Hating Christmas (Holiday Series) (6 page)

Levi shot her a look of distaste and she knew it was
back on.

***

Headed down for a late-night snack after returning
from the hideous elementary school program, Levi paused in the
kitchen doorway. There at the white-tiled island, sat Holly, fork
poised over a generous slab of devil’s food cake. He watched her
dip the fork into the soft, chocolate and lift it to her lips,
chewing with an expression of rapture. In his work world of toned
and tanned beauty, most women barely picked at their food before
disappearing to the bathroom to throw it up.

Holly’s relish in eating the cake felt kind of
exciting, like she was a daredevil or a rebel.

“Umm.” He stepped into the room and went to pull open
the refrigerator door. “I hope I’m not interrupting an intimate
moment.”

She continued chewing, not appearing the least bit
chagrined at him finding her here. “You are. Interrupting an
intimate moment, I mean.”

Chuckling, Levi took out a container of milk and set
it on the island. “Is this an on-going relationship or just a
momentary lapse?”

“Relationship,” she said thickly, gesturing that she
wanted him to give her a glass of milk.

Levi took another glass from the cupboard and poured
some for her. “That program tonight was grueling.”

“I know. The kids didn’t remember their lines and I’m
almost positive that was a girl playing the Santa Claus.”

Rubbing the back of his neck, Levi chuckled. “I
thought we weren’t going to make it out of there alive when you
laughed after those two kids got their elf wand things
tangled.”

She put her fork down. “I know! I couldn’t help
laughing at it. But those people sitting in front of us didn’t
think it was funny.”

“That woman in front of me had already sent me a
dirty look or two. When you started snorting and laughing—“

“I didn’t snort!” Holly denied, laughing again.

“You
snorted
,” he repeated firmly, “while they
were pulling on their wands to get them separated.”

She giggled. “Well, let’s not forget your belly
laugh. It just about sent that one dad over the edge. Those people
got really mad! It’s just a kids’ program. Wasn’t it crazy? You
could feel the animosity rising around us. I thought it was silly.
If a few others in the audience hadn’t started laughing, we might
have been tarred and feathered. Safety in numbers, I guess.”

“True, they couldn’t get us all,” Levi agreed.

They subsided into silence and a musical clock in the
living room played a silly Christmas carol tune. Around them,
silence filled the darkened house. Only the Christmas tree lights
had been left on and that—Levi was sure—in defiance of the fire
code.

He lifted his glass, looking at her for a moment, her
tumble of auburn hair falling over one shoulder. In any other
setting, the picture—and her voracious enjoyment of the chocolate
cake—might have had him acting on his body’s instincts.

“I’ve been thinking.” He paused. “Even if you have no
right to deal directly with Mac Toledo, you and I are dealing with
a mutual problem here.”

She looked at him for a meditative moment, continuing
to chew. When she’d swallowed her bite, she said, “How so?”

“You’re no more thrilled with our parents’ impulsive
marriage than I am.” He knew it sounded blunt, put like that, but
he believed in getting directly to the issue.

Holly put her fork down before responding. “No, I’m
not. My mom hasn’t even dated much since my father’s death. I don’t
think she should accept the first guy she reconnects with, now that
she’s moved out of her grieving years.”

“And I think my father doesn’t always make the best
relationship choices.” He took a drink of his milk, licking the
milk mustache off his upper lip.

“I don’t know why she decided to move back to her
childhood home. Don’t people usually move south when they get
older? This place is frickin’ freezing. Mom was perfectly happy in
Florida.” Holly raised a hand in exclamation. “She has friends
there. An active social group that does all sorts of things.”

“My father tends to jump into things before he thinks
about what he’s doing,” Levi said heavily. He hated to say it out
loud, but reality was reality. “He’s been married twice before
this.”

Cocking an eyebrow, she took another bite of cake.
“So? What are you suggesting?”

“Just this,” he braced both hands against the island
and met her gaze. “I think we should put aside our own conflict and
use our influence to get our parents to end this mistake. Talk to
them about stepping back, calling it a day, getting with a divorce
lawyer, whatever.”

