Blame It On Christmas (Southern Secrets Series Book 1)

by Janice Maynard

  The three recent nights without her in his bed were interminable. He had come to depend on her soft warmth to help him sleep. He worked too hard and had trouble relaxing. Mazie’s presence in his life in the midst of his mother’s traumatic illness had helped steady him.

  Why had she told his mother the engagement was not real? What did she hope to gain?

  Her unexpected and dangerous choice felt like a betrayal.

  After the midday meal, his parents dozed in the den. J.B. helped clear the table, but his sister shooed him out of the kitchen.

  Leila kissed his cheek. “We love you, J.B., but we can do this faster without you. Relax. Check your email. We’ve got this.”

  He wandered toward the front of the house, reluctant to go into the den. There were too many memories there. Seeing the beautiful Christmas tree he and Mazie had decorated hurt. He didn’t want to remember. He wanted to throw the damned thing out to the curb, ornaments and all.

  When the doorbell rang, his heart leaped in shock and momentary hope. But of course it wasn’t Mazie. Why would it be? He had sent her away most emphatically.

  The barely-twenty-something man standing on the doorstep wore the familiar uniform of a well-known delivery service. He handed J.B. a manila envelope. “Sign here, please.”

  J.B. scribbled his name on the magnetic screen. “Did you draw the short straw today?”

  The young kid shook his head and grinned. “Nope. Jewish. I volunteered. Merry Christmas, sir.”

  J.B. closed the door and opened the envelope. At first he couldn’t process what he was seeing. It was a deed. Not just any deed...but a deed to the building that housed Mazie’s jewelry store. And she had signed it over to him.

  Leila exited the kitchen, drying her hands on a dishcloth covered with reindeer. “What’s that?”

  He frowned. “I’m not sure. It seems as if Mazie has finally agreed to let me have her property for my renovation project.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But I...”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t know why she’s giving it to me now after stonewalling for so long. And why the hell did she tell Mom we weren’t engaged without asking me first? The shock could have killed Mom.”

  “And you’re still angry.”

  “Hell, yes,” he said.

  Alana gave him a pitying look. “You’re such a dope. You don’t know Mazie at all. Of course she didn’t tell Mom anything. Mom guessed the truth from the very first day you lied to her. She knew you wanted to give her something to cling to before heart surgery.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah. Mazie kept your secret, J.B. And she kept pretending because Mom asked her to. But you yelled at her and humiliated her in front of all of us and a bunch of nurses and doctors. Bad karma, my brother.”

  His heart sank. The enormity of his blunder crushed him. “I’ve got to talk to her,” he muttered.

  “We’re about to open presents,” Alana said. “And besides, I don’t think you should go rushing over there if you don’t have your head on straight. You’ve hurt Mazie. You’d better decide what you want from her, or you’ll make things even worse.”

  * * *

  J.B. made it an hour and a half before he cracked.

  He had to go talk to Mazie. It couldn’t wait. He needed to apologize and tell her he loved her. Or both.

  Fortunately, his mother decided she was ready to go back to her hospital bed. The cardiologist had promised that if this next set of tests was acceptable, he would release her on the twenty-seventh.

  When the house was finally empty again, J.B. grabbed his keys. He drove across town and on toward the beach, barely even registering the empty streets. His heart pounded in his chest. Would Mazie be willing to talk to him? He had treated her terribly.

  When he got to the Tarleton property, the front gates were locked. Fortunately, J.B. had the security codes. Jonathan had given them to him a few months ago when all the family was out of town at the same time. J.B. had checked on the property for them.

  Now, he prayed the codes hadn’t been changed.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when the gates swung open. All the cars were visible, parked in the partially sheltered bays beneath the house. But there was no sign of life anywhere.

  Patience.

  He took a deep breath, trying to silence his galloping heartbeat. He loped up the front steps, entered a second code and eased open the door.

  “Mazie? Jonathan?”

  As far as J.B. could tell, no one was home. He walked through the main floor of the house. There was no sign of any activity. No meal. No televisions running. No wrapping paper.

  He stopped at the bay window and gazed out at the aquamarine ocean.

  And then he saw her. Down by the water’s edge, a lone figure, unmistakably feminine, strolled along the shore, bending now and again to pick up a shell.

  His body moved instinctively. Exiting the back of the house, he peeled off his socks and shoes, rolled up his pants legs and let himself out of the gate, using the same codes he had memorized earlier.

  Mazie had stopped now and was looking toward the horizon, her hands on her hips. The sound of the waves masked his approach.

  He stopped a few feet away so as not to scare her.

  “Mazie,” he called hoarsely.

  She spun around, flinching visibly when she saw it was him. “Go away, J.B. This is my beach.”

  “You can’t own beaches in South Carolina,” he said. “Please, Mazie. Let me talk to you.”

  “Didn’t you get my package? It’s over. You have what you want. Leave me alone.”

