Christmas With You (3 page)

Carly laughed. “Thanks. I’m glad to be here—I think.” And more than a little overwhelmed—but in a wonderful way.

“This is Ruby,” said Vee, brushing away soft brown curls spilling over the baby’s forehead. “She’s eight months old and never met her Uncle Kip.”

“Hi, Ruby,” Carly said softly.

The little girl stared at her with enormous blue eyes—Sullivan blue, as she’d started to think of it.

“Hey, Ruby, how’s it going?” Kip stroked a finger down the baby’s bare arm and took her hand. “And what’s it like having such a giant pain in the ass for a mum?”

Lizzie and Vee snickered, and Tara rolled her eyes—Ruby, however, stared at her uncle, her cherubic mouth trembling, her eyes filling with tears. She wailed, yanking her tiny hand out of Kip’s grasp and reaching for her mother.

Tara transferred Ruby into Vee’s arms and glared at Kip. “Nice one, you big dummy.”

“Hey, she’s too young to know what
giant pain in the ass
means.” Kip backed away from the howling baby.

Vee patted Ruby’s back. “She’s going through a phase of being freaked out by strangers. She cries at anyone she doesn’t know if they so much as look at her the wrong way.”

“What the hell is looking at her the right way, then?” Kip muttered and grabbed Carly’s hand. “Come on; let’s move before the kid spontaneously combusts or something.”

Distracted by his warm fingers closing around hers, Carly trotted along after him, barely noticing the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen until Kip’s mother swooped on them. Carly quickly dropped his hand and gave Heather a hug—since, like Carly, Kip’s mum was another hugger.

“Come in, sit down!” Heather waved toward the huge dining table laid out with plates, glasses, and napkins. “I’m just bringing the food out.”

Carly sat on the long bench spanning one side of the rectangular table, with Lizzie to her right and Kip on the left. Having him so close, and the brushes of his arm as he reached for a plate or a jug of orange juice, made concentrating on eating difficult. Platters were swapped back and forth, everybody piling on huge helpings of bacon, fried eggs, grilled tomatoes, hash browns, sausage links—enough breakfast to feed one of her dad’s old barracks, it seemed. And in between the appreciative groans of seven people eating, the Sullivan family talked, argued, and laughed non-stop.

Once the first desperate need for food had passed, Heather dabbed her mouth with a napkin and shushed the others. “Carly, are you going back to the States to spend Christmas with your family?”

Carly’s fork froze halfway to her mouth. “No. I’m staying here in Oban with my mom.”

“Are your parents divorced, honey?”

The fine hairs on her arm lifted as Kip shifted on the bench beside her.

“Mum,” he said quietly.

“It’s okay, Kip.” Carly lowered the fork and offered Heather a small smile. Sometimes, it was better to get the awkwardness out of the way early. “My father passed away from cancer in September last year. My stepbrothers and mom—she’s my stepmom, technically—well, they’re here, so I didn’t want to spend the holidays alone in LA.”

Silence descended over the table like the snow of her childhood Christmases in the northern States. Thick, dense, and weighing a ton when it came time to shovel it away.

Heather’s cheerful expression crumpled. “Oh, honey.” She reached across and laid a warm palm on top of Carly’s hand. “I’m sorry. I should’ve thought before opening my big mouth.”

A hand rubbed her bare arm from her other side. Lizzie, her eyes soft with sympathy. “That sucks about your dad. But it’s nice you get to experience a Kiwi Christmas this year.”

The constricting bands squeezing Carly’s ribs eased a little from the women’s gentle touches and the silent but warm bulk of the man beside her.

“I’m not feeling very Christmassy, unfortunately. And my mom’s got her hands full looking after Bill—that’s my stepbrothers’ dad.”

“Kip told us about his kidney disease; such a terrible thing,” Heather said. “But your stepbrothers will be around, won’t they?”

Carly’s chest bands reappeared with a vengeance. “Del and West and their families are going away for a few days over the holidays. They asked us to go with them, but Bill and Mom wanted to stay here.”

