Christmas Wishes: Christmas Letters / Rainy Day Kisses. Debbie Macomber

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СКАЧАТЬ attracted to Wynn, she told herself. How could she be? The man who believed children should set their own rules? The man who wanted to eliminate Santa Claus? But she was beginning to understand what was going on here. For weeks she’d been stuck inside her condo, venturing outside only to meet Christmas-letter clients. If she wasn’t transcribing medical records, she was filling out job applications. With such a lack of human contact, it was only natural that she’d be swept along on the tide of romance LaVonne had so expertly arranged for her.

      “Wynn told me you were seeing him again this evening,” LaVonne said eagerly.

      “I am?” K.O. vaguely remembered that. “Oh, right, I am.” Her mind cleared and her memory fell into place like an elevator suddenly dropping thirteen floors. “Yes, as it happens,” she said, trying to think of a way out of this. “I invited Wynn to accompany me to the Figgy Pudding event at West Lake Plaza.” She’d invited him. What was she thinking? What was she thinking? Mentally she slapped her hand against her forehead. Before this afternoon, she had to find an excuse to cancel.

      “He’s very sweet, isn’t he?” LaVonne said.

      “He is.” K.O. didn’t want to acknowledge it but he was. He’d done it on purpose; she just didn’t know why. What was his purpose in breaking down her defenses?

      She needed to think. She pulled her feet up onto the bed and wrapped one arm around her knees. He had been sweet and alarmingly wonderful. Oh, he was clever. But what was behind all that charm? Nothing good, she’d bet.

      “I have more to tell you,” LaVonne said, lowering her voice to a mere whisper. “It happened again this morning.” She paused. “I was feeding the boys.”

      K.O. had half a mind to stop her friend, but for some perverse reason she didn’t.

      “And then,” LaVonne added, her voice gaining volume, “when I poured the dry cat food into their bowls, some of it spilled on the floor.”

      “You got a reading from the cat food?” K.O. supposed this shouldn’t surprise her. Since LaVonne had taken that class, everything imaginable provided her with insight—mostly, it seemed, into K.O.’s life. Her love life, which to this point had been a blank slate.

      “Would you like to know how many children you and Wynn are going to have?” LaVonne asked triumphantly.

      “Any twins?” K.O. asked, playing along. She might as well. LaVonne was determined to tell her, whether she wanted to hear or not.

      “Twins,” LaVonne repeated in dismay. “Oh, my goodness, I didn’t look that closely.”

      “That’s fine.”

      LaVonne took her seriously. “Still, twins are definitely a possibility. Sure as anything, I saw three children. Multiple births run in your family, don’t they? Because it might’ve been triplets.”

      “Triplets?” It was too hard to think about this without her morning cup of coffee. “Listen, I need to get off the phone. I’ll check in with you later,” K.O. promised.

      “Good. You’ll give me regular updates, won’t you?”

      “On the triplets?”

      “No,” LaVonne returned, laughing. “On you and Wynn. The babies come later.”

      “Okay,” she said, resigned to continuing the charade. Everything might’ve been delightful and romantic the night before, but this was a whole new day. She was beginning to figure out his agenda. She’d criticized his beliefs, especially about Christmas, and now he was determined to change hers. It was all a matter of pride. Male pride.

      She’d been vulnerable, she realized. The dinner, the wine, Chef Jerome, a carriage ride, walking in the snow. Christmas. He’d actually used Christmas to weaken her resolve. The very man who was threatening to destroy the holiday for children had practically seduced her in Seattle’s winter wonderland. What she recognized now was that in those circumstances, she would’ve experienced the same emotions with just about any man.

      As was her habit, K.O. weighed herself first thing and gasped when she saw she was up two pounds. That fabulous dinner had come at a price. Two pounds. K.O. had to keep a constant eye on her weight, unlike her sister. Zelda was naturally thin whereas K.O. wasn’t. Her only successful strategy for maintaining her weight was to weigh herself daily and then make adjustments in her diet.

      Even before she’d finished putting on her workout gear, the phone rang again. K.O. could always hope that it was a potential employer, but caller ID informed her it was her sister.

      “Merry Christmas, Zelda,” K.O. said. This was one small way to remind her that keeping Santa away from Zoe and Zara was fundamentally wrong.

      “Did you get it?” Zelda asked excitedly. “Did you get Dr. Jeffries’s autograph for me?”

      “Ah...”

      “You didn’t, did you?” Zelda’s disappointment was obvious.

      “Not exactly.”

      “Did you even talk to him?” her sister pressed.

      “Oh, yes, we did plenty of that.” She recalled their conversation, thinking he might have manipulated that, too, in order to win her over to his side. The dark side, she thought grimly. Like Narnia without Aslan, and no Christmas.

      A stunned silence followed. “Together. You and Dr. Jeffries were together?”

      “We went to dinner....”

      “You went to dinner with Dr. Wynn Jeffries?” Awe became complete disbelief.

      “Yes, at Chez Jerome.” K.O. felt like a name-dropper but she couldn’t help it. No one ate at Chez Jerome and remained silent.

      Zelda gasped. “You’re making this up and I don’t find it amusing.”

      “I’m not,” K.O. insisted. “LaVonne arranged it. Dinner was incredible. In fact, I gained two pounds.”

      A short silence ensued. “Okay, I’m sitting down and I’m listening really hard. You’d better start at the beginning.”

      “Okay,” she said. “I saw Wynn, Dr. Jeffries, in the French Café.”

      “I already know that part.”

      “I saw him again.” K.O. stopped abruptly, thinking better of telling her sister about the confrontation and calling him names. Not that referring to him as Jim Carrey and Charles Dickens was especially insulting, but still... “Anyway, it’s not important now.”

      “Why isn’t it?”

      “Well, Wynn and I agreed to put that unfortunate incident behind us and start over.”

      “Oh, my goodness, what did you do?” Zelda demanded. “What did you say to him? You didn’t embarrass him, did you?”

      K.O. bit her lip. “Do you want to hear about the dinner or not?”

      “Yes! I want to hear everything.”

      K.O. СКАЧАТЬ