Santa Viking (15 page)

Everyone was impressed, except the woman he loved
 . . .

Later that afternoon, they were all in the living room, decorating a huge blue spruce tree that Erik and the kids had dragged in from the woods behind the house. Christmas carols played on the radio in the background, interrupted repeatedly by storm warnings.

Aunt Clara was reclining on the sofa in front of the fireplace where Erik had carried her two hours ago. She gave them gentle instructions as to which ornament went where while her knitting needles clicked away at one of her perpetual afghans.

“Are you still mad at me, honey?” Erik said close to Jessica’s ear, causing her to jump about two feet.

“Criminey, do you have to sneak up on me all the time?” she snapped.

She’d been avoiding the rascal all day, along with his knowing looks, his disarming smiles, and “accidental” touches. Erik had laughed and stalked her just the same.

She couldn’t believe she’d actually made love with a man she’d met the night before. She hadn’t been thinking. It had happened too soon. It shouldn’t have happened at all.

She had to get rid of the tempting hunk soon or lose her sanity. Or something worse. Her heart.

“What do you call a nun with one leg?” Erik asked with a glimmer of humor in his flashing eyes, slanting a glance at Aunt Clara to make sure she didn’t overhear.

A
joke?
She tried to look at him disapprovingly.

“Hopalong Chastity.”

She giggled reluctantly, and Erik used that opportunity to put an arm around her shoulder and squeeze her close.

Despite the trill of excitement engendered by that slight embrace, she ducked and escaped, putting several feet between them.

He chuckled.

“Maybe you can still leave tonight
 . . .
if the roads get cleared,” she suggested.

Why did her heart constrict at the possibility? He’d have to leave sometime. If not tonight, then tomorrow. Everyone she’d ever loved left eventually. He would, too.

Not that I love him.

And there he went again, looking at her with such hurt and longing in his beautiful blue Viking eyes. He did it every time she rebuffed him.

It
’
s not as if he really loves me.

But what if he did?

“No way!” Willie protested. “Uncle Erik can’t leave tonight. He’s makin’ Philadelphia cheese steaks for dinner.”

That was another thing that made Jessie mad. No one would eat her peanut butter sandwiches. They were scarfing down all the junk food Erik had bought, including minute steaks and rolls for a Christmas Eve dinner. He must have spent two hundred dollars in that Uni-Mart.

And Aunt Clara wasn’t even protesting that they would miss
Vilia,
the traditional Slovak Christmas Eve dinner she always prepared, where everyone must taste at least twelve of the many dishes assembled, presumably in honor of the twelve apostles. The merry meal always included, at the least, the core items of
oplatky,
the Christmas communion wafers dipped in honey;
bobalky,
braided homemade bread; red wine;
pierogies,
the little cheese-stuffed pies; several kinds of fish; mushroom soup; poppyseed rolls; sauerkraut; nuts; and fresh fruit.

Well, she had to give Erik credit. In the spirit of improvisation, he was putting together a new-age
Villa
supper, complete with Philadelphia cheese steaks, Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Hawaiian Punch, and fruitcake, of course. And everyone—all the kids and Aunt Clara—acted as if everything was hunky-dory.

Was she the only one worried to death about the Christmas Curse and the kind of holiday disaster that loomed this year?

“You can’t make Uncle Erik leave. He’s gonna show me how to dance the Philadelphia Stomp later tonight,” Kajeeta said, interrupting Jessica’s dismal thoughts. Kajeeta peered up shyly at Erik for confirmation.

“Yep,” he told Kajeeta, and then caught Jessica’s skeptical frown. “And if you’re real good, sugar, I’ll do the two-step with you.” He winked suggestively and whispered
sotto voce,
“Re-e-eal slow. After the kids have gone to sleep.”

“In your dreams!” she said haughtily. But already he’d planted some tantalizing pictures in her mind. The Christmas tree lights flickering in the darkened room, fireplace roaring, soft music
 . . .
Get a grip, girl.

“And Erik said he would French braid my hair,” Darlene added, having just condescended to join the group.

Everyone gawked at Erik, astounded.

He shrugged with a sheepish grin. “Hey, my sister Ellie made me do her hair when we were kids. She was bigger than me
then
and considered me her personal slave.”

Everyone laughed at the image of Erik being forced by his sister to be her slave.

“Aunt Jessie, you oughta hang onto this guy,” Henry added in the end. “He’s a lot better than that Burp fellow you brought here last year.”

She started to tell Henry that his name was not Burp, but all the kids were having such a good time. And besides, the name Burp suited the jerk much better than Burt, anyhow. So she joined in the good-natured ribbing.

“Tell us about your work,” Aunt Clara urged Erik, her nimble fingers moving the knitting needles in an intricate pattern as she spoke.

Erik was on a ladder putting a star atop the tall tree.

“Yeah, did you ever bodyguard anyone famous?” Henry asked as he helped to brace the shaky ladder.

