Asking for Trouble by Rosalind James Read Free Book Online Page B

wear it to bed. I love
it.”
    He looked even more stone-faced, not even pleased, just gave
her a little nod. “OK, then.” And then he turned around and left the room, and
an hour later, left with Alec.
    She’d worn his shirt to bed every night for months, and
thought about him, and dreamed about him. Her first tentative sexual fantasies
had been about Joe. Vague and romantic, with kissing heavily featured, and him
telling her how crazy he was about her, how he couldn’t get her out of his
head.
    But when she’d seen him next, almost a year later, when Alec
had brought him home for Thanksgiving, he’d been more grown up, more remote
than ever. And nothing had changed. Fifteen years later, and he was still
spending his Christmas vacations gazing unsmilingly at her as if he were
measuring her, and she wasn’t measuring up.
    Well, she was tired of it. Fifteen years was long enough to want
a man who’d never want her back. She was going to get over Joe Hartman. This
was the last Christmas she was going to spend fantasizing about him. She was
done.

 
 

Nothing Like a Necklace
    Joe opened his eyes the next morning and looked up at the old-fashioned,
popcorn-textured white ceiling. Alec’s room, Christmas morning.
    Which started with church, because it always started with
church.
    That first year, he’d tried to decline. “I’ll stay here, if
that’s OK,” he said when the subject came up over Christmas Eve dinner. “I
could do the breakfast dishes, any other kind of chores you have.” He knew how
to make himself useful. That tended to make you more welcome, too.
    “If you stay in this house,” Mrs. Kincaid said, “you’re
coming to church. You don’t have to believe. You don’t have to participate. But
you have to come.”
    “I don’t . . .” he began, then stopped. “I didn’t bring
church clothes.” He didn’t have church
clothes. He had jeans, and he had T-shirts. He had his boots, and he had a pair
of well-used tennis shoes. None of which would be right. He hadn’t been in too
many churches, but he knew that much.
    Mrs. Kincaid paused in the act of dishing more meat sauce
onto Gabe’s plate to look Joe over, a speculative gleam in her eye.
    “Oh, no,” Alec groaned. “Now you’ve given her a project.”
    She handed Gabe his plate, flapped the back of her hand at
her elder son. “Hush up. And it doesn’t matter what you wear, Joe. That’s the
point of church. It’s what’s on the inside that counts, isn’t it, Dave?”
    “More honored in the breach than the observance,” her
husband said, “but that’s meant to be the idea.”
    “But if you’d be more comfortable,” Mrs. Kincaid said,
“we’ll find one of Dave’s shirts for you to wear, because you’re about his
height. That’s the only way we’ll get sleeves that’ll fit you.” She pushed her
chair back and started to get up.
    “Hang on, now, honey,” Mr. Kincaid said, putting a hand on
her arm. They sat together at one end of the table, not opposite each other
like you’d expect in a TV sitcom family. “You can get Joe set up after dinner,
but don’t you think you should finish eating first?”
    She laughed, sat down again, and picked up her fork. “I get
impulsive,” she told Joe. “But as soon as we’re done here, we’ll find you a
shirt. And don’t worry about the jeans,” she went on, forestalling his next,
clearly futile objection. “Jeans are fine. You’ll be sitting down anyway.
Nobody will see.”
    And that had been that. He’d done the breakfast dishes, all
right, but after that, he’d gone to church, and he’d been going ever since,
when he stayed with them. And doing the dishes, too. With Alyssa, which he
could have done without. Being alone with her made him nervous, but Mrs.
Kincaid had been clear on that, too.
    “I’d be some kind of hostess if I invited you and then made
you do all my housework for me, wouldn’t I?” she’d said with a laugh the first
time he’d offered. “But