Maybe This Christmas

by Sarah Morgan

  The honey made her guilt worse. “I’m so sorry, Josh. I don’t know what I was thinking. And now you’re going to go into the store and everyone will be asking you and—oh, you know what they’re like. They gossip. I’m going to call her in a minute and tell her it was a lie. I’ll tell her she has to back off.”

  “Don’t call her. I have a better idea.”

  She forced herself to look at him, expecting anger and seeing amusement. “You do?”

  “Yeah, we go on that date.”

  “We can’t. Josh, there will be gossip.”

  “I handle drunks, car thieves and even the occasional armed robber. I think I can handle gossip.”

  “I can’t let you do that. I wish I’d never said it. I should have been assertive and told her my love life was my business, but the wrong thing came out of my mouth. I wanted to stop her.”

  “Then let’s stop her. When is this date of ours?”

  Her face was as hot as a fire pit. “I told her Tuesday.”

  Josh considered. “It will take a bit of juggling, but I guess I can do Tuesday. I have a meeting with the mountain rescue team at six to talk about the winter season, but I’ll be through by seven-thirty.”

  A skilled rock and ice climber, Josh was a training officer for the Snow Crystal Mountain Rescue Team.

  “Are you sure?” She couldn’t shake the embarrassment. “I’ll pay. And I’ll meet you somewhere.”

  “No.” He was thoughtful. “I’ll pick you up from Tyler’s place. Eight o’clock suit you? We need to go somewhere public so that news of our date will be spread around the local population. That will keep your mother happy for a while and keep her off your back. And now I have to go. I’m late for a planning meeting about the next snowfall heading our way.”

  “You don’t have time for this.”

  “It’s the usual drill. We’ll suspend parking, pre-treat the roads and keep the plows running through the storm. Whatever the weather brings, we still have to eat.” Josh was calm. “I’ll book somewhere in town.”

  “It’s not fair to you.”

  “It’s dinner, that’s all,” he said mildly. “Two friends sharing food and talking. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.”

  “Doesn’t it? What happens afterward?”

  “We’ll work that out when we get to the end of dinner. We can either have dinner again, or we can publicly declare we’re not suited. You can say you have an aversion to dating a cop. I don’t know—we’ll think of something.”

  “I feel like I’m using you.”

  “You’re not. You’ve been honest with me.” He hesitated. “Maybe I’m out of line saying this, especially as I think you know the way I feel about you, but we’ve known each other a long time, and I don’t want to see you hurt. In this case I think you should listen to your mom. Tyler isn’t the settling-down type. Having his daughter living with him isn’t going to change that.”

  It was the first time he’d put his feelings into words, and hearing it was somehow worse than suspecting. “Josh—” It was agony to think he might be hurting as she was hurting. “We’ve been friends a long time and—you’ve never said anything and—” she breathed “—and I have no idea what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. My feelings, my problem.”

  He was trying to make it easy for her, but it didn’t feel easy. Probably because she was in the same situation. Everything he was feeling, she was feeling, but for a different person.

  “We can’t go out for dinner with you feeling the way you do. It would be wrong.”

  “Like you can’t live with Tyler, feeling the way you do? I’m not about to read something into it that isn’t there. You don’t have to worry about that. Would I like more? Yes, but I’ll settle for friendship.”

  And no one understood that better than she did.

  She’d done the same, hadn’t she? All her life.

  She felt a flash of envy for Élise and Kayla. Their love lives seemed so simple. Hers was a tangled mess.

  “Why does everything have to be so complicated?”

  Josh gave a soft laugh. “I think it’s called life.”

  It should have been easy to love him. He was everything most women would look for in a man. But she knew love and logic weren’t necessarily close relations. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Big tough guy like me? Sure. I’ll go and arrest some folks to let off steam.”

  It was typical Josh. Strong, patient and steady. It was the reason people still sent him Christmas cards even after he’d locked them up for the night.

  Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with him?

  Her mother was right. It would have been so much simpler.

  “But I will say one thing.” Josh put his hands on her arms, and his tone was deceptively mild. “If Tyler ever hurts you, I’ll be the arresting officer.”

  “My feelings, my problem.” She delivered his own words back to him, and Josh looked at her for a moment and then let go of her arms.

  “Maybe. But if I see you with red eyes and I know you haven’t been peeling onions, then it’s going to be his problem, too.”

  Hoping the situation between Tyler and Josh wasn’t about to deteriorate, she grabbed her backpack from the car, hurried toward the Outdoor Center and walked straight into Tyler.

  “Hey—” he locked his hands on her shoulders, steadying her “—what are you running from? Fire or avalanche?”

  Love.

  She was running from love.

  Seeing him unsettled her, coming so soon after the conversation with her mother and then Josh. Knowing that Josh was still outside, she decided it might be best to keep Tyler talking for a few minutes. She wouldn’t put it past the chief of police to read Tyler his rights.

  How had it all got so complicated?

  How on earth had she got herself into this mess?

  By not speaking up.

  She should have told Tyler she couldn’t move in with him, and she should have told her mother to mind her own business.

  “Sorry. I haven’t had the greatest morning so far.”

