Have Yourself a Naughty Little Santa (2 page)

Long before Nick’s proposal, Kimberly had resigned herself to the fact that she was done with emotional entanglements. Sex, sure, when the urge struck, and that wasn’t often. She knew she sucked in the picking-out-decent-guys department. She picked losers or, like the guy last night, pretty boys. Pretty boys who couldn’t keep their dicks in their pants. Yeah, it was kind of amazing when she thought about it. On the one hand, she could dissect and disseminate a financial statement, breaching even the most diligently protected property for acquisition while knowing in her gut she was right, but damn if she could trust herself when it came to men.

Except Nick. She had no delusions. She had money now, but as Mrs. Nicholas Montgomery Gold, she would have more money then she could ever spend. More than that, though, the doors to the world would be open to her. Nick had hinted just the other day that after Evergreen was procured he had his heart set on an island in the West Indies. The only problem was that it had what appeared to be a thriving economy and solid political structure. Kim smiled. That wouldn’t stop either of them from finding a way to expose the vulnerable underbelly every property had, making it ripe for a buyout. Hostile or otherwise.

As those thoughts went through her head, Kim wondered if her parents would actually show up to wedding number three. They hadn’t bothered for either of her previous weddings. Her mother had wrinkled her nose and asked why she was slumming. Kim wrinkled her own nose. Maybe she wouldn’t invite her parents—let them read about her marriage in the
Times
! It would serve them right.

Kim settled back into the soft, down comforter and smiled. Last night had been a welcome respite from her life. It would be her last. Because despite Nick’s stand on extramarital sex, she knew that once she said “I do,” she would not sleep around. She was a lot of things, but she was not going to violate the forsaking all others part of the merger. She sighed, hoping that she and Nick would be as compatible in bed as they were in the boardroom. But she doubted he could come close to the guy last night. What she wouldn’t give for just another few hours with him.

“Kimberly!?”

She shot up in the bed, so lost in her thoughts that she had forgotten about Nick! “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I said, for the third time, why are you calling me?”

Her rancor rose. “To tell you my flight arrived in Reno as scheduled, but at the moment, this entire county is blanketed under thirty feet of snow. I’m holed up at the Legacy—”

“Find a way out.”

“I’m working on it, but I was told the road into Evergreen won’t be open until a day or two after 80 reopens.”

“I don’t want excuses.”

Grrr. “I’m not giving you any. I’m telling you,
I can’t get out right now
.”

“Time is of the essence, Kimberly. Make it happen.”

Damn him!
“I guess you haven’t heard a word I’ve said. I. Can. Not. Get. Out.” His deep, throaty chuckle startled her. She didn’t trust his quick mood change. “What?”

“I hear you, but I also
know
you,” he replied.

And he did. He knew she would find a way, no matter the cost, to get into Evergreen within the agreed time frame. “I’ll get there as soon as humanly possible.”

“That’s my girl.” He hung up.

Kim flopped back into the pillows and slapped her hand over her eyes. Pain erupted behind her eye sockets, and she groaned. Nick would be an ass, then he would turn the tables on her to make her challenge herself to get the job done. While the real Nick—the one she had come to admire—was a prick at heart, she didn’t mind him when he loosened up. Of course the real Nick was a cut-to-the-chase man who created oases out of barren wastelands.

He had a knack for revitalizing properties, from a lowly corner supermarket to entire towns. And right now, Nick had his sights set on Evergreen, California, a small gem of a town tucked intimately between the snowcapped Sierras and the elegant and unspoiled shores of Reindeer Lake. With Reno to its northeast and Lake Tahoe to its south, the town had the potential to explode.

She slowly inhaled and exhaled a deep breath. She wanted Evergreen as bad as he did, but for different reasons. And if he was a bastard about getting it, she could be a bitch about it. And bitch she could be. It was her job to unearth and expose the town’s weaknesses, as well as its strengths, but mostly she was to find its Achilles’ heel. It was how Nick would move in, seize the property, then wave his magic wand.

