“Everything okay?” Gretchen asked as she slid sliced onions and strips of marinated beef into the sizzling-hot cast-iron skillet on the stove.
He nodded, looking very much the devoted father.
“My kids. They called to wish me a Merry Christmas.”
“You have three children, I gather?” Gretchen said. Noting the nachos were done, she removed them from the oven, then cut them into fourths and slid the piping hot, pie-shaped wedges onto a serving dish that had lettuce, tomatoes, guacamole and sour cream artistically arranged in the center of it.
“Yes.” As Matt brought out napkins and plates, he continued with unabashed pride, “Angela is twenty-three, a great kid and a student at the University of Texas. Her grades are wonderful. She’s carrying close to a 4.0. The problem—if you can even call it that, given her sensitive artistic nature—is her inability to decide on a specific major. She’s such a versatile and gifted kid. She wants to do absolutely everything and hence ends up changing her career plans every other term. As a consequence, she has plenty of credits but not enough to fulfill any particular degree requirements, even after six years of full-time enrollment.”
Gretchen offered a commiserating smile. “I can see where that would be a problem.”
He devoured a nacho and reached for another. “Unfortunately, you can’t stay a student forever. To aid her in making the leap to adulthood, I’ve threatened to cut her off financially if she doesn’t pick a major and stick with it soon, but I don’t think she takes me seriously.”
Gretchen paused, not sure she could see Matt behaving so harshly. “Are you serious?” she asked, curious.
Matt shrugged. “To be honest, I’d have a hard time throwing any child of mine out on the street. Besides, I want her to have an education. These nachos are great, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Gretchen smiled, then got up to give the fajitas a whirl with the spatula. Noting the sizzling beef had at least another ten minutes to go, she slid the foil-wrapped tortillas into the oven to warm. “What about Luke?” She sat down with Matt again, picked up a nacho and loaded it with extras.
“He’s twenty-one and our middle child.” Matt stepped outside onto the porch and brought in a six-pack of Colorado beer, which had been chilling out there. Gretchen watched as he opened two and handed her one. Gretchen brought down two glasses.
“Luke’s at Texas A & M and although he’s extremely bright and energetic, too, he’s not doing as well academically as either of his sisters. He says it’s because his classes in petrochemical engineering and business management are largely irrelevant. He wants to drop out of school altogether and become a private eye.”
“But you object?” Gretchen sipped the icy beer.
Matt ignored the glass and tipped the bottle to his lips. “I admit I don’t see much future in it. Although he is one of the nosiest, most suspicious people I’ve ever chanced to meet and he does love to check things and people out. So who knows? Maybe that is the place for him. Only he can decide.”
“Still, you’d rather see him doing something else,” Gretchen guessed.
His expression reflective, Matt nodded. Together, they finished off the last of the nachos. “I had hoped he would join me in the oil business someday—I’m a wildcatter and I’ve got my own firm.”
Realizing there was one child they hadn’t yet talked about, Gretchen got up to bring the skillet of sizzling fajitas to the table. “Sassy is your youngest?”
“Right.” Matt watched as she got the tortillas from the oven and brought out another tray of salsa and grated cheese. “She’s twenty and a prelaw major at Southern Methodist University. She’s the most serious of my three children, very cautious and detail oriented.”
“Which is why she wanted to know precisely what time you’re going to arrive,” Gretchen stated.
“Right. She can drive me nuts that way sometimes.”
“But you love all three of them dearly, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Matt uttered a contented sigh and leaned back in his chair. “They are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I can’t imagine my life without them.”
Neither could Gretchen. Matt was very much a doting father. His kids were lucky to have him.
He looked down at the fajitas they’d built.
“Not exactly traditional Christmas Eve fare, is it?” Gretchen guessed at what he was thinking and wondered if he knew that she could have handled anything but a dose of sentimentality this evening. This Christmas Eve she didn’t want to think about all she had lost. She wanted to think about all that lay ahead of her.
