Have Yourself a Naughty Little Santa (17 page)

A
FTER
K
IM CALLED 911, SHE DRESSED HURRIEDLY AND
ran down the street to the house next to Leticia’s. It was lit up like a Roman candle. Frantically Kim looked for Ricco, and she nearly died when he came running out the front door covered in soot.

“Empty,” he breathlessly said.

“Where are the fire engines?”

“We have one, and it’ll be here as soon as Cal gets it started.”

“Oh my God, Ricco!” Kim pointed to the woodpile on the side of his mother’s house. “Fire!”

“Shit!” He rushed past her to the front door and yanked at the doorknob. “Damn it!” It didn’t open.

She thought everyone slept with their doors unlocked. Ricco banged on the door. “Mom! Jasmine! Open up!” Not waiting for them to get out of bed, Ricco picked up a small redwood planter and hurled it through the nearest window. He kicked out the jagged shards and hopped through the window. Several minutes later, Leticia, Jasmine, Mari, and little Donny, who was wrapped in heavy blankets and fuzzy slippers, came rushing from the house, ushered by Ricco. Kim grabbed Mari’s hand and helped Jasmine, who clutched a terrified Donny, to the sidewalk. Finally the distant shrill of a fire engine pierced the crisp, frigid air.

“Ricco, your father! He’s in the back bedroom!” Leticia screamed.

Kim looked up at Ricco, who scowled but turned and rushed back into his mother’s house. The fire had spread farther. Now it licked at the roofline. Many of the surrounding residents and guests from two of the smaller lodges on either side of Esmeralda’s flooded the sidewalk. When the engine rolled up, several men in pajamas helped Cal and Jeff pull out the hose and hook it up to the hydrant right in front of the burning house. The kids fussed, and, try as she might to calm Mari in her arms, Kim could not quiet the child. Her nerves were strung taut. Along with Jasmine and Leticia, Kim watched the front door of the house, waiting anxiously for Ricco to emerge with his father.

The flames hungrily licked the cedarwood along the copper roofline and now were almost to the front of the house. Just as the hose let loose with a blast of water, Ricco emerged from the house with his father in his arms. Violent coughs racked the old man, and his face was swollen as if he had fallen face-first into a Mack truck. He clung to his son’s neck like Mari did to Kim’s. Then, for the second time in the wee hours of the morning, Kim found herself falling a little more for the man who strode toward her with his father in his arms, a man he could not even speak to but had not hesitated to save. The sight of Ricco, proud, stubborn, and angry, yet performing such a heroic act, tugged at her heartstrings.

The hot sting of tears suddenly threatened to erupt. Kim swiped at them with the back of her hand, telling herself it was from the acrid smoke blowing in her face. She moved with Mari and the rest of Ricco’s family into the street. She noticed Esmeralda, as well as half of her guests, hugging themselves against the chill as they poured from the B&B.

Ricco set his father down on the curb, then turned to help Cal and Jeff save his mother’s house. From the looks of it, they were doing a good job. The house next door hissed and sizzled under the melting snow. Once the flames were quelled on Leticia’s house, the men turned back to the house next door. Despite the melting snow on the roof, which helped the process along, it took considerably longer to gain control of. The contents of the house were hot fodder. Another group of men took a second hose from the engine and hooked it up to another hydrant across the street, and soon the flames were doused. The two-story log cabin was nothing but a pile of smoking rubble.

“You sure no one was in there?” Cal called to Ricco, who was covered in ash.

“Mom said the Rodgers weren’t due up for another week. I cleared it.”

Cal nodded and moved to stand at the head of the sidewalk to what was once a cozy little getaway. “Once the embers cool, I’ll take a look,” Cal said. “Seems mighty strange this should happen on top of all of the other mishaps in town today.”

As Kim handed off Mari, she overheard Cal’s comment. A little prickle of suspicion jabbed at her gut. She walked up behind Ricco; in an action that surprised her, she reached out her hand to his. He turned, startled, at her touch, but when he saw her, he smiled and drew her close. “Everyone okay over there?” he asked.

