A Ring For Christmas: A Bride by Christmas / Christmas Lullaby / Mistletoe Manoeuvres

She was nervous, she thought, and furious at herself because she was. Luke had called her early that morning and asked if it would be too much trouble for her to meet him for lunch.

He was waiting for a scheduled long-distance call regarding a case he was about to wrap up and couldn’t leave the office to come to Roses and Wishes. The afternoon was jam-packed with bringing his father up to date on Luke’s ongoing cases.

He’d spoken with Clyde and Precious, Luke had told her, and wanted to pass on the information he had and blah, blah, blah.

“Oh, sure,” Maggie said, still glowering at her image. “Lunch? Do lunch? No problem.”

Right, she thought dismally. No problem, except for the fact that she was a nervous wreck. That was so dumb. Dumber than dumb. Luke was a client of hers, of Roses and Wishes, nothing more. They were working together to coordinate the wedding of his cousin Clyde and the bride-to-be Precious. The end.

The really humiliating part was that she knew why she was shaky about seeing Luke. Last night she’d had the most sensuous dream imaginable about the two of them. Goodness. She’d wakened in the night all…all hot and bothered, and try as she may she couldn’t erase the pictures in her mind of a naked Luke reaching for a naked her, taking her into his naked arms and…

“Stop it.” Maggie spun around and stomped out of the ladies’ room. “You are just so ridiculous.”

She gave her name to the hostess and was immediately shown to a table at the far end of the large room. Luke stood as he saw her coming.

Thank the Lord, Maggie thought giddily, he has his clothes on. Nice suit. Very lawyer-looking suit. Did she look frumpy in white slacks and a flowered blouse? She should have worn a skirt or dress but hadn’t wanted to arrive there with naked legs and…Oh, God, she was totally losing it.

“Hello, Maggie,” Luke said, smiling, when she reached the table. “It’s nice to see you.”

Maggie’s eyes widened. “See me?” She shook her head slightly and slid onto her chair. “Yes, of course, nice to see me. It’s nice to…see you, too, Luke. I really like that suit you’re wearing. Excellent suit. I’m so glad you’re wearing that suit.”

Luke frowned. “Are you all right?”

“What? Oh, yes, of course, I am.” Maggie busied herself spreading the linen napkin on her lap. “I just didn’t sleep very well last night and—” she looked at Luke again “—I’m hungry.”

“Well, we can fix that easily enough.” Luke signaled to the waitress. “Order whatever you’d like.”

The waitress appeared at the table. Maggie ordered the first thing she saw on the menu and told herself to get a grip. Luke asked for a steak sandwich and home fries.

“I really appreciate your coming all the way downtown,” Luke said as the waitress hurried off.

“Not a problem,” Maggie said. “Did you receive the call you were waiting for?”

“Call? Oh. Yes. Right on schedule.” Luke took a sip of water.

Man, I’m crummy at this cloak-and-dagger stuff, he thought. He’d nearly forgotten about his imaginary “appointment” with the telephone. He’d decided to push his luck and attempt to meet with Maggie somewhere other than at Roses and Wishes. The long-distance call had been a great idea, but he’d blow it big-time if he didn’t remember what he’d told her.

“What was it you wanted to discuss with me about your conversation with Precious and Clyde?” Maggie said.

“Why don’t we enjoy our lunch first, then get into all that after we eat,” he said, smiling.

“But you said you have a very busy afternoon,” Maggie said.

“Yes, so I do,” Luke said, frowning. Really crummy at this. “All right. Precious and Clyde will be arriving in Phoenix in the middle of December, so the holiday wedding is great. Right on the money.”

Maggie smiled. “Good. I’ve chosen the flowers and the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses with a Christmas theme in mind. Did you ask Precious about her dress size and those of her friends?”

“They’re exactly the same as yours, your sister’s and your best friend’s.”

“Isn’t that something?” Maggie said. “Then it will just be a matter of nip and tuck.”

“Indeed.”

Their lunch arrived and Maggie was amazed to find that she’d ordered grilled salmon and steamed vegetables, which weren’t exactly her favorite foods but would do in a pinch.

“Now then,” Luke said after they’d taken the edge off their appetites. “Clyde and Precious said that they will have just made that long flight from London a couple of weeks before the wedding. They’d prefer to not have to pack their suitcases again and go winging off on a honeymoon right away, which makes sense.”

