to hide. Even though he argued, she suspected he was giving little thought to their deal.
“I’ll drive and you can put your foot up in the car. At my folks’ house, you can keep your foot elevated all the time you’re there. We’ll all wait on you. You’ll have a good time.”
“Emma, I don’t want to go to my brothers’ homes for holidays. Why would I go to your parents’ when I don’t know anyone except you?” he asked.
“Because you just agreed to do so.”
He stared at her and she could feel a clash of wills and imagine the debate raging in his mind. “If I go home with you, won’t your whole family think there’s something serious between you and me?”
She smiled at him. “No. We all bring friends home a lot. Growing up, I’d say we often had at least one person eating with us who wasn’t a family member.”
“So how many men have you brought home?”
“None until now,” she admitted. “It still doesn’t mean anything other than you’re my boss and I would like you to meet my family.”
“Who takes her boss home to meet the family?” he asked and she was sure she blushed with embarrassment, but she wasn’t giving up. Zach needed to see some real family life.
“As long as you’re coming this weekend, you might as well come for Thanksgiving.”
“Oh, hell, Emma, that’s an extra two days.”
“You said you would and you’ll enjoy yourself and you can sit off in a room alone whenever you want and prop your foot up all you want.”
“Dammit.” He stared at her again with his jaw clamped shut and she was certain he would refuse. She felt silly for trying to get him to come. Her world-traveler billionaire boss was light-years away from her ordinary family.
“All right. If I’m going home with you for Thanksgiving, I get more than that one kiss,” he said, pulling her back into his embrace and kissing her hard while he pulled her up against him. “A lot more,” he added.
Startled, she was frozen with surprise for a few seconds and then her arms wrapped around his neck and she kissed him in return. His hand slipped down her back over her bottom, a long, slow caress, scalding even through the thick denim of her jeans.
His fingers traveled up again, slipping beneath her shirt, cupping her breast lightly, a faint touch causing streaks of pleasure. He pushed away the lacy bra, his warm fingers on her bare skin.
She moaned in delight, spreading her fingers wide and slipping her hand beneath his T-shirt to stroke his smooth, muscled back. Pleasure and need escalated swiftly.
Taking his wrist to hold his hand, she looked up. “Zach, we have to stop this for now. I can’t—”
“Yes, you can” he said, showering kisses on her temple, her cheek, her throat. Protests faded into oblivion. She kissed and caressed him until he carried her to a bedroom where they made love for the next hour.
During the night she eased off the bed and slipped away from him, gathering her clothes as she went. She returned to her room, thankful for the space and the haven where she could be alone to think. In her own room, she fell into bed, her mind on Zach. Their lovemaking was binding her heart to him with chains that would hurt to break. Zach was becoming more important, more appealing and exciting. Was she tumbling headfirst, falling in love with him? A love that would never be returned. This past weekend, Zach had just become a bigger danger to her well-being and her heart. A weekend of love, three nights of passion, now another night. How long would it take her to get over what she already felt for him?
She fell asleep to dream about Zach and awoke early the next morning. Longing to go find him, kiss him awake and love again was strong. She slipped out of bed and looked at the clock, knowing she would follow a sensible course and get ready for a workday.
They both needed to step back and get things under control again. Just thinking about Zach, she wanted to be in his arms. Surprise lingered that she had asked him to go home with her and that he had accepted.
What had seemed a good idea at first, began to look like complication after complication. She had to let her family know. She thought about the family letters she had read and how little Zach cared and decided to hold him to his acceptance. She wanted him to see a family who relished being together and made the most of their moments. Maybe he would join his brothers more on holidays and participate with his own family.
Touching her lips lightly with her fingertips, she remembered his kisses. After Christmas she would return to her job in Dallas, and Zach would disappear from her life. She would be with him less than a month more. Despite her earlier worry, she could keep from falling in love with him because they had nothing between them except physical attraction. She didn’t like his lifestyle, his attitude toward family, his disregard for all the things she loved so much. Maybe her heart was safe in spite of the attraction that was pure lust. She pulled out her phone to text her mother that company was coming. Company with an injured foot.
By Thanksgiving afternoon Zach wondered how he had gotten himself into this. Since he was twelve years old, he had been able to say no or get out of most things he didn’t want to do unless it involved his father. Even with his father, by age twenty-one, he had become adept at escaping his father’s plans for him.
He was in the center of a whirlwind. He had met four generations of Hillmans. They encompassed ages two to ninety-something. Brody, Emma’s father, had made him feel welcome, as well as her mother, Camilla.
Zach tried to keep the names straight, learning her parents and siblings quickly. Connor, the married older brother, his wife, Lynne, Sierra, Emma’s oldest sister, and Mary Kate, the youngest, both sisters married, Bobby, the younger brother. Zach mentally ran over the names of people seated around him while they ate the Thanksgiving turkey. He received curious glances from Connor and could feel Connor being the protective big brother even though they were far across the long table from each other.
The dining room table seated eighteen and other tables held more of the family with grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews gathering together today.
Until the subject came up during the Thanksgiving feast, Emma had neglected to warn him that it was family tradition to decorate for Christmas after Thanksgiving dinner, which was eaten early in the afternoon. After dinner everybody under eighty years of age changed to jeans and T-shirts or sweatshirts. Also, the decorations didn’t come out until the men had set up the Christmas trees in various rooms in the house, which they did while others cleared the tables.
Once trees and lights were up with an angel or a star at the top of each tree, the women and children took over with the decorations while the men decorated the porch.
As soon as Zach started to join the men, Emma took his arm to lightly tug him toward the living room. “You sit and elevate your foot. You can help the kids with the decorations. The little kids can’t put the hooks on the balls and that sort of thing.”
“Emma, I can do a few things outside.”
“We need you in here and you know you should stay off your foot. The more you don’t walk on it, the sooner you’ll heal,” she lectured, looking up at him with wide green eyes. His gaze lowered to her mouth and he longed to be alone with her and saw absolutely no hope until they left Dallas.
In