The Harlands and Westlakes had endured a very busy year, and it was great they’d get some R & R at a friend’s massive property in Queenstown. Just great.

“The three of us will have a quiet day at Bill’s place,” she added.

With nothing to keep her mind off her dad’s drawn-out death. Or the hours spent at his bedside, watching him suffer. Last Christmas had been the epitome of Silent Night—but not in song-ish way of being calm and bright.

Frowns and exchanged glances skipped around the table.
You’re a regular red-headed buzzkill, zoomie
. Give her a few more minutes and she’d have the whole Sullivan clan weeping into their coffee cups.

Carly forced a smile and gamely snatched up her fork. One swift subject change coming right up. “Hey, West is making Kip and I dress up as Santa Claus and his helpful elf for a Christmas party next week. So that’ll be fun.”

“This, I gotta see.” James, at the head of the table, threw his balled-up napkin at Kip’s head with a chuckle.

Kip ducked, and the napkin sailed over his shoulder. “You’re not invited. It’s for locals, only.”

“Pooh on that,” said Heather. “We ran into a very nice lady at the grocery store yesterday, who told us about it, and she insisted we bring Grace, the twins, and baby Ruby.” She leaned over and kissed her granddaughter’s chubby cheek. Ruby was in her highchair, Kip safely out of her line of sight. “Though Grace would rather die than be at a party with her grandparents, and Missy, here, will probably scream the place down again if Santa-Kip tries to sit her on his knee.”

“Kipper in a Santa suit?” asked Vee. “Try to keep us away.”

Kip stabbed a chunk of sausage. “I can hardly wait.”

Vee craned forward past Lizzie. “Have you got an elf costume? You’ll make a super-cute elf—the green will look amazing with your hair.”

Carly shook her head. “I haven’t even thought about what I’ll wear yet.”

“Mum’ll whip up something for you; don’t you worry,” said Tara. “Kip can find her a sewing machine and some fabric, and you’ll be the most stylish elf on the island.”

“I wouldn’t want to take up any of your time…” Carly said.

“Pooh on that,” Heather said again. “It’d be my pleasure. Those store-bought costumes are awful, and there’s nothing worse than a sloppy elf.”

“Can’t have Carly looking like a slutty elf, can we?” Kip said around a mouthful of sausage.

Carly turned and caught the gleam in his eyes as he chewed.

“I said sloppy, not slutty,” Heather said. “Tara, honey? Will you do the honors?”

Tara laid down her knife, and without looking up from her plate, cuffed Kip’s head. “Don’t be a dick, trying to impress the girl with your wit.”

“My wit is the last thing I’d try to impress Carly with.”

Kip just continued to smile, his eyes revealing the same message as the warmth spilling through her from his heated gaze.

Double-dammit.
He knew she was already impressed.

***

“Carly seems like a lovely girl.”

Kip rinsed a platter and stacked it on the dish rack, casting a sideways glance at his mum. She continued to stare out the bay windows at the expanse of sand, sea, and sky, all Mum-ish, wide-eyed innocence. Normally, after a family meal, it’d be him and his sisters on clean up, so when his mum suggested he helped her in the kitchen…

Yeah. He knew what was coming.

“Don’t start.” He dumped a pile of knives and forks into the soapy water. “We’re just friends—as in, way into the friendzone.”

It’d be so much easier if it were true. Problem was, after Carly’s little spill into his arms, he couldn’t go back to seeing her as a co-worker-slash-friend. Maybe the knee to the nuts was the trigger.

“This friendzone,” Heather said, wiping down the platter with a dishtowel. “Is that when you call a girl your friend but look at her like she’s something you wouldn’t mind unwrapping on Christmas morning?”

“Way off base, Mum.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” She placed the platter to one side and picked up a handful of flatware to dry. “You like her, though.”

She’d make more of it if he denied it. “As you said, she’s a pretty girl.”

“No, I said she’s a lovely girl. There’s a difference—as you know.” She gave him the raised eyebrows, head tilted down mum-look. “She’s nothing like Becca—all beautiful and sparkly on the outside, shallow and rotten on the inside. Carly’s lovely inside and out. I could tell, you know”—she tapped the tip of her nose—“woman’s intuition.”

