12 Gifts for Christmas

by Various

  “It was Kevin’s idea.”

  She set the mug down again. “My brother hired you?”

  “Actually, it was Lacey’s father who hired me, but on Kevin’s recommendation.”

  Which made a lot more sense. She knew that Michael Carrington had been fanatical about his daughter’s safety since a botched kidnapping attempt when she was only five years old. Since then Carrington hadn’t let his daughter go anywhere without security, vowing he’d take every precaution to keep her safe until her kidnapper was no longer a threat.

  But why would Kevin have recommended Travis for Lacey’s personal security detail when he had to know that it would put him directly in Brooke’s path as she planned the wedding? He wasn’t just her brother, he was her best friend. The one person who had always been there for her—the only person who had been there when she’d lost her baby. He’d been so angry with Travis, not just for being out of touch when Brooke needed him, but for breaking “the code” as he called it.

  “A guy doesn’t put the moves on a friend’s sister,” he’d told her. And even her admission that she’d been the one to seduce Travis hadn’t altered his opinion.

  “When I realized that Lacey’s meeting was with you this morning, I thought that Kevin was trying to punish me,” Travis admitted to her now.

  “If seeing me again was so difficult, why did you come back here tonight?”

  “Because after I had some more time to think, it occurred to me that maybe I was wrong. Maybe what Kevin was really trying to do was give me a second chance with you.”

  “Because that’s my brother’s decision to make,” she said dryly.

  “No,” he acknowledged. “But I thought if he’d finally forgiven me, it meant that maybe you could, too.”

  “It’s not a question of forgiveness,” she said. And it wasn’t. He hadn’t done anything that required forgiveness.

  Okay, maybe he had broken her heart, but she couldn’t blame him for that when she’d handed it to him on a silver platter. Nor could she blame him for the fact that he still held her heart—even if he didn’t know it.

  He tapped a finger against her lips, silencing any further protest. “Just think about it,” he said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  OVER the next couple of weeks, Lacey and her mother had frequent meetings with Brooke to finalize details for the wedding, which meant that Travis saw a lot of her, too. But he was careful to stay in the background while the wedding planner and the Carrington women talked menus and cake and flowers. And every day, after he’d turned over his bodyguard duties to the next shift, he drove past Brooke’s home again, just to make sure that she was there.

  It was crazy how much he missed her. How much he wanted her to give him—to give them—a second chance. But he never knocked on her door again. Not that he wasn’t tempted, but he wanted to give her a chance to think about what he’d said—and hopefully to realize that she wanted the same thing he did.

  Almost three weeks after that first meeting, just a few days before Christmas, Lacey was scheduled for a final fitting of her wedding gown. Travis wasn’t sure why a white dress was such a big deal, but he couldn’t help but notice the tears in Brooke’s eyes as she looked at her future sister-in-law in a strapless gown of beaded lace and layered tulle, and it made him realize how many of her own dreams she must have given up to marry him in a quickie Vegas ceremony. He’d made all kinds of excuses for their hasty union—most notably the fact that she was pregnant and he was expected in New York for an assignment—but the truth was, he’d thought of their marriage as a duty rather than a celebration.

  Brooke helped Lacey out of her dress and they were finalizing the dinner menu when Heather came into the room. “I just wanted to make sure Miss Carrington was out of her gown before our visitor came back,” she said, then stepped away from the door so that the groom-to-be could enter.

  Brooke’s beautiful blue eyes lit up and her lips curved, but she held back, letting Lacey move into Kevin’s arms. Their kiss was so heartfelt and passionate that Travis felt the temperature rising in the room and had to look away. As he did, his gaze locked with Brooke’s. He thought he caught a glimpse of yearning in her eyes before she turned. Or maybe he was just imagining it.

  When his friend finally managed to let go of his bride-to-be, he enveloped his sister in a warm hug. Afterward, she smacked him in the arm. Hard.

  “Ow.” Kevin rubbed his biceps. “What was that for?”

  “For sending your fiancée to me to plan your wedding without even telling me that you were engaged.”

  “Oh. That.” He grinned sheepishly. “Well, everything just happened so fast—”

  “All it would have taken was a phone call,” his sister pointed out.

  “I did call,” he reminded her.

  “You left a message on my answering machine,” she retorted. “And absolutely no hint about your plans to get married.”

  “How about dinner tomorrow night? Not just as an apology, although I am sorry, but as a thank-you.” He slid an arm around Lacey’s waist, drew her close to his side. “I know we didn’t give you a lot of time—”

  “Four months isn’t a lot of time. Four weeks is practically impossible, and if it had been for anyone else, I would have said ‘no way.’”

  “Not just dinner, but a thick juicy steak and buckets of champagne,” Kevin offered.

  “Promises, promises.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said again, and kissed his sister’s cheek. “Right now, I’m taking my fiancée home.”

  He turned to acknowledge Travis, who had observed the reunion from his position by the fireplace, and gripped his hand firmly. “Have you been taking good care of my girls?”

