Have Yourself a Naughty Little Santa (7 page)

R
ICCO’S LONG, ANGRY STRIDES MADE IT DIFFICULT FOR
Kim to keep up. She noticed, though, that instead of heading back to the B&B, they were going in the opposite direction, straight to the heart of town. The air was colder and the wind had picked up, but the atmosphere was clear. The snow had stopped before dinner. She looked up and gasped. The deep purple sky was filled to bursting with stars. They twinkled brightly, and the combination of the stars, the wispy scent of evergreen, and fresh air was exhilarating, despite the angry man who drew her behind him like a sack of dirty laundry.

“Ricco,” she breathlessly said. “Slow down.”

Abruptly, he did, and she knocked into his side. Absently he righted her before she fell. He didn’t let go of her hand, and in a sudden, shocking awareness, she realized she didn’t want him to. His warmth and strength, even if he wasn’t aware of his gesture, made her feel wanted. She shook that off, and with it, she pulled her hand away. He scowled down at her as if just realizing he’d been holding her hand but was glad she’d made the break.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, then began to walk, looking down at her to see if she could keep stride with him.

“Was that your father?” she softly asked. Kim felt Ricco’s body stiffen beside her even though they had no physical contact. His stride increased in pace. She sped up to keep up.

And for reasons unknown to her at that moment, Kim said, “I know how it feels.” He slowed and scowled down at her, still not saying a word. Old hurts swelled in her chest, pressing into her heart, a heart she had kept closed to intrusion. Yet she had a need to connect with this man, to let him know he wasn’t the only kid who’d been deserted by a parent. And, she told herself, she was going to be in Evergreen for the next week, and Ricco’s mother was the gateway to her report for a buyout. Who better to get close to than the woman’s only son she doted on?

Kim hurried to explain. “I gather your father wasn’t around much?”

Ricco grunted a response.

“My mother and father were absentee parents too. My grandmother raised me until she died. Then it was a revolving door of nannies.”

“Do you have siblings?”

She shook her head. “I call myself the Trust Fund baby. Without the baby, my mother didn’t get the trust fund.”

Ricco glanced down at her then looked ahead. They were approaching the ice rink. Several couples and small children frolicked on the smooth, shiny ice. Low holiday music piped across the space. A large bonfire burned on the other side, and she could see several people huddled around it.

Impulsively Kim grabbed Ricco’s hand and said, “C’mon. I’ve never ice-skated! Teach me!”

He resisted. She pulled him toward the rink. “C’mon, Ricco, teach me.”

He stood dug into the sidewalk, his dark, stormy face unyielding. Kim smiled and tilted her head. She pouted and pressed herself against the long length of him. At the contact she felt his body stir. “You know you want to.”

He stood stalwart. She persisted, and much to her surprise, she found herself enjoying this lighter, flirtier self. And if it got her the information she needed, she was game. Besides, it wasn’t like she wasn’t attracted to the guy. If she wasn’t careful, she could find herself twisting up the sheets with him again. Her body lit up at the notion.

When Ricco refused to budge, Kim resorted to a little reverse psychology. She released his hand and skipped past him toward the rink. She knew he’d follow her, if for no other reason than the fact that he’d feel some sense of responsibility for making sure she was returned safe and sound to the inn. Not that this town was threatening in any way. It was Christmas paradise, and she felt as light and carefree as she had when Gran would take her out on the town.

The fact that Kimberly didn’t have a cent on her didn’t matter. The smiling lady in the rental hut just told her to drop off the two-dollar rental fee the next time she came by. Kim sat down on a warmed bench and pulled off her five-hundred-dollar boots, fretting about where she could put them so no one would steal them. The nice lady from the rental hut just a few feet away smiled and said, “No one will bother your things.”