Kim didn’t usually consider the will of the residents in these types of takeovers—and Lord knew some of them had been hostile—but in the end it always worked out. Besides, who could be unhappy when their beleaguered bank accounts plumped up from Land’s Edge cash?

She glanced toward the bright window and squinted. She was screwed. If it hadn’t been so damn windy she would have hired a chopper to take her into Evergreen. Maybe a snowmobile? She rolled over. Nick didn’t like excuses. It didn’t matter in the least to him that her wings were clipped.

As she always did when she was irritated, Kim reached to the locket hanging from a gold chain around her neck. It was her only link to the grandmother whose love had fortified her when her globe-trotting parents had jetted off, leaving their only child in the old woman’s care. After Gran died when Kim was eight, Kim had been left to a revolving door of nannies.

She jackknifed up in the bed, grabbing at her bare throat.
No!
The necklace was gone. Hastily she tore the sheets off her bed, scoured the carpet, dumped her purse, tossed the bathroom and her suitcase. Nothing.

Kim stood quietly in the room, her eyes squeezed shut. She knew exactly where it was and how it had gotten there. Excitement rippled through her, but trepidation hurried along behind it. It was in room 417, the one where she’d spent a night in sexual nirvana. She swallowed hard. As much as she wanted another roll in the sheets with Mr. No Name Hotty, she was done with dalliances for the moment. She had work to do, and she would need to focus one hundred percent. Knocking on his door and casually asking about her heirloom necklace, which he had most likely ravaged off her throat, was a surefire way to sidetrack her.

But if she didn’t go up there? She would never see the locket, and while she was not a sentimental woman, it was all she had from the only person who had loved her unconditionally.

Kim quickly showered and changed.

F
OR A LONG MOMENT SHE STOOD OUTSIDE DOOR 417,
waiting, hand poised ready to knock, when the door opened from the inside. Kim started, and so did the housekeeper on the other side of the threshold. “I need to speak to the man inside,” Kim calmly stated.

The robust lady looked surprised but smiled. “He no here.”

“He no here as in, he’s gone from his room or he left the hotel?”

“He check out.”

Heat flamed Kim’s cheeks, and she cursed the reaction. At least one of them had had a good time last night. It burned her bad that she now had the unenviable knowledge of what it felt like to be a quickly forgotten one-night stand. For several long moments she stood silently while she adequately leashed her anger. Once again she’d picked a love ’em and leave ’em Don Juan. One would think that after twenty or so years a girl could spy a hit-and-run guy from a distance.

Kim calmed down a little. It didn’t matter. She was here for her locket—that was all that mattered. She’d never see that guy again. And besides, she was the one who had slipped out of the room with no intention of going back, while he’d lain there on his back in all his naked glory happily snoring after a vigorous night of sex.

Kim smiled. She’d stood there for a good long time, staring. Her gaze trailing up from the long, thick muscles in his legs to his thighs and up to that bad boy curled up asleep in a soft, downy nest of dark curls. Even asleep he was hung like a horse. His belly was flat and hard and defined. He worked out. A lot. His chest and arms? Long, muscular arms that had held her tightly as her body had quivered and trembled as one wave of orgasm after another had shuddered through her. He had the classic chiseled face of David, though his hair was cut shorter, in a fashionable style that had been completely mussed when she’d finished with him.

She’d moved closer to the edge of the bed and bent down to press one last kiss on those full, sensuous lips of his. Her body warmed. Dear Lord, they’d been dangerous. He’d licked and sucked every inch of her body. When he’d smiled at her, the entire room had lit up. Never in her life had she just closed her eyes and free-fallen. It had been the most emancipating experience of her life. The smell of their sex had hung heavy in the air. Leaving that room had been one of the hardest things she could ever remember doing. But she had had to go. And he hadn’t asked her to stay.

