The More Mavericks, the Merrier!

by Brenda Harlen

  “What time is it?”

  “Late,” she hedged.

  “Obviously.” Brenna grabbed her arm and steered her into her bedroom, where she glanced at the clock on her bedside table. “It’s almost three a.m.”

  “Early rather than late then,” she said lightly.

  Brenna pushed her toward the bed. “Sit.”

  And though she wasn’t a child and her sister had no right to boss her around or interrogate her, she sat.

  Brenna perched on the edge of her desk chair, facing Fallon. “Now spill.”

  “Can’t this wait until morning?”

  “As you pointed out, it is morning.”

  Fallon sighed. “Come on, Bren—I just want to catch a few hours’ sleep before I have to get up.”

  “This conversation can be long or short, depending on how willing you are to answer my questions,” her sister said.

  “You’re not my mother, so don’t try to act like you are.”

  “Would you like me to wake Mom up so you can have this conversation with her instead?” Brenna challenged.

  She sighed. “No.”

  “Where were you?” her sister prompted.

  “I was at The Short Hills Ranch,” she admitted.

  “With Bella?”

  She lifted her chin to meet her sister’s gaze. “With Jamie.”

  To her surprise, Brenna smiled. “So maybe he’s not as much of a clueless idiot as I was beginning to think.”

  Fallon just stared at her.

  “Did you think I would judge you for being with the man you’ve loved for most of your life?” her sister asked softly.

  “Is there anyone who doesn’t know how I feel about him?”

  “Probably Jamie,” Fiona said, as she slipped into the room and sat on the edge of the bed beside her youngest sister. “Men can be so oblivious about certain things.”

  “She’s right about that,” Brenna confirmed.

  “Did we wake you up?” Fallon asked, worriedly.

  “No, I was awake,” Fiona assured her.

  “Maybe our big sister has a man on her mind, too,” Brenna teased.

  Fiona’s only response was a shake of her head—whether a denial or an indication that she didn’t want to talk about it, Fallon never had a chance to ask before Fiona spoke again. “Are you okay?” she asked gently. “Were you careful?”

  “Yes and yes,” she said, more touched than embarrassed by her older sisters’ questions and concern.

  “Good.” Fiona kissed her cheek. “Now go to sleep so the rest of us can, too.”

  * * *

  The Candlelight Walk was exactly that—a leisurely stroll from one end of Main Street to the other, undertaken by residents carrying lighted candles and singing along with the Christmas music that accompanied their journey. At the end of the processional, there was a big bonfire and refreshments were served.

  The first Christmas after their wedding, Jamie and Paula had attended the event, and Paula had griped that it was cold. Even with two sets of mittens, she’d complained that her hands were icy. The second year, they’d skipped the event entirely. And last year, they’d barely been on speaking terms.

  Which was probably why he’d resisted Fallon’s efforts to embrace the holidays—because all of his memories from the previous year had been unhappy ones. But she’d refused to let his “bah, humbug” attitude dampen her own holiday spirit. She’d surrounded him with all the sights and sounds and scents of Christmas—not just the tree in his living room but decorations around the house, holiday music pumping out of her iPod, the scent of gingerbread baking (and though he had initially been wary, the cookies had been really tasty). And now, with Christmas less than two weeks away, he found that he was sincerely looking forward to celebrating the holiday—his first with Henry, Jared and Katie. And hopefully his first with Fallon, too.

  But venturing into town and celebrating with all the residents of Rust Creek Falls? He wasn’t sure he was quite ready for that.

  “Are you sure it’s not too cold out for HJK?” he asked worriedly.

  “They’re wearing three layers beneath their snowsuits,” she pointed out to him. “Plus hats on their heads and mittens on their hands. They’ll be fine.”

  “Katie’s nose was running this morning.”

  “Because she’s teething.”

  “I’m not sure about this,” he said. “It wasn’t so long ago that there was an RSV outbreak in town, and the immune systems of preemies are more fragile than other babies’.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on here?”

  “What do you mean?” he hedged.

  “Why don’t you like taking your kids into town?” she asked.

  “My reluctance isn’t really about the kids,” he admitted.

  She considered his response for a moment before hesitantly asking, “Is it that you don’t want to be seen with me?”

  “What? No,” he responded immediately, eager to dispel her concern. “It’s not about you, either.”

  “Then what is it about?” she pressed.

  “The way people look at me,” he finally acknowledged. “The sympathy and the pity.”

  “The respect and admiration,” she interjected.

  He raised a brow.

  “Do you really not see that?” she asked him. “Everyone in town knows how hard you’re working to provide for your family, and they respect you for it.”

  “Not everyone thinks I made the right choices,” Jamie told her. “The first time I saw Gramps in town after the babies were born, he told me that they’d be better off in a home with two parents.”

  She touched a hand to his arm. “I’m sorry—but you have to realize his opinion isn’t a popular one.”

