Christmas in Good Hope (A Good Hope Novel Book 1) Read online

  Looking festive in a red sweaterdress with an oversize cowl neck, Katie Ruth Crewes danced with Clay Chapin. Most of the other couples, attired in their Sunday best, fell into her parents’ age group.

  Steve and Sarah Bloom should still be dancing.

  Ami could visualize it now: the pearls her father had given his wife for their twenty-fifth anniversary looped around her mother’s neck . . .

  A sharp stab of pain, strong enough to draw blood, lanced Ami’s heart.

  But it faded quickly when Beck pulled her to him and executed an intricate spin that left her breathless.

  “You’ve got some nice moves, Mr. Cross,” she told him when she caught her breath. “Who taught you to dance?”

  “Would it surprise you if I said I taught myself?”

  “Not really.” She threaded her fingers through his soft hair and her heart did a little flip-flop. “You seem like the kind of man who could do anything you set your mind to doing.”

  “What a nice compliment.” His sexy southern drawl sent a hot riff of sensation up her spine.

  “You smell terrific,” she said, slightly flustered.

  “Two compliments from a beautiful woman,” he murmured, his eyes twinkling with humor. “I’d say this evening is off to a stellar start.”

  As they danced to the familiar melody, his palm splayed against her back. Ami felt the heat all the way through the silky fabric of her dress. When Beck began to slide his hand up and down her spine in slow, sensual strokes, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like if there was bare skin beneath his fingers and—

  “What shall we talk about?” Beck’s breath was warm against her ear. “Politics? Religion? Whether or not a merchant should be blackmailed into opening his home to the tour?”

  At the last suggestion, she couldn’t help but chuckle. The laughter died in her throat at the sight of the dark-haired woman in the clingy black dress.

  “What’s the problem?” Beck brushed a strand of hair back from her face with the tip of his finger, his gaze completely focused on her.

  “Anita Fishback.” Ami pushed the words past lips that felt frozen.

  “There’s so many people here,” he said in a reassuring tone. “We won’t have to interact with her.”

  “I’m afraid ignoring her isn’t possible.”

  His gaze searching her face, Beck held her out at arm’s length.

  Ami answered the question in his eyes. “She’s dancing with my dad.”

  Beck spun them around so quickly it made Ami’s head spin. The move had him now facing the couple instead of her. Though Ami wanted to protest, she quickly realized not seeing Anita cossetted in her father’s arms was making it easier for her to steady herself.

  “I take it this comes as a surprise.”

  “Great deduction, Sherlock,” Ami muttered, then was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry. It’s not fair to take this out on you. To answer your question, no, I didn’t realize my dad would be her date.”

  “Or that you’d see them dancing to your parents’ favorite song.” Though Beck spoke casually, his eyes remained dark.

  “Icing on the cake. A maraschino cherry atop the sundae.” Ami gave a humorless laugh but found talking with Beck to be a calming experience.

  “Tell me more about Anita. Help me understand why you feel she’s wrong for your father.”

  Ami had never been one for gossip. She had better things to do with her time. The truth was, she pretty much liked everyone. And they usually liked her. But Anita had always been a predator. While Ami wanted to believe the woman had changed, her gut told her otherwise.

  “Several months ago, my great-aunt Lil passed away.” Ami absently slid her fingers into the hair at the back of Beck’s neck. “Once her estate in Minneapolis is settled, my father will inherit a tidy sum. I find it interesting that shortly after the rumor of my father’s newfound ‘wealth’ began circulating, Anita started showing interest in a widowed schoolteacher.”

  “It could be a coincidence.”

  Ami shot Beck a dour glance. “Yes, and Santa is real.”

  “Isn’t he?” Beck grinned.

  “Be serious.” She swatted him on the arm even as her lips lifted in a smile. “It’s not simply men she likes, but men with money.”

  “There are lots of women like that out there.” Beck exhaled a breath. “My brother Anders dated one a few years ago.”

