Mistletoe and Holly Read Online Free PDF Page A

mollified by her reply. “Next time—” he began on a warning note.
    “—I won’t forget to wear them. I promise,” Holly inserted quickly and turned the doorknob. As she pulled it open, she looked across her shoulder at Leslie, smiling and waving. “Bye, Leslie!”
    “Bye,” Leslie responded, but Holly was already pushing open the storm door.
    Tagg paused by the door, his hand holding itopen. A fine thread of tension seemed to run through the room, tying them together. Her heartbeat seemed louder, but it might have been just the sudden silence. She was fascinated by the polar blue color of his eyes, but their look was anything but cold. There was a latent sexuality about him that Leslie hadn’t noticed before. It was no wonder that his daughter had observed that women fell in love with him. It would be so easy. Mentally she pulled back from the thought. It seemed to break the spell that had held them both silent.
    “I hope Holly wasn’t too much trouble,” he said.
    “She wasn’t.” The words, the subject matter seemed all wrong. It was an empty communication, a poor substitute for another that neither of them were prepared to make.
    “She’ll probably be back over another time to visit,” Tagg inserted, almost as an amused warning. “If you’re busy, just send her on home.”
    “Okay.”
    “Take care of that leg.” It was said in parting, along with a quick, disturbing smile. Then the two doors were shutting behind him. Leslie had a glimpse of him through the window as he made a skimming descent of the back steps and cut across the driveway to catch up with his daughter.
    The house seemed quieter and emptier. Leslie reached for the deck of cards and idly began shuffling them to play another game of solitaire.
    After lunch on Friday, Leslie volunteered to do the dishes. When the last pan was rinsed and stacked in the dishdrainer to dry, she pulled the sink stopper and washed the suds down the drain. Hopping on one leg and using the crutches for balance, she tugged the terry towel from its wall rack and wiped the moisture from her hands. Her aunt was bending down to search through one of the bottom cupboards.
    “What are you doing?” Leslie asked with a half-smile as her aunt nearly crawled inside the cupboard in her search.
    “I’m trying to find my roaster pan.” Her voice came hollowly from the inside of the cupboard. “I thought I’d fix a pork roast for dinner tonight. Ahh, here it is.”
    There was a noisy rattle of pans before she backed out of the cupboard with a mottled gray roaster pan and lid in hand. Patsy Evans pushed to her feet and set the pan on the counter-top.
    “At the rate I’ve been eating since I came here, I’ll need to go on a diet before I leave.” UsuallyLeslie was too busy at work to eat three full meals a day.
    “We’ll diet together when the time comes,” her aunt declared with a twinkling look. “It’s such a pleasure to cook for two people and not be faced with a refrigerator full of leftovers.”
    “There aren’t many recipes to fix a dish for just one person,” Leslie agreed. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
    She barely got the question out when someone knocked at the side door. “Yes.” Her aunt changed the negative response she had been about to make. “You can answer that.”
    After being on crutches for two weeks, Leslie was becoming adept at ambulating with them. She moved with relative swiftness to the door, balanced her weight on one crutch, and opened the door with her free hand. She was startled and a little unnerved to find Tagg Williams standing at the threshold, holding the storm door open with his shoulder.
    “Hi.” His glittering gaze made its usual run down her length before coming back to hold her glance.
    “Hello.” Leslie was instantly conscious of the baggy pair of gray slacks she had borrowed from her aunt. None of hers would fit over the plaster cast.They were hardly flattering to her slim figure. The same was true