Gina Wilkins - Make-Believe Mistletoe

“No. He owns a successful real estate firm. Spends more time at the office than with his family, but his motto is still Father Knows Best.”

Lucy didn't think he was quite ready to talk directly about his parents or stepparents, so she focused on the slightly less sensitive, but still revealing, subject of his siblings. “Tell me about your other sisters. Your mother's daughters.”

“I know them a little better, since I spent more time with them growing up, but we're not particularly close, either. Eileen's a dental hygienist married to a dentist, and they have a son they call Sammy, after my stepfather, Sam Osborne. Jenny's a full-time homemaker and aspiring children's book writer, married to a defense attorney.

They have a daughter and they're expecting twins. Jenny's heavily into liberal politics and community service, and it annoys her that I have no interest in either.”

Lucy tried to decide if she was imagining a hint of warmth in Banner's voice when he talked about his sisters. She decided after a moment that it was there, just masked. Despite his unemotional facade, Banner was fond of his siblings in his own way. She was convinced that it was primarily his feeling of not truly belonging to either nuclear family that kept him apart from them.

“They all sound nice.”

“I never said they weren't.”

“You just didn't want to spend Christmas with any of them.”

“I simply wasn't in the mood to deal with my parents' competitive games this year. Or to listen to my father's lectures about how I'm wasting my life, or my mother's criticism of my social life-or lack of one.”

For the first time it occurred to Lucy that maybe Banner had actually wanted to spend Christmas with family. That he had chosen to stay away more to avoid any potential conflict than because he really wanted to spend the holiday alone. He would rather spend the holiday by himself than cause more trouble in the families he had spent his life shuttling between.

Looking uncomfortable again, he cleared his throat, glanced at the television, then reached for the remote. “I don't suppose you're interested in college football.”

“Are you kidding? I've followed the games all season. I love watching the bowl games.”

His hand stilled. “Yeah? Who are your favorite teams?”

“Lots of them. But I do have a soft spot for the Georgia Bulldogs and the Florida State Seminoles, since I attended both those universities while I pursued my degrees. Who are your favorites?”

“Since I never went to any college-much less two of them-I have no loyalty to any one particular school. I just like the game.”

Once again the difference in their educational backgrounds seemed to be bothering him. Because she didn't want him dwelling on that again, she snuggled closer to him and said, “Which team's the underdog in this game? I'll cheer for them with you.”

They had their dessert and coffee at half time.

“Good cake,” Banner said, seeming to savor each bite.

“Thanks. It's my aunt's recipe.”

He insisted on carrying the used dishes and coffee cups back into the kitchen, since he had to let the dog out, anyway. She heard the water running and the dishes rattling as he cleaned and put them away.

She was getting to know him a little at a time-mere glimpses into his life, she mused, thinking of his friend's visit earlier. Still, they were moving forward, if only in tiny steps. And she hadn't learned anything yet that made her less interested in him.

She was smiling in welcome when he came back into the room. Something about her expression must have caught him off guard. He paused just inside the doorway, his gaze locked on her mouth. She felt her smile fading as a ripple of response ran through her, leaving a shivery longing behind.

Lifting his gaze to lock with hers, he moved toward her. As if pulled by an invisible string, she rose to meet him. His arms opened, and she stepped into them, tilting her face upward. He kissed her with a hunger that was every bit as intense as it had been before they had made love.

After what seemed like a long time, he broke off the kiss. Laying his cheek against the top of her head, he muttered something she didn't quite catch, though she thought she heard the words, “too much.”

Lucy wasn't sure what he was referring to, but as far as she was concerned there hadn't nearly been enough between them yet. She drew his mouth back down to hers.

By the time this kiss ended, they were moving toward the bedroom. She couldn't have said which one of them took the first step in that direction, but the decision to head that way was obviously mutual.

It occurred to her as they entered the oak-furnished, earth-toned bedroom that she still tended to think of it as the Carters' room. There was so little of Banner's personality displayed that it could have been anyone's bedroom.

Thoughts of decor fled her mind when Banner paused beside the bed and turned to look at her. He seemed to be trying to think of something to say. To save him the trouble, she wrapped her arms around him and lifted her face to his for another kiss. She had decided that he communicated quite well without words.

Lowering her to the bed, he proceeded to demonstrate just how right she was.

“Banner?”

He had been lying on his back in the deepening darkness for some time, not quite asleep, but not fully awake, either. Lucy lay beside him, her curly head snuggled into his shoulder, her warm body draped bonelessly against his. As much as he had enjoyed the sated, companionable silence, he had known it was only a matter of time before Lucy would be compelled to speak.

Though making conversation wasn't his strong suit, he didn't mind so much with Lucy. Never knowing what she was going to say next made things much more interesting, to say the least, than his usual stilted exchanges with others. And because he felt as if she would never judge him for being less than eloquent or lose patience with him for his lack of tact and polish, he was more comfortable talking to her than to most people.

In some ways she reminded him of Polston, who had become his friend precisely because Polston was one of the least judgmental and most laid-back people Banner had ever met. In other very significant ways, of course, Lucy was very different from Polston. More educated, more ambitious, more gregarious-and a hell of a lot more attractive, he thought with a faint smile.

“What?” he asked without looking down at her.

