We Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

And how sexy she’d looked with her auburn hair falling down and that tired but happy smile on her face.

“Come here. Let me hold you,” he said, reaching out to her.

“I’m sorry?”

Something was wrong with her voice. Angling his head up, Cole squinted in an effort to see through the darkness, but he’d lowered his blinds before bed and couldn’t make out anything beyond the basic shape of a woman. “Laura?”

“No, it’s Jaclyn,” the murky shape responded, hugging the wall as though he might gobble her up whole if she came any closer. “I’m sorry to bother you, but…um…my car needs a jump. I was hoping I could borrow your keys and some jumper cables.”

“What?” In one swift motion, Cole snapped on the lamp, then groaned and shielded his eyes from the sudden burst of light. “Do you know what time it is?” he asked.

“It’s after midnight. I…I just finished for the day and would be gone by now, but my car won’t start.”

Great. Not only had she decimated his file room, she’d stranded herself in the process. “Okay, give me a couple of minutes, and I’ll be right with you.”

“I can take care of it,” she said quickly. “Just tell me where you keep your keys and where you might have a set of jumper cables.”

Finally able to focus, he watched her gaze dip, which suddenly reminded him that he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxer-briefs under the sheet. During the summer, he rarely wore anything more to bed. It was too blasted hot.

Righting the bedding so he could cover himself properly, Cole sank back. He couldn’t help her, regardless. He didn’t have jumper cables. He didn’t have anything like that. If he needed a jump, he called triple A. If he needed tools for anything else, he told Chad, and someone from the construction crew took care of it. Cole relocated too often to collect a lot of extra belongings. He packed light, and he wasn’t particularly mechanical.

“I don’t have cables,” he said, looking for the easiest solution. “Just take my truck.”

“Won’t you need it in the morning?”

“I don’t have any appointments first thing.” At least, not any I can remember right now. “The keys are…” He racked his brain, trying to place them. “Actually, they could be anywhere. I’ll have to find them for you.”

She stepped out of the bedroom so he could get up, and he padded to the dresser where he’d emptied his pockets before going to bed. Credit-card receipts, small change, cash, some documents he’d meant to read before going to sleep, but no keys. Yanking on a pair of basketball shorts, he headed to the kitchen to check on top of the refrigerator.

Jackie was standing in the hall chewing her lip, when Cole passed. In the light spilling from his room, she looked tired and embarrassed but beautiful—always beautiful. He wanted to tell her to relax, that he didn’t mind her waking him, but he hesitated to be too nice. He couldn’t get involved with her, even as a friend. He was afraid it would evolve into something more. And he already knew that a confirmed bachelor wasn’t what she needed.

“I really appreciate your help,” she said, following him into the kitchen. “I’ll get a new battery on my lunch hour tomorrow so this doesn’t happen again.”

“Are you sure you need a new battery? Maybe one of your kids left the overhead light on or something.”

“I don’t think so—they’ve been with Terry. And my car is pretty old. I don’t know when the battery was last replaced.”

“Have the clerk at the car-parts store check to see if it’s still good, just in case,” he told her, wondering why he felt the sudden urge to take over and handle the battery issue himself. It came from years of looking out for his brothers, he decided. But he wasn’t about to extend that responsibility to anyone else, especially someone who might not understand it for what it was—a desire to help, nothing more. Jackie could certainly manage a new battery.

A loud growl came from the region of her stomach, and Cole glanced at her. “Haven’t you eaten?” he asked.

She shrugged, turning red. “I was too engrossed in what I was doing to stop for dinner. Wait till you see the files,” she added. “You’re going to be so impressed. The documents in each one are organized by date, the oldest stuff at the bottom. The first cabinet houses all your closed and finished projects, in numerical order according to address. The next has your current stuff, organized the same way. The third has land packages and other information on properties you’ve looked into but haven’t bought yet. The final cabinet contains employee records, receipts, bills, banking information and tax information. Each drawer is labeled, in case you forget. And tomorrow I’m going to do an index that will help you find any file you need in seconds.”

An attack of conscience over his earlier reaction to her efforts on the files caused Cole to clear his throat and turn away. Discovering his keys on the counter, he dropped them into her palm and forced himself to thank her. “That was a lot of work. I appreciate that you went the extra mile,” he said. “You know I don’t expect you to stay past five o’clock, though, don’t you?”

She smiled. “Oh, I know. I wanted to finish. And I’m glad I did. It really taught me a lot. I bet I know more about you now than most people.”

When Cole met her eyes, he pictured Terry’s arm slung casually around her shoulders, remembered seeing them dance at the senior prom as king and queen—right before he cut out of the dance for good. She didn’t know anything about him. Not really. And if he could help it, she never would.

“I’d offer you something to eat,” he said, “but I usually eat out so my cupboards are bare. I do have a microwave dinner, if you’re interested.”

“You eat microwave dinners?”

