by Vivian Arend
But now that he was forced to look at the situation with his eyes wide open, Caleb acknowledged this could be a huge turning point.
He wanted Tamara. He trusted her with his children.
Why was it so hard to trust her with his heart?
Chapter Seventeen
“They’re finally asleep.” Tamara spoke softly as she slipped into the living room, pausing at Caleb’s expression. He was staring at the tree, a dozen decorations laid on the table beside him.
Sheer misery took Tamara’s heart out of her body, tied it in a knot then put it back in place far more worn. She backed up slowly and made extra noise as if she were just coming around the corner.
“I’m ready to be Santa’s elf,” she quipped cheerfully, giving him time to pull himself together.
It had been the strangest couple of weeks. Ever since Emma’s nightmare, it felt as if the house had been slowly filling with pressure. She’d shared with Caleb what Emma had told her, and he’d been suitably upset then achingly tender with his little girl.
Emma had bounced back far faster than the rest of them. Part of that had been the distractions of the season. With Christmas programs and holiday gift-making, there was always something going on that took her and the girls out of the house.
They hadn’t decorated, though, which was odd to Tamara. But the Stone tradition was for the tree to magically appear on Christmas morning, and while not having any decorations up was different, she understood where Caleb was coming from. Waiting until Christmas Eve to deal with the tree had meant there was a single deadline to meet. Some of those early years, it had probably come down to that final, last-minute rush.
The girls had been amazingly patient. More patient than Tamara as they eagerly worked on secret gifts for everyone in the family.
Now here they were, Christmas Eve, when the magic needed to happen.
Caleb met her eyes, and in that instant, instead of returning to being reserved and shut off, he allowed his sadness to show. Then he nodded briskly and dropped more decorations on the table. “If you want to put the kettle on, I’d love a drink.”
Gruff, gruff, stubborn man. Whatever had hurt him, he was going to move ahead as usual and ignore it.
Fine. She would do all she could to help. “Is that a Christmas tradition? Hot chocolate while you set up the tree?”
He paused before the smallest of smiles snuck out. “Truth be told, you’re the one who’s got me drinking hot things in the evening. I’d have been more likely to grab a beer.”
“Well then, I guess this is us putting some new traditions in your life.” She moved towards the kitchen to put on the kettle as requested. “That hot drink is going to have a kick,” she warned.
She glanced at him and was rewarded as, for a split second, a full-out grin broke over his face. Tamara treasured it as if she’d been given an enormous bouquet of flowers.
She liked making him smile—
A wave of clarity hit, and she nearly fell back against the counter, awareness digging in deep. She didn’t just want this man. Although she did—utterly and completely.
She liked him. She thought his sacrificial ass needed a firm talking to most of the time, and yet she couldn’t fault him for the things that he cared about and put his energy toward.
Selfless, caring, stubborn man.
She fussed as she went to make the drinks to cover up the emotions bubbling inside her, bringing everything to the coffee table as he finished wrapping the final strand of lights around the enormous tree.
Tamara nodded in approval. “Is the tree from your property?”
“Josiah’s spread. He’s building a trail through a batch of royal spruce, but he’s in no rush. Every year we take down a couple of trees to make it a little longer. In the meantime, we get to enjoy the benefits.”
She eyed the pile of decorations. More than half of them were handmade. “I see the girls have been busy.”
“Don’t try to pretend you haven’t been encouraging them. Dare and Ginny used to spend most of December making ornaments with them as well.” Caleb gave her a dry grin. “And my girls aren’t so good at secret keeping as all that.”
“You’re right. There’ll be new ones under the tree in the morning. Any particular order these are supposed to go?” She gestured towards the collection.
He shook his head. “Anywhere is fine.”
Things were going well until she picked up a matching set of small silver ovals. In them a young woman held a newborn baby in her arms. The woman wasn’t exactly smiling, although she was very pretty, and it was clear that in one ornament the baby was Emma and the other, Sasha.
Tamara held them, staring at what was the first picture she’d seen of Wendy. Blonde curly hair, cupid’s-bow mouth. Her first thought had been beautiful, but there was something in the woman’s eyes that didn’t look remotely like what Tamara would’ve expected in a new mom.
Wendy looked…lost, as if she were pretending.
Tamara slipped back in time to when she’d seen that expression on a woman’s face before. She opened her mouth to ask if Wendy had suffered from postpartum depression, but decided it was far too personal to blurt out, even for her.
“I’ve never known what to do about those damn ornaments.” The words escaped Caleb like a confession, soft and low. “It’s one of the first pictures we have of the girls, and Dustin saved up his money to give them as a gift. Dare thought I should keep them because of that, but it’s never sat right with me. I always hide them in the box so the girls don’t see them every year and be reminded all over.”
Caleb stared at the ornaments in the palm of her hand. Tamara swallowed hard, throat tightening. The girls might not see them, but keeping them meant he did.
He kept staring down, away from her gaze. “She left us.”
She knew that from the night with Emma, but he seemed to be talking about something more. Tamara sat motionless on the couch beside where he knelt on the floor.
