by Sherry Lewis
Hoping to send her a warning glance, he looked up at her. To his surprise, she wore a soft smile. When she met his gaze, he saw honest amusement dancing in her eyes.
Confused all over again, he waited while Cameron climbed into the truck bed and helped him arrange the tree in place. Maybe Marti wasn’t worried about Cameron and Kendra. But if not that, then what?
Cameron climbed onto the side of the truck, jumped to the ground and jerked his head toward the stand of trees. “Come with me,” he said to Kendra. “You can make sure I’m cutting the right one.”
“You’re going to cut it?” Kendra sounded adequately impressed.
“Sure.”
Marti turned to hide her smile until the kids had moved away. Only then did she look back at them. “I’ve never seen him like this,” she said. “He must like her a lot.”
“I think the feeling’s mutual.” Rick watched her reaction, but he saw nothing unusual. No darkened eyes. No flush of concern on her cheeks. Nothing.
“It is. She’s in awe of him.” Marti flicked a glance at him, but she didn’t let her gaze linger. “Obviously, he enjoys it.”
“Of course he does. Every man wants to know he can impress the woman he likes.”
The color in her cheeks deepened and her gaze faltered. “Does he?”
A thrill he couldn’t ignore raced up his spine. “Oh, yes. Trouble is, it’s more difficult for adults than it is for the young ones. After all, the adult females have already stopped being impressed by everything the males do.”
She hesitated for an instant, then turned her gaze back to his again. “They can still be impressed,” she said. “They only pretend not to be as a defense mechanism.”
“Really?” He took another step closer and touched the small of her back tentatively.
“Yes.” She sent him a wan smile. “But you can’t repeat that aloud. And you have to promise never to use it to your own advantage.”
He sketched an X over his heart with one hand and inched the other a little farther around her waist. “Never. The true male doesn’t use things to gain advantage.” He pulled her a little closer. “So, did I impress you with my tree-felling abilities?”
“Were you trying to impress me?” She smiled, but her voice came out low and seductive.
Need coiled through him. “You have no idea how much.” He leaned closer still, drawn by the look in her eyes and the compelling softness of her lips. He needed to kiss her again, to feel her against him, if only for a moment. But before he could close the remaining distance between them, the chain saw roared to life again.
She jerked away, then sent him an apologetic smile. “It startled me.” She had to shout to make herself heard.
He nodded. It had done more than frighten him. It had doused his passion as effectively as a cold glass of water in his lap. He squeezed her waist gently and released her, then walked to a vantage point where he could reach Cameron quickly if anything went wrong. He tried to keep his mind on the boy, the saw and the tree. But his mind kept wandering back to that aborted kiss.
He told himself that he’d find some way soon to take up where they’d left off. But next time, he’d make sure Cameron and Kendra were nowhere around.
MARTI TILTED BACK her head and let soft snowflakes land on her face while she waited for Kendra and Cameron to climb inside the truck beside Rick. Logic told her she should be glad the kids would be seated between them for the return trip home. Everything else inside her yearned to sit beside him while he drove.
She couldn’t remember ever being so aware of a man before—of the force of his personality, the texture of the air whenever he came near, the sound of his breathing. Even in the early days of her marriage, when she’d thought herself to be head over heels in love, she hadn’t been quite so conscious of Gil.
Sighing softly, she made an effort to stop thinking that way. It had been a perfect morning so far—free from arguments, from hurt feelings, from innuendo and speculation. She’d had a wonderful time watching Cameron and Kendra together, and remembering that moment when she’d thought Rick would kiss her again made her heart race.
Cameron moved away from her side and stepped onto the truck’s running board. He stopped before he climbed inside and glanced at her. Following her gaze, he looked up at the light gray clouds overhead. “Looks like we finished just in time. I’ll bet it’ll be snowing hard within half an hour.”
“I think you’re right.” She pulled her gaze back from the clouds and sighed again. “I’ve missed the snow. Christmas without snow just doesn’t feel right.”