  He nodded. “And when I got over being angry and hurt, I wondered if he was trying to explain to me why they sent Dana and Liza away—because they believed it would be better for them.”

  “Maybe,” she said dubiously. “But then why didn’t they find a better option for you and Bella?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe because we were too old to appeal to adoptive parents and too young to be left to our own devices.”

  Whatever the reason, he and his sister had been caught in the middle, living with grandparents who didn’t want them and didn’t seem to know how to love them. It was no wonder they’d had trouble opening up their hearts. Of course, when he’d finally done so, he’d ended up with his heart broken.

  Still, he was sincerely happy to know that Bella had finally fallen in love. His sister deserved to be happy, and it made him happy to watch her planning her future with Hudson. Even if it didn’t make him eager to open up his own again. No, thanks—been there, done that, bought the ill-fitting T-shirt and not going back again.

  * * *

  “I could go for a hot chocolate,” Fallon said to Jamie, when they’d come to the end of the processional and the crowd had begun to disperse.

  “If you want to stay here with HJK, I’ll brave the line at the refreshment table to see if there’s anything left.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Whipped cream or marshmallows?”

  “Are you asking what I want in my hot chocolate or is this a question for later?” she teased.

  “I was asking about the hot chocolate, but now you’ve got me wondering,” he admitted.

  “Marshmallows...for now,” she told him.

  “And later?”

  She smiled. “Whatever you want.”

  * * *

  She went back to Jamie’s house for a few hours after the Candlelight Walk, where he made love to her slowly, thoroughly and quietly.

  Afterward, he fell asleep with her in his arms, feeling—for the first time in a long time�
�both happy and optimistic about the future.

  He didn’t often dream. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that he didn’t often remember what he dreamed. But when he woke up in the night, his heart hammering against his ribs, his breath shallow and ragged, the dream was still vivid in his mind.

  Not a dream—a nightmare.

  He sat up and scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to reassure himself that it was only a dream. That none of it was real.

  But it had felt real.

  He’d heard Paula’s voice as clearly as if she’d been right beside him, telling him that she hadn’t really died in the hospital but only pretended to so that she could escape from him and a marriage she’d never really wanted. And now that she’d had some time to think about it and had seen their sweet, beautiful babies, she’d decided that she wanted them after all.

  When he told her that she couldn’t have them, she just laughed. But she did turn to walk away, and he exhaled a sigh of relief as he watched her go. Until he noticed that Henry, Jared and Katie were following her.

  He tried to go after them, but his feet were stuck to the ground. He tried to reach for them, to pull them back, but no matter how far he stretched his arms, it wasn’t far enough. He couldn’t get to them and they continued to move away, following Paula until they all disappeared into the mist.

  Then he heard a sound from another direction and turned to find himself face-to-face with Fallon. She smiled at him sweetly and kissed him softly, then told him she was going to check on their babies. And he had to tell her that they were gone.

  She hadn’t understood at first. His voice was hoarse and broken and the words didn’t make any sense to her. They didn’t make any sense to him, either. He didn’t want to believe that they were true. But somehow he could see through the window as she hurried into the house and raced up the stairs and into the babies’ room. She’d stared at the empty cribs, tears sliding down her cheeks.

  “How could you let them go?” she demanded.

  He tried to explain. “I didn’t let them go, but I couldn’t stop them.”

  “You had only one task—to keep your family together and safe. And you failed. You failed, Jamie.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head. “Being sorry doesn’t change anything.”

  And then she turned and walked away, following the same path as his ex-wife and his babies, disappearing into the same mist.

  Jamie shuddered. It had felt so real, so terrifyingly real. But it was only a dream. A nightmare.

  He sucked in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, attempting to reassure himself that none of it was true.

  Except that Fallon was gone.

  He’d fallen asleep with her in his arms, and when he’d awakened, she wasn’t there.

  Logically, he understood that she couldn’t stay with him through the night. But he wasn’t feeling logical right now. He was feeling alone and abandoned, because she’d left him—just like everyone else he’d ever loved.

  Loved?

  Now his heart was pounding for a different reason.

  No, it couldn’t be true. It was too soon. Wasn’t it?

  He’d only been in love once before. He’d fallen fast and hard for Paula, and he’d felt so lucky that she’d fallen for him, too. And look how that had turned out.

  He didn’t regret the years they’d spent together. How could he when she’d given him Henry, Jared and Katie? But loving and losing Paula had changed him. And though he knew that Fallon wasn’t anything like his former wife, he wasn’t the same man anymore, either.

  He wasn’t eager to toss the dice and gamble that this time love would endure. This time, he had too much to lose.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fallon had hated leaving the comfort of Jamie’s arms and the warmth of his bed, but she knew that any concerns Maureen O’Reilly had about her youngest daughter’s relationship with the single father would not be alleviated by her staying out all night. So she’d slipped out of his bed in the early hours of the morning, drove home in the darkness, and slid under the covers of her cold, empty bed, already counting the hours until she would see him again.