Holly nodded, putting her fork down. “Getting married
so quickly—it was rash and unconsidered, but what do you think we
can do about it? I mean, specifically what can we do?”

“If you worked your mother and I handled my dad—“

“We might get them to see reason,” she finished for
him.

Levi nodded. “It’s not that we want to make
trouble—“

“Just the reverse,” Holly stuck in. “I love my mom. I
don’t want her hurt by this impulsive, rash marriage.”

“And my dad doesn’t need any more relationship
drama,” he concluded.

Holly had put down her fork, devil’s cake forgotten,
as they talked about the mess their parents had gotten themselves
into.

“So we agree—on this anyway—that they just need to
walk away?”

He reached a hand across the island to shake hers,
knowing he shouldn’t be thinking about her looking so hot sitting
there.

“Agreed.” She shook his hand. “Let’s break up this
marriage.”

* * * * * * * * *

Levi inched along the spine of the snow-covered roof
the next morning, swearing under his breath.

“What?” Holly called from her perch on the ladder
that leaned against the roof’s edge.

“Nothing.” He grabbed the industrial extension cord
and jammed the end of the light strand into it. “Doesn’t your
mother have enough Christmas lights on this house?”

“Apparently not.” She grinned at him over the edge of
the roof, her red curls peeping from under a white knit hat. “I’m
not sure Audrey Fitzgerald has ever had enough Christmas lights on
her house.”

Pulling the strand of lights toward him, his fingers
numb from the cold snow, Levi braced himself in the crevice of the
roof, trying to ignore the wet cold seeping through his jeans. “So,
she does know its twenty degrees out here and falling?”

“Again. Not sure this factors into her reality. She
keeps all the decorations and the trees up well into January.”
Holly hefted another coil of the light strand up to him.

He brushed more cold flakes off the shingles, so he
could attach the lights.

“I should have made my regrets,” he muttered under
his breath, thinking of the Palm trees and beautiful sunshine back
in California—if one got away from the freeways, that was.

“What did you say?” she climbed up another rung,
throwing the rest of the string of lights onto the roof.

“I said that I should have been ‘too busy’ to come.”
He grimaced at her. “You do realize that more snow is falling. I
didn’t know there was this much snow on the planet.”

Holly made a face back at him before breaking into
laughter. “Well, you’re stuck here now—having accepted your
father’s holiday invitation—and yes, I do know it’s snowing again.
Let’s get these damn lights fastened in place so we can go inside
for a hot toddy.”

His fingers fumbled, too numb with the cold to clip
the light hangers easily on the shingles.

“Hey, count your blessings, Harper. I got dragged
here for every holiday, when we lived in Florida. My mom should
never have moved back. You have no idea of the torture.”

Levi shoved another twinkle light socket into the
holder. “Oh, yeah? I think I do.”

“My mother delights in Christmas with her friends and
family. I got volunteered to set up all their decorations from the
time I was fourteen. You haven’t really suffered until you’ve
crawled over the icy roofs of a dozen different homes. Every time
we came to visit someone for the holidays, I was always sent to
hang the lights on the roof…and it’s always colder than a witch’s
behind. Is that the last one?”

He clipped the final light of the strand on the spine
of the roof.

“That’s it. Can we quit
having fun
now?” he
asked, referring to Holly’s mother’s insistence that they’d enjoy
themselves putting on the final string of lights she’d
purchased.

“I’m ready if you are.” She disappeared down the
ladder.

Levi inched his way back across the snowy roof,
trying to remember the icy patches. When he finally reached the
ladder, he swung his snow-damped leg over and descended. Reaching
the ground, Levi brushed loose snow off his jeans.

“I should have made you do the roof-work. You’re
experienced and you owe me something for your nefarious behavior
with Mac Toledo.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” she shot back, stopping
her attempts to brush the clumped snow off his back.

“Oh, I think you do,” he said to her retreating
figure.

“No, I don’t!” She stopped walking toward the door to
sing out her disagreement.

“Yes, you do!” He bent to brush more flakes off his
jeans and straightened—

“
Ffluump!”