Cameron’s eyes flickered. “No, it doesn’t.”
Kendra leaned across the seat of the truck and tweaked the sleeve of Cameron’s coat. “Come on, you two. I’m cold, and it’s snowing.”
Two spots of color flamed to life on Cameron’s cheeks, and he darted a glance at Marti. Obviously, he didn’t want to disappoint Kendra by making her wait. “Are you ready?”
Marti smiled to set him at ease. “Yes, of course. Let’s go before the snow gets worse. We don’t want to get stuck up here.” Climbing into the truck behind Cameron, she settled herself onto the seat and pulled the door shut.
She leaned back in her seat and tried to ignore Rick, but she found herself watching him from the corner of her eye as he maneuvered the truck to a wide spot on the narrow trail where he could turn around. The muscles in his arms worked as he cranked the steering wheel, and without warning she longed to feel them around her again.
He glanced at her as he shifted gears and let his gaze travel from her eyes to her mouth and linger there. Then, as if the moment had never passed between them, he cleared his throat and spoke. “Our tree’s on top, so I guess we’d better drop it off first and take yours home last.”
She tried to match his casual tone. “That’s a good idea.”
“I hear it’s best to let the branches drop for a couple of days before you decorate.”
Somehow, she managed to force out another word. “Yes.” But she couldn’t hold back the scene that flashed in front of her—a fantasy in which she and Rick cut a single Christmas tree and decorated it together. The image caught her off guard and brought a flush to her cheeks. She forced it away.
Beside her, Cameron’s voice rose and fell as he talked with Kendra. The girl’s voice rose to meet his, and the two blended for a moment, then drifted away again. Marti didn’t listen closely. Instead, she watched the forest and the thickening snowfall as Rick drove slowly over the rutted road toward the highway.
“What do you think, Mom?” Cameron nudged her gently with one elbow, but the insistent tone of his voice warned her he’d been trying to capture her attention.
Marti turned from the window and met his gaze. “I’m sorry, I was thinking about something else. What do I think about what?”
Kendra leaned forward in the seat so Marti could see her eager young face. “About coming on the sleigh ride with our family.”
Marti cursed herself for not paying attention and tried desperately to look as if she understood. “Sleigh ride? When did you say it was again?”
Obviously, she’d failed.
Cameron’s face puckered into a slight scowl. “It’s two days before Christmas.” He enunciated each word carefully, as if she needed an interpreter.
Marti nodded, as-though that helped. “Next Wednesday?”
Kendra bobbed her head so quickly her hair fell into her eyes. “Yeah. Everything’s arranged. So, will you come? It’ll be lots of fun.”
It did sound like fun, but she knew Cameron wouldn’t want her there. She shook her head and smiled an apology. “I don’t think I can make it.”
To her surprise, Cameron’s pucker tightened. “Why not?”
“Well, I don’t...” She let her voice trail away for a second while her gaze traveled from Kendra to Cameron to Rick. They all looked expectant and eager, and she couldn’t help smiling. “Yes, of course. It sounds great.”
An instant too late, s
he realized that Kendra had said “family,” which meant Lynette would also be there. Marti had no desire to repeat the experience she’d had with Lynette in Rick’s kitchen.
Unless Rick’s sister-in-law had undergone a serious change in attitude, she wouldn’t want Marti there. Marti had no doubt the woman would make her displeasure known. And if Cameron picked up on the reason for Lynette’s antagonism, it would ruin everything.
No matter how much Marti wanted to go, somehow she’d have to find a way out of it. The price of being there would be just too high.
PLEASANTLY FULL from dinner, Rick relaxed in his favorite armchair and sipped a glass of wine while Tom, Lynette and Ashley admired the bare tree he and Kendra had set up near the front window. He felt good tonight. Damn good. Better than he’d felt in a long time.
