Small Town Christmas Read online

  “A reminder of what we had.”

  “What we had was a fling,” Sandy said. “A very hot, wonderful fling, but then you left.”

  “I had contractual obligations,” he reminded her. “And you’re not remembering all of it.” He brushed his lips across hers. “We said we’d keep in touch because we had something.”

  “Chemistry.”

  “Yeah. Let me remind you just how much.”

  This kiss was deeper, hotter, and far more intimate as he opened his mouth over hers. She told herself to shove him away, to regain some badly needed dignity, but her brain sent the wrong message to her fingertips, and she hauled him closer instead, pushing herself against him. He was hard. Everywhere. She was on the edge, and he’d barely touched her. This did not say much about her will to resist him.

  And truth be told, she had just about forgotten why she wanted to.

  Because he made you fall for him—hard—and then he walked his sweet ass right out of your life. It hit her like a bucket of cold water. She unfisted her hands from his shirt and gave him a push.

  Logan stepped back and looked at her from beneath his sexy, hooded eyes.

  “Don’t do that,” she said, annoyed at her own breathlessness.

  “Don’t kiss you?”

  “Don’t kiss me. Don’t touch me.”

  He smiled. “Because you can’t resist me?”

  His smile weakened her knees. She gave him another push and then slid into her car again. “And don’t do that either.”

  “Talk?”

  “Smile.” She turned the key and started her car. “In fact, don’t anything in my presence. Go back to your bigger-than-life world, where women drape their panties on your hotel room doorknob and scream your name and want to be with you.”

  “I don’t want to be with any of them. It’s Christmas, and I want to be with you.”

  But could she really believe that? “You should go home, Logan.”

  He was quiet, too quiet, and she made the mistake of looking at him. He was standing there all leanly muscled and gorgeous by moonlight. “That’s the thing, Sandy,” he said, his voice low and husky. “I am home.”

  Until the season starts up again, she told herself, and revved her engine. “Stand back. I don’t want to run over your foot.”

  Not a stupid man by any means, he took a step back, but his eyes never left hers. “I’m going to prove myself to you, Sandy.”

  Afraid of him doing just that, she hit the gas and drove off into the night. Don’t look back…

  She totally looked back. Logan was standing in the middle of the lot watching her go.

  Sandy spent the evening staring at her bedroom ceiling, her body bereft and achy, like she’d betrayed it by not taking Logan home with her.

  Sleep, she ordered herself. Concentrate.

  But the truth was, she hadn’t been able to concentrate in months. Sleeping through the night had become a forgotten luxury. Instead, she’d toss and turn, remembering the feel of Logan’s hands and mouth on her body, and how he’d made her burn for him…

  You could be burning right now, instead of lying here staring at the ceiling.

  Ignoring herself, she gave up trying to sleep and showered, then drove to work. She pulled into the lot and blinked in surprise. The old ’72 Buick was gone, replaced by a… BMW.

  She stared at it, then strode into the building. “Where’s the Buick?” she asked Kali, the front-desk clerk.

  Kali was twenty-four, an avid snowboarder who supported her habit with this minimum-wage position, along with her minimum experience. She was quivering with excitement. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Kali flipped her cute blond ponytail to the left and then the right, and when she’d satisfied herself that no one was looking or listening, she leaned close and whispered, “He paid me not to tell you.”

  Sandy already knew damn well who “he” was, but she asked anyway. “Who paid you not to tell me what?”

  “Well, not me exactly…” Kali swiveled her chair and pointed to the side counter, which was set up with three large money jars, each for a different charity, the Humane Society, the senior center, and disabled athletes.

  Each was full. Shocked, Sandy moved closer. “Oh my God.” Each jar had been crammed with money.

  “And those aren’t just one-dollar bills, either,” Kali said in an awed whisper. “Those are twenties. He said he’d have done it in hundreds, but the bank wasn’t prepared to give him that many hundreds on such short notice.”

  Sandy’s eyes narrowed as a bad feeling came over her. “He.”

  Kali smiled. “The cutest guy in the history of all cute guys.” From her desk, she pulled out last week’s People magazine and opened it to the Star Track page. There was Logan in full color in his racing gear, hot, sweaty, gorgeous… holding up a trophy and giving the grin that never failed to melt her panties.

  Oh, no. No, no, no, no… this was bad. “Logan,” she hissed through her teeth.

  “Yes!” Kali beamed at her. “Got it in one.”

  He was just trying to impress her with the charity jars, she told herself. That was all. And he had more money than God himself, so it wasn’t like he’d done that much.

  Except stay up all night and get the old Buick piece-of-shit towed away.

  Replace it with his BMW.

  Go to the bank and clean them out of twenties.

  And stuff the charity money jars full. “Kali, you have one thing to do today.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Find me a Santa.”

  Sandy was head deep in a mountain of paperwork at noon when sushi was delivered.

  From a little place in Seattle, her favorite.

  She eyed the small card that had come with it. She blew out a breath and opened it.

  Sandy,

  Enjoy.

  Love, Logan.

  Love? He wouldn’t know love if it bit him on his very fine ass. But then again, she admitted with a soft sigh, she wasn’t sure she would know love either. Mostly she preferred books or work over men, not that they were beating down her door.

  All she knew was that Logan was back in town—for how long she had no idea. She couldn’t imagine it would be more than a few days—and she couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t do anything but think of him.

  She eyed the sushi, and her mouth watered. Okay, maybe she could eat, just a little…

  Jax Cullen, town mayor and longtime friend, walked by her office and stopped, brows up. “You went out for sushi and didn’t ask me?”

  Jax was leanly muscled and broad shouldered and… well, gorgeous. They’d almost had a thing once, a very long time ago, but they’d settled for a friendship, a comfortable one. “I didn’t go out,” she said. “This was delivered.”

  “You have a secret admirer?”

  “Not so secret. Logan’s back in town.”

  Jax leaned against the doorway, settling in. “You going to admit to him that you’ve been pouting since he left?”

  “Hell, no,” Sandy said.

  “You going to admit to him that you’ve always wanted to stop being a small-town homebody and travel the world?”

  “Hell, no.”

  Jax shook his head. “Are you going to admit anything?”

  “Would you?”

  Jax smiled at that. “You suggesting I out-stubborn you?”

  “I’m not suggesting,” she said. “I’m flat out saying it.”

  “Yeah.” Jax nodded with a laugh. “Maybe. But I’ve changed my ways, and now I’ve got the woman I want in my bed every night. Change your ways, Sandy. He might surprise you.”

  She wasn’t ready to go there. “Don’t let the door hit you on your very fine ass,” she said.

  He laughed again and left, and Sandy spent the afternoon at her desk, with one ear glued for Kali’s footsteps to come down the hall and tell her that she’d located a Santa replacement.

  “Nothing,” Kali said at th