Emilie's Christmas Love (25 page)

"This is a good record for this class," he said, smiling at her, then at the class in general. "You all did very well."

Emilie agreed, trying not to look at Nick. She had to sneak a peek at him. He looked as surprised to see her there as she was to see him.

"If you'll call out these names," the dean said, handing the list back to her. "I'd like to give out these certificates."

Emilie cleared her throat and read the first name. The man came up, shook the dean's hand, and took his certificate. She read the second name. The woman came up and took her certificate, shaking the dean's hand.

She read Nick's name. He came up to the front of the class, shook the dean's hand and took his certificate. His eyes were on her. She shivered and couldn’t look away.

Finally, the thirty students who'd passed were all given their certificates. The dean smiled and nodded. "This is the beginning of a new life for all of you, no matter what you choose to do from now on. Good luck to you all!"

There was a roar from the basketball game down the hall and Emilie glanced at the clock on the wall. It was seven-fifty.

"Well, you've received your certificates. Those of you who passed, I wish you good luck. I don't see any reason for us to have to wade through basketball traffic, so I'm going to dismiss the class and say Merry Christmas to you all."

Most of the students were smiling. They shook her hand as they filed out of the classroom. A few were disgruntled, but managed to be civil anyway. Many of them asked about Julie and wished her a speedy recovery.

"Miss Ferrier." Nick was standing beside her chair as the classroom emptied.

She felt as though the tingling started in her shoulder that was closest to him and continued down through the rest of her body. Thank heaven she didn’t have to try to teach anything important to the class. She would have been lost.

"I'm not happy with any of this," John something-she-couldn't-remember told her harshly as he stalked up to the front of the room. "They haven't heard the last of me."

Emilie felt rather than saw Nick move a step closer to her. It was probably only a reflex action, but it made her feel good.

She stood up slowly, gathering Julie's papers and books. "You may be right," she told the man. "I've known Julie Johnson a long time. I have to believe she gave you a fair chance."

"What do you know about it?" he angrily demanded.

"She knows it's time to go home and forget about it for tonight, John." Nick stepped in without waiting to listen to anything else.

"Easy for you to say, man. You passed."

"That's true," Nick agreed. "This lady isn't the one to take it up with. Say goodnight."

John stared at Nick and Emilie. He shrugged and walked away, muttering beneath his breath.

"Not your average nine-year-old." She let out a long breath when they were alone.

"What are you doing here?" Nick asked. "Did you know I was taking classes?"

"No.” Although she understood why she couldn’t find him and why he worked so many hours. “I was filling in for Julie and you walked through the door. I had no idea."

"It's a little convenient." There was an edge to his voice.

Was he embarrassed?
"Don't you believe in coincidence?"

"No." His eyes followed the line of the scarf he'd given her as it wrapped around her neck.

There was a loud cheer and the sound of running feet through the hallway outside the door.

"It sounds like we missed our window of opportunity." She was shaken a little by his intense gaze.

"Come on." He took the course books and papers. "I'll buy you a cup of coffee while they clear out."

She grabbed her coat. "That sounds good."

Emilie was thankful that he walked slowly down the long hallway, even though her pride took a battering knowing he was doing it for her. The coffee shop was almost empty that late. Nick ordered them both a cup of coffee and paid for it.

"So, you didn't know? Your friend didn't tell you and you had to see for yourself?"

Emilie was indignant. "I would've asked you if my friend had mentioned it. She really is sick. She called this afternoon and I agreed to come in for the last class."

"Okay." He stirred cream into his coffee. "I suppose the secret's out anyway."

"What secret?" She was glad he was all right with it finally and happy to be there with him.

He shrugged. "I decided against college when I got back from Iraq. The kids needed me. I bought the business and didn’t look back. Until now."

"I think that's great," she enthused. "This is your opportunity."

"Yeah." He shook his head and looked down at his coffee. "This is it."

"You don't sound very excited by the prospect.”

