Temptation at Christmas

by Maureen Child

  She just missed him.

  “Did you know he took the boys up to the bridge yesterday?” Maya smiled and shook her head as if she still couldn’t believe it herself.

  Mia was stunned. Sam had spent time with the boys without her nudging him? “He did?”

  Maya nodded and added, “He even got the Captain to let them take turns steering the ship. I’ve got to say, I’m glad I didn’t know that the boys were in charge, even if it was only for a minute or two.”

  Mia’s heart squeezed. “He didn’t tell me.”

  “Well,” Maya pointed out, “you did say you two aren’t even talking now.”

  “No, we’re not. In fact, I’ve hardly seen him in two days.”

  “Well, the boys were so excited after all of that, he and Joe took them for ice cream.”

  “What?” Mia shook her head as if she hadn’t heard her sister right. That was so unlike Sam, she didn’t know what to make of it. And in the end, it only made her feel worse, knowing that he was so good with kids—seeing that he was good with them—and he didn’t realize it.

  “I know,” Maya agreed. “Shock time. That’s one of the reasons I keep asking you about what happened. I mean, this sounds like a man who loves you.”

  The surprises just kept coming. “I can’t believe you’re defending Sam.”

  “Yeah, it’s stunning to me, too.” Maya tugged her hat brim a little lower onto her forehead. “You know how furious I was when you guys broke up?”

  “Yeah,” Mia said wryly. “I remember the fury and some mention of putting a curse on him.”

  Maya ignored that. “What I didn’t tell you was the reason I was so mad? I liked Sam. And when he hurt you, I was furious at myself because I hadn’t seen it coming.”

  Mia smiled at her twin, reached out and grabbed her hand for a quick squeeze. As irritating as family could be, Mia couldn’t imagine her life without a twin who was so fiercely defensive of her.

  But Maya wasn’t finished. “And then we come on this ship and I watch him watching you and I’m pretty sure he loves you and then it all blows up again and he still loves you. And he’s good to my kids. So I’m furious all over again.”

  They had all been on a roller coaster for far too long. The adrenaline rushes alone were exhausting. And Mia had cried herself out so that she woke every morning feeling dehydrated.

  “You really need to dial it down, Maya. I know you’re upset and I love you for it, but that baby you’re carrying needs peace and quiet.”

  “Then he’s coming to the wrong house,” Maya said with a half laugh.

  They sat beneath a red-and-white striped umbrella and watched everyone in the pool from the safety of shade. The breeze was lovely and the cruise would be short as the ship made its way to Kauai for two days. For the first time since boarding the ship, Mia was wishing the cruise was over. But there was still a week to go before they were home again. Would she make it through another week in that suite with Sam?

  Mia was thankful that their parents had flown home the night before, ready to get back to work at the bakery. At least, she only had Maya’s sympathy and outrage to deal with.

  “I know you don’t want to move back to our suite,” Maya was saying, “and I get it, since just sitting on that couch hurts my back. But if you really don’t want to stay with Sam, maybe you could take over Mom and Dad’s suite.”

  Mia shook her head. “No good. I already checked. The suite was booked a week ago. Someone taking the trip to L.A. and then back again on a different ship.”

  “Well then, maybe you should take that as a sign.”

  “A sign of what?”

  Maya shrugged. “Maybe the universe wants you and Sam to work this out and that’s why it’s keeping you together.”

  “The universe can butt out. Besides, I’m sorry,” Mia said, turning to face her twin. “Aren’t you the one who was telling me to run fast, run far from Sam just a few days ago?”

  “I was,” Maya admitted with a gracious nod. “And I changed my mind.”

  “As historic as that is,” Mia commented, “I don’t think talking is going to change anything.”

  Maya sighed. “Fine. I’ll stop now.”

  “Thank you.”

  “After I say—”

  “Maya...”

  “After I say that I’m on your side in this, Mia.”

  She sighed and smiled. No matter what, she could count on her sister. Her whole family, for that matter. So she would keep doing her crying in private so she wouldn’t worry them. And then on the twenty-fifth, Mia would begin her journey toward a family of her own and Sam would be only a memory.

  A wonderful, haunting, memory.

  “Mrs. Buchanan?”

  She turned to face the waiter standing beside her chaise. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Buchanan asked that this be delivered to you at noon.” He held out an envelope and when Mia took it, he turned and went back to work.

  “Wow,” Maya said. “He really doesn’t want to talk.”

  Mia ignored her, opened the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper. Sam’s bold, handwriting sprawled across the page.

  Mia—I took an early flight out this morning. I’m headed to Bermuda on business. The suite is yours, so enjoy it.

  It was good to be with you again. However briefly.

  Be happy.

  Sam.

  “He’s gone,” Mia whispered.

  Maya snatched the paper from her suddenly nerveless fingers. “He left? Without a word?”

  “He sent word, Maya. You’re holding it.”

  “Yeah, but come on. He couldn’t look you in the eye to tell you he’s leaving?”

  “It’s over,” Mia whispered, finally accepting that Sam didn’t want what she did. Sam didn’t feel what she did.

