“Of course, I’m not very good at reading between the lines, so I said, ‘You mean, two kids?’ ‘No, I mean the whole package,’ she said. ‘I want a husband who looks at me the way Matt looks at Tanya. A husband who wants to have a baby with me because he knows that child will be the best of both of us and a bond that ties us together forever.’
“Or words to that effect,” Bailey said. “The point was, we both knew that husband wasn’t ever going to be me. And that was the end.”
“Are things better now?” Serena asked.
“If you consider being divorced better,” he said dryly.
“I meant, are you both satisfied with the decision to end your marriage?” she clarified.
“I assume so,” he said. “I haven’t seen or spoken to her since I filed the divorce papers three years ago.”
“You haven’t had any contact with her in three years?”
“I thought a clean break would be best,” he confided.
“I think you need to talk to her,” Serena said. “And she probably needs to talk to you.”
“Why?”
“For closure.”
He scowled. “What does that even mean?”
“It means understanding how and why the relationship ended, so that you can accept that it has ended and move on,” she explained patiently.
“We’re divorced,” Bailey reminded her. “I don’t think either of us is under any illusions that the relationship isn’t over.”
“But have you moved on?” she prompted gently.
“I’d say the fourteen hundred miles I moved proves that I have.”
“Have you dated much since the divorce?”
“Not really,” he admitted.
“That’s a rather vague response.”
“Do you want to know the specific number of dates?”
“A range would suffice,” she said.
“Then I guess it would be...more than zero and less than two,” he confided.
“Only one?” she asked, surprised.
“And only if we’re counting this as a date.”
“This is a date?”
“Well, it was prearranged, I picked you up, we shared a meal—and a kiss. Doesn’t that tick all the boxes?”
“I guess it does,” she said, though she still sounded dubious.
“Or we could say it’s not a date.”
“I don’t have a problem with the label,” she said. “I’m just not sure how I feel about being your rebound girl.”
“It’s been three years,” he reminded her. “I’m not on the rebound.”
“Three years of not dating suggests you might have been more heartbroken over the failure of your marriage than you wanted to admit.”
“Or maybe I’d finally accepted that I was so damaged by the mistakes of my past that I had nothing left to offer a woman.”
“So what’s changed to make you want to start dating again now?” she wondered aloud.
“I met you.”
* * *
Those three simple words melted Serena’s heart.
She was still thinking about them the next day as she slid the last tray of sugar cookies into the oven. Marvin, who’d been snoring in the corner, suddenly picked his head up, his ears twitching.
“Do you hear something?” she asked him.
He responded by leaping off his bed and racing toward the door. Serena wiped her hands on a towel and followed the dog, pulling open the door before she heard a knock.
“This is a surprise,” she said, when she saw Bailey standing there.
“I left a message on your voice mail and sent a couple of texts, but you didn’t respond, so I thought I’d take a chance and swing by after I ran some errands,” he explained.
She stepped away from the door so that he could enter. “That’s strange—I didn’t hear my phone ring at all.” And then a thought occurred to her. “Of course, I didn’t plug it in last night, so chances are, the battery’s dead.”
“Is it okay that I stopped by?”
“Well, Marvin’s certainly happy to see you,” she said, with a pointed glance at the dog who had rolled over to display his belly.
Bailey chuckled as he bent down to give her pet a one-handed belly scratch. His other hand held up a padded envelope. “When I got home last night, this was on my doorstep.”
“What is it?” she asked him.
“Another Christmas present that I need to wrap—and that I’m hoping you’ll deliver for me.”
She took the envelope and peeked inside. “You got a PKT-79?”
“Two of them,” he told her. “For Owen and his friend Riley.”
“I can’t believe you managed to get your hands on not just one but two of the most popular toys of the season,” she said.
“I took your advice,” he admitted.
“eBay?”
He nodded.
“I’m not going to ask what these cost you.”
“Good, because I’m not going to tell you,” he said.
“You do know this wasn’t necessary, right?”
“I know,” he confirmed. “But it was something I wanted to do.”
“It will definitely restore Owen’s faith in Santa Claus,” Serena murmured.
“I hope so,” Bailey said. “Because spending time with you seems to be restoring my faith in the spirit of the season.”
She smiled at that. “All the wrapping stuff is still on the table—I haven’t got around to putting it away yet.”
“It looks like you’ve been busy with other things,” he said, glancing around the kitchen. Then he lifted his head and sniffed the air. “Cookies?” he asked hopefully.
She nodded. “But nothing as fancy as your sister-in-law makes.”
“Cookies don’t need to be fancy to taste good,” he noted, as he washed his hands at the sink.
She lifted one off the cooling rack and offered it to him.
He picked up a towel to dry his hands, but instead of taking the cookie from her, he lowered his head and bit a piece off.
