Christmas at Bravo Ridge Read online

  "I'm only saying, even given that she still loves him, it is possible that this time she's finally had it with him."

  His brows drew together. "Had it? How?"

  "Come on, Matt. You know what I mean. Maybe there's more going on here than we realize. Maybe she's fed up with him on more levels than just the affair he had so long ago. Maybe she's decided she's not going to take it anymore."

  "Take it? Take what?"

  "You know. Him. Your dad. The way he is, like he thinks he runs the world or something. Maybe she's left him for good this time."

  He gaped. "You mean divorce?"

  "I do, yeah."

  "Hell, no." He said it fast. Too fast.

  "But, Matt—"

  He put up a hand. "Uh-uh. No way—yeah, okay. They're living apart. Temporarily. But making it permanent? Never going to happen. Divorce is…not who they are. They're solid, married more than thirty years. They would never split up for good."

  Although she thought he was in serious denial, Corrine resisted the urge to keep arguing the point. Really, what did she know about marriage and how a good one works? Her dad had abandoned her and her mother when Corrine was nine. Her mom had never remarried.

  And Corrine herself had yet to take the plunge. Although she was about to, with Bob.

  Bob…

  Corrine smiled to herself. Sometimes she could hardly believe it was really happening. She was getting married at last. To a minister, of all people—a very special kind of minister. The kind who never judged or acted superior.

  Bob's church, the New Life Unification Church, was open to people of all beliefs and faiths. Corrine, never much of a churchgoer before, had gone to New Life after her mom died in search of comfort mostly. A girlfriend had sworn she would love it there. And she had. Slowly, she'd gotten to know the pastor, never guessing at the time that Bob would turn out to be the man for her.

  She glanced down at the diamond on her finger. It wasn't big or flashy. But it gave off a nice sparkle in the light from the fire. And Bob was such a good man, generous, sweet and true…

  Matt shifted in his chair. She looked up into his gray eyes and they shared a smile.

  "So what else you got here?" He gestured at the bottles between them.

  "You'll end up drunk if you don't watch it."

  "It'll do me good to loosen up a little." He held out his empty glass. "I'm a stick-up-the-ass corporate guy, remember?"

  She winced. "Did I call you that?"

  "To my face. More than once."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Forgiven. You know that. More wine."

  "A modest little cabernet, maybe?"

  "Pour."

  * * *

  Matt could have sat in that chair across from Corrie forever.

  They tried more of the wines. A pinot noir and something Spanish. They talked and laughed. An hour went by.

  Two.

  Three…

  Matt was having a good time. A great time—but then, except for a while there after she told him she was pregnant, he always did have a good time with Corrie. Sometimes lately, when he brought Kira home at the end of the weekend, he would find himself wishing he didn't have to leave.

  Corrie's house was in an older neighborhood with lots of big, mature oaks. It had been her mom's house before Kathleen Lonnigan died and left it to her only daughter. It was nothing fancy, but it sure was comfortable, cheery and cozy, the furniture a little worn. Lived-in. In the past couple of years, since she lost her mom, Corrie had put her own stamp on it, things like fifties-style lamps and bright, geometrical-patterned rugs on the scuffed hardwood floors.

  Tonight, with the fire going and too much wine making him feel all sentimental and pleasantly fuzzy, he kept thinking of that first night he met Corrie. It was almost six years ago now.

  He'd been twenty-four. It was the night he came home from the University of Chicago with an MBA in finance. He went out clubbing to celebrate the milestone and ended up at Armadillo Rose, where he went crazy for the bartender. Until then, he'd never gone crazy over anyone. He wasn't the crazy type.

  If he closed his eyes now, he could almost see her, the way she looked that night. Her blue eyes inviting him, that blond hair their daughter had inherited hanging over one eye. In painted-on jeans and a skimpy tube top that showed her navel ring. She'd danced on the bar that night. And he'd known he had to have her….

  "Matt?"

  "Um?"

  "You falling asleep on me?"

  He scrubbed his hands down his face, shook his head to clear the fuzziness and dragged himself up straighter in the chair. "What time is it?"

  "After two."

  "Impossible."

  "But true."

  "I should get going." He ordered his body to drag itself upright. But before he could actually make that happen, she got up and circled the coffee table to stand above him. He squinted up at her. "Huh?"

  She leaned down and put her hands on his shoulders. Those blue eyes were so serious and she was frowning. "No way you're driving anywhere tonight." She captured his hand. "Come on. You can have the spare room."

  He liked the feel of her hand in his and also the way the firelight made her hair shine like spun gold. "Naw."

  She tugged on his fingers. "Get up, Matt."

  "I'm fine here. Really. You go ahead to bed, I'll just sit here and…enjoy the fire."

