Same Time, Next Christmas (The Bravos 0f Valentine Bay Book 3)

by Christine Rimmer

  At least once a week he almost convinced himself it would be okay to look her up online. He never did it, though. And he wouldn’t do it. They had an agreement and he would keep the promise he’d made to her.

  Jerry clapped him on the shoulder. “You need to relax and have a good time.”

  “Jer. How many years you been giving me that advice?”

  “Hmm.” Jerry stroked his short, thick ginger beard. “Several.”

  “Do I ever listen?”

  “Before last Christmas, you used to. Now and then.”

  “I’m not in the mood.” Matt tipped his head toward the bar. “And a pretty woman is waiting on you.”

  Jerry glanced up to give his latest conquest a quick wave. “You’re insane not to come with me.”

  “Go.”

  Jerry gave it up and headed back to the bar.

  Matt nursed his beer and wished it was Christmas.

  Sabra, that September...

  “More wine?” Iris held up the excellent bottle of Oregon pinot noir. At Sabra’s nod, her friend refilled her glass.

  It was girl’s night in at Iris and Peyton’s apartment in downtown Portland—just the three of them. Sabra could safely afford to indulge in the wine. Back in January, she’d rented a one-bedroom in this same building, so home was two flights of stairs or a very short elevator ride away.

  Peyton, her caramel-colored hair piled in a messy bun on the top of her head, turned from the stir-fry she was cooking and asked Sabra, “So can I tell him to give you a call?”

  “He’s a hottie.” Iris did a little cha-cha-cha with her shoulders, her hair, which she wore in natural corkscrew curls, bouncing in time with the movement. “And no drama, which we all love.”

  He was Jack Kellan, the new sous chef at Delia Mae’s, where they all worked.

  “Jack is a great guy,” Sabra said, thinking of Matthias as she did every time her friends got after her to get out and mix it up—and no, she hadn’t told anyone about what had happened at Christmas. It was her secret pleasure, having known him, everything they’d shared. Often, she found herself wondering where he was and what he might be doing right now.

  But no, she wasn’t getting attached, wasn’t pining for her Christmas lover. Uh-uh. No way.

  Iris scoffed. “Could you be any less enthusiastic?” Iris had that Tyra-Banks-meets-Wendy-Williams thing going on. All power, smarts and sass. Nobody messed with Iris. “This swearing-off-men thing? Sabra, honey, it’s not a good look on you.”

  Totally out of nowhere, emotion made her eyes burn and her throat clutch. “I’m just not ready yet, you know?”

  Iris set down the bottle of pinot and peered at her more closely across the kitchen island. “Something’s really got you bothered. What?”

  “Come on, now.” Peyton turned off the heat under the stir-fry and she and Iris converged on either side of Sabra. “You’ll feel better if you talk about it.”

  “Is it your dad?” Iris ventured gently.

  Sabra drooped on her stool as her friends shared a knowing look.

  “It’s her dad,” confirmed Peyton.

  Sabra had been up to the farm a few days before. As usual, she’d come home earlier than planned. “He’s just worse every time I see him. He’s thinner, more withdrawn than ever. I want to be there for him, but he won’t talk about it, about Mom. It’s like there’s a brick wall between him and the rest of the world. Nobody gets in, not even me.”

  “Oh, honey...” Iris grabbed her in a hug and Peyton wrapped her arms around both of them.

  Sabra leaned her head on Iris’s shoulder. “I keep telling myself he’ll get better. But the years keep going by and he only seems sadder and further away, like he’s slowly fading down to nothing. It scares me, it does. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

  Her friends rubbed her back and hugged her some more. They offered a number of suggestions and Sabra thanked them and promised to try to get her dad to maybe join a men’s group or see a therapist. They all agreed that Adam Bond had been a prisoner of his grief for much too long.

  There was more wine and Peyton’s delicious stir-fry. Iris talked about the guy she’d just broken up with and Peyton was all dewy-eyed over the new man in her life. By midnight, Sabra was feeling the wine. She looked from one dear friend’s face to the other—and she just couldn’t hold back any longer.

