Have Yourself a Naughty Little Santa (18 page)

Ricco looked at the barely scorched cedar siding.

“Your mama was smart to spend the extra money for the flame seal. Worked like a charm.”

“I’ll let Mom know.”

Cal nodded. “I called the Rodgers this morning. They’re coming up tomorrow. I want to get this mess cleared as soon as we can. It looks bad for business.” As he finished the sentence, Ricco noticed several SUVs loaded with people head south out of town. He frowned and looked to Cal.

“That’s the second group of cash cows to leave this morning.”

Ricco couldn’t blame them. Overnight, Christmas had turned into Halloween. “I’ll let Mom know she can come home.”

Ricco took off at a slow jog across the street to the B&B. As he turned up the sidewalk, the front door opened and two guests emerged with suitcases in hand. Ricco smiled and said, “Y’all heading out for the day?”

The male half of the older couple scowled. “Not the day, the month.”

“What changed your mind?”

“You saw the fire, and you saw the shooting. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.”

“I understand, but let me assure you this isn’t—”

The man held up his hand. “Not going to work. We got our money back and we’re headed to Incline.”

And that was the end of that. Ricco stepped into the house to see several more guests standing with their suitcases in hand at the rolltop desk in the salon Esmeralda used to check guests in and out.

She looked up at him, and he saw the glitter of tears in her eyes. Her stricken face tugged at his heart, yet he knew there were no guarantees he or anyone else could offer these people. They were panicked. The fire and shooting had been too close to home. They wanted peace and tranquility; as it stood, that was the last thing they were getting in Evergreen.

All Ricco could do was help them out and assure them they were safe in the B&B, but even as the words left his mouth he knew them to be false. He couldn’t guarantee his own family’s safety—how could he guarantee theirs?

As he made his way back into the house, he came face-to-face with his father. Ricco curbed a smirk. The old man’s nose looked like he had gone a few rounds in the ring with a heavyweight. Ricco’s gut clenched, and so did his jaw and hands. He would have loved to take another shot, but for the sake of his mother he refrained.

“Thank you for last night, son,” the old man said, his voice low and shaky.

“I would have done it for anyone,” Ricco said and walked past him. He entered the kitchen to find his other two sisters, his mother, nieces, and nephews crowding around the big butcher block table. His eyes scanned the room for Kim.

“She went outside to make a phone call,” Jasmine said.

Ricco shrugged. “Who?”

Elle grinned and wagged her finger under his nose. “You can’t pretend around us, Riccito. We know that look in your eyes. But—” She tapped her finger to her cheek. “I have to say, I’ve never seen you so moody over a woman. Is this the one?”

“One of many more to come.” And he tried to say it with conviction, but he fell short, because, quite frankly, he wasn’t sure. Kimberly Michaels did something to him no other woman did, and she was going to be gone in less than a week. He would not ask her to stay. She’d made her position clear, as had he.

“I hope you wait until the end of the week to continue your run, Ricco,” Kim said from the doorway.

He had the decency to blush. He opened his mouth to defend his callous remark but decided he’d look like a bigger ass if he tried. Instead, he said, “Sorry, that was pretty crude.”

She strutted in and looked at the kids, his mom, and sisters before looking him straight in the eye. “Yeah, it was,” she said, then stalked past him.

“Ricco!” Leticia said as Kim exited the room. “You were raised better than that!”

His temper flared and he curbed it. He would not take his frustration out on his mother. “I said I was sorry.”

He turned back to the salon and nearly flattened Esmeralda. Tears streamed down her face. “I have two guests left. Kim and a single guy who isn’t sure if he wants to stay. I have
Town & Country
scheduled to come by for photos later today. How can they take pictures with no guests? How can I pay my bills without guests?” she demanded, on the verge of hysteria.

Ricco hugged her to him and said, “It’ll work out, Ez, it always does.” He drew her into the kitchen. When they were all together, he asked his sister, “What time exactly is
Town & Country
scheduled to be here?”

