Hating Christmas (Holiday Series) (2 page)

She liked it because she didn’t want to attract a lot
of attention in most of the places she traveled and, since she knew
what she was looking for, the tag always helped her spot her bag
quickly. As she threaded her way through the crowds of weary
holiday travelers, trying to intercept the slow-moving carousel
before her bag turned the corner, her brain barely registered the
tall well-made form off to her right.

While her bag inched around, Holly’s thoughts fell
back to her long-widowed mother’s impulsive marriage to a
near-stranger. She only wished she hadn’t been filming in Zambia at
the time…or that her mother had been thinking clearly enough to
wait. Instead, she and her groom had been joined in a rushed
ceremony at a friend’s house.

Some friend, Holly fumed. Even Michael’s son hadn’t
stopped things, although her mother had mentioned that his only
child had been so busy in August that he’d just flown in for the
ceremony. Her mom had twittered something about his job being
demanding and it seemed like she’d said Holly and he both worked in
the film industry, but that encompassed a big population.

Her bag—leaning against a brown one with Gucci
initials—chugged toward her and Holly slid between two chattering
travelers to move close to the carousel. Bending forward to catch
at the handle, Holly nearly toppled over as the bag—her bag!—was
whooshed off the luggage carousel, right out from under her hand.
She just managed to right herself in time to see the bag being
settled on the floor and wheeled away by a man.

A familiar, dark-haired man wearing a well-cut
suit.

Stiffening in outrage, Holly registered that she knew
that man’s back! She’d trudged along behind him up the airplane
aisle long enough to recognize the way the jacket held to broad
shoulders and a trim waist. It was the idiot who took her seat on
the plane!

Scurrying after him, Holly called out “Wait! Wait!”
But he clearly couldn’t hear over the din.

“Hey!” she tried again as they crossed the concourse,
her trailing after his long-legged stride as quickly as she could.
“Hey, you!”

His attention finally snagged, the man turned, seeing
her following him. “Well, hello there. We meet again.”

Holly stopped in the middle of the concourse, holding
her hand to her side and she tried to catch her breath. “Just wait
a second.”

“I’ll be glad to,” he assured her, that attractive
smile playing over his too-goodlooking face.

Dodging a passing family of straggling kids, she
managed to arrive in front of where he stood.

“Realized you forgot to get my number before we
deplaned?” he offered in a deadpan, teasing voice.

She stared at him with narrowed eyes, an elusive
memory tickling her brain now that she saw him straight-on. Of
course, she’d seen a lot of men like him in Los Angeles. The place
was littered with goodlooking guys trying to break into the
business.

“What? No! I don’t want your number,” she said with
more bite than she’d intended. “You have my bag.”

The smile disappeared and his brows twitched over
blue eyes. “I beg your pardon.”

Irritated that he was acting like she was a groupy,
Holly pointed to the suitcase beside him. “That’s my bag.”

The man looked down before glancing up at her. “Your
bag? Do you suffer from the delusion that everything I have is
yours—your seat, your bag?”

He smiled again, but Holly had no trouble resisting
its pull this time.

He went on. “I’ve had women come on to me in some
strange ways, but yours is definitely unique.”

She made a face at him before saying, “Don’t flatter
yourself. You picked up my suitcase off the carousel.”

“Now, come on—“ he started to say when she
interrupted him.

“Just look at the tag. There.” She pointed at it.
“It’ll have my name. And there’s a small red heart attached to the
handle.”

He glanced down at the bag, staring at it for a long
moment.

“I travel a lot and everyone has black bags these
days, so I’ve learned to put a personal touch beside the tag. See?
Right there.” She leaned forward, taking the heart tag in her hand
to show him. “It’s mine.”

He straightened with her, his blue eyes smiling
again. “You’re right. I never put a red heart on my luggage out of
principle. It must be yours.”

“Yes,” she said in what she knew was an ungracious
tone. But really, the guy criticized her attitude—when it was none
of his business—took her seat on the airplane and now, tried to run
off with her suitcase!

