Kissing Santa

“It’s midnight,” Blair said softly. “Happy Christmas.”About the AuthorTitle PageCHAPTER ONECHAPTER TWOCHAPTER THREECHAPTER FOURCHAPTER FIVECHAPTER SIXCHAPTER SEVENCHAPTER EIGHTCHAPTER NINECHAPTER TENCopyright

“It’s midnight,” Blair said softly. “Happy Christmas.”

Amanda felt her throat tighten with unaccountable tears. “Happy Christmas,” she said in a husky voice. She felt as if she had never understood the real meaning of Christmas before now, looking out into the starlit snow with Blair beside her, their breath hanging in frozen clouds. The urge to lean against him was so strong that she forced herself to turn away... and stopped dead as she noticed the mistletoe hanging from the doorway, for the first time.

Following her gaze, Blair glanced up at the mistletoe dangling above his head Their eyes met in the frosty air. “Happy Christmas, Blair,” she murmured, and pressed her mouth to his in a kiss that was warm and long and achingly sweet.

Jessica Hart had a haphazard career before she began writing to finance a degree in history. Her experience ranged from waitress, theater production assistant and Outback cook to newsdesk secretary, expedition assistant and English teacher, and she has worked in countries as different as France and Indonesia, Australia and Cameroon She now lives in the north of England, where her hobbies are limited to eating and drinking and traveling when she can, preferably to places where she’ll find good food or desert or tropical rain.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

AMANDA saw Blair McAllister as soon as she stepped down off the train. He was standing under a banner wishing everyone season’s greetings on behalf of the station staff, but he didn’t look exactly filled with Christmas spirit. Instead, he was watching the passengers piling out of the standard-class carriages, his hands thrust into corduroy trousers with barely concealed impatience and dark brows drawn together over a formidable-looking nose.

Dropping her case onto the platform, Amanda slid A Far Horizon surreptitiously out of her bag so that she could squint down at the photograph on the back of the dust-jacket. Yes, it was definitely the same man.

With a distinct sense of disappointment, she rested her sherry-coloured eyes on Blair McAllister as he searched the milling crowds with a frown. The photograph had been taken in a desert. Unaware of the camera, he had been smiling at someone out of sight, eyes narrowed against the glare and dark hair slightly ruffled by a hot wind, and he had looked rangy and relaxed and utterly competent.

On the tram, Amanda had studied the photograph with interest and a faint stirring of anticipation. She wouldn’t have called him exactly handsome, but there was defimtely something about him, she had decided. She wasn’t sure whether it was that look of lean self-containment, his reputation as an intrepid traveller and programme maker, or simply his tan, but, whatever it was, it gave him an indefinably glamorous air.

Now she slid the book back into her bag with a faint sigh. Who said the camera never lied? The man waiting for her on the platform might have the same severe features as the man in the photograph, but in the flesh he looked tired and bad-tempered and not in the least bit glamorous.

He stood quite still, letting the crowds surge past him, and as Amanda watched he turned his head and looked up the platform towards her. For a brief moment his gaze rested on her vibrant figure with a hard, impersonal scrutiny before it swept on, and the next moment he had transferred his attention back down the platform once more. Amanda was left feeling rather piqued at his lack of interest. She was also a little disconcerted by the shrewd intelligence in his face. Blair McAllister didn’t look like a man who would be easily fooled by anyone.

Which was unfortunate, in the circumstances.

Amanda hesitated. In London it had seemed so easy to take Sue’s place but now, as she faced the reality of her new employer, suddenly it didn’t seem quite such a good idea. She looked doubtfully along the platform at Blair, then squared her shoulders and bent to tip her suitcase back onto its wheels. She had just spent over eleven hours on trains and she wasn’t going to turn round and go back now!

Trundling the suitcase behind her, she made her way towards him through the last of the passengers. ‘Mr McAllister?’

He swung round at the sound of his name, the fierce brows shooting up in surprise at her appearing from the direction of the first-class carriages. ‘Yes—’

He stopped as he took in Amanda’s appearance. She had a mobile expression, and dark, glossy brown hair cleverly highlighted with gold swung around her face. Subject to belated qualms about what she was letting herself in for, she had bolstered her confidence by making up with care on the train, emphasising the unusual golden-brown eyes and outlining the curving mouth with the bold red lipstick that she always wore. She was wearing the suit that she had bought to celebrate promotion to executive status at last, together with her favourite shoes which were decorated with floppy bows and which always made her feel good.