Baby, It's Christmas & Hold Me, Cowboy

by Susan Mallery

  “You can’t blame yourself for a death that was some kind of freak medical event.”

  “Tell me you wouldn’t blame yourself, Maddy. Tell me you wouldn’t.” He sat up, and Maddy sat up too. Then he gripped her shoulders, holding her steady, forcing her to meet his gaze. “You, who blame yourself for the affair with your dressage teacher even though you were an underage girl. You could tell me you don’t. You could tell me that you were just hurt by the way everybody treated you, but I know it’s more than that. You blame yourself. So don’t you dare look at me with those wide blue eyes and tell me that I have no business blaming myself.”

  She blinked. “I... I don’t blame myself. I don’t. I mean, I’m not proud of what I did, but I’m not going to take all of the blame. Not for something I couldn’t control. He lied to me. I was dumb, yes. I was naive. But dammit, Sam, my father should have had my back. My friends should have had my back. And my teacher should never have taken advantage of me.”

  He moved away from her then, pushing himself into a standing position and forking his fingers through his hair. She wasn’t blaming him. It was supposed to push her away. She certainly wasn’t supposed to look at him with sympathy. She was supposed to be appalled. Appalled that he had taken the chances he had with Elizabeth’s body. Appalled at his lack of control.

  It was the object lesson. The one that proved that he wasn’t good enough for a woman like her. That he wasn’t good enough for anyone.

  “You don’t blame yourself at all?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s kind of a loaded question. I could have made another decision. And because of that, I guess I share blame. But I’m not going to sit around feeling endless guilt. I’m hurt. I’m wounded. But that’s not the same thing. Like I told you, the sex was the least of it. If it was all guilt, I would have found somebody a long time ago. I would have dealt with it. But it’s more than that. I think it’s more than that with you. Because you’re not an idiot. You know full well that it isn’t like you’re the first man to have unprotected sex with a woman. You know full well you weren’t in control of where an embryo implanted inside a woman. You couldn’t have taken her to the hospital, because you didn’t know she was pregnant. You didn’t know she needed you. She sent you away. She made some choices here, and I don’t really think it’s her fault either, because how could she have known? But still. It isn’t your fault.”

  He drew back, anger roaring through him. “I’m the one...”

  “You’re very dedicated to this. But that doesn’t make it true.”

  “Her father thought it was my fault,” he said. “That matters. I had to look at a man who was going to have to bury his daughter because of me.”

  “Maybe he felt that way,” Maddy said. “I can understand that. People want to blame. I know. Because I’ve been put in that position. Where I was the one that people wanted to blame. Because I wasn’t as well liked. Because I wasn’t as important. I know that David’s wife certainly wanted to blame me, because she wanted to make her marriage work, and if she blamed David, how would she do that? And without blame, your anger is aimless.”

  Those words hit hard, settled somewhere down deep inside him. And he knew that no matter what, no matter that he didn’t want to think about them, no matter that he didn’t want to believe them, they were going to stay with him. Truth had a funny way of doing that.

  “I’m not looking for absolution, Maddy.” He shook his head. “I was never looking for it.”

  “What are you looking for, then?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing. I’m not looking for anything. I’m not looking for you to forgive me. I’m not looking to forgive myself.”

  “No,” she said, “you’re just looking to keep punishing yourself. To hold everything inside and keep it buried down deep. I don’t think it’s the rest of the world you’re hiding yourself from. I think you’re hiding from yourself.”

  “You think that you are qualified to talk about my issues? You. The woman who didn’t have a lover for ten years because she’s so mired in the past?”

  “Do you think that’s going to hurt my feelings? I know I’m messed up. I’m well aware. In fact, I would argue that it takes somebody as profoundly screwed up as I am to look at another person and see it. Maybe other people would look at you and see a man who is strong. A man who has it all laid out. A man who has iron control. But I see you for what you are. You’re completely and totally bound up inside. And you’re ready to crack apart. You can’t go on like this.”

  “Watch me,” he said.

  “How long has it been?” she asked, her tone soft.

  “Five years,” he ground out.

  “Well, it’s only half the time I’ve been punishing myself, but it’s pretty good. Where do you see it ending, Sam?”

  “Well, you were part of it for me too.”

  He gritted his teeth, regretting introducing that revelation into the conversation.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I haven’t been with a woman in five years. So I guess you could say you are part of me dealing with some of my issues.”

  Maddy looked like she’d been slapped. She did not, in any way, look complimented. “What does that mean? What does that mean?” She repeated the phrase twice, sounding more horrified, more frantic each time.

  “It had to end at some point. The celibacy, I mean. And when you offered yourself, I wasn’t in a position to say no.”

  “After all of your righteous indignation—the accusation that I was using you for sexual healing—it turns out you were using me for the same thing?” she asked.

  “Why does that upset you so much?”

  “Because...because you’re still so completely wrapped up in it. Because you obviously don’t have any intention to really be healed.”

