A Blazing Little Christmas
Harlequin Blaze
December 2007
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a very, very HOT night…
“Holiday Inn Bed” by Jacquie D’Alessandro
When Eric and Jessica decide to spice up their Christmas engagement, they play out their favorite fantasy—Do Not Disturb. They’ll be a little tied up for the weekend in their private hotel room…
“His for the Holidays” by Joanne Rock
Watch out—Heather Dillinger and Jared Murphy are back in the sack for some holiday sex! And this time they find that sweet revenge makes their reunion the hottest gift they never expected…
“Dear Santa…” by Kathleen O’Reilly
When a secret Santa invites Rebecca Neumann for a holiday getaway, she jumps at the chance. And when a sexy blast from her past appears, she’s tempted to jump him, too…
Read the Excerpt
Find moose-shaped form for holiday lights.
Finish invitations.
Hang Christmas cards in foyer.
Test new cocktail recipes (ask Karen when she's free so I don't get toasted alone.)
On and on it went. Heather Dillinger's pre-holiday party to-do list covered four single spaced pages on her computer screen, her schedule of expectations and obligations as vast as her mother's guest list. Not that her mother had asked for Heather's help, but she certainly expected it the same way she'd assumed her Type A daughter would jump in and help every year since she'd turned— what, twelve years old?
The problem that came with a lot of competence—and perhaps taking a smidge of pride in the fact— was that Heather had snowballed into the family workhorse.
Which reminded her. She needed to find a recipe for a drink called a snowball. It would be pretty to serve a white concoction on a silver tray full of prism-like snowflakes— the closest she'd ever come to the real thing in Savannah, Georgia.
"Have you mentioned the party to Gary, dear?" Loralei Dillinger-Digby floated into Heather's home office on a cloud of White Linen perfume, her arms full of the lemon yellow tulle she insisted Heather use on her summer collection of household furnishings. Heather's start-up fabric company, The Attic, was enjoying its second year in the black and her mother was working hard to put her creative stamp on that success, not realizing she influenced Heather's designs without lifting a finger. Loralei Dillinger-Digby had that affect on people.
"Mother, I'm not inviting my former fiancé." The list in front of Heather's eyes seemed to stretch and grow as she anticipated her mother's inevitable next ten suggestions for the annual event that had morphed from a family celebration into a neighborhood open house, into an opportunity to showcase her mother's coveted historic house on one of the city's oldest thoroughfares.
The thought reminded Heather she needed to hunt down that snowball recipe very soon. Since the party was next week and it was already Tuesday. Sampling each attempt at the recipe beforehand would definitely be in order if she expected to make it through this planning with her sanity in check.
"Gary is a wonderful catch, Heather, and if he's not to your liking we might as well at least steer him toward someone we know."
"We won't be steering him anywhere." She clicked closed her to-do list to face her mother, only to discover Mom pulling samples out of Heather's swatch books faster than she scooped up sales at Neiman's. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to find a color that would complement Trish's eyes so that you can whip her up something suitable to wear for the party. Don't you think Gary would just love her?" Her mother turned to wave a scrap of ice blue silk and a roll of silver piping. "How about something along this line?"
Heather's heart squeezed tight at the suggestion for so many reasons she could barely untangle them all to address every facet that bothered her. She'd broken off an engagement with a wonderful guy three months ago and her family couldn't let it go. They'd loved Gary, a golf pro with a summer home on Hilton Head that had her mother planning vacations a decade in advance, and Heather's realization that she didn't love the man had caused a huge family uproar. Bad enough she'd been personally devastated to realize she didn't feel as deeply about him as she should. But having to defend the choice every day while trying to run a business and planning the party had been seriously draining.
Screw the snowball recipe. She'd head directly to the bourbon.
"Mom, Trish is my sister—"
"Half-sister."
"—and she'd never go out with my ex-fiancé, even if he wasn't totally wrong for her. He's a golfer. She's in a rock and roll band."
Her mother's grip on the silk tightened.
"You never learned that opposites attract?"
An image of a tall, dark and killer-looking military man sprang immediately to mind along with one hot weekend Heather had never been able to forget. Seductive memories swamped her in a fast-forward scroll the second she let thoughts stray to that man. She'd tried her damnedest to forget Lieutenant Jared Tyler Murphy since he'd left for a stint overseas without even waking her to say goodbye…
Hell yes, she understood exactly how much opposites could attract and it pissed her off to no end when she'd never been able to settle the score with him. She found herself thinking of him more recently since she'd broken up with Gary. Part of her blamed her inability to settle down on the fact that she'd never put her past to rest with Jared.
