Mischief Under The Mistletoe Read online

  Marlie punched the pillow again and sighed in frustration. How had this happened? Because she was stupid, that’s how. She should have questioned Ben more closely, seeing as he and Max Quenton were old buddies, but she had foolishly assumed Max was close to Ben’s age. She’d already been waiting for months to get a tenant and now this happened. And, of course, there was the fact that she really needed the money. She would have to refund the thirteen hundred dollars he had already paid her for the first and last months’ rent and a deposit. Damn! That was another problem. There was no way she could afford to give back a thousand dollars come January and forego January’s rent as well. She’d already paid off the last bit on her credit card with that money and there was no getting it back.

  Groaning, she made her way to the bathroom and took some Ibuprofen out of the medicine cabinet. She could feel a giant headache coming on because due to her mental calculations, she actually couldn’t afford to evict her tenants until at least next June. Gritting her teeth, she headed for the kitchen to grab something to eat before they finished moving their stuff in. She didn’t want to run into them again tonight if she could help it.

  As Marlie burst into the kitchen with every intention of raiding the fridge for leftover spaghetti, she was startled to see Andi standing there with that stupid elf in her hands. Her heart sank at the wonder and delight in the child’s eyes making her feel like the Grinch whose heart was two sizes too small.

  “Is this your elf on the shelf?”

  Andi held up the dreaded doll and Marlie wished she could swear on a stack of Bibles that it wasn’t. “Yeah, my niece brought him over for me, so I couldn’t turn him down.” She stepped past Andi to the fridge and opened the door.

  The little girl’s curiosity apparently knew no bounds, much to Marlie’s chagrin. “Have you named him yet?”

  Max was on the tip of her tongue, but she stubbornly refused to give voice to it. If she did, it might make it real somehow and she didn’t want to celebrate Christmas when all she felt was sadness for the loss of her baby.

  “Nope.” She carried the spaghetti to the microwave and put the glass bowl inside.

  “You must be so excited,” chattered Andi. “It’s special for Santa to assign an elf to your house.”

  “Santa didn’t assign him, it was a gift,” replied Marlie stiffly.

  “My daddy says Santa is in charge of all of Christmas, so that must include the elves,” insisted Andi, her bright eyes serious. “And Santa must have wanted you to have him or your niece wouldn’t have given him to you.”

  Marlie thought that was a stretch but she didn’t want to contradict the child’s father in front of her. She shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe so.” She took a bowl out of the cabinet over the microwave, the scent of heating spaghetti filling the air.

  “That smells yummy.”

  The wistful note in Andi’s voice pulled Marlie’s eyes toward the child and realized that only her good manners was keeping her from asking for some. At least she had manners. Kudos to her father, or mother, as the case might prove.

  “Would you like some?” she offered politely, a small smile curving her lips upward when Andi nodded eagerly.

  “Yes, thank you.” She sat primly at the table, the elf still clutched in one hand.

  Marlie sat a small bowl of warm spaghetti with a fork in front of Andi and then hesitated. She really wanted to run away and hide but that would be bad manners on her part. Reluctantly, she sat down across the table from her guest and sprinkled parmesan cheese all over her food before handing it across the table. “Would you like some parmesan cheese?”

  Andi wrinkled her nose. “No, thank you. Daddy likes it but I don’t. He says Mommy never liked it either and I’m just like her.”

  A wistful shadow crossed the child’s face and Marlie wondered where Mommy was. She wracked her brain trying to remember anything else Ben had said about Max Quenton. She knew he was alone with a kid but she had thought the girl was a teen and she didn’t know if he was divorced or widowed. It hadn’t seemed all that important at the time. Tentatively she explored the subject a bit. “Do you get to see your mommy much?”

  “Oh no, she died when I was only three.” Her face fell. “I wish I could remember her, but I don’t. It would be nice to have a mommy though. All the other kids have mommies and sometimes I just wish I had one too.”

