Free Christmas Confidential by Marilyn Pappano; Linda Conrad Page A

his Christmas wish list, but changing the past was impossible, even for the big guy with the elves.
    “So how do we talk if I can’t ask questions?”
    Her eyes narrowed, fine lines wrinkling her forehead. “We don’t have to talk. We could just be quiet and enjoy the scenery.”
    “What scenery? It’s gray, dreary, the snow is turning to slush, my car’s getting dirty and we’re following a bunch of other dirty cars.”
    “We’re not sitting on the side of the road waiting for state troopers and wreckers while you whine over the damage to your precious car.”
    “Yeah. Good point.” He tried to be quiet. He really did. But that just wasn’t in him either. Not even six minutes had passed, according to his watch, before he asked, “Are you going to North Carolina after we get to Atlanta?”
    She finally took a bite of the candy bar she’d torn open earlier, more to delay responding than from hunger, he’d bet. After swallowing that, she rested the stuffed bear on her feet, then shrugged out of her coat and tossed it into the backseat, picked up the bear again and—finally—answered with a question of her own. “It’s not the keep-having-babies-until-you-get-boys thing that’s keeping you single, is it? You just talk until women run away screaming, desperate for some quiet.”
    “I can make women scream. But trust me, Miriam—” he smiled smugly “—it’s got nothing to do with talking.”
    * * *
    I’m not a screamer.
    Miri kept the retort inside—knowing Dean, he’d take it as a challenge and, knowing herself, he’d prove her wrong—and, with exaggerated patience, answered one more of his questions. “No, I’m not going to North Carolina.” Yet. “Where I am going has nothing to do with the money.” Liar. “What I am planning to do at this moment is take a nap. Is that allowed?”
    His expression was petulant—put-on, she suspected, like a lot of his arrogance. Not to say that he didn’t come by his smugness naturally. Just that he was overdoing it. She couldn’t help but wonder why.
    “How can you need a nap? You slept like a baby last night.”
    “How can you know that? You slept like a rock.”
    His gaze flashed to her, pleasure making his baby blues sparkle. “You watched me sleep?”
    Not “watched.” She just happened to have been lying on her right side when she woke up, and he just happened to be in her line of sight, and the bathroom light he’d left on just happened to cast its dim glow on him.
    And not for long. Only long enough to want...
    She was a grown, healthy woman who’d spent all but one of the past 433 days locked up with other women. She’d had sex. She’d liked it. It was only natural to want to have it again, though not necessarily with Dean. It was simply that he was the only man around, except for those two jerks at the bus station, and she most certainly didn’t want to have sex with two jerk strangers.
    Did that mean Dean wasn’t a jerk? Or merely that he wasn’t a stranger?
    She held up Boo and gestured toward the side window. “Can I take a nap?”
    His reply was grudgingly given. “Yeah.” Then he tossed the black cap from the dash to her. “You might want to put this between it and the window so the condensation doesn’t get it wet.”
    How sad was her life that his minor consideration for Boo touched her somewhere inside?
    She tugged the cap over Boo’s head, completely covering his face, then rested the bear against the window and her head against the bear. The cap smelled of shampoo and... Surreptitiously she breathed deeper, but there was nothing else to smell.
    Oh, she was even sadder than she’d thought, disappointed that a recently purchased hat Dean had worn for maybe thirty whole minutes didn’t retain some scent of him.
    “What’s that thing stuffed with? I can hear it all the way over here.”
    She closed her eyes and pretended to relax. “A lot of toy animals have stuffing that crinkles so the child can make noise with it.