"I was. I
am
," he corrected. "I don't know. Everything is very confusing right now."

"Maybe things will become clearer." She thought about the manuscript she'd sent to her friend. "Maybe Christmas will bring you a big surprise."

"It already has." He smiled slowly at her.

"What?"

"
You
." He took her hand. "I didn't believe fairy godmothers existed before I met you. That's exactly the way you are, isn't it? You make things right for kids with bad school records and then take in strangers and change their lives around."

Emilie looked at his hand covering hers. His thumb was smoothing absently across the sensitive skin. A slight shiver went through her as she watched him trace a path slowly up her arm, his fingers sliding under the sleeve.

"We should probably go," she said huskily, clearing her throat but not moving her arm.

"We should," he agreed, still touching her silky skin. "It's getting late."

He walked her out to her car, his hand on her arm. She leaned slightly towards him and he gathered her close and gently kissed her. Snow was falling like diamond spirals out of the dark sky.

He laughed, looking down at her with the white flakes in her hair. "You're starting to look like a snowman."  

"Are you coming home?" she asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

"I have to take the truck back to the garage," he explained, regret in his voice. "I’ll be back right after. I shouldn't be late."

She nodded, unlocked the car door and slid inside. "I'll see you later then."

Nick watched her drive away. What had he done, accepting her help? His house was finished. They could move back in tomorrow, but he knew the kids would be upset about leaving Emilie's house before Christmas.

Worse, he knew
he
would be upset about leaving Emilie's house before Christmas. He had a terrible feeling that he would be upset leaving Emilie's house after Christmas too. Would there ever be a good time to leave Emilie?

Since he'd met her, it was as though his life had stopped falling apart and had begun to knit itself back together. He wasn't sure he recognized the pattern it was forming. It wasn't the same life he'd had before Emilie had stepped in and taken them all in hand. It was better. Exciting with prospects, all shining with a halo of love.
Her love.

He took the truck back to the garage, contemplating staying there or going back to his own house for the night. He didn't trust himself with Emilie. He wasn't sure that he could do whatever the right thing was anymore. Everything was shrouded in a fog of doubt. Things that had been so clear were hazy. It left a gray area that was only easy to find his way through when she was in his arms.

He sat in his truck for what seemed like a long time, wrestling with his conscience and his heart. His conscience told him that it was wrong to take what she offered so freely. His heart whispered that he couldn't pretend not to feel anything for her. She had made him whole again. She had given him the heart that now urged him to go to her.

Without waiting for any further doubt to assail him, he started the truck and sped through the snowy night.

#

Emilie slowly poured the last glass of brandy into a hand-blown glass. She'd waited patiently in the kitchen, watching for the lights from his truck for an hour.

He was probably out celebrating with his friends or working, she decided, walking through the dark, sleeping house with a carefully soft step. If there were ghosts in the house, she was one of them. A sad wraith of a woman who had dared to love and found that it could never be returned.

She sipped her brandy and walked unseeingly through the twisted corridors of the old mansion. She knew her path in the dark, or the light. She'd walked these halls a hundred times.

She found herself in the old ballroom, looking up through the glass ceiling at the stars twinkling madly and the crescent of a new moon hanging in the sky. She drank her brandy and spun slowly. The sheet-covered chairs and the light from the moon combined to make a kaleidoscope effect in her whirling brain.

Emilie sank down on the cold, pink marble floor when she couldn't stand up anymore. Her head was bowed. One silent tear slipped down her cheek.

It was no use. She would always be a ghost—a crippled ghost, longing for someone who would never love her. Dreaming dreams in a dusty room about things she could never have. Things that money, or even the Ferrier name, couldn't buy her. Things she didn't even dare whisper in the secret places of her heart.

"Emilie?"

She looked up and saw Nick standing there before her. The moonlight grazed his face, hinting at the hollow of his cheeks, the curved line of his mouth.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded mutely and took the hand he offered to help her to her feet. "I thought you weren't coming back tonight."