Maggie cocked her head slightly to one side. “They don’t want a honeymoon?”

Get this right, fumble-brain, Luke ordered himself. He wanted to plan that oh-so-important honeymoon trip with Maggie when she was engaged to marry him. It was something that they should do together for real, not as part of this charade.

“They’ll have a trip later on,” he said, narrowing his eyes in concentration. “So what they want is a honeymoon suite here in Phoenix for a few days following the wedding.”

Maggie nodded slowly. “I understand. Well, I really don’t know what’s available because my couples have always left town after the reception. I’ll visit some honeymoon suites in the posh hotels and report back to you.”

“I thought I’d do that investigating with you,” Luke said. “I’ll have the time once I bring my father up to speed on my cases at the office, and as the old saying goes, two heads are better than one. You don’t mind if I tag along, do you?”

A teenage boy appeared at the table at that moment to refill their water glasses, and Maggie fought the urge to jump up and hug him for giving her a moment to gather her racing thoughts before answering Luke’s question.

Visit honeymoon suites with Luke St. John? she mentally repeated. Honeymoon suites, where people did what she and Luke had been about to do in her wanton dream? That was not a good idea at all. No, it was a bad plan. Bad, bad. And dumb and dangerous and—

“Maggie?”

But what reasonable excuse could she dish out to Luke as to why he shouldn’t come along on the honeymoon-suite tour? she asked herself frantically. Sorry, Mr. You Melt My Bones, but there’s a very good chance I might tear your clothes off in one of those romantic suites and get you naked as a jaybird, just like in my dream? Yeah, right, she’d just lay that on him. Not.

“Maggie, are you with me here?” Luke said, leaning slightly toward her.

“What?” she said. “Oh, yes, sure thing, Luke. You can come along to look at the accommodations if you like. But doesn’t that sound just a tad boring to you?”

“Nooo,” Luke said slowly, then smiled. “Not at all. Not even close.”

Maggie narrowed her eyes. “Why not?”

Because he’d be envisioning the two of them in each of those suites, newly married, husband and wife, about to begin their honeymoon here in Phoenix before leaving on their dream trip. No, that didn’t sound the least bit boring.

“Why not?” he said. Quick, St. John. Come up with something reasonable. “Because, like you, I’ve never seen a honeymoon suite in any of the ritzy hotels in town. It will be informative, interesting. Anytime a person has an opportunity to experience something new they should jump at the chance. It’s good for the gray matter.” He tapped his temple with a fingertip. “Know what I mean?”

“Not really,” Maggie said, frowning, “but I’ll take your word for it.” She paused. “I think it would be best if I made actual appointments for our inspections. I’ll get back to you on that.”

“Fine. And you said you’d decided on the flowers for the wedding. What did you choose? No, wait, let me guess.” Luke drummed the fingers of one hand on the table. “Hmm. You named your business Roses and Wishes. I’m betting that the bridal bouquet is roses, red for the holiday theme with some kind of Christmassy greens and those fluffy things that look sort of like snow.”

“Baby’s breath,” Maggie said hardly above a whisper as she stared at Luke.

“Yeah, that’s what it’s called. How close did I come to being right?”

“That’s exactly what I chose, but…but how did you know?”

Luke reached across the table and covered one of Maggie’s hands with one of his. He gazed directly into her big brown eyes and when he spoke again his voice was slightly raspy and very, very…male. Maggie shivered.

“I knew because you’re Maggie,” he said. My Maggie. Forever.

“Oh,” she said. Get your hand back, Maggie Jenkins. The heat—the heat from Luke’s hand was traveling up her arm and across her breasts that were suddenly achy and…Get your dumb hand back. Sometime within the next hour. “Huh? You knew what flowers I’d pick right down to the baby’s breath because I’m Maggie? I don’t think that makes sense.”

“It does to me,” he said, tightening his grip slightly on her hand. “Yes, ma’am, it certainly does.”

“Would you care for some dessert today?”

Maggie snatched her hand from beneath Luke’s and looked up at the waitress.

“Dessert,” she said, hearing the thread of breathlessness in her voice. “Dessert is a good thing. Yes, it certainly is, but I’m much too full to eat another bite of anything so…no, thank you.”