Had her necklace not gone missing she would have done everything humanly possible to avoid him like a cold sore. But he’d beaten her to the punch. Kim flinched. Dumped again. The story of her life was really getting old.

“Did you find a necklace in there? A gold chain with a small heart locket?”

“No,
señorita, nada
.” The maid stepped back and opened the door wider, grinning from ear to ear. “You look. But I change the sheets.” She gave Kim a knowing smile.

It took Kim all of five minutes to come to the same conclusion the maid had. Her necklace was nowhere to be found. Or. Kim raised her eyes to the quiet, dark ones of the maid. Had she found it and pocketed it? Kim shook her head, not wanting to think the worst, but she had seen some pretty crappy things go down in her lifetime. Most especially in her line of work. It boded well for her to be suspicious, and she was by nature. Nothing personal. She just knew everyone had a dark side, and even good people did bad things. It was her mantra, one she had developed and lived by for years. It kept her safe and it kept her sane.

“Maybe you ask the man at the front desk for it?” the maid offered.

Kim thought about asking the smiling maid to empty her pockets right then and there, but something about her serene smile told Kim she’d look the fool.

“Thank you,” Kim said instead, then went directly down to the concierge desk. The tall man behind the counter smiled and held up a finger. He was on the phone. She paced back and forth, debating if she should have demanded that the maid empty her pockets. What if she
did
have it? A desperation almost like a panic attack overcame Kim.
She had to have that locket!

When the concierge hung up, he gave Kim a smile and his undivided attention. “How may I help you?”

“I’m Kimberly Michaels, room two eighteen. Is there a message, a note, a package,
something
for me?”

He grinned, bent down behind his stand, and stood up with a small white envelope in his hand. He pulled a yellow Post-it from the envelope and looked from it to her.

He cleared his throat and asked, “Could you tell me the room number of the man who left this for you?”

Kim gasped, but her desperation slid into hope. The concierge’s cheeks flushed. “The gentleman wanted to make sure I gave it to the correct lady.” He continued to grin and looked at the Post-it, then back to her. “He said I should only give this envelope to a pushy, blond-haired, blue-eyed nymph who smells like springtime and who knows his room number.”

Kim swallowed hard and thought her insides would puddle right there on the floor. “Fo—four-seventeen.”

The concierge’s smile widened, and he handed her the envelope. On the outside, in a bold scroll, was one word:
Cinderella
. Kim’s hand trembled as she took it. She hurried to a nearby chair and sat down, afraid her knees would give out. Closing her eyes, she brought the envelope to her nose and inhaled. It was there, barely perceptible, but his spicy scent wafted along the velum. Sliding her nail under the edge, Kim opened the envelope. Folded inside a piece of paper was her gold chain. And scrawled in the same bold handwriting as on the envelope was a note:
If you want what goes to this, call me. 408.555.1043

“R
ICCO, TAKE PLOW FOUR OUT WITH
D
ENNIS AND SAY A
prayer,” Peyton Moore directed. He handed Ricco a two-way radio. If Ricco had to guess, he would say Peyton’s lips were drawn tight with worry, but he couldn’t tell under all of the layers of clothes that Evergreen’s mayor and acting maintenance superintendent was wearing. His job covered roads, public property, and animal removal. Evergreen was last on Caltrans’ list of places to clean up during a blizzard; if they didn’t get the roads cleared soon, they wouldn’t get them cleared at all, which would mean another abysmal season for the small town, which lived or died between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. That would be the last nail in their fiscal coffin.

The blizzard of the year had buried Evergreen. Ricco was lucky he’d made it out of Reno when he had. Having a four-wheel-drive vehicle had helped. Getting out before they’d closed 80 had helped too, but what had helped more was his badge.

