PERFECT (16 page)

He crossed the
distance between them and slid onto the couch. Wrapping an arm around Darcy, he
tucked his body close to hers. When she tilted her head up to him, he captured
her sweet mouth.

Her fingers combed
through his hair, tingling his scalp, and held his head captive. She opened up
to him and their tongues danced.

He felt each
heated breath she took under his hand.

She moaned and
pressed her breasts against him, urging him closer.

Wanting more of
this beautiful woman, he broke their kiss and lifted her from the corner. She
apparently understood his intentions and straddled his lap.

He found his way
under her sweater and his rough palm was met with skin so soft and warm he
couldn’t get enough of the feel of it.

Darcy’s bra gave
way with a snap. With one hand splayed across her back, he held her in place,
while with the other he fondling her breast, working her nipple into a hard
peak.

Her whimper
against his mouth fueled his desire and he increased the pressure on her taunt
nub.

She wiggled
against his hard ridge. It had been months since he’d been with a woman, a girl
from a neighboring town who he’d dated for a few months. If Darcy didn’t stop
her movement, things would happen before they should. Breathless, he grabbed
her hips and stilled her motion.

“What wrong?” She
said between nibbles of his bottom lip and chin. “Are you worried about the
girls waking up?” She pulled him down for another kiss and was stopped by the
chime of the doorbell.

Their gazes
locked.

“Damn.” Dylan
cranked his neck toward the foyer. “Who the hell could be here now? It’s kind
of late for a visit.”

“Do you think it’s
your parents, giving us warning?” Darcy scrambled off his lap, reaching back
under her sweater to hook her bra. Her flushed face reflected the sexual
excitement he felt.

He stood, combed
his hair with his fingers, and straightened his own clothes. “I doubt that.
They’d love to find us… You know.”

She righted her
sweater and smoothed her hands over her face and then over her hair which
definitely had a sexy, tousled appearance.

Wanting to curse
out whoever stood on the other side of the door, he stalked from living room
and flung it open.

“Surprise!”

Dylan blinked at
the pair of happy faces, staring back at him. “Mr. and Mrs. Baker.” Crap. Just
what he needed. Elizabeth’s parents. He plastered on a fake smile. “What are
you doing here?”

“We decided that
the girls needed us,” Cybil Baker said, clutching an overnight bag, which was
definitely not a good sign. “With Elizabeth and Bob gone we thought Christmas
wouldn’t be Christmas for them without family around.”

What was he? He
inhaled a deep breath and reminded himself that these people were Elizabeth’s
parents. Relatives by marriage. Relatives.

“We hopped a ride
with a friend who was flying into Boston on his private jet and then drove up
from there. It sure is cold.” A round Eric Baker invaded Dylan’s private space,
causing him to step back. Now in the foyer, the shorter man surveyed the hall
leading to the kitchen and clapped his calf-skinned leather hands loudly.
“Where are the girls?”

“Shhh. They’re in
bed.”

“Bed?” Baker
snagged the sleeve of his wool coat and peeked at his Rolex. “It’s only
seven-thirty. No. Wait. Nine-thirty your time. Still, that’s early.”

“They had a very
busy day.” Dylan shoved the door closed behind Mrs. Baker and caught a glimpse
of Darcy as she crossed the living room toward the Christmas tree. She was
probably trying to stay out of sight until he handled the newcomers.

“Oh, I’m so
anxious to see them,” Cybil said, sitting her bag on the oak foyer bench. She
peeled off her gloves, removed the thin scarf from her head and patted her hair
into place. “I haven’t seen them since…” She tapped a perfectly polished finger
against her narrow chin. “When was it we saw them last, Eric, in person, not
just on Skype? Do you mind if we wake them?”

Dylan scurried
around the couple and took up a defensive position in front of the stair case.
“Actually, I do. They have their Christmas Sunday school play tomorrow morning
and need to be up by seven.”

Cybil pulled up
short. Her lips thinned into a frown. “Oh. Well, I guess we’ll have to wait
until morning. I’ll just peek at the little angels before I head to bed. It’s
been a long day. We dropped all ours plans at the last minute and rushed to get
here.”

