One Snowy Night Before Christmas (11 page)

“Oh, Jessie.”

The first time she’d been aching for release and it had felt
like a cool drink after a long, dry thirst. Now her orgasm flowed through her
like water in a smooth river, neither surging or receding, but steady and
strong. It was pure bliss. She wasn’t sure when it started or ended, just that
it was there, and it was glorious.

Finally spent she lay still, eyes closed, feeling
wonderfully satisfied yet already dreading being left alone. She wanted to be
kept by him, wanted him to stay in this warm bed with her and never leave.

What a wonderful Christmas present that would be.

* * *

Jessie awoke when the shower in the guest bath came on. She
glanced at the clock. Eight-thirty. She hadn’t slept this late in years. She
stayed in bed and stretched, realizing the wonderful soreness
everywhere
.
She smiled to herself. It had been quite a workout last night.

She waited to rise until Tom had finished with his shower,
then took her time getting dressed. Her skin glowed with new energy this
morning. Imagine! Jessie Jeffries—Jessie McScrooge—glowing on December
twenty-fourth. It just showed what great sex could do for a person’s outlook.
She laughed at her reflection. A little makeup would be nice, too. It had been
a long time since she felt the urge to dress up.

Amy jumped from the couch and ran over as Jessie came down
the stairs. She threw her arms around Jessie’s legs and hugged her. “Happy
Christmas Eve!”

She laughed and squatted down to the little girl’s level.
“Happy Christmas Eve to you!” She pulled Amy into her arms and kissed the top
of her head. She smelled like fresh baked cookies. What a wonderful scent.

Tom had been rattling around in the kitchen for the last
hour. She smelled bacon cooking and her waffle maker was open and smoking
lightly.

“Hope you like blueberry waffles.” He looked different this
morning, in a good way. Warm, cozy, comfortable. Someone she could cuddle up
to…forever. The thought was ridiculous, of course, but it still made a nice
fantasy. “With frozen blueberries.”

“Love ‘em.”

“Tea?”

He’d remembered. Well, how could he forget, her canned
coffee granules were almost a year past date. She went to the kitchen and took
the cup he held out to her.

She had been wondering how he would act. It had been a
one-time thing—they’d each been clear on that from the start—but now things
were definitely different between them. She knew him intimately…heck, she’d put
her tongue on places that didn’t normally get sunshine.

“You look refreshed this morning.” He slipped his hand
around her waist and drew her close. His leaned in and kissed her tenderly. She
closed her eyes and let him.

Heaven above, it was a nice kiss.

“Leaving your bed this morning was the hardest thing I’ve
ever had to do,” he said softly.

She smiled and sipped her tea while her cheeks burned. “How far
away is Portland, did you say?” It definitely wouldn’t be a year before she did
that again.

“I’m hungry,” Amy whined from the living room. “When are we
going to eat?”

“Did you brush your teeth yet?” Tom called back.

“Noooo.”

“And did you find your barrettes?”

“Noooo.”

“Go find them, then.”

“Okaaay.” She trudged upstairs.

Jessie giggled. “She seems to have taken to you.”

“I have no idea what kind of life her mother gave her.” He
moved about her kitchen, first placing the bacon on a paper towel to blot the
grease and then pouring batter into the waffle iron. “She’s warm, safe, and her
stomach is full here. For all I know, this is kid heaven.”

Jessie sipped her tea. It was nice, this simple domesticity.
Who would have thought it would appeal to her?
Certainly not me
.

“Two nights ago you were afraid you wouldn’t know what to
do,” she reminded him.

“And you were right when you said I just needed to love
her.” Tom placed the empty batter bowl in the sink and filled it with water. He
turned around and leaned on the counter. “When I picked her up, she had a
bruise on her chin. It’s almost gone now, but if you look closely, you can
still see it.”

“It may have been innocent. Kids fall all the time.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Maybe not. When child protection
services entered her grandmother’s house, they found a hoarding situation with
some really nasty stuff. They told me there was a loaded shotgun in the living
room standing against the wall. Do you know how dangerous that is? That’s why she
was taken immediately without allowing a probationary period to fix the
situation. Who knows what was happening to her there.”

