Chapter 36

A few hours later, Tessa tried to remember what it felt like to be sexy and wanted when she was hip deep in customer orders with dirty boxes and enough packing peanuts to ship her entire store…building and all to the UK. Dumping another box of Styrofoam into the now life sized bag of the same she groaned when the buzzer sounded at her back door.

“Another delivery?” Jason asked in dismay.

She smiled at her workhorse, aka Jason Reagan, her part time stock boy/bookseller. “Just a week left until Christmas, Jase.”

“Yeah, then returns,” Jason grumbled.

Tessa laughed. It was true, the two weeks before and the two weeks after Christmas were the most grueling in the retail business, but she knew Jason appreciated the extra hours this time of year. Especially when she’d have to cut back his hours once the February doldrums took over and they were looking for things to do. That was usually when she attacked the storeroom.

She ran…well, maneuvered would be a better word. Carts of books hampered her every move and with an inventive string of curses she finally managed to get to the door. A huge arrangement of poinsettia flowers and snow white roses bloomed from a six foot deliveryman. Surprise and pleasure hit her with two parts embarrassment.

“Delivery for Miss Donovan,” said the arrangement.

She stepped back, “That’s me. Could you just put them down there?” she gestured to a cluttered metal desk strewn with tape and stacks of forms. She stepped back and gaped when he put the heavy crystal vase down and the arrangement still stood nearly as tall as she was. She dug into her corduroy pants and thankfully found a ten dollar bill.

He pulled out an electronic tracker from his hip pocket and held it out. “Could you sign for it please?”

Tessa tore her eyes from the simple yet very effective arrangement and tried her best not to simper, “Yes of course, I’m sorry.” She slipped him the ten with the plastic pen after she scrawled her signature. “Merry Christmas,” she said with a smile.

“You too, Ma’am,” he smiled and backed out of the garage.

Tessa tried not to wince at the ma’am and instead sighed over the flowers. A small card was tucked in the blooms. Jon’s bold scrawl jumped out at her. “A little birdie told me that someone loves Christmas,” she read aloud. She flipped the card, but he didn’t sign it. She knew it was his handwriting from the few things she’d seen over the years from articles and various fanclub newsletters.

But the fact that he’d written out the card himself had her stomach doing flips. She tried to lift the crystal but nearly bobbled the entire thing onto the floor. “Jason, could you bring this to the front of the store?”

“Sure, Tessa,” he said easily.

She could see the questions lurking but wasn’t ready to talk about getting a bouquet of flowers from a lover. “Thank you,” she said simply and tucked the card in her back pocket. She reached for the box she’d been unpacking, but remembered that she left the door wide open. She watched the blooms disappear with far too much longing and snaked her way back through the maze to pull down the bay door.

She hadn’t quite wiped the stupid smile off her face by the time Nic snuck back to check on her. The burning questions were too much to ignore. She’d stationed Jason behind the counter hoping it would stay slow for another fifteen minutes. Surely that’d be enough time to pump her for information.

“Soo…who sent the mile high poinsettia?” she asked.

Tessa jumped and schooled her features. “Isn’t it lovely?”

“Yes, very lovely.” Nic smoothed her hand over her ponytail and flicked her bangs out of her eyes. “Who sent them?”

Tessa went back to unboxing and stacking. “You know who sent them, darlin’. No need to play coy now.”

“And why did he send them?”

“I told him I loved Christmas so he sent them. It’s really no big deal.” She bit her own lip and hoped the smile wasn’t as dumb as it felt.

Nic gingerly stepped around piles of books and V-carts full of books that were separated into sections already. “You need to tell me what happened when he left here yesterday. This whole avoiding thing…yeah, doesn’t work for me.”

“Nothing, he was just dropping by to say goodnight and goodbye. He went out of town.” She twirled the ring on her thumb and swore.

“Ah-ha! I knew it!” Nic pointed at her hands.

She dropped her hands to her sides. “What?”

“You are fussing with that ring. Did you have sex in your office? Oh my God! You did!”

Tessa blinked. No, she thought, not the real kind. Though I may not be able to sit in my chair for a good month. “No, no sex in the office. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

Nic folded her arms and cocked her hip against the cart. “Something happened.”

Tessa flushed. Yeah, to say the least, she thought. “We just…talked.”