  The scales fell from his eyes. The angel choirs sang. His own stupid brain finally clicked into gear. If he hadn’t been such a clueless idiot when he was a younger man, he could have had Mazie by his side and in his bed all these years.

  Instead, he’d been saddled with a terrible marriage that had almost destroyed him. He had ended up all alone and had convinced himself that he liked it.

  “No,” he said soberly. “No, I don’t have what I want.” He swallowed hard, not quite able to say the words. But he was trying. “I need you, Mazie. I want you in my life. I’m sorry I yelled at you and accused you of something you didn’t do. I rejected you. Again. Only this time, it was far worse. Alana told me you didn’t spill the secret. I should have known better.”

  She folded her arms around her waist, her posture brittle with something. “Apology accepted. And as for the other, I’m no longer interested. Find another woman.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “There’s only you.”

  Pain drenched her beautiful eyes. Tears welled in them.

  “You don’t need to play the game anymore, J.B. I know what you were after. I gave it to you. We’re done.”

  Now he was confused. “Are you talking about the property?”

  “Of course,” she shouted. “Does any of this sound familiar? ‘I don’t think we have anything to worry about. I’ve got her eating out of my hand. It won’t be a problem.’” She paused to catch her breath. “You didn’t want me when I was sixteen, and you don’t want me now. You’ve been using me, and I was fool enough to go along with it. But I’m done.”

  All her anger seemed to winnow away. She stared at him, stone-faced.

  He swallowed hard. “You misunderstood,” he said carefully.

  “Liar.”

  “I wanted to go out with you when you were sixteen, I swear. I had a huge crush on you. But your brother promised to neuter me if I went through with it because he knew my reputation with girls. So I turned you down. And I’ve regretted it ever since.”

  She blinked, her expression wary. “That doesn’t excuse the fact that you used sex to coerce me into selling my property to you. I heard you, J.B. You can’t talk your way out of this
one.”

  His knees felt funny. “I love you, Mazie. I think I have in some way or other my whole life. But I got married, and I screwed that up, and after that, I was too embarrassed to talk to you.”

  “You don’t love me,” she whispered. “You don’t. I heard you on the phone.”

  God, he had hurt her so badly. He’d tried to protect himself from making another mistake, but in the process, Mazie had become collateral damage.

  “I was talking about the mayor,” he said. “That was my partner on the phone, yes. But we weren’t discussing you. I’ve been sweet-talking the mayor and the city council into letting us build a city park. They have grant money for beautification. We’ve offered to go in with them, if they agree, and do the project in tandem.”

  “The mayor?”

  He nodded. “The mayor. Not you. In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve been leading me around by the nose, and not the opposite. I adore you, Mazie. I’m sorry it took me so long to admit it, but I’ll spend the next six months convincing you if you’re interested in a June wedding. Or if we’re both scared, we can wait a year. Or two. Or four. But nothing will change on my end. I love you, Mazie Jane.”

  The sun was hot on the top of his head. He felt dizzy and sick and terrified. Nothing in his life had ever been as important as this. And he had bungled the hell out of it.

  “Say it again,” she whispered.

  “I love you?”

  She shook her head. “No. The part where you wanted to take me to the dance when I was sixteen.”

  His heart lightened. “When you grew up, Mazie—overnight it seemed—it socked me in the stomach. For years you had been this cute, spunky little kid trying to keep up with your brothers and me. Then suddenly you were a princess. I got tongue-tied just trying to talk to you.”

  “But you let Jonathan get in your head.”

  “To be fair to your brother, I was kind of a jerk in those days. He was probably right to wave me off.”

  “I adored you back then,” she said, the words wistful.

  He tasted fear. “And now?”

  She didn’t say a word for the longest time. He could almost feel the struggle inside her. Finally, she held out her hand. “I love you, Jackson Beauregard Vaughan. I didn’t want to, but I do. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I think I loved you way back then and somehow never got over it.”

  He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply, tilting his face toward the sun, feeling the weight of the world dissipate. Then he smiled at her and dragged her into his arms.

  “I think I’ve been waiting on this moment forever.” After kissing her long and thoroughly and reveling in her eager response, he pulled away at last. “Why are you alone on Christmas Day, sweet girl?”

  She laid her cheek against his shoulder. “I’m not alone, J.B. I have you. Merry Christmas, my love.”

  “Merry Christmas, Mazie.” He scooped her into his arms. “Is that house behind us really empty?”

  She grinned at him, her hair tumbling in the breeze. “Completely. Would you like to join me in my bedroom and open your Christmas present?”

  He laughed out loud, startling a trio of seagulls. “Oh, yeah. And just so you know, great minds think alike. I got you the very same thing...”