Matt grinned appreciatively. “Right now Tex-Mex is just what I need. What about you? Do you wish you were back in Texas?”
“Not so much...home is all relative to me.... But I do miss my dad.” Gretchen found she trusted Matt enough to confide, “It’s my first Christmas without him. He died last winter.” And now that the holiday was upon them, Gretchen was finding the going a little rough.
“What about your mom?” Matt asked gently, reaching across the table to cover her hand with his.
“She died when I was ten.”
“No other family?”
“None. Which is, of course, why the Stewarts invited me here. They took pity on me.” Recovering, Gretchen shot him a flip glance. “What about you? What’d you do to earn the invitation?” she asked dryly, taking another sip of beer.
“It’s my first Christmas without my kids. Last year I had them. This year it’s my ex-wife’s turn.”
“So they’re in Aspen,” Gretchen said, recalling tidbits of his phone conversation with them.
Matt nodded. “Their new stepfather owns a hotel there.” His mouth crooked up ruefully. “He owns a lot of hotels.”
Gretchen noted there was no envy in Matt’s voice; he’d simply stated a fact. “Do you and your ex-wife get along?” she asked, curious.
“As much as any two people who’ve been divorced for just under two years. Sometimes we do—sometimes we don’t. Mostly she just thinks I am too hard on the kids, and hence have let them down that way.”
He hadn’t sounded like a bad father to Gretchen. “Hard in what way?” she inquired, taking a bite of her fajita.
“I’m the family disciplinarian and taskmaster. My wife doesn’t have much of a work ethic.”
“Not much of one or none?”
His eyes lasered in on hers. “You are shrewd, aren’t you?” he said softly, admiringly.
Gretchen shrugged noncommittally. “From what I overheard just now, it sounded like you’re doing okay as a dad, Matt.”
Matt flexed his shoulders restlessly. “Even so, the teen years are rough. Thank God they’re about over. I know everyone complains about an empty nest, but I for one am looking forward to being footloose and fancy-free again.” He dug into a fajita with relish.
Gretchen studied him. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
Matt nodded. “Having kids is a tremendous responsibility. I’ve devoted the past twenty-four years of my life—since I was twenty-one—to making sure they had everything they needed, from prenatal care on up. It’ll be a relief to know they’re grown up and okay, and just worry about me for a change.”
He paused as their eyes locked once again. “You understand where I’m coming from on this, don’t you?”
“Maybe because I feel the same way,” Gretchen confided softly, then found she trusted Matt enough to be even more candid. “I put my dreams of becoming a teacher and having children on hold and spent the past ten years seeing my husband through medical school and residency, only to get dumped when he fell in love with another physician. Then my dad got sick and I took care of him. When he died, I knew I had a chance to start all over again and make a brand-new life for myself.”
“Which is why you’re back in school,” Matt added.
They shared a smile. “Just call me ‘studious.’”
“What about children?”
“That will come, in time,
when I find my own Mr. Right, but now I’m more concerned with getting my education before I get any older.” It was just too bad Matt was past that phase in his life, she thought, for he would’ve been the perfect father for her children, and perhaps even the perfect husband for her.
But that wasn’t going to happen, she reminded herself sternly. The best she could hope to find with Matt was a fling. And even that might not happen. Aware they had both finished eating, she looked down at their plates. “And speaking of moving on, these fajita dishes need washing.”
Matt pushed back his chair and stood. “I’ll take out the trash and bring in more wood for the fire, then come back to lend you a hand.”
“How’d you finish so fast?” Matt asked, when she joined him in the living room five minutes later.
“The Stewarts have a dishwasher, remember?” Gretchen replied.
