Deck the Halls Page 8

  He shook his head. “No. You’re entitled to change your mind. No reason necessary.”

  “I didn’t!”

  “Yes, you did, and it’s okay.” Adam paused for a moment, staring at the black-and-red chiffon. A brief flicker of his imagination had Holly wearing it. “Holly,” he began slowly.

  “It’s this stupid thing.” Holly snatched it from him, wadded it up and flung it into the wastebasket. “It was a mistake.”

  “It isn’t stupid,” Adam disagreed. “And it doesn’t bother me that you’ve changed your mind,” he said again. He ignored the frustrated ache in his belly. “Though I’ll admit this isn’t your style.”

  “I should be apologizing to you.” Holly hesitated, uncertain how to begin the embarrassing explanations.

  “Don’t.” Adam placed a finger over her lips. “We don’t have to rush into a physical relationship. I told you casual affairs have never appealed to me. I want to get to know you better. Then sex becomes a communication of the soul, as well as the body.”

  I don’t deserve him, Holly thought as guilt tore through her again. “That’s beautiful.” She reached out to draw her fingers along his cheek.

  Adam caught her hand, turned her palm and placed a kiss in the center of it. “I don’t want to rush you. And I’m not prepared for this just now, in any way. I’m all for spontaneity—not recklessness.” One of his dimples appeared. “Of course, later we could renegotiate.”

  Chapter Five

  “THIS HAS GOT TO be the classiest warehouse around.” Laurel stood, hands on well-rounded hips, surveying their living room.

  “Can’t beat the rent.” Holly smiled briefly and went back to her notebook. In the distance, the telephone rang.

  “I’ll get it,” shouted Ivy.

  “You don’t suppose that’s another job, do you?” Laurel stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

  “I hope so.”

  “You would. I don’t understand all these people who wait until the last minute.”

  “Isn’t it great?” Holly’s face creased in a smile. “Anyway, two weeks before Christmas is not the last minute. December twenty-fourth at one o’clock in the afternoon is.”

  “That’s still a possibility.”

  “Another Chili Christmas!” Ivy yelled from the study.

  Holly groaned. “That’s the last one.”

  “Holly, that one and Merry Texmas are our most popular trees this year.” Laurel started up the stairs. “Bloomie said she could get as many crystals as we needed.”

  “They’re costing us a fortune. We have to rent each tree twice before we break even. What if nobody wants it next year?”

  “Quit worrying. Next year, you take off the chili-pepper lights, leave the crystals and call it New Age Christmas or Crystal Christmas. Merry Texmas isn’t about to go out of style and you can use the chili-pepper lights on that.”

  “But we still won’t make a profit until the year after that.”

  “Okay, don’t take off the chili-pepper lights and call it Fire and Ice.”

  Holly scribbled in her notebook. “That’s great, Laurel.”

  “Some of us think about things other than money.”

  Ivy came into the room in time to hear that last exchange. “Is she still going on about profit margins?”

  Laurel nodded.

  “Holly, just think about the five sorority and fraternity house trees we’re dismantling tomorrow and the fact that so far you’ve rented two of those for a second time this season. Twice the profit. That’s a first.”

  Holly flipped to the scheduling calendar. “I can’t believe it’s already the middle of December.”

  “I can!” Laurel and Ivy said at the same time. They chattered amiably as they climbed upstairs to the bedrooms where the decorations were stored.

  Holly scheduled another Chili Christmas, wincing at the cost and number of ornaments.

  “Time for a dinner break?” Laurel asked hopefully as she and Ivy lugged another box downstairs. “I wonder what Adam will bring tonight.”

  “It isn’t right to expect him to bring us food all the time,” Holly protested.

  “But he does,” Ivy said.

  On cue, the doorbell rang. “Ah, dinner!” Laurel said softly, an arched eyebrow directed toward Holly.

  Holly gave her a warning glance.

