Midnight Under the Mistletoe (10 page)

To his surprise, he remembered the old songs he hadn’t sung in
years. Finally when they stopped singing, they began to pull coats out of
closets.

“We’re going outside because Dad turns on the Christmas lights,
a tradition that means the Christmas season is officially kicking off at the
Hillman house.”

Zach laughed. “I don’t know how I let you get me into
this.”

“I know exactly how,” she said, giving him a sultry look, and
his smile disappeared.

“Emma—” Smiling, she walked away and he watched her hips
covered in tight jeans as she walked away from him to get her jacket.

The entire family and dogs gathered on the front lawn and
waited for the light ceremony. In minutes the lights came on and it was bright
as noontime. Zach stood next to Emma and applauded with the others when the
lights sparked to life. “Emma, I’ve fallen into
Christmas
Vacation
. This is the Griswold house,” he said softly.

She laughed. “Except the lights all came on at the first try.
Dad loves Christmas. Actually, we all do. It’s wonderful.”

The family stayed up talking until one when they began to say
good-night. By the time Emma and her younger brother, Bobby, turned in, they had
to lock up and switch off lights.

She had an apartment nearby, but she had told him she would
stay at her parents’ house. He hadn’t known they wouldn’t sleep at her place
until they were almost to Dallas. A huge disappointment to him.

At her door, Zach placed his hand on the jamb to block her way.
He tugged on a lock of her hair to draw her closer and leaned forward to brush
her lips with a light kiss. The instant his mouth touched her soft lips, his
body reacted. He ached with wanting her. His arm tightened around her waist
while he kissed her long and fervently. “I want you, Emma,” he whispered.

The look in her eyes made his pulse pound. He inhaled deeply,
fighting the urge to reach for her again. This wasn’t the time or the place, so
he told her good-night before going to the room given to him for his weekend
visit.

He wanted to be alone with Emma now and couldn’t wait to get
back to the ranch, but the holiday had been a pleasant surprise.

* * *

By Saturday, the weather had warmed. The family sat at a
long picnic table, made from five tables pushed together with Zach at one end,
his foot propped on a wooden box. Emma’s mother was to his right and Emma sat on
his left. Her father was at the far end while various relatives lined both sides
of the table. They sat in a sunny spot in a wooded park not far from Emma’s
parents’ home.

It was easy to see where Emma got her looks. Her auburn-haired
mother, Camilla, was a good-looking woman and appeared far younger than she had
to be since she was the mother of Emma’s older brother and older sisters. Brody
Hillman, Emma’s dad, had welcomed him, but Zach could feel the unspoken
questions and saw the speculation in Brody’s expression. Even more open about
his curiosity was Emma’s older brother, Connor. Connor studied Zach and Zach
could feel disapproval simmering just beneath the surface. Connor had been
friendly, but only in a perfunctory manner and Zach thought it was just a matter
of time before Connor quizzed him about his relationship with Emma.

There had been enough curious looks from all of them to remind
him that Emma did not bring men home with her for the weekend. He had wished a
hundred times over that he had not accepted her invitation, He would have to
last until tomorrow afternoon when they would leave for his ranch.

“Zach,” Emma said, “my nieces are so impressed with you. I told
them you are a world traveler. They want to know the scariest trip you’ve had or
scariest place you’ve been.”

He smiled at a row of little girls staring at him expectantly
and told about waking up with a huge snake in his tent, but that was not as
scary as swimming and discovering a shark approaching him. By the time he got to
that part, the boys had gathered around to listen. The girls sat quietly, their
eyes opening wider, and he didn’t want to scare them. “Those were scary moments.
Then there was a time I was camped far from a town. My things kept disappearing.
I thought someone who worked for me was taking them until I discovered it was a
very sly monkey. We found the stash and I got back my things, except my golf
cap. I left that for him and hoped I’d see him wearing it, but I never did.”

As the girls laughed, he glanced at Emma to see her smiling
while she watched her nieces.