He looked at her, hearing the sorrow in her voice. He couldn't see her face clearly in the half-light. "Were you dancing?"

She laughed gently and ran a hand through her hair, feeling a little lightheaded. "I don't dance."

He saw the brandy glass in her hand and took it from her unresisting fingers. He swallowed the last of the fiery spirit before setting the glass down on a sheet-covered table.

"Why not?" He kissed each of her hands and slid them around his neck.

"I'm crip . . . I can't." She couldn’t say the words without crying.

He slipped his arms around her waist. The wool sweater she wore was soft against his hands as he drew her slowly to him. "My mother loved to dance. After my father left, I was her partner."

She looked up at him. The moonlight caught on the tear that ran down her cheek. "I-I can't."

"Of course you can. Dance with me, Emilie.” He nuzzled her hair aside and hummed softly in her ear.

Emilie didn't recognize the tune, but she felt fluid and light in his arms. When he started moving across the floor, she moved with him, instinctively mimicking his slow motion. The floor was cold under her bare feet and her head was fuzzy with brandy. She leaned her face against his shoulder and kissed the side of his neck.

That tiny soft kiss sent a shaft of pure desire through Nick’s body. He closed his eyes, refusing to hear that voice that told him he was treading in dangerous waters. When her white teeth nipped the skin there, and her sweet pink tongue quickly licked that sensitive spot, he gave up thinking. He was driven beyond apologies or logic by the feel of her in his arms and the scent of jasmine in her hair.

The room swelled with the music he hummed into her ear and the night was perfumed with flowers. The moonlight was ashen on their forms, moving perfectly together across the wide floor.

Emilie sighed and kissed the side of his jaw. "I'm not really an angel, you know. I'm not perfect."

"You move like an angel." He kissed her ear, her cheek, and her hair. "Who told you that you couldn't dance?"

"No one had to," she answered gently. "I just always knew—"

"You were wrong, sweetheart." He spun her in his arms until she laughed and cried out for him to stop, though she didn’t mean it. He kissed her open lips and she clung to him, the laughter forgotten in another kind of joy.

He stopped moving slowly, his arms still around her. "I'm not always trustworthy either, Emilie," he warned her darkly. "I can't look at you and not want you. I can't stay here tonight and pretend that you aren't in the next room."

She released her hold on his neck and looked into his eyes. She stretched her arms up and slipped out of her soft wool sweater. The moonlight was pale on her white bra and slip, gleaming against her soft skin.

"I trust you," she told him gently. "I don't want you to pretend I'm not here."

"Emilie." The blood thundered through him. He told himself not to touch the pearly skin she'd exposed. He couldn’t stop himself this time.

"
Shh
," she murmured, kissing his mouth. "There are ghosts in this house. Let's not wake them."

He fused the gentle touch of her lips with his own, burning them both with the fire he’d held in check. He moved with her again, humming broken snatches of music between his words— telling her that she was beautiful, that her skin was like silk. He kissed her white throat as his hands deftly removed her slip and his shirt.

The abrasion of his broad, fuzzy chest against the softness of her skin made Emilie moan and lay her lips there, caressing the skin, tempting the tiny buds that nestled in the rough hair.

Nick drew in a quick breath at her touch, sliding his hands along the satin bra she wore, until it was on the floor at their feet. He held her as her lips gently nuzzled his chest.

Emilie trembled in his hold when he returned the caress, his mouth opening on first one round breast then the other. She strained against him, wanting to feel all of him this way, against her bare skin.

Nick still danced, holding her. His tongue and teeth drove her into a frenzy as he whirled slowly, her feet barely grazing the cold floor.

She pressed intimately into him, kissing his eyes and his brandy flavored mouth with wild abandon. She laughed when he kissed her, his tongue dipping deeply into her mouth's dark sweetness.

They stopped moving finally, only to find a new rhythm. Emilie arched back across his arm while he shaped her breasts with his facile fingers then took each mound gently into his mouth with butterfly touches of his hot tongue.