Kip shrugged. “Took you a while to pick up on Becca. We were dating nearly six months.”

Six frustrating, hot and heavy months before he left the Far North and his family behind. He’d been drawn like a drug addict to his next fix every time Becca was around. Which wasn’t often in the last two months of their relationship. Being a dairy farmer meant hard, physical labor and twelve-hour days. By seven-thirty at night? Could almost guarantee he’d be flaked out on his couch, fast asleep. Impossible to please a woman who wanted to go out every night to parties and bars and socialize with friends. So, for a while, she’d dragged his two youngest sisters out partying with her. Becca’s parting words on the night she’d dumped him? “You’re such a boring bloody stay-at-home,” and “I’ll miss hanging out with your family more than I’ll miss you.”

Yeah, ouch.

“I wish women’s intuition was more like a psychic ability. I’d have done anything to prevent that little witch from breaking your heart.” She jerked open the flatware drawer and dropped a handful of forks inside with a clatter.

“She didn’t break my heart.” Because in order to have your heart broken, you had to make yourself vulnerable. And he didn’t do that. Ever. He was done being vulnerable and weak, having spent most of his childhood trying to get strong.

With Becca, he’d had some of his own intuition. Though the sex had been great, even in the early days of their fascination with each other, the drama and volatile behavior were warning enough to keep his heart to himself. “I’m not starting anything with Carly. We work together.”

Plus, her big brothers were his employers, and more importantly, his friends.

His mother blew out her lips in a soft raspberry and selected another platter from the drainer.

Kip grimaced. “Look, it’s bad enough half of Oban thinks I’m a man whore.” At his mum’s arched eyebrows, he said, “I’m not, though.”

He liked women—liked them a lot. But he didn’t need or want to hook up with every woman who slipped him her phone number, or, as on one occasion, a lacy thong wrapped in a cocktail napkin. Classy.

Raised with five older sisters, he just had a better-than-average understanding of how to communicate with the female sex. Most times.

“All right, then,” she said. “Even if you’re friends with this girl, you’re still included in my newest project.”

Kip’s fingers slipped on a glass pitcher, nearly toppling it into the sink. “Oh, Christ, Mum—what’re you up to now?”

She flicked the damp dishcloth at him, snapping him across the ass. “Don’t you curse out the baby Jesus nine days before his birthday. You’re not too old for a bar of Dove.”

He rolled his eyes at her, and she fisted a hand on her hip.

“Now hear me out. My project’s called Operation Carly’s Special Christmas.”

“Say again?” Though he had his suspicions.

“The first couple of years after my dad died, the holidays were awful. So, let’s give Carly a Kiwi Christmas she will never forget.”

“Your pet projects often backfire, Mum,” Kip said. “And as lovely as Carly is, she has family here and won’t appreciate us meddling.”

“Who said anything about meddling? And her family’s not going to be here on Christmas Day. We can’t let her spend the day alone with just her stepmother and a sick old man—imagine the type of memories that’ll dredge up for the poor girl.” Tears pooled in his mother’s eyes.

Oh, hell. He was screwed.

His mother was right. None of them would enjoy their day as much, knowing Carly was miserable and alone. But in order to make Christmas special for her, it’d mean more time spent with her out of work hours. He couldn’t deny being curious about getting to know Carly better.

But getting to know her under the prying eyes of the Sullivan family?

Gut squirming, Kip rinsed off the glass pitcher. “She won’t agree to spend the day with us anyway. We’re kind of an over-whelming force.”

His mother patted his arm. “Oh, we won’t spring an invitation on her yet. Not when she seems so down on Christmas as it is. No, we’ll work on her, Sullivan style.”

“You mean a guerrilla warfare campaign until she caves and does what you think is best for her?”

“You always were quick to catch on, honey.”

He narrowed his eyes. “And this isn’t an excuse for you and my sisters to practice your match-making skills?”