He nodded, pulled on a pair of ski gloves, and climbed up into the behemoth of a snowplow. He turned the key and the big diesels roared to life. He was just as concerned as the other residents were for the survival of the small town that had welcomed him, his mother, and sisters so many years ago, when they’d been on their last leg, but he couldn’t help a huge grin now. As a boy he had always fantasized about driving one of these bad boys down Evergreen Promenade, the snow sluicing out of his way in great white snowy waves.

Every year he came home for the holidays and saved the town a few dollars by taking one of the plows out himself. It was the least he could do. He and his family could never repay Evergreen for taking them in when no one else had. He was happy to give what he could.

He grinned wider.

Another fantasy slipped in between his boyhood dreams and his real-life man dreams. That long drink of water last night: he was thirsty for more of her. He could still feel her silky smooth skin against his and her warm breath as she’d gasped and moaned beneath him, coming time after time. Her fresh ocean breeze scent mingled with the scent of their sex had created pure love potion number nine.

His blood quickened as he visualized the shocked look on her face when she’d climaxed the first time, her sultry body hanging suspended in his big hands as she’d gasped for breath while her body had spasmed and twitched. Yeah, it had been poetry in motion, a beautiful sight, one he had never tired of. He doubted he ever would. He loved women too much.

All wide-eyed and dewy, she’d raised up in his arms, pulled his lips down to hers, and demanded he take her there again. He’d been happy to oblige.

He’d been pissed to wake to an empty bed. That had been
his
move. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a woman back to his hotel room or his house in San Jose. He usually either found a neutral place to retreat from, or went to the home of his current love interest. And while he loved just about everything about a woman, he didn’t like the way they got all clingy after a night of sex. His grin waned. He was more like his old man than he cared to admit, and it bugged the hell out of him.

Despite the ill thoughts of the man who was his father on paper, Ricco managed to smile again. Yeah, the sheets had still been warm when he’d woken up reaching for that firecracker, so it hadn’t been long since she’d slipped out on him. He liked to think she’d given him serious second thoughts before she’d bolted. Ricco rearranged his jeans around his swelling dick. Damn if he could get her out of his head, and damn if he knew why. She’d been just another warm body to while away the hours with.

He rolled down his window and called to his ride-along. “C’mon kid, the snow isn’t waiting on you.” The object of his words bobbed his head and turned back to the man he was talking with. Ricco squinted in the bright glare of the snow. It had been a long time since he’d seen so much snow come down in a twenty-four-hour period. If it continued much longer, Evergreen could kiss a profitable season good-bye. And with that, they would lose what they all had worked so hard for. He scowled. Ezzy had told him about some company wanting to buy up the entire town! And it was a shitty offer with no guarantees for the residents. Why Evergreen? Irritated, he began to drum on the steering wheel, but instead of thinking of the bind the town would find themselves in if the snow didn’t let up, he thought of soft, creamy skin and pouty red lips and the naughty things they’d done to him last night, and this morning….

Yeah, if he was honest with himself, he could admit that Cinderella was pretty special. She had opened up like a timid little flower, blossoming for the first time.

She’d been reserved at first, then
bam
, once he’d undressed her and pressed his lips to her throat, she’d come alive under him. It had been amazing to behold the transformation. Ricco rubbed his chest where her nails had left marks. She was no shrinking violet for sure. More like a Venus flytrap.

He patted the left pocket of his ski jacket. He knew she’d call eventually for her locket. What he didn’t know was whether he could talk the little blonde between the sheets again.

A thud on the passenger door jerked him out of his thoughts. “Open up, Ricco!” Denny Troyer called over the rumbling diesels. Ricco hit the power locks and the high-school kid hopped in, brushing snow from his shoulders and face. All Ricco could see were two dark eyes and full lips from behind the red-white-and-blue snowflake ski mask. Denny grinned up at Ricco, and Ricco could not help a return smile. “You ready, kid?”

“Yep, let’s get this bitch on the road!”

Ricco laughed.

A loud blast of an air horn startled them both. “Maza! Get going!” Peyton shouted from the yard, waving him on.