  “Well, look out,” her sister grumbled. “I’m changing my mind about him again.”

  “Don’t,” Mia said, looking at her twin. “Just accept it for what it is. Sam and I just weren’t meant to be, I guess.”

  And saying that out loud ripped at Mia’s heart. She’d let herself hope and even though that particular balloon was now flat and empty, it was hard to let go of it completely. But then, she had years ahead of her to face the emptiness that was waiting for her.

  So she’d build her own family, love her own children and dream about what might have been if Sam had only trusted himself as much as she’d trusted him.

  * * *

  Sam stayed in Bermuda for two weeks. He spent most of his time at the shipyard, consulting with the builders, going over every detail of the new build.

  He buried himself in work so that he didn’t have time to think about Mia and how silent his life felt without her in it.

  He stood at the window of the house the Buchanans kept on the island. Sam’s grandfather had built the house, saying that he spent so much time there with ship builders, he needed his own place rather than a hotel. And then Sam’s father had used it—as a place to bring the long string of women he’d been involved with.

  But for one week every year, Sam and Michael had been together at this house. Every summer, the boys had a week to explore, to play, to be the brothers their parents had kept them from being. So there were good memories here for Sam. And he tried to focus on them, to keep the thoughts of Mia at a distance.

  It didn’t really work.

  He hadn’t expected to miss her so much. But he did. Waking up next to her, talking over coffee, listening to her laugh. Hell, he even missed how she shoved him over in the middle of the night and fought him for blankets.

  And he remembered that night with the boys, decorating a Christmas tree, and how Mia had shone brighter than the twinkling white lights. For the first time in his life, Christmas decorations had been...beautiful.

  Though he kept her out
of his mind during the day, at night in his sleep, she was there. Always. Her sighs. Her smiles. The way she touched him and the way she came apart when he touched her. He woke up every morning, dragging, his mind cloudy, his chest tight as if he’d been holding his breath all night. And maybe he had been.

  All he knew for sure was that getting over Mia was going to take years.

  “You look lost in thought.”

  Sam turned and saw his younger brother standing in the doorway. He’d never been so glad to see anyone.

  “I am—or was. Now that you’re here, maybe that’ll stop.”

  Michael moved into the main room, walked to the wet bar on the far wall and grabbed two beers from the under-the-counter fridge. He carried one to Sam, then opened his own.

  “So what thoughts are you trying to get rid of?” He looked at the ceiling, tipped his head and said, “Hmmm. Let’s think. Could it be, Mia?”

  “Knock it off,” Sam said, opened his beer and took a sip. “Didn’t I just say I was glad I could stop thinking?”

  “Okay, I’ll think for you,” Michael said and dropped into a chair. “I think you miss Mia. I think you had a great time on the ship and I think you didn’t want to leave.”

  “I think you should mind your own business.”

  “You’re my brother. You are my business.”

  “Fine. Mind a different business.” Sam took a sip of beer and looked away from Michael so the other man wouldn’t notice that he’d really struck a chord with Sam. “Don’t you have a fiancée you could be bugging?”

  “Alice is nuts about me,” Michael said with a grin that slowly faded. “So tell me about you.”

  “Nothing to tell,” Sam lied easily. He wasn’t going to dump everything on Michael. There was no reason for it. He’d made his decision and like his father, once his mind was made up, there was no shaking him from it.

  “Right.” Michael looked around the room. “Hey. When did you paint in here?”

  “When I first got here,” Sam said. He’d hired a crew to come in and redo his father’s office. Hell, he’d been meaning to do it for years but he’d never made the time. But during this trip, the dark maroon walls with their white crown molding had felt as if they were closing in on him.

  His father had insisted on dark colors because he claimed they made him calm. Well, Sam didn’t remember a time when his father was calm. Or relaxed. And maybe this place had fed into that.

  But whether it had or not, Sam hated the darkness of the place, so he’d paid a premium to get a crew in and completely redo not only this damn office, but the whole blasted house. Now the walls were cream colored with pale blue molding and Sam had felt years of depression slide off his shoulders with every room completed.

  “It looks better,” Michael said. “Wish you looked better, too. But damn Sam...”

  “Thanks.” Sam sat down and kicked his legs out straight ahead of him. “Maybe I just need a fresh coat of paint.”

  “We both know what you need, Sam.”

  He sighed, stared down at the open neck of his beer bottle. “I got a call from my lawyer this morning. He says the divorce papers have definitely been filed this time. It’ll be official in a couple of months.”

  “Good news, is it?”

  Sam shot him a hard look. “Of course it is. Mia wants a family. Kids. I can’t do that.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “There’s no difference.”

  “Sure there is.” Michael took a sip of his beer. “You choose to say no to something—someone—you want. That’s won’t. Not can’t.”

  “I offered to give her the family she wants. She still said no.” Hard to admit. Pain shook him, but he pushed it aside.

  “Because she wants you, Sam. She wants you to be there. A part of it all.”

  “Damn it Michael, I was raised by our father. And you know damn well what a crap role model he was.”

  “And yet, you’re letting him decide your life.”

  “Oh, that’s bull.” Sam snorted.