A bad feeling
settled in Dylan’s gut. “Where are you staying?”

The woman’s brow
furrowed under her dusting of silver bangs. “Why here, of course. In the guest
room where we always stay.”

Bob always said
these two just assumed the world did as they wanted. “I’m sleeping in the guest
room.”

“Oh, right. Of
course, you’re living here.” She slipped out of her coat.

He’d basically
changed his whole life to watch over his nieces. “For now.” He inhaled through
his nose. He could say more, but they knew that Elizabeth and Bob and he had
decided it would be a less traumatic situation for the girls if he’d stay here
with them rather than if they’d come to live with him at his house. That was
all that matter.

“No problem.” She
waved him off. “We’ll just sleep in Elizabeth’s room. I’m sure she won’t mind.”

Dylan’s fingers
curled around the banister. “My parents are staying in Bob and Elizabeth’s
room,” he said calmly.

Cybil spun around
to face Eric as if saying, “Would you handle this situation please?”

“Gray and Lilac
are here? I thought they were off somewhere fighting political injustice,” Mr.
Baker said, taking his wife’s coat.

Dylan felt the
vein in his neck and now understood Bob’s blood-pressure problem whenever his
in-laws came to visit. “They had some issues to handle here, plus they also
wanted the girls to have family around them during Christmas week.”

“Huh. Great minds
and all that, I guess you could say.” Baker turned to hang his wife’s coat on
the rack next to the door and peered into the living room. “And who do we have
here?”

Darcy moved away
from the tree and waved. He had no choice but to introduce her now.

“Mrs. and Mr.
Baker, this Darcy Witherspoon,” Dylan said, leading them into the living room.
“A friend of mine.”

“Hi, ya’all.”
Darcy extended her hand to Mr. Baker first. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you
too.”

“It doesn’t sound
like you’re from around here,” Cybil Baker said, accepting Darcy’s hand.

“No, Mrs. Baker, I
am not. Charleston is my home.”

Dylan’s molars
ground. How he wished Black Moose was her home.

“Are you here on
vacation?”

Mr. Baker’s smile
told Dylan the old dog very much appreciated Darcy’s company. He held back his
chuckle at the man’s attempt to be charming.

“Sort of. I’m
visiting a friend.”

“A mutual friend,”
Dylan interjected. “Tom Angleman. You might’ve met him. He owns The Lone Grist
Mill restaurant. Anyway, Tom was busy today working so Darcy helped me and the
girls cut down and decorate this tree.”

“It’s beautiful,”
Cybil said, admiring the evergreen. Then she turned to face him, cutting
Darcy’s thank you short. The older woman’s pointed stare put him on the
defense. “Since you’re the man of the house now, while our Elizabeth and Bob
are away, where would you like us to sleep?”

His first few
suggestions stayed behind his clamped lips. They were his nieces’ grandparents
after all. Relatives. “How long are you staying?” He asked calmly.

“We’re meeting our
friend at the airport on December 26
^th
at four in the afternoon.”
Baker stood by the fire he’d built for him and Darcy to enjoy, and rubbed his
hands together. “So we’ll leave here after breakfast.”

That was only
three days. Three nights, including tonight.

The back door
opening turned his head. A second later, his mother called not too loudly,
“We’re home early. Nate developed a bad cold, delivering the food baskets
today, so we cut the evening short. Darcy? Dylan?”

This was going to
be fun.

Lilac and Gray
rounded the archway and froze. Dylan wished he could take a picture of their
surprised, aghast expressions to send to Bob. His older brother would
definitely get a chuckle, especially since he was far away and his little bro
had to handle them. “Mom, Dad, look who decided to join us for Christmas.”

His mother
recovered first. “Well, hi. We didn’t know you were coming. Welcome.”

Cybil immediately
crossed to Lilac and kissed her cheeks and then did the same to Gray. “It’s so
nice to see both of you again. You look so… country healthy.”

“Well, we are
country folks.” Lilac smile was genuinely forced.

“It’s nice to see
you again too.” Gray took Baker’s hand.

The firmness of
their grips told Dylan the title for best grandpa was on.

Poor Jillian and
Katy.