  “Ahem. There is something else I keep meaning to tell you guys...”

  “Hmm,” said Peyton thoughtfully. She and Iris exchanged yet another speaking glance.

  Iris nodded. “We knew it.”

  “Spill,” commanded Peyton.

  Sabra set down her empty glass. “It’s like this. Last Christmas, when I was supposedly snowed in at the farm?”

  “Supposedly?” Iris scowled. “Meaning you weren’t?”

  Sabra busted to it. “I wasn’t at the farm and I wasn’t alone.”

  “A man,” said Peyton. It wasn’t a question.

  “That’s right. I stopped off on the way back here to Portland for a hike—you know, trying to get out of my own head a little. I started walking and it started raining. I took shelter at this empty cabin. And then the owner arrived...”

  They listened without interrupting as she told them about Matthias, about her Christmas at the cabin, about pretty much all of it, including how he’d given her a key as she was leaving, just in case she might want to spend another Christmas with him.

  Iris screeched in delight and Peyton declared, “Now, that’s what I’m talking about. James the jerk? He couldn’t keep you down. He goes back to the baby mama he’d forgotten to mention and what do you do? Head out for some hot, sexy times with a hermit in the forest.”

  Sabra whacked her friend lightly with the back of her hand. “Matthias is not a hermit. He has a real job and a big family in Valentine Bay.”

  “He just hides out alone in an isolated cabin for Christmas,” teased her friend.

  “Not last Christmas, he didn’t,” Sabra said smugly. Her friends high-fived her for that and she added more seriously, “He’s had some rough times in his life and he likes to get off by himself now and then, that’s all.”

  Peyton scolded, “You took way too long to tell us, you know. It’s been months and months. It’s almost the holidays all over again.”

  “Yeah, well. Sorry. But I wasn’t going to tell anyone, ever. Overall, it was a beautiful time, the best time. And after I got back to Portland, well, I kind of thought of it as our secret, Matthias’s and mine.”

  “We get it,” said Iris.

  “But we’re still glad you finally told us,” Peyton chimed in.

  Iris nodded. “It’s a yummy story, you and the cabin guy.”

  Peyton was watching Sabra a little too closely. “Look at me,” she commanded. When Sabra met her gaze, Peyton shook her head. “I knew it. You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

  No way. “Nope. Not a chance. I’m immune to love now, not going there again.”

  “Of course you will go there again,” argued Iris.

  “Well, if I do, it won’t be for years. And anyway, how could I possibly be in love with him? I knew him for ten days.”

  “You should just call him,” Iris advised.

  “I told you. I don’t have his number and I’m not tracking him down online because getting in touch wasn’t part of the deal—and yeah, I still have the key to the cabin. But that doesn’t mean I’ll be meeting him in December.”

  Her friends didn’t argue with her, but she saw the speaking glance that passed between them.

  Matt, December 1...

  The three-legged Siberian husky Matt had named Zoya followed him into his bedroom.

  He’d found her hobbling along the highway on his way home from Warrenton, four months ago now. No collar, no tags. He’d coaxed her to come to him and
, after some hesitation, she did, so he’d driven her to the shelter here in Valentine Bay. They’d checked for an ID chip. She didn’t have one.

  Two weeks later, he stopped by the shelter to see if her former owner had come for her.

  Hadn’t happened. No one had adopted her, either.

  The vet who helped out at the shelter said the husky was just full-grown, two or three years old and in excellent health. Her left front leg had been amputated, probably while she was still a puppy. She was well trained, happy natured and responded to all the basic commands.

  Matt had done some research and then had a long talk with the vet about caring for a tripod dog. By then, he was pretty much all in on Zoya.

  He brought her home. It was a little like having a kid, a well-behaved kid who wanted to please. He took her to doggy day care every workday, where she got lots of attention and pack time with other dogs.

