A Kiss, A Kid And A Mistletoe Bride

She liked feeling wild and wicked and out of control. She liked the hum of her body against his, liked the powerful drumming of his heart against her hand.

But just when she felt like soda pop fizzing out of control, his breath buzzing into her ear and making her insides quiver, he’d murmured, “You may be jailbait, sweet pea, but I swear to God it would be worthwhile. Except—”

He pushed her away from him, leaving her skin cold and hot and aching all at the same time. Stepping away with a grin that promised heaven or hell—she’d never been able to decide—he straddled his cycle and left her in a squeal of tires against pavement while she tried to decide if she wanted to call her daddy to come and pick her up or steal the car keys from her football-hero, drunk-as-a-skunk prom date.

For the rest of that night, her mouth, her body, her skin—everything—had ached and burned with that cold heat, and for the next two years she’d dreamed about Joe Carpenter.

Of course, she hadn’t seen him again after that night.

He’d vanished, leaving Bayou Bend with its own kind of buzz as rumors floated, eddied and finally died away, leaving unexplained the mystery of nineteen-year-old Joe Carpenter’s disappearance one month shy of graduation.

Now, staring up the length of his legs and thighs, Gabrielle swallowed. Even in the darkness of this Christmas tree lot, eleven years later, her entire body flushed with that memory.

No wonder he’d been the town’s bad boy.

Well, she didn’t want those disturbing dreams haunting her again. It had taken too many sleepless nights, too many confused days for her to erase Joe Carpenter from her dreams, her memories.

“So how long has it been?” he asked, his voice low and rumbly, goading, baiting her. “Let me think if I can remember the last time I saw you, Gabby. It must have been—”

“A while,” she said grimly, struggling to her feet and catching one flat-heeled shoe on slippery needles and mud. “That’s how long. A while.” Her foot skidded forward and her arms windmilled crazily. Flailing, she saw her purse sail into the darkness.

“Whoa, sweet pea.” Joe’s warm hand closed around her elbow and braced her, his still-callused fingers sliding down her wrist as she balanced.

Even through the silk of her blouse, Gabrielle felt that warm, rough slide. His hand had been warm that night, too, warm against her bare skin. She shivered.

“Cold?” Amusement glittered in his eyes. Heat was in the depths, too, as he watched her.

He knew what he was doing, as he had eleven years ago, eleven years that had vanished like smoke with his touch. He knew, but she was darned if she’d give him the satisfaction of going all giddy and girlish.

She was twenty-six years old, too old for girlish. Giddy and girlish had never been her style, not even at fifteen. “It’s the damp. That’s all,” she muttered. “I’m not used to it anymore.”

“Sure that’s all it is?” His question, below the raucous rendition of the chipmunks and their version of “Jingle Bells,” tickled the edge of her cheek where he bent over her, still supporting her.

“Absolutely.”

“You moved away from Bayou Bend?” He clamped a hand under her elbow and steadied her.

“I’ve been living in Arizona. Same rattlesnakes. Less humid.” She dusted off her red velour skirt, shot Oliver a smile and a “so long” and slung her shoulder strap over her arm. “Nice to see you again, Joe. Merry Christmas to you and your son.”

She was almost safe. One second more, and she would have been up the walkway and gone, out to her car, away from the slamming of her heart against her chest, away from memory and the sizzle of his touch. One second. That’s all she needed.

Out of the darkness of the next aisle, Moon Tibo lumbered, bumping into her and pitching her straight into Joe Carpenter’s arms. “Okay, folks, let’s haul this tree up front and get you on your way. I mean, you only got twenty-four days to the big event. Y’all gonna want time to hang up them ornaments before this year’s over, right?”

“Right.” Joe’s laugh gusted against her ear, and Gabrielle felt her toes curl in memory. “Give me a minute, Moon. Got a damsel in distress here.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. How ya doin’, Gabrielle? Your dad feelin’ better?”

“Much.” She was all tied up with her purse strap and Joe’s arms, and she twisted, pushed, while Joe’s chest shook with laughter against her. Over its broad slope, she finally angled her face in Moon’s direction. “Dad’s cooking jambalaya tomorrow night, in fact. For after we decorate the tree. Come on over. He’d enjoy seeing you.”

Six foot five and built like a mountain, Moon gifted her with one of his rare smiles. “Might do that. Sure like your dad, I do.”