“Emma was right. Wendy just up and left. I knew she wasn’t happy. Hell, she hadn’t been happy except for brief moments since we finished saying I do, and instead of going away for a big honeymoon, we came back here.”
“Caleb.”
He shook his head. “No, you gotta hear this, because if things get bad tomorrow, you need to know.”
Panic shot through Tamara. “Wendy’s not coming here, is she?”
His eyes widened. “Hell, no.” Absolutely firm. “She has no rights to the girls. Gave them up completely, but sometimes she gets it into her head to call on Christmas, or their birthdays.” He gestured at the ornaments in her palm. “Like a reminder in a box that everything fell apart. I’ve never let her talk to them. She doesn’t deserve to be a part of their lives.”
Tamara took a deep breath, curling her fingers around what was pain in trinket form. She laid her other hand on his shoulder. “You want to tell me about it?”
She expected to get a gruff denial, maybe even have him walk from the room.
Shockingly, he nodded. “She wanted me to sell. I think she had a whole different idea of what it meant to be a rancher’s wife than the reality. Or at least our reality. I couldn’t buy her every frilly thing she wanted. I couldn’t afford to make the house fancier. My sisters tried to help, but they were finishing high school, and Dusty was still a teenager, and I was having to be a father to them as well, and…” He dipped his head. “I swear I tried, I really did—”
God. He felt as guilty about this as Emma had, for as little reason. “Of course you did. Damn, Caleb that’s the last thing you have to convince me of. I’ve seen you with your family. You work yourself into the ground to try and make them happy. You’ve done so much.”
“Wasn’t enough,” he rejoined.
The unspoken I wasn’t enough hung on the air.
With an explosion of energy, Caleb shot to his feet. He took the ornaments from her hand and marched to the kitchen, and she watched as he silently opened the trashcan and
threw the mementos away. Shoulders rigid, body tense.
Tamara waited until he returned, settling on the couch beside her and staring into the fire.
She ached to find a way to comfort him, but it didn’t seem her time to talk.
He was the one to keep sharing. “Last time we had contact she was based in Edmonton with her new husband. A sixty-year-old with a well-established bank account.”
Tamara didn’t like to think poorly of a person without ever having met them, but actions spoke damn loud. Between the bullshit Wendy had pulled on Emma and leaving Caleb to find a sugar daddy, it was pretty clear this wasn’t a simple relationship misunderstanding.
Sometimes people were horrid. This was one of those times.
“As long as she’s fully and legally out of the girls’ lives, and yours, I think it’s perfectly fine to move forward.”
“I should’ve told you all this months ago,” he grumbled. “Don’t know if I was acting the fool, or trying to not overload you, or trying to protect my ego.”
Confusion rushed in. “Why would I think less of you because your wife decided she didn’t want to be married? Do you really think I care much for the opinion of a woman who would leave her daughters?”
“I wasn’t enough to make her stay, not even the girls were. She didn’t want to be a mom, she didn’t want to be my wife.” He stared at the tree sightlessly. “Hell, she didn’t want me, period.”
He turned to face her, as if shocked at all the words that had escaped him. She stroked a hand over his stubble-rough cheek as she examined him closely. A small furrow had formed between his brows, the muscles under her palm twitching lightly as he stared back.
“Trust me, Caleb, any woman who doesn’t want you— It’s not you who’s got issues. It’s them. It’s one hundred percent them.”
She stroked her thumb over his lower lip, trembling as he snuck his tongue out to lick across the pad.
Silence surrounded them but for the music drifting from the speakers and the crackle of the fire.
He wasn’t going to say anything, and she’d pretty much said anything that needed saying, so she leaned forward and let their lips connect.
A sweet, gentle caress, a kind of amen and hallelujah all in one. Enough that the flutter in her heart kicked up a notch as she pressed forward the slightest bit. She wasn’t going to push, but as the taste of him slipped through her system, she wasn’t ready to stop.
His fingers drove around the back of her neck and into her hair, tightening as he took the kiss deeper. Harder. Using his lips and tongue to seduce her senses, and that fluttering heart rate—a flutter no more. It raced like a driving piston on an old-fashioned steam train, blood pounding through her system with the only connection between them two hands, and two lips.
Caleb closed his fingers, tugging her hair as he pivoted to his knees and between her legs. Pushing her body to vertical so their chests connected, her breasts brushing the rock-hard plane of his body.
She’d dreamed about repeating this moment, this kiss—but she’d been wrong. Completely wrong, because it wasn’t enough to make everything in her turn on, she was in overdrive. Aching and needy, her skin craving his touch.
He kept kissing her, and a low moan of pleasure escaped as a second hand slid around her torso and under her shirt. His big palm pressed her bare back and urged her body tighter against his.
She was on the very edge of the couch cushion, knees spread wide. His body rested between her thighs and the thick line of his cock made contact with her aching core.
Her very sedate and proper pyjamas were cute and festive, with little green and red bows, but they were thin, and the ridge of his jeans pushed against her hard enough she was tempted to rub. Oh God, she wanted to rub.
