12 Gifts for Christmas

by Various

  AFTER her meeting with the heiress—and a long-overdue telephone conversation with her brother—Brooke had thrown herself into the planning of Lacey and Kevin’s wedding. Partly because she was concerned about the short time frame before the New Year’s Eve date, but mostly because she needed to work to keep her mind off Travis Stanford.

  But as she stepped out into the cold of the late afternoon on her way to the grocery store, the questions swirled through her mind like flakes of snow. Not that they got very much snow in Red Rock, but it certainly seemed cold enough today.

  Why had he left the Diplomatic Security Service? Why had he come back to Texas? Why now—when she was finally starting to get over him?

  As if.

  She frowned at the taunting voice that echoed in her head.

  Okay, so maybe she wasn’t as immune to her ex-husband as she wanted to believe. Maybe she wasn’t immune to him at all. Because it had taken only a look, and her knees had quivered. And when he’d smiled, her heart had hammered so loudly inside her chest she’d expected that Heather could hear it in the other room.

  It was pathetic how much his presence affected her. And it had been like that since the very first time she saw him, when she was barely seven years old. She’d fallen just a little bit in love with him that day, and her response to him now was proof that she still hadn’t completely fallen out of love with him—regardless of how hard she’d tried.

  Maybe she’d been living in a state of limbo since the end of their marriage, and maybe she hadn’t moved forward the way that she’d promised herself she would when she asked for the annulment. But maybe she’d needed to see Travis again to finally put the past to rest and move forward.

  Her footsteps faltered on the sidewalk as she approached the back of the grocery-store parking lot, where fresh Christmas trees were being sold. She hadn’t bothered to get a tree last December. In fact, she hadn’t put up any decorations at all, preferring to ignore the season that represented the anniversary of both her hasty wedding and the heartbreaking loss of her baby.

  Time to move forward, she reminded herself, and went to pick out a tree.

  Travis had made a lot of mistakes where Brooke was concerned. As he stood outside her door, he suspected that he was about to make one more, but he knew it wouldn’t be as big as the mistake he’d made when he let her go.

  When she’d gotten in touch with him to tell him that she’d lost their baby, he’d been too far away to do anything for her. He’d heard the tears in her voice, and he’d ached right along with her. He’d offered to come home, but she’d made it clear that she didn’t want him to—she didn’t want anything to do with him anymore.

  He’d understood that she was grieving, and so he’d decided to give her some time. He thought a few weeks would be enough, but then the weeks turned into months, and still she wouldn’t take his calls.

  He even tried calling Kevin, but her brother wasn’t talking to him, either. That was when Travis finally realized he’d lost everything: the wife he hadn’t been sure he wanted, the baby he’d been completely unprepared for and the best friend who was the brother he’d never had. Several more months passed before he finally heard from Brooke, and when he did, it was through her lawyer—a polite request for him to initiate annulment proceedings.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. And he had no intention of acceding to her request until he understood why she was so anxious to end their marriage.

  He lifted a hand and knocked firmly, determined to finally get some answers to the questions that had plagued him for so long.

  Through the door, he heard a thump and a muffled curse. A few seconds later, the locks were disengaged and she was standing in front of him. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair was tousled and a couple of buttons at the front of her shirt were undone, making him wonder exactly what he’d interrupted.

  She sighed as she wiped the back of her hand over her brow. “What are you doing here, Travis?”

  “I was hoping we could talk—just you and me.”

  “I can’t imagine that either of us has anything to say that we didn’t cover two years ago.”

  “Aside from one brief and awkward telephone conversation, we didn’t say much of anything two years ago,” he reminded her.

  “Wasn’t that enough?” she asked wearily.

  He propped a shoulder against the doorjamb. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m in the middle of something right now.”

  He reached out and plucked a bluish-green needle from her hair. “Decorating your Christmas tree?”

  “I haven’t actually got to the decorating part,” she admitted. “I’m still working on the ‘trying to stand up’ part.”

  “I could give you a hand.”

  She hesitated another minute before stepping away from the door.

  It took about twenty minutes and a lot of tussling and cursing, but they finally managed to secure the tree into the stand and set it in the corner.

  “Lights?” he queried.

  “I’ll do those later,” she said.

  “I don’t mind helping.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “We were supposed to put up a tree together when we got back from Vegas, except that—”

  “I know what happened,” she said, cutting him off.

  Of course she did. Neither of them was ever going to forget.

  “I should have been here,” he said.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters.”

  She shook her head. “I’m going to make a pot of coffee.”

  He followed her to the kitchen. “So how long have you lived here?”

  “Almost two years.” She filled the reservoir with water, measured out coffee grounds.

  “Nice place,” he noted.

  “It was my grandmother’s,” she told him. “She thought it would be the perfect setting and location for my business and transferred the property into my name a few months before she died.”

  “She’d be pleased by what you’ve done with it—and proud of your success.”