She tugged again at her strap, which had flicked over Joe’s head and bound them together. Mumbling under her breath to Joe, whose only help so far had been to keep her from landing face first in pine needles and mud, she said, “Give me a hand, will you? I can’t do this alone.”

“You got it, sweet pea. Lots of things aren’t any fun done alone. I like lending a helping hand.” His half smile could have lit up the town of Bayou Bend for a couple of blocks, and even Gabrielle’s forehead blazed with heat. Lifting the strap, he ducked under it, his thick hair brushing up against her mouth, and stepped back. “I’m ready to help out. When I can.” His palm was flat and firm against the hollow of her spine. “How’s that?”

“Peachy. Thanks.” Gabrielle untangled herself from Joe’s clasp and blushed back her hair. Joe Carpenter would flirt if he were wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy. “This has been—special.”

“Absolutely.” He plucked a pine needle twig from her hair and handed it to her. “A memento, Gabby. For old times’ sake.” His voice was light, amused, and his eyes teased her.

But behind the gleam, deep in their shadowy depths, she thought—no, imagined—she saw regret, a regret that made no sense, and so, surely, she must be imagining that rueful glint.

“We never had old times, Joe.” She mustered a smile and let the twig fall to the ground.

“No?”

She shook her head and hoped her own regret didn’t break through. “Not me. You must be thinking of someone else.” Anyone else, she reminded herself. Joe’s track record with adolescent hearts in high school had been gold-medal worthy.

But if she were honest with herself, and she tried to be, she knew her regret ran ocean deep because she’d never, ever felt that wildness with anyone since. She wasn’t fifteen anymore, and she could handle Joe Carpenter’s teasing. Sure she could, she thought as his eyes narrowed intently for a moment.

“Well. If you say so. Must not have been you I was remembering outside the country club.” He shrugged and let his hand rest on Oliver’s head. “It was real good seeing you again.” His gaze sharpened as he gave her a last glance. “Nice, that red skirt and silky blouse.” He smiled, and again that flicker of regret appeared in his eyes. “You look like a shiny Christmas present, Gabby.”

The weariness unraveling his voice and slumping his shoulders was real, and she hesitated, knowing she was making a mistake, knowing she’d be a fool to open her mouth when she had her exit line handed to her on a plate. Say goodbye and walk away. That’s all she had to do.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. She would be asking for more trouble than she wanted, needed. And then, looking down at the boy, Joe’s son, she spoke. “Come for supper. Tomorrow night.” Joe’s sudden stillness told her the invitation surprised him as much as it did her.

She would have taken the words back, but they hung in the air, an invitation she hadn’t intended, an invitation she wished she could take back the minute she spoke.

“Why doncha, Joe? Milo sure wouldn’t care. You know how he is. More the merrier, that’s what ol’ Milo says.” Moon hoisted the tree up with one hand and strode up the aisle toward the shed where the trees were trimmed and netted.

Gabrielle stared after him. She might have known, Moon being Moon, he would stick his two cents in. Trapped, she added politely for appearances’ sake, “Dad makes a big pot. He wouldn’t mind.”

“Jambalaya, huh?” Joe rubbed his chin. “Milo makes good jambalaya.”

“How would you know?” She closed her mouth, stunned. To the best of her knowledge, despite Moon’s blithe assertion, Joe Carpenter had never met her father.

“Oh, I’ve had a plate or two of your pa’s cooking.” Running a hand through his hair, Joe glanced at Oliver, back to her, and then said, so slowly she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, “Thanks. I reckon we’ll take you up on your offer. It’s a good idea.”

Oliver, who’d been strangely silent throughout the whole incident, glared up at her, his face as fierce as it had been the first time she’d seen him, but he didn’t say anything. Taking a sideways step, he plastered himself against his father and stayed there, a scowling barnacle to Joe’s anchor.

Uneasiness rippled through Gabrielle as she saw the boy’s hostility return, and she wished, not for the first time in her life, that she’d counted to ten before speaking. She was trapped, though, caught by Moon’s interference.

Judging by the expression on his face, Oliver was trapped, too. As she looked away from his frown, her words tumbled out. “Good. Company will be great. That’s what the season is all about. Family, friends. Get-togethers. Eggnog.” Mumbling, Gabrielle scrabbled through her purse for a piece of paper and a pen.

“Right.” The corner of Joe’s mouth twitched. “Eggnog’s always sort of summed up Christmas for me.” He ruffled his son’s hair. “Eggnog do it for you, Oliver?”