  Travis wondered if Brooke noticed her brother’s use of the plural. If she did, she certainly didn’t let on, but Travis chose to interpret his friend’s question as confirmation that Kevin had given him this assignment to ensure his path would cross with Brooke’s again.

  “Doing my best,” he said, hoping that his friend understood how grateful he was for the opportunity.

  “Then you’ve earned the rest of the day off,” Kevin told him.

  “Apparently I’m off duty now,” Travis said to Brooke, after Kevin and Lacey had gone. “And just in time for lunch.”

  Brooke continued sifting through the papers on her desk.

  “I’d ask if you were available to join me but you’d probably make up some lame excuse, so I’ll tell you right now that I already checked with Heather and confirmed that you don’t have any more appointments today.”

  “That’s because I still have some Christmas shopping that I need to do.”

  “You can’t tackle the mall crowds on an empty stomach,” he warned.

  She closed a folder, filed it in the bottom drawer of her desk, and surprised both of them by asking, “Are you buying?”

  Maybe it was seeing Lacey and Kevin together that had made her yearn for that all-the-way-in-love feeling she’d only ever known when she was with Travis, because when he invited her to lunch, she didn’t want to refuse. It was quite possible that she was making another mistake, that spending time with him now would only lead to heartache again later. But she’d never loved anyone else. In the two years that they’d been apart, she hadn’t even dated anyone else. Because she couldn’t help but compare every other man she met to Travis, and every single one of them had come up short.

  So she went to lunch with Travis. And over his steak sub and her Caesar wrap, they chatted about inconsequential matters. He didn’t make any mention of their past or the future, and Brooke found herself relaxing and actually enjoying his company. Still, she expected that he would go his own way after lunch, eager to escape the crush of crazed holiday shoppers. But he claimed he needed to pick up a few last gifts, too, and stayed by her side throughout the afternoon.

  By the time she was finished her shopping and ready to leave, she was grateful for his presence—because he was carrying most of her presents.
And when he suggested they pick up a pizza and take it back to her place for dinner, well, Brooke didn’t know how she could refuse. Or even if she wanted to.

  Over pizza and wine, they found themselves talking about Lacey and Kevin’s upcoming wedding.

  “It’s hard to believe they only met a couple of months ago,” Travis noted.

  “I did have some concerns when Lacey first told me she was marrying my brother,” Brooke acknowledged. “But seeing them together today put all my reservations to rest.”

  “They look good together,” he agreed.

  “They love each other, and it shows.”

  “And you’re running yourself ragged to get everything done on their timetable.”

  “I want them to have the perfect wedding,” Brooke told him.

  “Unlike ours, you mean?”

  She just shrugged. She had no intention of admitting to him—or anyone else—that she’d started planning her own wedding when she was barely twelve years old. Over the years, she’d amended and refined certain details, but the one thing that had never changed was the identity of her groom. She’d wanted to marry Travis Stanford, and when he’d proposed, it hadn’t mattered that she wouldn’t have the wedding of her dreams because she was going to marry the man she loved.

  She’d known he didn’t love her. He’d never made any declarations of affection or promises of a future together, but when he’d found out that she was pregnant, he’d been determined to do the right thing. And Brooke had let herself hope that, over time, as they built their life and raised a family together, he would grow to love her.

  Except that they’d never had a chance. They’d never lived together as husband and wife—they’d never even consummated their marriage.

  “We might not have had bouquets of orchids or a three-tiered wedding cake,” he acknowledged, “but ‘what God has joined together’ still applies.”

  “God didn’t join us together,” she said. “It was a second-rate Elvis impersonator in a polyester suit.”

  “The vows were real,” he insisted.

  “I thought so. At the time, I really thought we were starting a life together.” She looked away, so that he wouldn’t see the tears that stung her eyes. “A family. A future.”

  He reached across the table to take her hand. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you when we lost our baby.”

  “So am I,” she said softly.

  And even now, even after two years had passed, the pain of that loss was sharp and real, and she wanted nothing more than for Travis to put his arms around her and hold her while she cried. But tears were a weakness, and she needed to be strong.

  “I should have been there,” he admitted now. “And I would have been—I would have come back in a heartbeat if I’d thought you needed me.”

  She moved away from the table, carried the empty pizza box to the counter.

  “I didn’t want you to come back because I needed you,” she said, turning back to face him. “I wanted you to come back because you wanted to be with me.”

  “I didn’t know what I wanted then.” He pushed his chair back and crossed the room to her. His gaze locked on hers, made her stomach tremble. “But I know what I want now.”

  And then he pulled her into his arms.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TRAVIS knew that Brooke had more than enough reasons to be wary, but she didn’t turn away when his mouth lowered toward her.

  Their lips touched, a fleeting whisper. He drew her close, then closer still, so that the soft curves of her body yielded to the hard angles of his. He kissed her again, and her arms lifted to twine around his neck. Their kiss deepened, bodies strained, breaths mingled.

  He was determined to take things slow, to not let himself be swept away by the storm of passion that was building. But when her lips parted to welcome the searching thrust of his tongue and her hands moved to the buttons at the front of his shirt, he knew the battle was lost.

