“I admit it. You’re hot.” Anna sighed

“But you’re not just any hot guy,” she continued. “You’re the hot guy I work with. I can’t sleep with you.”

Cole was silent for no more than a second. Then he shrugged. “Okay. I accept that.” Without warning, he pulled his thick sweater over his head and tossed it on the bed.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Anna asked, her voice cracking.

“Undressing.”

“But I thought you were sleeping on the sofa?” Anna meant her voice to sound harsh, but it came out soft.

“No reason we can’t sleep in the same room now.” Cole cocked an eyebrow at the twin beds.

Anna sat on one and started bouncing.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Cole repeated her earlier question.

“Testing out which bed is firmer. I love a hard…”

But she had made the mistake of looking at him, and what she’d been about to say died on her lips. He no longer had on his jeans—just a pair of red silk boxer shorts and the biggest…er, smile she’d ever seen.

Dear Reader,

Anybody who’s ever made it to adulthood single has probably run into a family member way too interested in their love life. You know the type. Full of questions about why you’re not dating, how seriously you are dating or who you should be dating.

In Cole for Christmas, Anna Wesley has a houseful of relatives exactly like that. They’re so thrilled when she finally brings a man home to dinner that they refuse to believe she and the sexy Cole Mansfield aren’t romantically involved.

I hope I’ve infused this story with the magic of the Christmas season, where love is in the air and anything is possible. Even a sizzling romance between a man who must lie to keep his word and a woman afraid to trust. And, of course, relatives who just might be right about who is Mr. Right.

Happy holidays!

Darlene Gardner

P.S. Online readers can visit me at www.darlenegardner.com.

Books by Darlene Gardner

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

926—ONE HOT CHANCE

HARLEQUIN DUETS

39—FORGET ME? NOT

51—THE CUPID CAPER

68—THE HUSBAND HOTEL

77—ANYTHING YOU CAN DO…!

101—ONCE SMITTEN TWICE SHY

Cole for Christmas

Darlene Gardner

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

To my large, loving Polish-American family

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

1

IF IT WEREN’T FOR Bobblehead Santa, Anna Wesley wouldn’t be in this predicament.

She stood next to her desk in the not-quite-deserted marketing offices of Skillington Ski Shops, clutching the eight-inch plastic doll in her right hand, for once not amused by the way its white-haired head danced.

With her left hand, she absently worried the tassel on the Santa Claus hat the family expected her to wear to Christmas Eve dinner that night.

Nobody expected her to bring Bobblehead Santa.

Nobody would know the difference if she’d shown up with a bottle of wine instead of the toy she knew would make her grandfather erupt into one of those belly laughs worthy of St. Nick himself.

But, no, she couldn’t do things the easy way. Instead of driving straight to her parents’ house, she had to return to the office to pick up the silly doll. An office that should have been empty aside from the once-gay Christmas tree that sat on her secretary’s desk, its lights no longer twinkling.

It was nearly seven o’clock. Everybody should have cleared out hours earlier to enjoy what was in Anna’s mind the most magical night of the year. Christmas Eve, a night full of anticipation and wonder, meant to be spent in the bosom of family and friends.

That’s where she’d be now if she hadn’t come back to the office and noticed the light shining under Cole Mansfield’s office door.

But maybe she was overreacting. Maybe the cleaning staff had inadvertently left on a light, never mind that it had never happened before.

The shining light didn’t necessarily mean her marketing assistant, who’d moved to western Pennsylvania from San Diego to take the job less than a month before, was working late.

She’d no sooner taken a step in the direction of the exit than she heard the whir of a computer printer. Darn. She looked down at Bobblehead Santa, who gazed back up at her with his merry eyes.

“You don’t suppose that’s the ghost of Christmas Past in there, do you?” she asked him.

He didn’t answer but his joy-filled expression remained unchanged. It’s Christmas, he seemed to say.

“Not everyone celebrates Christmas,” she reasoned with him. “He could be Jewish. Or Buddhist. Or Pagan.”

Except she remembered the darling red tie he’d been wearing that morning. Festooned with depictions of miniature decorated trees, it played a tinny version of “O, Christmas Tree” whenever he squeezed it.

“That doesn’t mean anything. The decorated tree was originally a pagan tradition,” she told Bobblehead Santa, but he wasn’t buying her excuse.

“All right already, I’ll go check on him,” she said grudgingly and headed across the large, airy space to his office.

She paused on the threshold, squaring her shoulders and putting on her title of marketing director of Skillington Ski Shops like a cloak. Then she drew in a deep breath, rapped sharply three times on the door and opened it a crack.

Cole was at his desk, his musical tie loosened, the sleeves of his dress shirt shoved nearly to the elbows of toned arms lightly sprinkled with dark hair. He gave a visible start, then got rid of whatever he’d been staring at on his computer screen.

By the time he turned back to her, he was the picture of innocence, making her think she’d imagined he didn’t want her to know what he was working on.

“Hey, boss.” He gave her a tired smile. “I didn’t think anyone else was still here.”

His wavy hair, as black as the image his name conjured, looked as tousled as it did at the end of every day. A faint shadow darkened his chiseled lower jaw. Wire-rimmed glasses dimmed but didn’t quite hide the beauty of his deep-blue eyes.

He was sitting down but she already knew he was well over six feet tall and probably topped two hundred pounds. He looked, in short, like a cross between Professor Higgins and the Rock.

Not that she was susceptible to the brainy, testosterone-rich type. Cole had pretty much cured her of that affliction during his job interview when she’d asked his goal and he’d announced that one day he wanted her job.

She hid Bobblehead Santa behind her back and squared her shoulders, summoning the professionalism that was an integral part of her office persona.

“Technically, I’m not still here. I left at noon with everybody else, like I told you to do,” she said.

He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a rebel.”

She gave a curt nod and tried not to be threatened by the fact that he was working late.

A less-conscientious supervisor might not have hired Cole, especially because he seemed overqualified for the role of an assistant.