“No.” Oliver worked his scowl into a truly awesome twist of mouth and nose. “Eggnog stinks.”

Joe’s hand stilled on the boy’s head. “Mind your manners, Oliver,” he said softly and then spoke to Gabrielle. “We’ll be there.”

Retraining her impulsive nature, she bit her bottom Up. Her instinct was to reassure Oliver, but faced with his ferocious grimace, she stopped. Oliver’s likes and dislikes were Joe’s concern, not hers.

Even though the boy’s anger was clearly directed toward her, she knew enough about kids not to take it personally. She didn’t know anything about this particular child. Whatever was going on between him and his father would have to be settled between them. She wasn’t involved.

She pulled out a small cork-covered pad and flipped it open. “All right, then. Let me write out the address.”

“I know where you live, Gabby.” Joe’s hand covered hers, and yearning pierced her, as sweet and poignant as the smell of pine on the cool evening air.

It was all she could do not to turn up her palm and link her fingers with his.

“Unless you’ve moved?”

“No.” Her voice sounded strangled even to her own ears. “Dad hasn’t moved.” Unnerved by the thought that he knew where she lived, she flicked the notebook shut, open. “Oh,” she said, dismayed as a sudden thought struck her. She looked up, made herself meet his gaze straight on. “And bring your wife, too. As Moon said, Dad likes a crowd.”

“I’m not married, Gabby.” Joe’s bare ring finger passed in front of her. He closed her notebook, his hand resting against the brown cork. “What time?”

“What?” Her mind went blank. Nothing made sense. Joe Carpenter, the Harley-Davidson-riding outlaw who could seduce with a look, had a son. Joe Carpenter knew her dad.

Joe Carpenter, whose kiss could melt steel and a young girl’s heart, was coming to her house for jambalaya and tree trimming.

And eggnog.

Sometime when she wasn’t paying attention, hell must have frozen over.

Even in Bayou Bend, Florida.

Chapter Two

“The time, Gabby?” The tip of Joe’s finger tapped gently against her chin, snapping her out of her bemusement.

“What time shall Oliver and I come caroling at your door?”

“Eight, I suppose. That might be late for your son, though.” She hoped Joe would pick up the hint and let her off the hook.

Joe Carpenter, of course, didn’t. “Not a problem. Oliver doesn’t start school until after the holidays.”

Gabby sighed, a tiny exhalation. Joe had a plan. She couldn’t imagine what was possessing him to take her up on her invitation, an invitation offered only out of politeness, not for any other reason.

Liar, liar. You like being around Joe.

With a jerk of her head, she silenced the snide little voice and dislodged Joe’s finger. Her chin tingled, as if that phantom touch lingered warm against her skin.

Bearlike in his red-and-green plaid shirt, Moon waited for them to join him. “Well, then, you folks ready to check out?”

He held up a red plastic ball made of two hoops and topped with mistletoe and a green yarn bow. “Free kissing ball with each tree.” Moon wagged the kissing ball in front of her until she thought her eyes would cross.

Resolutely, she kept her gaze fixed on the tip of Moon’s Santa hat and told herself she was merely imagining the heat lapping at her, washing from Joe to her, and wrapping her in warmth and thoughts of more than kissing.

“Somethin’ special for old Moon’s customers, this is. And we got treats in the shed. Cookies. Apple cider. The boy can have a cup of hot chocolate while I bundle up this beauty. So come along, y’all.” A trail of brown needles followed Moon’s progress as he herded them forward. “Good stuff, cocoa. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, young fella?”

Oliver ducked before Moon’s beefy hand landed on his head. “Maybe. Maybe not.” He trudged after Moon and the tree.

Moon grinned back. “Shucks, kid. Everybody likes hot chocolate.”

Oliver planted one new shoe after the other, following Moon and hanging one hand tight to the edge of Joe’s pocket. “I only like it the way my daddy makes it. Out of the brown can and stirred on the stove. And only with little marshmallows.” Head down, ignoring Moon, Oliver adjusted his shorter stride to Joe’s, matching left foot to left

The boy needed physical contact with his father. Gabrielle slowed and let the two of them walk slightly ahead of her, a team, just as the boy had stressed. Everybody else on the outside.

Her curiosity stirred again as she watched the two, one rangy and dark, a lean length of man, the other, short and dark, a stubby child with eyes only for his father.

“Where’s your tree, Gabby?” Joe stopped and looked over his shoulder at her. “Oliver and I’ll give you a hand with it while Moon bundles ours.”

