Merry and Bright(50)

“It’s you, Hope. It’s all you.” He squeezed her hand, running his thumb over her knuckles. “But there’s something you should know.” He brought her hand up to his mouth. “I’m falling for you. Hard and fast.”

“You—” She let out a breath and touched his jaw. “Really?”

“Yeah. So what do you say, are you going to go out with me when I move here?”

A bone-deep warmth filled her. “I think I could clear my schedule now and again.”

“Good.” He slid a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled into her eyes. “You asked why I didn’t leave. It’s because I asked you to accept my help, without first telling you how much you’ve helped me.”

“Come on. I didn’t help you with anything.”

“Yes, you did. You made me remember to feel for something other than just work, to feel something with my entire heart and soul.”

Emotion welled up and threatened her air supply. “That’s convenient,” she managed. “Because my heart and soul seem to want to be with yours.”

His eyes were shiny, so damn shiny she couldn’t look away. “The best Christmas present I’ve ever had,” he murmured, and leaned in and kissed her, giving her the best Christmas present she’d ever had—him.





MS. HUMBUG





1


Three days before Christmas, City Planner Cami Bennett looked at her reflection in the Town Hall employee bathroom mirror and gave herself the silent pep talk. You can do this. You can do something besides work your tail off. In fact, having fun is just like work, only . . . better.

Probably.

Oh, who was she kidding? She liked the big O’s—order and organization.

Orgasms would have been a nice addition to that list, but due to being a little uptight—and, okay, a lot anal—those kinds of O’s were few and far between.

Now the big city hall annual Christmas party was later tonight, a masked ball where “fun would be had by all,” and she was required to go.

Oh, goodie.

It wasn’t that she was the female equivalent of Scrooge, but more that everyone at work always seemed to go on and on about the holiday ad nauseum—decorations, gifts, travel plans. Somehow, they’d all built themselves personal lives as well as careers, something Cami hadn’t managed to do, and Christmastime just emphasized the failure on her part. She hated the pressure of the parties, the expense of buying her family gifts they didn’t need or want, and, most especially, the loneliness.

Until now she hadn’t had much time to think about it, not with the huge town shake-up that had involved the mayor and his very pretty boyfriend’s private sex tapes being stolen and posted on the Internet for perusal by anyone with $29.95. It’d been the biggest scandal Blue Eagle had seen in decades, and no one yet knew how the rest of the town’s staff was going to fare when all the cards finished falling.

Especially since the now-ex-mayor’s boyfriend had turned out to be two weeks shy of legal age and the son of the D.A.

Ouch.

The front page of the Sierra Daily had showed a picture of Tom Roberts, stripped of his mayor’s title, being led out of his office in handcuffs.

Talk about airing your dirty laundry in public.

A couple of councilmen had been dragged through the mud as well, one with a paternity scandal and the other with a bank scandal. Both accusations looked false, but were ugly nevertheless.

Morale had never been lower in Blue Eagle.

A soft sound came from one of the bathroom stalls, a sort of . . . mewl. “Excuse me,” Cami said to the closed door. “Are you okay?”

The only answer was a whimper.

Concerned, Cami moved closer. “Do you need help?”

“Oh, God. Yes!”

Cami bent down and looked beneath the stall. She could see a pair of Jimmy Choo black toeless pumps, the ones Cami had drooled over in Nordstrom’s but had not bought, choosing instead to pay her mortgage for the month.

Facing the opposite direction of the Choos was a pair of men’s black leather dress shoes, equally expensive, and Cami went still. She knew a man who wore shoes like that. Ned Kitridge. He was a city councilman, and her casual date for the past two months.

Embarrassment warred with fury.

Fury won.

Before her eyes, the woman’s pumps lifted off the ground and vanished. There was a thunk against the stall door, and a long female sigh of pleasure.

And then the sound of a zipper.

In shock, Cami watched as an empty condom packet hit the floor.

Steaming, horrified, she staggered back. Even the bathroom was seeing more action than she.

And with Ned, Ned, a man who hadn’t made a move on her, not once in six dates!

As her ego hit the floor next to the condom wrapper, Cami grabbed her purse and exited the bathroom, nearly blinded by an unhealthy mix of anger and mortification. But could she just slam out of the building? No. She couldn’t abandon her compulsive, organized, anal routine. Hating that she couldn’t, she meticulously shut off her adding machine and the light over her drawing board, glancing at the new sticky note on her computer.




Cami,





I need to talk to you before the ball. Meet me in the conference room at 7:45.