  The quiet observation put another crack in Marlie’s already broken heart. Here she was a mother without her child and Andi was a child without her mother.

  Santa really was a bastard this year.

  “Do you have a Mommy?” asked Andi curiously.

  Marlie swallowed her mouthful of meatball and nodded. “Yes, I do. But she and my father live in Cheyenne. This used to be my grandfather’s house and he left it to me when he passed away a couple of years ago.” That was another heartache for Marlie but at least it hadn’t happened at Christmas time. This was where she had come to hide after she’d lost her baby and to weather the subsequent divorce. She was still hiding in sleepy little Buckeye. Hiding from the rest of the world. She felt safe here.

  Andi’s beautiful eyes lit up and her small mouth puckered into an O of surprise. “Wow! He gave you a whole house? That’s superlicious!”

  Marlie chuckled, she couldn’t help it. This mercurial child was delightful and she could get used to having her around very easily. She was sort of like lotion on cracked skin—it hurt at first but then it healed.

  “Yeah, I guess it is superlicious.”

  They smiled at each other and Marlie was about to ask Andi if she wanted more when the door behind her opened.

  “Something sure smells good in here. No wonder you took so long, pumpkin. You’re mooching off our landlady already and eating without me,” he teased. He sat down in the chair beside Andi and placed his long arm on the back of the chair in a protective gesture. He smiled lazily at Marlie.

  The room felt small suddenly and the air compressed around her as Marlie stood up to take her bowl to the sink and rinse it. “There’s more spaghetti if you want some,” she offered, feeling the blush stealing into her cheeks.

  “She makes good spaghetti, Daddy.” Andi held up her bowl. “I ate it all. See?”

  “I see that. You must have been hungry.” He tweaked her nose then turned to Marlie. “You don’t have to cook for us,” he assured her. “In fact, I ordered some pizza and offered the boys some for helping me get our things upstairs. You’re welcome to join us if you like. It should be here anytime.”

  “Thank you, but I just ate,” replied Marlie warily, pointing to her bowl. The last thing she needed was to be enclosed in the apartment upstairs with three men. Especially this man who seemed to take up all the space in any room he was in. She shuddered at the thought.

  “Look, Daddy. Marlie has an elf on the shelf but she hasn’t named him yet. Do you think Santa will give us an elf this year?” Her tiny fingers smoothed the brown corduroy fabric on the elves pants and straightened the red bow tie beneath his painted smile. “I’ve never had one before.”

  “I didn’t know you wanted one,” replied Max seriously.

  Andi hugged the ridiculous doll to her breast and Marlie tried not to look as grinchy as she felt when his gaze slid to hers as she picked up Andi’s bowl. She looked quickly away and went to the sink to rinse it.

  “Oh, I do! I do! And I can’t wait to name him or her. You know it can be a girl or a boy, right?” She stared earnestly up at him.

  “Well, if you want one, then I’m sure Santa will bring you one,” he promised with a grin. “What kind do you want? A girl or a boy?”

  “Whatever Santa wants me to have.” She turned to Marlie eagerly. “You really have to name him soon, you know. He needs a name so Santa can call him back to the north pole with his report.”

  “Well, I guess Santa will just have to wait” replied Marlie airily, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice for Andi’s sake. Max was never reporting to the north pole if she c
ould help it. She smacked herself mentally when she realized she’d used his name, even if was only in her mind.

  Max the man stood up suddenly, causing her to start as she wiped her hands on the dishtowel and warily take a step back.

  “Okay, pumpkin, set the elf down and I want you to go upstairs and start unpacking the boxes in your room. I need to talk to Marlie and give her my new phone number and get a few things straightened out. Can you do that for me?” He escorted her to the door and opened it, pointing her toward the stairs. “And don’t run, okay?”

  ‘Okay, Daddy,” she replied cheerfully.

  He watched her up the stairs and then swung the door back against the wall before turning to Marlie. “I hope you don’t mind if I leave this open so I can listen for her? I knew you were with her before because I could hear your voices through the door, but now she’s alone upstairs.”

