines in his cheeks and crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I did.”

“But—”

“We could’ve both just died and I wouldn’t have known a thing about your ex-husband.” In profile, his nose was Romanesque. It suited his strong chin and the rest of his lived-in face.

“But why would you even care?You’d have died not knowing a whole lot of things.” She would have departed this material world never knowing the taste of his mouth or the feel of his touch, other than a platonic hug or the measure of comfort he’d just doled out. She’d yearned for both even though he was forbidden territory.

“I only met him at your wedding. I’m curious as to what kind of guy you married. Indulge me.” Indulge me. Erotically evocative. He glanced at her. “Please.”

Indulge me. Please. Just how dangerous would he be if he knew how difficult it was for her to turn down any request for anything when he uttered those three words?

She shifted to look out the window away from him. She should tell him to mind his own business, but in the big scheme of things what did it matter? And nearly being killed on a highway had a way of prioritizing things. “What do you want to know?”

“How’d you meet?”

“His accounting firm was auditing one of the companies in my building. We kept bumping into one another in the ground floor coffee shop in the mornings. He always ordered a plain black and I always ordered the flavor of the week.” She laughed somewhat self-consciously at having been so stupid not to see how wrong they were for one another from the beginning. “That should have told me something right away, shouldn’t it?” A squat block building sat atop a brown knoll off the highway, Chuckwagon Barbecue lettered across the front in tired red paint.

“I can’t imagine why it didn’t send you running and screaming in the other direction,” he said, coaxing a laugh from her with his droll sense of humor.

“So, there you have it. That’s Barry. No cream. No sugar. No spice. End of story. End of marriage.”

“I can see you’re going to make me work for this.” He sighed, pretending exasperation.

Okay, she was pathetically flattered he was interested in what kind of man she’d been married to.

“Basically a nice guy with a good job and a black coffee habit,” he guessed.

“Essentially.” She realized now that she’d thought she could distract herself with and hide behind her marriage to Barry. In short and in retrospect, she’d thought Barry would cure her of Sam-itis. It hadn’t happened.

“You fell in love and got married…” he prompted.

She’d had myriad reasons. None of them the right one.

Why not just say it? She never had before. Ever. Not to her mother, Helene, her friend Margee, whom she occasionally met for dinner and drinks when their schedules allowed, or even Darren. In the distance, a hawk glided on outspread wings, diligently searching for its next meal.

“It wasn’t so much love,” she said slowly, letting the words find their own pace. Buried truth didn’t always rush to the forefront. “He was the first guy I ever took home to meet the family who wasn’t instantly panting after Helene. He didn’t settle for me because he knew he didn’t stand a chance with her. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t playing second fiddle.”

She leaned her head back against the seat. God, it felt good to say that. The accident must’ve left her more shaken than she’d realized to spew that out to Sam, of all people.

“Ah, a breath of refreshing honesty. At the heart of the matter, no pun intended, is the reality that people so seldom marry truly for love.”

Did that mean he hadn’t loved Helene? She wasn’t so sure she wanted the answer and the window of opportunity to find out closed as he pressed on.

“You’ve obviously known some stupid bastards in your life, but Barry was a novelty and you married him.” His voice lowered, softened to a verbal caress. “You were breathtakingly beautiful that day.”

Breathtakingly beautiful? Her heart beat against her chest like a caged bird seeking release. No one had ever referred to her, plain-Jane Giselle, as beautiful, breathtaking or otherwise. “Are you sure you’ve got the right wedding and the right bride?” she said with a slightly breathless laugh.

“You were the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen.” There was no underscore of amusement, no self-assured grin. Instead he drove, his hands gripping the wheel, stripped of banality. “Bar none.”

Blood rushed to her head. Her heartbeat seemed to echo in her ears. They both knew exactly what he’d just said. He’d been married to Helene at the time. She’d been his bride just four short months before Giselle’s wedding. Guilt threatened to stem the sweet joy inside her that Sam McKendrick thought her the most beautiful bride. She pushed aside the guilt. Was it so wrong to embrace this one thing just this once? And what was she really taking from Helene if her sister never knew about Sam’s comment?

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” Sam said, watching the road.

She’d never repeat it. Ever. She didn’t need to. She’d forever know, and that sweet, illicit knowledge was enough.

“It was a nice wedding,” he added.

The wedding was nice. However, every other thing about marrying Barry had been a mistake. “The wedding turned out to be the only thing we agreed on. We ultimately divorced over the dry cleaning.” She offered a rueful laugh. “I considered dropping off and picking up his laundry as a courtesy on my part. He saw it as my domestic duty.”

Sam nodded solemnly. “Dry cleaning’s a bitch. It’ll kill a marriage every time.”

He was so…Sam. She had the craziest notion that he understood in a way no one else had. Her parents hadn’t understood at all. There’d been an unspoken censure at her decision to leave Barry, culminating in her mother’s suggestion she try harder to work things out. Granted, Helene had dealt with infidelity in the dissolution of her marriage, but it really wouldn’t have mattered if it had been something else.

Giselle knew her parents loved both of them, but as the oldest, Giselle had always been held to a higher standard. As the baby of the family, Helene was indulged, protected, and allowed to slide by so many things that earned Giselle the “you should’ve known better” reprimand.

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