“I’m not going to tell you that!”

“Please?”

“This is silly. It doesn’t matter to you.”

“Tell me.”

“It was Matt.”

“Matt.”

“Yes. He’s dependable. Reliable. He’s-”

“Mr. Perfect.” He shook his head even as a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I’ve heard the women talk about him.”

“Then you already knew what attracted me.”

“Dependability? Reliability?” He made a face. “Sounds like a car. A new one, when we all know it’s the used models, the coveted and experienced and loved ones, that have all the nerve and personality.”

“Bryan-”

His eyes flashed now, still with good humor, but with something more as well. “I was Santa, Katie. And I’m going to prove it to you.”

“No!” Not stopping to think about her sudden, irrational fear, Katie ducked from between the shelving unit and his body, not stopping to look at him until she had the door handle firmly in her hand and opened.

Bryan lifted his hands. “I wasn’t going to prove it that way.”

“Oh.” She felt dense. “I just thought-”

“I know what you thought. That I was going to kiss you again. But if I wasn’t Santa that night, if I wasn’t the one to give you that kiss-which must have been a helluva doozy, by the way, to have made such an impression-you have nothing to worry about, right?”

“Um…yeah. Right.”

He laughed softly then, a terrifyingly sexy sound that made the butterflies go to town on Katie’s stomach again.

“How about I prove to you that it was me, but in another way?” he suggested.

Warily she eyed him. “How?”

“And when I do-” he completely ignored her question “-you’re going to admit you were wrong. Out loud this time. To me.”

She still had one foot out the door. She was safe. Yeah, safe as a name caller in a glass house. “I have no problem admitting my mistakes,” she said so stiffly he laughed again. “But I’m not wrong here.”

“Uh-huh. We’ll see. Dependability. Reliability? Those are the things you need?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He looked slightly disgusted, but resigned. “Damn. I was afraid you were going to say that.”


A FEW DAYS LATER, Bryan was in the middle of a final check, trying to get out of Wells for the day, when he heard a strange noise coming from the opened cockpit of his plane.

He set down his clipboard and walked around the Cessna, his mind a million miles away.

He was thinking fondly of mistletoe and sexy red Christmas dresses. He was thinking of warm, vulnerable, whiskey-colored eyes, and sweet-scented, shoulder-length hair brushing over his arms as he leaned into the kiss that had rocked his world.

Was still rocking his world.

It had been a week.

Seven days.

One-hundred-sixty-eight hours.

He didn’t know how many minutes, but for an admitted adrenaline junkie, he was dying for another rush.

Another kiss.

He’d tried his damnedest to appear to be the model citizen whenever Katie was around. Dependable. Reliable.

He did it all.

He tried so hard his head hurt. What was he doing? Why did he even care? Was he that egotistical that he couldn’t let it go?

So Katie wanted neat and simple Matt, who was sedate enough to put a gorilla to sleep without effort.

In contrast, she thought Bryan wild. Uncontrollable.

That sound came from the cockpit again, and he climbed up the landing stairs of the sleek plane to peek inside.

Nothing.

He went in, took a step toward the cockpit, then froze when the door slammed behind him.

“What the-” He turned back just as a soft weight plowed into him. “Oof.” The backs of his knees hit a low seat, tripping him, and he crashed into the wall of the plane.

On the floor, with his legs still draped over the back of the seat and that soft weight draped over the top of him, Bryan shook his head and evaluated.

Hot flesh and overly scented skin? “Holly! What the hell-”

That was the last word he managed before she straddled him, leaned in and whispered, “Take it like a man, would you? I need to use you for a second.”

“What-”

“Hush! He’s coming. I want him to see!” And she took his mouth with hers.

Behind them the airplane door opened abruptly and Katie’s voice called into the dark depths. “Bryan?”

Both he and Holly swore.

“Matt’s there, too!” Holly hissed. “Damn that man, he’s so slow!”

“Bryan?” called Katie. “I need an invoice…”

Oh, perfect.

Bryan tried to jerk free, but Holly was quicker, and prepared. She pressed down on him, both with her knee in his windpipe and her mouth on his.

Worrying about Katie seeing the kiss became secondary to actually breathing. And still he heard Katie come closer.

Inanely, Bryan wondered if she would believe he’d passed out and Holly was performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Certainly she’d never believe the truth, that he’d been attacked!

Hell, he hardly believed it.