  “Sure, no problem,” replied Marlie. “She’s a great kid.”

  “Yes, she is, but it’s hard to have a conversation around her because she’s so inquisitive. I guess with it just being me and her, I’ve tended to treat her like a grown up.”

  He walked over to her and Marlie instinctively folded her arms protectively against her stomach.

  “Ben said you might know someone who could help me with babysitting? I’m going to need someone to watch her when I have to work and she’s not in school.”

  She nodded. “Sure. I know a few people who would probably be willing as long as it wasn’t all the time. Mrs. Allred next door has grandkids around her age and I know she watches them once a while. Sometimes she has a houseful and she loves kids, so you might check with her. There’s a list of state registered babysitters at the division of health in Fort Collins where I work. I think there is one listed for Buckeye area but I don’t remember the name.”

  “You drive all the way into Fort Collins to work? That’s thirty-five miles one way.”

  Her chin shot up at the censure in his voice. “I like my job and it pays good. I can’t find anything here in Buckeye that pays nearly that well. So yes, I drive the extra miles. And I’ll even pick up a list for you.” She stepped around him and put the table between them. He was just too close for her comfort. She watched his eyes narrow at her movement and she knew he was aware of why she moved.

  Too bad!

  She gripped the back of the chair until her knuckles turned white and she tried to sound normal when she spoke again. “The laundry room is through that door on the right.” She waved her hand toward the door to the right of the microwave. “And my living room door is on the other side.” She waved at the door now directly behind him. “I keep it locked most of the time unless I have company. No wild parties allowed, there is no curfew, and you buy your own groceries and clean up after yourself.”

  His face softened and his next words caught her off guard. “Are you alright? You look a little pale.” He moved closer to the table, his eyes searching her face and then up and down her trembling figure.

  “I’m fine,” she snapped curtly. It threw her off balance that he should actually notice how she might be feeling. Tristan had only worried about himself.

  His eyebrow shot up. “Okay, so, can we sit down for a few minutes? I’d like to ask you some questions.” He pulled the chair out and eased his long frame into it.

  She nodded briefly and seated herself across from him, her fingers picking at the legs of the elf doll that Andi had left sitting on the table. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, Ben gave me the impression that Pete and Marlie were an older couple and that Pete had passed away a few years back. Did I get something wrong?”

  “My grandmother’s name was Marlie too,” she explained. “I was named after her and she passed away a few years before my grandfather. She could see the information ticking over his mind. “I have to say, I thought you were older too,” she added. “Ben said you were taking the job they’ve had open for a few months now and that you had a kid. I just assumed you had to be older since you got the job. I guess we were both wrong.”

  He leaned back in his chair and raked his hand through his thick hair. “It really doesn’t matter to me. I’m just happy to be in a place before Christmas. I wanted to get Andi settled in and eased into her new school.”

  Marlie nodded, her lips tight. “Well, you certainly weren’t what I was expecting and I have to admit I’m not very happy about it. But since I can’t afford to evict you until June, I guess I’m stuck with you for a while.”

  He winced. “Ow, that hurt. Was it something I said?”

  “Of course not. Like I said, I was expecting an older man and I don’t like surprises. You better give me your correct cell number in case I need to reach you. I don’t expect we’ll be seeing much of each other with the schedules we’ll be keeping.” And especially not if I can help it, she thought to herself. “Oh, and don’t leave laundry in the dryer, I hate that.”

  His eyes twinkled with sudden mischief. “I suppose you can always whisper in your elf’s ear to have Santa bring me another place to rent that’s out of your hair,” he teased.

  Marlie hated her gut clenching reaction to his smile. She didn’t want to be affected, didn’t want to like the man, didn’t want him here at all. He was going to interrupt her peace of mind, she just knew it. “I wouldn’t ask that rat bastard for anything,” she spat through clenched teeth. “And especially not through some dumb nameless doll.” She slapped the elf over and it fell on its back, its arms and legs sprawled out, but the stupid grin remained intact.

