Blame It On Christmas (Southern Secrets Series Book 1) Read online

  All she wants for Christmas...

  is to make him beg!

  After he broke her heart, Mazie Tarleton is definitely immune to the charms of J.B. Vaughan. Now she has him right where she wants him and it’s payback time—until a moment of white-hot desire takes them both by surprise! Suddenly, revenge is getting complicated. Maybe she can just say yes to a holiday fling...or is she already in way too deep?

  “I’m going to kiss you.”

  It was a warning and a plea all wrapped up in one.

  “Mazie,” J.B. whispered.

  She put a hand behind his head and pulled him closer. “Yes.”

  He was trembling, almost out of control. Yet they had barely begun.

  She arched into his embrace, melding their bodies from shoulders to hips. The look in her eyes was his undoing: part yearning, part caution. She didn’t completely trust him.

  “I’ve pictured you like this in my head,” he groaned. “But I never thought it would happen.”

  She nipped his bottom lip with sharp teeth. “And why is that? I thought the larger-than-life J.B. Vaughan was irresistible to the female sex.”

  “You’re sassy. And no, I’m not irresistible. You aren’t even sure you like me. And you sure as hell don’t trust me.”

  The flicker of her gold-tipped eyelashes told him he had hit a nerve.

  But her voice when she answered was steady. “Apparently it’s possible for me to crave someone...even if he’s a bad boy with a terrible reputation.”

  * * *

  Blame It On Christmas is part of the Southern Secrets series from Janice Maynard.

  Dear Reader,

  I love holiday books. December makes me think of hot chocolate and roaring fires and sleigh bells. Of course, Christmas in the South can sometimes be more shorts and flip-flops than reindeer sweaters and woolly socks.

  If you live on the coast (far enough south), you may not have a white Christmas, but the spirit of the holiday burns just as brightly.

  I really like writing friends-to-lovers books. A hero and heroine who already have a past together (whatever that might be) can find lots of sparks along the way when they connect later in life. Whether they were childhood playmates or high school sweethearts or even old enemies, the tale lends itself to drama and high-stakes passion.

  So sit back, enjoy your favorite hot beverage and cheer for love and the season of peace and goodwill for all.

  Happy reading!

  Janice Maynard

  Janice Maynard

  Blame It On Christmas

  USA TODAY bestselling author Janice Maynard loved books and writing even as a child. After multiple rejections, she finally sold her first manuscript! Since then, she has written fifty-plus books and novellas. Janice lives in Tennessee with her husband, Charles. They love hiking, traveling and family time. You can connect with Janice at www.janicemaynard.com, www.Twitter.com/janicemaynard, www.Facebook.com/janicemaynardreaderpage, and www.Instagram.com/janicemaynard.

  Books by Janice Maynard

  Harlequin Desire

  The Kavanaghs of Silver Glen

  A Not-So-Innocent Seduction

  Baby for Keeps

  Christmas in the Billionaire’s Bed

  Twins on the Way

  Second Chance with the Billionaire

  How to Sleep with the Boss

  For Baby’s Sake

  Highland Heroes

  His Heir, Her Secret

  On Temporary Terms

  Southern Secrets

  Blame It On Christmas

  Visit her Author Profile page at Harlequin.com, or janicemaynard.com, for more titles.

  Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!

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  This book is for every guy or girl who has

  found the courage to ask someone out

  and then been shot down. It hurts.

  But true love finds a way.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Nashville Rebel by Sheri WhiteFeather

  One

  “The answer is no!”

  Mazie Tarleton ended the call, wishing she had a good old-fashioned receiver she could slam down on a cradle. Cutting off a phone conversation with the tap of a red button wasn’t nearly as satisfying.

  Behind her, Gina—her best friend and coworker—ate the last bite of her cinnamon crunch bagel and wiped cream cheese from her fingers. “Who’s got you all riled up?”

  The two women were in Mazie’s office, a cramped space behind the elegant showroom that drew tourists and locals to All That Glitters, Mazie’s upscale jewelry store in Charleston’s historic business district.

  Mazie dropped into a chair and scowled. “It’s J.B.’s real estate agent again. He’s making her badger me.”

  “You mean J.B. who wants to offer you a ridiculous amount of money for this building that’s falling down around our ears?”

  “Whose side are you on anyway?” Mazie and Gina had met as freshmen at Savannah’s College of Art and Design. Gina was aware of Mazie’s long-standing feud with Charleston’s highly eligible and incredibly sexy billionaire businessman.

  Gina flicked a crumb from her cashmere-covered bosom. “We have dry rot in the attic. A heating system that dates back to the Civil War. And do I need to mention that our hurricane policy rates are set to triple when the renewal is due? I know you Tarleton people are richer than God, but that doesn’t mean we should thumb our noses at a great offer.”

  “If it were anybody but J.B.,” Mazie muttered, feeling the noose of inevitability tighten around her neck.