But business at Skillington Ski was stagnant, and Anna couldn’t afford to pass over the job candidate most likely to help her market the small chain of ski shops more effectively to western Pennsylvania winter sports enthusiasts.

Besides, she had to admit to a grudging admiration for the way he’d spoken his mind. She’d run into so many liars in her life that she admired people who were forthright about who they were and what they wanted.

Anna wanted to keep her job. Not only was she good at it, she loved it almost as much as the Christmas season.

She didn’t intend to let Cole Mansfield have it.

“You’re not working late, too, are you?” he asked before she could question him further.

“Not on Christmas Eve,” she said, hoping he realized this was the exception rather than the rule. She’d work around the clock to keep her job safe. Then she dredged up the excuse she’d invented in the hall. “I forgot some reports I wanted to look over during the holiday.”

Cole leaned back in his chair, a slow smile softening his sculpted features. “Did you remember to hitch your reindeer to a post before you came inside?”

She felt her brow knit, then immediately smoothed it. “Excuse me?” she said in a clipped, no-nonsense voice.

His grin grew wider before he lifted his index finger and pointed to her head, which was covered in…

Oh, no.

With a deft motion, she whipped off the Santa Claus hat and shoved it into the hand holding the bobblehead doll, inadvertently depressing the button at the back of its fur-lined red jacket.

“You sleigh me,” the doll said in a squeaky voice.

“Did you say something?” Cole asked, his posture straightening, his dark eyebrows lifting.

“Of course not,” she said. Heaven forbid he thought she was flirting with him. Or that he figured out she’d come back to the office for something as ridiculous as Bobblehead Santa. “I didn’t hear anything,” she fibbed.

“I heard something,” he said, then craned his head to the side in an attempt to look around her. “I think it came from behind your back.”

“Nonsense.” She repositioned herself and squeezed the doll harder to make sure she didn’t lose her grip on it.

“Ho, ho, ho,” the doll squeaked in its high, cheerful voice.

Cole grinned. “I know I heard that.”

Resigning herself to defeat, she thrust Bobblehead Santa out in front of her. “I thought my grandfather would get a kick out of him, okay?” she said, annoyed at herself for offering an explanation. She was the boss. She didn’t need to explain herself.

“Cute,” he said, but he was looking at her rather than the doll.

What was going on? she wondered as her face heated, her stomach lurched and her nerve endings tingled. She seemed to have stepped into an alternate reality where Cole was flirting with her and she was reacting to him. Like a woman reacts to a sexy man.

But that couldn’t be. They’d never before been anything other than utterly correct with each other. He lusted after the job she adored. She wasn’t attracted to him. She wouldn’t let herself be.

“What exactly are you working on?” she asked, bringing the conversation back to a professional level. Where it belonged. “We worked so hard leading up to Christmas that I thought you realized you didn’t need to be back in the office until January second.”

“I have some ideas for a new brochure rattling around in my head. I figured I should get them down before I lost them.”

As if to prove he’d been working, he reached over and pulled a sheet of paper from the printer. When he did so, his back muscles visibly rippled through his dress shirt. Not that she was looking.

No. She was trying to figure out why he’d turned the printout so she couldn’t see what was on it. If it had been any other day, Anna would have asked to inspect his work. But she couldn’t afford to get absorbed in what he was doing. Not on Christmas Eve.

“This can wait until after the holidays.” She made a mental note to jot down a few ideas of her own in the interim. “I can’t give the go-ahead on anything until then.”

“I know that, but it’s easier to concentrate when the office is empty. Until you came in,” he said, giving her a direct look, “there weren’t any distractions.”

There it was again. The flirting. Again she told herself she had to be mistaken. She’d only imagined the huskiness in his voice. The implied intimacy of the setting, with only the two of them in the office on Christmas Eve, must be affecting her brain. And her palms, which had started to sweat.

Leave, she told herself. Make like Rudolph and his leggy friends and skedaddle.

But she couldn’t move. Not before she found out what she’d come into his office to learn. She knew she shouldn’t ask. She even bit her bottom lip to prevent it, but the question still came tumbling out of her mouth. “Don’t you have any plans?”

“Nah,” he said.

What did he mean by nah? Everyone who celebrated Christmas and even some of her friends who didn’t had holiday plans. Gathering with friends and family was integral to the spirit of the season.

But Cole Mansfield was from California. He’d taken the job at Skillington barely a month ago, a month in which the marketing staff had worked late nearly every night on a sales campaign geared toward Christmas. Cole wouldn’t have had time to make friends.

“But surely you must have a family,” she said, peering at him intently.

“I’m single,” he said, his beautifully shaped dark eyebrows dancing.

“I was referring to your nuclear family,” she explained quickly. “You know, brothers and sisters—”

“Don’t have any,” he interrupted.

“And parents,” she continued. “You must have parents.”

He laughed, a deep pleasant sound. “I have parents. Two sets of them, in fact.”

He didn’t offer anything more, which meant, God help her, that she would have to ask. “Didn’t either set invite you over for Christmas?”

“Nope.”

She tried to keep the shock from her face but was afraid she couldn’t quite manage it. He’d proved his arrogance by blithely stating he was gunning for her job, but certainly his parents had managed to overlook that character flaw.

“But surely with four parents…” She paused, trying to think of a tactful way to get her point across. She finally decided there wasn’t one. “At least one of them must have wanted you around on Christmas,” she finished.

“They would have,” he said, “but they’re away on vacation.”

“Together?” Again she heard the incredulity in her voice.

“Separately.” He chuckled. “We’re not quite that modern.”

Don’t do it, her brain screamed. She shouldn’t jump to conclusions just because his two sets of parents were off gallivanting somewhere and he was working late on Christmas Eve.

“You weren’t planning, by any chance, to spend tonight…” Her voice faltered, and she cleared her throat. Don’t say it, she thought. “Alone?” she asked.

“Not alone. I’m going to hang with Jimmy Stewart.”

