Christmas Treats Box Set: Books 1 - 4

by Holly Rayner

  The deal was simple enough. Clay paid for the properties. Dave worked with the contractors to make the necessary improvements. Then the two of them split the profit when they made the sale.

  So far, two properties had been sold. With Dave’s new acquisition, they were in possession of four others.

  The outlay had been significant, but Clay knew the money would come back to him eventually. He wasn’t worried about that. His only real concern was that Dave was making purchases without consulting him first. After all, it was still his money.

  He texted back. “Don’t buy anything else until I get home.”

  The reply came quickly.

  “I said I was calling it quits, didn’t I?”

  Fair enough. Clay sent back a thumbs-up emoji and put the phone down. Each of these messages was costing him, and while he could afford it, bickering with Dave wasn’t really the way he wanted to spend his money—or his time.

  He picked up the phone and ordered the seafood platter and a bottle of champagne. It was Christmas, after all. That called for a celebration, even though Clay didn’t feel that much like celebrating.

  As a cattle rancher, he had thought he understood loneliness. He had thought of solitude as something he was used to, something he relished. He would never have thought of himself as the kind of man who craved the company of others.

  But his father’s death seemed to have changed him.

  Suddenly, being alone wasn’t a privilege anymore. It was a hardship, and one he had no idea how to get away from.

  He turned the TV to an action movie, rolled up his pant legs, and sat down on the edge of the hot tub, submerging his feet in the warm water. Closing his eyes, he tried to consciously release the tension in his body.

  Merry Christmas to me.

  Chapter 3

  Gwen

  Gwen awoke the next morning to the sound of Christmas music being played on steel drums.

  She dressed, left her room, and went out to the lobby. The resort staff were all dressed for the holiday in gaudy red and green. A server was walking around the lobby offering drinks to resort guests. It all contrasted rather sharply with the smell of coconut oil and the warm breeze that came in every time the automatic doors slid open.

  Gwen crossed the lobby to the buffet restaurant on the first floor. She loaded up a plate with eggs, bacon and toast and claimed her favorite seat beside the big picture window that looked out onto the beach. She stared out at the families frolicking in the sand, contemplating how she might spend her Christmas Eve.

  “Mimosa?”

  She glanced up. A server with a tray of mimosas stood beside her table.

  “Thanks,” she said, accepting one.

  “Happy Christmas Eve!” He wandered off.

  Gwen steeled herself. She wasn’t going to allow the festivities to get to her, even though she had come to Green Turtle Cay to skip holiday stuff. She wasn’t going to hide in her room to avoid this. Christmas might have made her feel uncomfortable and out of place when she was a kid, but here everyone was a guest. Everyone was experiencing the traditions for the first time.

  She was just like everyone else.

  She went to her room, changed into her swimsuit, and headed out to the beach. But instead of claiming a beach chair when she got there, she went right to Jahni’s tiki hut. Her breakfast mimosa had been just the start she had needed to her day, and she was eager to keep them coming.

  As she approached the bar, though, she froze.

  That dark hair. That muscular build.

  His back was to her, but somehow she knew without needing to see his face. It was the man from yesterday. The one she had spilled her drink on.

  Her toes curled in her flip-flops at the thought of his strong arms wrapped around her in an embrace, her head resting on his chest.

  Get ahold of yourself, Gwen.

  She almost turned and ran back up to the resort. But she caught herself.

  No. I’m not going to run away from him twice. I have as much right to be here as he does. She wasn’t going to let a silly little spilled daiquiri ruin the rest of her vacation.

  Head held high, she approached the bar.

  Jahni’s face lit up at the sight of her. “A pineapple mango daiquiri?” he asked, reaching for the blender.

  “Just a mimosa today,” she said.

  Jahni had several premixed behind the bar, and he winked and handed her two of them.

  “Thanks,” she said, smiling. She turned to the man beside her. “Hi. I think we ran into one another here yesterday.”

  He smiled, immediately putting her at ease. He had a mimosa of his own in hand, and he patted the seat next to him, indicating that she should sit down. “I hope you’re not planning to take off on me again?”

  “No,” she said, taking the seat. “And I want to apologize again for yesterday. I hope you were able to get that shirt clean.”

  “It was my fault,” he assured her. “I was standing too close. I should have foreseen that you would turn around!”

  She laughed. “All right,” she said. “Well, I am sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

  “I’m Gwen, by the way,” she added quickly, not ready for their conversation to be over. “Gwen Carrington.”

  “Hi, Gwen.” He extended a hand. “I’m Clay.”

  “And you’re staying at the resort too?”

  He nodded. “It’s my first time in the Bahamas, actually.”

  “Mine, too,” she said. “Where are you from? Your accent—”

  “I don’t have an accent,” he protested.

  “Yes, you do.” She turned. “Jahni, doesn’t he have an accent?”

  “You both have an accent,” Jahni said.

  They laughed.

  “I’m Texan,” Clay said.

  “Ooh, really?” she asked. “I’ve always wanted to visit Texas.”

  “Well, if you do, skip the cities and come to the Panhandle,” he said. “That’s where the real Texas is.”

