Same Time, Next Christmas (The Bravos 0f Valentine Bay Book 3)

by Christine Rimmer

  “Did you say there would be shelter?” she asked hopefully from behind him.

  Just as the question escaped her lips, a shelflike rock formation came into view ahead. She spotted the darkened space between the stones. He ducked into the shadows, Zoya right behind him.

  Sabra followed. It was a shallow depression in the rock, not quite a cave, but deep enough to get them out of the deluge.

  “Get comfortable.” He slid off his pack and sat with his back to the inner wall. Zoya shook herself, sending muddy water flying, and then flopped down beside him as Sabra set her pack with his. “It could be a while.” He reached up a hand to her.

  She took it, dropping to his other side, pulling on his hand so that she could settle his arm across her shoulders. “Cozy.”

  “Ignore the muddy dog smell.”

  She pushed back her hood and sniffed the air. “Heaven.” And it kind of was, just to be with him. A world apart, only the two of them and Zoya and the roar of the rain outside their rocky shelter. She asked, “What’s your deepest fear?”

  “Getting serious, are we?” He pressed his cold lips to the wet hair at her temple.

  “Too grim? Don’t answer.”

  “No, it’s good. I can go there. A desk job would be pretty terrifying.”

  “You’re right.” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “All that sitting. Very scary.”

  “I like to keep moving.”

  “Me, too.”

  “What are you afraid of?” he asked.

  She didn’t even need to think about it. “That I’ll never be able to make myself go back and live at our farm.”

  He waited until she looked up into his waiting eyes. “It’s that bad?”

  “Yeah. Because it was so good once. I have too many beautiful memories there, you know? The farm was always my future, always what I wanted to do with my life. And now it’s just a sad place to me. I go for a visit, and all I want is to leave again.”

  He tipped up her chin with the back of his hand. “How’s your dad doing?”

  She gazed up into those deep blue eyes and felt seen, somehow. Cherished. Protected. Completely accepted. “He’s thin, my dad. It’s like he’s slowly disappearing. I need to spend more time with him. But I can’t bear to be there. Still, I need to be there. I told him at Thanksgiving that I would move home, work the farm with him, the way we always planned. I said I wanted to spend more time with him.”

  “You sound doubtful.”

  “I guess he noticed that, too. He said that he was doing fine and he knew that coming home wasn’t going to work for me. He said that I had my own life and I should do what I wanted.”

  “He’s a good guy, huh?”

  “My dad? The best—just, you know, sad. The lights are on but he’s not really home.” She laid her head on his shoulder again. They watched the rain together.

  She must have dozed off, because she suddenly became aware that the rain had subsided to a light drizzle. Zoya’s tags jingled as she gave herself a scratch.

  And suddenly, Sabra wanted to get up, move on. “Let’s hit the trail, huh?”

  “Sure.”

  They shouldered their packs and set out again.

  * * *

  Matt really wouldn’t have minded at all if this holiday season never came to an end. It was so easy and natural with Sabra. They could talk or not talk. Tell each other painful truths, or hike for an hour without a word spoken. Didn’t matter. It was all good.

  Back at the cabin, they gave Zoya a bath.

  Then they rinsed the mud out of the tub and took a long bath together. That led to some good times on the sofa and then later upstairs.

  They came down to eat and to play Scrabble naked. She beat the pants off him—or she would’ve, if he’d had pants on.

  By midnight, she was yawning. She went on upstairs alone. He put his clothes back on. Then he and Zoya, some nice blocks of basswood and his Swiss Army knife spent a couple of quality hours out on the porch.

  He climbed the stairs to the loft smiling.

  When he slid under the covers with her, she shivered and complained that his feet were freezing. But when he pulled her close and wrapped himself around her, she gave a happy sigh and went right back to sleep.

  * * *

  Christmas morning zipped past in a haze of holiday tunes, kisses and laughter.

  Matt had left the gifts from his family at home to open later and they gave each other simple things, silly things. He’d carved her another porcupine, a bigger one, for a doorstop. She had two gifts for him: a giant coffee mug with the woodsman’s coat of arms, which included crossed axes and a sustainable forestry slogan; and a grenade-size wilderness survival kit that contained everything from safety pins to fish hooks and lines, water bags, candles and a knife.

  The afternoon was clear and they went for another hike.

  On the twenty-sixth, they drove down the coast to the pretty town of Manzanita and had dinner at a great seafood place there. He’d almost suggested they try a restaurant he liked in Astoria, but then decided against it. They had an agreement, after all, to keep their real lives separate. She’d told him last year that her farm was near Svensen, which was technically in Astoria. He kind of thought it might be pushing things, to take her too close to home.

  And he wasn’t pushing, he kept reminding himself. She’d said she wasn’t ready for anything more than the great time they were having. And he wasn’t ready for a relationship, either.

  Or he hadn’t been.

  Until a certain fine brunette broke into his cabin and made him start thinking impossible things. Like how well they fit together.

  Like how maybe he was ready to talk about trying again with a woman—with her.

  He kept a damn calendar in his closet, didn’t he? A paper one. Who even used paper calendars anymore?

