He flipped on the TV. It's a Wonderful Life was playing. Yeah, Ryan wondered what his life would have been like if Chad hadn't died. But he wasn't going to get an angel like Charlie to show him. And he wasn't sure he could handle the could-have-beens if even he had.
For just a second Ryan wondered about fate. Maybe, if fate was fate and destiny was destiny, and unchangeable, he wouldn't be with Tara even if Chad had lived. Maybe she would have still headed off to the big city chasing her dream of career success and validation. Maybe he'd still be alone. The thought was depressing as hell.
He fed Blondie and took her out for the promised romp in the yard, built a nice fire in the fireplace, and headed in to take a shower, leaving the TV on. He'd just toweled off and slipped into a pair of jeans when someone pounded on his front door.
What now? Who could that be?
"Coming!" he yelled as Blondie barked up a storm. He grabbed a shirt and headed to the front door. Shirt still in hand, he grabbed Blondie's collar. "Calm down, girl."
He flung open the door with his free hand. Tara stood on his stoop with a bag of delicious-smelling food—fresh burgers, fries, and onion rings or he missed his guess—sitting atop two Old European Christmas boxes. She wore skinny jeans and a stylish coat with a faux-fur collar and looked good enough to eat. "Tara?"
"You said you'd have dinner with me another time. Were you serious, or was feeding the dog your equivalent of 'I have to wash my hair'?"
Ryan's heart grew at least one size right that minute, and pounded out of control. Tara, on his doorstep, with food and Christmas decorations in her arms—that sounded like a wish come true to him. Funny, he hadn't seen a falling star when he'd wished.
Blondie barked and wagged her tail as he held her back from jumping all over Tara and stealing his dinner. Man's best friend was smelling the burgers, too.
Ryan stepped back, pulling Blondie with him. "No, I was washing my hair, too. Neither were excuses."
Tara ran her gaze the length of him, from his wet, tousled hair, down his bare chest to his bare feet. "Hmmm, you look like you're telling the truth. For the sake of our friendship, I think I'll choose to believe you. Has the dog been fed and played with?"
He nodded. "First thing."
"Good. And this must be the famous Blondie. Oh, she's a beaut, Ryan."
As Tara kneeled to pet her, Ryan stepped between them. "Not with my dinner in your hands. I'm a starving man and Blondie doesn't share." He was telling the truth. He was starving for Tara.
Tara stood and grinned at him, or rather his chest where his nipples stood erect. "You must be freezing. Do you always answer the door half naked?" She shut the door with her foot.
He glanced at the shirt in his hand. He'd almost forgotten he was holding it. And no, he wasn't cold. He was burning.
Tara walked to his small, round dining table and set her bag and boxes down. Ryan let go of Blondie and slipped his shirt on.
Blondie charged Tara, who seemed delighted as the dog jumped up on her. She leaned down to pet her and got a big, sloppy dog kiss for her trouble. She only laughed and cooed to the dog. Tara had always loved animals.
"She really is a doll," Tara said. "Grandpa swears golden retrievers are the best bird dogs. Do you use her for hunting?"
"A bit. But she's kind of spoiled." It warmed his heart to see Tara so happy with his dog. Maybe old angel Charlie was here granting his wish after all. It sure seemed like this was a glimpse into what Christmases could have been like.
"Oh, so you're like Gram, then—a dog spoiler. Grandpa blames her for the ruin of many a good hunting animal." She laughed, still scratching Blondie behind the ears and cooing to her. "Oh, you're a good girl. You're a beautiful girl."
Ryan wanted some of that loving attention for himself. He went to the cupboard and got two plates, two beer glasses, and some napkins and set the table while Tara played with the dog.
As he got the spread out, Tara stood, went to the sink, and washed up.
"Just what I was hoping for—burgers!" Ryan got two beers from the fridge, but rather than just popping the tops, he reached for a corkscrew. What could he say? The fruity Belgian-style beers Tara liked at the holidays were corked. He removed the cork and handed a beer to Tara.
