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

by Christine Rimmer

  Those pesky, joyful tears were blurring her vision again. She blinked them away. “Oh, yes, I will marry you, Matthias Bravo—and didn’t I say that two days ago, in the tub?”

  He looked at her like he might eat her right up. “No man ever gets tired of hearing the word yes.”

  The next morning, as they were packing for their round-trip tour of farm, friends and family, Matt heard a vehicle drive into the yard.

  He looked out the front window. “Terrific,” he muttered, meaning it wasn’t.

  Sabra, descending the stairs with her suitcase in hand, laughed. “Oh, come on. It can’t be that bad.”

  “It’s Jerry,” he grumbled. “He’s here to check on us.” Outside, his lifelong friend got out of his patrol pickup and hitched up his belt.

  Sabra set the suitcase down at the base of the stairs. “Invite him in. We’ll have coffee.”

  Jerry, mounting the porch steps, spotted Matt in the window and grinned. Matt scowled back at him.

  Did a dirty look slow Jerry down? Not a chance. He kept coming, straight to the door.

  Matt pulled it open. “What a surprise,” he said flatly, because it wasn’t. Jerry showing up with no warning was just par for the course. “Got a problem with your phone again?”

  Jerry took off his hat. “You could have dropped me a text, man.” He looked hurt. “Let me know that everything was working out. I kinda got worried. I just wanted to check in, make sure that you’re all right.”

  Now Matt felt like the thoughtless one. Probably because Jerry had a valid point. “Okay. I apologize for not keeping you in the loop.”

  Jerry brightened instantly. “Thanks. And Merry Christmas.”

  Sabra, busy at the coffee maker, called, “Hi, Jerry. Coffee?”

  That big, toothy smile took over Jerry’s handsome face. “Sabra. Good to see you again. Coffee would be great.”

  Matt stepped aside and his friend came in.

  Sabra served the coffee and offered some cranberry-orange bread to go with it. They sat at the table.

  Jerry saw the ring and got up, grabbed Matt in a bear hug and clapped him on the back. “You lucky sonofagun. Finally, huh?” He turned to Sabra as he hitched a thumb in Matt’s direction. “This guy. He’s been waiting years for you.”

  Sabra just smiled her sweetest smile. “We’ve both waited. It’s felt like forever. But now, at last, it’s all worked out.”

  Jerry dropped back into his chair, ate a hunk of cranberry bread, and glanced around the cabin at the boxes on the counter and the suitcase by the stairs. “Where’re you guys going?”

  “All the places we didn’t go in other years,” Matt replied, knowing he was being needlessly mysterious—but doing it anyway because sometimes he enjoyed giving his friend a little grief.

  Sabra sent him a reproachful glance and laid out their itinerary. “I have a farm in Astoria. We’re going there for a couple of days, then down to Portland so I can introduce my hunky fiancé to my closest friends. And then on to Valentine Bay where I get to meet the Bravos.”

  “We would have been in touch when we got to town,” said Matt. “I’m figuring we’ll be having some kind of get-together, probably at Daniel and Keely’s.” Back at the end of July, Daniel had married Lillie’s cousin, Keely Ostergard, who had made the perennially grouchy Daniel the happiest guy alive—scratch that. Second happiest.

  Now that he and Sabra were finally together and staying that way, Matt knew he was the happiest.

  Jerry asked hopefully, “So are you saying I’m included for the party at Daniel’s?”

  “It’s a promise,” said Matt.

  * * *

  “What a great house,” Matthias said when Sabra led him and Zoya up the front steps of the farmhouse.

  “My great-great-grandfather built it,” she informed him with pride.

  She took him inside and showed him the rooms. He admired her new kitchen and agreed to start moving in right away, as soon as they were done with their holiday travels.

  They left Zoya downstairs and Sabra took him up to see the second floor. She pulled him from one room to the next, saving the master suite for last.

  She’d repainted it a soft blue-gray and changed out all the furniture. The new bed was king-size.

  Of course, they had to try it out.

  Matthias said it was a great bed. “But it could be a fold-up cot, as long as it has you in it.”

  An hour or so later, they put their clothes back on and went downstairs. Matthias got Zoya’s leash and the three of them went out for a tour of Berry Bog Farm.