He looked back at the baggage carousel. “I guess
mine’s still there.”

“I guess so.” She grabbed the handle of the bag and
turned toward the concourse that led to the car rental places.
“Well, uh, thanks.”

Dragging her suitcase in one hand while she hoisted
the carry-on and her laptop bag higher on her shoulder, she turned
her back on him and rolled her eyes. Duh! What the heck was she
thanking him for! If she hadn’t been watching so closely, he’d have
taken her bag.

Dismissing the goodlooking suit-guy, she began
walking quickly to the car rentals. Their plane had come in a
little late and what with the baggage mix-up, she had to hustle if
she wanted to make her reservation time for the car.

***

“This will be fine.” Levi Harper signed the form the
car rental attendant held out for him, ignoring the icy wind that
sliced through his jacket as if he were wearing nothing.

“You looked the car over for damage, right?” The
young guy in the parka received the clip board and scanned it.

“Yes.” Levi glanced at his Tag Heuer wristwatch,
mentally calculating how long it would take him to reach his dad’s
new quarters in the damned back of beyond. As far as he was
concerned, all of Minnesota came under the heading of the back of
beyond.

“And you want to decline the insurance?” The question
was doubtful, as if the kid couldn’t imagine anyone choosing this
option. He probably got paid something for every individual who
signed without checking that box. “The roads can get pretty
slippery around here, particularly if you’re not used to driving in
icy conditions.”

“I have auto insurance,” Levi said calmly, not
glancing again at the snow-covered parking lot dividers or the
icicles on the fence that surrounded it. “It covers any damage to
rentals.”

The kid swallowed, clearly hearing the sardonic tone
in Levi’s voice. “Sure, okay.”

Levi had been called a shark and a blood-sucking
ghoul who lived off the efforts of others. He knew how to spend
money, but he hated getting screwed. It was what made him good at
his job.

Appreciation for a fair deal.

Of course, fair was relative, he knew. He shoved his
bags into the back seat of the bland four-door and pulled out his
phone to GPS wherever the hell New Hope was from the airport. His
father had been born in Minnesota, but Levi still couldn’t fathom
why a man in the late middle years of his life wanted to uproot a
comfortable life in Washington state to come back here.
Particularly when the weather was crappy six months out of the
year.

Damned snow. He liked palm trees and wearing shorts
in January.

“The keys, sir.” The attendant held out the keys like
Levi presented a risk to him.

Throwing the attendant an automatic, reassuring
smile, he climbed behind the wheel and promptly forgot the kid.
After his mother had abandoned the two of them when Levi was just a
baby, Michael had settled down in Seattle to take care of his son
and make a steady income. He’d done pretty well at both, from
Levi’s perspective, well enough to retire at fifty-five, which was
saying a lot these days.

Although his father had girlfriends along the way—and
one really disastrous marriage—Levi hadn’t even known his dad
wanted a new wife. Until he’d called several months ago to invite
his son to his surprise wedding.

To a woman he hadn’t seen in forty years.

Levi felt his mouth firm into a straight line as he
stared through the windshield at the gray horizon. His dad needed a
wife like a hole in the head and his track record proved that he
lacked skill in picking mates. Why tie himself up legally to one
more mistake?

Putting the car in drive, Levi headed for the rental
lot exit and turned left to go to the main road, hearing the tires
crunch on the spent ice in the middle of the road. A quick glance
at his phone’s GPS confirmed that the highway could be
reached---

Suddenly, another vehicle swooped out of another
nearby rental lot and pulled right in front of him.

Bam!!

Feeling the rental shudder around him, Levi kept his
foot on the brake and put the car into park to get out and see what
the hell had happened.

In front of him, only an inch or two in front of the
car he’d driven, was a blue sedan as equally bland as his. Standing
next to the cars, he saw a driver scramble out of the other car, a
spill of red curls spiking his memory as the woman struggled into a
coat against the biting wind, a jumble of words on her lips.

“I had the right of way,” the woman said in low,
hurried voice. “Didn’t you see me pull out?”

