A Very Maverick Christmas. Rachel Lee

But maybe writers learned not to answer the phone, not to go to the door, not to feel guilty for ignoring a friend’s call.

      Somehow she doubted it. Her acquaintance with guilt was growing by leaps and bounds. She seemed to be building it constantly and adding to it with every evasion.

      Telling herself it was necessary didn’t much help.

      They’d tried to convince her that she would be building a new past for herself each day that went by. It sure wasn’t enough of a past to satisfy her. Yes, she could talk lightly about the few jobs she’d held in her wanderings, some of the people she’d met, but there was always that wall she couldn’t surmount.

      Dang, she thought, scuffing her toe in the light layer of snow and bringing up some loam from beneath.

      Braden. He was another problem. Though she didn’t have a lot of experience she remembered so she could call on it, she was almost certain that he’d looked at her several times with male interest.

      Well, she’d looked at him the same way. He drew her, attracted her, made her want to be a normal girl who could just date and get to know a guy. But since there wasn’t much he could get to know about her, she was a fool to even cherish such dreams, and even more of a fool when he hadn’t tried to reach her in over a week.

      But she couldn’t help wishing, and Braden made her wish. The warm, roughness of his palm when he shook her hand seemed to have imprinted itself vividly on her memory. She liked just looking at him, which she supposed was utterly silly, and she reacted like a woman to his scent, to his broad shoulders, to the sight of his butt in those snug jeans he wore.

      Oh, man, the bug had bit, but it couldn’t go anywhere. Not unless she told him the truth, and she could just imagine the horror that would come to his face. “You don’t know who you are?” The question that most terrified her.

      For heaven’s sake, she didn’t even know how old she was. When her birthday was. Who her parents had been. Where she had gone to school. All those simple but important things. Not even whether she was a virgin.

      Man. Self-disgust filled her again, even though she knew it wasn’t fair. She’d been seriously injured. She was lucky to be alive.

      Except that she had only part of a life.

      Tomorrow was going to be another rough day unless she found a way to excuse herself from the big community gift wrapping. But no, she wasn’t going to excuse herself. She had no idea what had drawn her to this town, what had made her feel so compelled to come here, and hiding out wasn’t going to answer the question.

      But that compulsion... As she stepped out of the trees and looked up, she saw the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains, like the Alps, although how she knew that, she had no idea. They called to her, those mountains in all their majestic height and cragginess. They seemed to be a part of her.

      They felt more like home than anything else since her accident. They kept her here.

      * * *

      The church hall was full of people by the time Julie arrived. So many people, all very busy at sorting through gifts and wrapping them, then labeling them for “A soldier” or “A soldier’s family.” Ages were placed only on toys.

      Vanessa grabbed her at once and dragged her to the table where she, Mallory and Lily were busy wrapping things.

      “The others will be here later,” Vanessa told her. “Except Jonah, who has a bad cold. Caleb’s finishing some work, and Cecelia and Nick got delayed. I don’t want to know how they got delayed.” Vanessa rolled her eyes suggestively, drawing a laugh from Julie, who then greeted everyone and asked, “If we were going to do toys, why not send them to Toys for Tots?”

      “We work with what people give us,” Mallory explained. “Sometimes I think we send enough cologne and aftershave to perfume the entire military.”

      Julie laughed and allowed herself to relax. This wasn’t going to be so hard. “So it really gets to the troops? I thought the military was difficult about that, and these are wrapped.” Where that came from, she had no idea.

      “It’s all going to nearby bases. No problem there. They know who we are.”

      “Ah.”

      Lily spoke. “I can’t get the triangle right.”

      At once Julie leaned over to her and showed her how to fold the paper at the end of the package. Sometimes it amazed her that she could remember to do things like this without remembering she had ever done them before.

      “I like the triangles,” Lily said. “They’re prettier than just sticking lots of tape on.”

      “You’re right about that,” Julie agreed.

      Lily triumphantly placed the last piece of tape and looked up with sparkling eyes. Then she looked past Julie. “Hi, Braden. Are you and Julie friends now?”

      “We’re working on it,” came the answer.

      Julie was almost afraid to turn around, but after taking a breath she did, and found him smiling at her.

      “Room at this table?” he asked.

      “Of course,” said Vanessa, scooting over before Julie could respond, making room for him right beside Julie.

      It seemed more than Lily were involved in a little matchmaking, Julie thought. Her cheeks heated.

      “Hi,” he said, still smiling.

      “Hi,” she managed to answer, then quickly dragged her gaze back to the half-wrapped package in front of her. He looked good enough to eat, and her heart speeded up nervously. He smelled good, too, fresh from a shower, not wearing any aftershave or cologne that she could detect. For some reason she had never found that attractive in a man. At least not in her present incarnation.

      He chatted pleasantly with the others who joined the table, appearing comfortable with everyone. She envied him that comfort. Sometimes she wondered if she had ever been someone who had a circle of family and friends that she had known for a long time, a group of people where any reasonable conversation was easy. Small talk certainly didn’t come easily to her now, not at all.

      And less so, being crowded against him at the table. Inevitably their arms and shoulders brushed, and sometimes they reached out simultaneously for the tape. Each contact, however minor, seemed to zap her with electricity.

      A different kind of electricity than she had felt from Winona Cobbs. This kind made her start wondering what it would be like to have this man’s arms around her, his lips on hers.

      She tried to imagine it and wondered if her imaginings had any basis in experience, or if she was just making it up. How would she know? The not knowing was apt to drive her crazy. She ought to be getting used to this discombobulation, but it didn’t seem to be getting any easier, not with a handsome, sexy man standing so close.

      “Julie? Julie?” Vanessa’s voice punctured her preoccupation. She snapped her head up.

      “I’m sorry. Woolgathering.”

      “Nothing new in that,” Vanessa teased. “The tape, please?”

      Julie leaned over and passed her the dispenser. Somehow that twist and lean brought her hard up against Braden’s side.

      In an instant, everything else vanished. A web of desire cast its spell, making all her worries and wondering seem like a waste of time. All that mattered was that man and what his closeness was doing to her. What she’d like him to do with her.

      Mallory excused herself to take Lily to the bathroom. Vanessa went off in search of a cup of coffee. All of a sudden she was alone with Braden, who was busy cutting paper for the next package.

      Desperate not to appear like a dummy, and certainly not disinterested when he was filling her thoughts so much, she hunted for something to say. “Does everyone in town help with this?”

      “Of course