Wicked Wonderland (22 page)

“What’s that?” he asked indulgently.

“I do have a tattoo.”

“No, you . . .” His voice trailed off as his chin dropped in surprise. She saw the devilish look in his eyes as the curiosity got the better of him. “Where?”

“You just haven’t looked hard enough,” she said as she sat down and pulled at the seat belt.

“I will make it my mission to find it,” he promised in a husky, low voice. She felt Justin’s hot gaze linger on her, as if he was considering the possibilities.

“Come on, Justin,” she urged him, and patted the driver’s seat.“Our Christmas vacation has officially started. I don’t want to waste a second of it.”

 

 

W
here was the snow?
Hallie Prentiss huddled inside the warmth of her newly purchased fleece-lined coat and frowned. She was standing on the sidewalk outside the Fairbanks International Airport, and there was no snow—well, correction: no snow
falling
. There was plenty of packed-down grayish white stuff underfoot. But no soft, quiet flakes tumbling in movie-worthy fashion from the leaden sky.

She felt cheated. If she was going to have to spend two interminable weeks in the frozen tundra, at the very least she expected some ambience, some picturesque postcard scene.

Not that the piped-in Christmas carols inside the terminal had been a positive. Each chirpy note and syrupy lyric grated on her frayed nerves. Her stomach churned despite the antacids she popped like candy, and she hadn’t slept worth a damn since the morning her boss apologetically handed her a pink slip.
Terminated.

Hallie shoved the nasty memory aside and turned to speak to a baggage handler, who was bundled up from head to toe in some serious outdoor gear. She waved a hand in his direction. “This is Alaska.What happened to the snow?”

The older man shrugged and grinned.“We’ve been having a really warm and dry December. But don’t worry. The snow will come.You can count on it.”

Hallie gaped.
Warm?
Was he kidding? The large weather station hanging on the wall over his head registered a temperature of minus eight degrees Celsius. And although it had been a long time since Hallie had been asked to do the required conversions, she was pretty sure that meant it was somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen degrees. Her frozen nose verified the calculations.

She slung her carry-on over her shoulder and grabbed the handle of her large rolling suitcase. The sooner she made it to her destination, the sooner she could wallow in a tub of wonderful, scalding-hot water and finally feel her toes again.

Picking up the rental car was painless. The agent handed her a map marked in yellow highlighter, and in no time she was on the Mitchell Expressway. Thank God it was only an eighteen-mile trip. Her eyes were gritty with fatigue, and she didn’t want to fall asleep at the wheel. She had imagined having to navigate treacherous roads, but though there were piles of snow on the shoulders, the thick, dry snowpack on the roads was not particularly hazardous.

The sun hung low and sullen in the sky as if it didn’t have the energy to make it all the way overhead. Hallie could sympathize. Her usually high-powered personality was in idle mode. She’d had the breath knocked out of her, metaphorically speaking, and inside, she was floundering.

To the rest of the world, she had managed to keep up a facade of practical calm. But her confidence was cowering in front of what at the moment could be described only as a hazy future.

She found the turn for the Richardson Highway with no trouble, but when she saw the sign for her final exit, she snorted.The ramp was marked SANTA CLAUS LANE. Good grief. She felt like she was starring in a Charlie Brown Christmas special . . . especially when she passed the sign that said, WELCOME TO NORTH POLE, ALASKA.

A few minutes later, amidst a plethora of cutesy street names like Kris Kringle Drive and Snowman Lane—where the streetlights were candy canes and even gas stations were decorated in the spirit of the holiday season—Hallie pulled to a stop in front of her destination and sighed. She’d come more than two thousand miles and one time zone from Seattle, and she was operating in a mental fog.

The modest-sized building in front of her fit right in with the explosion of holiday mania. It was made of cedar and stone, and Christmas lights outlined every available nook and cranny. Victorian gingerbread trim edged the gables and roof. On the lawn, Santa sat jauntily in his sleigh, prepared for the eight plastic reindeer to do all the work. Resin elves, arms upraised, loaded the packages.

Hallie had glanced briefly at the town’s Web site while preparing for her trip and had rolled her eyes when she realized that the seasonal hoopla was not “seasonal” at all. North Pole, Alaska, was dedicated to Christmas cheer all year-round.

She sighed. She had never felt less like celebrating the holidays. But for the next two weeks, she was sentenced to tinsel and eggnog and Lord knew what else. It boggled the mind.

She left her luggage in the car and trudged up the walk. Before dinner last night, Hallie’s best friend, Julie, had brought over a set of keys to the Dancing Elves B&B. Julie’s parents owned and operated the lodge, but they were eager to spend the holidays with Julie, so Hallie had agreed to play innkeeper for a little while. Hallie found the key marked “front door” and let herself in.The air was filled with the scents of cinnamon and evergreen. An enormous live fir tree, decked out with enough ornaments to bury old Santa himself, presided over the space in front of the bay window. Everywhere Hallie looked—from the walls to the stairs to the floor beneath her feet—knickknacks and doodads and tchotchkes abounded.

Christmas was everywhere.

But even that unpleasant realization took a backseat to the much bigger surprise. Santa himself stood not three feet away . . . wearing red pants, black boots, and silver suspenders. His rotund belly had been replaced with granite-hard abs, and his shoulders were as wide as Texas.

He was tanned and toned, and the smile on his face made Hallie think that being on
his
naughty list might not be such a bad thing. Her knees actually quivered.

He reached out and engulfed her cold fingers in his warm, hard hand. His grip made Hallie want to cling . . . and she was not at all the clingy type. She shook his hand with a businesslike pump and stepped back from temptation. “Who are you?”