A log in the fireplace popped, and the scent of apple wood—sweet and smoky-tart—drifted across the room. He sipped again, leaned his head against the back of the chair and let his imagination conjure up a picture of himself alone with Marti in front of the fire.
“You’re looking awfully pleased with yourself.” Lynette’s voice drew him back to the moment.
He smiled. “We had a good day today, didn’t we, Kendra?”
Just as he’d expected, Kendra blushed. “Yeah, we did.” She ran one hand across the needles on the tree, took a deep breath and glanced at her mother from beneath lowered lids. “I forgot to tell you, we invited Marti and Cameron to come on the sleigh ride with us.”
Lynette’s face froze. Only her eyes moved as she sought Rick’s gaze. “You didn’t.”
Her reaction surprised Rick. He hadn’t expected her to object to Kendra’s infatuation with Cameron. “Yes, we did. They’ve been good friends, and Cameron worked hard to help me get everything ready for your visit.”
Oblivious to the sudden tension springing from his wife, Tom lowered himself onto the couch with a loud groan. “He seems like a good kid. I’ve never met his mother, though.”
Kendra perched on the arm of the couch beside him. “She’s really nice. You’ll like her.”
Lynette’s eyes narrowed. “He’s not a good kid, he’s trouble. I can tell that from a mile away.”
“No, he’s not,” Kendra protested.
But Lynette had already closed her ears. She stepped away from the tree and jerked her head toward the kitchen. “Can I talk to you, Rick? Alone?”
He thought about refusing. He knew what that look on her face meant, and he didn’t want anything to spoil his mood. But he nodded and set his wineglass on the end table beside his chair. “Sure.”
Tom’s forehead creased into a scowl. “What’s wrong now?”
“Nothing,” Lynette snapped. “Rick? Now, please?”
With increasing wariness, Rick pushed out of the armchair and stood. He smiled encouragement at Kendra and followed Lynette into the kitchen.
She crossed to the counter before wheeling back to face him. “I can’t believe you invited them to come along on the sleigh ride. What were you thinking?”
“I told you, they’re friends. Why don’t you want Cameron there? He’s a good kid.”
“Isn’t it obvious? He’s not the sort of boy I want my girls spending time with. And I most definitely don’t want her there.”
“Her?” Rick stared at Lynette for a second and tried to convince himself he hadn’t heard right. “You mean Marti?”
Her face reddened. “Yes... Unless you’ve invited some other woman, too?”
“No, but—” He broke off and shook his head to clear away the confusion. “What’s wrong with Marti?”
Lynette barked a brittle laugh. “I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with her.”
“Then, why don’t you want her to come along?”
“Why do you want her to?”
Even if Rick hadn’t seen the accusation flash across her face, he’d have heard it in her voice. “She’s a friend,” he said simply. “And I can use all the friends I can get.”
“A friend.”
“Yes, a friend.”
“I’m sure she is.” She paced to the window and rounded on him. “How can you do this?”
“Do what?”
“You know very well what.”
Struggling to keep control over his patience, he took a step closer. He knew losing Jocelyn had hurt her deeply, and he didn’t want to cause her more pain, but it was time for both of them to move on. “I’m not married, Lynette. Not anymore.”
“I know that.” She backed away from him quickly. “But I thought you loved Jocelyn.”
“I did. I still do. But she’s gone, Lynette.” He softened his voice even further, knowing how difficult it would be for her to hear him say what came next. “She’s dead.”
Tears filled Lynette’s eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks.
He closed the distance between them and took her gently by the shoulders. “Do you want me to spend the rest of my life alone?”
She shook her head. “No. But—” She glanced up at him. “Do you love that woman?”
Rick hesitated before answering. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I think what I feel for her could turn into love.”
Lynette jerked away from him and stood in front of the window. “You’ve forgotten all about Jocelyn, haven’t you? As if she never even existed.”
He gripped the back of a chair and resisted the urge to follow her. “Of course not. I’ll never forget Jocelyn.”
“Then how can you do this?”
“What am I doing that’s so horrible?”
