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“Haunted?” Kaylee asked, intrigued.
“Oh, yeah.” He winked at Gloria. “You remember, Ms. Gloria? There was that one time I was heading for the barn, needing to get something from the tack room at the back...” Thad scratched his jaw, all serious now. “This must have been a year ago now? Maybe a year and a half? Anyway, there was this awful strange sound coming from that room.”
“What kind of sounds?” Jo leaned closer.
“Scratching. Panting. A woman’s scream...or sigh. It was hard to tell.”
“No way,” Kaylee said, eyes wide.
“Yes, ma’am. I been careful going in there ever since. Never know what a body will find.” His grin was pure wickedness as he smiled at Gloria.
“Thank you for that, Thaddeus,” Gloria said, giving him a shove toward the great room. When she returned to the table, her cheeks and neck were flushed bright red. “Now, let’s make some ornaments.”
Jo had just started filling up her molds with candies when Gloria came to stand beside her. “I apologize for Thad.”
“What do you mean?”
She crinkled her nose. “He’s a flirt.”
“No need to apologize for that.”
“Just be careful.”
“Careful?”
“I...” Gloria frowned. “You know, even though he’s worked here awhile, we still don’t know all that much about him.”
“What are you saying? Don’t you trust him?”
She opened her mouth to reply, but Dillon appeared at her side at that moment, carrying an open box of ornaments. “Hey, Red. Curtis found these in the Quonset. They must be from Kenny’s family.” He picked out an ornament wrapped in tissue paper and passed it to Gloria, who unwrapped a pretty colored glass ball.
“Oh, this one’s beautiful.”
“What should we do with them?”
“Let me sort through them. I’m sure we can use some.”
Jo frowned after Gloria’s retreating back. Why would Gloria warn her about Thad? Was there something dark and dangerous in his past? The very idea got Jolie’s creative juices flowing and she considered all sorts of possibilities.
If Gloria’s intention had been to warn her off Thad, it was having the opposite effect, because all Jo could think about was ways to seduce him.
She smiled as a vivid image of how she could get him into her bed came to mind.
This was going to be the best Christmas ever.
* * *
THE FITTED RED turtleneck and black skirt Jolie wore suited her, probably because they fit so well. The turtleneck reminded him of all her lovely curves; the skirt looked feminine and showed off her long, shapely legs. She was a sight, that was for sure, her eyes shining brightly in the candlelight as everyone sat around the fireplace in the great room. Now that the tree was done, they ate and drank and chatted as if they’d all known each other forever. It’d been a long time since Thad had spent the holidays with other folks. Not that he didn’t like people. He liked them just fine; he just had to be careful of strangers.
Funny how they’d all just met, but there was something about the holidays that made people more open, made this setting more familial.
More intimate.
He glanced Jo’s way and caught her watching him. Her cheeks flushed. Was that due to him or was it the combination of the fire and mulled wine?
Maybe both. Either way, he liked it.
He had wanted to heed Ms. Gloria’s warnings, but there was something about this woman that he couldn’t seem to shake. He just had to be near her. His fingers twitched with wanting to touch; his nostrils flared with wanting to sniff—did she always smell like peppermint?—and he found himself constantly wetting his lips, longing for another taste.
He hadn’t meant to tease Ms. Gloria about overhearing her and Dillon in the tack room that time, but he couldn’t resist. Kind of like he couldn’t seem to help himself around Jolie.
Of course he should stay away from her. He never got too close to anyone, couldn’t afford to, but...
He met her eyes again. Beautiful doe eyes. Sweet. Innocent. Yet he knew from the kiss out in the yard that she had a fire burning inside of her. That and her innocent passion was an intoxicating combination.
“So,” Jo said, holding his gaze. “What is Tip’s Eve?”
“Well now, it comes from some of my Cajun, Catholic roots.”
“You’re Cajun?”
“I’m a little of this and a little of that.” He changed the subject from his family back to the tradition. “Catholics are all about abstinence followed by overindulging.” He lifted his rum and eggnog. “It’s the pre-Christmas party for all of us who can’t wait for the twenty-fourth.”
“Cheers to that,” Zak’s dad said.
“Cheers.” Zak ran around the room clinking his glass of punch with all of the adults’ glasses.
It’d been a long time since Thad had been around a kid. Something about that brought back memories, stuff he hadn’t thought about in years. “Now, Zak,” Thad said, “have you heard of Père Noël?”
Sitting back down on the rug in front of the fire, Zak shook his head, eyes wide. “What’s a pear Noel?”
“Père Noël is French for ‘Papa Christmas.’ You know about Santa Claus, right?”
His head bobbed up and down real quick.