  Epilogue

  Jonathan sat in his luxurious Arizona hotel room at the retreat center and read through the packet of meditation techniques that were supposed to diminish his headaches. Nothing seemed to be working. Not expensive pharmaceuticals. Not hippie-dippie mumbo jumbo. With each passing week, he became more fearful that something in his mother’s messed-up DNA had triggered a cataclysm in his. A mental meltdown that might change everything about his life.

  Or destroy it completely.

  The intensity of the headaches scared him more than he wanted to admit. He didn’t want to end up like his mother, drugged and helpless in a facility somewhere.

  A phone call from his sister had soothed some of his other concerns. Mazie and J.B. were together. With a capital T. It boggled the mind, but both of them sounded happy.

  He wished them all the best, even if it was a little weird for him personally.

  More important, it was a relief to know that whatever happened to him, J.B. was going to make sure Mazie was okay.

  At least one member of the Tarleton family would find happiness...

  * * *

  Look for Jonathan’s story coming in May 2019!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Nashville Rebel by Sheri WhiteFeather.

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  Nashville Rebel

  by Sheri WhiteFeather

  One

  Sophie Cardinale couldn’t do it anymore.

  She couldn’t be Tommy Talbot’s tour manager, living her life on the road with nothing except the sound of Tommy’s music roaring in her ears. She needed to put down roots, to get a desk job, to have a baby. At thirty-four, her biological clock wasn’t just ticking; it was on the verge of exploding. She’d been thinking about this for the past year, day in and day out. It never, ever left her mind. But she hadn’t told Tommy yet. He wasn’t just her gorgeous, wild, pain-in-the-ass boss; he was also her closest and dearest childhood friend.

  Sophie’s father had worked for Kirby Talbot, Tommy’s country-music-legend dad. Her dad had been Kirby’s guitar tech up until the day he’d passed away, a little over two years ago. Sophie had never known her mom. She’d developed postpartum preeclampsia a month after she’d given birth to Sophie and had died as a result. Mom had been the love of Dad’s life. He’d talked about her all the time, reminiscing about how sweet and beautiful she was. Her parents had met on the road, in the mid-1970s, when turquoise jewelry and leather vests reigned supreme. At the time, Mom worked for Kirby Talbot, too, as his wardrobe mistress. They got married, and Sophie had been born a decade later. Kirby had adored both of her folks. They were like family to him.

  In fact, after Mom died, Sophie, her dad and her granddad, who’d also helped raise her, lived in one of the guesthouses on the Talbot family compound. That was how she’d gotten to know Tommy so well. According to his mother, they’d bonded as babies when she used to “borrow” Sophie to keep him company in his playpen. But mostly Sophie thought that Tommy’s mom just felt sorry for her since she didn’t have a mom of her own.

  During their adolescence, Sophie and Tommy were inseparable, spending their time jumping out of trees, riding green broke horses and
speeding around on his dirt bikes together. In those days, Sophie had been a pixie-haired, doe-eyed tomboy who’d had a crush on Tommy, and did almost anything he dared her to do. But she’d calmed down since then. Tommy? Not so much. He was still a daredevil, especially on stage.

  Tommy trained with some of the best stuntmen in the business. His most recent act involved riding a mechanical bull on a rising platform. He even stood up and danced on the bull to the opening riff of “Rebel with a Country Cause,” one of his most popular songs. During his dance, the floor below him would erupt into flames.

  His stunts weren’t always planned or practiced. If he wanted to climb lighting trusses or do backflips into the crowd or douse his guitar with lighter fluid and set it on fire, he merely took it upon himself to do so.

  On this latest tour, the one that had just ended, the pyrotechnics guys kept threatening to quit if Tommy didn’t follow the rules. But it wasn’t Tommy who had to suffer the wrath of the road crew. It was Sophie. Everyone took their complaints to her, expecting her to keep Tommy in line.

  In the beginning, working for him had been exciting. She used to get a dangerous thrill out of it. Now, all these years later, she just wanted some peace and quiet.

  But mostly she longed to become a mom. She’d already been checking out sperm banks, and soon she would be ready to concentrate on choosing a donor. Sophie had a bad track record with men. She’d given up on finding the right guy, and by now she needed some emotional security in her life. For her, becoming a single mom was the answer, even if it meant quitting her job and finding a new one in order to do it.

  So here she was, behind the wheel of her truck, driving to Tommy’s ranch, to give him her notice. Sophie lived outside of Nashville, in the same area as Tommy. She had a modest home on a mini ranch, with two horses and two dogs, all of which she boarded at Tommy’s place when she traveled with him. His spread was huge, boasting a custom-built mansion and a slew of ranch hands and caretakers. By now, Tommy was as rich and famous as his legendary father. Maybe even more so. Whereas Kirby Talbot had been deemed “the bad boy of country,” Tommy had become known as the “the baddest boy of country,” surpassing his dad in that regard. Mostly Tommy had earned that reputation because of how reckless he was on stage. But him being such a ladies’ man was a factor, too, which had never sat well with Sophie.