Every cell in her body sagged with relief and she sent a silent thank-you to his friend Jimmy.

“I’d be surprised if It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t on TV tonight,” he said. “Although I’d rather see Jimmy in Rear Window or Vertigo.”

She nearly groaned aloud. He was referring to Jimmy Stewart, the actor. She must have made a pained expression, because he tilted his head quizzically.

“What’s the matter. Don’t you like Hitchcock?”

“I love him, but even I wouldn’t spend Christmas Eve watching his movies,” Anna admitted miserably.

“Then what are you doing tonight?”

Walk away, she ordered herself. Walk away while you still can.

“I’m having dinner at my parents’ house,” she answered, then swallowed the huge lump in her throat before she asked the question that had been inevitable since she’d seen the light shining under the door. “Want to come?”

COLE FOLLOWED THE taillights of Anna’s Christmas-red Miata through the hilly streets of Shadyside, which looked so different from the flat, palm-tree-dotted southern California landscape that it felt surreal.

But then nothing had been routine for Cole since seven months ago when he’d inadvertently discovered that the man who raised him wasn’t his biological father.

The man who’d helped to give him life had been equally in the dark until Cole had picked up the telephone and called him. After he’d gotten past the initial shock of discovering Cole was his son, they’d instantly hit it off.

Within three months, Cole had a second man in his life he called Dad. Before six months had passed, he’d relocated to the Pittsburgh area in order to fill in the blanks that had always been missing in his life.

That feeling of unreality continued tonight as it sunk in that he was looking forward to the evening ahead.

After scratching plans to fly back to California for the holidays when his parents announced they were taking a Christmas cruise, Cole had originally planned to spend Christmas Eve with his biological father.

It turned out his father’s wife had an impromptu vacation to the Hawaiian islands on the mind. Reluctant to leave Cole alone, he’d offered him a plane ticket to Hawaii.

Cole had refused the gift. As much as he burned to get to know his father, he hadn’t wanted to be the odd man out at anyone’s celebration—until Anna Wesley had walked through his office door wearing her red winter coat and Santa hat.

She’d looked so festive standing there with her cheeks rosy from the cold and her hands clutching the bobblehead doll that going home to an empty apartment had suddenly seemed extremely unappealing.

Anna, surprisingly, had struck him as the picture of appeal.

He followed the Miata through city streets festooned with tiny colorful lights and lampposts hung with Christmas wreaths, refusing to think about the very valid reason he shouldn’t fraternize with anyone from work. Especially Anna Wesley.

Surely he wasn’t expected to keep the Skillington Ski employees at arm’s length on Christmas Eve, he reasoned. Having a holiday dinner with Anna wasn’t the same as becoming involved with her. It didn’t mean she’d get close enough to him to discover his true motive for taking the job at Skillington.

Eventually they reached a neighborhood of wide, handsome streets and large Victorian homes with candles burning in nearly every window.

After a couple of turns, he followed Anna’s example and pulled his SUV up to an already crowded curb next to one of the houses, which was set back on a rectangular lot.

Cole didn’t know which was more impressive, the stately beauty of the two-story house or the hundreds of twinkling white lights that turned the place into a winter fantasy land.

He got out of his SUV and joined her on the sidewalk in front of the home, where she seemed to have frozen in place. In addition to the bobblehead doll, she carried a dark-green overnight bag.

She was tall for a woman, probably five eight or nine, with a curvaceous figure and long, shapely legs that were, at the moment, mostly hidden by her calf-length coat.

Her eyes were big and brown, her face heart-shaped and her curly brown hair just long enough to brush her shoulders. She was wearing the Santa hat again but, underneath it, her expression was anything but merry.

“Something wrong?” he prompted, reaching out to touch her on the sleeve of her red coat.

When she stepped away from him and nodded, his stomach pitched to the frozen ground. Could she have guessed his secret? Had he done something tonight to give away that he wasn’t exactly what he seemed?

“It struck me while we were driving over here,” she said and paused, “that you’re a man.”

Relief poured through him. She didn’t know.

“Last time I checked, that was true. I am a man,” he said and wiggled his eyebrows. “You want proof?”

“Of course not,” she said in her businesslike office voice, but he thought he caught a fleeting glimpse of something in her doelike eyes. Had it been awareness? “You don’t understand. I don’t bring men home to my family.”

“Ever?” he asked, alarmed that the prospect pleased him.

He’d felt the zing of attraction for her at his job interview, an instantaneous pull that had his loins tightening before she’d said much more than hello.

He’d thought his immediate reaction to her would be a problem, but it had paled over the next month when she’d treated him with an air of detached professionalism.

The coolness was still there, but now the attraction was back. Maybe it had reignited that instant in the office when he’d noticed her brown eyes contained warm golden lights.

“Ever,” she confirmed with her customary firmness. “But especially not on holidays. I can’t have them jumping to conclusions.”

“Aaah,” he said as understanding dawned. “You don’t want your family to think I’m the boyfriend.”

“Exactly.” She nodded in the direction of his SUV. “Listen, I’ll understand if you make a quick getaway. Unless they’re peeking out the windows, nobody’s seen you.”

She wanted him to nod and go meekly into the night, which would have been the safe choice considering what he was hiding and the way he was reacting to her.

Had they been at work, no doubt she’d have issued an order in that confident way of hers. But they weren’t at work and he didn’t feel particularly cautious.

“I can handle your family,” he said, planting his feet and crossing his arms over his black wool overcoat.

“You don’t know my family,” she countered, her jaw set at a stubborn angle.

“Then introduce me,” he said just as steadfastly.

He would have taken her elbow and steered her toward the door, but she pivoted on her heel and headed for the house without any help from him.

“Fine,” she called over her shoulder, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He followed her up the sidewalk, inexplicably annoyed that she didn’t want her family to think of them as a couple.

It didn’t seem to matter that up until she’d invited him to dinner, he’d tried very hard not to think of her as anything other than his cool, standoffish boss.

