A Marine for Christmas

by Beth Andrews

  His brother wanted him stuck in some office behind a desk taking care of invoices and orders and adding figures. Trying to keep him away from alcohol, most likely. Sounded like hell.

  “I don’t need to think about it,” he said. “I’m still not interested.”

  “You have other prospects?”

  Brady snorted. He used to have prospects. He’d always planned on joining the Virginia State Police after he got out of the service. But like all his goals and dreams, that idea went up in smoke, starting when Liz decided he wasn’t enough and ending with his knee getting shot up.

  “I think I’ll take some time to work on finishing my great American novel.”

  “How are you going to support a kid—”

  “I’m not.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but deep down, he knew it did. “J.C. doesn’t want anything from me. Including child support payments.”

  Aidan’s lips thinned. “So that’s it? You’re just going to abandon your own kid?”

  “I’m thinking about leaving—”

  “To go where?” Aidan asked.

  Brady stretched out his leg. “North. New Hampshire, maybe. Or Maine.”

  Somewhere far from Jewell. Where there wouldn’t be a chance of him running into Liz and her new husband. Or J.C. and the baby. So his kid wouldn’t have to grow up in the same town as him, knowing his father didn’t want anything to do with him. Or her.

  Even he wasn’t that big a prick.

  He wasn’t trying to hurt J.C. or the kid or make their lives more difficult. He just…couldn’t be what they wanted. What they needed.

  “You are some piece of work,” Aidan said, staring at him as if he were a lowlife. “Why did you even come back?”

  “Now that’s an easy one,” Brady said, working to keep his voice even. “I had nowhere else to go.”

  Instead of laying into him like Brady expected him to, Aidan snatched his jacket from the back of the chair so quickly, the chair toppled over.

  “You need to get your head out of your ass,” Matt said before following Aidan to the door.

  Brady slouched in his chair. What he needed was for his family to leave him alone instead of trying to bring him back into the fold like a goddamn sheep. He had no interest in joining the winery. Having all three sons run it had been his father’s dream.

  But his father wasn’t here anymore.

  And just because Aidan had quit law school after their dad died to run the Diamond Dust Vineyard didn’t mean Brady had to follow his footsteps. Matt hadn’t. He’d lit out of Jewell right after graduating high school and hadn’t looked back. He now made bucketfuls of money advising top wineries around the world. Brady wasn’t about to cave, either.

  Even if he didn’t have any other options.

  And he didn’t. Not in Jewell, anyway.

  Standing, he picked up a dirty coffee mug, rinsed it out and hobbled to his room. He grimaced as he stepped inside. His brothers hadn’t bothered opening the windows in here…but he wished they had. The room smelled like his high-school gym locker. Maybe he’d do a load of laundry, he thought as he sat on the bed and picked up the almost full bottle of whiskey on the floor between the nightstand and bed.

  He filled the mug halfway and drank deeply, ignoring the tremor in his hand. He concentrated on how the alcohol seemed to wash away his anxiety. Leaning back against the headboard, he took another, slower sip.

  Tomorrow he’d worry about dirty laundry. About what he was going to do with his life now that his knee was useless and the woman he loved had exchanged him for some overeducated brainiac doctor. Tomorrow he’d think about what to do about J.C., with her warm brown eyes and huge expectations of him.

  He finished the drink. Debated all of two seconds before pouring more into the mug. Yeah, he’d figure it all out.

  Just not tonight.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SHE DIDN’T USUALLY MAKE mistakes. More like…missteps. Paired the wrong shoes with an outfit. Picked up a real soda instead of sugar-free after a bad day. And when she was fourteen, there had been an unfortunate decision to perm her hair. But overall, Dr. Elizabeth Montgomery-Messler made the right choices.

  Screwing up was J.C.’s department.

  But as soon as the door opened, Liz knew she’d made a mistake, a huge one, in coming here.

  “Good morning,” she croaked, her face heating.

  Linking her hands together in front of her, she tried to give Brady her professional smile—cool, calm and detached—but couldn’t manage it. Not when he glowered at her, his hair tousled, his eyes red-rimmed.

  Not when he stood in the doorway wearing a pair of low-slung, faded jeans. And nothing else.

  “Liz,” he said in his low voice.

  “How…how are you?”

  Widening his stance, he crossed his arms, the muscles in his arms bulging, the eagle tattoo on his left bicep shifting. “Cold.”

  If the goosebumps covering his arms were anything to go by, he was freezing. But he didn’t shiver. Didn’t give any indication he was uncomfortable at all. At least not enough to invite her inside.

  “Yes…it’s quite…chilly this morning,” she said lamely. Though it was almost 9:00 a.m., frost still covered the ground, the sun unable to penetrate the cloudy, gray sky. “We’re due for some rain…”

  He raked his gaze over her. “Why are you here, Liz?”

  “I…I’m running errands… I don’t have to work until this afternoon and I…I came here to…”

  He raised one eyebrow. She’d forgotten how much that annoyed her. “To…? To discuss the weather?”

  She stuck her hand into the pocket of her brown leather jacket, her fingers closing around the velvet jeweler’s box. “I wanted to see you. To see how you’re doing,” she amended quickly. “Never better.”