Bingo, Luke thought. Maggie was flustered and that was dynamite. The heat that had rocketed throughout his body as he’d held her hand had traveled through her, too, he was certain of it. Her cheeks were flushed a delicate pink and her voice was trembling slightly. Fantastic.

“And you, sir?” the waitress said. “We have a scrumptious Black Forest cake today.”

“A man certainly can’t pass up Black Forest cake,” Luke said. “Why don’t you bring me a slice. With two forks, just in case the lady changes her mind and decides to share it with me.”

“You bet,” the waitress said. “I’ll be right back.”

A busboy cleared their dishes, and moments later the waitress set an enormous slice of cake in the center of the table and placed a fork in front of Maggie, then Luke.

“Enjoy,” the woman said, then zoomed away.

“Help yourself, Maggie,” Luke said. “Look at that creation. Chocolate cake with whipped cream between the layers and all those cherries in sauce dribbling down the sides like a delicious waterfall. How can you resist a treat like this?”

What she wanted to know, Maggie thought miserably, was how could Luke make the description of a slab of cake sound like the most seductive thing she had ever heard in her entire life? The man just didn’t quit.

“Well, maybe just one bite,” she said, picking up the fork. She filled her fork, making sure it included one of the fat, gooey cherries. “Mmm.”

“Oops,” Luke said, reaching for a napkin. “You’ve got a dab of cherry sauce. I’ll get it for you.”

He leaned across the table and gently, so gently, dabbed at the spot of sauce, then shifted his eyes to look directly into Maggie’s.

Her bones were dissolving, Maggie thought, unable to tear her gaze from Luke’s. There was nothing sensuous about having her sloppy eating mopped up like a toddler in a high chair, darn it, but…Oh, yes, there was.

There was something so intimate about Luke tenderly stroking that napkin by her lips as though it was the most important thing he had ever done. She was going to slide off that chair and turn into a puddle on the floor.

“All better,” he said, his voice husky. “Good cake?”

“Mmm,” Maggie said dreamily. “The best cake I’ve ever…really yummy.”

“Well, it’s sure calling my name.”

Maggie watched with rapt attention as Luke leveled a serving onto his fork, lifted it to his mouth, then closed his lips—those, oh-so-kissable lips—over the treat, then slowly pulled the fork free.

“Mmm,” he said, closing his eyes as he savored the taste.

She couldn’t handle this, Maggie thought frantically. She was going up in flames, burning inside with a heat like nothing she had ever experienced before.

Luke set the fork on the table and reached over to take both of Maggie’s hands in his.

“Ah, Maggie,” he said, “what are you doing to me? What is this thing that spins out of control between us?” It’s love, Maggie Jenkins. True and forever love. “You feel it, I know you do.”

“No, I don’t,” she said, trying to pull her hands free. Luke tightened his hold. “Well, yes, I do, but it’s just physical attraction between two people who are…physically attracted to each other. I would call it lust, but that’s kind of a tacky word. It’s certainly nothing to be pursued or acted upon or…May I have my hands back now, please, Luke?”

“In a minute. So you admit that you’re physically attracted to me?”

“Well…yes.”

“You desire me? Do you, Maggie? Lust is a tacky word. Desire is something else entirely.”

“Semantics.”

“No, Maggie, emotions. Emotions are intertwined with desire. I truly believe that. The tricky part is to know what those emotions are, what they mean, unwrap them layer by layer like a wondrous gift.”

“That’s very poetic,” Maggie said softly.

“I’m not attempting to be poetic. I’m just expressing how I feel. I want to know what that gift holds for us. Don’t you?”

Maggie pulled her hands free and shook her head. “No, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Luke, you just don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me. Please, Maggie. What are you afraid of? Why are you so determined to never marry, to plan weddings for so many brides but never one for yourself? Why have you built those tall, strong walls around your heart? There’s something happening between us that could be very important, but whenever I bring it up you act like you’re about to bolt. Talk to me. Please.”

Maggie clutched her hands tightly in her lap and stared at them for a long, mind-searching moment. She nodded slowly, then met Luke’s gaze again.

“All right,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “Perhaps I should tell you the truth about me, why none of the weddings I coordinate will ever be mine, why I’ll never be a bride.”

Luke’s heart thudded so wildly he could hear the echo of it in his ears.

