Once Upon a Christmas (23 page)

“Nice surprise.” At least it would have been, if
the newlyweds hadn’t already paid for a trip to the Bahamas themselves.

But their loss was his gain. Thanks to the generosity of
Janie’s Aunt Geraldine—and her yen for surprises—Dylan was about to have a
second chance with Stacey. He’d blown it the last time. He didn’t mean to make
the same mistake twice. If he had to swing from a trapeze like one of those
Cirque du Soleil performers, he’d do it. Whatever it took to win Stacey back.

Feeling more determined than ever, Dylan steered the Jeep
toward the next exit. At the rate cars crawled off the highway toward the Las
Vegas Strip, he’d be lucky to get there in time to spring his
own
surprise much before sunset.

“Get on that plane with Janie and get going, you
worrywart,” he told Richard. “I’ll handle everything here.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

A muffled thump sounded on Richard’s end of the phone line,
then bumping. A second later, Dylan heard something scrape across the receiver,
then, “Okay, okay.”

If he knew Janie, she was giving her new husband an earful.
Patiently, Dylan nestled the phone between his ear and shoulder and eased his
Jeep down the off-ramp. Cars whizzed past in the right-hand lane, streaming
toward the turn that led to the surface streets.

The phone crackled. “Listen,” Richard said loudly,
as though he’d returned his full attention to their phone conversation. “I
gotta go. But watch yourself out there. If you screw up and break Stacey’s
heart again, you’ll never sing bass in this town again.”

Dylan grinned. “Janie’s parting shot, I presume?”

“Mine, too. You know how—”

“Quit worrying.” He frowned at the brake lights
shining between him and the stoplight at the bottom of the ramp. “Stacey’s
a big girl. She can take care of herself.”

“Like hell she can,” Richard returned. “Especially
when it comes to you.”

“What am I, the Terminator of romance?”

“According to Stacey? Yeah.”

“She’ll change her mind.”
God, he hoped she
changed her mind
.

He said his good-byes to Richard and Janie, then plopped his
cell phone on the Jeep’s passenger seat. Its occupant, Ginger, sprawled across
the upholstery with about as much canine grace as usual. He gave her a pat.

“You know, for a girl dog, you don’t have much feminine
mystique.”

He scratched between her furry, perked-up ears. She sneezed,
quivering with the joy of being the center of attention. She rolled over so he
could rub her belly. Dylan rubbed absent-mindedly, his thoughts returning to
Stacey.

Now
there
was a female with feminine mystique to
spare. He hardly ever knew what the hell she was thinking. He had to be insane
to jump back into the three-ring-circus that was dating Stacey Ames.

On the other hand, he’d be even crazier not to.

Dylan turned onto the next street, his gaze darting toward
the space-age platinum spire of the Atmosphere Hotel rising above the Las Vegas skyline. Stacey didn’t know what she was in for. But he was going to love showing
her.

In the honeymoon suite’s pink marble bathroom, Stacey
slipped deeper into the hot, peppermint-scented bathwater she’d drawn. Her
muscles relaxed for the first time since she’d stepped into the church for
Janie’s wedding this morning.

What an adventure
that
had turned out to be. First,
Janie had burst into tears at her bachelorette party the night before, thanks
to Stacey’s brilliant idea to have a male stripper dressed as a police officer
come to the door and pretend to arrest the bride. Then, at the wedding, Janie
had had the train of her wedding gown ripped off, thanks to Stacey accidentally
stepping on it while ogling a cute usher.

By the time Aunt Geraldine had presented the bride and groom
with their surprise wedding gift—
after
they’d scrimped and saved for a
nonrefundable trip to the Bahamas—Janie had had all she could take. She’d run
from the room wailing, leaving Stacey to explain away her cousin’s trauma as a
case of newlywed nerves.

And to step in and solve the problem.

Now here she was, chest-deep in a bubble bath foamy enough
to get lost in, in a hotel suite bigger than the whole closet-sized apartment
she lived in back in Phoenix.
You know
, she thought, sculpting herself a
new pair of forty-four double-Ds with the suds,
this might actually be fun
.
A little relaxation, a little shopping, a little honeymooner
champagne…yessir, she could get to like spending a weekend in Vegas.