  “Good. That’s…good.” The breeze picked up, blowing her hair into her face. She tucked the errant strands behind her ear.

  “How’s your knee?” she asked.

  He seemed upset by the question. “It’s fine.”

  “Are you taking physical therapy here in town or at the V.A. hosp—”

  “Don’t,” he warned quietly.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t pretend you give a damn.”

  Her throat constricted. “I…I wanted to visit you,” she confessed, “when you were in the hospital.”

  “But you didn’t.” He leaned against the doorjamb, studying her in that way that used to make her feel like he could read her thoughts—when all she’d wanted was to keep a few of her thoughts to herself. “I guess your husband wouldn’t have been too happy with you sitting by your ex’s bedside.”

  No, Carter probably wouldn’t have been happy, but he wouldn’t have stopped her, either. When she’d discovered Brady had been injured, that he’d almost died, Carter had told her he understood if she needed to go to him. But she’d been too afraid to face him again.

  Afraid he’d ask her to take him back. Terrified she’d say yes.

  “After the way things…ended…between us,” she said, staring at a point over his shoulder, “I thought a clean break would be best.”

  “And yet here you are.”

  She squeezed the box. Then pulled it out. “I wanted to give you this.”

  He went very still. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I can’t keep this, Brady. I…I want you to have it back.”

  “And you always get what you want, don’t you? Sorry to disappoint you, but not this time.” He pushed himself upright. “Toss it in the garbage. Hell, flush it down the toilet for all I care. But I’m not taking it back.”

  Her hand trembled. She should’ve returned his ring long ago but she hadn’t wanted to send it overseas and risk it being lost or stolen. And she hadn’t been brave enough to drop it off at his mother’s house, knowing how angry his family must be with her.

  But now she needed him to take it back. Things were still…tense…between her and Carter and if
he discovered she still had it, he’d see it as a sign she hadn’t let go of Brady. Not completely. She had to show her husband she’d moved on. That she didn’t regret the choice she’d made.

  “I’m not taking it back,” Brady repeated. “So, if that’s all…” He started to close the door.

  “Did you sleep with my sister to hurt me?” she blurted, then bit the inside of her lower lip. Hard. “Never mind. Let’s forget I was even here.”

  Shoving the ring back into her pocket, she hurried down the steps, the high heels of her suede boots sliding on the wet wood. And wouldn’t landing on her rear be the perfect ending to this misadventure?

  She wrenched open her car door.

  “No.”

  Her heart pounded against her ribs. “What?”

  He looked down at the porch, his hands on his hips. “No,” he repeated, lifting his head. “I didn’t sleep with Jane to hurt you.”

  She nodded, got into her car, started it and drove down the gravel road. Well, that was a relief. Brady hadn’t become the kind of man who’d deliberately set out to cause pain. Who’d use J.C. as a tool to get back at Liz. He hadn’t slept with her sister out of revenge.

  He’d slept with her because he’d wanted to. Because he’d wanted J.C.

  Her vision blurring, she wrung the steering wheel. Yes. That certainly was a relief.

  BRADY’S TOES WERE NUMB. The tip of his nose tingling with cold. But he didn’t move, couldn’t force himself to turn from the sight of Liz driving away.

  He did a few slow neck rolls. She thought he’d take it. Well, why wouldn’t she want to get rid of it? She couldn’t still wear it, not when she had another man’s ring on her finger. Yeah, he’d noticed. Hard not to notice a rock that size. One that made the diamond he’d spent three months’ salary on look like a freaking speck.

  Guess better jewelry was just one of the perks of trading up from a grunt Marine to a doctor.

  A car came barreling toward the house and his heart beat faster but it wasn’t Liz coming back. No, it was worse than seeing the woman who was everything he’d always wanted and couldn’t have.

  It was his mother.

  Diane pulled to a stop and got out of her big boat of a luxury car. “You’re up,” she said, striding toward him. “Good.”

  “Mom.”

  By choice, he’d hardly seen her since he’d moved back to Jewell. Her mouth was set in a disapproving line, and her frame was a few pounds heavier than he remembered. But with her graying blond hair cut in a new style and the remnants of the tan she’d acquired on her trip to Florida a few weeks ago, she looked good.

  Ready to tear him apart limb from limb, but good.

  “Shall we stand out here staring at each other all day,” she asked, “or are you going to invite me in?”

  He shifted his weight. Let her inside? Now? Before he’d had a chance to rent a backhoe to clean the place out? “Do I really have a choice or is that one of those trick questions?”

  She went in ahead of him—straight to the kitchen.

  “Oh, Brady,” she called in disgust. “Look at this mess.”

  “I’ve seen it,” he said as he entered the room.

  Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses. “Are you sassing me?”

  “No, ma’am,” he responded automatically.

  “Go put a shirt on while I make some coffee…you do have coffee, don’t you?” He pointed toward the container next to the coffeepot on the counter. “You and I,” she continued, “are going to have a little chat.”

  Aw, hell. This couldn’t end well for him.

