It Must Be Christmas Read online

  The hot water ran in rivulets over her breasts. God, she did. It had been a very long time since she’d felt like this. The bigger question was, would she let something happen? Because they barely knew each other. Attraction, desire … were all well and good. But it felt weird, knowing that the mystery man she’d been fantasizing about was flesh and blood, in her house, and unless her radar was way off, interested in her. Despite the fact that she looked like death warmed over this morning.

  “Oh, stop analyzing and get out of the shower already,” she muttered to herself, shutting off the spray. There was no rush for anything. They could totally take it one step at a time. Get to know each other better. She did have some self-control, after all.

  The air in the bathroom was still cold and she hurried to dry herself and get into her clothes. It would take too long to blow-dry her hair, so she simply squeezed out the water with a towel, brushed it, and held it back off her face with a thin black headband. She smoothed on some moisturizer, swiped a bit of lip balm over her lips, and decided that was enough—she didn’t want to appear too obvious.

  She pressed a hand to her stomach, took a deep breath, and opened the bathroom door.

  The cottage was already warming up, thanks to the thermostat and the fire she could hear crackling behind the grate. Entering the living room, she saw Dave squatting before the fireplace, adding some small sticks to the dancing flames. She hadn’t actually had a man back to her place since moving to Jewell Cove. Her little living room was changed just by having him in it. It felt smaller. More alive. Over by the sofa, the baby slept on, his head at a slight angle, one of Charlie’s throw blankets draped over him.

  “You’re very good at building a fire,” she said quietly from the doorway.

  He looked over his shoulder. “I could claim it was my military training, but the truth is, I was in the outdoors a lot as a kid. My dad’s a fisherman on the Chesapeake.”

  She went to his side and squatted too, holding her hands out to the warmth of the fire. “Is that where you learned to fix boats?”

  He nodded. “Yep.”

  “But you didn’t go back there when you left the army?”

  “I did for a while.” He threw two thicker logs on the fire and closed the screen.

  Talk about basic answers. Charlie frowned. “And then you moved here to be closer to your daughter?”

  He rested his forearms on his knees. “Yes. I did my time, but it’s so hard to be a SEAL and a dad at the same time. George Adams is actually an old friend of my dad’s. He offered me a job, and that lets me support myself and be close to her.”

  Charlie was curious about how his ex fit into all of this, but didn’t want to ask. Instead she focused on his daughter, who he clearly doted on. “What’s her name?”

  “Nora. Nora Emily Christensen.”

  Christensen. Not Ricker. Bit by bit Charlie was beginning to realize that the situation between Dave and his ex was complicated.

  “That’s a beautiful name,” Charlie replied, standing up. “Now, the fire’s going, I’m warmed up, and I promised you good coffee.”

  She left him in front of the fire and went to the kitchen to put on the kettle. While it was heating she got out coffee beans, her grinder, press, and frother. She put the remaining pastries on a pretty plate and ground the beans, and then when the water boiled, she warmed the press and mugs and put the milk in the microwave to heat.

  It was a slightly more finicky process than using a regular coffeemaker, but it was worth it, in Charlie’s opinion. Within a few minutes she had freshly pressed coffee with a rich swirl of frothed milk added. She put both cups and the pastries on a small tray and carried it all into the living room.

  Dave was still sitting on the floor in front of the fire, staring at the flames.

  “Hey,” she said, putting the tray down on a small coffee table. “You don’t have to sit on the floor, you know.”

  He looked over at her and smiled, some of the tension gone from his face. “Just watching the fire. You’ve got a nice place here, Charlie. It suits you.”

  She liked the light colors—white, with bits of creamy beige and blue and greens. It reminded her of the ocean and sand, very soothing and relaxing. “Thanks. It’s the first place I’ve ever decorated myself, for myself.” She’d liked the cottage so much that after her first six months of renting, she’d bought it from the owner.

  He laughed. “I’m not much of a decorator. Then again, I didn’t need to be. The Navy had it covered. And now I’m renting, which suits me fine.”

  “Have some coffee while it’s hot,” she suggested. She nearly sat on the sofa but decided the rug in front of the fire was fine for her too. She sat, cross-legged, handed Dave his mug, and grabbed her own, then put the plate of pastries between them.

  “This is good,” he complimented, taking a sip. “Damn. Really good.”

  “Fresh beans and a press. Makes all the difference,” she replied, taking a sip of her own. She reached for a pain au chocolat and a paper napkin. The flaky pastry sent wisps of crumbs flying at her first bite, but she didn’t care. Butter and chocolate together was heavenly.

  Dave snagged a sugared doughnut from the assortment and bit into it. For a few minutes they munched happily, in comfortable silence. What was amazing was that they didn’t feel the need to make small talk or break the stillness.

  Her coffee was half gone when Dave finally restarted the conversation. “So,” he said, wiping his sugary fingers on a napkin, “you know a bit about me. How about you? Where did you grow up? Why did you become a doctor?”

  The buttery croissant went papery in her mouth. She didn’t like talking about herself much. “Oh, my story’s pretty boring.”

  “I doubt that. Especially since you’re avoiding the topic.” He leaned back on his hands. It made his shoulders look incredibly muscled, she noticed.

  “Okay, so here’s the short version. I grew up in Boston. My mother teaches at the Berklee College of Music and my father works in clinical research for a pharmaceutical company. My dad is second-generation Chinese, and my mom’s family probably came over on the Mayflower.” She rolled her eyes at him and continued on. “They have very busy careers and very high expectations of their one and only child.”

  “So you became a doctor.”

  “Sure. After several years of violin and piano lessons, courtesy of my mother, and a lot of pressure to major in biochem.” She let out a breath. “There were good points to that too, though. They were so busy with their own careers and social lives that I stayed under the radar quite often. And I did want to become a doctor.” Eventually, anyway. Lucky for her. She couldn’t imagine what might have happened if she’d hated medicine.

  He looked at her steadily. “It sounds lonely.”

  Her heart gave a little thump. “It was, actually. And I know they’re disappointed that I’m a family doctor in a small town and not doing important research like my dad or being a top trauma doctor like my best friend, Lizzie. But I’m happy with my choices. I like my job and I like it here.”

  And maybe she was still lonely at times. But she’d work on it. After all, she’d taken the step of volunteering for the church Christmas decorating, and look what had come from that. Sunday morning coffee and sweets in front of a fire with a gorgeous man. Progress.

  She smiled to herself.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “If I told you, you’d get a big fat head, so never mind.” She pushed away the plate, her sweet tooth finally satisfied. “You make me laugh, Dave, and that’s kind of nice.”

  He put down his coffee cup, then took hers and put it down too, on the brick hearth in front of the fireplace. Her pulse hammered frantically, beating at the base of her wrists. It was the kind of move she expected a person made before they made a bigger move. When he turned back to her, she swallowed thickly, nervous and excited all at once.

  He put his hands on the sides of her thighs and pulled her forward, so she was sitting besi