The Christmas Key Read online

  “Soup sandwich?” he said, referring to the military slang that meant someone or something wasn’t as it should be.

  Naomi laughed. “That’s one of Clayton’s favorite military sayings.”

  Clayton. Present tense.

  At the mention of her brother and her painful slip of the tongue, her smile dried up, and her eyelashes lowered. He watched her shake her spine. Draw back her shoulders. Thrust her chin up. Bolster her emotions. Paint on another smile.

  “I’ve got a few more stores to hit,” she said. “Are you up for it?”

  He stood up. “I’ve got your six.”

  Another military term. Each time he used those words, it reminded her of her brother.

  “That means you’ve got my back, right?” Naomi asked.

  “Yes.”

  Her smile returned. A little tighter than before, but there. “Well,” she said. “Let’s do this.”

  In under an hour, Naomi managed to buy everything remaining on her list. And stay within budget.

  Impressed, Shepherd eyed her as they left the final store. The woman knew what she was doing.

  But he was a mess. Whenever he got within a foot of her, his body buzzed with energy. Muscle memory recalled what her supple thighs had felt like when she’d straddled him on the street.

  Laden with packages, they walked back to his Jeep. She chattered about her Christmas plans for Hunter. Take him to the Dickens festival that weekend. Get him in to see Santa. Catch a matinee of The Nutcracker at the Twilight Playhouse. Ride around the courthouse square in a horse-drawn carriage. Bake Christmas cookies. Go caroling. Open the Advent calendar every day.

  “Whoa.” Shepherd laughed. “That’s a lot to shoehorn into one holiday season.”

  “It’ll be fun!”

  “I don’t mean to criticize. But from what I’ve seen today, you’re taking on water.”

  “My plate is a little loaded, but I’ve got it under control.”

  “If you cross a few things off your list, the boy isn’t going to know.”

  Naomi hardened her chin. “I’ll know.”

  “You could give him the best Christmas any kid ever had,” Shepherd said. “But it’s not going to make up for losing his parents.”

  “I’m aware of that.” Her voice grew icy. “I don’t need your input.”

  Crunch. Toes stepped on. Got it.

  “Please drive me home,” she said. “I’ve got packages to wrap.”

  “It’s almost two. You need lunch.”

  “No time.”

  “Listen, I don’t mean to tell you what to do—”

  “Then don’t,” she cut him off.

  He opened the passenger side door for her and she flounced inside. Gorgeous hair floating past him. “You have to take care of yourself. If something happens to you, who’s going to take care of Hunter?”

  Shepherd shut the door, went around to get inside the Jeep.

  “Okay, fine,” she snapped. “Drive through the Burger Barn.”

  “That stuff’s not good for you.”

  “Make up your mind. Do you want me to eat or not?”

  “I’ll make you something healthy when we get to your house.”

  “You can cook?”

  “Hide and watch.” He laughed and took off.

  Back at the Luthers’ house, they brought in Naomi’s purchases and noticed that her parents still weren’t home from Fort Worth.

  “They probably decided to do a little Christmas shopping,” Naomi said.

  “Are you worried about them?”

  “They were supposed to be home over an hour ago.”

  “Go ahead and check on them.” Shepherd shrugged out of his coat and rolled up his sleeves. “I’ll see what you’ve got in the fridge.”

  “Thanks.” Naomi took her phone into the other room.

  He voice-activated the electronic virtual assistant docked on the bar. Asked it to play Christmas music.

  The device surprised him with Louis Armstrong’s “Cool Yule.” Perfect music for whipping up an omelet and green salad. He whistled along, happy to do this for her.

  Naomi reappeared, all smiles. He was flipping eggs in the omelet pan with an adroit flick of his wrist.

  “Ooh, don’t you look all Julia Child.”

  “Your parents?” he asked, grinding cracked black pepper into the eggs.