  “You have a brother?” Ami wasn’t sure what surprised her most, that he had a brother or that he’d volunteered the information without her asking.

  “I have two, actually.” He smiled at her surprise. “Elliott is my twin. Anders is eight years younger.”

  The fondness in his voice when he mentioned the two men told her that whatever had caused him to move to Good Hope didn’t involve any trouble between him and his brothers.

  “You’re a twin.” She tried to wrap her mind around a second Beck. “Identical?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever find it weird to have another person always around who looked so much like you?”

  “Not really.”

  “Fin is a year younger than I am. People who don’t know think we’re twins.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Beck shook his head slowly. “There simply can’t be another woman on this planet as beautiful as you.”

  While Ami couldn’t stop the rush of pleasure at the over-the-top compliment, everyone knew her personality paled in comparison to her vibrant sister’s. “Wait until you see Fin. She’ll blow you away. She has that effect on everyone.”

  “Where is she at now?”

  “Living life fast and furious in LA.” Ami’s voice filled with pride. “She’s an advertising exec. Smart. Funny. Everyone adores Fin.”

  “They’re leaving the dance floor.”

  Ami blinked. For a few seconds she’d forgotten all about her father and the piranha.

  “Do you want to go over and say hello?”

  “I don’t want to drag you into the middle of my family drama.” Ami took a deep, steadying breath. “You do business with Anita and—”

  “I do business with Blooms Bake Shop, not Crumb and Cake.”

  “Right now, yes, but she could come up with a sweet deal tomorrow and steal you away.”

  “The woman could offer me a lifetime of free desserts and I’d still turn her down.”

  “That wouldn’t make good business sense,” she chided.

  “Money isn’t everything.” His husky voice became a caress. “I’m on your side, Ami, not hers. That’s not going to change.”

  “Thank you.” She gazed at him through lowered lashes. “Then I believe it’s time to speak with my father and ‘I-Need-a-Man.’”

  A startled look crossed Beck’s face. “‘I-Need-a-Man?’”

  “Fin’s nickname for Anita.”

  Beck threw back his head and laughed.

  Beck reached out for Ami’s hand as they crossed the second living room, but she gently refused the gesture. Still, he was glad she’d allowed him to come with her for moral support.

  Steve and Anita stood in front of the tree with their backs to them. Whatever story Anita was telling was making Ami’s father laugh.

  Ami squared her shoulders and fixed a surprisingly natural-looking smile on her lips. Beck was impressed. If he didn’t know her true feelings, he’d have bought the act.

  “Dad,” Ami called out in a cheery voice when they were several feet away.

  Steve whirled. He looked wary, Beck thought, but hope leaped into his eyes at the sight of his daughter. It appeared their recent disagreement had been as hard on him as it had been on her.

  “Ami. Beck,” Steve said in an overly hearty tone as his gaze hungrily searched Ami’s face. “We didn’t expect to see you here.”

  We.

  By the barely perceptible widening of Ami’s eyes, Beck knew the word had registered and didn’t sit well, nor did the fact that Steve’s palm rested familiarly against Anita’
s back.

  Going on instinct, Beck grasped Ami’s hand and gave it a squeeze. This time she didn’t pull away.

  “I don’t know why you’re surprised.” Ami’s voice remained as pleasant as her smile. “Jeremy invited all the merchants to his open house.”

  Her father flushed. “I simply meant that when I mentioned the event to you last week, you said you didn’t think you’d be attending.”

  Beck wondered if Steve had accepted Anita’s invitation thinking his daughter wouldn’t be here. From the thoughtful look in Ami’s eyes, the same notion had crossed her mind.

  “Your father came as my plus one.” Anita’s sharp-eyed gaze shifted to Beck and lingered on their joined hands. “Are you two here together?”

  Beck let Ami answer.

  “I came with Katie Ruth.” Ami shifted her attention to the tree. “It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

  They spent five excruciating minutes discussing the tree, the party, and the Twelve Nights festivities before Ami brought up Anita’s granddaughter.

