The Christmas He Loved Her

by Juliana Stone

  “Gibson,” he growled. “Stop.”

  But the dog just yipped happily and jumped toward him, his tongue aimed for Jake’s mouth again. Firmly, Jake grabbed Gibson by the scruff and tucked him into his embrace. He got to his feet, spying Raine’s rust bucket a few feet away. He also noticed for the first time that the lights were on inside, which surprised him. He had assumed the electricity didn’t work out here.

  Carrying the squirming puppy, he marched toward the house. His ass was wet and his black mood had just got blacker. What the hell was Raine doing out here anyway? He wasn’t ready to see her again.

  Not after last night. Not after he’d come so close to taking something that didn’t belong to him.

  He opened the front door and strode into the cottage, his eyes finding Raine almost immediately. She was in the kitchen area, hunched over the sink, scrubbing away and humming along to whatever was playing on her iPod.

  Her hair was clipped to the top of her head, though straggly pieces hung around her ears and neck. Dressed in a gray sweatshirt two sizes too big and a pair of jeans that were well worn and threadbare in the ass, she looked no older than a college kid. Her pale skin shone like alabaster in the muted light as her head bobbed to a beat that only she could hear.

  For that one moment, she looked young, carefree and—as she smiled and sang, “So, call me maybe”—like the most beautiful thing in the world.

  His eyes and his heart drank her in as if he was dying of thirst, and he took a step back, hiding in the shadows near the door. It had been so long since he’d seen her like this. Dancing, singing, living.

  She wiggled her hips and took a step to the right and her voice rose, trying to reach a note that he knew she wasn’t able to reach, but he knew she was going for it anyway. One thing about Raine: she couldn’t carry a tune to save her life, and she totally didn’t give a shit. She sang it out and he winced—it was particularly bad—but then she bent over, head bopping, hips swaying, and his mouth went dry as his gaze rested on the sweetest ass he’d ever laid eyes on.

  With it thrust in the air like that, he supposed any red-blooded man would react the same way he did. His gut tightened. His heart rate increased. Blood pounded in his ears and rushed through his body. It rushed down and kept going. Down to where it had no business being, and he clenched his jaw tightly as his cock hardened, his erection instant and fierce.

  Hot, consuming need rippled through him, and for a second he closed his eyes, because he was that close to the edge. He thought of the women he’d had in the past. The ones who’d assuaged that ache, even if it had only been for a brief time. But that was the thing. The ache never completely went away, and after last night he was pretty damn sure he was cursed to live with that hole inside him.

  Gibson ran across the floor and attacked her feet, the tubby bundle of fur yipping and tugging on her sneakers. She laughed, scooped Gibson into her arms to scold him, and froze when she noticed Jake for the first time. The light in her eyes vanished immediately as she slowly removed her earbuds and stared at him in silence.

  A silence that she was first to break.

  “Jake, I…didn’t think you’d be here today.”

  Her words snapped him out of his funk, or maybe it was just the sound of her voice. Whatever it was, something ugly sprang to life inside him. “Really? I kind of own this place, so I’m not sure what part of that you don’t understand.”

  She opened her mouth, no doubt ready to curse him out, but then she closed it again, setting Gibson back onto the floor before leaning against the cracked countertop.

  “Don’t get your panties in a knot,” she said slowly. “Last night you told Salvatore that you would help him with his Christmas float and”—she glanced at her watch—“he was expecting you about an hour ago.”

  Jake frowned. Shit.

  He remembered Salvatore bugging him about something, but the man had been buzzing in his ear at the same time Matt Backhouse had been all over Raine. Jake was good at a lot of things, but fielding questions fired at him by Sal while at the same time trying to listen to whatever the hell Matt was saying to Raine wasn’t one of them.

  “Christ.” He ran his hand over the two-day-old stubble along his chin and shook his head. “I don’t have time for that crap. I’ve got my own pile to deal with.”

  “Call him and tell him you can’t go.”

  He thought of the list he’d made—the one that was miles long—and he knew he’d have to call and cancel. Maybe he could help Salvatore out during the week, but right now he needed to get the garbage off his driveway and into the refuse bin before the storm hit. And he had a few things to get ready for the electrician when he came Monday.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Raine said softly, “but I thought I would work on the cottage for you.” She glanced around and smiled. “It’s actually not in bad shape. I think the last Wyndham rented it out about ten years ago. The water runs and the power’s on too. It just needs to be cleaned really well, because you don’t even want to know what I’ve found inside the cupboards.”

  “Why are you here?” He sounded like a dick, but couldn’t seem to help himself. She’d really thrown him for a loop. The look in her eyes last night? The sexual signals she’d thrown at him? What the hell was up with that? Didn’t she know what he wanted to do to her?

  Didn’t she know how weak he was?

  Another thought struck him and his fists clenched so hard, they ached, while the muscles along his shoulders tightened painfully.

  Raine was a young woman, and she was no different than any guy he knew. No different than himself. She had needs. Everyone had needs. If she’d sent those same signals out to any other guy, they would have been all over her. Even Matt Backhouse, fucking skirt that he was, would have taken what Raine was offering. The thought of anyone touching her made him sick.