Because now…now his perception of her was changing.

He frowned, uncomfortably aware that he couldn’t afford to get too close to her. If he did, he might let it slip that he’d only recently discovered his biological father.

Then her view of him would change, too, only he doubted it would be for the better.

Not when that man was Arthur Skillington, owner and chief executive of the half dozen stores that made up Skillington Ski.

ANNA GAVE HER ELBOW a little shake as she preceded Cole through the door of her parents’ house, the better to dislodge his hand, but he held fast.

Didn’t the man understand he was adding tinder to a fireplace bound to be blazing without it?

“Let go,” she whispered, but evidently not loud enough to supersede the buzz of conversation and the carols that played through the stereo speakers.

“What did you say?”

Cole bent his dark head close, bringing his face so near that she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. Her parents’ house smelled of pine needles and pecan pie, but his scent was stronger. Warm wool mixed with something outdoorsy, like the smell of a winter breeze tempered with the heat of his skin.

“I said…” she began and promptly lost her train of thought when he bent closer still. He was so tall that the gesture seemed intimate, as though he couldn’t get close enough to her.

Her pulse give a pa-rum-pum-pum-pum worthy of the sticks the little drummer boy pounded in the Christmas carol. Cole grinned, his eyes lighting like the slash of the moon that shined down on the night. Could he have guessed the bizarre effect he had on her?

“Anna, who’s that with you?”

It was her mother’s voice, so loud and clear it put the silver bells of Christmas to shame.

Anna sprang apart from Cole, feeling the red flame of guilt stain her cheeks. Never mind that she had nothing to feel guilty about.

The foyer opened into a large living area where the family—her parents, aunt and uncle, sister and brother-in-law and grandparents—had congregated beside a tree strung with popcorn, shiny ornaments and colored lights.

Conversation had stopped, leaving only the crackle of the wood in the fireplace and the soft melody of the carols.

“This is Cole Mansfield, Mom. We work together,” Anna said, aware that, darn him, he still had hold of her arm. “Cole, this is my mother, Rosemary Wesley.”

Her family members emitted a collective hum which, darn them, sounded speculative. Her mother, a small woman with salt-and-pepper hair dressed in a red velour pantsuit, swept to the front of the room where Anna stood with Cole on the hardwood of the entrance-way.

Even though she was married to an obstetrician and lived in a posh part of town, her mother didn’t put on airs. She was who she was. A down-to-earth girl from a hardworking Polish family who’d married a prosperous man but had never forgotten her roots.

“My, my, aren’t you the hunky one,” she said in her too-loud voice as her gaze appreciatively scanned Cole from the thick, black hair on his head to the expensive-looking leather shoes that covered his toes.

Her mother had also never forgotten her family’s tendency toward bluntness, Anna mentally added with a silent groan.

“Thank you,” Cole said, smiling as though the greeting were perfectly normal.

“I should be thanking you,” her mother said, taking both of his hands in hers so that he had to release Anna’s elbow. Her mother’s eyes danced in her round, friendly face. “You don’t know how long we’ve been waiting for this.”

“For what?” Anna asked fearfully.

“You know what.” Her mother smiled more brightly than any light in the house. “I had high hopes that you’d finally give in and date Brad Perriman, but this is just as good. Maybe better.”

“What’s just as good?” Anna asked, not bothering to state that she had zero interest in Brad Perriman. Since her parents had tried to fix her up with him by inviting him to dinner, she’d already said so a half-dozen times.

“Him,” her mother said, indicating Cole with the sweep of her hand. “But Anna, you should have told us you were dating someone at work.”

“Oh, no.” Anna waved her right hand back and forth for emphasis. “We’re not dating. I’m Cole’s boss.” She nudged the solid thickness of Cole’s arm with an elbow. “Tell them you work for me, Cole.”

“That’s true,” he said, and Anna could breathe again. “Anna’s my boss.”

“Well, well, well. Who would have thought Anna would get involved in an office romance.” Aunt Miranda, her father’s svelte, self-assured sister, came forward on three-inch heels. Her frosted blond hair, combined with winter-white slacks and matching sweater, projected a cool, sophisticated image and made her appear younger than her forty years. “Not that we’re not thrilled to finally meet one of her men.”

“Anna has a man?” Grandma Ziemanski, who wasn’t any taller than Anna’s mother and had recently dyed her hair jet black, crossed the room to stand between the other two women and peered up at Cole. “He’s kind of big but he’s cute. Good going, Anna.”

“He’s not my man, Grandma,” Anna denied sharply.

“If he wasn’t your man, you wouldn’t have brought him home to meet us,” Grandma Ziemanski said brightly, then turned and issued a general invitation. “Hey, everybody, come meet Anna’s man.”

One by one, like the guests in a receiving line at a wedding, the rest of her family came forward. Her grandfather, uncle and brother-in-law shook Cole’s hand, her sister Julie gave him a friendly elbow squeeze and her father slapped him on the back.

If Cole had been her boyfriend, Anna could have tolerated the welcome. Except Cole wasn’t her boyfriend. He was the employee with designs on her job.

“Excuse me,” Anna said yet again. “Isn’t anybody paying attention? Cole and I are not dating.”

Her father, who was standing closest to them, winked at Cole. He was slender as a reed, with thinning blond hair and an open manner that endeared him to his patients. “That’s what she said about Larry Lipinski, and she dated him for six months.”

Anna turned to her father in surprise. “You knew I dated Larry?”

“Who’s Larry Lipinski?” Cole asked.

Somebody—Anna wasn’t sure who, considering most everybody was still congregated at the head of the room—jarred her, causing her to bump into Cole. His arm came around her shoulders, creating such a rush of heat to shoot through her that she was startled into staying where she was.

“Nobody you need worry about, considering that hold you have on my daughter.” Her father gave Cole another wink, making Anna wish the pair of them would rise up the chimney, like St. Nick. “She never brought Larry home to meet us.”