A CD of Christmas carols performed by the London Symphony was playing on the stereo. He had turned down the lights and the tree sparkled in the darkened room, while a roaring fire crackled in the stone fireplace. Outside, snow piled up in deep white drifts beneath a black velvet sky sprinkled with stars. The night was peaceful, quietly romantic and very much Christmas Eve. Not in Texas, but in Colorado. Gretchen felt a deep, unexpected pang of loneliness as she realized once again this was the first year she would celebrate the holiday without any family of her own.
Deliberately, she pushed the melancholy thought away. There would be no feeling sorry for herself tonight, she scolded silently. Only enjoyment of life as it was. She still had much to be grateful for—her health, the limitless opportunities afforded her, her friends.
Blinking away unshed tears, she stepped closer to Matt and forced a smile as she watched him wrestle with a length of red ribbon and a sprig of evergreen leaves and berries. Was it her imagination, or did he suddenly look a little lonely, too? “What are you doing?”
“Hanging mistletoe—or trying to. What do you think? Should it go here by the staircase or over by the front door?”
Gretchen studied both places. “The staircase, I think.”
He fastened the mistletoe securely on the chandelier next to the staircase, then peered up at it consideringly. “Think that will hold?”
Gretchen walked over to stand beside him. He had double-bowed the ribbon, albeit a little clumsily. “It’s fine, Matt.”
“Sure?”
Gretchen shrugged and gave him her best devil-may-care look. “I can live with it.”
Hands braced on his hips, he grinned down at her wickedly. “Think we should we test it out?”
Chapter Three
Gretchen knew he expected her to say no and back away. But she’d spent a lifetime playing it safe. Maybe this once she should live dangerously, she thought. After all, it was Christmas Eve. They were both alone. Sure, they wanted different things out of life. She still had yet to experience having children and raising a family. He was all through with that part of his life.
But what did it really matter? she wondered passionately. After the holidays, they’d probably never even see each other again. So why not do something wild and wonderful just for herself? Why not prove, once and for all, that she could make love with a man and emerge with her heart and soul intact? Why not do something that would make them both feel less alone this Christmas Eve?
“Merry Christmas, Matt,” Gretchen said, throwing caution to the wind.
Standing on tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his, drinking in the warm, smooth texture of his lips and the essence that was him. He opened his mouth to the explorations of her tongue and, groaning, pulled her all the way into his arms, anchoring her against him. She reveled in the tantalizing hardness of his chest and, lower, the rigid proof of his arousal.
Threading one hand through her hair, he tilted her head back, giving him fuller access to her mouth. And still the kiss continued, lush, hot and full of promise, until she could no longer deny the tenderness or the need in his touch.
Matt couldn’t believe this was happening, that Gretchen was surrendering herself to him this way, but he didn’t want it to stop. Even knowing she was too young, too cynical yet too idealistic, too feisty and independent for him, he still didn’t want it to stop. Lowering his head, he pushed the rolled collar of her sweater aside and pressed his lips against the soft, vulnerable hollow of her throat. Her breath caught and she trembled at his touch, and he lightly traced the curve of her face, before once again possessing her lips and kissing her with white-hot desperation.
Basking in the quickened beat of her pulse, Gretchen shivered as he forced his knee gently between her legs, opening her to his touch. She hadn’t planned for this to happen, but she wasn’t sorry that it was, even as his palm swept from her thighs to her breast, testing the strength of her yearning through the curtain of her clothes.
She was filled with the warmth and steadiness of his presence, the way he’d made her forget how alone they both were this holiday. He’d made her aware moments like this were not lost to her forever after all. And she knew that if they went upstairs together he was going to make love to her, and she wanted it. For once in her life she wanted to luxuriate in the moment, and relish the magic that was them this Christmas Eve. Her heart pounded as he kissed her temple, her cheek, her ear, then he captured her mouth again, and this time there was no holding back, nothing but slow, inexorable passion and inevitable demand.
Finally, he lifted his mouth from hers. “Last chance to bail out,” he murmured, his voice ragged with need.
This was reckless. But it was right. She splayed her hands across his chest, her fingers curling into the soft flannel of his shirt. “I understand what you’re saying, Matt, and...I pass.”