  “I’ll go get some napkins and drinks.” Ivy dropped her box and hurried into the kitchen.

  Holly made an exasperated sound as Laurel flung open the front door.

  “Why, Adam, what a nice surprise! Holly, honey,” Laurel drawled, “It’s Adam. Isn’t that nice?”

  Holly opened her mouth to protest.

  Adam walked in, carrying flat cardboard boxes, exuding the mouth-watering aroma of pepperoni and Italian spices. “Hey, busy night! Congratulations. Let me save you some time, here, Holly.” He headed toward the kitchen.

  “Bring your sister,” he instructed Laurel. “Where were we? I know—you tell me I shouldn’t have. I say it’s no trouble, just a couple of pizzas. Then I say I like to spoil you, and no, I won’t take your money. Okay, next time it’s your treat, et cetera, et cetera.”

  Silence.

  “Laurel and Ivy want pizza, don’t you?” Adam asked with an amused look at them.

  “Please, Holly, please, please? Pretty please with pepperoni on top?” Laurel and Ivy pleaded, with outstretched hands.

  Holly bit the insides of her cheeks. She would not encourage them.

  Adam picked up one of the boxes and waved the aroma toward her. Nothing.

  “Relax, Holly,” he said as the others helped themselves. “I used coupons.”

  “I knew you were incorrigible,” she said at last, taking the gooiest piece of pizza she could find.

  “And you love it.” Adam grinned.

  “Yeah.” Holly grinned back.

  “So how goes the season? Are you ahead or behind projected income?”

  “Ahead,” Laurel answered. “You were an unexpected help with the food budget.”

  “Laurel!” Even though they all realized it was true, Holly hated to hear it admitted aloud.

  “How many jobs do we have to pack for tomorrow?” Adam began clearing away the remains of their pizza dinner.

  “Seven,” Ivy replied.

  “Hey, they’re really beginning to pick up, aren’t they?”

  “And we take down five trees tomorrow. The semester has ended and all decorations have to be cleared before the dorms and houses close for winter break.” Laurel followed the last two pieces of pizza over to the kitchen sink. Holly watched as she edged toward Adam while he sealed the leftovers in plastic wrap. Laurel grabbed at the pieces and Adam whisked them out of reach.

  “That’s tomorrow’s breakfast, Laurel. You’ll hate yourself in the morning.”

  He already knew all their little foibles, Holly realized.

  “More boxes need to be hauled downstairs?” Adam asked.

  “Adam, you don’t need to help,” Holly said automatically. Another ritual.

  “I know.” He smiled.

  “You’re going to anyway, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  This time, instead of waving him up the stairs or assigning him some task, Holly tilted her head to one side. “Why?”

  Adam tugged on one of her curls, hiding the fact that his fingers briefly caressed her cheek. “Because I want to be near you,” he said in a low voice only she could hear. “And because I keep hoping you’ll get caught up on the work and we can have some time alone.”

  Adam watched the guilt flash through Holly’s expressive brown eyes. “You asked.”

  “So I did. Make an appointment for March. It’s a quiet month.”

  “I li
ke my plan better.” Adam turned and walked into the living room. Approaching one of the seven piles of boxes and ornament cartons, he picked up the inventory sheet and began checking off the items.

  Holly watched pensively. He knew the whole routine. What would she do if he quit coming after work every day?

  HOLLY’S ALARM screeched, and she reached out to silence it. Every muscle in her body screamed in protest after yesterday’s marathon. Seven trees up and five down had meant a lot of lifting and stretching and bending. She was still exhausted. Her eyelids scratched her eyes, which squinted from the bright winter sunlight pouring through her window. She’d never had a hangover, but suspected this was close to how one felt. Coffee! She smelled coffee!

  There was a tap on her door. “Holly?”

  She opened her mouth to answer and managed a hoarse squeak.

  “Holly?” Adam’s voice sounded raspy. “I heard your alarm. I brought you some coffee.”