--and got a kisser full of snow.

“What the—“ This time Levi saw the snowball coming
and he dodged behind a tree trunk. “You terror, you! This means
war!”

Holly had taken cover around the corner of the porch.
“Nanny nanny boo boo,” she yelled, taunting him.

Scooping up snow for a snowball, he swiftly formed
the crystals and rifled it at her before he jumped back behind the
tree trunk’s cover. Just as he retreated, a spray of snow shot out
from the other side of the tree as Holly’s retaliation splattered
against the tree.

“Ha! Missed me!” Scraping up another ball, it
occurred to him that this wasn’t the most eloquent response.

“You’re a sissy, Harper,” she yelled. “No wonder Mac
didn’t call you about my project!”

This brought Levi’s head around and he squatted
before lunging around the tree again to throw a snowball from this
lower vantage.

“Hey!” Holly sputtered as the snowball hit the corner
of the house in front of her.

“Now who’s the sissy?” he taunted, his determination
to best her. He considered his position. Here behind the tree, all
he could do was respond in a defensive manner. This didn’t seem
tremendously effective. Levi thought about it. What was called for
was a brilliant—or at least better—plan.

From her spot by the corner of the house, Holly
continued to scoff and mock him. “What’s the matter, Harper? Scared
of a little snow? Thrown by a
girl
?”

He needed her to move from her safe zone. If he was
quiet here and didn’t respond to her teasing—and the occasional
snow ball that whizzed past—she might think it was safe to close in
for the kill. It always worked in his favor to be under-estimated.
Ignoring her catcalls, Levi bent to make several really tight
snowballs. Despite his hands freezing, he used them to grip several
snowballs so tightly that they melted a little. He stuck his hands
back into his pockets and waited.

“Whoo hoo! Harper, did you die of the cold? Or are
you just a big chicken?” She made chicken sounds.

He could tell that she’d come from the corner of the
house and was moving closer to his tree. Without any real plan, he
just waited. Closer was better. He was bigger and he’d learned in
his business to use any advantage.

“Did you fall asleep?” She was right behind the tree
now.

Grabbing up the two now-frozen snowballs he’d set
beside him, he lunged from behind the tree and fired them at her,
one after the other.

Caught full in the chest with the first snowball,
Holly shrieked and turned to flee back to her spot by the house.
The second snowball hit her lower back, splattering on impact. Levi
charged after her, his longer legs helping him catch hold of her
next to the prickly hedge beside the front porch. Grasping her arm,
he tugged as she resisted him, pulling this way and that.

“No-No-No!!!” She tried to writhe away.

Levi laughed, hanging on to her as she leaned away
from him and when she slipped—a combination of her angle and the
snow beneath their feet—he fell to his knees beside her, pinning
her to the snow. Holly thrashed and squirmed, shrieking as he held
her down with one hand and scooped snow with the other.

“Now I have you! I’ll teach you to make fun of your
betters.” Fingers-outstretched on her upper chest, he braced her to
the snow, kneeling next to where she lay prone on the snow.

“No! Don’t! Let me go, you gorilla!” She grasped
ineffectually at the snow, flinging it up in sprays.

Her laughter mingled with Levi’s and he felt his
breathing slow and his body quicken. She was beautiful, her cheeks
pink from the cold and their tussle. Her cap had come off in the
struggle and her flame-dark hair now splayed out around her
face.

Before he realized what he was doing, he bent and
kissed her. Her struggles ceased immediately and—lost in the warmth
of her soft lips—he kissed her long and thoroughly. She deserved it
for the grief she’d given him and he didn’t want to stop. After a
startled second, he felt her response, her mouth moving under his
for long, slow minutes. She tasted so good—

And then she caught him completely off guard and
pushed him with a sudden thrust that had him on his back in the
snow next to her, Holly now pinning him.

“Gotcha!” she said, her breath fast.

His chest rising from the excitement that was now
centered below his belt, Levi didn’t even try to resist.

Her brilliant hair making a halo around her grin,
Holly said with satisfaction, “That’ll teach you to beware of
Fitzgerald women!”