  “I hope so,” she said, with enough of a hint of a small smile to tug at his heart.

  She’d always been beautiful, but when she smiled, she was absolutely breathtaking. It had been a long time since she’d smiled at him. Too long.

  “Aren’t you going to ask why I came back to Red Rock? Or at least why I left the DSS?”

  “It’s none of my business.” She opened the cupboard, took out two mugs.

  Her tone was casual, but the way she’d deliberately turned away suggested that she wasn’t as disinterested as she wanted to seem.

  He stepped closer, boxing her in. No way was he going to let her shut him out, not this time. “Actually, it’s more your business than you realize.”

  She set the mugs down and slowly pivoted to face him again. The pulse point at the base of her jaw was pounding, and her beautiful blue eyes were wary. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the fact that we’re still married.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “NO.” BROOKE shook her head vehemently. “We’re not.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “I don’t know.” She turned away to pour the coffee, hoping he couldn’t see that her hands were shaking. She didn’t know if it was his proximity or his claim that had unnerved her, but she did know that his unexpected reappearance in Red Rock could turn her entire life upside down. “But our marriage was annulled. My lawyer assured me that you were going to take care of that.”

  She could have taken care of it herself, and maybe she should have. But the truth was, she hadn’t wanted their marriage to be over. She knew that Travis had only proposed to her because she was pregnant, but she’d married him because she’d loved him. Losing their baby—the reason for their marriage—hadn’t changed her feelings. But she didn’t think it was fair to hold Travis to a commitment he’d only made for the sake of a
child they were never going to have.

  “I intended to.” He tucked his hands in his pockets. “It was the only thing you asked of me … and after everything … I didn’t think I had any right to refuse. But in the end—I just couldn’t do it.”

  Her mind was spinning, trying to make sense of what he was saying. He sounded sincere, but she distinctly remembered receiving a package from her attorney. Assuming it was confirmation that her marriage had been annulled, she’d never bothered to open the envelope. It had hurt too much to even think that the marriage she’d entered into with such high hopes was over.

  And now Travis was here, claiming that it wasn’t over after all.

  Pushing aside her coffee, she went to her bedroom and pulled open the drawer of her night table. More than a year had passed since she’d received the envelope, and over that time, she’d tossed various other items in the drawer so that she had to dig through a pile of cards and letters and coins to find it now.

  She sank onto the edge of her mattress, her fingers trembling as she tore open the flap and tugged out a sheaf of papers.

  There was no decree of nullity. There was only a statement of account and a letter. She skimmed the letter as he appeared in the doorway. “‘Sorry we were not able to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion… .’” she breathed.

  She stared at him, stunned. “We’re still married.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “But … why?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t think we should end our marriage as impulsively as we entered into it.”

  “Do you really think my request for an annulment was an impulse?”

  “How could it be anything else? We hadn’t had any contact in more than six months—”

  “Because you took off for New York before the ink on our marriage license was even dry.”

  He sank down onto the mattress beside her. “I had a job to do.”

  She nodded, because she knew that it was true. Even before he’d proposed, she’d understood that he was planning to leave for an assignment out of state. But she’d convinced herself that it was only a short-term deal, that as soon as that job was done, he would look for something closer to Red Rock. He’d made her believe that he wanted to be with her, that he wanted them to be together for their child. And then she’d lost the baby, and one assignment had led into another and another until she’d finally accepted that he had no intention of coming back.

  “So why did you leave the DSS?” she finally asked him.

  “It was time.”

  She lifted a brow. “What time was that?”

  He searched her eyes, and the intensity of his gaze made her heart skip a beat.

  “Time to think about the future and the kind of life I really wanted,” he told her. “The travel was fun at first. I got to meet lots of interesting people, go to different places. But after a while, I grew tired of sleeping in hotel rooms and living out of a suitcase.”

  “So you’re planning to stay in Red Rock?” she asked, not entirely sure how she felt about that possibility.

  “I had no set plan when I first came back,” he admitted. “I just knew that I needed to see you, to talk about what had happened between us.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you think we could maybe go back to the kitchen to finish this conversation?”

  She hadn’t given too much thought to where they were until he asked the question. But when he did, she suddenly became aware that they weren’t just in her bedroom, but on her bed. Sitting very close together. And her pulse was racing and her skin was hot.

  She swallowed. “That’s, uh, probably a good idea.”

  He caught her hand as she rose to her feet, stood with her. “It’s still there, isn’t it?”

  She pretended to misunderstand. “Our coffee’s getting cold.”

  “The chemistry,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

  “That’s what got us into trouble in the first place,” she finally agreed.

  “Yeah, I knew you were trouble. The minute I saw you again, when I came back with Kevin for Thanksgiving that first year I was in college.” He lifted his other hand to brush his knuckles gently down her cheek. “You were a kid when I went away, and a woman when I came home.”