  “You had breakfast with your mom. From the look on your face, I’m guessing that went the way you were afraid it would.”

  “I came away with indigestion and I don’t think it was because of the omelet.”

  “She gave you a hard time?” He stood, legs spread, arms folded. She felt his impatience, the restless energy that was so much a part of him. He was the polar opposite of Josh’s quiet, steady calm.

  He had none of Josh’s gentle subtlety, but his offer to listen touched her more because she knew he probably wouldn’t have made that offer to anyone but her. Tyler’s response to a stressful situation wasn’t to talk about it. He didn’t analyze or deconstruct, and his idea of therapy was to hurl himself down a vertical slope as fast as humanly possible.

  “Nothing to talk about. It was a duty visit, and it’s done. But thank you.”

  “Come on, Bren,” he sounded impatient, “tell me what upset you.”

  “She thinks I’m wasting my life.” It was quicker to tell a half-truth than to argue or avoid the question. “She wants me to go and get a proper job.”

  “Don’t do that. You belong here.” He brushed his fingers over her cheek. “You’re an honorary O’Neil.”

  Her breath lodged in her throat.

  Brenna O’Neil.

  How many times had she scribbled those words in the back of her schoolbook?

  “The truth is I spend more time with your family than I do with my own.”

  “That tends to happen when your own gives you indigestion. Cheer up. You’re going to be too busy to go home for the next few weeks anyway. I’m coaching Jess again later, and then if there’s time we
’re going to get a Christmas tree. Want to join us?” He dismissed the problem, moved on and Brenna was relieved.

  “Maybe, if Jess doesn’t mind. I need to get my gear and then I’m teaching all day. You?”

  “Jackson has asked me to join him for lunch with some visiting businessmen. I’m not looking forward to the conversation. It will be stocks, shares, bonds—” He looked so horrified, she couldn’t help laughing.

  “They live boring lives stuck behind a desk. They all envy and admire you. They want to rub shoulders with a gold-medal-winning downhill skier and try to absorb some of that adrenaline and thrill-seeking secondhand. Be yourself.”

  She wondered if that was bad advice. Telling Tyler O’Neil to be himself was asking for trouble, and his next words confirmed she wasn’t alone in thinking that.

  “That’s interesting, because Jackson told me to try hard not to be myself for an hour.” His eyes were ocean-blue so that even in the depths of an icy winter, it made her think of summer. Looking at him sent warmth rushing across her skin and seeping into her bones. It weakened her limbs and melted her tension.

  “I disagree. I think they’re interested in the real you.”

  “Apparently, the real me is a loose cannon.” His mouth tilted at the corners. “I’m wild and dangerous.”

  And she wanted wild and dangerous so badly she could almost taste it.

  “Jackson is still mad at you for telling that group last week that they should probably pick a different activity.”

  “They were dangerous.”

  “You made them feel inadequate. They wanted to give up and go home!”

  “They were inadequate. In my opinion, they should have given up and gone home! I don’t understand how I’m to blame for that. They lied about their experience, which, I could point out, is dangerous not only for them but also for me. Apart from almost boring me to death, I nearly froze to death waiting for them to catch up.”

  No matter how down she was, he always made her laugh. “We’ll make people do a test run before skiing with you. I’ll see you later.”

  “Hey, Bren—” he caught her arm, his voice ultracasual “—I saw you talking to Josh. What did he want?”

  How was she supposed to answer that? “He wanted to take me to dinner.”

  “Why?” A muscle flickered in his jaw. “Why would he take you to dinner?”

  The fact that he would even ask that question hurt her already hurting heart.

  You’re not his type, Brenna. Flat chest and brown hair isn’t his thing.

  “I know it’s not something you notice, Tyler, but underneath my ski gear, I’m a woman.” The hurt made her snappier than she’d ever been with him before. “I go on dates. I have feelings.” And those feelings were so raw, so close to the surface, it was beginning to scare her.

  His fingers tightened on her arm. “I know you’re a woman.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “I notice.”

  “Do you?”

  It was a question she’d never asked before. A topic neither of them had ever broached.

  They stared at each other, and she knew that by speaking up, by saying those few words, she’d crossed an invisible line.

  Their bodies were close but not quite touching, her awareness of him so acute she could hardly breathe. If she took one more step she’d be pressed against that hard, powerful body, and she wanted it more than anything. Wanted every sexy bad-boy inch of him. She wanted to breathe in the male scent of him, be crushed under his weight, be tangled up with him.

  All she could think of was sex. Her head was filled with it, and her senses were on fire.

  She turned her head and looked at his hand, still locked around her arm. They rarely, if ever, made physical contact, and she stared down at those strong fingers and imagined how they’d feel against her bare flesh. He’d be skilled, she knew that.

  But she was never going to find out exactly how skilled, was she?

  She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. Instead he stared at her, his breathing shallow.

  He was obviously trying to work out why someone like Josh would want to date her.

  She wished she could go back to bed and start the whole day again. “I need to go,” she said wearily but instead of letting her go, Tyler tightened his grip.

  “He asked you to dinner, but you told him no, right?”