  The air instantly changed and Max’s smile vanished. His long arms folded together on the table as he leaned toward her, his demeanor threatening. “It sounds to me like you need to be on Santa's naughty list with that kind of language. And a good old fashioned over the knee spanking for the consequences.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  HIS PRONOUNCEMENT CAUGHT Marlie completely off guard and the queer sensation that shot through her entire body left her stunned. For the moment she was speechless as she processed the feelings rushing through her and tried to coalesce them all into something simple.

  “And I better never hear you talk like that in front of my daughter or disillusion her about Christmas. If you do, I’ll be Santa’s helper and put you over my knee.” He picked up the doll she had slapped down and sat him upright, his eyes hard and gleaming. “And I’m not a doll you can slap down.”

  “You... you can’t come into my house and threaten me with bodily harm,” Marlie finally sputtered indignantly. She stood up, her slender frame shaking, “Maybe I’ll have you evicted after all and not wait until June!”

  He stood up too and Marlie was keenly aware of the lean muscled body in the black, form fitting, long sleeved under armor shirt, the big male hands resting easily on his hips, and the long thighs that seemed to go on forever. Seeing herself face down over those hard thighs and that sculpted right arm poised in the air with the flat of his large palm ready to spank her backside strangled her breathing. As he came around the table to stand before her, she couldn’t move. His gaze locked with hers and like prey to the predator, she was helplessly rooted to the spot.

  “If you were mine, you would never come to bodily harm if I could help it. But your attitude and language would certainly earn you a trip over my knee for a well-deserved spanking.”

  His voice was a silky growl that left goosebumps in its wake and Marlie shivered. She couldn’t even move when his long fingers tipped her chin up and those demanding eyes devoured her face.

  “It’s obvious that something or someone has hurt you deeply, Marlie Grayson, and I’m sorry for that. But I’ll still spank that pretty rear of yours if you hurt my daughter.”

  The knock on the outer door made her jump and Marlie let out the breath she had been holding as Max turned away and went to get his pizza delivery.

  Just before he closed the kitchen door he leaned back and smiled that quirky crooked smile. “Evict me if you must, but just know that
I like it here and I have a contract. Getting rid of me won’t be easy.”

  Marlie grabbed the elf off the table and drew her hand back to throw it at the closing door but Misha's face intruded into her thoughts and she couldn’t do it. As she stared into the stupid face it didn’t seem so odious anymore. She sat in the chair and stared at it, mulling over the chaotic feelings whirling through her. “Okay, fine, you’re Max,” she announced to the cherubic face and painted blue eyes. “I don’t like you, Max.” She flipped Max with her thumb and forefinger, making him fall backwards. She sat him up again. “In fact, I hate you.” She slapped him this time and the doll fell backwards again, arms and legs sprawled crookedly on the table. Her thoughts flew to the man who had left but she addressed the doll. “Maybe I can’t get rid of big Max, but I can certainly punch you.” She poked her finger into the soft body and then brought her fist down on the stomach, making the arms and legs flop. “Take that, you smiling bastard.” Finally feeling somewhat vindicated, she got up and left the kitchen on still shaky knees.

  BEHIND THE DOOR, MAX stood with the pizza boxes in his hands and a huge grin on his face. He’d heard every word Marlie had spoken to the elf and it tickled him that she had endowed the doll with his name. A deliciously wicked idea began to take form in his mind as he made his way upstairs.

  He wasn’t sure where that threat about spanking had come from but it just seemed to fit the situation. He’d never spanked Leslie, although he’d thought about it a few times, or Andi either. But something about Marlie just brought that out in him. At least the haunted sad look had left her eyes during their encounter. She’d certainly been shocked and angry at his threat, but there was something more there—could it be curiosity? Well, he was curious too. She had the most delicious backside and he’d love to have it perched over his knee to explore.