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“Just don't go overboard.” But even as he said it he knew that she would. Sally was an overboard kind of woman.
Heck, she was already halfway there. Currently red balls hung from his light fixture. Tinsel dripped from the balls that hung from the light fixture. There were multiple Poinsettias on the window ledge, plus sprigs of holly on top of his file cabinet.
And over the door…
"What's that?"
"What's what?" she replied, steadfastly dripping the tinsel one slim strip at a time.
"The green leaf thing hanging from the door."
Sally turned toward the doorway. "Oh that," she shrugged casually. "Just more decoration."
Harry walked over to the door and stood directly beneath the frame. The dried leaves tied together with string floated over his head giving him the suspicious feeling that he was standing under …
"You hung mistletoe," he accused her.
"I thought it smelled nice."
He sniffed the air. "It doesn't smell like anything."
"I thought it looked nice," Sally tried again.
"But it's all withered," he countered.
Sally stomped her foot on his desk in a huff. "Well, for heaven's sake Harry, do you think I put it up there so I could trap you into a kiss?"
The force of the blood rushing to his face was humiliating, he decided. Men weren't supposed to blush.
Sally stretched out her hand to him so he could help her down. While he did, he tried not to look at the skirt that was riding up her legs and giving him a glimpse of thigh, or smell the lavender that clung to the curls that brushed his cheek.
As soon as she was secure on her own two feet, he discretely backed away.
"So why did you hang it up?"
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Harry considered that. He wasn't particularly religious, but he was still pretty sure that he couldn't get behind the "big picture" and still be Jewish.
"Not the baby in a manger part," she clarified. "The peace on earth and goodwill toward men part."
"I need tinsel for that?"
"Absolutely." Then she bit her bottom lip. "You don't really mind do you? I mean it's not offensive or anything…"
He smiled gently. "Tinsel by its very nature is offensive to anyone with any decorating sense."
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Making more of an effort to brush herself off than was necessary, a clue to him that she was concocting something, Sally slowly lifted her head to meet his gaze.
She was wearing her typical, “I have no idea what you're talking about expression” that he knew all too well. Sometimes he let her get away with it. Sometimes he didn't. Part of his brain told him to let this go right now. The other half wanted to know why there was mistletoe hanging from his doorway when they were the only two people who worked in the office.
Given the prolonged pause he tossed out a few of his own suggestions. “It's not like you're setting it up for the UPS man, he always goes to your office across the hall.”
“The UPS man is happily married with three children. Why would I want to kiss him?”
“My point exactly. The mailman…”
“Phillip? Philip gets nervous and stutters every time he sees me.”
“Then he's out.”
“Harry, you're being ridiculous.”
“You could never be with a man who stutters,” he continued. “It's hard enough to get a word in edgewise with you anyway. Factor in a little time delay and forget about it.”
“We'll put aside for right now that I think that was A) politically incorrect against men who stutter and B) not very nice to me. You keep thinking I'm trying to lure some unsuspecting man into my web. Maybe I put the mistletoe up to help you.”
“Help me!” Harry repeated, astonished. “I don't think so.”
“Why not?” she pressed. “When was the last time you were on a date?”
“Three months ago and you wigged out.”
“I did not wig out.”
“You called my cell three times! And that was before dinner.”
“There was an emergency at the office,” she said stiffly. “Forgive me for caring about your business.”
“You misplaced a file,” he reminded her, dismissing the emergency. “You found it the next morning.”
“No, you misplaced the file, I struggled to find it for hours, and finally succeeded the next morning.”
Either way he was pretty sure it hadn't warranted three calls. Not that he hadn't been grateful. Under penalty of death would he ever admit it to her, but the desperate phone calls had actually saved him.
He and Rebecca had run out of things to say about four minutes into the date. Sally's call came during minute five and the topic of work emergencies actually helped get them through dinner. Then of course there was the topic of Sally herself.
He might have gone on a little long with that particular topic though. At the end of the date Rebecca had come out and asked him why he wasn't just dating Sally, for which his only answer had been… 'cause.
