Holiday Wedding (Holiday Romance-Spicy Version #2)

25

Sunday, December 23

1 day until the wedding

Jenny

It’s a man,” Dean says excitedly, staring at the phone in his hands. I crack the hard candy, grape this time, between my teeth with a loud crunch. Dean doesn’t respond to the sound, which makes me smile. He’s grown familiar with my various noises over the past couple of days. I still can’t believe it, can’t believe I’m snowbound with Dean Maddox. It’s been bliss, this time together. We’ve gotten to know each other better than ever before. If it weren’t for Gwen’s wedding, I wouldn’t want the snow to ever melt.

“What man?” I swallow the candy and chase it with a sip of water.

We’re sitting next to each other at the small table in my hotel room. A couple of dry pine needles have fallen onto the floor from my Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I remind myself to sweep them up later.

Dean holds out his phone to me. My cell phone died on the second day with no way to recharge it since the power’s still out. He’s been conserving his battery, only turning it on for 10 minutes in the morning and 10 at night. Mostly he uses it to check up on his family and on Caleb, who’s in better shape than us. Caleb’s also stuck in his apartment, but at least he’s got power. Dean says Caleb sounds strained, though. Probably stressed about the wedding and Gwen being stranded in Denver.

Dean cackles, a triumphant sound I haven’t heard from him before. “Dummy finally made a mistake.”

I take the phone from his hand. It’s open to the Secret Santa website, the recent photos tab. There’s a picture of Caleb’s building, taken from the spot we staked out before, where the photographer hides behind the trees. In this photo, Caleb has stuck his head out of the front door. He’s looking around with an air of displeasure, his mouth turned down and his brows lowered, like the five feet of snow before him is a personal offense.

I’m confused by Dean’s jubilant expression. “What? We already know Caleb’s a man.”

“Not Caleb,” he says, “the stalker.” He jabs at the screen, directing my attention to the left side. “He included his hand in the shot.”

I bring the phone closer to my face and peer at it. Sure enough, in the bottom corner of the photo is a hand pressed against a tree trunk, like the photographer lost his balance as he took the picture and had to reach out so he didn’t fall.

“You’re right. That is a hand.”

“A man’s hand.” Dean comes behind me and rests his chin on my shoulder so he can look at the phone too. “See? Hairy knuckles.”

The pale hand braced against the tree is blocky, with short fingernails and hair across the back of it. I jerk my gaze up to Dean, my eyes widening as the implications of the photo hit me.

“This is great. We can eliminate 50 percent of the population.” I think briefly about my computer program, the one I made to search for the stalker, but it still hasn’t come up with any results. Apparently, my coding skills were too rusty.

I tap at the screen of Dean’s phone.

“What are you doing?” he asks, watching with interest.

“Emailing Ron and Bradly, the reporters. I’m telling them to focus on men.” I’ve kept in contact with my reporter friends. So far, they’re just as clueless as Dean and I have been. I sign the email and hit send.

Dean places a whisper of a kiss in the crook of my neck. With a sigh, my eyelids flutter shut. I lean my head to the side to give him better access. My hand comes up to wrap around his head, pushing through his thick, soft hair.

He removes his lips from my skin. “Don’t stop,” I tell him, not opening my eyes. Strong arms slide under my legs and back, surprising me. I let out a yelp as he picks me up easily, as if I were light as a feather. Dean carries me over to the bed and tosses me high in the air. I land on the bedspread with a muffled thump, laughing.

“If you wanted to snuggle, you could have just said so.”

“I always want to cuddle up with you,” he says and grins, a fact he’s proved repeatedly. We’ve spent hours holding each other, talking and kissing.

“You didn’t that first night,” pops out of me, so quickly that my hand flies up to cover my mouth, but it’s too late.

Dean pauses and sits down next to me.

“Never mind,” I tell him, mad at myself for bringing it up. “It’s old news.”

He frowns, quirking his mouth in a perplexed way. “What?”

I shake my head.

He sets his jaw and crosses his arms, an immovable force.

I fall back onto the pillow and stare up at the cracked paster ceiling, mentally scolding myself. “That first night. When you were wearing my too-small bathrobe. You didn’t want to be in the same bed as me.”

I sound insecure and pathetic. I hate it and yet I can’t stop. These last few days have been like living in paradise. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the rejection to come. For him to see all my imperfections.

“I wasn’t wearing anything under that robe,” he says slowly, brow furrowed as if he’s trying, and failing, to figure me out.

“I didn’t mind,” I say in a small voice, unable to look at him.

“I wanted to hide how much I like the idea of sleeping next to you.” His baritone has deepened, tinged with embarrassment.

That gets my attention. I prop myself up on my elbows. “Oh?”

“You thought I didn’t come to bed easily that night because I wasn’t attracted to you?” he asks, like he can’t understand the language I’m speaking.

I’m back to looking at anything that’s not him, because he guessed correctly. That’s exactly what I was thinking. It hadn’t occurred to me that he could want me. With the exception of Gwen, no one wants me. At least not for long.

I turn my gaze to the window where the snow is lightening into occasional spats of flurries broken by periods of calm. The weather service on Dean’s phone says the worst of the storm is over. We’ll leave this room eventually. What will happen to us then? Most likely I’ll go back to being Jenny, the best friend in Los Angeles, and he’ll go back to being Dean, the bodyguard in New York. The idea of it sends me into a pit of despair.

“Jenny,” he says in a commanding voice, one that forces me to look at him. “Is that what you thought?”