  “That’s where you live?”

  He nodded. “I own a ranch there,” he said after a brief hesitation.

  Gwen was impressed. A Texas rancher. It called up images of a cowboy riding off into the sunset, rope in hand, Stetson on his head. It was true that Clay didn’t look like the picture she was imagining right now, in his Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned down to the third button. But with a little imagination, she found she could easily see him on horseback.

  It was an image that made a small shiver run down her spine.

  “What does a rancher do?” she asked, mostly to keep him talking about himself so that she could better fill in the picture in her imagination.

  “I wrangle cattle, mostly,” he said. “Raise the livestock. Help birth the new calves. Keep them fed and happy until they’re ready to be sold.”

  He turned back to his drink, and she got the feeling he was ending the conversation.

  But Gwen didn’t want the conversation to end. It was Christmas Eve, and she was talking to a handsome man instead of spending time lost in the quagmire of her own thoughts.

  “It sounds like a lot of work,” she said. “Taking care of a whole herd of cows like that.”

  He shrugged. “I have ranch hands,” he said. “They help. But I do like to be a part of the process. I’m not the type to sit back and let my hired hands do all the hard work. I’m out there every day working with the herd.”

  Gwen could tell. He had the worn skin of someone who spent a lot of time out in the sun. It only made him more attractive. And she wondered what those rough hands would feel like on her skin.

  “How did you get into ranching?” she asked. “Or does everyone in Texas go that route?”

  He chuckled. “Hardly,” he said. “My father started the ranch. I went into the family business.”

  “Oh,” Gwen said. “Was that nice? Having a path all set for you like that? It sounds like it would be a relief.” She felt awkward, as if she was interviewing h
im, asking forced questions. But it was the only thing she could think of to keep the conversation going.

  “Yeah, it was,” Clay agreed. “I think some people would have felt pressured if they were in my situation—like they had to follow in their father’s footsteps or risk being a disappointment. But I only ever wanted to be a cowboy, so for me it was a perfect situation.”

  He signaled for another drink and turned back to her. “What do you do?” he asked.

  “I’m a police officer,” she said.

  He sat back slightly. “Oh.”

  “Oh?”

  “I just…wow. I didn’t have you pegged as a cop.”

  Gwen gritted her teeth, determined not to get upset. She had dealt with far too many men who weren’t prepared for the fact that she had a job that conferred authority and power. A lot of men couldn’t handle that in a woman. She had hoped Clay wouldn’t be that type, but if he was—well, she wasn’t going to let it ruin her day. It was just a conversation at the bar.

  He must have seen some reaction on her face, though, because he backpedaled quickly. “I don’t mean that to be offensive,” he said. “I just meant…you’re really pretty.”

  “Police officers can’t be pretty?”

  He closed his eyes. “I’m saying this wrong.”

  She decided to give him a break. “You’re all right,” she said. “I know I don’t exactly scream ‘law and order’ in my bikini with my hair down.”

  He looked relieved. “I wasn’t trying to offend you,” he said. “You just took me by surprise.”

  If she was honest with herself, she was glad he’d tripped over his reaction to her career. At least now he was the one driving the conversation, and he seemed in no particular hurry to break it off.

  “To be honest with you,” she said, “I’m not sure I’m going to stay with the force.” It was the first time she had uttered the words aloud, and she was a bit surprised to hear them leaving her mouth.

  “Really?” Clay asked. “Why not?”

  “It’s a stressful job,” she said. “I don’t know a lot about ranching, but that much physical activity sounds to me like it would be really good for stress. I imagine you wouldn’t have trouble falling asleep at the end of each day.”

  Gwen tried hard not to picture him, his shirt off, crawling into bed.

  “That’s true,” Clay said. “I’m usually pretty exhausted. And there aren’t that many ways to mess things up as long as you’re putting in the work, so it doesn’t give me a lot of anxiety. But isn’t police work a pretty physical job also?”

  “It is,” she said. “But…well, you see a lot of unpleasant things.”

  She didn’t want to go into too much detail about those things. Describing them would ruin the pleasant vibe she and Clay had going, and she didn’t want to turn the conversation into something dark.

  He seemed to understand that. “I bet,” he said. “Could you use another drink?”

  She hadn’t noticed that she’d finished the two she’d been given. “I could,” she said.

  “You don’t have somewhere you need to be?”

  “No, I’m here by myself,” she said. “So my day is my own. To tell you the truth, this is the first real conversation I’ve had since I came to the island, if you don’t count talking to Jahni here.”

  He smiled. “Me, too,” he said. “It’s been a little lonely.”

  “You’re traveling alone too?”

  Clay closed his eyes. A look of pain crossed his face.

  Gwen realized she had touched on something sensitive. “You don’t have to elaborate,” she told him. “I’m sure it’s not my business.”

  “No, it’s all right.” He took a deep breath. “My father passed away earlier this year.”

  “Oh.” It was a pain Gwen knew she couldn’t quite relate to, having never known her own parents. But she could imagine. She had always thought, growing up, that having parents must be like having an anchor, something to hold you in place and give you stability. She had grown up without that stability. But what must it be like for someone who had always had it to suddenly lose it, late in life, when he had come to depend on it?

