Merry Christmas, Baby(17)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

Jared sat down on the couch and asked the question he’d wanted to ask since meeting Teddy. “So what’s the deal with Teddy? What’s her story?”

Nick gave him a quick rundown, bullet-pointing in journalistic fashion. Her father had abandoned the family and then the mother had died. Teddy’s older sister had raised her. The sister made a living raising and training sled dogs on the outskirts of town. From what Nick knew from Gus, Teddy hadn’t dated much, focusing instead on her family and friends and saving her money for the move.

“So, she not only looks good but she has integrity, too,” Jared said.

“And she’s a damn nice girl to boot,” Nick said on a teasing note. “So, what do you want to do? Shower? Crash? Check out the tube? They have satellite. Or head back downstairs?”

That was a no-brainer. He wanted to check out Teddy Monroe some more. “Definitely head back downstairs.”

“OKAY, DONE, AND THANKS so much you guys,” Teddy said at ten-twenty. Instead of the customary forty-five-minute cleanup, it’d been done in twenty. Gus, as she had the last several nights, had insisted on helping for old times’ sake. Nick had laughed and said he wasn’t about to be left out of the party and Jared had good-naturedly claimed he didn’t know what he was doing but he could follow directions as well as the next Joe. Not only had it gone fast, but it had been fun.

Teddy admitted it. She was smitten. Jared Martin was the total package. From his sophisticated, but casual good looks, to his sense of humor, to his crisp accent, he was like a Christmas package that had shown up early, wrapped in charm and sexiness. She’d been almost painfully aware of everything about him during their cleanup—where he was, what he was doing, the fit of his shirt over his broad shoulders, the crisp cadence of his voice, the faint whiff of expensive, sophisticated aftershave, and the heat of his gaze. More than once she’d felt him looking at her. It was enough to weaken a woman’s knees—well, this woman’s anyway.

And while Teddy didn’t have a ton of experience, she had enough sense to know when a man was flirting with her and Jared had been flirting all during the cleanup operation.

Gus and Nick stood in the restaurant, holding hands. “If you guys don’t mind, we’re going to stay down here for a bit. We’ve got a date,” Nick said.

Teddy smiled and sighed inside at how romantic it was. Because there wasn’t anywhere to go in Good Riddance on a date in the winter other than Gus’s, Nick and Gus had “dated” after hours in the restaurant when Nick had first arrived.

Teddy’s heart beat a little faster and harder at the thought of having time alone with this handsome man.

“No problem,” Teddy said.

Together she and Jared crossed to the door at the back of the restaurant that opened to the interior stairwell leading to her apartment.

“Don’t wait up for us,” Gus said with a smile.

“You kids don’t do anything we wouldn’t do,” Nick tacked on, smirking.

On any other given day Teddy might’ve been embarrassed by Nick’s comment but she and Jared had shared one too many heated glances throughout the night. She’d been about five degrees warmer simply with him in the room tonight. And face it, men like Jared Martin didn’t come her way every day—well, basically never before.

Teddy closed the door behind them, shutting out the restaurant, plunging them in close-quartered intimacy in the stairwell. Her heart thudded against her ribs and her breath caught in her throat as Jared’s arm brushed her waist in the dark, his breath stirring against her hair. The air between them seemed to pulse with awareness.

Teddy flipped on the light switch in the hallway. Laughing at Nick’s comment, they climbed the stairs to the apartment.

When they got upstairs, she ushered Jared inside. The lamp was on at one end of the sofa and the Christmas tree lights twinkled in the other end, but other than that the room was cast in shadows.

The air seemed to shift around them and cocoon them the same as it had in the stairwell. “Thanks for pitching in tonight,” Teddy said, suddenly at a bit of a loss now that it was just the two of them. She had the totally alien notion she didn’t want to sit about making small talk. She wanted to do what she’d longed to do since her first glimpse of him—she wanted to kiss him and be kissed by him.

“It was no problem,” Jared said.

It felt different in the apartment with him there. It wasn’t as if he was a piece of furniture but it was as if she’d just discovered what had been missing. He should’ve seemed as out of place as a guy from New York City could seem in an Alaskan village. But, instead, he fit right in with the apartment.