Stacey raised her foot from the water and examined it. Yep,
just about wrinkly enough. After a few more minutes’ soaking, maybe she’d get
dressed and head down to the casino to try her hand at a slot machine or two.

The phone jangled. Luckily, hotel patrons in Las Vegas apparently felt it imperative to remain connected at all times. Beside the neatly
lined-up toiletry bottles on the pink marble vanity stood a cordless receiver.
Dripping, Stacey rose from the tub and leaned halfway out to answer it.

“Oh, Mrs. Parker!” the woman from the front desk
yelped. “I hope everything’s all right with your room. Is everything
satisfactory? Do you need anything?”

“Everything’s fine,” Stacey replied, feeling extra
naked.
As soon as I hang up, I’m throwing the phone out the window
. “Thank
you for calling. If that’s all, I’ll just—”

A giggle came from the receiver. “I just wanted to give
you a little advance warning, because of your, you know, surprise. We girls
have to stick together, I always say.”

Listening with half an ear, Stacey murmured, “Uh-huh.”

Water puddled on the plush rug beneath her left foot.
Frowning at it, she balanced on the foot that was still in the bathwater so she
could shake herself dry on the left side, at least.

“He’s on his way up,” the clerk said urgently. She
lowered her voice to a girlish whisper. “I just gave him his keycard a few
seconds ago.” She paused. “Whoops! There he goes into the elevator.”

“What?” Stacey lowered her leg back to the rug,
still poised between the tub and vanity but too confused to move. Goose bumps
spread along her arms and sped toward her toes. “You gave who a keycard?”

“Why, your
husband
, of course.”

“My husband.”

Silence. Then, tentatively, “Yes, your husband. Is
there…a problem?”

Her husband
? But Richard and Janie were already at
the airport, waiting for their honeymoon flight. Who in the world…?

“Mrs. Parker?”

This had to be some kind of mistake. Had to be.

“Uh, I’m here.” Her mind wasn’t, though. It was
someplace else entirely. Like Panicville. “Thanks for calling. I guess I
ought to get ready!”

With a ridiculous, panic-induced titter, Stacey disconnected
the line. Clothes. She needed clothes. She slammed the phone in its stand and
twisted to pull her other foot from the bathwater.

Knock—knock—knock.

Her heart revved into overdrive. So did her foot. It
splashed from the water, sending an arc of complimentary Happy Holidays brand
peppermint-scented foam across the bathroom—and sending Stacey flat on the
floor. She landed on her backside in a puddle, staring in the direction of the
knock on the door.

Knock—knock—knock.

Ouch. Rubbing her aching, soggy butt, she glared toward the
sound. Maybe if she ignored it, whoever it was would just go away. He’d
obviously made a mistake. He needed the
other
honeymoon suite, the one
with an actual bride in it.

Just in case, she pushed herself up and hobbled across the
bathroom. Shivering, she yanked the white monogrammed hotel robe from its hook
and slipped her arms inside the sleeves. The thick terrycloth stuck to her wet
skin, but at least it was warm.

Knock—knock—knock.

Okay, this was ridiculous, Stacey decided, tying the robe
closed at her waist. She was hardly going to skulk around in her honeymoon
suite, dripping, while some poor libidinous bridegroom knocked around outside.
For all she knew, that wasn’t even his knuckles he was rapping against the
door.

Now there’s the kind of guy you want to invite in
,
Janie would have said with a wink. Unfortunately, Janie and her ribald sense of
humor weren’t there. Stacey was. With a quick swipe at the foggy bathroom
mirror and a last pat at her scraggly brown ponytail, she headed toward the
door.

Something scraped against it. The knob clicked.

The keycard
. The woman at the desk said she’d given
one to Stacey’s “husband.”

Panicked, Stacey scanned the room for a weapon. Her
suitcase? Too bulky. Her purse? She carried hot pepper spray in a holster
inside, but there wasn’t time to grab it.
Think, think
.

Her gaze settled on her blow-dryer’s cord, dangling from the
bathroom vanity to the floor. She followed it upward from the plug to the
two-thousand watt, gun-shaped business end.

The door swung inward.

If personal care appliances were all she had to defend
herself with, that’s what she’d use. Adrenaline pumping, Stacey lunged for the
blow-dryer. The plug slapped her bare leg. The dryer’s weight filled her hand.

