Joy Clarke closed her eyes, exhausted, counting to twenty before responding. She’d met her new stepmother at her father’s wedding, and liked her well enough. Lois was a nice woman who made her father happy. Still, Joy wasn’t particularly interested in bonding. Her own mother had left them when she was nine. Since Lois was only ten years older than Joy, she was hardly a maternal figure.
“I know, that would be nice. Maybe in summer.”
“That’s what you said last spring.”
“Work is crazy, Dad. I’m up for a promotion, and I can’t afford to take time off now. Holidays are crazy in the toy business.”
In truth, Christmas was a year-round holiday in her industry, everyone competing to get a jump on what the next hot product would be and making sure marketing and distribution was in place if they found it.
“I’m proud of what you’ve accomplished, Joy. You work hard, like I taught you, but I hope you’ll be able to take some time off to come home. Perhaps once you get that promotion.”
“Yeah, Dad. I have to go. Duty calls.”
“Okay, sweetheart. Work hard, now.”
“Always do,” she said, hanging up the phone on the familiar exchange they’d shared since she was a child. He always told her to work hard—as he had—and she always did.
Joy settled her face in her hands, permitting herself a moment of quiet. She wanted a nap, badly. But a two-minute power-nap wasn’t going to replace all the sleep she’d been losing thanks to restless dreams that were bothering her as much when she was awake as when she was asleep.
For several weeks, she’d had strange, muddled sexual dreams that left her edgy and restless. At first, they weren’t about anyone in particular, just a shadowy figure who brought her to the edge of pleasure, but denied her real satisfaction. Then her neighbor, Warren, whom she barely knew, caught her by her car one day and told her a friend of his would be house-sitting over the holidays. She’d listened dutifully though honestly she had so much to do she didn’t keep track of her neighbor’s comings and goings. Warren told her the friend’s name—Rafe Moore—and a general description. She hadn’t thought twice about it at the time, until she’d seen the house sitter moving in, hauling his bags from the taxi that dropped him off.
Ever since…well, suffice to say her vague dream lover had taken on a real face. The experiences were getting much more intense, more explicit, and even more satisfying, but she woke up every morning exhausted. It was aggravating—why was she dreaming about this guy every night? She’d never even spoken to him, just watched him walk from the car to the house, puttering in the yard, in all his shirtless glory….
She groaned, trying to shake away the thoughts. It was bad enough he was in her head every night, let alone starting to obsess about him in the daylight hours. She had to work. She’d managed to dodge the bullet of having to go to her father’s house for Christmas this year, using the one excuse her dad always gave merit: work. Never failed, but she wouldn’t be able to put them off forever.
Her excuse was the truth though—she really was buried under work. The piles of papers and file folders stacked up all over her desk was proof of that.
As the public relations officer in charge of handling recalls, which happened fairly regularly in the toy-manufacturing industry, her responsibility was to make sure that the company’s image didn’t suffer when a product didn’t work. God forbid anyone got hurt or worse, but sometimes it happened. Her whole life was about spin control, but she also legitimately tried to make sure that customers were taken care of, and would continue to buy Carr Toys.
She was good at doing that. Still, as corporate bottom lines became more pressing, manufacturing was forced to lay off more workers. The remaining staff had to pick up the slack, taking on more and more work. That had inevitably led to the making of more production mistakes. The result of those ended up in her lap. Her life had become a parade of broken toys and apologies on behalf of her company.
It wasn’t what she’d pictured when she’d chosen PR as a major in college, where her classes had always been fun and exciting. Her professors had said she had talent, and she’d believed them. When she’d taken a job with a toy company, somehow she’d expected it to be fun. Six years later though, turning the corner of her thirtieth birthday, she knew better.
Carr was a multibillion-dollar company with three manufacturing locations, worldwide distributors and hefty competition within a troubled economy where customers were more than willing to sue when a product had a defect, especially a dangerous one.
Thanks to the triple punch of corporate downsizing, performance testing, and the replacement of older, more experienced employees with younger ones at lower pay and benefits, the work atmosphere had become increasingly cutthroat. She was up for a promotion, but she was also going against three other department managers who would be happy to sell their grandmothers for the same job.
Pressure, not fun, had become the name of the game. Fun was only a marketing strategy.
Joy could work under pressure because it was required of her, but it was something she’d had to become accustomed to. When things got tough, she remembered all the years her dad, who had been a utilities lineman, had worked weekends, holidays and whatever else he’d had to do to support them.
He never complained about it, and that taught her the value of hard work. She’d learned from his example. She took pride in what she did, but lately, in weak moments, she wondered if it was enough.
She straightened in her chair and turned her attention to the nearest pile of folders, picking the top one off and opening it. Then eyeing the calendar, she pursed her lips.
Two weeks before Christmas.
Joy felt no connection at all to the season, taking little part in the decorating, partying or shopping. Who had time? Her dad hadn’t been much for Christmas after the year her mom left, and who could blame him? Joy had quickly learned that getting excited about Christmas was just setting herself up for disappointment.
She needed to focus on the reports she had in front of her, get ready for a meeting and prepare for a news conference on a recent toy recall. Later today she’d be standing in front of a group of reporters all waiting for her to slip up and give them something juicy to print, but she’d represent her company well. All she needed was a good night’s sleep and to get her sexy neighbor out of her mind. Easier said than done.
2
RAFE HAD ACTUALLY MANAGED to doze on the sofa for a few hours come early morning. Waking to the sound of car doors slamming as people left for work, he’d made himself get up and had spent most of the day scraping the wallpaper from a small side room—nasty work in the heat—but it had kept him busy and active, and he’d accomplished something.
In spite of his lack of sleep and the hard work, he was charged with energy so he decided to go for a run. Endorphins, or the sun. Or a hint of his returning sex drive, maybe.
Though he’d shut the voice out last night, the simmering, sensual responses it sparked had lingered. He’d had to walk around the house several times to lose the morning erection that didn’t seem to want to disappear. It was good to have blood pumping to those particular body parts again, though it would be nice if he had someone with whom to expend that excess energy.
The late-afternoon sun was setting low, and it still hit him as odd, but appealing, to be seeing summer sunsets in December. The news back home said the northeast was getting its first real snowstorm. Ambulances would be busy putting in extra hours; accidents, fires, all increased with the snow and ice. The kids would have a white Christmas, but for himself, he was content to have a sunny one. He heard the wail of sirens several times a day, and it never failed to make him look up for a second and wonder.
The beaches were a few miles from his neighborhood, and Warren had left a map in the car. San Diego was pretty easy to navigate, and he hopped in the car, taking the coastal highway a few