An hour later,
over coffee, tea, and Darcy’s delicious cookies, it was settled that Gray and
Lilac would stay at Dylan’s house since they were familiar with the place and
had most of their belongings still stored in the van. Dylan however, had most
of his personal items upstairs.

As much as he
claimed he could rough it out at the house for three days, his parents insisted
he stayed there with the girls. Whispered words like “protect the girls” and
“there would be less chance of carnage” were used by both his parents. So to
save the girls, he relinquished his home and gave up any chance of spending any
alone time with Darcy, showing her his art, and learning what it could be like
to hold her in his arms all night.

That night, while
she lay alone in bed at Tom’s house, Darcy admitted to herself she was disappointed
by Gray and Lilac’s decision to stay at Dylan’s place. She really had looked
forward to spending hours alone with him, wrapping and other things.

The next day,
every time Santa rubbed his nose with hers for the benefit of the Sunday school
children, showing them how much he loved Mrs. Claus, her heart thumped against
the extra padding of her costume. She wanted to lay Santa so freakin’ bad. It
wasn’t her hormones just doing the talk. It was her head and heart, too.

Watching Dylan
with his nieces was one thing, but seeing him bringing joy and laughter to both
the young and old of Black Moose was an entirely different experience that
cemented him in her heart. He truly was a good man.

“So, Mrs. Claus.”
Dylan draped an arm around her pillow-packed waist. “What are you thinking
about?”

She stared up into
dark eyes. They weren’t blue like Santa was portrayed to have, but no one
cared. The twinkle was the same. “How much fun this is,” she lied.

“It is, isn’t it?”
he said, surveying the noisy church hall. “I think next year, Bob and I will
need to flip a coin and see who gets the job. I’m glad you’re having a great
time.”

Her heart fell.

He caught her eye.
“What’s wrong?”

Who would play his
Mrs. Santa if she wasn’t here? “Oh, nothing. I was just wondering if any
churches in my area do this type of thing. I’m sure there are. I’d like to do
it again.”

He said softly,
“Be my Mrs. Claus.”

She jerked back,
staring up at him. “What?”

He grabbed her
hand and kept her from moving further away from his side. “I know it’s fast,
but my dad said he and Mom decided to get married within a week and they’ve
been married for over thirty-five years. Look at them—” He pointed toward Gray
and Lilac who stood near the dessert table, laughing it up with a few of the
locals and the Bakers. “They’re still going strong.”

Shock widened her
eyes. “You discussed marrying me with your father?”

“No. He discussed
it with me. He said he saw the way I looked at you. It was the same way he
looked at my mom. He was in love. And so am I.”

The noise, the
walls and the air seemed to close in on her. And the towns’ people all appeared
to glance their way with growing interest.

“Wait.” Her heart
beat wildly in her chest like an egg timer gone wacky. She pressed a finger to
her temple, knocking her wire-framed glasses off angle. “This is happening too
fast. I can’t breathe.”

He hustled her
outside the hall and across the parking lot to a snow covered gazebo that
probably was the setting for many marriages.

“Take slow, deep
breaths.” He rubbed her back. No one had ever sounded that concerned over her.

The cold air
assaulted her lungs and after a several quick breaths, she breathed somewhat
normally, but then she began to shiver.

Dylan pulled her
into his arms and wrapped his warmth around her. His fake beard tickled her
nose. She brushed it aside and was treated to a whiff of his musky cologne.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded against
his shoulder.

“Good.” He
continued to hold her until she completely relaxed.

She closed her
eyes and enjoyed the feel of his heart against her palm and his warm breath on
her skin as he murmured his loving thoughts to her. She sighed. She could stay
right here, like this forever.

Darcy blinked.
Could falling in love be that easy? Could everything that had mattered to her
just a week ago no longer hold the importance it once had? Could she really be
holding her life, her future, right here?

She pushed against
Dylan’s chest and tilted her face up to his. “Yes.”

It was Dylan’s
turn to look shocked. “What?”

“I’ll marry you.
Right now. Right here, if you want.”

A huge smile
bloomed on Santa’s lips. “Amos Knittle is the town clerk. He’s inside. There is
no waiting period in Vermont. Or did you want to wait and have your family
here, too?”