He used to cook every night, but only because he had to. When he was young, he had to feed his brothers. When he left Feld, he was still living on a shoestring and survived on macaroni and cheese and corn dogs—not that he called that cooking. Since then, things had changed considerably. “I don’t have time for anything else.”

“Who’s Laura?” she asked. “Your girlfriend?”

“Just a friend.”

“Doesn’t she cook for you?”

“Occasionally,” he said, because he didn’t want to go into the fact that even if she had cooked for him at one time, she probably wouldn’t be doing it anymore. He didn’t like talking about Laura. She was a nice person who deserved a husband and children, if that was what she wanted. And he felt guilty for not giving her that. Sometimes he told himself it was pure selfishness that made him refuse her, but if he’d learned anything from Rochelle, it was that a sense of obligation wasn’t a reliable basis for marriage. Bottom line, he wasn’t walking down the aisle again for anyone. Marriage made him feel smothered, restricted, and only added to his burden of responsibility.

“Well, work comes early in the morning,” she said, singling the ignition key out from the others and edging toward the hall that would take her back around to the office.

“You can go out the main entryway. I’ll lock the office,” he volunteered.

“Thanks.” She followed as he led her through the living room to the front of the house. “I’ll be careful with your truck.”

He held the door as she went out, bade her good-night and watched her drive away. Then he locked up and went to do the same in the office. But when he passed the copier room, he couldn’t help stopping in and opening the file drawers. Sure enough, every folder was now clearly labeled and perfectly organized. He’d been wrong to assume the worst.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered, closing the last drawer. “And she did it on her first day.”

Maybe hiring her hadn’t been so stupid. Maybe she was just what Perrini Homes needed.

Maybe she was just what he needed.

No. Laura, or someone like her, suited him better, he told himself. But he couldn’t explain why he wasn’t more disappointed that his ex-girlfriend hadn’t contacted him. Neither could he say why it wasn’t her lips he imagined kissing as he climbed back into bed.

LEATHER INTERIOR. Nothing smelled better, Jaclyn decided as she drove the ten miles to her house, coveting Cole’s smooth-riding Navigator. Once she got her real-estate license and started selling homes, she’d be able to buy herself a new SUV. She used to drive expensive cars and trucks all the time when she was with Terry, but it wasn’t the same. Like everything else, their vehicles had belonged to Burt.

Jaclyn grimaced as she pictured Burt’s face. If she disliked anyone, she disliked him. He ruled his house with an iron fist, had Terry’s mother, Dolores, completely cowed, and thought Terry should have been able to exert the same kind of control over Jaclyn. When Jaclyn had sued for divorce, it was Burt who headed up the opposition. First he tried to shame her into staying, then he tried to bribe her with a new house and a larger monthly allowance. At last he waged a smear campaign against her on the basis of her parenting skills and tried to take away her children. Fortunately, the judge hadn’t allowed him to take them completely—he’d given her and Terry joint custody. But the courts had cooperated more fully with the Wentworths in the financial realm. The smile on Burt’s face the last time she’d seen him told her the court battles might finally be over, but nothing was set in stone. He thought poverty would eventually drive her back to Terry. But thanks to a little help from Cole and a whole lot of determination on her part, the great Burt Wentworth wasn’t going to get what he wanted. Not this time.

Signaling, Jaclyn pulled into the 7-Eleven only a few blocks from her house. It was late and she was tired, but she was enjoying driving Cole’s SUV, listening to his CDs and smelling the lingering scent of his cologne. When they were in high school, she’d never really let herself think about him—her heart had always belonged to Terry, and Cole had seemed too…sensual, too dangerous somehow—but she had to admit he was attractive. She could definitely see how Rochelle had fallen for him.

Jaclyn browsed through the store, eventually buying an iced mocha and a microwave burrito for dinner, along with a couple of candy bars for dessert. How long had it been since she’d felt this good? she wondered as she carried it all back to Cole’s truck. Ages. Since before the divorce—years before, when her parents were alive, and she was still hopeful that her marriage had a chance.

She sat in the lot and ate her meal to a Santana CD, then tossed her garbage into the trash and headed home. Maybe her life was about to get easier, she thought. But then she pulled into her drive and saw Terry’s truck parked at the house, and knew, for tonight, it was only going to get worse.

“What’s he doing here a day early?” she muttered, parking to the side so he could still get his truck out.

The door to the house opened before Jaclyn ever reached the porch, and Terry emerged, wearing his usual Wrangler jeans, T-shirt and cowboy hat.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, taking one look at her dress, and the high heels she carried in her left hand.

“At work,” she said.

“Like hell. We went by Joanna’s. They said you don’t work there anymore. They said you were fired.”

Jaclyn would rather Terry not know about the firing, but now that the truth was out…“I was,” she admitted. “There was a misunderstanding. But I’ve got a new job now.”

He glanced beyond her to Cole’s truck, and his lips twisted into a sneer. “Looks like it pays a whole lot better than waitressing.”