  “Dakota looks pretty this evening.”

  Beck chimed in. “Apparently her counselor at school recommended a couple of students to work the open house.”

  “Dakota is here?” Steve shifted his gaze to Anita. “Cassie’s oldest?”

  “She was taking coats at the door,” Ami told her father.

  “A young man took ours when we arrived.” Steve turned to Anita. “We’ll have to say hello before we leave. I had Dakota in my English literature class last year. She’s a lovely girl and very bright.”

  “Yes.” Anita flashed a smile that seemed overly bright. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen her. Cassie knows I don’t approve of her lifestyle and has made it very clear she doesn’t want me in her—or her children’s—life.”

  “Give it time.” Steve’s arm slipped around the woman’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You and Cassie will find common ground.”

  His gaze shifted to his daughter. “Because when all is said and done, family sticks together.”

  An hour later Ami settled into the passenger seat of Beck’s Land Rover. “Thanks for the lift. I don’t know what happened to Katie Ruth. One minute she was there, the next she was nowhere to be found.”

  Beck had an idea where Katie Ruth was, or rather with whom, but he didn’t speculate. He’d noticed the vivacious blond plastered against Clay Chapin on the dance floor, then later saw them having an intense conversation by the fireplace.

  “Taking a beautiful woman home is never a hardship.” Beck slipped the key into the ignition and the engine roared to life.

  “I like parties—correction—I enjoy socializing.” She gave a self-conscious-sounding laugh. “But I’m a fan of smaller, more intimate affairs.”

  “I used to enjoy both.” Beck turned out of the gravel lot. “Now that I’ve been away from the society scene, I realize I don’t miss it.”

  “I’ve never been a part of Good Hope society.” Ami lifted a shoulder, let it fall. “That’s why it took so long for me to be invited to join the Cherries.”

  His brows pulled together. “I don’t understand.”

  The highway stretched before them like a thin gray ribbon, the instrumental music from the sound system soothing and the seat warm beneath her. Ami felt herself fully relax. “Most of the members—or their husbands—are prominent in Good Hope. Many are descended from families who settled here in the mid eighteen hundreds.”

  Something in her voice put him on alert. “I had the impression your family was deeply entrenched in the community.”

  “The Bloom family settled here at the turn of the twentieth century,” she informed him. “My grandfather was a fisherman. My dad is a teacher. My mother, a secretary who became a stay-at-home mom once the children started coming.”

  “Your family isn’t prominent.”

  It was a statement of fact, not a question.

  Ami chuckled. “Not at all.”

  Beck’s lips tightened. “Why do you even want to be part of such an elitist group?”

  “The Cherries do a lot of good. Their efforts benefit local businesses like yours and mine.” The answer rolled off her tongue with such ease, Beck could tell it was her go-to response.

  “I feel as if I’m supporting my community by being a Cherrie,” she added, apparently sensing his continued disapproval. “They’re a great group of women. Truly.”

  “You’re a rotarian.” He turned the vehicle in the direction of Good Hope. “Why even bother with another group?”

  She grew quiet for a moment and didn’t immediately answer.

  The light from the dash bathed her face in a golden glow, and Beck was seized with a sudden urge to do whatever was necessary to protect her from those blasted Cherries.

  “My mother was very civic-minded,” Ami spoke at last. “She hoped to be part of the Cherries but was never invited to join. I believe it would please her to know that a Bloom has finally stormed the bastion.”

  Her lips quirked up and Beck couldn’t help but smile.

  “Ami, the rabble-rouser,” he teased, just as the lights of Good Hope came into view. “Though I admit I have difficulty seeing you in that role.”

  Her gaze dropped to her hands. “Actually, there was a time long, long ago when I went rogue.”

  The ridiculous assertion made him laugh. “What did you do? Skip gym class?”

  “I got a tattoo.”

  The admission popped out so quickly Beck wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised. Sweet Ami Bloom with a tattoo simply didn’t compute. “You’re joking.”