Jessie’s stomach soured. “Even if the bruise was innocent,
the emotional abuse is scarring too. Sometimes it’s even worse. Take it from
the daughter of an alcoholic.”

“Jesus.”

She stepped forward and placed her hand on his arm. The
concern in his eyes tugged at her heart. “Don’t worry, you can right this.” She
smiled, trying to lift his spirits. “You’ve already started.”

But the guilt stuck there, she could see it in his eyes.
“I’ve been paying child support all these years, but I never asked for
visitation rights. I never cared about seeing my own kid.”

“You didn’t know.” She squeezed where her hand lay on his
arm. “Look at her mother’s mistake as a blessing.”

“They do come in odd packages, don’t they?”

She had to laugh at that. “They sure do.”

His hands slipped around her waist. His expression softened,
but was no less serious. “Thank you, Jessie.”

“For what?”

“For making this Christmas so wonderful.”

A zing raced from head to toe.
Me? Jessie Jeffries,
making Christmas good for someone?

She knew she shouldn’t kiss him again, but his body felt so
good as she leaned against him.
This is wrong
, she thought.
He’s
going home today
. But his kiss felt so right, so good. This time he kissed
her lightly, a long, lingering brush of lips, then just rested his forehead
against hers.

Amy’s shrill voice carried down the stairs. “Daddy, I have a
tangle.”

Jessie stepped back. “Ah,
this
I can help you with.
With this mop, I am the Queen of Tangle Removal. Come on, I’ll show you my
secret. These waffles have a few more minutes.”

A knock on the door stopped them as they reached the stairs.
“I’ll be right up,” Jessie told him.

She dragged her feet toward the door, knowing before she
answered who would be on the other side.

“Mike.”

He was in uniform. “Hi Jessie.” His gaze danced over her
face, likely surprised to see her in makeup. “You look really pretty.”

Suddenly she wished she hadn’t applied it.  She resisted
rolling her eyes. She’d known the minute she told him not to come back, he
would do just that.

“I wanted to talk to you…about yesterday. I didn’t like the
way we ended it.”

“What, our conversation, or our relationship?”

His shoulders sagged. “I was a jerk, I know it.”

Mike looked over her shoulder and raised his voice as he
spoke to Tom. “I thought you were leaving yesterday.”

Jessie shifted in front of Mike, blocking the doorway with
her hand on the frame. “I asked him to stay.”

His expression lost its amiability. She resisted the urge to
tell him to leave, in no uncertain terms, but she felt too good. Nothing was
going to ruin this beautiful morning.

Mike settled a cold stare on her. “Your “Santa” was picked
up last night after robbing Chandler’s Jewelry store. He slipped out of the
hospital while no one was looking.”

Except that
.

She stared back, at a loss for words. This shouldn’t
surprise her. She knew the old man was nothing but a con artist who took advantage
of his similarity to Santa, and of those who wanted to believe.

“He slipped on the ice and hurt his back while making his
getaway.”

“What happened to Santa?” Amy’s already high voice crested
with panic. Jessie turned around to see her standing at the banister, one foot
still on the bottom step.

“He wasn’t Santa, kid.”

Jessie whirled around. “Mike!”

“Watch the way you talk to my daughter, Officer.” Warning
rang clear in Tom’s tone.

Mike ignored them. “You’ll need to come down to the station.
Sergeant Adams wants to talk to you.”

“She hasn’t eaten her breakfast yet.” Tom came to the door
and placed his hand on her shoulder. “And she shouldn’t answer any questions
without council.”

“She’s not under arrest,” Mike snapped in return. “My
sergeant just wants to ask her some questions.”

“I don’t care if he wants to give her a Christmas gift.”

“Tom, it’s all right.” She turned around and his hand fell
away, taking with it his comforting caress.

She opened the closet door by the entry and removed her coat
and snow boots. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Jessie?” Amy squeaked. “Is Santa okay?”

She faced the little girl, fighting a quivery sensation in
her gut. “The policeman is right, Amy. He isn’t Santa.”