  Him. With a dog.

  Matt wasn’t sure what exactly had gotten into him to take her. But when she looked at him with those unearthly blue eyes, well, he could relate, that was all. She needed a human of her own. And he’d been available. Plus, it was time he stepped up, made a commitment to another creature even if he wasn’t ready to give love with a woman any kind of a chance.

  His four sisters all adored her. He’d taken her to a couple of family gatherings. The first time he showed up with Zoya, the oldest of his sisters, Aislinn, had pulled him aside...

  * * *

  “I have to ask.” Aislinn gazed at him piercingly. “A Siberian husky?”

  He understood her implication. “Yeah, well. I probably would have adopted her anyway, but it seemed more than right, you know? I only have to hear the word Siberian and I think of Finn. It’s good to be reminded, to never forget.”

  Ais’s dark eyes welled with moisture. “Nobody blames you.”

  “I know. But I do blame myself because I am culpable. If I’d behaved differently that day, Finn might be here with us now.”

  “Mom blamed herself.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s plenty of blame to go around.”

  “Matt. Mom gave you permission to go off on your own—and then she told Finn that it was fine if he went with you.”

  “It is what it is, that’s all. Now, stop looking so sad and let’s hug it out.”

  With a cry, Ais threw herself at him. He wrapped his arms around her and held on tight, feeling grateful.

  For his family, who had never given up on him no matter how messed up he got. For Zoya, who seemed more than happy to have him as her human.

  And also for Sabra Bond, who had managed to show him in the short ten days he’d spent with her that maybe someday he might be capable of making a good life with the right woman, of starting a family of his own.

  * * *

  “How ’bout a walk, girl?”

  Zoya gave an eager little whine and dropped to her haunches.

  Matt crouched to give her a good scratch around the ruff. “All right, then. Let me get changed and we’re on it.”

  He took off his uniform, pausing when he stepped out of his pants for a look at the crescent-shaped scar from that little run-in with his own ax last Christmas. It was no more than a thin, curved line now. Sabra had patched him up good as new. The older scar on his other leg was much worse, with explosions of white scar tissue and a trench-like indentation in the flesh along the inside of his shin. There were pins and bolts in there holding everything together. He’d almost lost that leg below the knee.

  But almost only counts in horseshoes. And now, that leg worked fine, except for some occasional stiffness and intermittent pain, especially in cold weather when it could ache like a sonofagun.

  In his socks and boxer briefs, he grabbed a red Sharpie from a cup on the dresser and went to the closet. Sticking the Sharpie between his teeth to free both hands, he hung up his uniform. Once that was done, he shoved everything to the side, the hangers rattling as they slid along the rod.

  The calendar was waiting, tacked to the wall. It was a large, themed calendar he’d found at Freddy’s—Wild and Scenic Oregon. He’d bought it for what could only be called sentimental reasons. Bought it because he couldn’t stop thinking of Sabra.

  Sappy or not, marking off the days till Christmas had made him feel closer to a woman he hadn’t seen in months, a woman he’d actually known for one week and three days.

  For November, the calendar offered a spectacular photo of the Three Sisters, a trio of volcanic peaks in Oregon’s section of the Cascade Range. Below the Three Sisters, he’d x-ed out each of November’s days in red.

  Lifting the calendar off the tack, he turned it to December and a picture of Fort Clatsop in the snow. He hooked it back in place and pulled the top off the Sharpie. With a lot more satisfaction than the simple action should have inspired, he x-ed off December 1.

  Already, there was a big red circle around the ten days from December 23 to New Year’s.

  Satisfaction turned to real excitement.

  Only twenty-one days to go.

  December 23, three years ago...

  It was late afternoon when Matt turned onto the dirt road that would take him to the cabin.

  He had a fine-looking tree roped to the roof rack and the back seat packed with food, Christmas presents, and the usual duffel bags of clothes and gear. The weather was milder this year, real Western Oregon weather—cloudy with a constant threat of rain, no snow in the forecast.