  “Is it? You’re walking away from a woman you love because you think you’ll be like Dad.”

  “Won’t I be?” Sam jumped up from the chair because he suddenly couldn’t sit still. He walked out onto the stone patio at the rear of the house and looked out over the exquisitely trimmed lawn, the gardens and the ocean beyond.

  It was paradise here and yet, for all he noticed, he might as well have been living in someone’s garage with a view of a brick wall.

  “I can give you one example right now of how you’re not like Dad.” Michael walked up beside him, sipped at his beer and stared out over the yard.

  When his brother didn’t continue, curiosity got the better of Sam. “What?”

  “You married Mia. Did Dad ever once marry for love?”

  “Well, there’s our mother...” Though he’d never seen evidence of love in that relationship.

  Michael snorted and as if reading Sam’s mind, asked, “Did their marriage look like love to you?” He shook his head. “When I got engaged to Alice, Mom told me how happy she was. She said when they got divorced, Dad told her the only reason he’d married her was his father had ordered him to marry her and have at least two children. He wanted to assure the whole Buchanan legacy thing.”

  That hit Sam harder than it should have. He felt an instant stab of sympathy for his mother that made him even more glad that she’d finally found real love in Sam and Michael’s stepfather.

  “Yeah, Dad was a prince,” Michael muttered. “But my point was, you married Mia because you loved her.”

  “It still ended.”

  “Because you let it.”

  Sam glared at him. “There was nothing I could do. She wanted the divorce, Michael.”

  “Because you weren’t there for her.” Michael took a step and stood in front of his brother, forcing Sam to meet his gaze. “I think you were so worried about screwing it up, you stayed away as much as you could. Which was stupid.”

  “Thanks.” He had another sip, but even the beer tasted flat, flavorless. Like the rest of his life.

  “No problem. But the solution here is to see what you did wrong and change it.”

  “She wants kids.”

  “You do, too,” Michael said on a laugh. “You’re just scared of screwing that up—and news flash, so’s everyone else. So you work at it. You love your kid and you do your best. And I know you, Sam. When you do your best, you never fail.”

  Was he right? About all of it? Though Michael had been raised by their mother, he’d spent enough time with their dad to know what he was talking about.

  Most of his life, Sam had been trying to avoid turning into his father. Yet he’d never noticed that he was nothing like the old man. Just this house was proof of that. The darkness that Sam’s father had surrounded himself with had been banished for good. So couldn’t he banish darkness from his life, too?

  Thinking about Mia again, Sam saw her face in his mind, felt that hard jolt of his heartbeat and knew that whatever else he did in his life would never come close to being as important as his next move would be.

  “She filed the papers, Mike,” he muttered.

  “You’ve got at least two months before it’s final.”

  Was he right? Should Sam take a good hard look at who he really was? Was it too late?

  He looked at his brother. “You gave me a lot to think about, Michael. Thanks.”

  Michael slapped him on the shoulder. “Any time. Oh. Did I mention that Mia’s coming to my wedding?”

  Sam looked at him as a slow smile curved his mouth. Suddenly, his breath came a little easier and the day looked a little brighter. “Is that right?”

  * * *

  Mia had to go to Michael’s wedding.

  She’d always liked Sam’s brother and his fiancée was just a
s nice as he was. Besides, just because she and Sam were finished didn’t mean she would give up her relationship with Sam’s brother.

  But seeing Sam. Being in the same small church with him. Was so much harder than she’d prepared herself for.

  The papers had been filed. The divorce would be final in a couple of short months and yet, love still flavored every breath she drew. She’d lived through Christmas with her family and managed to keep her pain from shadowing everyone else’s good time.

  But she’d gone home from the cruise once again inflating that hope balloon. This time hoping that she might be pregnant. But when that dream died, she had to accept that it was time she let go. Get ready for her appointment at the end of the month. Prepare to welcome her own child and start building the family she wanted so badly.

  Sam wouldn’t be a part of it and that would always hurt. But she would smile anyway and live the life she wanted.

  During the ceremony, she tried to focus on the bride and groom, but her gaze kept straying as if on its own accord, to Sam. So tall, so handsome in his tailored tuxedo. He stood beside his brother and she wondered if he thought about their wedding, a little over a year ago. Mia did and the memories brought a pain so bright and sharp it was hard to breathe.

  Of course, the two weddings couldn’t have been more different. She and Sam had been married on a cliff in Laguna Beach during a bright December morning. Michael and Alice were having a black-tie, evening ceremony in a tiny church that was draped in flowers of white and yellow.

  She slipped out of the church from the back row before the bride and groom had a chance to rush smiling down the aisle. She had to try at least to avoid Sam. Otherwise, she’d be a masochist.

  Mia hurried out to one of the cars provided by the couple to transport everyone to the reception. The party was being held on one of the Buchanan ships and when she arrived, she saw balloons, streamers, flowers and yellow-and-white garland wrapped along the gangway.

  Once aboard, waiters with silver trays holding flutes of champagne greeted the guests. Mia took one and immediately had a long sip. She was going to need it if she was to face Sam.