  Holly groped around for the jeans and baggy sweater she’d been wearing last night, or rather, early this morning when she’d collapsed on her bed. She hobbled toward the door, voice creaking. “Minute, Adam.”

  He stood there holding two mugs of coffee, one black, the other heavily laced with milk. He thrust the milky one at her. “Drink.”

  “Thanks.” She drank.

  “You look like I feel,” she said, and discovered that her voice worked again.

  Adam rolled bloodshot eyes at her and drained his coffee mug. He wore the same clothes he’d worn all day Saturday, too.

  “You go through this every year?”

  “No.” Holly shook her head and looked inquiringly at the bottom of her mug.

  “There’s more downstairs.”

  “Anybody else awake? “

  “Nope.” Adam appeared disinclined to fetch her more coffee, so Holly reluctantly began to make her way downstairs.

  They reached the kitchen after a silent procession from the second floor. Holly refilled their coffee mugs and slumped at the kitchen table. Adam slid into the seat next to her. He needed a shave.

  “Yesterday was incredible,” Holly began.

  “Incredible is one way to describe it, yes. Hideously overscheduled even for a masochist like you is another.”

  “You didn’t have to stay.”

  “I couldn’t abandon you and your sisters.” Adam took another sip of coffee. “Besides, my car was back here, remember?”

  “So much for chivalry.”

  “I made coffee this morning. All you managed to do was hit your snooze control three times and wake me up.”

  “I did? Three times?”

  Adam held up three fingers.

  “Sorry.” Holly sneaked a glance at Adam’s disgruntled face. “You make great coffee.”

  “You always say that.” He gave a tired smile. “I would’ve started breakfast, but . . .” He waved at the refrigerator and pantry.

  Holly shrugged. “No time to shop and we’re not much on breakfast.”

  “Figures.” He sent her a stern look. “You don’t have any more days like yesterday scheduled, do you?”

  “I didn’t do that on purpose. I didn’t realize that when the university said all trees had to be down by the end of the term, they weren’t going to make an exception for us.”

  “Why would they?”

  “Because we’re hired professionals. Since the students have to leave, it makes sense to have that rule for them. I assumed that since we’re an outside business, we’d have more leeway.”

  “Now you know.”

  Holly grinned. “I know that seven up and five down in one day is about all we can handle.”

  “Next time, I will abandon you.”

  Holly wavered, then hesitantly touched Adam’s arm before giving in to impulse and hugging him. It was the first physical intimacy she’d initiated since their dinner a few days earlier and she felt momentarily awkward.

  Adam hauled her onto his lap. “Fair warning,” he said, running his fingers along his beard. “You are about to be kissed.”

  His beard was rough and he tasted wonderfully of coffee.

  “I see someone woke up and smelled the coffee,” Laurel drawled as she padded across the kitchen floor to the pot. She pulled the ties of her silk kimono tighter and skimmed her fingers through expensively layered hair. It responded by framing her face in artful disarray. Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she leaned against the counter and silently regarded the two of them.

  Holly tried to get up, but Adam held her fast. Rather than engage in an undignified struggle, she relaxed.

  “Well.” Laurel sipped her coffee and looked at them. “Did I see a blank day today, by chance?”

  “Not by chance,” Holly replied. “The Town Square magazine with our cover comes out tomorrow and I scheduled today as a buffer. All we have to do is check the light strings and load the van.”

  Adam absently caressed her back. “Anticipating a flood of business?”

  Holly looked down at him. “I hope so and I hope we get some party jobs out of it.”

  Laurel joined them at the table. “What’s more likely to happen is that we’ll get a whole batch of calls right near Christmas from frantic people who haven’t left themselves enough time to do everything.”

  Adam didn’t say any more. Holly knew he was disappointed that their work wasn’t winding down. After yesterday’s marathon, even she was beginning to get sick of it all.