“Sure. All the time,” Erik answered, tilting his head this way and that until he positioned the star just right. “Even Bill Gates one time,” he told a flabbergasted Henry as he descended the ladder and folded it, preparing to take it out to the kitchen. “He hired me and four other guys to accompany him to Japan. It was a time when there was a lot of anti-American sentiment there.”

Henry was gazing at Erik as if he were God.

“And I just came back yesterday afternoon from working a Fancy Nancy concert at the Wells Fargo Center in Philly,” he told a
very
impressed Kajeeta as he passed en route to the kitchen.

When he reentered the living room, all the kids jumped on him with eager questions.

“Do you
really
know Fancy Nancy?” Kajeeta wanted to know.

“Well, I wouldn’t say we’re friends. But, yes, I’ve met her and worked for her.”

“How about movie stars?” Darlene asked.

“Yep. Lots of movie stars, like Robert Pattinson, Natalie Portman, Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz. And rock stars. Once I guarded Lady Gaga . . . now, that was a trip,” he recalled with amusement. “Even Michael Jackson before he died, though he usually had his own private security team.”

“Did you ever bodyguard Chuck Norris?” Willie wanted to know.

Erik shook his head negatively. “Mostly I work for politicians—those who aren’t high up enough to qualify for Secret Service protection, and corporate bigwigs traveling in third world countries.”

“Wow!” the kids sighed.

Erik addressed Aunt Clara then, seeming to give her a special silent message. “Once I even guarded Pope John Paul.”

“O-o-oh, Erik,” Aunt Clara breathed. Her simple words said loud and clear that she thought Erik was the answer to her Christmas prayers
 . . .
sent special delivery by God, via John Paul.

Jessie felt the happiness and Christmas spirit swell around her, filling the room, but it was a sham. Because these kids still believed
 . . .
perhaps not in Santa Claus
 . . .
but in miracles. And there was going to be no miracle when they came downstairs tomorrow and found no gifts.

“Stop worrying, Jessica,” Aunt Clara said softly with uncanny perception, sensing her distress. “For once in your life, trust. Especially at Christmas time, let yourself believe that good things can just happen.”

“Hah! The only thing that ever happens to me at Christmas time is my Christmas Curse,” Jessie grumbled.

“Now, Jessica, I have never believed that nonsense.”

Henry distracted Aunt Clara then, wanting her advice on some tinsel that had become tangled.

“Have some more fruitcake,” Erik suggested, pressing a too-big hunk against Jessie’s mouth. Lord, the man must be part Indian, as well as Viking, the way he crept up on her unawares all the time.

“I don’t want any more. I hate fruitcake. And I’m not hungry,” she insisted, which gave Erik the opportunity to shove the huge morsel in her open mouth. “Glmph.”

He kept his fingertips on her lips an intimate second too long, and his smoldering eyes told her he had a hunger of an entirely different kind. Leaning close, he whispered, “Are you ready for some more wild sex?”

She chewed quickly so she could answer him, but he laughed again and moved away.

Willie ambled up with a calculating gleam in his eyes. “So tell me, Aunt Jessie. How old were you when you lost your virginity? Uncle Erik was fourteen.”

She began to choke as the blasted fruitcake went down the wrong throat passage. When she finally recovered, after drinking a glass of Hawaiian Punch—another of Erik’s purchases—her gaze shot across the room.

Erik threw his hands out hopelessly.

Meanwhile, Willie karate-chopped a fruitcake in half.

Jessica couldn’t remember when the Christmas Curse had ever been so bad.

Then Santa arrived
 . . .
a Hispanic Santa with an attitude
 . . .

It was close to midnight before all the kids were nestled in their beds. Aunt Clara had retired soon after their absolutely wonderful Christmas Eve dinner—the best any of them had ever experienced. Jessica was about to call it a night herself, but first she had to take Fred out for one last nature call.

“I’ll take him,” Erik offered, coming down the hall from the kitchen where he’d just gone to put away the last of the leftovers and turn out the lights. “I need to make a few more phone calls.”

“Thanks. I’m really beat.” Then his words sank in. “Telephone calls?”

“Yeah, I have a cell phone in my car,” he admitted.

She was too tired to be angry with him anymore. “You rat,” was the best she could come up with.

“Hey, I have to have a cell phone in the car at all times, in case of emergency. The nature of my business, you know. Besides, I had to call my sister Ellie to go get my laundry from the Laundromat, didn’t I? Did you really think I would have gone with you so willingly if I knew I was losing a couple hundred dollars’ worth of clothes?”

Jessica wasn’t sure what she’d been thinking at the time. Or if she’d been thinking at all.

More important, Erik looked really worried now as he pulled on his jacket with Fred running circles of anticipation around his legs.

“What’s wrong?”

“Jessie, I thought I was going to be able to pull off a Christmas surprise for you. I called my sister earlier today, like I said, and
 . . .
well, a few other people. But even with the storm finally stopping tonight, I just don’t think I’ll be able to get any gifts here by tomorrow morning with the roads the way they are. It looks like there really won’t be any gifts when the kids wake up. I’m sorry.”