“Mmm,” he said around a mouthful of cookie. “That is good.” Then he took another bite, and another, until he was nipping at her fingers, the teasing nibbles making her blood pulse and her knees weak.
She took a step back and wiped her hands down the front of her apron, brushing the crumbs away.
He grinned, no doubt aware of the effect he had on her.
“So,” he said, moving over to the table and selecting a roll of wrapping paper, “what are your plans for the rest of the afternoon?”
“The afternoon’s almost over,” she pointed out to him.
“Okay, what are your plans for tonight?”
The oven timer buzzed and she slid her hands into the padded mitts and retrieved the hot tray of cookies.
“After I get the kitchen cleaned up, I’m going to pop a big bowl of popcorn and snuggle up on the sofa with Marvin, Molly and Max to watch one of my favorite holiday movies.”
“I don’t see Molly as a snuggler,” he said. “Of course, that might be because I can still feel her claws digging into my leg.”
“She really is a sweetheart, once you get to know her.”
He snorted, a clear expression of disbelief.
Serena filled the sink with hot soapy water and began washing her dishes.
“You didn’t mention any plans for dinner,” Bailey commented as he finished taping his present.
“I figured I’d skip dinner, because I’ve been sampling cookies all day,” she confided.
“Or I could go over to the Ace and pick up burgers.”
“I really don’t need a burger.” But now that he’d put the idea in her head, her mouth was watering.
“But do you want one?” Bailey asked, his tone suggesting
that he already knew the answer.
“Now I do,” she admitted.
“Fries?”
“No,” she said firmly.
He chuckled. “Okay, just a burger.”
“Cheeseburger,” she clarified.
“Anything else?”
She started to shake her head, then paused. “Yeah—why are you doing this?”
“Because I’m hungry?” he suggested.
“I don’t just mean the food. I mean why are you here?”
He held up the package he’d finished wrapping.
“You expect me to believe that Eva didn’t have wrapping paper?” she asked.
“Okay, so maybe that was just an excuse to see you.”
“You shouldn’t need an excuse to visit a friend,” she told him.
He sighed. “You’re still determined to stick me in that friend zone, aren’t you?”
“I think friendship is always a good place to start.”
* * *
To start what? Bailey wanted to know.
But he didn’t ask the question. He had no right to demand answers from Serena about the status or direction of their relationship when he hadn’t yet figured out what he wanted.
But he knew that he wanted her. And the more time he spent with her, the stronger the wanting grew.
A smart man would realize that the key to getting a woman out of his head—and his hormones back in check—would be to put some distance between them. A smart man would have ignored the impulse that drove him into town and then steered him toward her apartment.
Apparently he was not a smart man.
Instead, he picked up burgers—and fries for himself—from the Ace in the Hole. When he got back to Serena’s apartment, Marvin went nuts all over again, as if Bailey had been gone for days rather than forty minutes.
Growing up, there had always been a dog or two at Sunshine Farm and several cats hanging around the barn, but Bailey hadn’t had a pet since he’d left Rust Creek Falls thirteen years earlier. He hadn’t wanted the responsibility. But he was beginning to see how much joy an animal companion could add to life—at least an animal like Marvin. He was still skeptical about Molly and undecided on Max, who mostly kept to himself.
While he was gone, Serena had cleared off the dining room table so they had somewhere to sit and eat. Then Bailey took Marvin outside while she made popcorn and set up the movie.
He hadn’t asked what they would be watching—because it really didn’t matter. He just wanted to hang out with her, and if that meant watching Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye sing and dance with Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen, so be it.
He was admittedly surprised when, instead of the instrumental notes of a classic Irving Berlin song, the screen filled with an image of an airplane coming in for a landing against the backdrop of an orange sky.
“Die Hard is your favorite Christmas movie?” he asked. “Really?”
“It’s a Christmas classic.”
“I don’t disagree.”
“But you thought I’d want to watch White Christmas,” she guessed.
“Maybe,” he acknowledged, happy to be proven wrong.
He settled on the sofa, the bowl of popcorn in his lap. Marvin scrambled up onto the sofa beside Serena and promptly fell asleep. Max positioned himself by her feet, where he nibbled on a carrot-shaped pet chew. Molly was apparently in hiding, which didn’t hurt Bailey’s feelings at all and allowed him to focus on the woman seated beside him.
Because he sure as heck couldn’t focus on the movie—not with Serena so close. Not when his fingers brushed against hers every time he reached into the bowl. Not when her hair tickled his chin when she tipped her head back. And definitely not when he inhaled her tantalizing scent with every breath he took.
But the woman who was the center of his attention seemed oblivious, her gaze fixed on the movie. When only a few unpopped kernels remained in the bottom of the bowl and the first staccato bursts of gunfire erupted on the screen, Molly sauntered into the living room, the tip of her tail high in the air, flicking side to side.