“Umm.” She saw something tall and green from the corner of her eye and pointed. “That one.”

“That one?” Not believing her, Joe stared at the ratty tree. The one Oliver had insisted on was three good shakes away from mulch, but Gabby’s tree—“You sure?” He frowned at her. “This one is, uh, well—”

“It’s a terrific tree. It’ll look wonderful with all the old ornaments.” Gabby tilted her face up at him. Her off-center smile filled her face. Christmas lights sparkled in her mist-dampened soft brown hair, and he wanted to touch that one spot near her cheek where a strand fluttered with the breeze against her neck.

The look of her at that moment, all shiny and sweet and innocently hopeful, symbolized everything he’d come back to find in Bayou Bend, a town he’d hated and couldn’t wait to leave. Like the star at the top of a Christmas three, Gabby sparkled like a beacon in the darkness of Moon’s tree lot.

“Come on, Daddy. We got to go.” Oliver pulled anxiously on his hand.

Still watching the glisten of lights in the mass of her brown hair, Joe cleared his suddenly thick throat. “Right. But we’ll help Gabby first, Oliver. Because we’re stronger.”

“She don’t need our help. Moon can wrap her tree.”

“Mr. Tibo to you, squirt.”

“She looks strong enough to me.” Oliver scowled and kicked at the ground.

Joe scanned Gabby’s slight form, the gentle curves of her hips under some red, touch-me, feel-me material, the soft slope of her breasts beneath her blouse, breasts that trembled with her breath as she caught his glance. His gaze lingering on her, he spoke to his son. “Well, maybe she is strong in spite of the fact that she looks like a good sneeze would tip her over. Let’s say helping out’s a neighborly kind of thing to do, okay?”

“Neighbors?”

He would have sworn her breathy voice feathered right down each vertebra under his naked skin. Even as a teenager, her voice had had that just-climbed-out-of-bed sigh. He wondered if she knew its effect on males.

Her voice was the first thing he’d noticed about her back when he’d moved to Bayou Bend as a surly high school troublemaker.

Even then, the soft breathiness of Gabby O’Shea’s voice held something sweet and kind that soothed the savage creature raging inside him.

Seeing him on the sidewalk outside the grocery store where he’d lied his way into a part-time job, she’d smiled at him in his black leather jacket and tight jeans and said, “Hi, Joe Carpenter. Welcome to Bayou Bend.” Her voice slid over the syllables and held him entranced even as he folded his arms and gave her a distant, disinterested nod.

At seventeen, a year older than his classmates and new to this small community, cool Joe Carpenter didn’t have time to waste on thirteen-year-old skinny girls with kind voices, not when high school girls fell all over one another offering to give him anything he wanted. Thirteen-year-old junior high girls were off-limits, not worth wasting time on.

But, touching that bitter, angry place he’d closed off to the world, her voice made him remember her over the next two years as she grew into a young woman, made him lift his head in baffled awareness whenever he heard that soft voice reminding him all the world wasn’t hard and mean and nasty.

And now, even years after he’d fled Bayou Bend, her voice sent his pulse into overdrive with its just-got-out-of-bed breathiness.

“We’re going to be neighbors?”

He shook his head, clearing his thoughts as she repeated her question. “Yeah, Gabby. All of us. You. Me. Oliver. We’re going to be neighbors. I bought the Chandlers’ house. Down the block from your place.”

“Oh.” Her hair whipped against his shoulder, tangled in the fabric of his jacket, pulled free as she turned toward the tree she’d chosen. “I hadn’t heard.” With two hands, she lifted her tree and thumped it up and down on the ground a couple of times.

He could have driven a pickup truck through the spaces between the branches, but at least her tree didn’t drop needles like a cry for help.

“We’re living in a hotel.” Oliver tugged him toward Gabby’s tree and checked it out critically. “For now. With a indoor swimming pool. I like the hotel.”

“You’re going to have a tree in the hotel?” Gabby’s quick glance at him was puzzled. “That’s nice, but—”

“A friend’s letting us store the tree for a day or two.We’re moving into our house on Tuesday.” Joe watched as her eyes widened, flicked away from his.

“Ah.” She touched the branch. “Tuesday. You’ll be busy. Do you need some—” She stopped, just as she had before she’d issued her invitation.

Help was what he thought she almost offered before she caught herself.

She was uneasy with him. Edgy. Aware of him.

He took a deep breath. Nice, that awareness.