She sniffed and stood comforted by his arms around her. “By two.”

Ricco nodded and hugged her closer, then he turned to look at his family. He scowled when he noticed that Enrique hadn’t left. He’d see to that later. “Okay, family, between the shooting and the fire, Ez has lost all but two of her guests. We all need to play happy guest later today when
Town & Country
comes by for photos. I suggest we look our photo op best.” He turned to his mother, then glanced at Jasmine. “Cal agrees with me that we need a town hall meeting ASAP.” He looked at his watch. “It’s almost nine. Do you think we could have a quorum by eleven? Then come back here and give
Town & Country
the shoot of all shoots?”

Leticia set her jaw and nodded. “I’ll make it happen.” Then she moved to her daughter and took her from Ricco’s embrace into hers.
“Mija,”
she soothed, brushing Esmeralda’s hair from her cheeks, “it will all work out. I promise.”

Once it was settled and Ricco was about to head into town, he remembered why he was there. “Cal says you can go back into the house. Some of the trim and the woodpile burned. He apologizes for the water damage to your office. He offered to come by later and help you clean up.”

“That’s sweet of him, but Kim is going to help me.”

Ricco frowned. “Why?”

Leti cocked her head at her son. “Not that I have to clear such things with you, but she offered, and I accepted. I thought it was nice of her.”

Ricco stood for a long minute trying to find a justifiable reason for Kim not to help his mother. He realized he didn’t want her ingratiating herself into his family. And he wasn’t exactly sure why. Part of it, he knew, was selfishness. He wanted her all to himself for the rest of the week. If that occurred, however, one of two things would happen—he’d be glad to see her go, having gone to the well too many times and become bored, or he’d fall into the well and be unable to climb out of it. As much as he wanted to keep the separation between her and his family, he couldn’t stop it now. Not without good reason. It would make him look like the ass he was becoming. Maybe the best thing to do was just play it all out and see what happened, then deal with the fallout. Inwardly he cringed at the idea. He wasn’t up for more turmoil. Not this kind. The kind that you carried with you, under your skin, in your heart, and soul.

Give him cops and robbers any day.

“Sorry. I’ll let her know to come on over.”

As Ricco turned to leave the kitchen, he caught his father’s contemplative gaze. Ricco set his jaw and moved past the old man. No one—least of all the man who called himself his father—had room to chastise Ricco for how he conducted his love life. Never had he led any woman to believe there was anything more than that night. Most, but not all, of the women he encountered received the same precoital disclosure: “I don’t do mornings. So if you’re good to go with that, let’s play.” He was always amazed at the women who tried to get him to stay with the promise of more sexcapades followed by breakfast in bed. What was it with women wanting to make more out of a one-night stand? Were they all out to find a husband? A hard shiver shook him from head to toe. The thought of settling down made him queasy. There was too much to give up. The loss of his freedom and philandering did not outweigh the minimal gain of the same woman for eternity.

He found himself standing at Kim’s door, battling his urge to flee. He was not a coward. He’d never run from a challenge in his life. But the woman on the other side of the door made him afraid. Afraid he would not be able to make a clean break and walk away, as he had done hundreds of times before with as many women.

He knocked.

“Come in,” Kim called.

He wasn’t surprised to see his duffel bag packed and sitting next to the door. He pointed to it. “Is that your way of telling me I’m no longer welcome in your room?”

She stood at the window, her arms crossed over her chest, her jaw set, her eyes flashing. He’d really pissed her off. Part of him wanted to beg her forgiveness and carry on the way they had, the other part wanted to drive the wedge wider.

“Ya think?” She unwound her limbs and came around the end of the bed. “It was nice while it lasted, but I won’t be spoken of that way in public. Take your bag and hit the road.”

She moved past him, but he grabbed her arm and whirled her around to face him. “What if I don’t want to?”