"Cranberry lambic!" She grinned. "I do love a good fruity Christmas beer." She looked at the label. "Made locally."
"Yeah, by a friend of mine in town. He runs a little microbrewery. If you're interested, I'll take you there sometime." Okay, that was a half-assed way to ask a girl out.
But she didn't seem to mind. Tara raised her bottle to his. "To the holidays and new, happy memories."
He clinked with her, wishing for exactly the same thing—deliriously happy memories.
"Yum!" Tara licked the beer foam off her lips. "Nice and bubbly. Effervescent. That's what I love about lambic—it's the champagne of beers." She grinned at him again. "But I didn't peg you for a lambic man. I thought a nice holiday ale was more your style."
He shrugged. "And you'd be right. These two came in a mixed holiday pack. They're all I have left." Fortuitously, because Tara had always loved fruity drinks and holiday beer.
They sat down to eat and unwrapped their sloppy burgers.
"The soon to be very famous Copper Creek bleu cheese burger," Tara said.
Ryan's heart was in danger of growing another size. She was trying to please him. Maybe he should have been suspicious, given their rivalry, but he chose to take the gesture for what it was—very touching.
Tara broke off a piece of her burger and fed it to Blondie, who begged at her side.
"Hey! Now who's spoiling?" Ryan poured his beer into his glass.
Tara shrugged as she did the same. "What can I say? I'm a chip off Gram's block." As they both dug in, Tara looked around the cabin.
He could tell she was trying to hide her consternation. "You don't like my décor?"
She pursed her lips. "No, it's not that. It's just...well, there's a shocking lack of Christmas decorations. With all your jolliness around town and your enthusiasm for the Santa Ski, I sort of pegged you for a Christmas-loving guy. Looks like I came just in time."
Ryan nodded, wondering just how much he should say and whether he should come clean with Tara. "Looks like you did. I'm privately in danger of becoming old Scrooge."
He paused and worked up his nerve. "As for the Santa Ski, it wasn't my idea. But for as long as people will be drinking and skiing and boarding while making merry, I'll be there to watch over them and keep them safe." He looked down at his burger and then up at her. "I won't have another Christmas Eve tragedy on my hands. Not if I can help it."
Tara stared at him a moment before reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. He squeezed back, not wanting to ever let go.
Her eyes were misty, but she smiled. "I can't have you turning into Scrooge. After we eat, we'll get you a tree. Otherwise the extra ornaments I brought over from the lodge are just going to go to waste. And we can't have that.
"There must be a Christmas-worthy tree in your yard, one you can sacrifice to the Christmas cause." She squeezed his hand again.
Cutting a tree in the dark by flashlight was more challenging, but more fun than Tara could have imagined. So many of them looked long and distorted by shadow; ghostly reflected in the flashlight beam. Yet stunningly, eerily beautiful—even the most plain trees. And holes were practically impossible to see, both on the ground and in the tree.
Ryan caught her elbow on more than one occasion as she misstepped. "Hey, go easy. I can't have you turning your ankle so close to Christmas. What will people think if I have to carry you into the emergency room?"
She wasn't sure, but being in Ryan's arms sounded good to her. "These trees all look so deceptively small out here in the forest." She put her hands on her hips and studied the ones around her. "But none of them are under ten feet. We should have brought a ladder so we could top one."
Ryan shook his head. "No way, I'm not topping a big, healthy
tree, not even for Christmas."
Blondie barked. They both turned and shone their lights on her as she raced around the woods on the edge of Ryan's property, freezing as if she was playing flashlight tag before a scraggly, but right-sized tree.
"That one looks good." Tara raced to it, as fast as she could in the dark without taking a tumble.
"You're crazy," Ryan said as he came up behind her.
"This little one is perfect." Tara shone her flashlight on it.