The door closed behind her as simple as that. The woman he
was quite possibly head-over-heels, mad-out-of-his-hat in love with walked out
of her own house on her way to another horrible Christmas.

This couldn’t be. It wasn’t fair. Why was Jessie plagued
with such rotten luck on Christmas?

“Daddy?” Amy looked at him, her brow crinkled with horror.
She was going to cry. This would be a new and equally horrifying experience for
him.

But he couldn’t stress over it now. Jessie needed him. He
forced a chipper expression to his face. “Come on, let’s eat breakfast. Then
we’ll go to the police station and meet Jessie.”

He picked up the cordless phone at the bar and punched in
the number for the dealership In Corvallis. “Hi, I called yesterday about the
rental car for Welcome.” He glanced at the clock. 9:10 a.m. He speared a
slightly overcooked waffle from the iron and dropped it on a plate while the
woman on the line listed off the available cars. “Watch out honey, that’s hot,”
he whispered to Amy. “Yes, I’ll take the SUV, and there’s a fifty dollar tip in
it for the driver if he can get it here by ten this morning.”

* * *

“Jessie, this isn’t your fault. Adams knows that.”

She glanced out the passenger window. Mike was driving as
slowly as he possibly could, and this looked like the scenic route. Jessie
didn’t know which was worse, sitting up front with him, or if he’d have made
her sit in back like a suspect.

He placed a hand on her thigh. “I’m here for you. I won’t
let this ruin another Christmas for you.”

She picked up his hand and moved it off. “Too late.”

“So, how long is that guy going to be staying with you?”

“I thought Sergeant Adams wanted to ask the questions.”

He stopped the car in the officers’ lot and Jessie jumped
out without waiting for him.

She paused at the door and glanced up. The sky had turned a
mottled smoky gray, as if another storm was on its way. “It’s already here,”
she mumbled to herself.

Sergeant Adams was a kind man who had always been friendly
toward her. He was on the phone, but waved her in as she stood in the doorway.
She took a seat in the guest chair and waited for him to finish.

He gave her a sad smile as he hung up the phone. “Jessie,
hi. Merry Christmas. Sorry this visit isn’t under better circumstances.”

The smile she managed in return was just as flimsy. “When is
a visit with the police ever under good circumstances?”

He leaned back and adjusted his large belly. “This one goes
down in the record books, I’ll tell you that. How many stations can say they
have Santa in their holding cell?”

“None. Not even this one,” she answered with a twinge of
spite.

So the old man was still here. She glanced past him, through
the glass partition to the hallway leading to the holding cells. She’d been
down that hallway once, when her mother was still alive. Nadia had been picked
up for drunk and disorderly conduct while frolicking in the town center’s
fountain, relieving herself of her clothing.

“I understand you visited him in the hospital yesterday.”

She bit back a silent groan and nodded.

“Mike says you have a man and a little girl staying with
you.”

“Yes.” She refrained from asking what that had to do with
anything.

“Did the old man claim to be Santa to you, too?”

“We visited him together. I think the act was mostly for
Amy’s sake—Tom’s little girl.”

“Did he say anything that might indicate who he really is?
Maybe slip up in some way?”

“He said his name was Chris.”

Sergeant Adams gave her a look that was half grin, half
grimace. “As in Chris Kringle.”

Jessie only nodded. She didn’t think it was funny.

He leaned forward and flipped through a manila file. “The
problem is his fingerprints don’t come up. Either he’s never been arrested
before
and
never had a driver’s license…”

“Or he really is Santa?” She frowned. “Give me a break.”

A deputy leaned through the doorway. “Sergeant Adams, you’re
needed in the blue room.”

He rose. “Excuse me just a minute.”

Ten minutes later, she was still sitting by herself, staring
through the glass at that hallway. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She rose and
casually strolled down the hall. The officers at the booking desk ignored her.

She found the old man by himself, sitting on a bench in an
otherwise empty cell. He shifted himself with a groan, pain creased into his
brow.

“Your back hurt?” She stayed a distance from the bars.

He looked up and saw her, then glanced away. “Yes,” he said
hoarsely.

“Good! You stinking piece of crap. Do you have any idea what
you’ve done?”