  Just lovesick guys like him, schmaltzy guys who had to literally count the days, mark them off with big red x’es, until he could finally see her again.

  But how to have the taking-it-to-the-next-level conversation?

  He felt like he could say anything to her—except for the thing he most wanted to say.

  Sabra, I want more with you. More than Christmas and New Year’s. I want the rest of the winter.

  And the spring and the summer. And the fall?

  I want that, too.

  I want it all, Sabra. I want it all with you.

  But the days zipped by and he said nothing.

  And then the more he thought about it, well, maybe he really wasn’t ready. If he was ready, he would open his mouth and say so, now wouldn’t he?

  The only problem with this Christmastime as far as Sabra was concerned?

  It was all flying by too fast.

  Phone numbers, she kept thinking.

  Maybe they could just do that, exchange phone numbers. Really, they were so close now, a deep sort of closeness, sometimes easy. Sometimes deliciously intense.

  She couldn’t bear to just drive away and not see him until next year—or maybe never, if he found someone else while they were apart. If he...

  Well, who knew what might happen in the space of twelve months? They hadn’t even talked about whether or not they would meet up again next year.

  She needed his phone number. She needed to be able to call him and text him and send him pictures. Of her. In a pink lace bra and an itty-bitty thong.

  Seriously, the great sex aside, it was going to be tough for her, when she left him this year. She felt so close to him. It would be like ripping off a body part to say goodbye.

  But then, that was her problem, wasn’t it?

  She got so attached. There was no in-between with her. She fell for a guy and started picking out the china patterns.

  This, with Matthias, was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be a
way to have it all with this amazing man, but in a Christmas-sized package. With a date-certain goodbye.

  Exchanging numbers was a slippery slope and she was not going down it. She was enjoying every minute with him.

  And then, on the first of January, she was letting go.

  All of a sudden, it was New Year’s Eve.

  Matt and Sabra stayed in bed, as they had the year before, only getting up for food and bathroom breaks and to take a shower together—and twice, to take Zoya out for a little exercise.

  Matt willed the hours to pass slowly—which only made them whiz by all the faster.

  Sabra dropped off to sleep at a little after midnight. He lay there beside her, watching her beautiful face, wanting to wake her up just to have her big eyes to look into, just to whisper with her, have her touch him, have her truly with him for every moment he could steal.

  Man, he was gone on her.

  It was powerful, what he felt for her. Too powerful, maybe.

  Dangerous to him, even. To his hard-earned equilibrium.

  He’d lived through a boatload of loss and guilt. The guilt over Finn had almost destroyed him before he was even old enough to legally order a beer.

  Sometimes he still dreamed about it, about that moment when he turned around in the snowy, silent Siberian wilderness, and his annoying eight-year-old brother wasn’t there.

  He’d been angry that day—for the whole, endless trip up till then—angry at his parents, at the crap that they put him through, with their damn love of traveling, of seeing the world. That year, it was Russia. They saw Moscow and Saint Petersburg—and of course, they had to visit the Siberian wilderness.

  Daniel, the oldest, had somehow gotten out of that trip. That made Matt the main babysitter of his seven younger siblings.

  It had happened on a day trip from Irkutsk. They’d stopped for lunch somewhere snowy and endless; off in the distance, a stand of tall, bare-looking trees. Matt just had to get away. He decided on a walk across the flat snow-covered land, out into the tall trees. He told his parents he was going.

  “Alone,” he said, scowling.

  His mom had waved a hand. “Don’t be such a grouch, Matt. Have your walk. We’ll keep the other kids here.”

  He set out.

  And Finn, always adventurous, never one to do what he was told to do, had tagged along behind him.

  Matt ordered him to go back to the others.

  Finn just insisted, Mom said I could come with you, and kept following. And then he started chattering, about how he thought the huskies that pulled their sled were so cool, with their weird, bright blue eyes, how he wanted a husky, and he was going to ask Mom for one.

  Matt still remembered turning on him, glaring. “Just shut up, will you, Finnegan? Just. Please. Stop. Talking.”

  Finn had stared up at him, wide-eyed. Hurt. Proud. And now silent.

  He never said another word.

  Five minutes later, Matt turned around again and Finn was gone.

  That really was his fault, losing Finn. The guilt that ate at him from the inside was guilt he had earned with his own harsh words, with the ensuing silence that he’d let go on too long.

  His parents died two years later, on the first trip they’d taken since Finn disappeared. That trip was just the two of them, Marie and George Bravo, a little getaway to Thailand, to try to recapture the magic they found in traveling after the tragic loss of their youngest son. They’d checked in to the resort just in time for the arrival of the tsunami that killed them.

  To Matt, the Thailand getaway had seemed a direct result of his losing Finn in Russia. He’d been sure in his guilty heart that his parents would never have been in Thailand if not for him.

  After his parents died, Matt was constantly in trouble. And if you could drink it, snort it or smoke it, Matt was up for it in high school and during those two years at CCC. The only good thing in his life then had been Christy, his girl.

  He told Christy everything, all of his many sins. She loved him and forgave him and made him feel better. Until she grew tired of waiting for him to come home from the other side of the world, dumped him and married someone else.