  Zoya, in her crate, had the rear of the vehicle. He would have loved having her in the passenger seat next to him, but with only one front leg, a sudden lurch or a fast stop could too easily send her pitching to the floor.

  He was nervous, crazy nervous—nervous enough to be embarrassed at himself. The eager drumming of his pulse only got more so as he neared the clearing. He came around the second-to-last turn where he’d seen the lights in the windows the year before, hope rising...

  Nothing.

  Maybe she was waiting on the front porch.

  He took the final turn.

  Nobody there.

  The nervous jitters fled. Now his whole body felt heavy, weighed down at the center with disappointment, as he pulled to a stop in front of the porch.

  She hadn’t come—not yet, anyway.

  And he really had no right to expect that she would. He’d offered. It was her move.

  And maybe she’d simply decided that one Christmas alone with him had been plenty. She was smart and beautiful and so much fun to be with. She’d probably found someone else.

  He had to face the likelihood that she wouldn’t show.

  That she’d moved on.

  That he would never see her face again.

  He could accept that. He would have to accept it, his own crazy longing and the carefully marked calendar in his bedroom closet aside.

  Reality was a bitch sometimes and that wasn’t news.

  He got out, opened the hatch in back, let Zoya out of her crate and helped her down to the ground. “Come on, girl. Let’s get everything inside.”

  * * *

  An hour later, he had the fire going, the Jeep unpacked, the groceries put away, and Zoya all set with food and water by her open crate. The tree stood proud in the stand by the window, not far from the front door. It was bigger and thicker than last year, filling the cabin with its Christmassy evergreen scent. A box of presents waited beside it. He’d even carried all his gear upstairs.

  The disappointment?

  Worse by the minute.

  But he wasn’t going to let it get him down. “Okay, sweetheart,” he said to his dog. “I’m going to bring down the decorations and we’ll get this party started.”

  Zoya made a happy sound, followed by a wide yawn. She rolled over and offered her belly to scratch, her pink tongue lolling out the side of her mouth, making her look adorably eager
and also slightly demented.

  “Goofy girl.” He crouched to give her some attention. But before he got all the way down, she rolled back over and sat up, ears perking.

  And then he heard the sound he’d been yearning for: tires crunching gravel.

  His heart suddenly booming like it would beat its way right out of his chest, he straightened. Out the front windows, he watched as the familiar blue Subaru Outback pulled to a stop.

  Chapter Seven

  By a supreme effort of will, Matt managed not to race out there, throw open her car door, drag her into his arms, toss her over his shoulder and carry her straight up the stairs.

  His tread measured, with Zoya at his heels, he crossed the cabin floor, opened the door and stepped out into the cold, gray afternoon. The dog whined, a worried sort of sound. She liked people, but new ones made her nervous—at first, anyway.

  “Sit.”

  Zoya dropped to her haunches on the porch, still whining, tail twitching.

  Sabra. Just the sight of her filled him with more powerful emotions than he knew how to name.

  She got out of the car.

  Hot damn, she looked amazing in tight jeans, lace-up boots and a big sweater printed with Christmas trees.

  “You cut your hair.” It came to just below her chin now.

  Standing there by her car, looking shy and so damn pretty, she reached up and fiddled with her bangs. Her gorgeous face was flushed, her deep brown eyes even bigger than he remembered. “I don’t know. I just wanted a change.”

  “It looks good on you.”

  A secret smile flashed across those lips he couldn’t wait to taste again. She gave a tiny nod in acknowledgment of the compliment, her gaze shifting to Zoya. “You have a dog?”

  Zoya knew when someone was talking about her. She quivered harder and whined hopefully. “More like she has me. I found her on the highway, dropped her off at the animal shelter—and then couldn’t stop thinking about her.”

  Sabra laughed. God, what a beautiful sound. “Can’t resist a pretty stray, huh? Such gorgeous blue eyes she’s got. What’s her name?”