On Sale for Christmas

Chapter One

I blame it on the eggnog.

Oh, the eggnog looked harmless enough. Not even a speck of adventurous nutmeg floating in my glass. Just cream, vanilla and sugar mixed with cheerfully frothy egg. All very wholesome. But if I learned anything that Christmas, it's that appearances can be deceiving…

I'd somehow downed two cups of that eggnog before realizing that it was spiked. And with the warm rush of rum humming in my veins, I ladled myself another cupful because I'd just turned twenty-one and what the hell.

Besides, alcohol was the only thing that was going to get me through yet another of my mom's Christmas Parties.

Home from college for the winter break, I'd used up all the ammo in my social arsenal to get out of going. But my mom insisted that our garish holiday party—complete with automated reindeer and a giant snowman—was tradition. Eyeing my tight jeans and ironic black tee with disapproval, she'd said, "Put on something sparkly and help put these trays of cookies in the garage to cool off. They're your favorites, so don't be such a Grinch. This is going to be fun! Besides, Ben White just got back from his tour of duty. Won't it be nice to catch up with him?"

Ugh. Ben was the boy next door. Literally, next door. All our lives we'd been foisted on one another by our matchmaking moms as if anyone couldn't tell at a glance that we had nothing in common. He was the clean-cut Boy Scout who joined the Army right out of high school, whereas I was the girl with a tramp stamp who got suspended for smoking in the back parking lot and left town right after graduation.

For both our sakes, I'd always shut him down hard whenever his mother pressured him into flirting with me. And avoiding him at the Christmas party was exactly how I ended up camped out by the bowl of rum-laced eggnog, waving blandly to my mother's friends and listening to a pregnant former classmate who was very excited to talk about something called a onesie.

Which made me want to puke.

Or maybe it was just because I needed some food to soak up the alcohol. Either way, I headed to the garage to grab that tray of cookies—which really were my favorites.

And that's when he cornered me.

"Need some help?" Ben chirped as I balanced a tray of double-chocolate chips. I froze, like a reindeer-caught-in-the-headlights, to see him leaning lazily underneath an accursed sprig of mistletoe in the doorway to the garage, blocking my way back into the kitchen.

"You're trapped." A wicked gleam lit his brown eyes, and he glanced up at the mistletoe suggestively. "Unless you want to pay the toll to get back in."

"Dude." Did his mother tell him to try this gambit? "I'd rather go out the back door, tromp through the snow, and come around front."

"Sure, play hard to get," he said, smirking, because hard to get wasn't really my reputation. "How have you been?"

"Great!" I said, because that's what you always say to people from high school you haven't seen in a few years. And besides, other than the fact that my mom could still force me to go to holiday parties, things were pretty great. I loved my drama classes and I'd gotten a few really good roles—with more auditions to come in the next semester. "I love living the city. The hustle, the bustle, the culture. There's always something to do. How about you?"

"Glad to be home," he said.

"I bet." I hoped wearing camouflage pants was as close to the excitement as Ben got. He used to fix up cars in his dad's driveway, I assumed he did something mechanical for the military. Drove trucks or repaired tanks or something like that. I didn't really want to imagine anyone shooting at him. "How long are you home for?"

"Not sure," he replied. "At least through New Year's Eve, so why don't you be my date."

I laughed, because he first made that proposal when we were fifteen at the prompting of our meddling mothers. It'd been painfully embarrassing when he'd asked, and painfully awkward when I turned him down.

After that, he kept asking every year, to make a joke of it. By now, it was as quaint a tradition, so I gave the standard reply. "Sorry. Washing my hair that night."

Ben grinned, digging his hands down into the pockets of his jeans. "Oh, c'mon. Aren't you the creative sort? You've gotta come up with something more insulting than that. Sure you wouldn't rather clean out your closet or read some really long, boring, Russian novel?"

I laughed. "Depends on the Russian novel."

"You might enjoy War and Peace. But I think you've always been more of a Crime and Punishment sort of girl…"

I laughed again. I couldn't help it. Both because I hadn't thought him capable of naming even one boring Russian novel, much less two, and it was surprisingly suggestive for a straight-arrow like Ben. "You're right—I'm definitely more of a Crime and Punishment kind of girl."

He dimpled me a smile. "So why won't you spend New Year's Eve with me?"

He wasn't actually asking, was he? To be fair, Ben was nice to look at. Under those sparkling brown eyes, the military hair cut and his white button down dress shirt, Ben was obviously well-built. But I liked my men scruffy. Rough around the edges. Sunny All-American beefcakes weren't my type. "Sorry, I'm seeing someone."

He nodded, as if he weren't surprised. "Is it serious?"

Not really. Not at all….

In the last year I'd dated the front man of a rock band who cheated on me with a groupie. Then I'd hooked up with the director of a play who refused to cast me in anything unless I slept with him. Which I had. Not to get the part, but because he was brilliant and hot. So my sex life was fine. But my love life was a disaster. "Ok, so I'm not seeing anybody seriously."

Ben grinned, leaning against the doorframe. "So if you're single, and I'm single, why can't we give it a shot?"

Adjusting the cookie tray for a better grip, I shivered a little at the nip in the air, then ticked off the reasons. "Because I've known you since we were kids. Because I'm a city slicker and you're a country boy. I ha

ve tattoos and you have a buzz cut. You're a dog person, I'm a cat person. But most of all, because you can't handle me, Soldier."

I said it with bravado and a little more flirtation than I had intended—damn that eggnog!