  “I got it my senior year in high school. I was, ah, having a difficult time coping with the fact that my mother had been diagnosed with cancer. At the time, they gave her three months to live.”

  Even though more than a full decade had passed since that diagnosis, pain still filled her voice.

  Would it be the same for him? Years from now when he spoke of Lisette, would others still hear the grief in his voice? See it in his eyes?

  Shoving the thoughts aside, Beck focused on the woman beside him. “Your mother beat those odds.”

  “She lived ten more years.” Ami sighed. “Yet in the end, there was no happily ever after.”

  Beck had discovered how capricious life could be. His bright and sunny future had been decimated in five seconds. He took a deep breath, deliberately refocused. “You really have a tattoo?”

  She ducked her head and nodded.

  As he’d never seen that tat, it had to be hidden somewhere beneath her clothes. His body stirred as his mind considered all the possibilities. “What is it? Where is it?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” She paused, appearing to rethink the response. “I mean—”

  “I accept the challenge.”

  Her eyes widened. “I didn’t issue any challenge.”

  “We can talk about it more at my place. Come home with me, Ami.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Startled surprise rippled through Ami at Beck’s suggestion. “G-go home with you?”

  Beck stopped at the light two blocks from his house and turned to face her, offering a persuasive smile. “For wine and conversation.”

  “We’ve been talking all night.” She feigned a yawn even as her heart began tripping over itself in anticipation. “I should probably get some sleep.”

  “Sleep is highly overrated.” Beck made the ridiculous claim as if it were fact. “Besides, I never did get a chance to finish telling you about my brothers. And we didn’t even speak of the rest of your sisters.”

  Ami caught her lower lip between her teeth and considered. “I would like to hear more about your family.”

  Beck looked pleased and a bit smug. “Then it’s settled.”

  He kept the conversation focused on the party while he parked the SUV in the carriage house. Once inside, they shed their coats and climbed the steps to the sitting area off his bedroom.

  He gestured to the furn
iture facing the fireplace. “Sit wherever you want.”

  Ami noticed Beck smiled in approval when she picked the settee. She wondered if he was picturing himself sitting beside her.

  “I love the yellow stone with the blue veins.” Ami admired his masculine form as he crouched in front of the hearth. “It’s quite striking.”

  “Siena marble from northern Italy,” Beck said absently, focused on getting the fire started. “Fits nicely with the decor.”

  Ami thought the entire sitting area had much to recommend it. She loved the richly woven blue Persian rug over the shiny oak floors with walnut inlay. The Victorian loveseat settee with its navy-and-cream-striped pattern added to the charm and the feeling of elegant warmth.

  Beck’s earlier claim that the fireplace wasn’t in his bedroom hadn’t been entirely accurate. The sitting area with its impressive walnut-and-burl woodwork flowed into the bedroom. If she turned around, she could see the large four-poster bed with the navy duvet from where she sat.

  While the downstairs needed much work, Kate had remodeled this part of the house several years earlier. The wallpaper with robust colors of burgundy and blue looked authentic, but anyone seeing it would know the paper was in too fine a shape to be original to the house.

  Beck kept the conversation going while he stoked the fire into a cheery blaze. When he went downstairs to retrieve the wine, it gave Ami a few minutes alone.

  Instead of getting up to explore, she kicked off her heels and let the warmth radiating from the fire stoke a feeling of contentment.

  She’d been going ninety miles an hour since Twelve Nights had begun last week. The sense of overload she was experiencing was no one’s fault but her own. From the time she could walk, she’d wanted to have her fingers in a whole lot of everything.

  Like today. She could have slept late and enjoyed a leisurely morning off. Yet what had she done? She’d gotten up early to have coffee with Beck, then worked on bakery business all day.

  Beck returned with a bottle of red wine, two glasses, and news that snow had begun to fall.

  “I can’t stay too long.” She took a sip of the merlot he’d handed her and gestured with her glass. “What with the snow and all.”