Santa Viking (18 page)

A smiling Aunt Clara had made a gift of five fruitcakes to Nancy. She was struck speechless with gratitude.

Erik’s mother and Ellie had approved heartily of Jessie. Well, why wouldn’t they? She was wonderful, although she’d appeared half-paralyzed by their exuberance. Ellie, especially, came on like gangbusters sometimes. His mother had started to ask Jessie whether she could help with wedding plans, but backed off, luckily, when she’d seen the sheer panic in Jessie’s eyes. He’d given his mom a silent signal that he’d talk to her later.

Now he sat in the afterglow of the best Christmas he’d ever had, with the woman he loved in his arms. Later, after everyone else sacked out for the night, he and Jessie would talk. Then wild sex again. Or should they have wild sex, and then talk?

“Why are you smirking?” Jessie tilted her head to gaze at him.

In the background, he heard his cell phone going off. Probably his mother or Ellie. He’d told them to call when they arrived home safely.

“I was
not
smirking. I’m just happy. Aren’t you?”

She nodded, and he could see that she was getting weepy-eyed again. She did that a lot when unable to express her emotions. He was a little weepy-eyed himself.

“Uncle Erik, it’s for you,” Henry called out. “Your secretary. She says it’s an emergency.”

Uh-oh.

All good times must come to an end
 . . .

Jessica sat on the floor waiting for Erik to return. Little by little, he’d peeled away the armor of her distrust today. She’d already admitted to herself that she loved him, but she was beginning to actually believe he could love her, too
 . . .
that they had a future together.

When Erik came back a short time later, he’d already donned a jacket. With worry lining his voice, he said, “Come here, Jessie, I have to talk to you.”

“What is it?” She jumped up in panic. “Has there been an accident? Your mother and sister?”

“No, no,” he assured her quickly. “They’re fine, but there has been an accident. One of my employees was shot. Dead.” He swallowed with difficulty, then went on, “His partner’s badly wounded. I have to get back to Philadelphia right away.”

“Of course,” she said, rushing to his side.

Erik said all his good-byes to Aunt Clara and the kids, telling them he’d return as soon as possible. Then, a short time later, Erik was kissing her at the side of his car.

“Wait here for me, Jessie,” he ordered gruffly.

She nodded, unable to keep her cold hands from caressing his face and shoulders, memorizing him till he returned.

“I’ll call you later tonight. I should be able to get back by tomorrow, but I’ll know better once I see what the situation is with this job. Okay?” He was nuzzling her neck and giving her little nibbling kisses the whole time he talked.

Jessica tried to keep up a brave front. She was missing Erik before he even left.

“I have to go,” he said finally, setting her away from him and opening the car door. “I love you, Jessie.”

She started to say the words she knew he wanted to hear, but he put his fingertips over her lips to silence her. “No, I know that you love me. But I want you to say the words on your own, without the pressure of my leaving.”

She nodded and watched through a screen of tears as Erik drove away.

Love hurts
 . . .

Two days later, Jessica hadn’t heard from Erik.

The night he’d left, there’d been no call, even though he’d promised. And all the following day, she’d waited in vain.

At first, his lack of communication had stunned her. There had to be an excuse.

Then reality had sunk in.

Despite Aunt Clara’s admonitions to trust in her heart, Jessica accepted the truth. Erik wasn’t coming back.

By the third day after Christmas, Jessica had her shield of cynicism firmly in place again. And she began packing for her return to Chicago, with oaths of secrecy forced from Aunt Clara and the kids not to divulge her address or phone number if Erik should ever show up again. She suspected that a twinge of pity might strike Erik sometime in the future, if not for her, perhaps for the kids, and she didn’t want his damn pity. Or anything else from him, for that matter.

So Jessica traveled back to Chicago alone, except for ten fruitcakes, which she intended to dump at the first roadside rest stop, and memories of candy canes and a Viking Santa that would stay with her forever.

Some Christmas miracles weren’t intended to last.

It was a sweet (almond creme) ending
 . . .

On New Year’s Eve, Jessica stood in the kitchen of the Shangri-La Inn, arranging Roquefort-stuffed shrimp and crab canapes on an appetizer tray.

The loud rendition of the Jewish folk dance “Hava Nagila” being played by the orchestra at the wedding reception rocked the entire building, but did nothing for her low spirits. The band soon moved on to a fast-paced number, and the shrill announcer encouraged everyone to get up and dance the Chicken.
The Chicken?
She clucked her tongue woefully. What was it about weddings that made grown people behave like imbeciles?

She heard the whoosh of the swinging door from the dining room and grabbed for the meat tenderizing hammer in front of her. The lecherous bridegroom, Cecil Goldstein, had been making passes at her all afternoon, and she’d had about enough. As it was, she probably had bruises on her butt from all his pinches. Well, time to give the schnockered newlywed a lesson good and proper, where it really hurt.