Ryan came up behind her and added his light to hers. The two beams melding together seemed symbolic. Tara smiled to herself. She'd been surprised by Ryan's place and the complete lack of anything Christmas in it. And she completely understood and admired his reason for supporting the Santa Ski. People would be up skiing and reveling whether he or Tara condoned it or not. Any warnings they could give would simply be shrugged off with a silent That could never happen to me. But life could change in an instant, as she knew only too well.
"Perfect? Are you the same woman who went Christmas tree cutting with me yesterday? Either someone body-snatched you or you've suddenly gone blind. That tree is an embarrassment to treehood."
Tara laughed. "I could say the same of you. What happened to the kind and compassionate Charlie Brown tree gatherer of yesterday that I went into the woods with? That man would have seen the possibilities in this little guy."
"Even the Peanuts gang couldn't make something out of this scraggly stick."
Blondie gave a happy bark and circled the tree. Tara laughed. "Yeah, we know you like it, girl." She paused, considering it. "Beggars can't be choosers. That little tree will fit into your cabin, and at this point, that's all that matters."
"And that it's not full of spiders."
Tara broke out laughing. Ryan referred to the time as teens they'd brought a tree in from the forest into his parents' house. When the tree warmed up, a batch of spiders hatched just as they were decorating it. Tara didn't stop screaming for a week, or so her brother liked to tease. She screamed until she cried, that was for sure.
"I don't see any spiders," she said.
"That's because it's dark."
She ignored his protests. "I'll hold the light. You chop it down."
"Wow, that's harsh," he said. "Just chop her down."
"Okay, then, gently saw her. Have you never read The Little Christmas Tree? It's every tree's goal to be a Christmas tree. Besides, this little tree is almost on life support. The big trees are hogging all the light and slowly strangling it. Unless you're planning to move and replant it, you'll be doing it a favor."
"It's a mercy killing then?"
She gave Ryan a gentle shove in the shoulder.
He laughed and handed her his light. "Mercy killing it is." He got down on his hands and knees and started sawing while Tara admired his butt.
Ryan had always been too easy on her eyes, even in the dark.
When he was finished, he carried the tree to the house while Tara carried the saw and Blondie trotted next to them. The tree had been sheltered by the big trees and was remarkably dry and free from snow.
They probably should have let it dry out overnight, and, given their past history, doused it with spider spray, but Tara was in the mood to decorate it now. She couldn't keep trumping up reasons to stop by Ryan's. And she was afraid he might lose the decorating mood.
"Do you have a stand?" she asked.
He shook his head. "No, but I have a bucket."
"That'll do."
14
It took Ryan fifteen minutes to locate the bucket, cut a base from some of his stash of kindling, and nail it to the bottom of the tree before he stuck it in the old metal bucket filled with sugar water. Tara directed him as he maneuvered it into a spot in front of his picture window just far enough from the blazing fire to be safe.
"Spin it half a turn." She eyed it. "No, no, not quite right. Give it another quarter-turn."
He complied.
"Again."
"Give up, Tara. This tree has no good side and I'm not about to play spin the tree all night." He let go of the tree and came over to stand beside her.
She couldn't help noticing how close he was, nearly shoulder to shoulder.
"Sure it does. See! You found it." She clapped and broke out laughing. Ryan was right. It was the worst tree ever. "It's just that its good side is pretty pathetic."
"Yeah, it is." He laughed, too.
She turned to him. "Do you have any lights?"
He arched a brow. "Why would I have lights?"
"I guess it's a good thing I threw a few strings in on a whim." As Tara went to get them, Ryan put some Christmas music on.
They strung the lights and hung the twenty or so ornaments she'd brought, and the tree still hadn't improved much.
Tara pursed her mouth off to the side as she inspected their handiwork. "I'm sorry. It's still sorry looking. It was supposed to add cheer to your place, not depress you.
"You don't have any construction paper or popcorn that we could string, do you? Something to fill it out a bit more?"
He shook his head no. "No need. I like it."
"Liar."
"Seriously." He put a hand on her shoulder as he stood behind her. "It may be a laughingstock of a tree, but we put it up together. It's already full of happy memories, and that's what counts."