“It goes back as many generations as my family has been able to track, without skipping even one,” Maggie continued. “There’s no escaping it, no reason to believe it won’t continue on and on into infinity.” She sighed. “Oh, people try to beat the odds—my mother, sister, my brother—but it’s foolish to do that because it’s hopeless.”

“My God, Maggie,” Luke said, feeling the color drain from his face. “Is it a disease that can’t be cured?”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d call it a disease exactly, but there is definitely no cure for it. It happens over and over and over again. It’s harsh and heartbreaking and I don’t intend to allow it to happen to me. I will never, ever get married.”

“What—” Luke cleared his throat “—what is it? Does it have an official name?”

“Yes, it definitely has a name,” she said. “We’re all doomed. It would be so foolish to believe I would be spared, because it wouldn’t happen, Luke. My mother, sister, brother all thought they could escape from it, but…” She shook her head.

“What is it?” he said, leaning toward her. “You’re ripping me up here, Maggie. What is it?”

Maggie took a shuddering breath, then blinked against sudden and unwelcome tears.

“It’s…” she said, a sob catching in her throat. “It’s the Jenkins Jinx.”

Chapter Seven

It took several mental beats for Luke to really compute what Maggie had just said. He opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again as he replayed the words once more in his head.

The Jenkins Jinx? he thought incredulously. Did he have a clue as to what Maggie was talking about? No, he did not. A jinx of some kind that had a bearing on Maggie’s negative attitude to marriage? Did people really believe in jinxes these days? A jinx that did what? Oh, man, this was nuts.

It would certainly clear things up if Maggie would suddenly laugh and tell him she was just kidding, that what she had said was a silly joke, then tell him the real reason she didn’t intend to ever be the bride in one of her beautifully coordinated weddings.

But the fact that at the moment Maggie was a study in misery and that tears were shimmering in her big brown eyes told him that she was dead serious about the Jenkins Jinx.

“Maggie,” Luke said finally, “we need to talk about this…this Jenkins Jinx thing, but you’re obviously upset, so let’s get out of here.” He signaled to the waitress for the check. “I’ll take you home, back to Roses and Wishes, and we’ll discuss this there. Okay?”

“You said you had a very busy afternoon at work,” Maggie said, then sniffled and dabbed her nose with the napkin.

“That’s what cell phones are for,” he said. “So bosses can call efficient secretaries and have them reschedule whatever is on the calendar. My father won’t mind getting the word that he’s free to go golfing.”

“But I drove my van here so you can’t take me home.”

“I’ll bring you back later for your van or you can drive yourself if you feel you’re up to it,” he said. “We’re not postponing this discussion, Maggie.”

Maggie sighed in defeat. “I had a feeling you’d say that. I’ll drive myself. Meet me at Roses and Wishes.” She got to her feet and hurried away.

Luke rose, dropped several bills onto the table, then accepted the check from the waitress.

“Is everything all right, sir?” the woman said.

“Ask me later,” Luke said absently, “because right now I really don’t know.”

Maggie drove blindly to Roses and Wishes, wishing she could turn back the clock to before her momentous announcement about the Jenkins Jinx.

No, she thought with yet another sad-sounding sigh, there was no point in pretending the Jenkins Jinx didn’t exist. Luke was pressing her to explore, actually embrace, the strange whatever-it-was that was happening between them, and it wasn’t fair to keep the jinx a secret.

She dashed an errant tear from her cheek.

It just would have been nice, she mused wistfully, to have had more time with Luke, enjoy his company, allow herself to feel so feminine and desirable, before revealing the god-awful truth.

Once she explained it all to Luke, it would hover between them like a palpable entity, a living thing that would make him uncomfortable because she was a weird person from a very weird family.

“I’m so sad,” Maggie said as she parked in front of Roses and Wishes. “So very, very sad.”

She waited in the van until Luke arrived, then they entered the house together. Maggie left the Closed sign on the door.

“Let’s go upstairs to the living room,” she said, sounding extremely weary.

“Whatever you say,” he said quietly.

In the tiny living room Maggie sank onto a rocking chair and Luke settled on the sofa, spreading his arms across the top as he looked at Maggie intently. She rocked back and forth for several minutes, staring into space.

“Maggie,” Luke said, “you can’t pretend I’m not sitting here waiting for you to talk to me.”

She shifted her gaze to meet his.

