Miss Dominguez's Christmas Kiss and Other Stories

By Lydia San Andres

Miss Dominguez’s Christmas Kiss
When Lourdes Dominguez moved into Mrs. Gomez’s boarding house, she was assured that sharing a room with Marisol Pascual would suit them both–-and it did.

Mrs. Gomez’s New Year’s Surprise
Running a boarding house had its challenges and Tom Hale, the disruptive, irritating, handsome new boarder was the biggest one Genoveva Gomez had ever encountered.

Miss Weiss’s Reyes Present
Leticia Weiss never thought she would she would fall for a customer of the department store where she works...until she met David Ramos.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lydia San Andres
• Release date: Jan 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463715024

Lydia San Andres

Lydia San Andres lives and writes in the tropics, where she can be found reading and making excuses to stay out of the heat. A Summer for Scandal is her first novel.

Book preview

Miss Dominguez’s Christmas Kiss

Ciudad Real

December 1908

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It was Tuesday and early morning light was streaming bright and clear through the bedroom’s sole window, accompanied by a mild December breeze that rattled the leaves of the tropical almond growing just outside Doña Genoveva’s boarding house. Lourdes Dominguez had all but finished making her bed, but Marisol, who was supposed to be helping her, stopped every few minutes to tell Lourdes about the latest in an endless parade of gentlemen who hovered around the perfume counter at La Parisienne hoping for a chance to flirt with the salesgirls.

And then I told him, Marisol said, holding back her laughter as she held Lourdes’s blanket by one end and waited for Lourdes to get her side straightened out, but sir, you forgot your handkerchief.

They burst into giggles, to the detriment of the blanket they were folding. They had been roommates at Doña Genoveva’s boarding house for almost seven months and Lourdes could count with one hand the mornings that had gone by without one of Marisol’s stories about the people who visited the department store she worked in. The stories were so funny and the cast of characters so peculiar that Lourdes was fairly certain Marisol made up most of them, but listening to her talk was the brightest spot in Lourdes’s day.

"I can’t imagine Mr. Fernandez was terribly pleased about that," Lourdes said when she’d caught her breath.

Marisol shook her head. I wouldn’t have been surprised if steam had come out of his ears. He would have let me go on the spot but I’m the best salesgirl he’s got and he knows it.

"You might be the best salesgirl at La Parisienne but you’re the least punctual one," Lourdes said, gesturing towards the clock.

Marisol groaned. Late again!

Tugging the crumpled fabric out of Marisol’s arms, Lourdes folded it swiftly and placed the bundle at the foot of her narrow bedstead. A typist at Rodriguez & Co., she wasn’t scheduled to arrive at the office until half past eight. Go, you scoundrel. I’ll tidy your half of the room before going down to breakfast.

You’re an angel! Marisol exclaimed.

Hardly, Lourdes said, turning to Marisol’s bed.

Well, as close to one as a vulgar mortal can be. Marisol glanced at the clock again and snatched her handbag from the top of the dresser. It’s dashed unladylike but I’ll have to run. Time and trams wait for no man!

Wait. Lourdes dug into her pocket for a hairpin and motioned Marisol closer. "Mr. Fernandez will have an apoplexy if you’re late and untidy."

Though it was tempting to linger over Marisol’s springy locks, Lourdes sternly denied herself the indulgence and fixed the wayward strand as quickly and efficiently as she always did, slightly apprehensive, as usual, that something in her touch might betray the fluttering that seemed to invade her whenever she touched Marisol. It was useless to worry about such a thing, she knew. Fixing someone’s hair was no more than one might do for a sister, after all, or even a close friend. No one would have any reason to think that there was anything like desire behind the gesture.

Still, Lourdes could not quite forget the way her last close friendship had ended. She hadn’t felt about the girl as she felt about Marisol but there must have been something in the way she looked at her—or she might have inadvertently said something improper—because, after years of friendship, Lourdes had found herself summarily cast aside.

Marisol, who came from a family of five sisters, had been casual about touching from the very start of their acquaintance. And Lourdes, who’d learned to keep her hands and eyes to herself, had slowly thawed in the easy warmth of her friendship. To lose her—to have her look at Lourdes the way her other friend had, with uneasiness and suspicion—was unthinkable.

So Lourdes kept her face clear of any emotion and her eyes on Marisol’s hair while her traitorous, treacherous thoughts wandered down a more dangerous path. She had often wondered what it would be like to kiss Marisol, if it would feel different, if the reality of their bosoms brushing as they pressed close together would be as sinfully delicious as—Lourdes swiftly cut off the thought.

There, she said, patting the pin into place. We’ve just spared Mr. Fernandez a nasty shock.

They were very close. Close enough for Lourdes’s forearms to brush Marisol’s shoulders as she brought her hands down to her side. Close enough for Marisol to lean forward and, without a word or glance of warning, press her lips to Lourdes’s.

Surprise flooded her and she stood still, mouth slightly open and unable to respond as Marisol kissed her lower lip. It occurred to her that she ought to respond—she wanted to respond—but before she could so much as take another breath, Marisol had pulled away and all but run out of the room, leaving Lourdes standing between the two beds, hands pressed to her mouth and heart singing with delight.

Marisol could feel the pin pressing against her scalp for the rest of the day. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation—it didn’t dig into her scalp or scrape against it, merely touched it, softly as a kiss.

She put down her cup of coffee and wished she hadn’t thought of the word kiss.

Wanting Lourdes was a slow burn, kindled by seven months of small, inconsequential touches—the grazing of their arms as they helped wash dishes standing side by side, or the bumping of their legs beneath Doña Genoveva’s cramped table. The brush of Lourdes’s fingers against her temple as she reached over to pin an errant curl.

Marisol would have groaned out loud if she hadn’t been sitting in the middle of a very crowded cafe. Instead, she buried her face in her coffee cup, screwing her eyes shut against the memory of Lourdes’s face, eyes wide in surprise as Marisol…as Marisol…

As Marisol kissed her without so much as a by-your-leave.

It was all so maddening. Not for the first time, she wished there were some sort of secret gesture—or a discreet pin one could fix to one’s lapel, or a way to fix one’s