The next thing Gretchen knew, she was swept up into his arms, carried upstairs and lowered ever so gently on his bed. A moan escaped her as she thought about the lovemaking to come. Already her body was throbbing, aching to be filled, aching for the tenderness that was him.
If Matt had thought she looked like an angel before, it was nothing compared with the reality of her in his bed. Her dark hair spread out like a cloud of silk around her face. Her cheeks glowed with excitement. Anticipation danced in her blue eyes. Matt knew that Gretchen was thinking of nothing but the moment, and dammit, for once tossing aside his own innate gallantry, neither was he. Although rushing into a love affair was not at all his style, they were old enough and wise enough to handle this.
Shucking his shirt, boots, thermal undershirt and jeans, he joined her on the bed. With a sigh of surrender, she came eagerly back into his arms. Her lips were as soft and sensuous as her kiss, her caressing fingertips just as enticing. When her hands slid inside his briefs, tugging them off, demonstrating the passion she had yet to thoroughly unleash, he groaned. It was time she undressed, too.
He slipped her sweater over her head, unzipped her jeans and drew them down over her slender hips and sensational legs. She stretched out next to him, clad in pale pink silk long johns that were at once a considerable deterrent and terribly sexy in a pure, all-American-girl way.
“You have too many clothes,” he murmured, dispensing with the long johns, too.
“So take them all off,” she told him with dangerous abandon.
Matt caressed her face and grinned. Somehow he had known Gretchen would be uninhibited in bed...she was too strong willed and confident a woman not to be. He unclasped her bra and swept off her bikini panties. He had never seen a more beautiful sight—inches of flawless cream, interspersed with sexy touches of rose. Drinking in the fragrance of her skin, he bent his head to her breasts, enticing the nipples to dewy pink pearls with the masterful ministrations of his lips and tongue.
Her head thrown back in abandonment, she strained against him, relishing his skillful adoration. Then, with a murmur of desperation, she dragged his lips back to her, demanding he take more. And more, as she kissed him again and again and again.
“Don’t make me wait,” she pleaded, her voice soft and brea
thless, her legs shifting restlessly beneath him. Then her hands were everywhere. She couldn’t seem to touch him fast enough. Couldn’t seem to hold anything back.
And neither could he, as he slipped his hand between her thighs and discovered just how dewy and hot and hungry for him she was.
Gretchen shivered as Matt took her to new heights of arousal, her body tightening, until she couldn’t suppress a moan. She had expected this to be the worst Christmas ever. It was turning out to be one of the best. For the first time in months, she felt incredibly alive and very much a feminine, desirable woman. That alone was a powerful Christmas gift, and one not to be denied.
“Oh, Matt. Matt, I want you,” she whispered wistfully, as powerful convulsions were set off inside her. “I want you so much.”
And it was true, she thought, as he flattened a hand beneath her and slid on top of her. The firm press of him as his body intimately draped hers felt so good, so right and natural. They were meant to be together. They were meant to have this one wonderful night. As he possessed her in one long, flowing stroke, she gave herself over to him completely, indulging the need that drove them, delighting in the joining of their bodies and the excitement-filled ascent, in the white-hot flash of fulfillment and the slow, floating feeling of release.
For long moments afterward they stayed just as they were, entwined, both of them silent, enjoying the aftershocks of passion that rocked them both. Finally, fearing he was too heavy for her, Matt kept both arms around her, but rolled onto his back. Gretchen collapsed on top of him, unwilling to admit she’d never been like that with a man before, not sure why it had happened with Matt—a man she barely knew—only aware that it had, and that as crazy as it was, their coupling felt right, at least for tonight. My Christmas present to myself. And oh, what a sweet, wild, wonderful Christmas present it had been.
“Tell me I didn’t just dream that,” Matt said, caressing her back with languid, circular strokes.
Daddy Christmas Page 4