Bring Me a Maverick for Christmas!

by Brenda Harlen

  “I didn’t think I’d ever come back to Rust Creek Falls,” he reminded her. “But here I am.”

  “And your family’s thrilled to have you home,” she said.

  “I don’t know about that, but it has been good to reconnect with most of my siblings. I haven’t been able to spend much time with Dana, of course, because she’s still living in Oregon with her adoptive family,” he noted. “And we still don’t know where Liza is, though Hudson’s private investigator insists he’s making progress.”

  “You don’t believe him?”

  He shrugged. “I think if I were a PI with a client whose pockets were as deep as Bella’s husband’s, I’d want to stay on his payroll, too.”

  “I don’t think Hudson Jones is foolish enough to pay someone without results,” she told him.

  “You’re probably right,” he acknowledged. “But I know Bella would feel a lot better if she actually saw results, preferably in the form of our youngest sister.”

  “I’m sure you’ll all feel better when you find Liza,” she said, as he pulled into the parking lot of the shopping mall. “But right now, you need to focus on finding an empty parking spot.”

  * * *

  “I hate Christmas shopping,” Bailey announced several hours later as he followed Serena up to her apartment, his arms heavy with the weight of the bags he carried.

  “What is it that you hate?” she asked, as she slid her key into the lock. “The festive decorations? The seasonal music? The shopkeepers wishing you happy holidays?”

  “The crazy drivers racing for limited parking spots, the desperate shoppers pawing through boxes of toys and piles of clothes, then pressing toward the cash registers like teenage girls rushing the stage at a Justin Bieber concert.”

  She smiled at the image painted by his words as she carefully sidestepped an excited Marvin, who seemed determined to get tangled up in her feet.

  “The key,” she told him, “is not to let yourself get caught up in the chaos.”

  “Easy to say, not so easy to do when the chaos is all around.”

  “But you can’t deny it was a successful day.”

  He unloaded his shopping bags on the floor, then dropped to his knees to give Marvin some of the attention he was begging for. “Except that apparently I now have to wrap all that stuff.”

  “Yes, you do,” she confirmed. “But you’ll see that I already have a wrapping station set up on the table, so you can get started while I heat up the sauce and put a pot of water on to boil for the pasta.”

  “Or I could make the spaghetti and you could do the wrapping?” he suggested as an alternative.

  She shook her head. “I’ll help you after dinner.”

  Marvin, even in a fog of canine euphoria induced by Bailey’s belly rub, recognized that last word and immediately scrambled to his feet and raced over to his bowl.

  Bailey chuckled.

  “Yes, it’s almost time for your dinner, too,” she assured the eager bulldog. “Although I doubt you’ve worked up much of an appetite, hanging around inside the apartment all day.”

  “He could probably use some exercise,” Bailey decided. “Do you want me to take him out for a walk before dinner?”

  Poor Marvin didn’t know whether to lie down and feign exhaustion—his usual response to hearing the word walk—or remain seated by his bowl in anticipation of his dinner.

  Serena shook her head. “If you’d really rather w-a-l-k the dog than wrap presents, his leash and sweater are on the hook by the door.”

  “Sweater?” he echoed dubiously.

  “It’s December, and his short hair doesn’t do much to keep him warm.”

  Of course, Marvin hated the idea of the sweater as much as Bailey did, but with Serena’s help, they managed to get it over the dog’s head and his front legs through the appropriate holes.

  When Serena returned to the kitchen to stir the sauce, Bailey clipped the leash onto his collar and said, “Let’s go.”

  But Marvin did not want to go. In fact, he sat stubbornly on his butt and refused to move, even with Bailey tugging on the leash.

  “I think your dog’s broken,” he said to Serena.

  “He’s not broken, he just hates the snow.”

  “You could have told me that when I first offered to take him out,” he noted.

  “I could have,” she agreed, making no effort to hide her amusement. “But he really does need the exercise.”

  “Did you hear that, Marvin? You need the exercise.”

  Marvin dropped his head, as if ashamed, but his butt remained firmly planted on the floor.

  So Bailey bent down and picked him up.

  “Jeez, he’s gotta weigh at least fifty pounds.”

  “Fifty-five at his last checkup,” Serena told him.

  “Well, at least I’ll get some exercise hauling him down the stairs.” Then to Marvin, he said, “But when we hit street level, your paws are on the ground.”

  Whether or not Marvin understood any of that, Bailey had no idea, but for now, the dog snuggled into the crook of his arm to enjoy the ride.

  * * *

  Serena held up her end of the bargain.

  After Bailey and Marvin returned from their walk and the humans and animals had eaten, she helped him wrap the presents he’d bought.