  “They ran into some old friends and went out for a long lunch. They’ll be home in an hour or so.” She scooted closer, leaned over the stove. “Nice. I’m not used to anyone cooking for me.”

  Naomi stood so close that if he turned half an inch, his hip would bump into hers. He felt trapped, but it was his own doing. He wanted to turn into her. Bump hips. Touch her.

  She tilted her head, slanted her gaze up until she found his. He wanted to believe the light in her eyes flared a little when she looked at him. But that might just be wishful thinking.

  They ate across from each other at the kitchen table.

  “This is delicious,” she said. “I wish I didn’t have to eat and run, but I’ve got to get those packages wrapped.”

  “I’ll help you,” he said. “So, you’ll make your five p.m. delivery deadline.”

  “You don’t have to do that. You missed a whole day working on the church.” She polished off her eggs. Patted her tummy. “Yum.”

  It pleased him that she liked his cooking. “I can kick it into high gear tomorrow.”

  “Really, it’s okay.” She tucked into the salad. “I can handle this.”

  “You don’t have to do everything on your own.”

  “I don’t want to be a bother.”

  “That’s the last thing you are, butterfly.”

  Her cheeks pinked and she dropped her gaze. Focused on her plate.

  He’d embarrassed her. Dammit, why couldn’t he have kept his mouth shut? This thing surging between them didn’t stand a chance. He knew that and yet he kept pushing.

  “Thanks for the food,” she said. “It was delicious, and you’re right. I’m fortified and ready to tackle the world.”

  “Then let’s hit it.”

  She didn’t turn him down again. They did the dishes together, standing side by side at the sink. He rinsed the plates, handed them to her. She tucked them into the dishwasher. Then she led the way into the living room where they’d left the packages.

  Smiling to himself, Shepherd followed her. Admired the soft sway of her fanny.

  Naomi sank her hands on her hips. Stared at the pile of sacks and boxes. “Did I just say I was ready to tackle the world? I don’t see how we’re going to get these wrapped in time to make my deadline. Even with your help.”

  “Food for fuel can only take you so far,” he agreed. “What we need is a system.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You can’t eat the whole enchilada at once. Bite by bite. Step by step. It’s the only way anything gets done.”

  “Agreed. So what’s step one?”

  “First,” he said. “You clear your A.O.”

  Her brow furrowed. “My what?”

  “Area of operation,” he explained.

  “Oh boy,” she said. “Another military term. How do you guys memorize all that?”

  Only someone who’d been through the military milieu could understand the answer. Could know what it was like to strip off your personal identity and submerge in the group mentality. The ability to do that was what made Shepherd perfect for the military. In his childhood, he’d been solitary for so long that being part of a team had salved his deepest longing.

  But now? The military was nothing but a memory. Gone. Leaving him without a tether. He had a new longing now.

  And she was sitting right in front of him—beautiful, sexy, happy, fun.

  A woman he had no business yearning for. Yet here he was, yearning with a need so profound it floored him. His body ached and his soul burned for her.

  He organized the items. Stacking boxes to the right and slightly behind them. Wrapping pa
per, bows, ribbons, tape, and scissors to the left. The area in front of them kept clear for the packages they were wrapping at the time.

  Naomi sat on the floor, tucked her shapely slender legs beneath, bobbed her head in approval at the setup. “I can see how this makes the process easier.”

  “Streamlined. Clears the confusion.”

  “I am getting muddled,” she said. “With everything I have on my to-do list stacking up like cord wood.”

  “I wasn’t judging the way you do things.” He folded a crisp edge on the paper. “Just offering a suggestion.”

  “I get that.” She treaded a watery smile. “I’m ticked that I didn’t already think of it.”

  “Don’t be so hard on Naomi,” he said. “She’s a good person, and she has a lot on her plate.”

  She was watching him, and their eyes met. They sure liked each other. And that was unsettling, because this couldn’t go anywhere. Wouldn’t go anywhere once she knew the truth.

