The Baby Made at Christmas. Lilian Darcy
for his socks. “Damn! We didn’t make it as far as the shoes!” he said.
“Near enough,” she suggested.
“Near enough is not good enough. We’ll have to go for a rematch on this one.”
“On the fast thing?”
“Why, didn’t you like that?”
“I did,” she said.
With a look of lascivious reminiscence, he drawled at her, “Yeah, you did.”
* * *
Oh, she did, she liked it! Mac enjoyed the memories in this area whenever they wandered through his mind that day—and it was often.
He didn’t see any point in pretending about this kind of thing. He felt what he felt, and he let it show. He never made promises he didn’t intend to keep. Most of the time, this meant not making any promises at all. Better safe than sorry. She seemed to be the same, the kind of woman who played it straight, who wasn’t about games or emotional blackmail or saying one thing when she meant the opposite.
He hadn’t come to Aspen with the idea of hooking up with someone right away, and was a little surprised, to be honest, that it had happened like this.
Well, huh. So he had a woman in his bed, and it seemed to be working.
Nice.
All the same, from the word go, he kept a good lookout for danger signs and deal breakers, because even the most apparently casual fling could have a sting in the tail if you weren’t careful....
* * *
Lee didn’t mention Mac to her friends at Christmas dinner that night, but then she saw him every day for a week. He found a small apartment down valley, about twenty minutes’ drive, but told her, “You’re not seeing it until I have it fixed up a little,” so they always came back to her place. He downloaded and read A Room of One’s Own, on his eReader, “Purely so I can drink from more of your mugs.” She told him he was an idiot, and it became a running joke between them.
The Narmans left the day after New Year’s, which gave Lee a full schedule of instructing all day and then cleaning the house out until past eleven o’clock that night, with more still to do the next day. It was only when the Narmans were in residence that she called in the team of cleaners, who could be in and out in an hour. When the family wasn’t around, she did the work herself, because then it didn’t matter if it took her a day or two, and she could make sure it was done absolutely right.
But there was no time for Mac.
Two days later, when she’d closed the doors of all the spare bedrooms, replenished supplies and sent several things off to the dry cleaners, she grabbed a private moment with him at the ski school office and told him, “Guess what? We can have the house today.”
“The whole house?”
“Well, I usually just stick to one bedroom and bathroom, but, yep, they’re not due back until three days at the end of January.”
“Will we be able to find each other in that place?” He gave her a big grin. “Should we text our whereabouts whenever we move rooms?”
“We could get one of those Swiss alpenhorns that are about eight feet long.”
“Or walkie-talkies.”
“Or a 1970s intercom system.”
Another instructor overheard them. “Oh, wow, my house used to have one of those! My parents tortured us with it.” He gave a chuckle and shook his head. “We had Muzak piped into every room.” He moved on, out of earshot.
“Lucky we weren’t talking about various other possible subjects,” Mac muttered in Lee’s ear.
“I’m ready to talk about them tonight,” she muttered back.
“When?”
“Whenever.”
Having the whole house turned them both into kids in a candy store. Mac went shopping and came back with champagne, smoked salmon, caviar and anything else that had caught his eye and said luxury. Lee filled the Jacuzzi and lit the fire. They closed the drapes, which the Narmans always seemed to prefer open, even though the curtains moved back and forth at the touch of an electronic button.
“Can we have music?” Mac asked.
“Go for it.”
He strode into the side room where there was a huge bank of audio equipment, and put on a rock compilation CD. “They really don’t mind you doing this?” he said when he came back into the kitchen.
“They ask for it specifically. They hate if the place looks dark and unattended. The lights in my little cubbyhole don’t show from the street, or from the slopes.”
“How did you get this gig, anyhow?”
“I taught some of them to ski, they started asking for me for private lessons every time they came, and it went from there. The girl I was sharing with down valley got a boyfriend and wanted him to move in. There wasn’t room for three of us. Mr. Narman was looking for a live-in janitor. The timing was right, and it’s worked out really well. I’ve been doing it several years now.”
“It definitely has worked well. I think this caviar plan of mine is going to work out pretty well, too.” He thumped the side of the jar lid on a wooden cutting board to break the seal, and twisted it open. “My only question is whether we eat in the Jacuzzi or by the fire.”
“From experience, I can tell you that eating in the Jacuzzi isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Things end up floating and getting on your skin, and caviar is not my favorite flavor in a moisturizer.” She pulled a chilled bottle out of the shopping bag. “Champagne in the Jacuzzi, on the other hand...”
So they drank champagne there, using the very nice plastic picnic champagne flutes the Narmans kept for the purpose.
“They’re pretty fussy about the possibility of broken glass,” Lee explained. She lay back in the foaming water, letting the jets bounce her gently and keep her afloat.
Mac did the same on the opposite side of the vast tub. “I can see why they like you. You keep to their rules even when they’re not here.”
“They’re nice people, despite being a touch over-the-top.”
“Why are you all the way over there, by the way?”
“Because I had to pour the champagne, and it’s sitting right behind me.”
“But now you’ve poured the champagne, and the distance is a problem.”
“What, you think we need the alpenhorn to communicate?”
“I just want you here.” He moved forward a little and held out his arm, and she went to him, sliding against him all slick and slippery with the foam, and he wrapped an arm around her bare, foamy wet butt to keep her in place, and it felt so sexy and good. “You’re so beautiful, Lee....”
“Me?” People didn’t say that about her. They said she had a strong face, a melodic voice, an athlete’s body, great hair. They said she was striking, or pretty—which was a real stretch, because she knew her face was way too strong for pretty.
“You’re beautiful,” he repeated. “Your eyes. Can’t decide if they’re blue or green. Your smile. So much life. The way you laugh is beautiful. Your mouth, all lush. The way you threw your head around with those earrings, first time I saw you.”
“Yeah?” She floated against him, pressed nose to nose and stole some kisses.
“That did it for me. I saw you, the way your hair bounced, dark gold and a little messy, and you had this look on your face.”
“And we talked as if we already knew each other.”
“It felt like we did. And now we really do.”