Levi recognized the hair immediately.

“You again.” He knew his voice sounded annoyed, but
the woman had just caused him to run into her!

She looked up from struggling to tie her coat around
her waist, the hair swinging against her pale cheek.

“You!”

“Yes, me.” He stood in the cold wind.

“You just hit my car! Well, my rental car.”

“Only after you pulled in front of me and braked.” He
couldn’t help the icy tone to his statement. He’d thought the
redhead was cute and sexy when he’d first seen her in the plane,
but her uptight attitude and her having caused this mess didn’t win
her any points with him.

Her cheeks growing red in the cold wind, she shot
back at him. “You were going too fast. I clearly was in front of
you.”

“Me going too fast? You were only in front of me
because you cut me off.”

She only came to a little above his shoulder and he’d
have liked to take her to dinner if she weren’t such a pain in the
ass.

“I think the situation speaks for itself,” he
gestured to the entrance from the rental company lot. “I was right
there, making a turn, and you pulled in front of me.”

“Why you—you jerk!” she started to say—

“Now, now.” Levi used the voice he reserved for his
highest-strung clients. “This won’t get us anywhere--”

“Are you following me?” she demanded. “You sat in my
seat on the airplane and then you took my suitcase off the
carousel—“

He was trying to be civil, but this woman was a piece
of work. “First off, I was in front of you when we were getting on
the plane, so I couldn’t have followed you—“

“You could have arranged to get in line in front of
me,” she muttered.

“—Second, there were a hundred bags like yours on the
baggage carousel—“

“Not with a red heart on them!”

“Are you kidding me, lady?” Levi’s temper escaped.
“That red thing has to be less than an inch wide. No one could see
that, unless they knew it was there! And thirdly,
you
just
pulled in front of
me
. The damned road is icy. I don’t think
anyone could have avoided hitting you with the way you were
driving!”

“Fine!” she stomped away toward her car door. “Let’s
just exchange insurance information and let them work it out.”

“Fine,” he shot back.

She handed him her rental papers. “Here! The
insurance agency is right there. Where’s yours?”

Levi took out his wallet and abstracted his insurance
car. “There. Everything you need.”

The woman took out her phone and snapped photo of the
front and back of his car. “My insurance company will be in contact
with yours—and we don’t have to ever see each other again!”

She swung around, stalking back to her rental.

“Great,” he said, “you’re too damned much trouble
anyway.”

* * * * * * * * *

Cold and hungry, Levi finally found the street and
drove around the circle to 2009, cursing under his breath. He
looked at the house in disgust, annoyed by the charming
picture.

The clapboard two-story home had a gabled third floor
and a generous wrap-around porch. With the wreath on the front door
and twinkling lights on every line in the fading afternoon light,
it looked like his dad was living in a Norman Rockwell painting on
steroids. The windows shone with warm light.

Apparently a Christmas elf had visited the place
recently and left a Christmas record playing inside. All four
corners were rimmed in lights and a wooden Santa figure waved from
the front yard.

He’d told his dad he might be able to squeeze out six
or seven days to spend here, but that was before he saw how much
snow they had in this damned state.

Levi parked the sedan at the curb and crunched his
way through icy remnants of snow up to the front door. He settled
his suitcase on the front porch and took a resigned breath as he
rang the doorbell. Thank goodness it was lit or he’d have had a
hard time finding the button for all the plastic decorations.

He tried not to let this time of year get to him, but
he hated all the Christmas crap. With holly on the lamp post and
the swagged twinkly lights around the front windows, this place
looked like something out of a cartoon. It was pretty, he supposed,
if you were into that sort of thing, but this mission had a
specific goal: get in, get dad and get the hell out. The sooner he
could get the two of them back to civilization, the more quickly
he’d be able to deprogram his father.

Just about to jab again at the doorbell, Levi stepped
back as the door swung wide.

“Son! You made it.” Michael Harper stood six two in
his stocking feet and looked like the former ball player he was.
“Come in. Come in out of the cold.”