“How many questions do I have left?”

Her game again. “You've asked so many that I've lost count. Let's say you have five left.”

“Not many,” she said, and she sounded as if she spoke through a pout.

His lazy smile deepened. “Better make them count.”

“Okay, where do you see yourself in ten years, when you're forty?”

His smile disappeared. Trust Lucy to verbalize a question that had been nagging at the back of his mind for some time now. “I'll probably be right here, making furniture and watching my hair turn gray.”

“Alone?”

He shrugged the shoulder she wasn't lying on. “Hulk could still be around in ten years. He'd be pretty old, but probably no lazier or more useless than he is now.”

After a pause Lucy said, “Is that what you really want from your future?”

It was what he expected, not necessarily what he wanted. Based on the choices he had made before now, he imagined his life would change very little in the next decade-even if having met Lucy made everything look different for the moment. As impetuous and free-spirited as Lucy was, he doubted that she would stay around for the next ten days, much less a full ten years.

He had missed her after she'd left on Christmas Day. He could only imagine how empty he would feel the next time she went away.

Which meant, he decided as he rolled to face her, that he shouldn't waste any of the time he had with her. “I don't want to talk about the future right now,” he said.

“Oh?” Her hands slid up his forearms. “What do you want to talk about?”

He spoke against her lips. “I don't want to talk at all.”

Tangling her legs with his, she murmured, “That works for me.”

Banner had never been a late sleeper. He woke with the sunrise the next morning-the last day of the year. Propped on one elbow, he spent several long minutes enjoying the novelty of watching Lucy sleep.

She slept the way she did everything else, he mused. Enthusiastically.

Her red-gold hair lay in a heavy mass on the pillow, tangled by the burrowing movements she made in her sleep. Long eyelashes fluttered against her flushed cheeks as she dreamed.

He wondered if he played a role in those dreams.

With a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a growl, he rolled out of the bed, careful not to wake her. He needed a shower. And he had better make it a cold one.

Dressed in jeans and an untucked blue-plaid flannel shirt, he was in the kitchen twenty minutes later when someone pounded on the door. Glancing at the clock, he noted that it was barely 8:00 a.m. Way earlier than Polston usually dropped by, though he couldn't imagine who else it might be.

He opened his front door to find a younger version of himself standing on the front porch.

“Tim? What the hell?”

Tim Banner nodded past his half brother's shoulder. “You going to invite me in?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Banner stepped out of the way, allowing the younger man to enter. He checked to make sure no other family members were lurking outside before he closed the door, but apparently Tim had come alone.

Tim stopped in the middle of the living room, shoving his hands in his pockets. Already curled on his favorite rug, Banner's dog lifted his head, glanced at Tim, sniffed the air for a moment, then dropped his head down on his paws and went back to sleep.

Banner studied the younger brother he still thought of as a boy, though Tim had recently turned twenty-two. Tim's conservatively cut, usually neat hair was tousled, he hadn't shaved in a couple of days, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes, as if he hadn't slept in a while. He wore faded jeans, a wrinkled cotton shirt unbuttoned over an equally wrinkled T-shirt, and grubby sneakers. No coat. His cheeks were red from the frigid morning air.

It didn't take a particularly perceptive observer to figure out that something was wrong. “What's up?”

“Maybe I just dropped in for a visit.”

And if Banner believed that, Tim would probably try to sell him some oceanfront property while he was here. But before he could express his skepticism, Tim jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen. “Do I smell coffee?”

“Yeah.” Resigned to playing host until his brother decided to reveal the reason behind his unexpected appearance, Banner headed for the door opening. “C'mon. We'll both have some.”

Following Banner into the kitchen, Tim looked at the counter. “You were about to have breakfast?”

“Pancakes. Have you eaten?”

“No.”

“Hungry?”

Tim sounded almost surprised when he replied, “Yeah. I am.”

Setting a mug of coffee on the table, Banner said, “Sit. I'll get the pancakes started.”

Tim sat in silence while Banner put slices of bacon in a skillet, then poured pancake batter onto the griddle. Maybe the boy would be more talkative on a full stomach, he figured. “Want some orange juice to go with that coffee?”

“I'll get it.”

“Glasses are in that cabinet, juice in the fridge. I'll have some, too.”

“Make that three,” Lucy said as she entered the kitchen.

She had showered, Banner noted. Her hair, which she had pulled back with a barrette, was still damp. If she wore any makeup, it was minimal-not that she needed any, he thought, studying her porcelain-fair skin. Her chocolate-brown sweater fit snugly over her slender curves, ending at the band of her hip-riding jeans. Had Tim not been standing there watching them with such startled curiosity, Banner would have demonstrated for her how delectable she looked this morning.

It seemed as if there was almost always someone else around when he wanted to be alone with Lucy, he mused.

Funny, for a guy who had spent so much time alone during the past few years, he'd sure had a lot of company lately.

His life hadn't really changed the day Lucy knocked on his door, he assured himself. Not permanently, anyway. It only seemed that way at the moment. He couldn't help wondering how long it would take him to be content with his solitude again after everything went back to the way it had been.

Without pausing for introductions, Lucy gave the stranger in Banner's kitchen one of her warm smiles. “I'm Lucy Guerin. And you must be Tim.”