Considering Larry had lied to her about everything from where he’d gone to college to how many miles he’d logged on his daily run, that wasn’t surprising. But she didn’t have time to get into that now.

“But—” Anna began again.

“Let me take your coats,” her mother said, practically peeling Anna out of hers. Anna felt a little less warm, but not much. Cole shrugged out of his overcoat, revealing his tree-dotted tie. He squeezed it, and a riff from “O, Christmas Tree” sang out.

Grandpa Ziemanski, connoisseur of all things corny, rumbled with laughter. His most prominent feature was his shaven head, but Anna noticed he was the only man in the room that Cole didn’t dwarf. Grandpa, however, lacked Cole’s muscular build. But not many men who didn’t make their living playing professional football were as muscle bound as Cole.

“I like him, Anna,” her grandfather said heartily.

“But he’s not—”

Grandpa didn’t let her finish. “What’s that in your hand?” He reached out and took the Bobblehead Santa doll from her, pressing the button at its back.

“Hee, hee, hee,” said the Santa doll, his head bobbing crazily. Grandpa mashed the button again, and the doll said, “And I bet you were expecting me to say ho, ho, ho.”

Grandpa erupted into more joyous laughter, which was so infectious that Anna couldn’t help but chime in. She glanced at Cole to share the moment. Cheerful, masculine rumbles seemed to come from the very center of his being and his blue eyes crinkled behind his professor glasses.

“You’ve got a great family, Anna,” he told her. He reached out and hugged her to him with one long arm, tucking her head under his chin. In light of the laughter and the fact that it was, after all, Christmas Eve, the gesture seemed perfectly natural.

Until her mother called from the entrance to the dining room in her resounding voice.

“Come help Julie and me get out the food, Anna. There’ll be enough time for snuggling with your man later.”

“We’re not snuggling,” she denied, shooting out of Cole’s embrace so quickly that she stumbled and he had to steady her. She sent him a pleading look and ordered in a low, resolute voice. “Tell them we weren’t snuggling.”

“I think that was snuggling,” Cole said just as quietly.

“Yep,” said Grandpa. “That was snuggling, all right.”

“Told you,” Cole said, his eyes grazing over her as though she were the sexiest woman this side of the North Pole. The room was suddenly so hot Anna felt as though she were standing inches from the fireplace when, in fact, it was fifteen feet away.

“You’re not helping,” she snapped at Cole.

This was much worse than she’d anticipated. She’d considered the possibility her family might jump to the conclusion that she and Cole were involved, but she hadn’t foreseen him acting like he was her boyfriend.

As Anna went to help her mother and sister, she wondered how she could convince her family that nothing was going on between her and Cole.

Especially because she was no longer sure that was true.

2

HIS STOMACH FULL after a traditional meatless dinner of Polish food with strange names like pierogi and kluski, Cole sat in the glow of a giant Christmas tree watching Anna ignore him.

She stood near a flaming fireplace animatedly talking to her much-rounder, chestnut-haired sister and her boyish brother-in-law, who had apple cheeks and fine, straight hair worn in a bowl cut. She didn’t seem to notice that the newlyweds were more engrossed in each other than the conversation.

His eyes drank in the curve of her figure in the red sweater dress she wore, the fall of her curly brown hair, the lovely line of her profile.

She laid a long-fingered, well-shaped hand on her sister’s arm, and he couldn’t stop from wondering how that hand would feel running over his skin.

Erotic, he thought. Especially if they were both naked.

As though sensing his stare, she looked directly at him. Still imagining her lush body bare, he smiled long and slow.

She didn’t return the smile, which was undoubtedly a good thing. If she didn’t encourage him, he wouldn’t do something stupid: Like make a play for her.

Still, he wanted to believe she kept looking his way because she couldn’t help herself. Instead, he had to face the possibility it had something to do with the miniature women perched on either side of him.

“So how long ago did you meet my daughter?” Rosemary Wesley, Anna’s mother, sat on the sofa so that her velour-clad body angled toward his. His ears rang. For someone so tiny, she had a monstrous voice box.

“I love how-we-met stories,” chimed in Grandma Ziemanski, patting her incongruous black hair into place. He’d already gathered from her own not-nearly-dulcet tones that she was Rosemary’s mother. “They’re so romantic.”

“No romantic story here,” Cole said. “I met Anna about a month ago when she interviewed me for the job at Skillington Ski.”

He left out the part about the owner of the business being his father, but then he always did. What other choice did he have when Arthur Skillington had asked him to keep their connection on the QT?

“Did she stammer when she asked you questions?” Grandma Ziemanski asked. “That’s a dead giveaway that she’s nervous.”

“Anna would never stammer. That was Julie and she doesn’t do it anymore.” Rosemary patted Cole on the hand. “So did you know right away you wanted to ask her out?”

Cole thought back to the icy looks that had put his initial attraction to Anna in deep freeze. She’d grilled him relentlessly about why he was pursuing an assistant position when he was qualified to be a marketing director.

He’d claimed to be aiming for her job because he couldn’t very well tell her the truth.

The part about him needing work while he was getting to know his father would have been fine. The part about him being a mole trying to figure out why profits were lagging wouldn’t have gone over as well.

Cole wanted to reveal his connection to Skillington Ski up front, but Arthur Skillington had talked him out of it. Arthur claimed Cole would be more likely to get to the heart of the problem if the other employees, whose jobs were at risk, weren’t on guard around him.

Mostly because he wanted to please a father he’d never known but already loved, Cole had gone along with the plan.

He hadn’t let dating Anna enter his mind, primarily because the wrong word from him could get her fired.

“Well, no, I can’t say I thought about asking her out right off the bat,” he said. “At first, she struck me as…cool.”

Grandma Ziemanski’s wrinkled hand flew to her chest. “You think Anna’s cruel?”

“Not cruel, Mom. Cool. And he doesn’t mean now. He meant then.” Rosemary leaned across him to get the point across to her mother. “Tell us what you think of Anna now, Cole.”