With one hand still wrapped around Joe’s, Oliver poked his head under one of the branches. “This is a okay tree. Not as good as ours, though.”

Joe inhaled, ready to scold Oliver, to say something, anything, because the kid had a mouth on him. But then Gabby’s laughing hazel eyes stopped him. Her mouth was all pursed up as if she was about to bust out laughing. He shrugged.

“No problem. And Oliver’s right.” She gasped as his son glowered at her. “His tree is better. In fact, a few minutes earlier, we were negotiating which one of us was going to walk away with it.” Her expression told him not to sweat the small stuff.

At least that’s what he thought it meant.

“Right, Oliver?”

“We didn’t nogosh—didn’t do that thing you said,” his son, stubborn as ever, insisted. “It was my tree ’cause I seen it first. Me and her settled that.”

“Yes, we did,” Gabby confirmed, smiling down at Oliver.

Joe ran a hand through his hair. Should he make Oliver give up their tree to Gabby? Was that the right thing to do? Hell, what did he know? He was the last person to try and teach a kid about manners and being a good neighbor and—

This daddy business didn’t come with instructions. Wasn’t like putting a bicycle together. More like flying by the seat of your pants, he was beginning to see. He didn’t think he’d ever get the hang of it.

And he wasn’t used to having a small recorder around, copying his words, imitating his ways, watching everything he did.

The responsibility made him lie awake at night, his blood running cold with the sure knowledge that he wasn’t father material, while Oliver’s warm neck rested against the crook of his arm.

“I like this tree, Joe,” Gabby said gently, as if she could read his thoughts.

Her voice warmed the chill creeping through him. Scrubbing his scalp hard, he stopped his spinning thoughts. “Fine, Gabby. If that’s the one you want.”

“Oh, it definitely is.” Her laugh rippled through the air. “It will be absolutely perfect for Dad and me.”

“Whatever you say. Come on, Oliver. You take that branch and haul it up to your shoulder.”

“’Course.” His son puffed out a biceps you could almost see without a microscope. “Because I’m strong.”

“I can see you really are,” Gabby said admiringly, her expression tender as she looked down at his grumpy son.

God. His son.

Once more that weight settled over him. The responsibility. The constant fear that he’d mess up. But he’d asked for this responsibility, gone looking for it, in fact. He would do what he had to do.

“Ready, Oliver?” Joe heaved the tree off its temporary stand.

“Sure.” Oliver clamped onto the assigned branch with both hands. “This is easy.” His whole body was hidden by the branch held tightly in his grip.

“Can you see?” Gabby’s question brought Oliver’s attention back to her.

“I can see my daddy’s behind.”

“A guiding light, huh? So to speak.”

This time Joe was sure he heard a strangled laugh underneath her words.

“Watch it, smarty-pants,” he muttered to her as she walked beside Oliver. “Nothing good happens to smart alecks.”

“Who? Me?” Her hair glittered and glistened, shimmered with her movements in the damp air.

“Oh, sure. You have that butter-won’t-melt-in-your-mouth look to you, Gabby. Even in eighth grade, you looked as if you were headed straight for the convent. Still do, in fact.” He lifted one eyebrow and felt satisfaction as her face flamed pink. “But I know better. That nifty red skirt gives you away, you know. That skirt’s an invitation to sin, sweet pea.”

She sped up her steps, trying to pass him.

“You’re wicked, Gabby, that’s what you are.” He liked the flustered look she threw him. “Wicked Gabby with the innocent eyes and bedroom voice.”

Her mouth fell open even as she danced to his other side.

He liked keeping her off balance. One of these days, if he ever had the time, he’d have to figure out why he liked pushing her buttons. Always had. “You’re a bad girl, Gabby.” He waggled a finger in a mock scold. “Santa’s not coming down your chimney this year, I’ll bet.”

“Oh, stop it, you fool,” she sputtered, finally darting past him with a laugh. “You’re incorrigible, Joe, that’s what you are.”

“Shoot, everybody knows that.”

“What’s corgibull?” Oliver planted his feet firmly in place, stopping the procession. He stuck his head up from behind the branch. “And why are you and her laughing? What’s so funny?”

“Your daddy is funning with me. He’s making very inappropriate jokes,” Gabby said primly, digging in her wallet and sending Joe a sideways scolding look as she dragged out money for the tree.

“Yeah?” Oliver stuck his fist on a nonexistent hip and rushed to Joe’s defense. “My daddy’s ’propriate.”