Kim smiled and put on the skates, tightly lacing them. As she stood, she nearly lost her balance. She grabbed the edge of the rink and was thankful for the thick rubber matting that led to the ice. She glanced over her shoulder to where she’d left Ricco. He stood, silently watching her. He hadn’t moved an inch. Her belly somersaulted. She felt his pain. Really, she did, but she’d learned to compartmentalize it. It made life so much more manageable. And frankly, being emotionally unfettered cleared the way for complete focus on her job. And she loved her job. The thrill of the hunt was better than sex any day. Well, except the other night, but that was an anomaly. Seriously, it had been one of those all-of-the-stars-in-alignment nights.

Gingerly Kim put her right foot onto the ice. She gripped the edge of the rink wall and put her left foot out. The right foot pushed forward, she flexed backward to compensate, and her left foot went flying out from underneath her. She hit the hard ice with a loud whoosh. She lay stunned and breathless for a long moment. She opened her eyes to see several concerned faces peering down at her.

“Are you okay, lady?” a teenaged boy asked.

“I think so,” she answered. As far as she could tell the only thing stinging at the moment was her pride, and, well, her behind. The boy extended a hand and she reached for it. As he pulled her up, her skates went willy-nilly and she fell back onto the ice, this time bringing the kid with her.

She lay flat on her back, sprawled out like she was going to make a snow angel, with the kid sitting on her stomach. He hurried to move away, apologizing profusely. A dark shadow moved over her, and big, capable hands lifted her from the ice, setting her aright on her feet. Kim looked up to see Ricco’s hard face above hers. Heat infused her cheeks. His eyes, not as hard as his face, twinkled just a smidge. “You’re going to kill yourself and everyone else on the ice,” he told her.

Carefully, Kim grasped the edge of the low wall and scowled up at him. “No, I’m not!” She turned to grab the wall with her other hand, misplaced her weight, and found herself once again on her back, this time staring up into two very amused dark brown eyes.

He stared at her for a long moment before those sensual lips of his broke into a smile. “Yes, you are.” He extended his hand and hauled her up against him. He wrapped his left arm around her waist, and, in a slow glide, he pushed off, holding her to him. Like he was an NHL star, he moved with the grace of a pro along the ice. The slow, long glide guided by his long, hard body made her think of other long, slow slides.

He was so big and so strong, and so adept on the ice, that she couldn’t have fallen had she tried. He held her easily and maneuvered them effortlessly around the small rink. Her feet made weird directional changes even as she tried to guide them, but Ricco kept her close to him. His spicy personal scent, mingled with that of their surroundings, was heady stuff. Kimberly looked up to him, but his eyes were focused ahead, his jaw set. While he had gone where she’d wanted, he was in his own little world.

“Earth to Ricco,” she said. He glanced down at her and slowed. He stopped then, pressing her back against the rail.

“I’m not very good company tonight.”

She smiled and liked the way he kept his body close to hers. When she pressed into him, he cocked an eyebrow. “What happened to the spitfire who wanted me to stay the hell away from her?”

Kim shrugged, then smiled big. “I thought Elle was your girlfriend and Tonio your son. The way you acted when you saw Ezzy, I assumed the same thing with her and thought you were a twisted bastard.”

He threw his head back and laughed. She smiled, liking the way it sounded. Thick, hearty, and full of amusement. He shook his head. Taking her right hand in his, he sobered somewhat and said, “Rest assured, I don’t have children squirreled away—or their mothers. I’m fairly certain there are no little Rickys running around out there.” He slowly drew her away from the railing. She hesitated. “I won’t let you fall,” he softly said. And she believed him.

He slid his arm around her waist and brought her up against his side. Looking up at him, she smiled. Ricco grinned back, and something deep inside of her shifted. He pushed off. In a slow, easy circle, they moved across the ice. The chilly air against her skin and the freeing effect of the movement made her feel footloose and fancy-free. She looked down at Ricco’s black skates; she moved her feet in time to match his, and just like that, with a little help, she was skating.

“Oh, my God! I’m doing it!” She was skating! “Let go!”

Slowly Ricco unreeled her from his side. She tightened her grip and looked up at him. As the word no escaped, she felt her feet go out from underneath her. Ricco did a slick half circle move and grabbed her up to him before she hit the hard ice.