“Put your hands up, lady. This is a stick-out,” she heard behind her. And it wasn’t the bridegroom’s voice.

Oh, my God!
Jessica turned abruptly and dropped her meat mallet to the floor with a clunk of surprise.

Santa Claus stood before her with a raised pistol. Madder than hell, if his flaring nostrils and steely eyes were any indication.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came for something that belongs to me. This is
not
a robbery,” he emphasized, parroting some words she’d said once at the Piggly Jiggly. “And get those hands back up, lady, or I’m gonna have to wipe you up.”

A grin twitched the edges of her lips. She couldn’t help herself. Was that how silly she’d sounded? And Erik looked so comical standing there with a gun pointed in her face.
A
gun?
“You shouldn’t aim a loaded gun at anyone. It is loaded, isn’t it?”

“You betcha, babe,” he said, and squirted her in the face.

Jessica laughed and wiped the moisture away while Erik pulled the beard and wig and hat off, dropping them to the floor. She saw immediately that his teasing words conflicted with the stone-cold fury stiffening his body, flattening his lips into a thin line.

“Why didn’t you wait for me, Jessie? And why did you tell everyone to keep your whereabouts from me?” Erik was bristling with anger.

“Why didn’t you call?”

“Because I had to go to London to take over for Jerry and Mike.” His voice cracked at the end.

“Oh,” she said, remembering the accident the night Erik had been called away. She wanted to reach out her arms in comfort, but Erik’s stony expression daunted her. “How is he
 . . .
I mean, the one employee, did he survive?”

“Jerry was buried three days ago, and Mike will recover,” he said grimly.

Agitated, she brushed some stray curls off her forehead. “How did you find me?”

“Julio,” he responded tersely.

She waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, she took a deep breath and pressed forward. “Why?”

“He said he’d never met two old fogies as dumb as us,” he informed her with a rueful shrug.

She tried to smile, but her facial muscles froze.

“You didn’t answer my question, Jessie. Why didn’t you wait?” He studied her so calmly and coldly that Jessica’s heart began to splinter.

“When you didn’t call, I figured that
 . . .
well, you changed your mind. That you didn’t really
 . . . 
”

“.
 . . .
love you?” He shook his head sadly. “Dammit, Jessie, why couldn’t you have trusted me?”

“But you didn’t call,” she accused.

“I did call, Jessie.”

She waited for an explanation, puzzled.

“Did it ever occur to anyone to recharge the battery on the cell phone?”

“You called?” she squeaked out.

He nodded somberly.

Jessica understood then how foolish she’d been. And she understood something else, too. This was good-bye. Erik hadn’t come to woo her back.

Without trust, a relationship was nothing. And she’d proven they had nothing
 . . .
no foundation to build on, not even the love she’d failed to profess to him. But Erik was an ethical man, and he would have felt a responsibility to explain himself.

Could he possibly doubt her love?

Of course. Hadn’t she doubted him, with even less reason?

“Good luck, Jessie. I hope someday you’ll find what you want. I hope you’ll let yourself,” Erik said, about to turn and leave. “I really did love you.”

Did?
Jessica’s heart was beating a mile a minute. She had to do something, but things were happening too fast.

“Since you’ve traveled all this way, wouldn’t you like to go back to my place? We could
 . . . 
” At the disbelieving scowl on his face, her words trailed off.

“For what?” he scoffed.

“Fruitcake?” she proffered weakly. She was in such a panic she couldn’t think clearly.

“No, thanks. I’ve had enough.”

He’d had enough. Was there a double meaning there? Did he mean her, too?

He stared at her for one long, excruciating moment, then spun on his heels.

“I bought something for you,” she blurted out to his back as he walked stiffly toward the door. Then she put a palm over her mouth to stop herself from saying more.

“You bought something for me?” He turned. “What?”

Heat suffused her face. “Some peppermint oil,” she mumbled.

His eyes widened. “What did you say?”

She gulped. “I bought some damn peppermint warming oil. And, believe me, it took all my nerve to go into one of those places by myself. I was going to mail it to you with my address on the package. And then if you contacted me, I figured
 . . . 
” She had to stop because tears flowed down her face, and she was blubbering.

“You figured what?” He came back to stand in front of her.

She closed her eyes for a minute to collect her nerve. “I figured it would mean that you might still love me then, like
 . . .
like
 . . . 
” She couldn’t go on.

“Say it, Jessie,” he insisted. His blue eyes locked with hers, no longer in anger or despair. There was hope there now.

“
 . . .
like I love you,” she whispered.

Erik let out a loud sigh of relief and roughly pulled her into his arms, kissing her face and neck as if he couldn’t get enough of her. “Geez, Jessie, I thought you were really going to let me go. You had me scared to death. I thought maybe I’d been wrong all along, that maybe you didn’t love me.”