  That night, Marjorie had them over for dinner. The Wilsons were so sweet, both of them beaming from ear to ear to learn that Sabra was engaged to her “young man,” as they called Matthias. They were so pleased to learn that Matthias would be moving in with her at the farm.

  * * *

  In Portland, Sabra’s friend Peyton welcomed Matt warmly. But he didn’t miss the narrow-eyed looks Iris kept sending him.

  They stayed in Iris’s extra bedroom, which had become vacant when Peyton moved in with her longtime boyfriend a few months before. The plan was for two nights in Portland and then on to Valentine Bay.

  The first night went well, Matt thought. They all got together at Peyton’s. Matt liked her boyfriend, Nick. Peyton was a really good cook, so the food was terrific. They stayed late, till almost two.

  In the morning, when he woke up in Iris’s spare room, Sabra was still sleeping. He lay there beside her, watching her breathe, thinking that he’d never been this happy, loving the way her hair was all matted on one side of her head and admiring the thick, inky shine to her eyelashes, fanned out so prettily against the velvety curve of her cheek.

  About then, as he was getting really hopelessly sappy and sentimental over this amazing woman who had actually said yes to forever with him, Zoya, over on the thick rug by the window, sat up with a whine.

  She needed to go out.

  He managed to get dressed, get his coat and the leash, and usher the dog out of the room without disturbing the sleeping woman in the bed.

  At the door to the outer hall, he grabbed the key that Iris kept in a bowl on the entry table. Outside, it was snowing, a light, wet snow, the kind that doesn’t stick. He walked the dog to the little park down the street, where they had a big playset for kids and a tube mounted on a pole containing plastic bags for dog owners who hadn’t thought to bring their own.

  Zoya took care of business. He cleaned up after her and then walked her through the gently falling snow. They circled the block, pausing at every tree and rock and hydrant that happened to catch the husky’s eye.

  Back at the apartment, he let himself in, took Zoya off her leash and followed her to the kitchen where his nose told him there was coffee.

  Iris was already up, sitting at the table sipping from a mug with Me? Sarcastic? Never. printed on the side. She didn’t waste any time. “We need to talk. Before Sabra gets up. It won’t take long.”

  Iris allowed him to get out of his coat, wash his hands and pour himself some coffee. When he slid into the chair across from her, she said, “This better be for real for you, that’s all I’m saying.”

  The thing was, he understood her concern. Not because he was ever backing out on what he finally had with Sabra, but because of how long it had taken them to get here—and also the thing with Mary. That never should have happened. He would always feel like crap about that.

  “I don’t know how to say it, Iris. I love her. She’s the happiness I never thought I’d find. I screwed up last year. I know that. But that was because of...” Anything he said was just going to sound like an excuse—worse. It would be an excuse. For his failure of belief when everything seemed hopeless, his failure to hold steady against all the odds.

  Iris scoffed, “You got nothin’. Am I right?”

 
What could he say? “You are right. I should have done better. I took her at her word when she told me there was no future for us.”

  Iris glanced away. When she faced him again, she took a big gulp of coffee and set the cup down, wrapping her lean, dark hands around it, holding on tight.

  He tried again, “The thing is, it worked for us, you know? The way it’s all turned out, it was...right. It was what we both needed. Every step was important to find our way to this life we’re going to make together from now on.”

  “You know that you sound just like her, right?”

  “If I do, it’s because she and I understand each other. You think I was happy when she told me that you and Peyton insisted she go out with other guys—and that she did?”

  “She told you about that?”

  “Yeah. She told me and, no, I don’t like any other guy even having a prayer with her. But I get it. I get why you pushed her to do it. And I accept that it turned out to be something she needed to do.”

  Iris rose, refilled her mug and topped his off.

  When she sat back down, neither of them said anything for several minutes. They sipped coffee as Zoya crunched kibble from the bowl Iris had put at the end of the counter for her.

  Finally, Iris looked directly at him. “Okay, here’s the deal, Matthias. I really didn’t want to like you. But I kind of think I do.”

  In Valentine Bay, they stayed at Matthias’s small house, which was perched on a hill overlooking his hometown. Now that he was moving to the farm, he would be subletting the place until the lease ran out.

