Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor (Friday Harbor #1)(34)

“Come in.” His scruffy, early-morning voice was pleasant to her ears. She led the dog into the house.

A smile entered Mark’s blue-green eyes. “Renfield,” he said, and lowered to his haunches. The dog went to him eagerly. Mark petted him more vigorously than Maggie usually did, roughing up the rolls of his neck, rubbing and scratching. Renfield adored it. In the absence of a tail, he wagged his entire back end, managing something resembling a Shakira dance.

“You,” Mark told the dog conversationally, “look like a Picasso painting. In his Cubist period.”

Panting ecstatically, Renfield licked at his wrist and flattened slowly onto his stomach, his legs pointing in the four cardinal directions of the compass.

Even in her anxiety, Maggie had to laugh at the dog’s slo-mo collapse. “Sure you won’t change your mind?” she asked.

Mark glanced up at her with a lingering trace of amusement. “I’m sure.” He unfastened the leash from the collar, stood to face Maggie, and gently took the handle from her. As their fingers brushed, she felt her pulse quicken to hummingbird speed, and her knees threatened to wobble. She thought briefly about how good it would feel to slide bonelessly to the floor as Renfield had.

“How is Holly?” she managed to ask.

“Great. Eating Jell-O and watching cartoons. The fever spiked one more time during the night, and then it was gone. She’s a little weak.” Mark studied her intently, as if he was trying to absorb every detail of her. “Maggie…I didn’t mean to scare you last night.”

Her heart began to pump hard and fast. “I wasn’t scared. I have no idea why it happened. It must have been the wine.”

“We didn’t have wine. Sam had wine.”

Heat shot to the surface of her skin. “Well, the point is, we got carried away. Probably because of the moonlight.”

“It was dark.”

“And it was late. Around midnight—”

“It was ten o’clock.”

“—and you were feeling grateful because I’d helped with Holly, and—”

“I wasn’t grateful. No, I was grateful, but that isn’t why I kissed you.”

Her voice was strung with desperation. “Basically, I don’t feel that way about you.”

Mark gave her a skeptical glance. “You kissed me back.”

“As a friendly gesture. The way friends kiss.” She scowled when she saw that he wasn’t buying it. “I kissed you back out of politeness.”

“Like an etiquette thing?”

“Yes.”

Mark reached out and pulled her against him, his arms wrapping around her stiff body. Maggie was too stunned to move or make a sound. His head lowered, and his mouth was on hers in a firm, slow, devastating kiss that sent pleasure shuddering through her limbs. She went weak in a flush of heat, opening helplessly to him.

One of his hands wove gently into her hair, toying with the curls, shaping to her head. The world fell away, and all she knew was pleasure and need and a sweet, subversive ache that went all through her. By the time his mouth broke from hers, she was trembling from head to toe.

Mark looked directly into her dazed eyes, his brows lifting infinitesimally, as if to ask, Point made?

Her chin dipped in a tiny nod.

Carefully Mark eased Maggie’s head to his shoulder and waited until her legs regained enough strength to support her.

“I’ve got to take care of some things,” she heard him say over her head, “and that includes resolving my situation with Shelby.”

Drawing back, Maggie looked up at him anxiously. “Please don’t break up with her because of me.”

“It has nothing to do with you.” Mark brushed his lips over the tip of her nose. “It’s because Shelby deserves a hell of a lot more than to be the woman someone settles for. I thought at one time that she would be right for Holly, and that would be enough. But lately I’ve realized it won’t be right for Holly if it’s not right for me, too.”

“You’re too much for me to handle right now,” she said baldly. “I’m not ready.”

His fingers played in her hair, combing slowly through the curls. “When do you think you’ll be ready?”

“I don’t know. I need a transitional person first.”

“I’ll be your transitional guy.”

Even now, in her distress, he could almost make her smile. “Then who’s going to be the guy after that?”

“I’ll be that guy, too.”

A despairing laugh escaped her. “Mark. I don’t—”

“Wait,” he said gently. “It’s too soon for us to have this talk. For now, there’s nothing you need to worry about. Come inside with me, and we’ll go see Holly.”

Renfield lumbered up and padded after them.

Holly was in the parlor off the kitchen, snuggled on the sofa in a cocoon of quilt and pillows. She had lost the glazed, fever-fretted look of the previous day, but she was still wan and fragile. At the sight of Maggie, she smiled and held out her arms.

Maggie went to the child and pulled her close. “Guess who I brought?” she asked against the light tangled banners of Holly’s hair.

“Renfield!” the girl exclaimed.

Recognizing his name, the bulldog readily approached the sofa with his bulging eyes and perpetual grimace. Holly regarded him doubtfully, shrinking back as he put his front paws on the edge of the sofa and stood on his hind legs. “He’s funny-looking,” she whispered to Maggie.