  And that was a problem, because Raine Edwards could do whatever the hell she wanted with whoever the hell she wanted to do it with. She was a grown woman.

  A grown woman with needs.

  God, he needed time and space to think so that he could get his head screwed on right. He needed her to be gone from here.

  “Why are you here, Raine?” he asked again, his emotions so ragged he was sure he sounded like a lunatic.

  Raine glanced away but not so fast that he didn’t catch the hurt in her eyes. It was a look he’d seen before. A look he’d been the cause of before. And a look he would surely see again.

  It’s what he did to her, bastard that he was.

  His heart squeezed tight, and it took everything in him not to cross the floor and crush her to his chest. He hated that he was the cause of her pain, but he felt helpless to do anything about it.

  For several moments there was only the sound of Gibson poking around beneath the sink, and then Raine looked back at Jake, her blue eyes shiny like they were full of tears.

  She grabbed the sponge that she’d held and shrugged.

  “I have nowhere else to be.”

  And then she put in her earbuds, turned back to the sink, and proceeded to scrub the hell out of it.

  Chapter 15

  Jake had just finished sweeping up the mess in the foyer when his cell rang. He grabbed the phone from his pocket and glanced down. It was Lily. Again.

  Shit. His gut twisted as he held the cell and stared down at it. This was either going to be a high-maintenance thing to deal with or bad news. And after the morning he’d had, he didn’t know if he was up for either one.

  He felt like an absolute shit for the way he had treated Raine earlier, and having Lily ream him out would be the frosting on the cake.

  He cursed and looked outside. It was nearly three in the afternoon and was already getting dark—though considering the low, mean clouds in the sky, it shouldn’t have been surprising. They were rain heavy, and a steady drizzle had fallen for the
last few hours. As another wave of water hit the window hard, he noticed the pings weren’t soft anymore. They were sharp, and that meant freezing rain.

  He crossed over and looked out the front window, his eyes on the cedar hedge and the warm light that spilled into the gloom. Already the driveway looked like a sheet of ice.

  His cell vibrated and chirped again, and with a sigh he held it to his ear.

  “Yeah,” he said distractedly.

  “Jesus, Jake, if you don’t want to talk, why the hell did you answer your cell?”

  “Because I wanted to piss you off,” he retorted sharply. Jake wiped a dirty hand across his forehead and took a second. “What’s up?”

  “What’s up?”

  Jake winced. She sounded pissed.

  “I’ve been texting you all day, and this is the tenth time that I’ve actually called, so I guess I should be grateful that you care enough to pick up? And when you do, all you got is What’s up?” She made the same throaty sound she did when she was annoyed. “Hmm, let me see.” She’d moved from annoyed to sarcastic. “Shit, Jake, thanks for asking, but not much. What the hell is up with you?”

  Okay, she was more than just a little pissed, but this was Lily. She would get over it.

  “I’ve been working my ass off here, you?” He decided to overlook her mean streak and get on with it.

  “Me? Well hell, I’ve just had about the best day ever. It involved a pedicure, a manicure, and a massage by some big guy named Lars.”

  “Lars,” he said drily. Lily’s mind worked differently than most people’s, and when she went off on a bullshit tangent, he knew things weren’t great.

  “Yep, Lars…or maybe it was Gabriel. I don’t know. The point is, this man had magic fingers, and I could have stayed on his table all day, but since I had a date with the king of England, I had to pass up an afternoon with Lars.”

  “You mean Gabriel,” he deadpanned.

  “Or Gabriel. But shit, Jake…the king of fucking England.”

  He supposed he could point out that there was in fact no king at the moment, just a queen, but he decided to let it go. He wasn’t in the mood to fuel her fire. Jake gazed out the window toward the cedar hedge that hid the stone cottage.

  He couldn’t believe Raine was still out there. Christ, she had to be freezing. He at least had a propane heater.

  “Earth to Jake, are you still there?”

  “Yep.”

  “So anyway, turns out he’s a huge fan of my reality show and—”

  “Who?”

  Lily made that noise again. “The king of England, who else?”

  “How’s Blake?” He turned away from the window.

  A few seconds passed and then she spoke, her voice subdued and small. “Not good.”

  “Ah, Christ,” Jake whispered. He rubbed his hand along his forehead as a muscle worked its way along his jaw. “How bad?”

  “On top of everything else, he’s fighting pneumonia.”

  “Shit,” he rasped, fighting to keep some sort of control. His chest was so tight, it was difficult to breathe, and Jake paced the foyer, cell against his ear, struggling to keep the dark memories at bay. Blake had been a stand-up, no-bullshit kind of guy, and it made him crazy to think of him so weak and wrecked in that damn hospital bed.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Why the hell hadn’t he picked up earlier? Lily would be alone, because her family was a bunch of self-absorbed assholes that were as screwed up as she was.

  Her father was too removed from life to care anymore—too busy with his latest trophy wife and pack of kids that were legitimate. Her sister Eve, a party girl who spent all her time in LA or New York, didn’t give a shit about a younger brother who was the result of an affair with one of the hired help.