His gaze once again honed in on Anna. Although up to this point her marketing efforts hadn’t been enough to pull Skillington Ski out of its slump, at work she struck him as intelligent and competent.

But her mother was interested in his personal assessment. As he tried to form one, firelight danced over her. It infused her golden skin with warmth and made it seem as though her brown hair was spun through with red and gold highlights.

Grandpa Ziemanski snatched the Santa hat from her mop of brown curls and covered his own bald head. When Anna threw back her head and laughed, her face seemed to glow.

“I think she’s the most captivating woman I’ve ever seen,” Cole said under his breath.

“Captivating?” Rosemary nodded. “That’s a good word. Much less trite than beautiful.”

“You don’t think Anna’s beautiful?” Grandma Ziemanski asked.

Cole jerked his gaze from Anna to her grandmother. “Yes,” he refuted quickly. “Yes, of course I think she’s beautiful.”

“And captivating,” Rosemary added, sounding smug. She squeezed his arm. “I knew you felt that way about my daughter the minute I saw you.”

“How did you know, Rosie?” Grandma Ziemanski asked.

“The face,” Rosemary said. “There’s always something glowy around the eyes.”

Anna picked that moment to slant him another one of those disapproving looks. A shard of guilt speared through Cole.

She’d spent a good portion of the last few hours trying to make her family understand they weren’t dating, and here he was looking at her with “glowy” eyes and expounding on their non-existent romance.

It was a terrible way to repay her for the kindness of asking him to dinner with her warm, wonderful family.

“So when did you change your mind about Anna being cruel and decide you wanted to ask her out?” Grandma Ziemanski asked.

“He didn’t say cruel, Mom,” Rosemary cut in with an audible tsk. “He said cool.”

“Alright already. Then let me put it another way.” Grandma Ziemanski peered at him. “When did the cools turn into the hots?”

Cole was about to point out that he didn’t have the hots for his boss when he realized he needed to face facts.

A few hours ago, on the sidewalk in front of the house, a definite thaw had begun when he noticed she was nervous about introducing him to her family.

The notion of Anna being apprehensive about anything had thrown him, and he’d glimpsed a different, softer woman in those moments under the starlight.

After watching her talk and laugh with her family over dinner, he’d concluded that woman and not the cool, detached one who came to the office every day was the true Anna.

He tapped his chin with a knuckle while he thought about how to phrase his answer so that it was both truthful and non-inflammatory.

Yes, he was attracted to Anna. But, no, he couldn’t become involved with her.

“Anna asked you out first, didn’t she?” Rosemary asked when the moments lengthened without a response. “That’s what you don’t want to say?”

“No,” Cole said quickly, then thought of the invitation to dinner. “I mean yes, but—”

“That Anna has always been too straightforward for her own good,” Rosemary said. “Did you know she told Brad Perriman right there in the living room in front of all of us that she didn’t want to date him? Not that he accepted that. But in this case, I suppose we should be thankful.”

“Look, I should confess something here,” Cole began before the women could jump to any more conclusions.

“I already know,” Rosemary said. “Don’t you think I noticed the way she’s been glaring at you?”

“What do you know?” Grandma Ziemanski asked her daughter.

“That Anna made Cole here promise to tell us he was only a friend.”

“That’s true,” Cole said. “But—”

Rosemary patted him on the hand.

“Don’t worry about it,” she interrupted. “We knew Anna wasn’t telling the truth about you not being her boyfriend as soon as we saw you.”

WHAT WAS COLE telling her mother and grandmother?

Anna tried to convey with a long, penetrating look that he needed to be careful of what he said.

The main reason she didn’t bring home men was that the Ziemanski women seemed to think she needed a husband. Anna wasn’t against marriage but she’d yet to have a truly successful relationship.

Before unleashing her family on a man, she needed to be sure she not only loved him but trusted him. The way she’d never trust a man who panted after her job.

She’d had Cole in her sights long enough to notice that teeth were flashing on either side of him. Didn’t he realize things weren’t going well if her mother and grandmother were smiling?

She’d have to head over there and set things straight but not until Julie and Drew, her sister’s husband of three months, understood the situation. She turned back to them.

“So now you see why I couldn’t leave Cole all alone in the office on Christmas Eve, right?” she asked.

Julie giggled, prompting Anna to notice that Drew was nuzzling a spot below her sister’s ear. She frowned.

“Are you two even listening to me?”

“Listening?” Julie looked at her blankly, then seemed to register what she’d asked. “Oh, yes, listening. Of course we were listening. Weren’t we, Drew?”

He peeled his lips off her sister’s neck and nodded sheepishly, like she’d caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. “Yes. Cole in the office. You asking him to dinner.”

“Only because I felt sorry for him,” Anna emphasized. “End of story.”

“Would you get me another glass of wine, sweetie?” Julie asked her husband, reaching up on tiptoes to give him a lingering kiss on the mouth.

When he was gone, she rolled her hazel eyes at Anna. “Would you give it up already, Anna? Don’t you think we can all tell something’s going on between you and Mr. Hunk?”

“My own sister,” Anna said through clenched teeth, “and you don’t believe me either.”

“That’s because you’ve cried wolf once too often.”

“If you remember, a wolf does show up in that fairy tale and eats the shepherd boy’s sheep,” Anna pointed out with heat.

“Wolves don’t look at women the way Cole has been looking at you,” Julie said, then bit her lip. “Hey, maybe they do.” Her face creased into a wide smile. “Lucky you.”

How dare he? Anna thought as she mentally reviewed the looks Cole had been giving her. Her sister was right. They did have a wolfish quality.

“Excuse me,” she said to Julie and headed straight for Cole.

He was watching her again. Watching her and—she could hardly believe his nerve—smiling.

But not an innocent smile. His teeth weren’t visible, his lips had a sensuous curve and his eyes roamed over her with barely concealed appreciation.