The cat made her way toward the sofa, then froze, her pale green eyes narrowing to slits. Apparently Bailey was in her spot, and she wasn’t happy about it, as evidenced by the way she hissed at him.
“Molly!” Serena scolded.
The cat continued to stare at him, unaffected by the reprimand.
“I’m sorry,” Serena apologized. “She’s never...okay, not never...but she rarely does that.” Her brow furrowed as she considered. “And it’s only ever been when I have male company—which isn’t very often,” she hastened to add.
“She’s protective of you,” he said, echoing her earlier remark.
She glanced at the snoring lump pressed against her thigh. “Unlike Marvin, who would sell me out for a belly rub.”
Bailey chuckled at that.
Serena leaned over to scoop up the cat, holding her so that she was nose to nose with the feline.
“Bailey is our friend,” she said, her tone firm but gentle. “And you need to be nice to our friends. No biting, no scratching, no growling, no hissing.”
The demon cat gently bumped her nose against Serena’s, then rubbed her face against her cheek—and actually purred.
“I told you she can be affectionate,” she said.
“Is she really being affectionate?” he wondered aloud. “Or is she just gloating?”
“What?”
“She’s cuddling up to you but looking at me, as if to rub it in that she’s your favorite.”
Serena laughed at that. “Do you feel as if you’re in competition with my cat?”
“Well, I can’t help but notice that she’s a lot closer to you than you’ve let me get.”
“Molly’s been with me eleven years,” she reminded him. “I’ve known you just over a week.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting that it’s going to take me another ten years and fifty-one weeks to get to second base.”
She shook her head, but a smile tugged at her lips. “I’m suggesting that we should watch the rest of the movie.”
So they did. But it seemed all too soon that the credits were rolling on the screen, and Bailey knew it was time to say good-night and head back to his cold empty cabin at Sunshine Farm. His reluctance was a little unnerving. He was accustomed to being on his own and had always been content that way. Now it seemed that he might prefer Serena’s company—and possibly even that of her furry menagerie.
“Thanks for letting me hang out with you tonight,” he said when she walked him to the door.
“It was fun,” she agreed.
“Maybe we could do it again next weekend,” he suggested. “But instead of staying in, we could go out for dinner and a movie.”
“I’d like that,” she said. “Although this time of year, movie nights at the high school generally feature holiday films.”
“Or we could drive into Kalispell and see a new release in a real theater.”
“That sounds a lot like a date,” she mused.
“It does tick all the boxes,” he confirmed. “What time do you finish work on Friday?”
“Four o’clock.”
“I’ll pick you up at six,” he said, already counting the hours.
* * *
Amanda Langley was seated inside Daisy’s Donut Shop when Serena arrived to meet her at noon on Friday. They’d chosen the restaurant because of its proximity to the veterinarian clinic as Serena only had an hour for lunch—and because the food was as good as the service was prompt.
“I’m glad you were available to meet me today,” she said to her mom, as she slid into the seat across from her.
“I was grateful for the invitation,” Amanda replied.
Serena set aside her menu. She ate at Daisy’s often enough that she alread
y knew what she wanted, and the waitress immediately appeared to take their orders.
“I wanted to apologize to you,” Serena said when the server had gone.
“Apologize?” Amanda echoed, sounding surprised. “For what?”
“Interrupting your date last Saturday night.”
Her mother waved a hand dismissively. “It was fine. And Mark was glad that he finally got to meet you.”
“So you did tell him about me?”
“I’ve told him everything,” Amanda assured her.
“You have?”
Her mother nodded. “I’ve learned that keeping things inside isn’t good for me—and that I need to stop doing things that aren’t good for me.” Then she smiled. “Mark is very good for me.”
Serena chose to ignore the obvious implication, saying only, “Well... I’m glad you have someone you can talk to.”
“Do you? Have someone that you can talk to, I mean?”
“Sure,” she said, because she knew it was true. It was also true that she didn’t usually like to talk about the past.
And yet, for some reason, she’d had no trouble opening up to Bailey. In fact, she’d wanted to tell him about Mimi. But even more surprising was the realization that he was a good listener. Understanding and empathetic.
And a really great kisser.
Of course, that probably wasn’t something she should be thinking about right now. Not just because she was having lunch with her mother, but because she was the one who had told him that they should slow things down. Although she was admittedly a little disappointed that he hadn’t tried to kiss her goodbye when he’d left her apartment the other night.
“It’s still so hard, not knowing,” Amanda said.
The softly spoken remark drew Serena back to the present. She nodded, understanding that her mother was thinking about Mimi and that tragic day when she’d gone missing.
“There are so many possibilities...most of them too horrible to think about,” her mother noted.
“So don’t think about them,” she urged.
Bring Me a Maverick for Christmas! Page 11