"You're right, Mom." She spoke through clenched teeth, unwilling to release her jaw for fear a year's worth of stress would come flying out of her mouth and Heather's workaholic tendencies truly weren't her mother's fault. "I wish Trish all the best if she'd like to date Gary, but I just don't have the time to make a dress before the party."
Trish could handle their mother's insane suggestion in a minute with one withering look, so Heather didn't need to borrow stress over nothing. It was just the party and the family expectations that were getting to her, especially with Heather's cancelled wedding date looming.
While her mother launched into a tirade about the need for a good dress, Heather turned to check her email after the chime of a note arriving in her inbox. She didn't recognize the sender— NiteStalker1— but she figured it had to be spam since she didn't know anyone with that screen name. Still, the subject line intrigued her.
Have you seen snow yet?
Probably an ad pitch for a ski weekend up north, something that was worth a read considering the alternative entertainment was her mother's wheedling attempts to interest Heather in the dress project. Didn't she know Trish would rather wear distressed denim and leopard print than blue silk?
But all thoughts of the dress, the party and her mother dissipated as she read the contents of the note.
Heather,
After our first snowfall this year, I got thinking about you. I hope I'm not out of line contacting you after all this time, but according to the articles I found on you and your business— congratulations on that, by the way— it sounds like you've remained unattached. If that's true and you want to see a snowfall first hand, I'd really appreciate the chance to see you again this Christmas. No strings attached, obviously. I live close to a nice bed and breakfast and I can get you a room there so it's not awkward. I know that's out of the blue, Heather, but it is the season for making peace and I never could forget you…
Jared
At the end of the note, he included a few details— a phone number for a place called the Timberline Lodge and some flight times out of Savannah if she wanted to make the trek to Lake Placid, New York to see him.
Her heart was beating so fast she thought she'd launch into cardiac arrest. Jared wanted to see her again? Well déjà vu, since she'd just been thinking about him. But maybe that wasn't such a coincidence since they'd met during the holiday season.
"So I assume from the long, drawn out silence that you're coming around to my way of thinking?" Her mother laid the blue silk on Heather's keyboard before she could close down the email, but thankfully, her mother didn't take any notice of the invitation from the One Who Got Away.
The only man to ever leave her wanting more. Maybe that's what had upset her most about Jared's hasty exit from her life. He'd gotten to her the way no other man ever had and it hurt to think he'd been able to walk away without looking back. Until now…
"Actually, I am." Heather didn't need to compare her four page to-do list to Jared Tyler Murphy's sparse invitation five years too late. She'd already made up her mind that spending time with the ghost of her Christmas past would be too interesting to pass up. Especially in light of her former fiancé's inevitable appearance. "I was thinking that you seem to have a lot of great ideas for the party and it is your party after all."
Her mother nodded, a smile curving lips carefully drawn in fuchsia pencil.
I'm so glad you agree—"
"So I think it's only right you take the reins this year and do it all the way you'd like." Heather knew most of the work was done anyhow— her four-page list had been more than double that last week— but still she savored her mother's moment of obvious dismay at the possibility of being outmaneuvered.
"Honestly, Heather, I'm sure—"
"I just got an invitation to the mountains this weekend, Mom." She grinned, already savoring the prospect of escape from obligation and lovingly pushy relatives for a few days. And the idea of settling an old score tantalized her more than it should.
Loralei appeared ready to breathe fire as she drew her shoulders back and pursed her lips tight, but Heather fully acknowledged she might be exaggerating the moment. Trouble was, she had one-upped her mom so few times in her life she had to make the most of it.
"You're not serious."
Heather's gaze flicked back to the screen and the promise of a little sensual revenge on her partner from the best weekend fling imaginable. A weekend fling that had pretty much ruined her for all other men from a sex-point-of-view since he'd never given her the chance to take the relationship to its natural burn-out conclusion.
"Mom, I'm very serious. I'm going to Lake Placid to watch a real live snow fall."
And, with any luck, she'd come home next week with a little of that northern ice on her heart where a very real wound used to be.
Jared Murphy's breath whooshed out of his lungs and he could have sworn someone took a crowbar to the backs of his knees when he spotted Heather Dillinger. Five years had passed since he'd last seen her asleep in a cheap motel bed, naked and spooned against him at four-thirty in the morning before he left for a year-long stint in Afghanistan. But she still had the same effect on him even after all this time, a powerful surge of primal interest that left him struggling for a rational thought.
Five years ago, he had tried convincing himself it was the beer goggles that had made him think she was the hottest woman he'd ever seen. Now, stone cold sober and freezing his ass off outside the small municipal airport, he knew better…