Jaclyn’s stomach started to hurt. Maybe she’d eaten too fast. Or too much. Or maybe she felt another argument coming on. “It does. But the Navigator’s not mine.”

“Whose is it?”

Remembering his reaction the last time she mentioned Cole, Jaclyn decided to keep him out of it. “A friend’s. What are you doing here today, anyway? You weren’t supposed to come until tomorrow.”

“What’s the matter? Now that the kids are back, you afraid you’re not going to be able to run around anymore?”

“Why are you acting as though you’re doing me some kind of favor taking the children?” she asked. “You’re the one who sued for custody!”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to let you use me to baby-sit while you go out on the town looking for another meal ticket.”

Anger made Jaclyn’s hands shake. “I’m not looking for a meal ticket,” she said. “The children are welcome to stay with me all the time. You just say the word and sign them over.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you. To cut me completely out of the picture?”

“You can’t have it both ways, Terry. Either you take them, which means I’ll have some free time, or you don’t, which means you won’t see them. It’s your decision.”

“You don’t care either way.”

“I care. I wouldn’t want them to miss their father, but you don’t seem to be too concerned about their welfare.”

“Oh yeah? Who was watching them tonight while you were out doing God knows what with the man who owns that truck?”

Jaclyn clenched her jaw against the desire to tell him to go to hell. It had already been a long day. But the last thing she needed was to poison the neighborhood against her by having a knock-down drag-out with her ex. “Keep your voice down,” she hissed. “I don’t want to wake the children or the neighbors, especially because I wasn’t doing anything with the man who owns that truck. I work for him.”

“As what? His personal call girl?”

“I do his filing, answer his phones, that sort of thing.”

“Right,” Terry scoffed. “You expect me to believe you were doing office work? This late?”

“It’s true.”

Brushing past her, he strode to Cole’s Navigator and tried to open the driver’s door, but Jaclyn had locked it. When he couldn’t get in, he whirled to face her. “Give me the keys.”

Jaclyn was holding them in her right hand. Instinctively she made a fist around them and tucked it behind her back. “No.”

“I want to know who owns this truck, dammit.”

“It’s none of your business, Terry. I’m home now. You can leave.”

“I said, give me the keys.” Grabbing her arm, he twisted, forcing her to let go of them. Then he unlocked the Navigator and checked the registration.

“I’ll be a son of a bitch. It’s Cole Perrini’s,” he said. “You’re screwing that trailer trash we went to high school with.”

“I’m not screwing anyone. And he’s not trailer trash,” she said.

Terry shoved his cowboy hat back to smirk at her. “Coulda fooled me. As I remember it, most days he didn’t even show up for school. Ran around in that beater truck of his drinkin’ and fightin’ and causin’ trouble—at least, until he knocked up Rochelle.”

The way Jaclyn remembered it, Terry and his friends had done less fighting, but they’d certainly done more drinking. “I don’t care what Cole was like in high school. It’s in the past. It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter? It doesn’t matter that he left Rochelle only a few months after she lost their baby? That she was so broken up by how he’d treated her that she tried to commit suicide? What kinda man would leave his wife on the heels of a tragedy like that?”

“We don’t know what happened. It’s none of our business, anyway.”

Terry acted as though she hadn’t spoken. “And you think he was true to her while they were married?” he went on. “Hell, no. That boy don’t know what it’s like to be true to anyone, except maybe those no-good brothers he was always fighting for.”

“You’re one to talk about fidelity,” Jaclyn said, so disgusted she couldn’t hold back any longer.

“At least I always loved you, took care of you. Cole didn’t give a shit about Rochelle.”

“You’re repeating small-town gossip,” she said. “That’s all.”

“You can think that if you want, but there ain’t no secrets in Feld.”

God, didn’t she know! Every time Terry had stepped out on her, the whole town knew—usually before she did. She’d walked through the grocery store or post office in the wake of whispers and nods, even chuckling, more times than she could count. It had been downright humiliating.

“Regardless, Cole’s cleaned up his act,” she said. “You should see him now. He got out of Feld and he’s made something of himself.”

“He has?” Terry spat on the Navigator. “Anyone can finance a damn car. Don’t let this baby fool you.”

“At least he owns something that doesn’t belong to his daddy,” she replied.

He stared at her, his jaw sagging, and for a moment Jaclyn thought she’d pushed him too far. Her nails dug into her palms as she waited for his shouted response, but when he spoke, his voice was soft, almost pained.

“I know where you’re comin’ from, Jackie. I should have fought my father, got us our own place, like you said. He’s just so…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I love the crusty old bastard, but I hate him, too. And I want you to know that the divorce stuff and all that, well, that was more him than me. You know I’m not a bad guy. I’ve made my mistakes, but I’ve loved you since high school, and I’ll love you for the rest of our lives, if you’ll let me. That’s really why I brought the kids home early. I wanted to talk to you about putting all this behind us and starting fresh, somewhere far away from my father. That’s what you always wanted, isn’t it?”

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