  Sabra liked his little house. It had two bedrooms and a small yard. In his room, he led her to his closet and shoved back a rod full of clothes to point out the calendar hanging there, every day marked with a big red X through the twenty-second of December.

  “Note the large red circle around the twenty-third to the thirty-first,” he said.

  She grabbed him and kissed him, a long kiss full of love and wonder, just because he was hers.

  When she finally let go of him, he explained, “I kept one every year from our first year—except last year,” he admitted. “Last year, I bought the calendar, but then, well...”

  “Come here.” She pulled him close again. “I get it and there is no need to explain.”

  That called for another kiss, which called for another after that...

  * * *

  The house Matthias had been raised in wasn’t far from his place. His brother Daniel and his family lived there now and also his youngest sister, Grace.

  On December thirtieth, Sabra and Grace were together in the kitchen making sandwiches for lunch.

  Grace mentioned Mary. Matthias’s sister said that he’d brought Mary to the family Thanksgiving the year before.

  “Mary’s a nice woman,” Grace said. “But we all knew she wasn’t the one.” She spread mustard on a slice of rye. “You, on the other hand...” She pointed the table knife at Sabra and fake threatened, “Don’t you ever leave him.”

  Sabra had a one-word reply for that. “Never.”

  “Good answer.” Grace dipped the knife in the mustard jar again and grabbed a second slice of bread. “So, have you set a date yet?”

  “Not yet, but the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.”

  “You want a big wedding?”

  “No. Small. And simple. Just close friends and family.”

  “How about New Year’s Day?” Grace slid her a sideways glance.

  “This New Year’s? The day after tomorrow?”

  “Hey. It was just a thought...” Grace stuck the knife back in the mustard jar.

  Sabra unwrapped a block of Tillamook cheddar. “I do like the way you think.”

  “Why, thank you.” Grace held up a hand across the kitchen island and Sabra high-fived it.

  “I would need to check with Matthias...”

  Grace gave a goofy snort accompanied by an eye roll. “As if we don’t already know what his answer’s gonna be.”

  “...and then I would have to get on it immediately, see if my friends in Portland and at the farm might be able to swing it. And then, if they can, head for the courthouse in Astoria to get the license right away—and what about a waiting period? Isn’t there one of those?”

  “As a rule it’s three days, but you can get the waiting period waived for a fee. I know because Aislinn got married this past year. She and her husband Jaxon went straight from the marriage license bureau to the church.”

  “Perfect—and what about a dress? Omigod. I need the dress!”

  “Well, then, what are you waiting for? Get with Matt and then get on the phone.”

  They stared at each other over the half-made sandwiches. Sabra broke the silence. “I believe I will do that.”

  Grace let out a shout of pure glee and grabbed her in a hug.

  * * *

  On New Year’s Day, Matt married the only woman for him. The ceremony took place in the family room right there at the house where he’d grown up.

  Iris and Peyton served as maids of honor. Nils Wilson gave Sabra away. Jerry stood up as Matt’s best man. Daniel’s two-year-old daughter, Frannie, was the flower girl and Jake, Frannie’s twin, the ring bearer. Both Zoya and Daniel’s basset hound Maisey Fae had festive collars decorated with red velvet poinsettias. Matt wore his best suit. Sabra looked more beautiful than ever in a day-length, cream-colored silk dress with a short veil.

  They said their vows before the big window that looked out on the wide front porch, a cozy fire in the giant fireplace. The family Christmas tree, resplendent with a thousand twinkling lights, loomed majestic across the room as snow drifted down outside.

  “Always,” he promised.

  “Forever,” she vowed.

  Matt pulled her into his arms and kissed her—that special kiss, the kiss like no other, the one that marked the beginning of their new life together as husband and wife.

  * * *

  Watch for Madison Delaney’s story,

  Becoming a Bravo

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  The Nanny’s Double Trouble

  Almost a Bravo

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  A Ranger for Christmas

  by Stella Bagwell

  Chapter One

  “How many times do I have to tell you, Mort? I don’t need another partner. I’ve got this.”

  Park ranger Vivian Hollister rose from a wooden chair and began to pace around her supervisor’s small office. Beyond the open blinds, she could see the parking lot in front of the headquarters building was empty. Her fellow rangers had already headed out to patrol their allotted areas, while she’d been ordered to remain behind for a private meeting with Mort.