  “Got it.” Laurel set her mug down. “We’re having a lazy day today—no arguments from you, Holly. Adam, you’re invited.”

  “For what?”

  Laurel grinned. “There’ll be food.”

  “Naturally,” Holly murmured.

  “We’ll get a turkey—they’re on sale this week, Holly—and have a big dinner with all the trimmings. You know, cranberry sauce and the whole bit.”

  “Sounds like work,” Holly said, but she smiled.

  “Not with the four of us.” No one had noticed Ivy’s appearance. “And we’ll move the television in here and watch football all afternoon, right?” She went to the cabinets by the pantry and pulled down several cookbooks. “After lunch, we’ll make Christmas cookies.”

  “We haven’t done that in ages.” Holly began to look forward to the rest of the day.

  “Up,” Adam ordered.

  Holly climbed gingerly off his lap. “Leg numb?”

  Adam’s eyes twinkled as he pounded feeling back into his leg. “It was worth it.”

  “I’d better get to the store.” Laurel rinsed her mug on the way out.

  “Don’t we have any juice? Hardly any milk . . . You caffeine addicts can’t see beyond your morning fix,” grumbled Ivy from the refrigerator. She grabbed a can of soda. “I can’t believe I’m having Diet Coke for breakfast.”

  “Laurel will see to your nutritional needs for the rest of the day,” Holly reassured her as another layer of guilt settled on her shoulders. When would she stop letting people down?

  After a last look in the refrigerator, Ivy slammed the door. “I’ll be in the pantry making a list. Think I’ll go with Laurel to buy groceries.”

  “And I,” Adam said, testing his leg, “will go home to shower and change.”

  Holly walked him to the door. “Hurry back. It won’t be the same without you,” she added, surprising herself.

  Even worse, she thought, as she watched Adam’s car follow the circular driveway to the street, nothing would ever be the same again. And she didn’t want it to be the same again. “Watch it, Holly,” she murmured to herself, “you’re falling in love with him.”

  Her realization didn’t spoil the afternoon, but it did make her intensely aware of Adam’s every movement. When he approached, she felt the back of her neck prickle; h
er eyes darted to his constantly. More often than not, she found him watching her. He was never the first to break contact.

  How could he be calm if he felt even half of what she did? This was terrible. No wonder she’d avoided relationships for the past few years.

  “Dishwasher is loaded and running,” Laurel announced. “Ivy and I’ll start the cookies.”

  Adam and Ivy were discussing what kind of cookies to make. Holly smiled benevolently as she finished the dishes left in the sink. Adam fit in with their family. Adam was kind to her sisters and a hard worker. Adam’s touch melted her insides. She was obsessed with Adam.

  What was the matter with her? How could she have allowed him through her defenses?

  The back of her neck prickled. “I’ll dry,” Adam said softly standing right behind her.

  They worked in companionable silence. “You’ve been really sneaky,” Holly said at last.

  “How so?”

  She dipped a pot in the rinse water. “I’ve started to take you for granted. When I plan jobs, I assign you something to do and just assume you’ll be there to do it. And you always are.”

  “Do you mind?” Adam tilted her chin until she met his eyes.

  “I’m afraid,” she told him.

  “Of what?”

  Holly dried her hands and wrapped her arms around Adam, unconcerned whether her sisters saw or not. It was frightening to realize how right it felt to be held by him. “I’m afraid of depending on you too much. Deck the Halls is almost there—we’re just about to make it. And when we do, I want to say that we did it all on our own, without anyone’s help.”

  “And you’re worried I’ll negate that achievement. You’ve got to do it all by yourself, or it doesn’t count? Is that it?” For the first time since she’d met him, Adam’s blue eyes were cold. Holly’s arms slipped down.

  He was exactly right, but he made it sound petty.

  “Yes,” Holly avowed. “And I have to prove I can make it on my own to everybody, especially the vultures who destroyed the business it took my dad a lifetime to build.”

  “And you lose points for accepting help?”