  “No more than any other single mom.” She pressed her lips together, gave a quick shake of her head. “And I have more help than most.”

  “If you have more help it’s because you have more friends, and you have more friends because you are a good friend. I’ve been watching you with people. They light up when they’re around you.” I light up when I’m around you.

  “Ah.” She laughed. “That’s sweet . . . and maybe slightly creepy.”

  Ah crap, he’d stuck his foot in that one. “You’re infinitely watchable, butterfly.”

  Her cheeks pinked again. “These packages aren’t going to wrap themselves . . .”

  Message received. Shut up and work. Fair enough.

  “Hand me that purple sweater,” he said, and got down to business.

  After a few minutes of oddly comfortable silence, she said, “Tell me about your family.”

  “Nothing to tell.”

  She looked confused, glancing at him with those big blue eyes. One hand went up to smooth away an errant strand of hair that had fallen across her forehead. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t have a family.”

  Twin emotions flickered in her eyes, alarm and pity. “No one?” Her voice was a breathless whisper, as if the idea totally shocked her.

  “Nope. Pass me the tape, will you?” He wanted to tell her everything, share the details of his childhood traumas. But he knew better. Telling her his darkest secrets, his deepest fears would only bind him more tightly to his growing feelings for her. He shouldn’t let himself fall for her.

  She pushed the tape toward him. But did not resume wrapping the package in front of her. It was pink cashmere pajamas.

  “Those pajamas have me confused,” he said.

  “How so?” She crinkled her adorable little nose with her grin.

  They were getting too close. He needed to get away. From her smile, from her perky scent, from the way he longed to run his thumb along her bottom lip before he kissed it.

  But he didn’t run as every nerve in his body was urging him to do. Instead, he answered her question. “Doesn’t cashmere have to be dry cleaned? Who wears pajamas that have to be dry cleaned?”

  “The pajamas are hand washable with gentle liquid detergent,” she explained with a soft laugh.

  “Sounds like a pain in the as—er, backside,” he said, remembering she was a pastor’s daughter.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. Women don’t mind washing out their delicates.”

  “Learn something new every day,” he murmured.

  “Back to your family—”

  “Don’t have one.”

  “No siblings?”

  “Not that I know of.” She was a persistent little thing.

  “No grandmothers?”

  “Both dead before I was born.”

  Naomi hissed in a breath. “That’s way sad.”

  He shrugged. “Such is life.”

  “Both my grandmothers are still alive. Grammie Luther lives in Santa Fe and Mawmaw Parker lives just down the road in Jubilee.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  “I know. Grandfathers?”

  “Dead.”

  “Aunts? Uncles?”

  “Dead, dead, dead, dead.”

  She cringed with each “dead,” batting her eyes as if it could protect her from his personal shrapnel. “Your parents are both dead too?”

  “My dad’s dead.”

  “How?”

  Shepherd didn’t want to get into it. “Hard living.”

  “Addiction?” she guessed.

  “Something like that.” He taped up the package, tied it up with a silver ribbon. Added it to the pile. Did not meet those gorgeous blue eyes.

  “Nice job.” She admired his handiwork. “Precision.”

  “Comes from making beds with military corners.”

  “What about your mom?” Naomi asked, her smile softening, her eyes inviting him to spill his guts.

  He let out a long breath. “It really doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me,” she said.

  He finally met her gaze full-on. Added a challenging stare. “Why?”

  “Because how can I understand you if I don’t know where you come from?”

  “The past is the past. It’s over.”

  “But it lingers. It affects us all.” Pain crept into her voice and her eyes grew shiny. Was she thinking about Clayton and Samantha?

  “Only if we let it.” He put steel into his voice. Not for her sake, but for his. He could feel himself falling under her spell—it was that moment on the town square when he’d fallen and she’d ended up straddling him when she’d seemed just as bewitched by him as he was by her.

  “Spoken like a man who’s sweeping it all under the rug,” she challenged.