  Unease settled in his chest. “What’s me being healed to you, Maddy? What does that mean? I changed something, didn’t I? Same as you.”

  “But...” Her tone became frantic. “I just... You aren’t planning on letting it change you.”

  “What change are you talking about?” he pressed.

  “I don’t know,” she said, her throat sounding constricted.

  “Like hell, Madison. Don’t give me that. If you’ve changed the rules in your head, that’s hardly my fault.”

  She whirled around, lowering her head, burying her face in her hands. “You’re so infuriating.” She turned back to him, her cheeks crimson. “I don’t know what either of us was thinking. That we were going to go into this and come out the other side without changing anything? We are idiots. We are idiots who didn’t let another human being touch us for years. And somehow we thought we could come together and nothing would change? I mean, it was one thing when it was just me. I assumed that you went around having sex with women you didn’t like all the time.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because you don’t like anyone. So, that stands to reason. That you would sleep with women you don’t like. I certainly didn’t figure you didn’t sleep with women at all. That’s ridiculous. You’re... Look at you. Of course you have sex. Who would assume that you didn’t? Not me. That’s who.”

  He gritted his teeth, wanting desperately to redirect the conversation. Because it was going into territory that would end badly for both of them. He wanted to leave the core of the energy arcing between them unspoken. He wanted to make sure that neither of them acknowledged it. He wanted to pretend he had no idea what she was thinking. No idea what she was about to say.

  The problem was, he knew her. Better than he knew anyone else, maybe. And it had all happened in a week. A week of talking, of being skin to skin. Of being real.

  No wonder he had spent so many years avoiding exactly this. No wonder he had spent so long hiding everything that he was, everything that he wanted. Because
the alternative was letting it hang out there, exposed and acting as some kind of all-access pass to anyone who bothered to take a look.

  “Well, you assumed wrong. But it doesn’t have to change anything. We have five more days, Maddy. Why does it have to be like this?”

  “Honest?”

  “Why do we have to fight with each other? We shouldn’t. We don’t have to. We don’t have to continue this discussion. We are not going to come to any kind of understanding, whatever you might think. Whatever you think you’re pushing for here...just don’t.”

  “Are you going to walk away from this and just not change? Are you going to find another woman? Is that all this was? A chance for you to get your sexual mojo back? To prove that you could use a condom every time? Did you want me to sew you a little sexual merit badge for your new Boy Scout vest?” She let out a frustrated growl. “I don’t want you to be a Boy Scout, Sam. I want you to be you.”

  Sam growled, advancing on her. She backed away from him until her shoulder blades hit the wall. Then he pressed his palms to the flat surface on either side of her face. “You don’t want me to be me. Trust me. I don’t know how to give the kinds of things you want.”

  “You don’t want to,” she said, the words soft, penetrating deeper than a shout ever could have.

  “No, you don’t want me to.”

  “Why is that so desperately important for you to make yourself believe?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  She let silence hang between them for a moment. “Why won’t you let yourself feel this?”

  “What?”

  “This is why you do farm animals. That’s what you said. And you said it was because nobody would want to see this. But that isn’t true. Everybody feels grief, Sam. Everybody has lost. Plenty of people would want to see what you would make from this. Why is it that you can’t do it?”

  “You want me to go ahead and make a profit off my sins? Out of the way I hurt other people? You want me to make some kind of artistic homage to a father who never wanted me to do art in the first place? You want me to do a tribute to a woman whose death I contributed to.”

  “Yes. Because it’s not about how anyone else feels. It’s about how you feel.”

  He didn’t know why this reached in and cut him so deeply. He didn’t know why it bothered him so much. Mostly he didn’t know why he was having this conversation with her at all. It didn’t change anything. It didn’t change him.

  “No,” she said, “that isn’t what I think you should do. It’s not about profiting off sins—real or perceived. It’s about you dealing with all of these things. It’s about you acknowledging that you have feelings.”

  He snorted. “I’m entitled to more grief than Elizabeth’s parents? To any?”

  “You lost somebody that you cared about. That matters. Of course it matters. You lost... I don’t know. She was pregnant. It was your baby. Of course that matters. Of course you think about it.”

  “No,” he said, the words as flat as everything inside him. “I don’t. I don’t think about that. Ever. I don’t talk about it. I don’t do anything with it.”

  “Except make sure you never make a piece of art that means anything to you. Except not sleep with anyone. Except punish yourself. Which you had such a clear vision of when you felt like I was doing it to myself but you seem to be completely blind to when it comes to you.”

  “All right. Let’s examine your mistake, then, Maddy. Since you’re so determined to draw a comparison between the two of us. Who’s dead? Come on. Who died as a result of your youthful mistakes? No one. Until you make a mistake like that, something that’s that irreversible, don’t pretend you have any idea what I’ve been through. Don’t pretend you have any idea of what I should feel.”