“Yes,” I admit. “It never occurred to me you’d be interested in me. Why would it? We fought all the time and...” I gesture down at myself, as if that explains what I’m trying to say.

He’s not touching me. He just sits and stares at me with a quizzical frown. “What are you talking about? I’ve been attracted to you for a long time. Years even. Do you remember when we first met?”

I scratch my forehead and think. It only takes a second because, of course, I haven’t forgotten. “Gwen and Caleb had gotten back together. They were in their dating phase, when they would get dressed up in disguises and go out. I came here to New York to visit Gwen that summer.”

I’d stumbled over my words the first time I saw Dean. One look at his stern yet handsome features and muscular body had me tongue-tied. I don’t think I even said a proper “hello,” just nodded mutely when we were introduced. He had his professional robot face on then, remote and icy.

“We all went to the Central Park Zoo to see the seals.” I grow wistful as the memory takes hold. “They kept swimming right up to the edge of the tank. They would splash us. Gwen got soaked, and Caleb lent her his jacket.” It all comes back to me vividly. The chemical smell of the seal’s water, how sticky my wet shirt felt, the sun’s warmth on my bare arms and legs.

“You wore a red dress with white polka dots,” Dean says so quietly it barely registers.

Lost in the memory, I continue, “I recall thinking how nice that would be, to have someone take care of me like that. To choose me out of the millions of women in the world.”

“What about the flowers? Do you remember those?” he asks in a way that tells me this is important.

“The petunias?”

“The flowers over by the water fountain,” he prompts.

I pull up the image. A sun-faded ceramic planter as tall as my waist, full of flowers. Bright purples, red, and blue. Tiny, white-edged vines trailing over the side. How the blossoms bobbed when I touched them. Their fragrance, organic and earthy. The slick feeling of sap on my fingertips. It all comes back to me.

I sit up and glare at him, offended from reliving the day. “I smelled them, and you made fun of me. That was when I started to dislike you.”

“You stuffed your nose so far into them that you got pollen all over it. Looked like you’d been sniffing yellow paint.” Laughter bubbles up from his chest.

Just like he laughed at me back then. I’d been so embarrassed. I wanted to impress him, but instead I was caught making a mess like a toddler. Pollen all over my face, hands, and dress.

“You were rude. You made fun of me.”

“I was rude?” His voice rises an octave. “I lent you my handkerchief, and you called me a grandpa.”

My lower lip juts out. “It was a fabric handkerchief. Who even uses those anymore?”

“You asked me if I was wearing Depends, the adult underwear. I’m only 34!”

My mouth twitches. “You have to admit—that was kind of funny.”

“It was funny. I thought you were funny and beautiful and smart. I watched you all day, skipping through that park like a kid with your skirt swishing and those long legs of yours. All that gorgeous skin. I had to remind myself constantly that I was supposed to keep track of Caleb, not you.” He tilts his head, his gaze sharpening. “You still haven’t remembered the flowers.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and cast my mind back. “You mean after the pollen incident? You put a flower in my hair, behind my ear.” I can picture that blossom now. Its delicate petals were peach with a faint blush of red at the base, exactly like the ones at the flower market.

“What did I say to you about that?” His hand gently cups my calf. I glance down, enjoying the way his pale fingers contrast against my skin. Dean drags his thumb over me. His touch distracts me.

Think, I tell myself. Think.

After a minute, it comes to me. “You said something about how women in Hawaii put the flower over one ear if they’re taken and the other if they’re single, but you never told me which ear was which.”

He smiles, pleased I got it right. “A flower behind the right ear means the woman is available. Behind the left ear means they’re dating, engaged, or married. I spent a year stationed on Oahu after boot camp.”

“You tucked the flower behind my ear.” I lift my hand, mimicking what he did that day. My heart had stuttered when he brushed back my hair and stuck the blossom in. I didn’t know it then, but it was the closest I would get to him for years.

“Which ear?”

I can almost feel it, that phantom bloom, and how his breath had ghosted over my face.

“Which ear did I place the flower behind?” Dean breathes out, his eyes locked on mine.

I gasp when I realize it’s my left hand I’m holding to my ear.

He nods and says, “It was your left side. I claimed you back then, even though I had no right.” His eyes drop to my leg, where his fingers are so long they can wrap around my ankle and still overlap.

“As for the rest, I already told you. After that day, I knew you were a weakness I couldn’t afford, more for your sake than mine. I found reasons to be mad at you, to keep us apart.”

I’m stunned, my heart at his feet. Any reservations I have melt away by that story of long-ago Dean pining after long-ago me.

“I wanted you then, Jenny. I want you now.” There are flames in his eyes, the steady glow of a bonfire at night.

“You said my name. Jenny. You’ve been saying it the past few days.” I twist my fingers together in my lap, overcome by all the confessions from this last hour, but even more overcome by the idea that someone might want me. Choose me just as I am.

“Did I?” His smile solidifies, becomes brighter.

“Yes. The first time was when we…um…” I’m awkward, cheeks flushing at the memory of our first kiss.

“We what?” he teases.

“You know,” I can’t look at him. If I see that dimple, I’ll lose it.

“Kissed?” A husky chuckle.

I nod, blushing furiously.

“Jenny’s not what I want to call you.”

My head swings his way. It’s been such a blissful couple of days. I swear if he says something aggravating right now… With trepidation, I ask, “What do you want to call me?”

“Mine,” Dean says.

“I want to call you mine.”