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing at first. You take the hit. But instead of dealing with the emotional fallout, you just pick up the corner of the rug. Brush the dirt underneath it. No one else can see it and the room looks tidy, right?”

  He watched her long, slender fingers fuss with the wrapping paper, but he didn’t answer. It seemed to be a rhetorical question.

  “Then you take another hit from life, and you get out your broom again, and sweep, sweep, sweep.” She gestured, pantomimed sweeping under a rug. “And then that little pile of dirt gets a little bigger. Then life hits you again. Instead of flipping back that rug and doing some spring cleaning, you slip in more dirt. But the pile is getting thicker and now when other people walk over the rug they can feel the lump.”

  “Where is this analogy going?” Shepherd narrowed his eyes, studied the soft glint of the light off her clean, shiny hair.

  She dropped the wrapping paper she was mangling, reached over to grasp his wrist with both hands. Her palms were warm and damp. “If you don’t deal with the emotional fallout, that dirt pile underneath the rug gets bigger and bigger. Until one day, someone trips over it. Falls and breaks their neck and then where will you be?”

  “Calling an ambulance,” he mused.

  “Exactly!” She clapped both hands as if dusting chalk off them.

  “Um . . . okay.” She amused him. Here she was lecturing him on sweeping emotions under the rug. The same woman who so desperately wanted to paint a happy face on Christmas that she pushed away any darker emotions. Was she projecting her fears onto him? Was the lecture really for her?

  Gunny, you’ve been in too many therapy sessions. Dr. Fox would be so proud of his insight. “So, stop sweeping dirt under the rug. Problem solved.”

  “All right.”

  She waited, eyes locked on his. A second passed. Then two. Three. Ten. A whole minute. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “What happened to your mother?”

  She wanted to know? Fine. He’d tell her. “She’s in prison.”

  Naomi absorbed that news, bit down on her bottom lip. Her eyes growing wider, lashes blinking rapidly.

  He studied her. What was she thinking? Di
d knowing that Virginia Shepherd was a hardened criminal change the way she thought of him?

  “For a crime that she didn’t commit?” Naomi ventured.

  “No.” Shepherd bobbed his head. “She committed them.”

  “Oh.” She had a look in her eye that said she maybe wished she hadn’t opened this can of worms. He’d tried to tell her. “What did she do?”

  “Swindled elderly people out of their life’s savings. Mail fraud. Identity theft. Among other things.”

  “Did she have a substance abuse problem?”

  “She did, as did my father. They were quite a team. Grifters.”

  “Grifters?”

  Naomi was so innocent she didn’t even know what that word meant. It occurred to him that he shouldn’t be here. Contaminating this fine, upstanding young woman with sordid tales of his no-good family. He should just pick up his things from the rectory and go. Why didn’t he?

  Why? The key in his pocket. His guilt over Clayton. The desire not to ruin her Christmas. Truth? He was hooked. Deceiving himself into thinking her cheery happiness could rub off on him if he hung around her enough.

  “Professional con men,” he explained.

  “I see.”

  No, she didn’t. She couldn’t see less if she were legally blind. At night. Far off in the country. If she really wanted to understand him, she needed to hear it all.

  “When I was five, they went off on a grift and left me alone.”

  “By yourself?” She sounded shocked.

  “That’s the general definition of alone.”

  “At five?”

  “They left me with some food and the TV as a babysitter. In their defense, they thought they’d only be gone for a few hours. They had no idea they were buying tainted smack with the money they’d gotten from their grift.”

  “Smack?” Her eyes were saucers now. He didn’t know if they could get any bigger. “You mean heroin?”

  “Yep.” The word popped out, weirdly peppy for the topic.

  “Dear heavens.” Her eyes misted.

  “They ended up almost dying. They were both in comas for several days—”

  “And you were all alone in the house.”

  “It was an apartment, but yes.”

  “Dear Lord.” Naomi pressed a hand to her heart as if to keep it from jumping from her chest. “You could have died.”