  J.B. Jackson Beauregard Vaughan. The man she loved to hate. J.B. Vaughan had been on her personal hit list since she was sixteen years old. She loathed him. And she wanted to hurt him as much as he had hurt her.

  “What did he ever do to you?” Gina asked. Her perplexed frown was understandable. J.B. Vaughan was the prototype for tall, dark and handsome. Cocky grin. Brilliant blue eyes. Strong features. And shoulders that were about a million miles wide.

  “It’s complicated,” Mazie muttered, feeling her face heat. Even now, the memories were humiliating.

  Mazie couldn’t remember a time when J.B. hadn’t been part of her life. Way back when, she had even loved him. As an almost-brother. But when her hormones started raging and she began seeing J.B. in a whole new light, a spring formal at her all-girls prep school had presented itself as the perfect opportunity to do some very grown-up experimentation.

  Not sex. Oh, no. Not that. She was aware, even then, that J.B. was the kind of guy who knew things, and she wasn’t ready to go down that road.

  She called him on a Wednesday afternoon in April. With her nerves humming and her stomach flopping, she blurted out her i
nvitation.

  J.B. had been oddly noncommittal. And then, barely four hours later, he had showed up on her doorstep.

  Her father had been locked in his study with a nightcap. Both Jonathan and Hartley, her brothers, had been out on the town doing something or other.

  Mazie had answered the front door.

  Because she felt weird about inviting J.B. inside—though he’d been there a hundred times before—she stepped out onto the wide veranda and smiled at him tentatively.

  “Hey, J.B.,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you today.”

  He leaned against a post, his posture the epitome of cool, high school masculinity. In a few weeks he would be eighteen. A legal adult. Her heart beat faster.

  “I wanted to talk to you face-to-face,” he said. “It was nice of you to ask me to the dance.”

  “Nice?”

  It seemed an odd choice of words, especially coming from J.B.

  He nodded. “I’m flattered.”

  Her stomach curled defensively. “You didn’t actually give me an answer on the phone,” she said. Suddenly, her hands were ice, and she was shaking all over.

  J.B. shifted from one foot to the other. “You’re a cute girl, Mazie. I’m glad you’re my friend.”

  He really didn’t have to say anything else. She was smart and perceptive and able to read between the lines. But she’d be damned if she’d let him off so easily. “What are you trying to say, J.B.?”

  Now a dark scowl erased some of his cocky charm, but none of his brooding sexuality. “Damn it, Mazie. I can’t go to that dance with you. You shouldn’t have asked me. You’re little more than a baby.”

  Her heart shriveled. “I’m not a child,” she said quietly. “I’m only a year younger than you are.”

  “Almost two.”

  The real surprise was that he had kept track. Because of the way their birthdays fell on the calendar, he was right. She took three steps toward him. Inside, she was falling apart. But she wouldn’t let him see what he was doing to her self-esteem. “Don’t make excuses, J.B. If you won’t go out with me, please have the guts to say so.”

  He cursed vehemently. With both hands, he scraped his slightly-too-long blue-black hair from his face. “You’re like a sister to me,” he said.

  The words were muttered, barely audible. In fact, he spoke them in the direction of the floor. A less-convincing lie would have been hard to find. Why was he throwing up walls between them?

  Mazie was breathing so rapidly she was in danger of hyperventilating. Clearly she had misread the situation. J.B. hadn’t come here tonight because he was fond of her, or because he wanted to see her.

  He was standing on her front porch because he was too much of a Southern gentleman to say no to her over the phone.

  A nicer person might have made the situation easier for him. Mazie was tired of being nice. She slipped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek on his broad chest. He was wearing a navy T-shirt and faded jeans with old leather deck shoes. Decades ago, he would have been a classic James Dean. Bad boy. Rule breaker.

  When she touched him, his entire body went rigid. Nothing moved. Except one thing. One startling and rather large thing.

  Jackson Beauregard Vaughan was aroused. Since Mazie had plastered herself against his front, it was rather impossible for him to hide. She found his mouth with hers and threw every ounce of her undiluted teenage passion into an eager, desperate kiss.

  J.B. tasted wonderful, exactly like he did in her dreams, only better.

  For a moment, she thought she had won.

  His arms tightened around her. His mouth crushed hers. His tongue thrust between her lips and stroked the inside of her mouth. Her legs lost feeling. She clung to his shoulders. “J.B.,” she whispered. “Oh, J.B.”

  Her words shocked him out of whatever spell he’d been under. He jerked away so hard and so fast, she stumbled.

  J.B. never even held out a hand to keep her from falling.

  He stared at her, his features shadowed in the unflattering yellowish glare of the porch light. The sun had gone down, and the dark night was alive with the smells and sounds of spring.

  Very deliberately, he wiped a hand across his mouth. “Like I said, Mazie. You’re a kid. Which means you need to stick to the kiddie pool.”

  His harsh words, particularly coming on the heels of that kiss, confused her. “Why are you being so mean?” she whispered.