Anybody who intercepted that look would probably conclude that he could hardly wait to get her alone, she thought as she stomped toward him.

“Where you going in such a rush?” Her father stepped in front of her so she had to stop or careen into him. He was in a conversational group that included her Aunt Miranda and Uncle Peter. “I, for one, would like to hear more about Cole.”

“I’m all ears, too,” Aunt Miranda said. She slanted a cool look at her stockbroker husband. “I think we could all take a break from Peter speculating about which stores in the retail sector are providing the best investment opportunities.”

“It was more than mere speculation. It was expert analysis,” Peter said, stroking his neatly cropped beard and visibly bristling. “Wonder if Cole plays the market.”

Cole. If she heard that name one more time, Anna thought she might scream.

“I really wouldn’t know,” Anna said. “Like I’ve been telling you, I hardly know him at all.”

“Don’t you two talk to each other?” her aunt asked before taking a long sip from her glass of white wine.

“Hardly,” Anna said. “If you’d been listening to me, you’d know that—”

“I say we get Cole over here so we can all become better acquainted,” her father interrupted before beckoning to Cole. “Hey, Cole, the Ziemanski women have had you long enough. Come talk to us Wesleys.”

Anna watched as Cole slanted regretful looks at first her mother and then her grandmother, as though he’d actually enjoyed talking to them. He walked up to their group and took a position next to her instead of between her father and uncle, invading her personal space.

She’d never thought of herself as small but her head didn’t reach much higher than his extremely broad shoulders. No wonder she imagined she could feel his body heat through the thick jersey knit of her dress. With his height and muscular build, he had quite a lot of body. She inched away.

“It’s Tom, Peter and Miranda, right?” he said to her father, uncle and aunt. They nodded in unison, obviously pleased he remembered their names.

“Anna tells us you two haven’t been spending your time together talking,” her aunt said, arching a suggestive eyebrow at Cole. Cole, in turn, shot Anna a speculative look.

“I did not say that!” Anna refuted, feeling her face heat.

“It’s okay, Anna,” her aunt continued. “We’re all adults here.”

“Must you always say such outrageous things, Miranda?” her husband asked testily. “Anna is Tom’s daughter.”

Her aunt waved a dismissive hand. “Come now, Peter. I’m sure my brother realizes Anna’s not an innocent little girl. She is nearly thirty years old.”

“I’m twenty-seven,” Anna said. “And I didn’t—”

“So, Cole,” her father interrupted smoothly. “Seems to me I heard your family was from California.”

Cole nodded. “San Diego.”

“Is it a big family like ours?”

“I’m not as lucky as Anna,” Cole said, moving the hand on her back in a caressing motion. Anna would have shifted away if it hadn’t felt so good. “Growing up, it was just me and my parents. Their families were spread all over the country so we didn’t see them much.”

“Then you’re an only child?” her father asked.

“I’m my mother’s only child.” His hand was on her shoulder now, kneading gently. She nearly closed her eyes with pleasure as he rubbed away her tension. “My father has two stepdaughters from his second marriage but I didn’t meet them until recently.”

“Does your father live in San Diego, too?” Aunt Miranda asked.

He hesitated before answering. “No.”

It took Anna a few moments to figure out Cole didn’t intend to elaborate. In the month he’d worked at Skillington, Anna hadn’t asked him a single personal question. But now a dozen crowded her brain.

“Where does he live?” she pressed.

Again, he took his time answering. “Not far from here.”

Interesting, Anna thought. “Is that why you moved to the Pittsburgh area? To be closer to your father?”

“I moved here to take the job at Skillington Ski,” he said, which made her remember why she shouldn’t let him touch her with such familiarity: he was after her job.

“If your father’s in town, why did Anna say you didn’t have anywhere else to go tonight?” Uncle Peter asked, frowning.

“My father and his wife are vacationing,” Cole said. “My stepsisters live in Texas, and my mother and her husband are in the Bahamas on a cruise.”

“So that left you ripe for Anna’s picking,” Aunt Miranda observed, looking pointedly from one to the other.

“Miranda,” Peter said in a warning voice.

“Get with the times, Peter,” Aunt Miranda said. “Women pick up men all the time. It’s a perfectly acceptable dating practice.”

Anna ignored the delicious sensations Cole’s gentle massage was causing and figured she’d better distance herself from him, both physically and verbally.

“I didn’t pick him up,” Anna said, stepping away from him. “I asked him to dinner.”

“Am I glad she did.” Cole reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather be.”

The tenderness in his touch was reflected on his face, which was quite a feat considering it was made up of hard angles and planes. Not that there wasn’t a certain softness around his mouth, which was really quite beautiful when you examined it closely.

The sheer loveliness of that mouth had the power to draw her in. Closer and closer. Until she wondered what it would be like to kiss him.

“What does everybody say to some Christmas carols? Rosemary? You up for some piano playing?” Her grandfather’s voice boomed the questions, causing Anna to jerk back.

Her eyes flew to Cole’s, which she couldn’t read because of the twinkling Christmas tree lights reflected in the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses.

Had he guessed that she was thinking about kissing him? More to the point, why had she been thinking about kissing him? He was hardly her type.

“Oh, no. Not the Christmas carols.” Her father let out a melodramatic groan, then whispered to Cole out of the side of his mouth, “My dear wife plays the world’s worst piano. And my mother-in-law has a singing voice that could sour wine.”

Uncle Peter shuddered. “Never heard anything worse than the two of them together.”

“Quick, Cole. Say you’d rather we didn’t do the Christmas carols,” her father urged. “You’re a guest. They might listen to you.”

Cole laughed, such a joyous, infectious sound that it seemed to run through Anna’s veins along with her blood.

“Not on your life. I might not be much of a singer but I like to sing,” Cole said before he walked toward the gleaming mahogany piano at the corner of the room.

Five minutes later, while her mother pounded enthusiastically on the piano keys, Cole led their group in a truly tuneless rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

The tassel from the Santa hat he’d plucked from Grandpa’s head swung as he swayed to the music, such as it was. A few bars into the song, her mother stopped in midstanza.