  Only six more hours, she promised herself, and drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face.

  It was a relatively short period of time, but when Fallon walked in the back door of Jamie’s house six hours later, she instinctively sensed that something had changed.

  Or maybe it was just that the house was unusually quiet, the three high chairs in the kitchen empty and no sign of Henry, Jared or Katie anywhere around. Only Jamie was there, sitting at the table with a mug of coffee in his hands and a grim expression on his face.

  “Where are the kids?” she asked.

  “Bella and Hudson offered to take them for a few hours this morning.”

  “Oh.” It was a perfectly reasonable explanation, but there were too many things that didn’t add up. They’d made love just last night...they were alone in the house...and he hadn’t even kissed her.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” she finally asked him.

  He refilled his mug with coffee, then set it down again without drinking. “I don’t know how to say it,” he began.

  Her heart did a freefall into the bottom of her stomach. “You’re breaking up with me,” she realized.

  “No,” he denied, though not very convincingly. “I’m just suggesting that we...take a step back.”

  “A step back,” she echoed hollowly. “What, exactly, is that supposed to mean?”

  “Everything happened so fast. I just think we should take some time to think about what we really want from one another.”

  Fast? She almost laughed. Only if seven years after their first kiss was fast.

  But maybe, from his perspective, it was fast. His wife—the mother of his babies—had died only ten months earlier. Maybe it wasn’t unreasonable for him to need some more time to adjust to the changes in their relationship.

  “How much time?” she asked, her tone carefully neutral. “A few days? A couple of weeks?”

  He didn’t meet her gaze. “I don’t know.”

  She suddenly felt hollow and empty inside, drained of all happiness and hope. “Do you really want time—or are you trying to get out of a situation you wish you’d never gotten into?”

  “I don’t regret being with you, Fallon.”

  “But you don’t want to be with me anymore,” she guessed.

  “I don’t want to lose my best friend,” he told her.

  She nodded. “That’s always a good one—hard to argue against.”

  “It’s true,” he insisted. “You are one of few people in my life that I know I can count on.”

  “And, somehow, sharing your bed makes me unreliable?”

  “You’re determined to make this difficult, aren’t you?”

  “Forgive me,” she said. “I’ve never been dumped by a lover, so I’m not entirely sure how I’m supposed to react.”

  “I’m not dumping you,” he denied.

  “No? Because that’s what it feels like from this end.”

  “You deserve someone who can give you what you want,” he told her. “And that’s not going to be me.”

  “How do you know what I want?” she challenged.

  “Because I know you. Because I know that you’ve always dreamed of having a husband and a family, and maybe you look at me and the babies and think we’re the quickest route to everything you’ve ever wanted.”

  “Apparently you don’t know me at all,” she shot back, her tone practically vibrating with suppressed fury. “Because I don’t think of you and the babies as a ‘route’ to anything, but as the man and the children I love.”

  He shook his head regretfully. “I’m not a good bet, F
allon.”

  “Oh, this one I know,” she said, still fuming. “The ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech.”

  “It’s not a speech—it’s the truth,” he insisted. “I’ve been married, and it didn’t turn out well.”

  “We slept together a few times,” she pointed out to him. “I may be naïve and inexperienced, but I’m not holding my breath for a proposal.”

  “Maybe not yet,” he acknowledged. “But you can’t tell me that you weren’t hoping our relationship was headed in that direction.”

  She felt the sting of hot tears behind her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “You’re right. I did think, considering our history of friendship, common interests and goals, that we might have a future together.”

  “And I can’t go down that road again,” he said. “I’ve loved and lost too many people in my life to risk losing you, too.”

  Too many people.

  Those words successfully defused her anger, because she realized now that this wasn’t just about their relationship or even the loss of his wife—this went back much further and much deeper. Unfortunately, the words did nothing to staunch the bleeding of her heart.

  She understood that he’d been scarred by the loss of his parents, the abandonment by his brothers and the disappearance of his youngest sisters, which was why she’d wanted to help him reunite with his siblings. But any time she’d broached the subject with him, he’d shot it down.

  Just as he was shooting down her feelings and her hopes for a future for them together now. “So what do you want—for us to go back to being just friends again?”

  “I think that would be for the best,” he said.

  But it wasn’t. Not for her, anyway. She didn’t want to be “just friends” with the man she loved—the man she’d always loved. She’d given him all of her heart, and he was handing it back to her like an unwelcome gift.

  Tears welled in her eyes again, and she turned away so that he wouldn’t see them. “I don’t know if that’s possible now.”

  “It is,” he insisted. “You just have to be willing.”

  Was she willing?

  She wanted so much more than he was offering, but if all he could give her was friendship, she would take that rather than lose him forever.