Beside them, the fire crackled merrily, casting a warm glow on the tree. The ornaments, sparse as they were, caught the light and sparkled. And outside, snow lit up the scene out the picture window, making it look like a Currier and Ives Christmas card. Viewed in the right light...
"I'm just glad you're here and we're talking and laughing together again," he said. "There was a time I didn't think this would ever happen."
She turned around to face him. She'd felt the same. "I know," she said softly, feeling the weight of her guilt.
"It was my fault," they said in unison. And then, "No!"
Ryan shook his head. "I should have been the one who died that night. I was the hothead. If I could take it all back—"
Tara put a finger to his lips. "Don't talk like that. Don't say it. No one should have died that night.
"Ryan." She cupped his face in her hands. "Look at me. I'm sorry I blamed you. My grief counselors over the years have said what I felt was a means of transference. Because I couldn't blame Chad for being reckless. He was the victim. He was dead. Instead I blamed you and I blamed myself.
"Neither of us was at our best that night. But none of us could have predicted what would happen. Neither of us meant for it to happen. Or wished for it to happen. It was an accident. That's all. No one, not even Chad, was to blame."
She bit her lip and stared into Ryan's eyes. "I should have apologized years ago, but my heart was broken and I couldn't face you. This last few days together have helped me see the real you again.
"I'm so sorry. About everything. I certainly never meant to ruin Christmas for you. You didn't used to be like this." She gestured around the room. "You used to love Christmas. Chad wouldn't want this. He loved Christmas, too, and would have wanted us to enjoy it."
"Yeah, he did."
Ryan's lips were inches from hers. So tantalizing. And the look in his eyes as if he needed healing and she was the one to do it. She wanted to make everything better. She wanted to make them all better. She closed her eyes and leaned up to brush his lips with hers.
"Tara," he whispered as he wrapped his arms around her and pressed her tightly against him, pulling her into a full, deep kiss.
Some kisses are full of passion. Some of lust. Some of longing. Their kiss, this kiss, was full of need and healing. Yesterday in the forest had been pure passion. But this was a kiss to wash away the years of blame and hurt. This was absolution for her and him.
She put her arms around Ryan's neck as she leaned into him and kissed him back. She had to show him that she'd forgiven him as much as she needed to feel he no longer blamed her for the way their lives had gone.
&nb
sp; The years fell away as he cupped the back of her head, kissing her with more experience and expertise than she remembered.
She trembled in his arms as she ran her fingers through the short hair at the base of his neck and lightly traced the outline of his ear. They fit together so well.
"Tara," he whispered, leaning his forehead against hers. The tone of his voice and the way he said her name spoke volumes and told her everything she needed to know.
"I've missed you." She tried to look into his eyes, but his were closed. "Ryan?"
"I'm just hanging onto the moment. I don't want this to be a dream or a misstep." His voice was ragged.
It was clear to Tara he was afraid of making that misstep, yet passion and desire shown in his voice. She needed Ryan, right there, right that minute. Ten years of pent-up desire for the communion of their bodies, for the forgiveness of hurts, for the intimacy was too much, and Tara was willing to risk all. She gently tugged his shirt free of the soft denim of his jeans and ran her hands over the strong muscles of his back until he shuddered beneath her touch.
His opened his eyes and they were questioning and hopeful. "Tara?"
She unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and kissed the hollow of his neck as she reached for the next button. The fire popped next to them and a jazz version of a popular romantic holiday song played. Outside, the snow continued to fall.
"Don't overthink it, just feel," she whispered back, giving him all the permission he needed.
"You're—"
"Totally prepared," she replied as she slid his shirt off his shoulders and it fell to the floor.
He ran his hands beneath her sweater, warm hands that felt good against the bare skin of her waist. As he kissed her with sudden urgency, he pulled her sweater off over her head and removed her bra.
Christmas Duet: A Big City, Small Town Christmas Romance Bundle Page 29