  Their father had deigned to give Blake his last name, and Jake suspected it was because at the time, there were no males in the family. He’d soon grown to regret it, of course, mostly because Blake hadn’t turned out to be a cookie-cutter version of his dad. St. Clares didn’t enlist and become Rangers. They cultivated a place in office and made the decisions that grunts like Rangers or SEALs obeyed.

  “No,” Lily said quickly. “Don’t. You have enough to worry about. I’ll be fine.”

  “I can be there”—he glanced out the window again and frowned—“tomorrow some time. The weather is crap, or I’d leave right now.”

  “So how’s your situation?’ Lily asked.

  She’d always been good at deflecting.

  “My situation?”

  “Yes, your situation with that annoying little orphan girl.”

  “She’s not an orphan girl, and it’s what it’s always been. Complicated.”

  “I see.” There was a noise in the background. “Shit, Jake, I have to run.”

  It was a voice, a male voice, and he shook his head. “Lily, you need to keep it together and don’t do anything stupid. Where are you?”

  “Don’t be such a douche, Jake. I’m close to the hospital.”

  He tried to think of someone he could call to go get her but at the moment drew a blank. “What bar?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Jesus Christ, he didn’t have time for this. “Lily, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “No, Jake, seriously don’t. I just wanted to hear your voice, and I wanted to tell you…”

  He waited for a few seconds but there was nothing. “Tell me what?”

  She sighed into the phone. “You have a second chance Jake. Don’t blow it.”

  “Lily…” He ran his hands through his hair. God, if she was spouting this kind of sap, she wasn’t doing as well as she wanted him to believe.

  “I really have to run. But I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know how Blake is doing. He might get through this, Jake. He just might make it.”

  And then she was gone.

  Jake stood in the darkened foyer for a long time, staring at the cell in his hands. Fighting the images in his head. By the time he got his shit together, it was so dark in the house, he could barely see his hand in front of his face. Outside the wind howled and the steady driving rain was hard against the window.

  He grabbed his jacket and headed outside, swearing as the sharp, frozen pellets hit him in the face.

  A quick glance over to his Jeep told him that he wasn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. A thick sheet of ice coated the entire vehicle, and the roads would be no better. Only a fool would get behind the wheel.

  He hunched his shoulders and carefully picked his way across the driveway, finding a bit of relief from the elements when he reached the cedar hedge. He rounded the corner, and a few seconds later, his hands were on the door.

  And then he was inside, hit by a wall of heat and two eyes that regarded him warily.

  He took a moment and glanced around, running his hands through his hair and shaking the excess moisture off. It was wet from the sleet and ice, and he impatiently pushed it out of his eyes.

  The place looked immaculate. The entire room had been scrubbed, top to bottom. There wasn’t one ounce of debris or garbage anywhere, and from where he stood, the kitchen gleamed.

  Sure, the details were tired and worn—the linoleum, the countertops, the cupboards, and the walls—but they were clean. And it was warm. Toasty warm. Almost comfy.

  “I thought you’d left,” Raine said haltingly.

  “I just finished up inside.” Jake shrugged out of his jacket and looked around for a place to put it.

  “Here, let me.” Raine took his jacket and he watched her cross the room and hang it from a prong screwed into the wall near the back door.

  Gibson was asleep in front of the fireplace, which wasn’t surprising, since a fire burned on the hearth and that would account for the toasty air. Jake frowned, his hand on his chin as he took two steps forwar
d.

  “Shoes off, mister,” Raine said, an eyebrow arched and one hand on her hip. “I didn’t spend all day cleaning this place so you could dirty it up.”

  Jake stepped out of his boots and padded toward the fireplace. “I haven’t had this one cleaned out yet, so I’m thinking this isn’t a good idea.”

  “Already done,” Raine said quickly. “I called Hearths R Us and they were here at eight this morning.”

  “Huh,” Jake replied.

  “I also booked them to come and do the ones at the main house, so he’ll be back, Tuesday at the latest.” She cocked her head to the side and raised her chin. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” he said absently.

  Jake’s gaze moved past her, toward the kitchen, and he noticed food on the table, or rather takeout—from the looks of it, Chinese from Yin’s. A bottle of wine was open, with one half-filled glass beside it. On the floor next to the sofa—a sofa that now had a bright pink cover on it—was a bag.

  If he were going to take a guess, he’d have said an overnight bag.

  “What’s going on, Raine?”

  She moved toward the kitchen, her bare toes skipping over the worn—yet gleaming—hardwood, and cleared her throat as she reached for her wine. She took her time answering, and that grabbed his attention.

  “Are you hungry? I’ve got lots left over. My eyes were bigger than my stomach.”

  Jake followed her and leaned his hip against the countertop. He folded his arms over his chest and glanced around the place. It looked amazing. He couldn’t believe she’d done all this.

  “I thought I’d stay here tonight,” Raine said carefully.

  He reached over to the table and grabbed an egg roll. “Why would you want to stay here?” He thought of her perfectly cute little cottage. Of the modern kitchen with all the fancy upgrades. He thought of the new floors and the flat-screen television. Sure, her cupboards were probably bare, but hell, she was at least into Chinese these days.