Kim stiffened in his grasp. “Take your bag or hit the road?”

“Maybe both.” His declaration shocked them both. Kim’s eyes went from narrowed slits to saucer wide. She yanked her arm from his grasp but didn’t move away from him.

“Look, Ricco, sex with you is great. The best. Hell, the best ever. But your moods are so damn hot and cold. I’m not a damn doormat!” She began to pace the carpet. “I mean, if it were just about the sex, that would be one thing. But it’s—” She stopped and slapped her hand over her mouth.

Holy crap, she couldn’t believe what she’d just been about to say. She watched Ricco’s eyes go from guarded to curious. “What’s it about, Kim?” he softly asked.

Shit shit shit! “It…ah…it’s about your family!” Whew, great save.

He cocked one of his dark eyebrows, and a slow smile crept across his full I-can-put-Brad-Pitt-to-shame lips. He wasn’t buying it. “Oh? What does my family have to do with us and sex?”

“Well, I’ve gotten to know your family, and it isn’t all about us, or the sex.”

He pushed off the door and moved toward her. “Again, I don’t see how that applies to us.”

“I like your family. I like you too, so if we break up—I mean if we stop sleeping together—it could get weird when you bring your new girlfriend, or fuck buddy, or whatever I am or she will be around while I’m hanging out with your mom or sisters.” Her rambling made no sense to her, and she doubted it made sense to Ricco. She felt like she was grasping for straws, because the real issue was her desire to be with Ricco for more than the sex. And that realization terrified her. If she felt this strongly now, how would she feel later when he moved on? Her body seemed to have suddenly lost the energy necessary to support it. She fought off the unnerving sensation. Taking a big, deep breath, Kim told herself she was a big enough girl with enough defenses to thwart a hostile takeover of her heart.

“But you’re leaving at the end of the week. I doubt I’d dump you and find a new fuck buddy in that time.”

His words had a double impact. He was committing—if you could call it that—for the rest of the week, and that elated her, but he was also letting her know what she didn’t want to hear: He was walking as soon as their time was up. She punched his arm. “I was going to tell Ez I’d like to extend my stay for a few days. I haven’t been able to do what I need to do for my client. So can you now see my dilemma?”

Ricco grinned. “Let’s make a deal. For as long as you’re here in Evergreen, we can be—” She watched his face redden as he struggled to say the word, “an
item
” or some semblance of the concept, but he couldn’t say the words.

Kim smiled, suddenly wanting to hold him to her breast and soothe his hurts as a mother would a child. “Have you ever been half of an item, a couple, a pair?”

He jerked his head up and down. “Once or twice.”

“And how did it feel?”

“Smothering.”

Kim frowned and stepped away. She began to twirl her hair, and for a long time she tried to think of a response. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea for her to stay longer. Admittedly, though she tried to convince herself that staying was for the sake of the buyout, she knew that wasn’t completely true. At the rate things were happening in Evergreen, it would be like taking a sucker from a two-year-old. No, it was because she wanted to be with Ricco, and if she was really honest with herself, it went beyond that. She liked the uncomplicated lifestyle of the people in Evergreen. There was, for her anyway, absolutely no performance pressure.

Her gaze rose to Ricco’s. Gone was his boyish grin; in its stead was the face of a man very serious about committing, or, in their case, not committing. She inhaled a deep breath and let it out. “Smothering is not a good verb when it comes to relationships. No matter how casual.” She continued to twirl her hair, then said, “Look, I’m not the kind of girl who can have sex with a guy one day, and watch him hit on another woman the next and not have feelings about it. I’d liked to think I was that uncaring, but I have my limits. And since you appear to have commitment issues on just about every level, let’s not waste our time.” And though she meant every word of it, the room was suddenly colder at her admission and what would follow in its wake.

“I’m not a damn dog, Kim!” Ricco said. “You act like I hump anything that turns her ass my way.”