She still had one hand on his face, and she let the second rise so she could slide her hands over his shoulders, tracing the firm muscles there. Smoothing her hands back and forth as she rocked.
Or attempted to rock. He didn’t let her move. He kept them zipped up tight together, which was good, but not good enough. She wanted to pick this up a few rooms away.
In his bed, her bed—she didn’t care which, but when his fingers tightened that last bit and tugged their lips free from each other, they were breathing as if they’d finished a marathon. Foreheads touching as he stared at her face.
“Point proven,” he said softly.
Her head was spinning hard enough she wasn’t sure what he was talking about? “Caleb?”
“I know you want me. I want you too.” He stole his hand out from under her shirt, and she damn near whimpered in disappointment.
He made a soft shushing noise. “We can’t. You know this.”
She nodded. “The girls.”
This time it was Caleb who cupped her cheek. He stroked a finger over her lips.
“I can’t hurt them,” Caleb breathed. “Been too beat up by grownups, and it’s not fair. I can’t, even though, God, I want you. It’s too soon. We can’t make them hope—”
They couldn’t when there was nothing official between them but this wicked heat and longing. Physical desire wasn’t enough to hurt the two little people she’d come to care about so much.
It still burned. “I know.”
She cupped her hand over his, holding his palm against her cheek. “You’re a good man, Caleb Stone. You deserve to be happy too. Just in case no one’s ever told you that.”
The very corners of his lips curled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Good.”
They stared at each other, sharing air, and even though she craved more…it was enough. They were two adults making an adult decision to do the right thing.
They finished decorating the tree, the Christmas carols playing in the background shockingly joyous considering the rock in her belly.
Sometimes doing the right thing sucked.
Chapter Eighteen
Caleb paused before stepping outside, the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree drawing him forward as surely as they had when he’d been a little tyke.
He stood in the silence, the living room filled with a candlelight glow from another line of lights crossing the mantle. Shiny silver ribbon twinkled, and he glanced back toward the tree.
A third look—he wasn’t sure how he’d spotted them because even though they were noticeable, they weren’t that big.
There were new ornaments hanging on the tree. Right there at little girl height where Sasha and Emma would be sure to see them. Silver ribbon in tight, precise bows that declared Tamara’s handiwork as loudly as if she’d signed her name.
He didn’t know how the hell she’d done it, but she had. In the time between their soul-stealing-kiss-filled evening and this morning, Tamara had found baby pictures and made new ornaments with their names in block letters, stars and stripes and glitter and all the shimmering doodads a little girl could possibly want. It didn’t matter that they were babies, and barely recognizable from any other newborn, it was clear this one was Emma, this one was Sasha. Pinks and purples, blues and silver.
Caleb felt his throat tighten again.
He wandered in a bit of a haze as he did his chores, the familiar feel of the animals bumping shoulders with him as he added feed to their pails a nice, mindless task.
The whirlwind of emotions in his gut was far too big to think on straight. He had to kind of come at it sideways. Maybe sneak up on it.
He’d told Tamara last night that they couldn’t get involved. And that was true—and an affair was out of the question because the last thing he needed was the girls falling in love with Tamara and her breaking their hearts.
Your heart couldn’t take it too well either, his brain pointed out.
But what if she was to be more? What if she was willing to become a permanent mom to the girls?
What if he was ready to risk his heart?
He patted Stormy on the side of the neck. “What’d you think?”
Stormy dipped his head and blew a sno
rt of air.
Caleb smiled. “Yeah. Me too.”
“I thought that was Josiah’s job, talking with the animals,” Walker drawled, resting his arms on top of the gate. “But I guess as long as he doesn’t talk back, I won’t get too worried.”
Caleb glanced at his brother. “Don’t you have work to do?”
Walker shook his head. “It’s Christmas morning, bro. Just the normal tasks, and I’m nearly done. I promised Tamara I’d come to the house and help with cooking dinner.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll help her.”
Walker stepped aside as Caleb brushed past him, returning buckets to the shelf where they were stored.
“Do you know?” Walker asked out of the blue.
Caleb twisted. “Know what?”
A little of Walker’s belligerence faded. “You do know. That’s why you’re such a miserable son of a bitch these days.”
Caleb debated telling his brother to mind his own business. God, his brothers were like the old, crusty ranchers hanging out on the front porch of the mercantile, i.e., the worst type of gossips. “Why’d you come home?”
Walker blinked in surprise. “Oh, no you don’t. This isn’t about me—”
“Why isn’t it? Didn’t expect to see you until a few days before the holiday, if then, and for you to be back out the first minute you could. Instead, I heard you might be sticking around until the spring.” Caleb eyed Walker closer. “What happened?”
Walker folded his arms as he leaned against the rough wood slats of the barn. “You’ve never got much to say except when you decide it’s time to grill one of us. I figure that’s kind of special. You know, that you break out the words, and all.”
Caleb waited.
“You’re such a bastard,” Walker complained.
Huh. He hadn’t been sure until that moment, but it was obvious something had happened.
“What’s wrong?” Caleb asked softer. “You’ve always got a home here. And if there’s anything I can do to help, it’s yours.”