  Their efforts were occasionally impeded by her pets. Molly’s curiosity about Bailey finally proved stronger than her wariness of strangers, and she ventured out from hiding to jump from chair to chair—and occasionally even onto the table—and knock various items onto the ground. Max somehow got tangled up in a length of curling ribbon, but after Serena untangled him, he mostly stayed out of the way, content to nibble on an empty wrapping paper tube. Marvin was the worst offender. Despite his pre-dinner walk with Bailey—who assured her that yes, he did make the dog walk—he remained full of energy and determined to cause mischief.

  When Bailey folded the sweater he’d chosen for Bella and positioned it in the center of the paper he’d already cut, Serena shook her head.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You need a box.”

  “Why?”

  “Because clothing should always go in a box—and because boxes are easier to wrap,” she explained.

  “You didn’t make me put the pj’s I bought for the triplets in boxes.”

  “Because you want kids’ presents to be easy to open,” she explained.

  “There seem to be an awful lot of rules about gift-wrapping,” he noted. “Maybe you should write them down for me.”

  She selected an appropriate-size box from her stock, lined it with tissue, refolded the sweater—after removing the price tag—laid it inside the box, closed the lid and handed it back to him.

  He wrapped the paper around the box and fastened it with a piece of tape.

  Serena picked up the gift she’d finished wrapping and looked beneath it, then under the table. “Did you take that bow?”

  “What bow?”

  “I had a green bow that I was going to put on this one.”

  “You have a whole box of bows,” he pointed out.

  “And I picked a green one out of the box and set it on the table right here,” she said, indicating the spot. Then a movement caught her eye and she sighed. “Molly.”

  Bailey glanced over to see the cat in the middle of the living room, batting the missing bow around the floor.

  Serena stepped away from the table just as Marvin decided to race ahead of her, knocking her off balance. Bailey instinctively reached for her—his arms wrapping around her and hauling her against him.

  “Sorry.” Her cheeks burned with embarrassment over her clumsiness, and her breasts—crushed against his chest now—tingled with awareness and arousal.

  “I’m not,” he said huskily, his arms still around her.
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br />   Then he lowered his head and touched his lips to hers.

  Maybe she should have resisted the seductive pressure and the intoxicating flavor of his kiss. But the moment his mouth made contact with hers, her only thoughts were:

  Yes.

  This.

  And, More.

  He gave her more.

  Parting her lips with his tongue, he deepened the kiss. He slid his hands down her back, then beneath the hem of her sweater. She shivered as his callused palms moved over her bare skin, an instinctive reaction that caused her breasts to rub against his hard chest, sending arrows of pleasure from her peaked nipples to her core.

  He nibbled playfully on her lips, teased her with strokes of his tongue that made her tremble and ache with want. Her whole body felt hot, so hot she was sure her bones would melt.

  And then he abruptly tore his mouth from hers. “What the—”

  She drew in a slow deep breath and willed her head to stop spinning. “What?”

  He looked down at his feet, where Molly was innocently licking her paw and rubbing it over her face.

  But Serena knew better. “Molly,” she said reprovingly.

  “I think she left her claws in my skin,” Bailey said.

  “She’s not overly fond of strangers,” she admitted. “And she is somewhat protective of me.”

  He reached down to rub his shin. “Well, it’s going to take a bigger cat than that to scare me away,” he promised.

  “Maybe she did us a favor,” Serena suggested.

  “I’m not feeling grateful.”

  “But we agreed we weren’t going to do this,” she reminded him.

  “Why was that again?”

  “Because neither one of us has had much success with relationships.”

  “That’s true,” he acknowledged. “And while I know I’m not so good with the opening up and sharing my emotions part, I promise you that I can muddle through the naked physical activity part.”

  “You sure do know how to tempt a girl, don’t you?”

  “Are you saying that you’re not tempted?”

  “I’m more tempted than I should be,” she confessed.

  “Obviously not tempted enough or we’d be doing it instead of talking about it,” he told her.

  “You’ve still got presents to wrap,” she reminded him.

  “I’d rather unwrap you.”

  The words were accompanied by a heated look that made her knees weak—and her resolve even weaker. She consciously steeled both, picked up a roll of paper and pointed it at him. “Wrap.”

  * * *

  Bailey took the paper—and the hint.

  He was undeniably disappointed that she’d put on the brakes again, but he didn’t really blame her. Although they’d spent a lot of time together over the past week, they’d really only known each other a week.

  So while Serena went to retrieve the bow Molly had stolen, he tried to focus on measuring and cutting the paper—and not stare at the sexy curve of her butt.

  “Tell me about your marriage,” she suggested, as she affixed the bow to the wrapped gift.

  “Well, that question effectively killed the mood,” he noted.

  “That wasn’t my intention.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe you want to hear about all the reasons my marriage failed so that you can feel justified in pushing me away.”

  “I’m not pushing you away,” she said. “But I’m also not in the habit of jumping into bed with a man I just met.”

  “I’ve told you more about me than a lot of other people know,” he confided.

  “So why won’t you tell me about your marriage?”