“I know,” she said. “It’s just that I hate to…Never mind. You have the right to know what I meant by the Jenkins Jinx.” She drew a steadying breath. “I told you that it goes back many generations in our family.”

Luke nodded, aware that the lunch he’d consumed now felt like a rock in the pit of his stomach.

“We all have had to face the devastating fact,” Maggie continued, “that for unknown reasons it is impossible for any of us to live happily ever after with our chosen mate. It just isn’t going to happen, no matter what. And that, Luke, is the Jenkins Jinx.”

Luke moved his arms forward to rest his elbows on his knees and make a steeple of his fingers.

“I beg your pardon?” he said, frowning.

“You heard me.”

“Okay, I heard you, but I can’t fathom that you actually believe that a jinx, a spell, whatever, has been cast over your entire family.”

“Like a gloomy dark cloud,” Maggie said, nodding.

“Maggie, come on, give me a break. Things like that don’t really happen. So, yes, some of the couples in your clan got divorced, but—”

“Everyone got divorced.”

“Everyone?” Luke said, raising his eyebrows.

“Everyone. We researched our family tree as far back as we could and, yes, everyone.”

“That’s rather…strange.” Luke sank back against the cushions. “Whew.”

“That’s the Jenkins Jinx,” Maggie said. “No one understands why we’re plagued by it, what we did to draw this lousy card, but there’s no denying the truth of it. Oh, there are those who feel they’ll be the one to break the spell, end it for all time, because they’re so in love, so sure when they marry that it’s forever. Then—bam!—it all falls apart and yet another gleeful divorce attorney has a bill to send.

“My mother was a starry-eyed bride,” she said. “My father left us when I was ten. Poof. Gone. My sister has been divorced twice, my brother once. My grandparents, great-grandparents…Oh, I can go even further back than that, I guarantee you. We all agree we’re doomed.”

“But—”

“Therefore, Luke, I never intend to fall in love and marry. I’m not going to have my dreams shattered and my heart broken. I’m not. So I create fairy-tale-perfect weddings for others to…to satisfy my romantic soul. But I’m beginning to wonder if Roses and Wishes is a dumb thing to be doing because it just emphasizes over and over what I’ll never have.”

“But you’re planning the wedding of your dreams for Precious and Clyde,” Luke said.

“Yes, and it’s probably foolish, but I’m giving it to myself like a gift to cherish before I make a decision about whether I want to continue as a wedding coordinator.”

Luke got to his feet and began to pace—as well as he could in the limited space. He dragged a restless hand through his hair and narrowed his eyes in deep concentration. He finally stopped in front of Maggie’s rocking chair, planted his hands on the arms and leaned down, speaking close to her lips as she stared at him in wide-eyed surprise.

“No,” he said.

“No…what?” she said, aware, so very aware, that his lips were mere inches from hers.

“No, I won’t accept this,” he said. “So, okay, your family seems to have had more than your share of divorces, but there is no such thing as an honest-to-goodness jinx, Maggie.”

“That’s what my sister’s second husband said—at first.”

“Maggie, you’re an intelligent woman,” Luke said, his voice rising. “How can you buy into this malarkey?”

“Facts are facts,” she said, matching his volume. “We checked as far back as we possibly could, hoping, praying, we’d find even one couple that stayed together on our family tree. There wasn’t one. Not one, Luke. The jinx is real and I won’t allow myself to think I could be the one to break it, make it disappear, because it’s here to stay. That’s the way it is and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“It’s impossible,” he said none too quietly. “A jinx is a superstition, a…a…Damn it, this is the most frustrating conversation I’ve ever had in my entire life.”

“Well, excuse me all the way to Sunday,” Maggie yelled, “but the truth is the truth.”

‘Oh? Well, try this truth on for size, lady,” Luke hollered.

He released his white-knuckle hold on the arms of the rocking chair, gripped Maggie’s shoulders, hauled her to her feet…and kissed her.

Maggie stiffened in shock, but as Luke’s kiss gentled and he dropped his hands from her shoulders to wrap his arms around her and bring her close to his body, she nestled against him. Her arms floated upward to encircle his neck, her fingertips inching into his thick ebony hair.

The kiss was hot. It was desire, not lust, with unnamed emotions intertwining with the want and need. The kiss was powerful enough to push aside for that tick of time the existence of the Jenkins Jinx and allow them to savor the taste, the feel, the very essence of each other. The kiss was theirs.