A sudden unexpected ball lodged in her throat, and instead of saying yes, Kim nodded, not trusting her voice. He hugged her against his side and turned back to Cal. “I hear exactly what you’re saying. I think we need a town hall meeting ASAP. Otherwise we’re going to see our cash crop head for the hills.”

“Talk with your mom and Jasmine, I’ll talk to the other council members, and we’ll let the permanent residents know about it. The sooner the better,” Cal replied.

Ricco nodded. “You got it. When are you coming back to take a look here? If you need some help, I’ve worked with a few FDs on arson cases.”

Cal’s lined face tightened. “I sure hope it wasn’t arson, son. If it was, we’re in big trouble.”

Kim swallowed hard. If she’d been a betting kind of girl, she’d have laid odds the fire had not been an accident. A hard chill frosted her insides, and her anger began to erupt as her suspicions ignited. If Nick was remotely responsible for any of what had happened in Evergreen since her arrival, he would live to regret it.

“Now, Ricco, even though it looks like your mom’s place is sound, I don’t want to take any chances. I’d rather she and everyone else find somewhere else to spend the night. I want to do a thorough inspection at first light,” Cal instructed.

“I’ll let them know. I’ll see you first thing.”

When there was nothing left to do and the crowd had dispersed, Kim found herself walking with Ricco, two of his sisters, his father, his mother, and a niece and a nephew back to the B&B.

“Mama, you can have my bed, I’ll sleep on the trundle bed in Krista’s room. Donny can have the crib for the new baby. Papa, you can have the sofa,” Esmeralda offered.

“I’ll go down to Elle’s,” Jasmine said.

“No, Mama!” Mari cried. “Stay with me.”

“You and Mari can have my room, Jaz,” Ricco quietly said. “I’ll go down to Elle’s.”

At his offer something in Kim dried up. She wanted to cry out like Mari and say, “No, stay with me.” And when the words actually left her mouth, five pair of adult eyes stared in shock at her. The most shocked were Ricco’s.

“I, ah, I mean, no need to pack up and go to the other end of town. We-um-you…shit! Just stay with me.”

Ricco grinned, and even though he was covered in ash, he laughed and pulled her toward him. He pressed his lips to her ear and whispered, “You promise not to take off on me, Cinderella?”

She swatted him and felt like a complete teenager. “I promise.”

“Then I’ll stay.”

And so that was how the night ended. Ricco moved his bag and toiletries into her room. In no time it looked as if a tornado had hit it. While he was in the shower, Kim took his clothes from his bag and divided the armoire in half, then the dresser, and then the cabinet in the bathroom. When he stepped out of the tub wrapping a towel around his waist, Kim stood grinning at the doorway to the bathroom. “You looked really hot with that hose between your legs.”

He grinned like the bad boy he was, whipped the towel from around his hips, and snapped it at her. She squeaked and jumped back. Still wet, he stalked her into the bedroom, then onto the bed. He licked her neck and grinned wider. “You taste like a salt lick and look like a soot-smudged waif.”

She shoved him off of her and took a quick shower. As she sauntered back into the bedroom, the fireplace roared and the flames illuminated the room in a soft, sexy glow. As she rounded the bed, anticipating Ricco’s hard body sliding into her, she stopped instead at the soft sound of his snores.

Her tense body loosened. Her gaze scanned the big man who lay sprawled in all his naked glory on her bed, not a modest bone in his body. She closed the glass doors on the fireplace and slipped into the bed, snuggling up against his smooth, hard warmth. In seconds she was asleep.

• • •

R
ICCO WOKE WITH A RAGING HARD-ON AND A WARM,
naked body next to him. He stretched, and in so doing, he swept the length of the pliant body curled up against him. She moaned and stiffened, her tits dug into the side of his chest, and he felt like he was going to explode on the spot. He rolled her over onto her back and spread her thighs with his knee. In one slow, slick slide he was buried deep inside of her liquid tightness. She was wet, she was hot. She was Nirvana. “Cinderella,” he whispered against her lips, “were you dreaming of me?”

She arched into him. “Yesss,” she sighed and gave herself up to him. And he sunk deeper still into her body and lost all sense of time, of place, of who or what he was. All he knew was he could not get enough of her and if he didn’t stop soon he would lose more than his head.