  He shrugged to indicate his surrender. “What do you want to know?”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Almost two years. And before you say, ‘that’s not very long,’ believe me, it was long enough for both of us to know it wasn’t working.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I didn’t realize it was such a touchy subject.”

  He sighed. “It’s not really. I just don’t like admitting that I failed—and it was my failure. Because from the day we exchanged vows, I was waiting for everything to fall apart.”

  “Why were you so sure that it would?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe because of what happened to my parents.”

  “They were killed by a drunk driver.”

  “Yeah,” he acknowledged. “And before that, they were happy together, running the farm and raising a family. And then everything changed.”

  “Because of a tragic accident.”

  “Because of me,” he said.

  Serena frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “It was my fault they were on that particular road at that particular time on that particular night.”

  And he proceeded to tell her about the events of that fateful evening. How his older brother had invited him to go to an out-of-town bar. Although Bailey wasn’t yet of legal drinking age, Luke assured him that he knew of a honky-tonk dive that didn’t care if their customers had ID so long as they had cash to pay for their beer. Bailey was always happy to tag along with his brother, and when Danny heard they were going out, he refused to be left behind.

  The bartender didn’t blink when Luke ordered a pitcher of beer and three glasses, which he carried over to the table where his brothers waited. But Danny, always a rule follower, went back to the bar to get a soda.

  When Bailey had emptied the pitcher into his glass, Danny suggested that they leave and asked for the keys. Bailey, who had driven, refused, unwilling to let his little brother call the shots. Besides, a trio of young women had just settled around the neighboring table and immediately began to chat up the three cowboys.

  “But Danny—devoted to Annie—was even less interested in flirting than in drinking,” Bailey continued his explanation. “And when me and Luke refused to heed his warnings and pleas, he went to the pay phone outside and called our parents.”

  Even after so many years, the memories were clear, the pain sharp. Everything had changed that night. Not just for Bailey, Luke and Danny, but their four younger siblings—and especially their parents.

  “They were on their way to get you,” Serena realized.

  He nodded. “Because I was too stubborn, too arrogant, to let my little brother have the keys.”

  “And you’ve been carrying the guilt of that decision for more than a dozen years,” she realized.

  “Because it was my decision.”

  “It was your decision to hold on to the keys,” she acknowledged. “And Danny’s decision to call your parents. And their decision to come after you. But the only one responsible for their deaths is the drunk driver who hit them.”

  “So why can’t I let go of the feeling that it’s my fault?”

  Chapter Nine

  Serena understood guilt. She’d carried her fair share of it for a lot of years, and though she’d managed to let go of most of it, there were still moments that she wondered what if, still occasions when she felt sharp pangs of regret. So she wasn’t going to tell Bailey to “let it go” and expect that he’d be able to do so. She knew it wasn’t that easy, but she also knew that holding dark and negative feelings inside only strengthened their hold.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I do know that talking about it can sometimes help.”

  “Like I said, I’m not good with the sharing feelings thing,” he reminded her.

  “Like anything else, it gets easier with practice,” she promised.

  “I don’t know that that’s true,” he said. “But I do know that I find it easy to talk to you.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “In fact, all that stuff I just told you, about the night my parents were killed...I never told Emily,” he confided.
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  “Why not?” she wondered aloud.

  “When she asked about my family, I told her that my parents were dead and my siblings were scattered—though even I didn’t know how scattered at that point. And she didn’t seem interested in knowing anything more.” He shrugged. “Probably because she was so close to her family, and me not having a family simplified our life. There was never any question about where we would spend the holidays—always with her family.”

  “How were those holidays?” Serena asked carefully.

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Why is it, whenever someone gives that answer, it usually means not fine?”

  “No, it was fine,” he insisted. “I mean, I never got into the celebrations, but that was my fault. I had disconnected from my family and I didn’t know how—or maybe I didn’t want—to connect with hers.”

  “Did that become a source of friction between you?”

  He shook his head. “There really wasn’t friction between us. There really wasn’t much of anything. In fact, I’m not even sure she noticed that I didn’t connect with her family.”

  Now it was Serena’s turn to frown. “What do you mean, she didn’t notice?”

  “She was the youngest of three kids and the only girl, Daddy’s little princess and her mother’s best friend, doted on by her brothers, close with both of their wives and a favorite aunt to the kids. She was accustomed to being the center of attention and basked in that attention.

  “It all came to a head when her youngest brother’s wife had their first baby. We, of course, raced over to the hospital to celebrate the big event, and Emily immediately fell in love with her new niece. I braced myself for what I knew was coming next—or what I thought was coming next.”

  Serena nodded, undoubtedly anticipating the same response that he had.

  “She looked at her brother and sister-in-law with their newborn and said, ‘That’s what I want.’ A baby, I guessed, having resigned myself to that eventuality, because after marriage comes kids, right? Well, not always in that order,” he acknowledged, responding to his own question. “But she surprised me by shaking her head. ‘Yes, I want a baby,’ she told me. ‘But I want more than that.’