“Well, lots of kids are curious how Santa can get all around the world in one night, leaving presents for all those kids. You ever wonder ’bout that?”
“Yeah, I wonder that sometimes.” Zak glanced at his dad. “But, he’s magic, right?”
“Oh, yeah. Most definitely. But that’s not all.” Thad leaned down, as if he was talking only to the kid, but out of the corner of his eye, he watched Jolie, aware of her more than anyone else in the room. “I’ll tell you a secret about how Santa does it, but you’ve got to promise not to tell anyone else.”
Zak scooted closer, coming to sit right down at his feet. “I promise,” he whispered excitedly.
“Okay, well...the secret is, there’s more than one Santa.”
“What?”
Thad turned to Jolie because she was the one who’d uttered the question, not Zak.
“Sorry, keep going.” She waved at him to continue.
“It’s true. There’s the one that lives up north, there’s one that lives in Sweden, there’s one from Russia, a couple from Africa. Probably a few down in Asia—there’s lots of kids there. And there’s one that lives in the swamps of Louisiana, and his name is Papa Noel.”
“Really?”
“Mmm-hmm. You think about it, not every place is cold. A sled doesn’t work where there’s no snow. Papa Noel? He doesn’t have reindeer and a sleigh, he’s got a pirogue—you know what a pirogue is?”
The kid shook his head.
“It’s a flat-bottomed boat that skims nice and light over the swamps.” Thad glided one hand over the other to illustrate. “Now...instead of reindeer, what do you figure pulls Papa Noel’s pirogue?”
“I don’t know,” the kid said.
Thad glanced up. Jolie’s eyes were as wide as the boy’s. Her gorgeous mouth parted a bit.
“Gators.”
“No.” Again, this came from Jolie, not the kid.
“Oh, yeah,” Kaylee, the young newlywed said. “I had a storybook about Papa Noel when I was a kid.”
“Well now, if it’s written down in a book, that must make it truth.”
The boy nodded as if that made perfect sense, and Thad went on to explain how in Louisiana they set up huge bonfires on Christmas Eve to light the way for Papa Noel because it could be so dark at that time of year.
“Can we light a bonfire?” The boy looked at Dillon excitedly. “Can we? So Santa doesn’t get lost?”
Thad didn’t wait for Dillon to answer. Pointing to the big fireplace, he said, “We don’t need bonfires. We got a fireplace to let him know where we’re at.”
His story led to others in the group swapping their own, and while Dillon talked, Thad got up to refill his glass with eggnog, smiling as he ladled. What was it about this year that felt so different? It’d been almost twelve years since he’d left NOLA. Since Katrina and everything that came before. But this was the first Christmas he actually felt like he belonged somewhere.
It was nice.
A soft step followed by the scent of peppermint alerted Thad to her presence.
“That was quite the story,” she said, her voice husky and low.
Thad shut his eyes before answering because he already knew why this holiday felt different.
Jolie.
5 (#uc1a1f505-6eff-5d5b-82eb-16db7dd291d8)
Want to spice up your holiday? Try a holiday fling.
Jo Duval
THAD TURNED TO find Jolie gazing up at him, her eyes sparkling in the candlelight.
“You like Christmas stories, do you?”
“Who doesn’t?” She pointed at his glass. “Is that eggnog?”
“Yep.”
“Homemade?”
“Of course.”
She eyed his glass.
“Did you want some?”
“Oh, no...it’s just that I’ve never tried it.”
“Seriously, woman. Where’ve you been at? A nunnery?” He held his glass out to her.
Without hesitation, she took it from his hands and sipped.
“Ooh. That is good.” She took another sip. “Mmm. Filling but delicious.”
After a third sip, Thad drawled, “Do you want to keep that one?”
With a laugh she handed it back. “No. I’ll stick to my mulled wine.” She picked up the mug she’d set on the table and backed up a step, then two.
“Can I refill your mug for you?”
“Sure.”
He took it from her hands, their fingers touching briefly, hers long, slim and delicate.
Nice.
He ladled steaming wine inside and handed it back, wanting to touch again.
“Thank you.” Smiling, she shuffled back another step, her gaze flicking to the rafters.
Thad’s eyes followed and he realized that she’d positioned herself under the mistletoe. On purpose? He’d just have to see about that, now, wouldn’t he?
Leaning against the door frame, he pretended like he wasn’t onto her. That damn devil that lived beneath his skin rubbed its hands together at the thought of tormenting the woman. Just a little.
“So, Ms. Jolie, where y’at?”
“Excuse me?”
“Just wondering how you’re doing. Did you have a good day?”
“Oh...yes. It was lovely.” Her gaze went skyward then came back down.