“Bryan-” Katie’s voice stopped short on an audible gasp as she caught sight of him-big, bad Bryan Morgan, being held to the floor by Holly’s lips.

Dammit! Struggling to sit up, he shoved Holly off his thighs.

Katie was already halfway across the hangar floor.

Surging to his feet, he leaped for the door. “Katie!” he bellowed.

She turned, just as Bryan took a quick step, too quick, and promptly fell out of the plane, flat on his face.

When the stars and pain faded, he rolled onto his back on the cold concrete floor of the hangar and blinked Holly into view.

“Save your breath,” she said with a sigh. “She’s gone. For such a well-curved little thing, she sure can move. And apparently Matt wasn’t with her.”

Bryan spared her one quick glance as he surged to his unsteady feet. “You. Stay. When I get back you have some explaining to do.”

“Oh, Ricky,” she whined in a perfect mimic of Lucy Ricardo.

Instead of strangling her, Bryan shook his head and went after Katie, but Holly happened to be right on one score-Katie could really move.

By the time he figured out which way to go, she’d crossed the entire length of the tarmac, her low, economical heels clicking loudly, her long skirt flowing wildly in the breeze.

“Katie!”

Naturally she kept walking, even faster now, and he jogged up to her, passing her, running backwards in order to stay right in front of her, but she wouldn’t even look at him. “Katie, I-”

“I’m busy,” she huffed.

“You’re also upset.”

“Why? I don’t care who you kiss.”

Ouch, though it was a good point. She didn’t care, he didn’t care…so what was the big deal?

He wished he knew.

His face hurt from taking a dive on the hangar floor. His head hurt, too, and though he was in excellent shape, he could hardly keep up with her. “Can you stop for a moment? Or at least slow down?”

“Nope.”

He glanced behind him to make sure he wasn’t going to fall, again, and kept running backward. “About what just happened-”

“Forget it.”

He’d like to. “I can’t. You know, it wasn’t really what you thought.”

“Really?” Finally, she stopped, put a hand on her hip and lifted an eyebrow. “What did I think?”

“Um…” He was feeling a little slow on the uptake.

“That you’re slime? That you’re sick? That you’re- You’re bleeding!”

Why that softened her, he hadn’t a clue.

“Your lip,” she said and lifted a hand before she stopped herself. “You should tell your little girlfriend not to bite so hard.”

“She’s not-” Hell! How did this stuff happen to him?

They were on the far side of the tarmac now, the wind blowing fiercely, whipping Katie’s hair into both of their faces. Her skirt rioted, too, tangling up in his legs as well as hers. They were close to the lobby door, close to the first hangar, but neither of them moved. “I suppose you won’t believe the truth,” he said.

Her gaze narrowed and now she did touch his mouth and stared at her finger. Then she stabbed it into his chest, hard. “That’s not blood, it’s bright red lipstick! Gee, I wonder how that happened? Oh, wait, I know.” She let out a tight smile. “You’re a closet cross-dresser.”

“She jumped me,” he said inanely, going with the truth instead of the resuscitation excuse, thinking he should get points for honesty. “Really. I heard this noise and went to investigate.”

“In your parked plane.”

“Yes.”

“I imagine you thought it was a mouse or something.”

“Or something, yes,” he agreed, ignoring her huff of disbelief. “Then suddenly there she was, kissing me.”

“She plowed you to the ground, naturally,” Katie said agreeably. “Straddled you. Forced your arms around her, then attacked your mouth.”

Pleased by her compassion and understanding, he smiled. “Yes! Exactly!”

Katie’s eyes went cold. “Someone ought to put out a bulletin. You men need a new story.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That’s exactly the same story my fiancé gave me, when I found him in the same position with Holly. Only it was under my Christmas tree, three years ago.”

5

FOR THE FIRST TIME in Katie’s life, her nice, logical world of accounting failed her. She had her computer up and running, a spreadsheet opened in front of her and yet all she saw were numbers leaping and jumping around, making her dizzy.

She found herself mixing her debits with her credits. Confusing her assets with liabilities. Twisting her expenses.

All because of a man. And not the man she’d so carefully picked out for herself either, but one who had the ability to turn her life upside down in a very unsettling way.

How was she supposed to face the fact that the kiss that haunted her dreams with its heat and intensity, the one that had awakened needs and yearnings she hadn’t even been aware of, might have come from a man she could never let herself care about?