  "Uh-uh. I know you. You'll snooze for a while and then get up and go. It's not a good idea." She pulled on his hand some more. "Come on with me now. You can make it up the stairs."

  "Acourse I can make it. The question is do I want to make it?"

  "You're going." She spoke flatly, bracing her free hand on her hip.

  He opened his mouth to tell her he wasn't. But then he shut it without a word. He could see that she'd made up her mind. Corrie's mind was one thing a man had no hope of changing. Not once it was made up anyway.

  "Come on, I'll help you." She yanked on his hand for the third time.

  "Corrie."

  "What?"

  "I'm a little high, yeah, but I'm not totally whacked. I can get up and walk up those stairs just fine on my own."

  "Well, all right. Let's go."

  He let her pull him up. Then, gently, he extricated his hand from her grip. "I'm going, all right?"

  "So go."

  He went. Halfway up the stairs, he realized she wasn't behind him. He glanced back. She was turning off the fireplace and switching out the lamps. He waited until she started coming up and then he went the rest of the way to the top and down the upstairs hall into the guest room, where she caught up with him. She flipped the switch by the door and the room became blindingly bright.

  He blinked against the glare. "Ouch. Do we really need that light?" He aimed himself at the bed.

  She grabbed his arm and pushed him down into a chair. "Stay there. I'll change the sheets." She started stripping the bed.

  He considered the strangeness of that. The bed had been all made up, but she was taking it apart? "What're you doing?"

  She shook the pillows out of their pillowcases. "Getting you fresh sheets. Bob stayed over last week and I never got around to changing them."

  It took him about five seconds to process that, but his fuzzy mind finally picked up her meaning. "Hold on. Pastor Bob slept in here?"

  She had the blankets off and the sheets gathered up in her arms by then. "Yeah. So?"

  He frowned in thought. "But you and Bob…you're engaged."

  Her mouth was kind of pinched up. "Is there a point that you're making?"

  "Well, it's only…I mean, why wasn't he sleeping with you?"

  She only looked at him. Her expression did not invite further comment.

  He hit himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand and commented anyway. "Got it. You and Bob don't sleep together. Right?"

  Again, she said nothing.

  So he asked, "Why not?" He couldn't imagine being engaged to Corrie and not having sex with her. What
would be the point?

  Her chin hitched higher. "Not that it's any of your business, but if you have to know, Bob has certain principles."

  "And by that you mean?"

  She answered reluctantly. "We're waiting."

  "Waiting." He pondered the word. "For…Moses to part the waters? For the second coming of…"

  She shut him up with a look. Corrie had a talent with the looks. "If you know what's good for you, Matthew, you'll stop mocking what I have with Bob."

  Okay, yeah. He was a little juiced. But he did know what was good for him and getting Corrie mad wasn't it. "Okey-dokey," he answered cheerfully. Then he slumped back in the chair, leaned his head against the wall and shut his eyes.

  He heard her hustle off. A moment later, she was back and bustling around over by the bed. He let his eyes drift open just as she bent to smooth the elastic on the bottom sheet. It was a great view. She had a beautiful, heart-shaped ass. And also this incredibly sexy tattoo of red roses and black vines that curled diagonally up out of her jeans from the left, across her lower back and halfway around the right side of her waist. From where he sat he could only see a section of it, between the top of her jeans and where her sweater rode up. He hadn't seen all of it in much too long….

  Corrie had a sixth sense as to when a man was looking. Probably from dealing with an endless chain of horny, drunken fools at Armadillo Rose. She glanced back over her shoulder and caught him staring.

  "Oops," he said with a slow grin.

  "You are hopeless, you know that?"

  "Yep. I am. Completely hopeless." He tried to look pitiful.

  She fired the pillows and a pair of pillowcases at him. "Make yourself useful."

  He put the pillowcases on the pillows. That took about a minute. Then he got up and went to help her tuck the blankets in—just to prove he was more than willing to do his share.

  Not that she needed any help. With swift efficiency, she folded and tucked and smoothed. He ended up kind of following her around the bed, tucking what she'd already smoothed, kidding her by bumping against her—with his shoulder and then with his hip.

  "Will you cut it out?" She snorted the words through a half-stifled laugh.

  He bumped her again. She made a sharp noise in her throat and straightened to fold her arms across her middle. He straightened with her.

  "What am I going to do about you?" She was trying really hard to look disgusted.

  They were very close—nose to nose. He found he was getting kind of lost in her eyes. "Blue, deep blue," he heard himself murmur. "I've always loved your eyes. I'm glad Kira got them…."

  "Cut it out, Matt." The words said one thing, but the softness of her lips and her breathless tone said another.

  He had the wildest feeling that if he tried to kiss her, she just might let him. It was probably no more than a drunken delusion. They didn't kiss anymore, not ever, except for the occasional friends-only peck on the cheek.