“My point is,” he finished. “I know you and I don't think you're doing this for me. What's the matter? Run out of crazy dating schemes? No more Internet? No more blind/deaf/speed/video/audio dating service out there to con you out of any more money? Now you have to stoop to even more desperate tactics like mistletoe!”
He'd been smiling throughout his rant thinking that she would be laughing with him by the end of it, but he froze as soon as he saw the tear that trickled down her cheek.
“Oh my god,” he whispered as his blood ran cold. Tears - more than sharks, snakes, men with guns and spiders - scared the heck out of him. “Please don't do that.”
“You think I'm a laughing stock,” she sniffed.
“No, no,” he said, shaking his head desperately.
“You think I'm desperate.”
“Never. I never meant to say desperate.”
“You think I like doing any of those things? You think it was fun? The pain and the humiliation. The hope and the despair. The absolute failure of it all. And the cost! Do you have any idea how many pairs of shoes I could have had by now if it hadn't been for the money I spent trying to find true love?”
He watched, paralyzed with uncertainty, as more tears fell and her perfect, pretty little face turned blotchy with … hurt. A hurt that he had inadvertently caused to the woman who was without question the most important person in his life.
“I'm sorry,” he murmured. He reached out his arms hesitantly for fear she might slap at him. But when her shoulders continued to shake with tears and her arms fell loosely at her sides, he figured he was safe. He pulled her close into his embrace, felt her hair brush his chin and waited until she was holding him back.
After a few minutes the storm passed and the flood subsided. He could feel her huffing and working to take bigger gulps of air. Her breasts rubbed pleasantly against his chest as she did.
“I was just trying to be funny,” he whispered in her ear.
“I know.”
“You know I'm not… funny that is.”
“I know,” she hiccupped.
Lifting her head, she offered a wobbly smile. “Sorry I started bawling.”
“It's okay.”
“You hate tears,” she told him, apparently still content within his hold since she wasn't making any effort to leave it.
“Yeah. But it's okay.”
“It's just so sad… not to be loved.”
“But I love you.”
It was amazing to him. The very thing he'd tried so long to ignore. The feelings that she had evoked for years that he had crushed because he wasn't at all sure it was right to feel that way about a person who worked for him… and in one instant because of a damn sprig of mistletoe it was all over.
His secret was out.
He could take it back, of course. He could add the words 'as a friend' very quickly and that would probably fix everything. But he didn't. He just held her in his arms, looking down at the face he knew so well, loved so well and let it be.
Her eyes widened and her smile grew until he could see teeth and the shallowest of dimples in her cheeks that he wasn't even aware she had.
She tilted her neck to stare at the mistletoe that was directly above them and chuckled. “Works every time.”
Then she was pulling his head down toward her, and the next thing he knew he was kissing her.
Kissing Sally. And it was wonderful.
Before he got too caught up though he pulled back, his brow furrowed as he thought about her words and what they meant.
“Wait a minute. Did you hang this mistletoe on purpose?”
“Yes.”
“For me?”
“Yes,” she admitted, her voice a shade weaker.
“To trick me?”
“I prefer the word 'nudge' to 'trick' thank you.”
“Why did you want to nudge me?”
“Because I realized after all those stupid dating scams that I didn't want to date anyone else. I didn't want to have dinner with anyone else or go home with anyone else or confide all my worries and fears and joys with anyone else. I certainly didn't want you to date anyone else. Most of all I didn't want to kiss anyone else.”
That was news.
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“You wanted to kiss me?” he asked with a certain amount of wonderment in his voice. It really didn't seem possible. If she wanted to kiss him and he wanted to kiss her and they were the only two people in the office… what had been holding them back?
“Yes,” she said. “Do you really love me?”
“Yes.”
“Me too.”
“Okay,” he sighed. Then it seemed as if he was at a loss and she wasn't saying anything, which wasn't like her at all. “I'm a little uncertain about what we're supposed to do now.”
“I was thinking happily ever after,” she beamed.
“Really, because I was thinking of us maybe doing it on the desk.”
She looked at the desk, then back at him. “Okay. Desk first. Then happily ever after.”
This time he was beaming. “Remind me from now on that Christmas is my favorite holiday.”
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My March Release, Calculated Risk!
Calculated Risk
March 2005
Silhouette Bombshell™
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