  He despised himself for even saying that. For saying he had been through something. He didn’t deserve to walk around claiming that baggage. It was why he didn’t like talking about it. It was why he didn’t like thinking about it. Because Elizabeth’s family members were the ones who had been left with a giant hole in their lives. Not him. Because they were the ones who had to deal with her loss around the dinner table, with thinking about her on her birthday and all of the holidays they didn’t have her.

  He didn’t even know when her birthday was.

  “Well, I care about you,” Maddy said, her voice small. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “No,” he said, his voice rough. “Five more days, Maddy. That’s it. That’s all it can ever be.”

  He should end it now. He knew that. Beyond anything else, he knew that he should end it now. But if Maddy West had taught him anything, it was that he wasn’t nearly as controlled as he wanted to be. At least, not where she was concerned. He could stand around and shout about it, self-flagellate all he wanted, but when push came to shove, he was going to make the selfish decision.

  “Either you come to bed with me and we spend the rest of the night not talking, or you go home and we can forget the rest of this.”

  Maddy nodded mutely. He expected her to turn and walk out the door. Maybe not even pausing to collect her clothes, in spite of the cold weather. Instead, she surprised him. Instead, she took his hand, even knowing the kind of devastation it had caused, and she turned and led him up the stairs.

  Chapter 11

  Maddy hadn’t slept at all. It wasn’t typical for her and Sam to share a bed the entire night. But they had last night. After all that shouting and screaming and lovemaking, it hadn’t seemed right to leave. And he hadn’t asked her to.

  She knew more about him now than she had before. In fact, she had a suspicion that she knew everything about him. Even if it wasn’t all put together into a complete picture. It was there. And now, with the pale morning light filtering through the window, she was staring at him as though she could make it all form a cohesive image.

  As if she could will herself to somehow understand what all of those little pieces meant. As if she could make herself see the big picture.

  Sam couldn’t even see it, of that she was certain. So she had no idea how she could expect herself to see it. Except that she wanted to. Except that she needed to. She didn’t want to leave him alone with all of that. It was too much. It was too much for any one man. He felt responsible for the death of that woman. Or at least, he was letting himself think he did.

  Protecting himself. Protecting himself with pain.

  It made a strange kind of sense to her, only because she was a professional at protecting herself. At insulating herself from whatever else might come her way. Yes, it was a solitary existence. Yes, it was lonely. But there was control within that. She had a feeling that Sam operated in much the same way.

  She shifted, brushing his hair out of his face. He had meant to frighten her off. He had given her an out. And she knew that somehow he had imagined she would take it. She knew that he believed he was some kind of monster. At least, part of him believed it.

  Because she could also tell that he had been genuinely surprised that she hadn’t turned tail and run.

  But she hadn’t. And she wouldn’t. Mostly because she was just too stubborn. She had spent the past ten years being stubborn. Burying who she was underneath a whole bunch of bad attitude and sharp words. Not letting anyone get close, even though she had a bunch of people around her who cared. She had chosen to focus on the people who didn’t. The people who didn’t care enough. While simultaneously deciding that the people who did care enough, who cared more than enough, somehow weren’t as important.

  Well, she was done with that. There were people in her life who loved her. Who loved her no matter what. And she had a feeling that Sam had the ability to be one of those people. She didn’t want to abandon him to this. Not when he had—whether he would admit it or not—been instrumental in digging her out of her self-imposed emotional
prison.

  “Good morning,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his cheek.

  As soon as she did that, a strange sense of foreboding stole over her. As though she knew that the next few moments were going to go badly. But maybe that was just her natural pessimism. The little beast she had built up to be the strongest and best-developed piece of her. Another defense.

  Sam’s eyes opened, and the shock that she glimpsed there absolutely did not bode well for the next few moments. She knew that. “I stayed the night,” she said, in response to the unasked question she could see lurking on his face.

  “I guess I fell asleep,” he said, his voice husky.

  “Clearly.” She took a deep breath. Oh well. If it was all going to hell, it might as well go in style. “I want you to come to the family Christmas party with me.”

  It took only a few moments for her to decide that she was going to say those words. And that she was going to follow them up with everything that was brimming inside her. Feelings that she didn’t feel like keeping hidden. Not anymore. Maybe it was selfish. But she didn’t really care. She knew his stuff. He knew hers. The only excuse she had for not telling him how she felt was self-protection.

  She knew where self-protection got her. Absolutely nowhere. Treading water in a stagnant pool of her own failings, never advancing any further on in her life. In her existence. It left her lonely. It left her without any real, true friends. She didn’t want that. Not anymore. And if she had to allow herself to be wounded in the name of authenticity, in the name of trying again, then she would.

  An easy decision to make before the injury occurred. But it was made nonetheless.

  “Why?” Sam asked, rolling away from her, getting up out of bed.

  She took that opportunity to drink in every detail of his perfect body. His powerful chest, his muscular thighs. Memorizing every little piece of him. More Sam for her collection. She had a feeling that eventually she would walk away from him with nothing but that collection. A little pail full of the shadows of what she used to have.