“Are you ready to drop?” she said.

“Actually, I’ve caught a second wind and I’m wide awake. What do you usually do after you wrap up work? I don’t want to interrupt your schedule.”

Teddy usually showered when she finished up for the evening but she simply couldn’t bring herself to do that now—no way she could strip nak*d in the bathroom, knowing Jared was one closed door away. The mere notion sent a shiver through her. That felt far too suggestive and intimate and she just couldn’t do it, not until Nick and Gus were up here with them.

So, she skipped the showering part and fast-forwarded to the next thing. “I usually have a glass of wine and just sort of decompress,” she said, moving toward the dark kitchen. “Would you care for a glass of wine?”

She didn’t keep anything stronger in her apartment. She’d noticed he drank bourbon and ginger ale earlier. She’d also noted he’d cut himself off after one pre-dinner drink. She was always aware of stuff like that. Her few memories of her father invariably involved too much alcohol and the unpleasant aftermath. That particular situation had never ended well regardless of what was going on. It had actually been a relief when he’d taken off one day and never come back. How much a man drank and how he handled himself was an issue for Teddy.

Jared stepped into the dark kitchen and seemed to fill it with his presence. “Sure, I’ll join you in a glass of wine. And either red or white is fine as long as it’s not real sweet.”

Teddy laughed breathlessly. “Okay, no Moscato for you.”

She poured each of them a glass of shiraz and turned on the iPod docking station. Bing Crosby crooned about a white Christmas. Teddy loved classic Christmas tunes by Bing, Nat King Cole and Perry Como.

“Here you go,” she said, handing Jared his glass. Her fingers brushed his and the air seemed to sizzle between them. She settled on one end of the sofa, leaving him the option of the other end or one of the two armchairs. She found it somewhat gratifying he chose the other end of the sofa.

Teddy tucked one leg beneath her, angling in his direction and settled back against the couch’s arm.

“So, you’re a stockbroker,” she said.

“So, you want to be an actress,” he said at the same time.

They both laughed.

“You first.”

“You first.”

“How about ladies first?” he said with a smile that fanned the heat inside her.

That helped to break the ice a little and Teddy found it was easy to talk to him, despite the sexual awareness that seemed to dance through her. She gave him the abbreviated version of her upcoming plans. She was surprised, however, when he knew the school she wanted to attend. It wasn’t as if she’d selected the Julliard of acting schools. “You’ve actually heard of it?”

“I have. It’s a great school. My cousin studied there. He’s doing some off-Broadway stuff now. When you get to the city I’ll introduce you to Gaylord.”

“Gaylord?” she parroted without thinking.

Jared grimaced. “I know. Aunt Claudine named him after her favorite grandfather but could she have possibly hung a worse name on him, especially for a theater actor? And by the way, he’s not. And there’s no good way to shorten his name. He doesn’t want to be called Gay and Lord doesn’t work either. When he was a kid Aunt Claudine insisted on him going by Gaylord. He goes by Chuck today.”

Teddy laughed. “I can see why. And I’d love to meet him this spring.” But it wasn’t springtime she was thinking about now.

He shrugged, his shoulders appearing all the more broad in his button-down shirt with the Christmas tree lights behind him. For one insane moment, with the tree behind him, it looked as if he were under the tree. And to further her crazy train of thought, Teddy knew without a doubt that Jared Martin was just what she’d like to find under her tree this Christmas. Well, more specifically, she’d prefer to find him in her bed…preferably without all of those troublesome clothes he was currently wearing.

She smiled privately. She’d had the flu last Christmas and it seemed as if she had a fever again now. However, this was a different kind of fever altogether. And she knew precisely what she needed for a cure.

Him.

4

WHAT THE HELL WAS HE thinking? He was alone with a woman he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of all night and he’d brought up his cousin? Not only had he mentioned Gaylord, who would have lots in common with Teddy, but then he’d gone out of his way to reassure her Gaylord was straight and offered to introduce them.