  And yet. As he looked in those jewel-blue eyes, he couldn't help thinking that she was thinking the same thing he was thinking.

  A kiss. What would a kiss hurt?

  Soon she would marry Bob Thompson, who actually was a decent guy, damn it, and the possibility of Matt's ever kissing her again—ever really kissing her—would diminish exponentially. Funny, but he hadn't thought about that until right now, half-blitzed in her spare room in the middle of the night, staring into those eyes that his daughter had inherited. Those beautiful, crystal-clear, sapphire-blue eyes….

  Never to kiss Corrie again.

  Uh-uh. It wasn't right. Wasn't possible.

  Possible. Yeah. That was the word, wasn't it? That was the thing, the simple possibility. She was not only getting married, she was taking away all the possibilities between them. Just wiping their slate clean. Bare. Empty.

  What they were now—good friends, co-parents—that would be the extent of it. If it ever might have been more again, it never would.

  "Matt?" She whispered his name. She sounded even more breathless than a moment ago.

  He decided not to answer her. Not with words anyway. He only had to bend his head and his lips touched hers.

  "Matt…" She said his name against his mouth. There was tenderness in the way she said it. And confusion. And heat, too.

  He focused on the heat. He reached out and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her, turning the brushing kiss into something deeper.

  Something hotter.

  It was so good, the heat. The wanting. He'd missed it more than he'd realized. For way too many years.

  She put her hands against his chest, pulled her mouth from his. "Matt. No."

  No.

  It was the word a man had zero right to ignore. But he did ignore it—at first. The bed was right there, freshly made, waiting for them. He took her down onto the softness. And he kissed her again, pressing her into the mattress, feeling the shape of her beneath him, so womanly and warm, so well-remembered.

  And in spite of that "no," she was kissing him back, sucking his tongue into her mouth, pushing her hips against him, running her hands up under the sweater he wore. She was acting like no was the last thing she was thinking.

  He wanted to believe that. He wanted to believe her kiss and her curvy body moving against him, wanted to forget that a few moments ago, she had told him to stop.

  But in the end, he couldn't forget it. It was only right to make sure.

  Yeah, he wanted her. Bad. But even half-plowed, he knew that her "no" couldn't be allowed to stand. She had to admit she wanted him, too.

  Either that, or they had to stop.

  Somehow, he made himself break the hungry kiss. He braced up on his hands and he stared down at her, with her blond hair wild around her pretty face, her mouth wet and red and so damn tempting.

  "No?" He dared her. "Did you say no?"

  She called him a very bad word, fisted her fingers up into his hair and tried to yank his mouth down on hers again.

  He winced as she pulled his hair, but he didn't give in. "Answer the question, Corrie."

  She growled low in her throat and gave another yank. That time he let her pull him close. "Shut up," she said against his lips and kissed him again.

  He dragged his mouth away for the second time, caught her wrist, pinned them to the pillow on either side of her head. "Just say yes. Say yes or we can't—"

  "Yes, all right? Yes." She hissed the word.

  "Well." He stared down at her, satisfied. And aroused, too. She felt just right beneath him. And he was so hard for her. Like a rock, despite drinking more wine than he should have. He bent, nuzzled her neck, muttered roughly against her throat, "That's good. That's perfect."

  He raised his head again so he could watch her face as he pressed his hips hard against her. She moaned and lifted up, pressing back, showing him her willingness, her desire. Her sapphire eyes went to midnight, the softest, deepest kind of darkness.

  She whispered his name. "Matt. Oh, Matt…"

  The rest was like a dream he'd been waiting almost six years to have again.

  They kissed. Endless, amazing kisses. They pulled at each others' clothes, unbuttoning, unzipping, pushing everything off.

  And then they were naked. Her skin was hot silk. He rolled her under him and she wrapped her legs around him. He sank into her heat and sweetness.

  It couldn't be happening.

  But it was.

  He was making love to Corrie. Again.

  At last.

  Chapter Two

  Corrine couldn't believe it.

  She could not believe what she'd just done. There was no excuse. Absolutely none.

  She thought of Bob—his open smile, his trusting heart….

  Oh, God, please, she prayed. Let this all be a dream. Let me not be a cheater.

  But it was no dream. And she was a cheater. She had done it, betrayed Bob. Corrine shut her eyes tight. She wished she would never have to open them.

  But then she couldn't keep t
hem closed. She turned her head cautiously to look at Matt. He lay on his back. His eyes were shut. He seemed to be smiling.

  Smiling.

  He'd just helped her ruin her life—and he was smiling.

  She breathed in deep and let it out slowly. She reminded herself that there was nothing to be gained by yelling at him, or by slapping that ridiculous smile right off his face. He'd only given her exactly what she'd asked for.