  She saw the muscles in his throat work.

  “Why are you being so naive and clueless?”

  Hot tears sprang to her eyes. She wouldn’t let them fall. “I think we’re done here. Do me a favor, J.B. If you ever find yourself in the midst of an apocalypse—zombie or otherwise—and if you and I are the only two humans left on the planet, go screw yourself.”

  * * *

  “Mazie...hello... Mazie.”

  Gina’s voice shocked Mazie back to the present. “Sorry,” she said. “I was thinking about something.”

  “About J.B., right? You were ready to tell me why you loathe the man after all these years, and why you won’t sell this property to him, even though he’s offered you three times what it’s worth.”

  Mazie swallowed, shaking off the past. “He broke my heart when we were teenagers, and he was kind of a jerk about it, so yeah... I don’t want to hand him everything he wants.”

  “You’re being illogical.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “Forget the money. Hasn’t he also offered you two other properties that are prime locations for our shop? And he’s willing to do a trade, easy peasy? What are you waiting for, Mazie?”

  “I want him to squirm.”

  J.B. had bought up every single square foot of property in a two-block strip near the Battery. He planned a massive renovation, working, of course, within the parameters of historic Charleston’s preservation guidelines. The street-level storefronts would be glitzy retail space, charming and Southern and unique. Upstairs, J.B.’s vision included luxurious condos and apartments, some with views of the picturesque harbor and Fort Sumter in the distance.

  The only thing standing in J.B.’s way was Mazie. And Mazie’s property. And the fact that he didn’t own it.

  Gina waved a hand in front of Mazie’s face. “Stop spacing out. I understand wanting to torment your teenage nemesis, but are you seriously going to stonewall the man just to make a point?”

  Mazie ground her teeth until her head ached. “I don’t know if I’m willing to sell to him. I need time to think about it.”

  “What if the agent doesn’t call you back?”

  “She will. J.B. never gives up. It’s one of his best qualities and one of his most annoying.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  * * *

  J.B. slid into the dark booth and lifted a hand to summon a server. He’d worn a sport coat and a tie for an earlier meeting. Now, he loosened his collar and dispensed with the neckwear.

  Jonathan Tarleton was already sitting in the opposite corner nursing a sparkling water with lime. J.B. lifted an eyebrow in concern. “You look like hell. What’s wrong?”

  His friend grimaced. “It’s these bloody headaches.”

  “You need to see a doctor.”

  “I have.”

  “Then you need to see a better one.”

  “Can we please stop talking about my health? I’m thirty, not eighty.”

  “Fine.” J.B. wanted to pursue the issue, but Jonathan was clearly not interested. J.B. sat back with a sigh, nursing his beer. “Your sister is driving me crazy. Will you talk to her?” He couldn’t admit the real reason he needed help. He and Mazie were oil and water. She hated him, and J.B. had tried for years to tell himself he didn’t care.

  The truth was far murkier.

  “Mazie is stubborn,” Jonathan said.

 
“It’s a Tarleton trait, isn’t it?”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  “I’ve literally put my entire project on hold, because she’s jerking me around.”

  Jonathan tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile. “My sister is not fond of you, J.B.”

  “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know. Mazie refuses to talk about selling. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Sweeten the pot?”

  “With what? She doesn’t want my money.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve always wondered what you did to piss her off. Why is my little sister the only woman in Charleston who’s immune to the famous J.B. Vaughan charm?”

  J.B. ground his jaw. “Who knows?” he lied. “I don’t have time to play games, though. I need to break ground by the middle of January to stay on schedule.”

  “She likes pralines.”

  Jonathan drawled the three words with a straight face, but J.B. knew when he was being taunted. “You’re suggesting I buy her candy?”

  “Candy...flowers... I don’t know. My sibling is a complicated woman. Smart as hell with a wicked sense of humor, but she has a dark side, too. She’ll make you work for this, J.B. You might as well be prepared to crawl.”

  J.B. took a swig of his drink and tried not to think about Mazie at all. Everything about her flipped his switches. But he couldn’t go there. Ever.

  He choked and set down his glass until he could catch his breath.

  Hell’s bells.

  The Tarleton progeny were beautiful people, all of them. Though J.B. barely remembered Jonathan’s poor mother, what he recalled was a stunning, gorgeous woman with a perpetually sad air about her.

  Jonathan and Hartley had inherited their mother’s olive complexion, dark brown eyes and chestnut hair. Mazie had the Tarleton coloring, too, but her skin was fairer, and her eyes were more gold than brown. Amber, actually.

  Though her brother kept his hair cut short to tame its tendency to curl, Mazie wore hers shoulder length. In the heat and humidity of summer, she kept it up in a ponytail. But during winter, she left it down. He hadn’t seen her in several months. Sometimes J.B. dropped by the Tarletons’ home on Thanksgiving weekend, but this year, he’d been tied up with other commitments.