  “You barely spoke two words to me that weekend,” she protested, trying to ignore the rush of blood through her veins, the ache in her heart.

  “Self-preservation,” he said. “It didn’t seem to matter that I’d known you since you were seven years old. At seventeen, just looking at you made my heart beat faster. If I hadn’t faked indifference, the drive home from your friend Tammy’s house after the party Saturday night might have ended with us in the backseat of my car.”

  He was right. If she’d even detected a hint of his attraction to her, she would have insisted he pull over and kiss her. She might have still been in high school, but she’d been old enough to be sure of her feelings for him.

  And she’d been devastated by his distance. He’d always had time for her before—and even if he’d often treated her like a kid sister, at least he’d never ignored her. Until that weekend.

  Coincidentally, it was at Thanksgiving again, eight years later, that they’d jetted off to Las Vegas to get married.

  “You still make my heart race,” Travis said in a low voice.

  Which was why they should go to the kitchen. Now. Because the way he was looking at her made her think things she shouldn’t be thinking, and want things she shouldn’t be wanting.

  “Is there a reason for this stroll down memory lane?” she asked him.

  “I thought I could forget,” he said. “I thought I just needed some time and distance, but no matter how much time passed, no matter how far I went, I couldn’t get you out of my mind.”

  “Well, I did get you out of mine.” She tipped her head back, determined to look him straight in the eye as she lied through her teeth. “I moved on with my life and now I want you to go.”

  His brows lifted. “You expect me to believe that you forgot me and everything we meant to one another?”

  “Yes,” she said firmly, even as the challenge in his tone set off warning bells.

  “Then maybe you need something to remind you,” he said, bending his head toward her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SHE’D known he was going to kiss her.

  Travis was hardly subtle and Brooke had seen the intent in his eyes soon enough that she could have stepped back or pushed him away. But the truth was, she didn’t want to.

  As his mouth swooped toward hers, she tilted her head back, meeting him willingly, even eagerly. Yes, she’d wanted his lips against hers and his arms around her. Just one more time. One last time.

  Except that while her mind was determined to say goodbye her body was saying hello—and with much enthusiasm.

  And when the hard, punishing pressure of his mouth eased, every ounce of resistance melted right along with her heart.

  Travis had expected Brooke would be angry. She had reason to be, considering the way he’d hauled her into his arms just to prove to both of them that there was no way she’d forgotten. Because he’d refused to believe that she could so easily have set aside the memories that continued to haunt him.

  In the first moment that he touched his lips to hers, the fleeting contact opened the floodgates of those memories. And when he heard the soft, low purr that sounded deep in her throat, need—powerful and fierce and undeniable—swept through on the heels of those memories.

  He’d known her when she was a child—a tomboy with scraped elbows and dirt on her knees. He’d known her when she was a teen—a shy and awkward girl trying to adjust to her developing curves. And he’d known her as a woman.

  After four years of service in Egypt, Jordan and Israel with the DSS, he’d come back to the States and decided to track down Kevin McFarlane, the man who had been his best friend all through childhood. Instead, he’d found Kevin’s sister,
all grown up, and the jolt of lust that had shot through his system had nearly brought him to his knees.

  She told him that Kevin was out of the country on business. It seemed that his friend was always somewhere else, busy investing his money in some project or another to make more. And while Travis was disappointed to have missed his friend, he decided that the trip didn’t need to be a complete waste and invited Brooke to join him for dinner instead.

  He was on vacation for two weeks before he had to report in for his next assignment, and he’d spent almost all of that time with Brooke—most of it in her bed.

  He hadn’t made any promises; she hadn’t asked for any. They both understood that his job could send him almost anywhere around the world on a moment’s notice and she had never wanted to go anywhere other than Red Rock. But for two whole weeks, it was as if everyone and everything else had disappeared so that there was only the two of them, and nothing else mattered.

  And that was just how he felt now, with Brooke in his arms again. As if nothing else mattered.

  Brooke had made more than a few mistakes in her life, and thinking that she could ever kiss Travis Stanford goodbye was on the top of the list.

  She tore her mouth from his, tears burning her eyes. “Damn you, Travis.”

  He stared at her, his breathing not quite steady. “What did I do?”

  “You came back.”

  And with him had come the onslaught of memories, of all the time they’d spent together, the first time he’d kissed her, the first time they’d made love. Memories of the hopes and dreams she’d had for their life together. It hurt so much to remember that, for a brief, fleeting moment, she’d had everything she wanted. And then she’d lost it all.

  “Brooke—”

  “How did you end up as Lacey Carrington’s bodyguard, anyway?” she demanded.

  His smile was wry. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “You know what? It really doesn’t matter.” She stalked out of the bedroom.

  “Maybe it does,” he said, falling into step behind her.

  She moved into the kitchen, picked up her mug and took a long swallow of the coffee she no longer wanted except that it gave her something to focus on rather than Travis.