“Those are the wrong lyrics,” she said crossly and tapped the music on her stand. “Can’t you read? I’m playing ‘All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.”’

A great belly laugh escaped from Grandpa Ziemanski and suddenly Anna couldn’t stop herself.

She looked from her indignant mother to her roaring grandfather to a puzzled Cole and burst into laughter. His lips twitched and, after the barest pause, he joined in.

The result was contagious. One by one, everybody in the room began to laugh until there was no sound save the combined chortling of ten people.

Anna’s eyes watered and her sides ached. She leaned her head weakly against Cole’s chest, thankful when his arms came around her shoulders to support her.

She felt the rumbling inside his chest through her ear and unthinkingly put a hand on his shirt to feel the vibrations.

She could feel the heat coming off his body through his clothes. Experimentally, she moved her hand over the crisp material of his dress shirt. He felt warm and solid, hard muscle covered by smooth flesh. Flesh that no longer vibrated with laughter.

She raised her head to look at him. Her eyes lingered on his mouth, which was no longer laughing, then lifted to his eyes. Even through his glasses, she could see the heat in them.

He was looking at her as though all he wanted for Christmas was her.

Sexual awareness shimmied through her, the same way it had in the office when he’d flirted with her. She’d ignored it then, but she couldn’t any longer. Not when it was as plain as the Santa hat that covered his lush, dark hair.

Wrenching her gaze from his, she stepped back. He let her go but not so far that she wasn’t still in the loose circle of his arms.

“Don’t go, sugarplum,” he whispered. “You felt good exactly where you were.”

She started to pull back despite his words, but her body tingled everywhere it came in contact with his. She hesitated at the same time that her mother crushed the piano keys and the family belted out the lyrics of “Jingle Bells.”

She knew she was right about the identity of the song because she glimpsed the music on the piano stand. Cole grinned at her, then sang along in his truly awful baritone.

By the time they were well into another carol, Cole’s arms circled her from behind. Before they’d finished for the night, her back was against his chest with his chin resting on the top of her head.

Somehow, she never did muster the will to move.

“I HAD A GREAT TIME,” Cole said as Anna’s family gathered around him in the foyer. “I can’t thank you enough for having me.”

Anna’s mother handed him the black wool overcoat she took out of the coat closet.

“We’re the ones who should thank you for impressing Anna enough that she wanted us to meet you,” she said.

Anna didn’t rise to that particular bait, possibly because she was occupied with helping him put on his coat. She applied pressure at the small of his back, the better to shove him out the door.

He stubbornly held his ground. He’d bonded with her family over dinner, caroling and midnight services. He’d be damned if he cut his goodbyes short.

“Me, impress Anna?” he asked rhetorically. He ignored the warning look Anna shot him. “You got that wrong. Anna’s the impressive one.”

“What a nice thing to say,” Grandma Ziemanski offered. “Anna, you better keep this one. When you’re as old and set in your ways as you are, there aren’t many good ones left.”

“Thank you for that thought, Grandma,” Anna said wryly. She tapped the face of her watch. “It’s late. Cole needs to leave so we can all get to sleep. If we don’t, we’ll be too tired to enjoy Christmas day.”

She pushed at his back but not hard enough to budge him. He didn’t spend hours at the gym for nothing.

“Say good-night, Cole,” Anna said.

“Good night, everyone,” he said, mostly because he couldn’t prolong his leave-taking indefinitely. “And Merry Christmas.”

“Speaking of Christmas, Cole, what are you doing tomorrow?” Miranda asked. “Peter and I are having everybody over to our house. You’re more than welcome to join us.”

“Yes,” her husband immediately added. “We’d be happy to have you. You and I never did get a chance to talk about the stock market.”

Cole’s lifting spirits had nothing to do with the Dow Jones Industrial Average. He realized he was reluctant to leave because spending the rest of the holiday alone had lost its appeal.

“He can’t come,” Anna interjected, shooting him a dagger of a look. “He’s busy.”

“What could he be busy doing that can’t wait until after Christmas?” Rosemary asked incredulously.

Cole kept his mouth shut, especially because Anna’s mother had directed the question at her daughter. He crossed his arms over his chest and watched Anna sweat.

“He’s busy…working,” she said, wiping her brow. Her big, doe eyes flew to him for help, but her mouth flattened when she realized he didn’t intend to provide any. “He needs to finish up what he was working on tonight. He can’t have any distractions.”

Cole sent her a sharp look before it dawned on him that she couldn’t possibly know he’d waited until the office was deserted so he could go over the company’s marketing plan.

Anna wasn’t the retiring type. If she’d guessed what he was doing, she would have said something.

“But it’s Christmas,” Grandma Ziemanski protested. “Nobody works on Christmas.”

“And you’re his boss, Anna,” Rosemary said. “I know I raised you to be career-minded, but you can’t mean to make your boyfriend work on Christmas Day.”

“He’s not my—” Anna began.

“Of course Cole’s not working Christmas Day,” her father said. “He’s coming to Miranda and Peter’s house.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to come,” Anna said in what was obviously one last-ditch attempt to exclude him from her family’s plans.

“Nonsense,” Grandpa Ziemanski roared. “The boy wants to spend Christmas with us. Don’t you, Cole?”

Cole gazed from the expectant faces of Anna’s family members to Anna, who was imperceptibly shaking her head back and forth.

If he did her bidding and said no, he’d risk offending the people who had gone out of their way to make him feel welcome tonight.

Not to mention relegating himself to a lonely Christmas in his new apartment with nothing to keep him company except his miniature Christmas tree, the printouts of Skillington’s financial records his father had given him and the memory of the way Anna had felt in his arms.

He gave Anna what he hoped she could tell was an apologetic look before smiling at the people gathered around her.

“Thanks for thinking of me,” he said. “I’d love to spend Christmas Day with you.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.