His grin was a wicked slash of white in a tanned face that was all sharp angles and masculine lines.“I’m Daniel Reynolds, your semipermanent resident . . . room two. Hazel and Roy asked me to make sure you got settled in.” His brown eyes sparkled with warmth.

Hazel and Roy. Julie’s parents. And yes . . . Hallie did have some faint memory about a long-term guest, but she hadn’t paid all that much attention. She cleared her throat. “Well, that’s kind of you, Daniel. I’m Hallie Prentiss. I guess Hazel and Roy told you I’ll be running things for a couple of weeks so they can spend time in Seattle with Julie. I’m supposed to take their room. Can you please point me in the right direction?”
So I can get on with the bath and the nap, please God.

He ran a hand through his thick, short-cut dark hair, appearing a little frazzled. “Before I do that, I’ve got a huge favor to ask.”

Her heart actually skipped a beat. But she kept her expression calm. “Oh?”

He tapped his stomach, drawing Hallie’s eyes once again to that intriguing expanse of subtle muscle and the arrow of fine, silky hair leading southward to the off-limits area below his large, silver, Santa-inspired belt buckle. “I’m due over at the elementary school in twenty minutes.When I tried on the costume a while ago, I realized that I can’t fit behind the steering wheel with the potbelly in place. I don’t want to chance any little kid seeing me without it, so I was hoping you might drive me over there.”

Hallie tasted desperation. She would give her last traveler’s check for a warm bath and a soft bed. But when Santa called, what was a woman to do? She closed her eyes and did her best not to inhale the insidious scent of Christmas cheer and warm male. But no matter how hard she tried to ignore it, something about this house and this
man
was turning her usual assertive self into a blob of indecision.

“What about the B and B?” she asked, grasping at any reason not to go back out into the cold.

Daniel grinned. “No guests on the books today. We can lock up and head out immediately.”

She was too tired to fight.“No problem,” she lied morosely. “I’d be happy to help a Santa in need.”

 

Daniel folded his gut-enhanced body into Hallie’s rental car and smiled inwardly. Nothing like an early Christmas present to make a man sit up and take notice. Hallie Prentiss was one long, tall drink of water. Even travel-rumpled and wearing a parka that made her resemble a sky blue Michelin Man, she was stunning.

Her slightly pointed chin saved her beautiful oval face from complete perfection. Her cheekbones were dramatic, and her skin was pale cream. The smudges of exhaustion beneath her cornflower blue eyes gave him a moment of guilt, but he really did need her help.

He pointed to the dash. “You might want to turn your lights on. It will be dark pretty soon.”

Hallie slanted an incredulous look in his direction. “It’s barely two o’clock.”

He chuckled. “Did you look up anything about Alaska before you came? We only have around four hours of daylight right now.”

“Four hours ...” Her voice trailed off, and he could swear she turned white. But it was hard to tell in the fading light.

Her eyes were fixed on the road ahead, so he took the opportunity to study her again. She had tidied her waterfall-straight blond hair before they left. He’d seen it down for only a split second before she bundled it back up into a prim, bun-like thing on the back of her head.

Her delicate earlobes sported small, gold hoop earrings, and her neck, at least the part he could see in the open collar of her coat, was long and graceful. He felt a stirring of lust and shifted restlessly. Hallie was going to be in town for only a couple of weeks. It was the perfect scenario for some hot and heavy, no-strings-attached sex. But hell, he didn’t even know if she was in a relationship with some lucky guy.

He had yet to see her hands. They were covered in soft, cream gloves—probably cashmere. From head to toe, Hallie looked like a polished, sophisticated city dweller.

He watched her grimace as she hit a pothole. She drove with a quiet confidence that underscored her air of capability.

He broke the silence. “This is a great thing you’re doing for Roy and Hazel . . . running the inn so they can visit their daughter.”

She shrugged, still not looking at him. “It’s entirely self-serving,” she muttered. “I need the money.”

A more polite man wouldn’t have asked. But Daniel was endlessly fascinated by his new landlady. “Hmmm,” he said in a teasing voice. “Down payment for a new house? Hush money for the cops? Gambling debts?”

Finally, she smiled. And he felt like he’d won the lottery. She went from beautiful to knock-your-socks-off gorgeous.

Her grin was wry.“Foreign investors bought the big Seattle hotel where I worked. Ninety percent of us were pink-slipped the Monday after Thanksgiving.”

He winced in sympathy. “Ouch. That sucks.”

She nodded. “My sentiments exactly. Roy and Hazel’s daughter, Julie, is my best friend. She came up with this idea to give her parents a break over the holidays and provide me with some short-term employment. I just hope my experience working at a four-hundred-room hotel translates into running a B and B.”

“You’ll be fine.” Daniel glanced at his watch and put on his hat.They were going to make it. “Turn here,” he said.

Hallie parked in a visitor spot. “I’ll wait in the car.”

He shook his head. “No way. You’ll freeze. Come on in. This will be fun.”

 

Hallie followed “Santa” into the building and couldn’t help smiling when every kid in sight, ages five to twelve, screeched a greeting.Teachers were equally welcoming.

The principal was an attractive native Alaskan. She ushered them into the auditorium, where small piles of Christmas presents were neatly arranged on the stage. Daniel’s job was to hand them out personally. One of the government agencies in town, along with a men’s club, had provided the largesse.

For the next half hour, loosely organized pandemonium reigned. Hallie would have said that she didn’t have an ounce of Christmas cheer left in her body. But seeing the enthusiasm and wonder on the face of each child who sat on Daniel’s knee to accept a handful of gifts made her misty-eyed. He was amazingly gentle with each of them.