“And why was it only talking? What’s wrong with you? Did he wear you out the night before, woman?”

“No, we just…” she couldn’t think of a good excuse. “It’s my place of work,” she said finally.

“Uh-huh. If I had Jon Bon Jovi in my office I’d have been naked. Well, he’d be naked at the very least. Of course the only way…” Nic stopped and studied her friend. “Were we being a good girl for a reason?”

“I’m always a good girl.”

Nic snorted. “Yeah, okay. What’s the real story?” She rolled her eyes. “What did you run out of condoms you dirty girl?”

Tessa’s eyes widened for a moment before she turned back to the box.

“Oh my GOD! You ran out of condoms!?”

“No, how could we run out of condoms?”

Nic rounded on her best friend. “Oh no, even worse you didn’t have any? What the hell kind of rock star is he if he doesn’t carry a condom?!”

Tessa folded her arms. “Not a man-whore.”

“Or irresponsible,” Nic said slyly. And she was rewarded with the exasperated blow up she was seeking.

“He is not! I’ve never met a man that was more careful-“ Tessa’s mouth dropped open. Well, that just went to show how little sleep she was working on. “That was low, Nichole.”

“Answered my question, didn’t it?”

Tessa gave up and twisted the heavy silver ring. “Yes, we didn’t have anything and I just-“ she faltered. “It’s really important that we’re careful. I’ll just leave it at that.”

Nic nodded. “No, absolutely…I applaud your self restraint.”

“You suck,” she said and turned back to her work. “Don’t you have work to do or something?”

Nic smiled. “Or something,” she said sweetly.

Tessa just rolled her eyes. “Would you go back up front before Jason has a heart attack?”

“Actually I was coming back to see if I could take my lunch. Adam called to see if I could meet him at the diner.”

“More like you came back here to bug me about Jon.”

“That was just a side benefit.”

“Yeah, I’ll go up front just give me five minutes.” Tessa rolled her eyes and flipped the box, using her box cutter to flatten the box and pile it with the rest. Grabbing the front end V-cart of stocking stuffer type items she made her way to the registers. Jason had placed the arrangement of flowers center stage on the cashier station between her two registers.

Her stomach flipped and it felt like the card was burning a hole through her backside. The man was a master at making her squirm. The deep red poinsettia would have been sweet enough, but the unusual, yet classy addition of the white flowers from roses to the tiny bell like flowers that she couldn’t name made her heart sigh. Stupid she thought. He probably just saw them in a catalogue and sent them over.

She shouldn’t get so worked up. Ordering flowers for a woman was probably as second nature to Jon as it was to breathe. Forcing herself to concentrate she sent Jason back to the shipments waiting to be logged in, smiling when the relief washed over him.

He hated to run register, but did it without complaint when she needed a hand. An hour later she had put together a decent display at the checkout to move some of the last little things she’d found in back stock and a whistling Nic was returning with a smile that made her nervous.

“When did you get back? I didn’t hear you come in.”

Nic shrugged. I came through the front door about five minutes ago. Just had to wash my hands and drop my purse in the back.

Tessa frowned.

“C’mon boss lady, no need to frown like that. I’m back you can go do that pile of paperwork I saw on your desk from Jason.”

Tessa sighed. Normally she didn’t mind the paper shuffling she was forced to do. In fact it was that mindless filing that let her get her head put back together at the end of the day, but her head just wasn’t here today.

Her head was on a river road about ten minutes away. “Yeah I think I will.”

Nic just grinned. “You go do that.”

She pressed her forehead to her door for a moment before she opened it. Would anyone really know if she just put her head down on her desk and took a twenty minute nap? Opening the door she slid inside letting the heavy wood close itself as she stared.

A string of condoms decorated the alcove above her desk like garland and an obscene pile of multi-colored packets heaped over her desk. She dropped into her chair and picked up a square letting her head tilt back and the laugh break free.

Without a doubt, she was going to kill her best friend. Following impulse she snagged her cell and jumped when the phone rang in her hands. “Hey this is Jon Bon Jovi, yeah I put your phone on vibrate. Hehehehe.”

“Oh my God,” and the laughter moved into hysterics. She flipped it open and managed to say hello.

“Tessa?”

Laughter nearly choked her, “I was just going to call you.”