“Mrs. Parker?” asked a rich-timbered masculine
voice.

A
familiar
masculine voice.

The broad, jacket-clad shoulder that edged into view around
the door nudged her suspicions. The rest of the hard-muscled body that followed
confirmed them.

Dylan Davis. Here. Dear Lord, she had to be imagining him.
Maybe hallucinating. Stress could do that to a person, couldn’t it?

But he sure
looked
real. Tall, dark-haired and
grinning, he filled her doorway. His arms were laden with an overcoat-wrapped
bundle of what she assumed constituted luggage for a Peter Pan type like him,
and above it his eyes sparkled with good humor. The bastard.

“Aren’t you missing a husband?” he asked.

He added another smile to the mix. This was the part, Stacey
supposed, where she was supposed to fall at his feet in gratitude.
Fat
chance
.

“I spent the whole wedding trying to avoid you.”
She aimed the blow-dryer nozzle at him.

His gaze went to it, and his eyebrows raised. His stupid
smile widened, too. Damn him.

“What are you going to do? Style me to death?”

Stacey stretched her arm back, letting the blow-dryer cord
spin through her fingers until she held a good hank of it. She twirled it in
the air, working up momentum. Then she walloped him with it.

It was the least Dylan Davis deserved.

The hair dryer whacked him right in the temple.

“Ouch!”

The dryer rebounded off his forehead, bashed off the wall,
and came at him again. Dylan ducked, his head stinging, and tried to keep from
dropping the trench coat-wrapped bundle in his arms. Easing it into the crook
of his arm, he grabbed the hair dryer with his other hand.

“Same old Stacey.” At the sight of her, he was
completely unable to keep a goofy-feeling grin from his face. “I knew I
should have taken out accident insurance before I came here.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, hair dryer swinging
beneath her elbow, and glared at him. “That
wasn’t
an accident.”

“Uh-huh.”

God, she looked great. Between the half-tied bathrobe she
had on, the bunched-up, shiny brown ponytail she’d stuck her hair in, and the
fire in her eyes, she’d never looked sexier. But maybe that was just his skewed
perspective talking. Because actually, Stacey looked miffed. Adorably miffed.

Adorably miffed
? part of his brain jeered.
Hell-o.
You’re way far gone over this one
. He had to get a hold of himself.

Okay, maybe
miffed
was understating it.
Mad as hell
was more like it.

On the other hand, he’d pretty much expected that. Now he
just had to change her mind—about him, about them—and he didn’t plan to leave
until he’d done it.

Dylan let go of the hair dryer. “You always say that.
Right after you stomp, drop, smash or hurl something at somebody.”

“I did that on purpose, you creep.”

Okay. Clearly, Stacey needed time to adjust to the surprise
of seeing him. Giving her exactly that, Dylan devoted himself to studying the
suite.

The room stretched outward, luxurious and spacious and awash
in mid-century modern design details. A carpeted sitting area with a pair of
angular loveseats. A sleek media center. Chairs arranged around a table
featuring a triangular plate of cellophane-wrapped Christmas cookies.

A bank of windows let in the desert sunshine—and the suite’s
vaunted view of The Strip—belying the fact that it was only a week until
Christmas. In an adjacent room, a big double bed covered with a cushy black
silk comforter awaited.

He liked it. All of it.

“Nice place,” Dylan said, looking back at her.

“You’re not staying.”

“Who’s asking?”

“Not me.”

Beneath his trench coat, Ginger wiggled. Stacey’s gaze went
straight to the lump of coat covering the dog. Her eyebrows lifted.

“But you were
thinking
about it,” he said
to distract her. “Admit it. You want me as much as I want you.”

She swung the hair dryer back and forth in front of her like
a lion tamer tossing a whip from hand to hand. Her eyes told him Stacey would
have found the analogy wholly appropriate. Something inside him ached at the
thought.

“I want you to leave,” she said.

Dylan kicked the door closed with his foot.

Her eyes widened. She stepped backward, and a flush rose
beneath the gaping neckline of her robe, tinting the cleavage he remembered so
well a nice shade of pink. The heck with looking at the room. He liked watching
her more.

She advanced toward him. “Get out of here.”