A Vampire for Christmas(100)
A few seconds later they passed under the overhang, and he could see the two vampires continue on and heard the bells chiming downstairs. Whoever the kid was, he was now in the diner. Eagan hurried back to the living room to grab the crate. This could be the first break in the case.
Della was waiting for him at the bottom of the steps looking a bit puzzled. “Did you have trouble finding it?”
Damn, he realized he’d been gone too long. “Not at all. I got a phone call I had to take.”
And of course she accepted the excuse without question. As an undercover cop, he was used to lying to everybody. It never bothered him, figuring the end justified the means. So why did he feel like such a creep for lying to this one woman?
He thrust the crate at her. “Show me what you want where.”
Fearing he’d sounded like a jerk, he added, “Please.”
Della headed toward the front of the diner to unload the crate. As she unpacked the crate, she carefully touched each item, treating each one as if it were precious and made of gold instead of plastic and paint. When she was done, she handed them out to her friends, letting them decide where each Santa, reindeer, and snowman would look best.
When they were all busy, she handed Eagan another pair of wreaths made of jingle bells and bows to hang. He took down a pair of pictures and replaced them with the wreaths. When that was done, she asked him to set a dancing Santa on a high shelf out of the reach of small children. He could only be grateful for that much. After setting it off twice, he was ready to heave it against the wall.
When everything had been dispersed, Della walked through the room, touching a decoration here, patting a friend on the shoulder there and straightening one of the wreaths just a hair. Finally, when she’d made the rounds, she turned back to Eagan with a huge grin. “It’s perfect!”
But her smile quickly disappeared. “I take that back. I forgot something. I bought it to hang in the center of the room.”
Eagan dragged the ladder into the middle of the room while she disappeared into the kitchen, where he could hear her muttering under her breath.
Finally, she hooted in triumph. “Found it!”
She came back into the main room holding a ball of what looked like herbs tied together with a bow. She handed it up to him on the ladder. He slipped the loop over the hook and started down the ladder. Before he could collapse it to take it back downstairs, Harry spoke up.
Wait a minute, young fellow! You and Della are standing under the mistletoe. Don’t tell me you’re foolish enough not to take advantage of that! When I was your age, we relished such moments. ’Tis the season after all.”
Eagan wasn’t sure which he was having a harder time processing: being called young fellow by a man who had to be decades younger than he was or that he was going to have to kiss Della in front of everybody. There was no way to avoid it without hurting her feelings and alienating most of her friends.
As far as the lady herself, she’d backed up half a step. He suspected she was about to chastise Harry for putting both of them in such an awkward position. He could let her go ahead, shifting the attention back to the old man.
But maybe this was the one opportunity he’d ever have to find out if Della tasted every bit as sweet as she looked. Evidently his curiosity was running hotter than his common sense because he held out his hand with a wink and waited for the lady to take the dare.
CHAPTER FIVE
DELLA FOCUSED ON Eagan’s hand for several seconds before she could work up enough courage to look him in the eye. To make matters worse, her friends were chanting “Kiss him! Kiss him!”
It didn’t help that last night she’d dreamed about what it would be like to be held in those powerful arms and how that straight slash of a mouth would feel. Well, now was her one chance to find out if her subconscious had come close to the reality.
Placing her hand in Eagan’s somehow carried more weight than it should have. The palm-to-palm connection between them sparked and sizzled. When had the room gotten so hot? Eagan tugged her closer, wrapping her in his embrace firmly enough to say he meant it, gently enough not to leave her feeling trapped.
Shall we dazzle them?”
The teasing note in his whispered question gave her the courage to nod. When his lips settled over hers, the rest of the world faded away, leaving just the two of them standing there amidst the twinkling lights and Christmas music. If anyone had asked her at that moment what she wanted from Santa, she would’ve said nothing more than this amazing gift from a man she hardly knew.