  “I’m so sorry,” she said quietly. “That’s awful.”

  He nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “It’s been hard.”

  “Is your mother…?”

  “She left us when I was a kid,” he said.

  “Ah,” she said softly. “Any siblings?”

  He shook his head. “It was just me and Dad.”

  So he was as alone as she was. She felt awful for him.

  “He always dreamed of coming to the Bahamas,” Clay said. “We planned on doing it this coming spring. But after he died…” He shook his head. “I decided he would want me to go ahead and make the trip. I moved it up a few months.”

  “You didn’t want to spend Christmas on your own?”

  He looked at her, his features softening as if he was taking down a barrier. “That’s right,” he said. “My friends back at home—well, I don’t have many. I was pretty isolated out on the ranch, and I was always fine with that. But the few people I am close to are spending the holiday with their own families. Either they’re married with children, or they’re going back to their parents’ place for Christmas.”

  Gwen nodded. “Everyone I know is doing the same thing,” she said. “My partner invited me over to his house for Christmas dinner, but…” She shrugged. “I would have felt out of place. It was nice of him to offer, but Christmas is such an intimate family thing.”

  “What about your own family?” he asked.

  “It’s just me,” she said.

  “Your parents are gone too?”

  “I never knew my birth parents,” she said. “I don’t know if they’re alive, or where they are. They’re not family to me. I grew up in the foster care system.”

  Clay cocked his head. “What was that like?”

  “I was lucky,” she said. “I was luckier than a lot of children in that situation. Every family I was ever placed with was at least decent to me, and most of them were really nice. Some of the kids I see now, in my work with the police department, have landed in really bad situations, and I’m always thankful that that never happened to me.”

  Clay nodded. “But still,” he said. “Foster care must have been challenging. That’s a tough way for a kid to grow up.”

  “It was hard,” she agreed. “I never stayed in one place for long. I think the longest stay I had with a single family was about eighteen months.”

  “That’s not very long,” Clay said.

  “It actually is a pretty long time, considering what’s typical within the system,” Gwen said. “Families don’t sign up for foster care with the intent of keeping a kid for the long term. If they wanted that, they would adopt.”

  “Do you still keep in touch with that family?” Clay asked her. “Or with any of the others you were placed with?”

  Was it her imagination, or was he leaning in closer to her?

  “Here and there,” she said. “I sent them a Christmas card a few days ago, but we haven’t actually seen each other in years. They’ve never known me as an adult. Sending cards now feels more like an annual show of gratitude for keeping me alive for a year than like reaching out to someone I love.”

  “So you’re like me,” Clay said. “You came to the island for Christmas because there wasn’t anyone you wanted to spend it with.”

  She laughed. “That’s blunt.”

  He looked abashed. “Sorry,” he said.

  “No, I liked it,” she assured him. “And you’re right. The holiday season is hard because everyone goes back to home and family, and I have no one. It’s like Valentine’s Day when you’re single, but ten times worse.”

  Clay looked thoughtful. Then he reached out and touched her arm. Gwen felt heat rush through her at the confirmation that his rough hand did feel good on her skin.

  “What would you say,” he said, “if I suggested that we
spend the holiday together?”

  “You and me?”

  “It feels like a sign, in a way, doesn’t it?” he asked. “We’re both on our own, with no family. We both travel to this tiny island, far from home, and when we get here we just so happen to run into each other, not once but twice. I feel like the universe is trying to tell me something.”

  She laughed. “The universe wants you to spend Christmas with me?”

  “Well, why not?” he asked. “I had been planning on sitting in my room alone watching a bunch of holiday movies and eating lobster. Having someone to share the day with sounds more fun. And we’ll have a story to tell when we go back home.”

  Gwen couldn’t deny feeling a flutter of excitement at the idea. This beat any plans she had made.

  “All right,” she said, smiling up at him. “You’re on.”

  Chapter 4

  Clay

  Clay straightened his tie in front of the mirror and checked his appearance. He looked pretty good, he thought. It was lucky that he’d brought a suit along with him. He hadn’t really believed that he’d have any use for it, but at the last second he had decided to pack it anyway, just in case.

  And now it was coming in handy. Who would have thought?

  He was surprised by how nervous he felt about this date. The stakes should have been very low, considering the fact that he wasn’t likely to see Gwen again after tonight. What difference did it really make if he made a fool of himself? What did it matter if things didn’t go well?

  And yet, he couldn’t help wanting it to be a success. He wanted Gwen to have a good time. He wanted this evening to be something that they would both look back on fondly.

  It’s because it’s my first Christmas alone. I want it to be a good memory. That’s all.

  That made sense. That was probably it. He was over-worrying.

  But it wasn’t like Clay to worry this much about things.

  What is it about her that’s provoking this response in me?

  He didn’t know. It was very strange.

  He straightened his tie again, gave his reflection a final appraising look, then turned away from the mirror. He pocketed his wallet and room key and headed out.