  By the time he came back, wearing a Carolina Panthers T-shirt, Diane had the coffeepot scrubbed, a fresh pot brewing and was at the sink tackling his mountain of dirty dishes.

  “I was going to get to those,” he said, brushing crumbs off a chair before sitting.

  She didn’t even glance at him. “I could see it was high on your to-do list.”

  He slouched down and stretched his leg out. “I’ve been busy.”

  “You obviously have some free time this morning,” she said, not mentioning that without a job, he had free time every morning. “And I could use some help.”

  He wasn’t stupid—or brave—enough to point out that they could air dry. He got up again and found a towel at the bottom of a drawer. They worked in silence while the coffee finished brewing.

  “You haven’t returned any of my phone calls,” Diane said, rinsing a heavy white mug.

  And here they went. “I meant to—”

  “No. You didn’t. You’re avoiding me.” She scrubbed at a spot of dried ketchup on a plate. “When you first came back to Jewell and insisted on living here instead of at the house with me, I thought you just needed time and space to accept all the changes you’ve gone through.”

  “I appreciate it,” he said, guessing that her giving him space was about to come to an abrupt end.

  “But,” she continued, stressing the word, “when you didn’t show up at Thanksgiving, I realized I was wrong.”

  Noticing he’d twisted the towel in his hands, he smoothed it out before drying a glass. “I didn’t want to do the whole celebratory dinner, that’s all. Don’t make more of it.”

  “The problem is, I haven’t made enough of it. That needs to change.” Her voice softened. “Let me help you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “If you’re so fine, then tell me why you’ve been avoiding your family.” She tossed the dishcloth into the sink with enough force that water splashed them both. “And while you’re at it, you can also explain why I had to hear from someone else that you’re going to be a father.”

  Wincing, Brady scratched the back of his neck. This had to be some sort of gossip speed record.

  “I was going to tell you…” In a few weeks. As soon as he’d figured out a few things. Like how to get J.C. to accept child support without wanting more from him. And what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

  “Now you don’t have to. Shirley Hanold down at the coffee shop told me, in front of my entire walking group, no less.”

  And so his day continued to get worse. He poured himself a cup of coffee so he wouldn’t have to look at her. “Things are…complicated right now.”

  “Getting the sister of the woman you’d once planned to marry pregnant certainly is complicated. What are you going to do now?”

  “About?”

  “Don’t play dense with me, Brady,” she snapped. “Are you, or are you not, going to take responsibility for this baby?”

  “I’ve offered J.C. child support.”

  His mother waved that away with one hard stroke of her hand through the air. “Raising a child is about more than money. It’s about being there, day in and day out. Nurturing your son or daughter. Loving them…no matter what mistakes they may make.”

  “Subtle,” he muttered.

  “You’re too stubborn for subtlety.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. “Your father and I raised you to be the type of man who steps up and takes responsibility for his actions.”

  He was willing to support the child for the next eighteen years. To make sure he…or she…was provided for. Wasn’t that enough? He chugged a quick gulp of coffee and succeeded in burning his tongue.

  “Does this have anything to do with Liz?” Diane asked.

  And that was the last place he was going. Bad enough he still loved the woman. He wasn’t about to admit it to his mother.

  Besides, Liz was married now.

  “Liz and I are over.”

  “Then why did I pass her car on my way here?”

  His answer was a hard stare.

  “That’s it. I’ve had enough.” Setting her cup down, Diane braced her arms against the table, getting right in her son’s face. “You live like an animal. You refuse to go to physical therapy. When you’re not ignoring your family, you’re arguing with us. And your drinking is out of control.”

  He kept his expression blank. As if it didn’t both
er him that his mother knew how low he’d sunk. At least she didn’t know about his nightmares. That he woke up in a cold sweat. He sipped his coffee.

  “I’d think a winery owner would be all for drinking,” he said.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Brady.” She cleared her throat and when she spoke again, her words were louder. Stronger. “I’ve never said that to any of my sons, never thought I would have reason to, but it’s the truth.”

  What she’d said ripped him through him like a razor. He stood. “If that’s all, I think I’m going to go back to bed.”

  “I’m not finished. You’ve done nothing to help yourself heal.”

  “The doctors at the V.A. hospital said my knee will never be a hundred percent.”

  “I’m not talking about your physical wounds.” Hands trembling, she took her coat from the back of the chair and put it on, her movements jerky. “Every day I thank God your life was spared. That I’m not one of those mothers who’s had to bury a child. You were given a gift, but instead of embracing your second chance, you’d rather dwell on the past. On what you lost. As much as I love you—and I do love you—I can no longer sit back and watch you self-destruct.”

  Damn it, that was not what he was doing. He may not be dealing with things how his family thought he should, but he was doing the best he could.

  “Get yourself the help you need,” his mother continued. “If you don’t…” She swallowed.

  “Don’t stop there,” he said softly.

  The woman who raised three boys with equal doses of love and discipline stared him down. The woman who was as formidable and implacable as a drill sergeant. Who didn’t make idle threats.

  “If you don’t, you’ll have to find somewhere else to waste your life. Because you’ll no longer be welcome here.”