  As for Mark and Nelson, well, at least he didn’t actively blame himself for their deaths in Iraq. All he’d done in that case was to survive—which had brought its own kind of guilt.

  Survivor guilt, he’d learned through living it, was just as bad as the guilt you felt for losing your own brother. It had taken a whole lot of counseling to get on with his life after Iraq.

  But he had gotten on with it. He was doing all right now, with a good life and work that he loved. He’d even taken a big step and gotten himself a dog.

  And now there was Sabra. And he couldn’t help wanting more than Christmas with her.

  Just ask for her number. How dangerous can that be?

  Damn dangerous, you long-gone fool.

  When a man finally finds a certain equilibrium in his life, he’s reluctant to rock the boat—even for a chance to take things further with someone like Sabra.

  * * *

  Morning came way too soon. He made her coffee and she drank it in the usual shared silence.

  Then he dragged her upstairs again, where they made love once more.

  They came down and had breakfast, went outside and sat out on the porch for a while.

  And then, around noon, Sabra said she had to get going.

  Matt helped her load her stuff into the Subaru. It took no time at all, the minutes zipping by when all he wanted was to grab onto them, make them stand still.

  Too soon, they were saying their goodbyes, just like last year, but with Zoya beside them.

  Sabra knelt to give his dog a last hug.

  When she rose again, she said, “I don’t have the words.” She gazed up at him through those deep brown eyes that he knew he’d be seeing in his dreams all year long. “It’s been pretty much perfect and I hate to go.”

  Don’t, then. Stay. “I hate to see you go.”

  She eased her hand into a pocket and came out with the key.

  No way. He caught her wrist and wrapped her fingers tight around it. “Next year. Same time. I’ll be here. I hope you will, too.”

  “Matthias.” Those big eyes were even brighter with the shine of barely held-back tears. “Oh, I will miss you...”

  Stay.

  But he didn’t say it. Instead, he reached out and took her by the shoulders, pulling her in close, burying his nose against her hair, which smelled of sunshine and oranges. She wrapped her arms around him, too. He never wanted to let her go.

  But it had to be done.

  Slowly, she lifted her head. He watched a tear get away from her. It gleamed as it slid down her cheek. Bending close, he pressed his mouth to the salty wetness.

  She turned her head just enough so their lips could meet. He gathered her even tighter in his arms, claiming her mouth, tasting her deeply.

  The kiss went on for a very long time. He wished it might last forever, that some miracle might happen to make it so she wouldn’t go.

  But she hadn’t said a word about taking it further—and neither had he.

  Her arms loosened around him. He made himself take his hands off her and reached for the door handle, pulling it wide.

  She got in and he shut it.

  With a last wave through the glass of the window, she started the engine.

  He stepped back. Zoya gave a whine.

  “Sit,” he commanded.

  The husky dropped to her haunches beside him. He watched Sabra go, not turning for the porch steps until the blue Subaru disappeared around the first bend in the twisting dirt road.

  Chapter Eight

  The following May...

  Sabra stood by the empty hospital bed her father didn’t need anymore. She held a plastic bag
full of clothes and other personal belongings that Adam Bond wouldn’t ever wear again.

  Really, there was nothing more to do here at Peaceful Rest Hospice Care. She should go.

  But still, she just stood there, her dad’s last words to her whispering through her head. Don’t cry, sweetheart. I love you and I hate to leave you, but I’m ready to go. You see, it’s not really cancer. It’s just my broken heart...

  “There you are.” Peyton stood in the open door to the hallway.

  Iris, who stood behind her, asked, “Have you got everything?”

  Words had somehow deserted her. Sabra hard-swallowed a pointless sob and held up the bag of useless clothing.

  “Oh, honey,” said Peyton, and came for her, Iris right behind her.

  They put their arms around her, Iris on one side and Peyton on the other. She let herself lean on them and felt a deep gratitude that they were there with her.

  “Come on,” whispered Iris, giving her shoulders a comforting squeeze. “It’s time to go.”

  That June...

  At Berry Bog Farm, the office was the large extra room at the rear of the house, between the kitchen and the laundry room, just off the narrow hallway that opened onto a screened-in porch.

  Sabra sat at the old oak desk that had been her father’s and his father’s before him. She scrolled through the spreadsheet showing income and expenses as she waited for Nils Wilson, her father’s longtime friend and top farmhand.

  The back door to the screen porch gave a little screech as it opened.

  She called out, “In the office, Nils!” and listened to the sound of his footfalls on the wide-plank floor as he approached.

  He appeared in the doorway to the back hall, tall and skinny as ever, with a long face to match the rest of him. Deep grooves had etched themselves on either side of his mouth and across his high, narrow forehead. “Hey, pumpkin.” He’d always called her pumpkin, for as long as she could remember.

  She got up and went to him for a hug. He enfolded her in his long arms. She breathed in the smell of cut grass and dirt that always seemed to cling to him, a scent she found infinitely comforting, a scent to soothe her troubled soul. She asked after his wife of thirty-two years. “How’s Marjorie?”