“Not so fast, Cinderella. You have to crawl before you can compete in the Olympics.”

She hung onto his shoulders, and she felt his body stiffen. His eyes darkened. Her body warmed. She wanted him to kiss her, she wanted to experience the thrill of him again. When he moved away from her, even though he didn’t let go of her, a sudden rush of embarrassment assaulted her. Her spine straightened and she twisted her hand out of his, and fueled by the power of a woman solidly scorned, Kim managed to make it around the rink not once, but twice, with no help from Ricco.

When she came to a victorious final lap, stopping at the rail near where she had originally started and fallen just thirty minutes earlier, several bystanders clapped. Ricco’s big body swished up beside her in a rooster tail of shaved ice, just like the hockey players did when they turned on a dime. She glowered up at him. “Show-off.” He grinned and helped her off the ice.

As they sat beside each other on the warmed bench, Ricco said, “You didn’t do too bad for a virgin.”

Kimberly sat up from wrestling with the tight laces on her skate. “I beg your pardon?”

He shook his head and said, “
No te espume, chocolate.”

She scrunched up her nose. “What does that mean?”

He grinned and bent down to pull off his skates. He had big feet. He had big hands. She swallowed hard; he had a big something else too.

“It means, ‘Don’t foam up, chocolate.’”

She peered at him. He cocked a brow and bent down to loosen up her laces. “In real easy terms, Cinderella, it means, ‘Chill out.’”

“Don’t call me Cinderella.”

“Why not? You earned it.”

He pulled off her skates. She let him. His fingers were long and strong, and they felt good on her. “Because I left before you could?”

He smiled and moved his head closer to hers. He reached a hand to her face and pushed back her unruly hair from her cheek. He lightly touched her bump. It didn’t hurt anymore. “I admit, I would have left, but not before saying good-bye.”

Kim swallowed hard. “I’m sure you have one-nightstand etiquette down to a science. But since you were my first, I was a bit unclear on the procedure.”

Ricco moved back and handed her a boot. “These are really nice.”

She yanked it from his hand. “Thanks.” Once she put her boots on, Kim picked up her skates. Ricco reached out and took them from her. “I covered your bill.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I can—”

He put his hand out to shush her. “Buy me a cup of coffee tomorrow.”

She brought it down a notch. “Fair enough.”

As they walked to the rental hut, the woman smiled up at Ricco with that doey-eyed look every woman seemed to reserve just for him. She had to be older than him by fifteen years. Ricco grinned back as if she’d been the only woman on the planet. “Thanks, Margie.”

“Any time, Ricco.” Then Margie smiled at Kim and said, “You have the best teacher in town. He’s been skating like Wayne Gretzky since he was six years old.”

Kim offered an awkward smile. “Lucky me,” she said, then moved past them both. The warmth and sincerity of these Evergreen people was downright creepy.
Who acted like that?

Ricco caught up to Kim as she walked toward the inn. “That was kind of rude.”

She turned and he nearly crashed into her, but he caught himself. “Look, you Evergreen folks have your way, I have mine. Sorry if I don’t get all warm and fuzzy like every freak up here.”

“Since when is simple common courtesy freakish?”

“Since everyone in this town is like a Stepford person!”

Ricco laughed, but the amusement was thin. “Granted, the folks here are a bit isolated, but it’s by choice. Three weeks out of the year the same people flock here to get a taste of these Stepford people. It makes them feel human again. It gives them the courage to go back to their conveyor belt lives, where they interact like robots and drones. Don’t knock it until you try it, Cinderella. Pollyanna life for a week or two, especially during the holidays, doesn’t hurt anyone.”

She nodded her head. “Is that why you come up here?”

“My family is here. Those Stepford people you find so contemptuous took my mother, my sisters, and me in when no one else would. They didn’t ask for anything in return. We owe far more than we can ever repay.”

“Is that why you were clearing the roads?”