  They left a trail of clothes along the path to her bedroom. The chemistry between them had always been volatile, and Travis wanted her with an intensity that he’d never experienced with anyone else. But when they tumbled together on top of the quilted comforter that covered the sleigh-style bed and she wrapped her legs around his waist, his eyes nearly crossed with lust.

  She was still attracted to him. Her physical response left him in no doubt about that fact. But did she have any deeper feelings? She had loved him once—but did she love him still? Was it possible that she could after he’d screwed things up so badly? And would she ever be able to forgive him for all the mistakes that he’d made?

  She rubbed herself intimately against him, the action wiping not just those questions but all rational thought from his mind. He wanted to sink into her, to lose himself in her slick, wet heat, to drive them both hard and fast to the finish.

  It was what they both wanted—what they needed, what they knew. But this time, he was determined to show her something different, to give her something more. Not a new memory, but a promise.

  Her hands raced over him, her eager touch heating his blood to near-boiling. He caught her wrists, then lifted her arms up over her head. Her brows lifted, and he brushed his lips over the furrow between them, then kissed the tip of her nose and, finally, her lips.

  “Mmm.” She hummed her pleasure.

  He nibbled gently on her bottom lip, and her breath rushed out on a sigh.

  “I want you, Brooke.”

  “Then take me.”

  “I will,” he promised her.

  But before he took, he gave.

  He used his hands and his mouth and his body to give her pleasure and, in doing so, found more than he could have guessed. He explored every inch of her smooth, silky flesh, slowly and thoroughly. He lingered here and there, taking his cues from the soft gasps that whispered between her lips, the subtle tremors that quivered through her muscles, the hard and fast beat of her heart inside of her chest.

  He touched his lips to her breastbone, right above her heart. Brooke wondered if he could feel it beating, if he knew it was beating for him. As it had always beat for him.

  She’d thought she knew what she was doing. When she took his hand to lead him to her bedroom, it had seemed simple enough. Sex was just sex, after all.

  Except there had never been any “just” about sex with Travis, at least not for her. And while the wanting was easy, had always been easy, loving him had broken her heart. She wasn’t sure if she could risk that again.

  And the way he was touching her now, kissing her now, she knew that it wasn’t just about sex for him, either. But how much more did he want from her? How much more could she give without giving him everything?

  His mouth covered hers, not just tasting but savoring. His hands skimmed over her, not just touching but cherishing. His body merged with hers, not just mating but loving.

  No. She turned her head away, closed her eyes to shield them from the effect of his hypnotic gaze. She wasn’t going to romanticize this. She wasn’t going to let herself hope that what was happening between them now was anything more than two old friends and former lovers getting caught up in a moment.

  She closed her mind and let the heat and the passion take her.

  That was all she wanted, all she needed.

  Afterward, when Brooke leaned across him to turn on the light, she knocked an envelope off the table. Travis automatically reached down to retrieve it from the floor, pausing when he noticed the return address of her attorney’s office in the upper left-hand corner.

  It was the envelope she’d pulled out the day that he’d first come to visit her at home, but now there was a date and time scrawled on the front. Obviously, when she’d realized that they were still married, she’d made another appointment to see her lawyer. And that appointment was—his heart thudded dully in his chest—yesterday.

  Brooke slid out of bed and found her robe. He watched as she wrapped herself in the short silky garment, noting how the fabric clung to
her curves and how her long legs stretched out endlessly beneath the hem. Her hair was sexily tousled and her smile, when she turned to him, was soft and warm.

  Just looking at her made him want her again. Forever.

  But the weight of the envelope was heavy in his hand.

  “You had an appointment with your lawyer yesterday?”

  She blinked, her smile slipping as her gaze went to the envelope in his hand. “Yes, I did.” She spoke matter-of-factly, unapologetically, turning the knife in his heart.

  “Why?”

  “Because our marriage was never anything more than a formality and ending it is the right thing to do.”

  “Right for whom?” he demanded.

  She sat on the edge of the mattress, facing him. “For both of us.”

  “I don’t remember you asking what I wanted.”

  “You didn’t want to marry me in the first place,” she reminded him.

  “You’re right,” he admitted. “Because I was too focused on building my career and having a good time to think about settling down with anyone. And if I had been looking for a wife, I wouldn’t have been looking in the direction of my best friend’s little sister.”

  He took her hands, linked their fingers together. “But sometimes, if you’re lucky, you find the greatest treasures in the most unexpected places.” He lifted her hands, brushed his lips over the back of each one in turn and felt her tremble. “I know I made some mistakes but it’s not too late—”

  “It is too late,” she said. “I can’t go back to the way things were.”

  “I’m not talking about going back but moving forward. And it’s too late for an annulment now,” he pointed out. “Our marriage has been consummated.”

  She lifted her chin. “Then we’ll get a divorce.”

  “I won’t consent to that, either,” he warned her.

  “Why not?” she demanded. “Because I love you.”

  Brooke stared at him, speechless.