He got out his phone. “I have pictures,” he said, opening it
and quickly finding his electronic scrapbook. He held out the phone and Emma had
to join the kids to look. She gasped, maybe only slightly less than the little
girls. She bent closer, looking at a massive snake that was held by four
men.

“Zach, is it alive?” she asked.

“Yes, but it had been fed, so it wasn’t moving much and
everyone was safe.”

She glanced at Zach, and he suspected he had just dropped a
notch in her estimation of his lifestyle. He suspected she liked homebody types
who spent their weekends playing with the kids versus someone who traveled and
encountered wild snakes and ran some big risks.

After lunch, they cleaned up and when everything was put away,
a tag football game was planned with everyone participating.

“You can be scorekeeper, Zach. We always have two or three
scorekeepers, so no one person has to keep up with all of us,” Brody said.
“There’s a lot of give and take to score-keeping for one of our family games.
Usually we end up with about as many different scores as scorekeepers, so don’t
take any of this too seriously. You’ll see.”

Zach agreed to the task, sitting on the sidelines with his foot
resting on a cooler. Brody’s sister, Beth, joined him as scorekeeper along with
Brody’s mom, Grandma Kate. Emma’s maternal grandmother, Grandma Nan, was on the
field to play; she looked too young to be a grandmother. The oldest of the
nieces and nephews was only six, so everyone played around the kids. As
three-year-old Willie grabbed the ball and tried to run with it while the family
cheered, Zach joined in, laughing at the child clutching the football as if it
were a lifeline.

Zach glanced at Emma on the playing field. She had leaves in
her hair. She had shed the bulky sweatshirt and wore a bright pink T-shirt with
her jeans. She was watching him, laughing with him over the kids, and desire
stabbed him. That electrifying tension flared to life, as unwanted and
unexpected as it had been the first time she had walked into his home. He wished
they were alone. Someone stepped between them and the tension eased, but it did
not vanish.

The kids provided constant laughs with their antics and he saw
why she liked to come home for the weekend. They were all happy with each other,
having great fun. He had known fun with his brothers, but life had been tense if
both his parents were present unless they were entertaining a house filled with
their friends. Even then, it had never held this relaxed closeness. He realized
he was enjoying a whole family of people who loved each other and exhibited a
joy in being together. He had this now with his brothers, but they seldom were
all together and until Caroline, there had been no small children around.

He could see why Emma thought he was missing something and why
she had hated to leave him alone. He looked at her parents, thinking how
different they were from his own. The love they shared showed constantly even
though they were across the field from each other, or at opposite ends of the
long table earlier. He realized he had never seen that kind of warmth between
his parents. He looked at Emma, laughing with a small niece. Maybe Emma was the
wealthy one after all.

Breaking into his thoughts, he looked down into big brown eyes
as a little boy walked up to him. “Did you give my team a point?”

He wasn’t certain which child stood before him, guessing it was
Jake. “Yes, I did give your team a very big point,” he answered, amused that the
little kid was checking on him.

The child nodded. “Thank you.” He turned to his
great-grandmother. “Did you give my team a point, Gran-Gran?”

“Yes, I did,” she said, leaning forward to hug him. “You’re
playing a good game,” she said.

“Thank you.” Smiling broadly, he ran off, half skipped to his
dad, who asked him a question, glancing over his head at Zach. The child told
his dad something and his dad smiled at Zach and turned back to play.

Zach was unaccustomed to sitting out anything active. During
the time-out, he motioned Emma over.

“I hate sitting on the sidelines. If three-year-old Willie can
play, so can I.”

“Zach, you have to stay off your foot.”

“This shoe protects my foot. I am not accustomed to being a
spectator. I’ll stop if my foot hurts. It’s only tag football.”

“You’ll be on my team then, so I can keep up with you.”

“Don’t hover. Your family will really think we have something
going.”

Zach got into the game, enjoying himself even though he knew he
was being foolish and risking more injury, but he hated doing nothing except
keeping score. He had never been one to sit on the sidelines and he didn’t want
to miss out now. He hobbled around and it was easy to keep up when they had
geared down to a three-year-old level.