Ricco nodded and put the Mack into reverse. The caution beeps piped up, warning any who stood too close to move out of the way. Then he carefully backed out of the maintenance yard and onto the main street—Evergreen Promenade to 82 north—and Evergreen’s survival.

As the truck rumbled along, Denny asked, pulling off his ski mask, “How long are you gonna be around this time, Ricco?”

“Until the new year, like usual.”

The kid nodded, then turned a sly sideways look his way. “What?” Ricco asked, knowing that look too well. It was the same one his mother and sisters got when they were about to fix him up.

“My sister Poppy is back from Cal for a while.”

Ricco grinned. Ah, yes—sweet, sweet Poppy. She was tall and sultry, and, if memory served him and half of the men in Evergreen correctly, she had the greatest pair of tits in Nor Cal. But she was twenty-two years old and Ricco liked his women with a little more experience and age. “Denny, Poppy doesn’t want an old guy like me.”

“That’s not what she told me last year. She
really
likes you.”

“Well, tell her I really like her too, but not like that.”

“What about Felicia?”

Ricco scowled, not wanting to think of his high-school sweetheart. He leveraged the steel snow shovel down to meet the road. The attachment locked into place, barely disturbing the huge truck they were in. Billows of heavy white snow arched up and out of their way. Ricco grinned. Worked like a charm. “Can I drive it?” Denny asked.

“Hell, no! I get my Jones on every time I drive up here when it snows.”

Denny frowned and changed the subject. “Mom says we might move.”

Ricco continued to grin as the great waves of snow flew out of their way. Yeah, baby!

“Why?”

“Mom says business is drying up. She said the last five years really messed her up, she had to borrow against the house, and if this storm keeps coming, she said she’d have to close up the shop. Poppy wants to go to graduate school, and I’m locked in to Davis this fall. She said she can get a dealer job at the Legacy.”

A hard jolt of heat zapped Ricco in his groin at the reference to that particular casino in Reno and the woman he’d spent the night with. Quickly he leashed his rising libido and said to Denny, “I was lucky enough to scholarship. You must have had decent grades to get into Davis. How about a student loan? Payments are deferred until a year or two after you graduate.”

“I dunno. I need to talk to my mom more about it. But she said something about a town buyout. Will the town give us money?”

Ricco kept his eyes focused on the bright white of the road in front of them. The wind had died down, and miraculously the snow seemed to be abating. Ricco’s belly tightened, and he said a prayer. Maybe there was hope for Evergreen yet. After all these years, he’d hate to see his family pull up stakes and move. His mom was not only the city controller but also a CPA who did ninety-nine percent of all the residents’ personal and business tax returns, as well as their books. She employed three full-time assistants. All three of his sisters were financially embedded in town. His oldest sister, Elle, was a physician’s assistant at the Urgent Care. His sister Jasmine taught at St. Anne’s, the small Catholic school in town. Her fraternal twin, Ezzy, owned and ran Esmeralda’s B&B, a high-end inn. If there was no town, there were no jobs, and then no family.
No way!

“Not the town per se,” he replied. “The way I hear it, a fat developer has made an offer to the town counsel to buy up a chunk of the property. They want to redevelop the area into another casino resort.”

“Would that be bad?”

“It would for those who love Evergreen the way it is. Bring in the casinos and resorts and we go commercial. We’d have to start locking our doors, Denny, and there’s no fun in that.”

Denny nodded. As Ricco smiled and turned back to look at the road ahead, he was nearly run off the road by a swerving, out-of-control SUV. It slid past him; in his big side mirror he watched it dive-bomb into a snowbank, then farther down the steep embankment that ran along this part of the road.

“Did you see that?” Denny asked, craning around to look behind them.

Ricco nodded his head and started to slow down to maneuver the plow around. “Yeah, some crazy-ass urbanite who can’t read a road sign.”