Harlequin Holiday Collection - Four Classic Seasonal Novellas

old, historic mansion. Tasteful furniture was positioned to provide small conversation areas and holiday decorations graced many of the surfaces. In one corner stood an enormous, half-decorated evergreen. This must be it. He stared at the tree, wondering what secrets it held. Why would a diamond thief want it so desperately…and did it still conceal something within the tightness of its branches?
    “Good morning.” An elderly woman that Zach recognized as Holly’s grandmother was seated at a small desk, a hot-glue gun in her hand.
    From over the top of a high-backed, antique sofa, he saw a nearly bald head and a bright pair of twinkling eyes. Holly’s grandfather had turned in his seat to greet him. “Hi there.”
    “Hello Mr. and Mrs. Cavanaugh,” Zach murmured.
    “We’re just sitting here watching Reggie do all the work. These old bones can’t handle climbing ladders,” the old man explained. “Even stringing popcorn’s gotten to be too much for uh… Ernie here. He’s taking his morning nap.”
    Zach hadn’t noticed the top of another head, barely visible above the back of the sofa. Must be a pretty short guy….
    “I remember you,” the grandmother interrupted. “You’re Zach. You used to live in town. You and Holly were friends.”
    Friends? Yes, he supposed they had been. And so much more. “Yes. A long time ago.”
    “How nice. You go along and show him around, Holly,” Mrs. Cavanaugh said, smiling as she glued together some crystal ornaments. “By the time you’re finished, I’m sure Reggie will have the tree done.” Then she looked at Zach. “We had a bit of a tree disaster this morning but we’re working as fast as we can to get everything in tip-top shape.”
    A tree disaster. That explained why Holly had tried to prevent him from entering the room. But it didn’t explain everything.
    Like why Holly Cavanaugh was slack-jawed and wide-eyed, looking like she’d just seen a ghost.

Chapter Six
    Her grandfather was cozying up to a corpse.
    Holly stared in horror at the scene in her living room. When she’d left twenty minutes ago, there had been a short, skinny man lying dead on the floor. Now that man was sitting on her couch, beside her irascible grandfather.
    Stringing popcorn.
    Oh, Grandpa, what are you doing?
    As if seeing Holly’s rising panic, her grandmother rose. “Holly, dear, there’s no point in trying to hide our crisis from your old friend, even if he is now a TV gentleman.” Dressed in one of her typical chiffon dressing gowns, Nana appeared elegant and serene. No one who didn’t know her would imagine her capable of playing hide-and-seek with a body.
    Holly, however, knew her. Just as she knew her grandfather. The two of them were the wiliest pair of octogenarians in Illinois.
    “TV gentleman?” Zach sounded confused, probably because he sensed the panic in the room. Even if it emanated only from Holly.
    “I can’t tell you how happy we are that you’ve decided to feature our home on your show. My granddaughter has worked so hard to make a success of it.” Nana looked as pleased as a little girl at show-and-tell. A secretly bloodthirsty little girl. “You must go with Holly, let her show you everything, from top to bottom. ”
    The twinkle in the old woman’s eye, and the suggestiveness in her words, told Holly that Nana had picked up on the tension between her and Zach. Of course, she would—Holly might have been living with her father in town, but during high school, her grandmother had been the one she’d confided in. Just the heat in Holly’s cheeks probably announced that they’d been gobbling each other’s faces off two minutes ago. She was still almost shaking with the need for more. She wanted him top to bottom and wanted to give herself to him the same way.
    But that was a bad idea. Really bad.
    Given the choice between dealing with the dead guy or dealing with her own shockingly weak inhibitions to the guy who’d broken her heart, she’d choose the stiff. Though she’d wondered what it might be like to give in to her desire for Zach, she now knew that was impossible. Taking him once would not remove the temptation borne of wondering. Instead, like a kid raiding the cookie jar, it would only whet her appetite for more.
    Unfortunately, judging by the glitter in his eyes and the half-smile on those well-kissed lips, the bloody man knew it.

    Zach began to put everything together.
    Holly’s comments when he’d first arrived about his