on Ben. She was average in height, in her forties, had short, rough-cut dark hair, wore little makeup and was blessed with good bone structure. The strong, caring woman inside showed through in her dark eyes and her warm smile, making her attractive.
“Ben,” she said, offering her free hand. “How are you? Corie tells me Jack got married and you and she stood up for him and his bride when you took her back with you for Thanksgiving.”
“He did.” Ben smiled at the memory of that morning while Roberto chewed on the collar of his shirt. “He was so happy that Corie was there. I don’t know if anyone else will ever understand how he’s longed to put his family back together.”
Teresa nodded. “I think I do. I deal with broken families on a daily basis. Would you like to come inside? You look angry under that smile and that worries me. Your being here has to have something to do with Corie.”
“Thank you. It does. Do you know where she is?” He didn’t want to bring up what he thought Corie had done. He was pretty sure Teresa didn’t know Corie had stolen Delia Tyree’s jewelry in the first place, much less sabotaged the return of the jewelry he and Jack had orchestrated. “Her truck isn’t at the restaurant or her home.”
“She went to get a tree,” Teresa said.
“A tree?”
“A Christmas tree.”
He frowned. “It’s still November.”
“It’s November 28 and this is a house filled with children. They’ve talked of nothing but Christmas since Halloween.” She laughed at his confusion then turned her head toward the back of the house and the sound of an engine. “There she is now, Ben. What did you want to see her about?”
“I just want to talk to her.” He followed Teresa through the house to the kitchen and the back door.
She stopped there and smiled inquisitively as she reclaimed the toddler. “Something that couldn’t be done by phone? Or email?”
The real answer to that was complicated, so he took the simple approach. “Yes,” he said.
“Okay. Well, if we can clear a path through the children, and you help us unload the tree, we’ll find a quiet place for you to talk.”
Every child who’d been playing in the front yard was now part of a shouting, excited crowd gathered at the back of Corie’s truck. From where Ben stood, it looked as though Jack’s sister had brought back a sequoia. Part of the tree stuck out past the lowered tailgate, a red flag attached, and the main body, branches swept upward, spilled over the sides. The children squealed in excitement.
Wondering how Corie intended to get the giant thing out, he started around Teresa to lend a hand. The tree had been loaded top-first onto a tarp, he noticed, so that its weight would be coming right at her. Corie made a broad gesture with both arms and shouted orders he couldn’t hear over the din of the children’s voices. They all backed out of the way.
She pushed up the long sleeves of her plain blue T-shirt and stood still for a moment, studying the tree. It occurred to him later that he should have acted then, but he was momentarily paralyzed by the sight of her small, shapely body and what seemed like a foot and a half of glossy black hair shifting sinuously, seductively, over her shoulder, thin bangs above a dark, thoughtful stare. Then she firmed her expressive mouth and reached for the tree.
She pulled hard and the tree slid toward her. As he hurried forward, hoping he wasn’t going to have to explain to Jack why he’d allowed his long-lost little sister to be crushed by a Christmas tree, he saw that Corie was using the tarp to move the tree. He gave her points for smarts, but strode toward her as she leaned it against the tailgate, suspecting she was still in danger. Was she really going to try to lift it?
Of course, she was. She leaned into the tree, wrapped her arms around it about a third of the way up from the bottom and pulled.
He shouted her name and picked up his pace.
As she tried to hold the tree upright, presumably so the children could see it better, she turned toward the sound of his voice. Both her arms were lost in the tree, which was much more than twice her height. Her eyes and mouth widened in complete surprise when she saw him.
She lost control of the tree.
* * *
AT THE SOUND of that male voice, Corie Ochoa’s hard-to-muster Christmas spirit seized and cramped. Ben Palmer? It couldn’t be.
In complete disbelief, she saw him coming toward her, picking up speed, six feet and a couple of inches of darkly gorgeous but self-righteous, self-satisfied male who disliked and distrusted her. What was he doing here? He...
And then she remembered she was holding a tree. A big one. She felt the weight of it push against her as that momentary distraction caused her to lose her grip. The weight of the tipping tree drove her backward and she struggled futilely to disentangle her arms.
She heard the children screaming as she and the tree went down. Just before she hit the grass, a steely grip on her arm yanked her sideways, pulling her body away from the trunk and probably her arm out of its socket. A branch thwacked her in the face.
Dislocated arm beats crushed sternum, she thought as she landed on her back on the lawn, buried beneath twelve feet of Leyland Spruce. And something else. Curiously the branches weren’t crushing her as much as she’d expected. Then she realized she was not alone in her bowery tomb. Ben Palmer was lying on top of her.
“Great,” she said, pushing on him. “You’re just what I need right now. Who sent you? The Grinch? The Ghost of Christmas Past?”
He didn’t reply.
She pushed again but the tree was heavy and so was he. “Ben! Would you please move?” she demanded. She wasn’t sure how he’d accomplish that, but she was sure he was as uncomfortable being body to body with her as she was with him.
He groaned.
“Ben?” she asked worriedly, then said his name louder when his reply was another groan. “Are you hurt?”
“Corie?” Teresa lay on her stomach, looking at Corie through the lacy pattern of needles and branches. “Are you all right? You got smacked by a branch and I think the trunk might have hit Ben hard.”
“I’m okay. I just can’t move,” Corie replied. “Call 9-1-1.”
“No.” The single word came firmly if a little quietly from Ben, followed by a small gasp of pain. “No. Just...give me a minute.”
Relieved to hear his voice, though the words he spoke usually annoyed her, she said, “I don’t have a minute, Ben. You weigh a ton. I think my stomach is coming out my ears.”
“I believe that’s physically impossible. But there seems to be a lot coming out of your mouth.”
There. Annoying. “Hey!” she complained.
“Relax. Maybe we can roll out of here.” He sighed and wrapped his arms around her. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Apart from the fact that I have twelve feet of tree on me and six feet of hateful man?”