“I could never look at another man if something happened to Tom.”
“Maybe not at first, but you might after some time had gone by. I’m a man, not a saint. I can’t live the rest of my life alone.”
Her eyes filled with contempt. “You’re disgusting.”
“Why?” His voice rose several notches. He couldn’t control his anger any longer. “Because I’m normal? Because I want companionship? Because I want to love and be loved?”
“If you want sex, then go find it somewhere. But don’t cheapen Jocelyn’s memory by...by—”
“By what?” he demanded. “By falling in love?”
“How can you love someone else? You and Jocelyn were soul mates.”
No we weren’t. He knew the time had come for him to admit what he’d kept to himself all these years.
“We weren’t,” he said softly. “We were too different.”
“Don’t.” The word snapped out of Lynette’s mouth. “Don’t make everything worse by denying it.”
“It’s the truth. The marriage was falling apart.”
“It was not.”
“It was.” He kept his voice low and steady, and he gripped the chair a little tighter so his resolve wouldn’t weaken. “I didn’t have the courage to tell you the truth when she died.”
She would have backed away another step, but the wall stopped her.
“I told you she was going into town to do some last-minute Christmas shopping, but that wasn’t true. The truth is, she was leaving me.”
“Don’t!” Lynette shook her head frantically, as if she could keep his words from touching her.
But now that he’d started, he had to say the rest. She needed to hear it so she could accept the truth at long last. And he needed to say it. “She hated living here. It wasn’t what she expected when we got married. She’d been trying to talk me into moving back to Denver, but I didn’t want to go back. She gave me an ultimatum that night—either I had to agree to go back, or she’d leave me.”
“Jocelyn wouldn’t have done that.”
He heard the warning note in her voice, but he ignored it. “I refused to compromise with her. I couldn’t. I was too full of my own needs. Now I understand that our problems were as much my fault as they were hers. I changed the rules by moving here. I wasn’t the man she’d married anymore.”
Unleashing her anger, Lynette turned on him. Her eyes flashed. Her mouth thinned.
And she looked so much like Jocelyn the last time he’d seen her, his lungs refused to pull in his next breath. “You can make up any lies you want to excuse what you’re doing, Rick. But I refuse to stand here and listen. And I’ll never believe you. Never.”
Without giving him a chance to respond, she pushed past him through the door into the living room.
Shock kept him rooted to the spot while she ordered Ashley and Kendra to get their coats. Then Tom wasted a few more seconds asking what had happened. A minute later, he heard the front door slam behind them.
Slowly, he walked out of the kitchen and bolted the front door. He turned out the lights, secured the screen over the fireplace and climbed the stairs. He started to open the door to the spare room, but stopped himself before he went inside.
It was time, he thought. Time to lay all of the ghosts to rest. He pulled fresh sheets and two heavy blankets from the linen closet, took a deep breath and crossed the narrow landing to the master bedroom.
YAWNING, Marti carried her first cup of coffee across the living room to her makeshift desk. She couldn’t see out the window while she worked any longer—they’d moved the desk to make room for the Christmas tree the day before—but she didn’t mind. She loved the fresh scent of pine and, silly though it seemed, the tree made her feel closer to Rick.
Laughing silently at herself, she lowered her cup to the desk and turned on the computer. She’d spent all day yesterday playing. Today, she had to work, so she could justify having lunch with Cherryl later in the week.
She pulled out the draft of her article and arranged it on the desk so she could read the edits she’d made the last time she’d worked on it. Even with them in front of her, it took several minutes to find the rhythm of the piece again and to feel the cadence of each sentence. And it wasn’t until she registered the excited voices approaching the house that she even became aware that she’d finally drifted into the trancelike state she assumed when words and ideas began to flow together.
Jerking back to reality, she blinked rapidly and looked up from the computer. When she recognized Gil’s voice, she frowned and turned around in her chair. A second later, the front door banged open and Gil tromped inside, followed by her father.