Before dinner they gathered wood to build a fire in a stone
fireplace. When Zach started to help, Emma stopped him.

“This isn’t a chore you have to do. Go sit and we’ll get the
wood.”

“I’m not doing much,” he said, brushing past her. Minutes later
as he picked up a dead branch and turned, Connor blocked his way.

“Thought you were supposed to stay off your foot.”

“A few branches and I’ll quit. I still can’t get accustomed to
sitting around.”

“Which is why Emma works on your ranch?”

“Right,” Zach said. He could feel anger from Connor and see
curiosity in his expression.

“You’ve been all over the world, so you’re pretty sophisticated
and experienced. Emma’s not. Did she tell you she’s never brought anyone home
before?”

“We work together. I don’t know what she’s told the family, but
I think I’m here because she feels sorry for me.”

“Yeah. We heard you were alone. I just don’t want to see my
sister hurt.”

“I wouldn’t want her hurt either.”

“Zach,” Emma called, hurrying to join them. “Give those sticks
to Connor and come sit. You shouldn’t be on your foot. Just watch everyone.”

All the time she talked, Zach looked at Connor who gazed at him
with a flat stare that held a silent warning. When Emma tugged on his arm to
take the wood from him, Zach turned away.

“I think Connor was being a big brother and jumping to
ridiculous ideas. Pay no attention to him,” she said.

“Your older brother is a little difficult to ignore since he’s
five inches over six feet tall and probably weighs in at 250.”

“Come on. They’re getting the fire started and we’ll cook
dinner and then sit and sing and later, tell stories.”

Amused, he went with her, hobbling along.

As they got dinner on the tables, Emma carried a hot dish and
set it on the table, then turned to find Connor beside her.

“Emma.” He glanced over her head and she realized they were the
only two standing at the end of the long table. “Be careful. I don’t want you to
get hurt.”

“I hope, Connor, you didn’t threaten him. He’s my boss.”

“If that’s all he is, that’s fine. Guys like Zach Delaney do
not marry into families like the Hillmans.”

“I brought him home for the weekend because I didn’t want him
to spend Thanksgiving alone. We’ve always invited people who might be alone on
holidays. I felt sorry for him. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

“It looks like more,” Connor said, frowning.

“This is a temporary job that is on the verge of ending. When
it does end, I’ll never see him again. Most of the time he works abroad. There’s
nothing to be concerned about.”

“I hope not. Take care of yourself.”

She smiled. “I will. Stop worrying.”

He jammed his hands into his pockets and walked away. She
watched him and shook her head. Connor was forever the big brother.

As she got more dishes of food on the table, Mary Kate
approached with more delicious looking food.

“Is Connor being big brother?” she asked.

“Ever so,” Emma replied, rolling her eyes.

“Emma,
should
Connor be big
brother?”

“No. I didn’t want Zach to be alone over the holiday and he
would have been. Anyone in this family would have invited him if they had been
in my place.”

“Are you sure?” Mary Kate asked, tilting her head to study her
sister. “Here he comes.” She moved away before Emma answered. She forgot her
siblings. Zach approached and he was the only person she noticed.

After dinner they played a word game around a blazing campfire.
When the sun went down the air cooled with a fall chill and the fire felt good.
Emma sat close beside him and Zach longed to put his arm around her, but he did
not give in to the impulse. It would look far too personal for a boss and
secretary. The dancing red flames highlighted gold streaks in Emma’s hair. She
sat beside him playing a simple game where they sang and clapped and the little
kids could play. Emma’s dad sat with his arm around her mother while she
clapped.

Zach continued to marvel at her family. Outside of old movies,
he hadn’t known families like this really existed. He completely understood why
Emma treasured her weekends at home and her holidays. As a little kid he had
hoped for this, but it had never happened with his own family or any that he
visited and he finally had come to the conclusion such families did not exist,
but Emma was proving him wrong.

Once as she sang, she glanced at him and smiled. More than
ever, he wanted his arm around her or just to touch her, but he knew that wasn’t
a possibility now. If he wasn’t careful, her family would have them engaged.