Her legs slid up and wrapped around his thighs, her hands dug into his hair, her lips clung as desperately to his as his did to hers. Slow and unhurried, yet with an underlying sense of urgency, their bodies undulated, moving together, then parting only to reunite again. The fire in the hearth had died but the fire in each of them sparked to greater heights. They came together, rising up, their bodies truly one, with a hard body shudder, only to fall back into the pillows, straining for breath.

And in the aftermath of what had been for him not only a moving physical connection but an emotional one as well, Ricco felt the uncontrollable urge to bolt. To grab his clothes and run as far and as fast as he could away from the woman beside him. She was becoming an addiction he could not afford to have. His time in Evergreen would end on New Year’s Day, hers sooner. He didn’t want to mope around when she left. He didn’t want to feel as if a part of him was missing. He cursed, rolled over to the edge of the bed, and sat up. He raked his fingers through his hair and turned to look down at the root of his problem.

Heavy lids hovered over deep blue eyes, and slightly parted, full, pouty lips begged for more attention. The small, deep sigh of a sated woman escaped her lips, and she closed her eyes. Kim reached up and traced a fingertip around his right nipple. Instantly it hardened, and he felt his blood stir. He grabbed her hand and bent down to it. He bit her fingertip. She smiled a dreamy smile but kept her eyes closed. If she saw the fury on his face she might back down. Maybe that’s what he needed to do. Separate. Completely. Now, before it became impossible.

He released her and moved from the bed. “Where are you going?” her soft, sexy voice asked.

“I have to meet with Cal.” He hurried into her bathroom and took a quick cold shower. When he couldn’t find his travel kit, he cursed.

“I put your things in the vanity. Where they belong!” Kim called to him. He brushed his teeth and decided not to shave but to get dressed and get out of the torture chamber as soon as humanly possible. When he strode back into the bedroom, he deliberately didn’t look at the bed.

He held the towel firmly around his waist. When he couldn’t locate his bag, he had no option but to look at his bedmate. He froze. She lay on her side, her blond hair wildly flowing around her shoulders and that I’ve-just-been-fucked-proper look on her face and her rosy body. “Your clothes are in the armoire and your tees and underwear are in the nightstand there.”

He grabbed a pair of shorts from the nightstand, then quickly dressed. He moved to the door. With his hand on the knob, he stopped his flight, looked back at her, and opened his mouth to say something, but words failed him. “I’ll see you later,” was all he could manage. Then he closed the door a bit too hard and ran down the hall and out the front door. The cold air hit him like a sheet of glass, and he was glad for it. He inhaled deeply and let the icy air chill his lungs. Feelings he couldn’t seem to control started in on him again, and he felt like if he didn’t go for a two-hour run or beat the shit out of a heavy bag, he was going to explode.

He glanced across the street, glad to see Cal’s city Jeep parked out front of the burned-out house. As Ricco walked up, he saw Cal walking out of the charred remains of the log home with a burned-up gasoline can in his gloved hand.

“No shit!” Ricco said, and he jogged the rest of the way to the fire chief.

“In the downstairs bedroom. Looks like a bunch of towels were soaked in gasoline, then lit.”

“No shit,” Ricco softly said again, and as the implication of it all dawned on him, he became angry. The Rodgers could have been in residence. Worse, had Kim not seen the flames from her window, they would have slept through it, and he could very well have been churning through the rubble of his mother’s house looking for remains instead of knowing she was safely at his sister’s. “I’d check into the Rodgers’ finances ASAP and see what their insurance company has to say. Mom said in passing that they had been struggling with filling up the rental schedule. I sure hope they didn’t use a fire as a means to snatch up some cash.”

Cal shook his head. “They don’t seem like the type.”

Ricco nodded. “I know. But in my line of work, I’ve learned the hard way not to trust anyone but to go with your gut and follow the trail to see where it leads you.”

Ricco stepped over to his mother’s house. He and Cal inspected it together. Thankfully, the greatest damage had been caused by the water pressure from the fire hose. The window near the woodpile was busted, and his mother’s office was water damaged. When they finished, Ricco waited for Cal’s official opinion. “Looks sound to me. With the exception of the water damage, it looks like just the trim along the roofline got it.”