  Her heart pumped. “I told him yes.” Suddenly, she was tired of it. Tired of being told what she should and shouldn’t do. Tired of keeping her mouth shut when her mind was shouting out loud. “He’s picking me up eight o’clock Tuesday.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “TEQUILA. STRAIGHT UP.” Brenna thumped her head down on the bar and missed the look Kayla sent Élise.

  “You heard the woman.” Kayla winked at Pete, the barman. “Give us the bottle and three glasses. This is girls’ night. We’re celebrating.”

  “I’m not celebrating. I’m commiserating.”

  “Who with?”

  “Myself.” Brenna lifted her head and dug her fingers in her hair. “Forget the glass. Pour it straight down my throat and do it fast. I want to be unconscious.”

  “That bad?” Kayla waited for Pete to fill the glass and pushed it toward Brenna. “So—are you going to tell us what’s going on?”

  “What makes you think something is going on?”

  “Er—apart from the fact you don’t usually drink spirits?”

  Brenna picked up the glass, knocked it back in one mouthful and then choked as it set fire to her throat. “That’s disgusting.”

  “It’s an acquired taste, and you obviously haven’t acquired it. As a matter of interest, why did you order tequila?”

  “Because it’s Saturday night, I’ve had a totally crap week and a beer wasn’t going to do it. When I see people drink tequila in the movies, they always look as if they’re having fun. I deserve to have fun, and as I’m obviously not going to have any naked-between-the-sheets sort of fun anytime soon, I thought I’d go with empty-the-bottle sort of fun.”

  “How can you have had a crap week?” Élise ignored the tequila and ordered a glass of wine. “It’s almost Christmas, business is booming and you’ve moved in with Tyler. This is your dream, no?”

  “If I didn’t love you, I’d kill you. Both of you. For interfering. For putting me in this position. And for the record, it isn’t my dream to have the man of my fantasies sleeping in a different bed with a wall between us.” Brenna pushed her glass toward Kayla. “Fill it up. Don’t hold back.”

  “If I don’t hold back, you won’t be able to walk tomorrow.”

  “I’ll worry about that tomorrow. Don’t you dare ever interfere again.” She drank and felt the warmth spread from her throat down to her knees. “My life has been a nonstop disaster since you made me move in with him.”

  “Bren, you’ve only been living with him for a couple of days. Disaster can’t happen that fast.”

  “It can in my life. I’ve crammed a lot into those couple of days.” Brenna pushed her glass toward Kayla. “More.”

  “No.” Kayla pushed the bottle back toward Pete with a meaningful look. “What happened?”

  “I visited my parents. And because this place has a communication system more sophisticated than anything developed by NASA, they had already heard the happy news about my new living arrangements.”

  Kayla winced. “Oops.”

  “Oops doesn’t cover it. I had a lecture on all the reasons I’m stupid to move in with Tyler. I’ve given my mother your phone number. From now on the two of you can talk about it together and cut out the middle man.” She picked up Kayla’s drink and knocked it back. “That’s me, by the way. I’m the middle man. I’m the person everyone ignores.”

  “Merde, what have you done to her?” Élise leane
d across and peeled the glass away from Brenna’s fingers. “Enough, or you will fall on your face in the snow.”

  “At least she only does that when she drinks. I do it sober.” Kayla gestured to Pete. “Can we have a couple of sodas?”

  Brenna lifted her head. “I don’t want soda. I want tequila.”

  Concerned, Pete handed her a soda. “Everything all right, Brenna?”

  “No.” She slouched on the bar with her chin on her palm. “My life sucks.”

  “That’s the tequila talking,” Kayla said hastily. “She drank it too fast. We’re fine here, Pete. You have a ton of people waiting for you down the other end of the bar. Don’t let us keep you.”

  “I’ve known Brenna since she was a little girl. I’ve never seen her like this.”

  “Everyone has known me since I was a little girl,” Brenna said gloomily. “Everyone has an opinion about how I should live my life, and everyone expresses it apart from me. Go right ahead, Pete. Tell me what I’m doing wrong. Then call my mother and commiserate. Or maybe call Ellen Kelly, and you can bypass the phone altogether. Beam it across the nation. Houston, Brenna has a problem.”

  “I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong, Bren.” Looking nervous, he removed the bottle of tequila and took himself down to the far end of the bar.

  Kayla grinned. “You scared him.”

  “Good. Maybe it’s time to shake people up a bit. I’m sick of everyone thinking they know who I am and what I need. I’m tired of being the girl next door.”

  Élise ran her fingers down the stem of her glass. “In that case you could go home right now, walk into Tyler’s bedroom naked and help yourself to some of the between-the-sheets sort of fun.”

  “I haven’t had anywhere near enough tequila for that, and anyway I’ve already embarrassed myself enough for one day.” Brenna sipped the soda and pulled a face. “This doesn’t make me feel better.”

  “You’ll thank me tomorrow when you don’t feel as if your head is being crushed by Thor’s hammer.”

  “I’m going home to have an early night. That way I won’t have to listen to the sounds of Tyler in the shower.” Brenna slid off the bar stool and swayed. “Maybe I should have stuck to beer.”