Same Time, Next Christmas (The Bravos 0f Valentine Bay Book 3) Read online

  She moaned his name and wrapped her legs and arms around him, pulling him in so tight against her, as though she couldn’t bear to leave an inch of empty space between her body and his.

  They moved together, hard and fast. There was nothing but the feel of her, the taste of her mouth, the scent of her silky hair tangling around him, the heat of her claiming him, taking him down.

  He gave himself up to it—to her, to this magic between them, to the longing that never left him in the whole year without her.

  “Yes!” she cried, and then crooned his name, “Matthias, missed you. Missed you so much...”

  Just barely, he held himself back from the brink, waiting for her, drawing it out into sweet, endless agony.

  And then, at last, she cried out and he felt her pulsing around him. Through a monumental effort of will, he stayed with her as she came apart in his arms. Finally, with a shout of pure triumph, he gave in and let his finish take him down.

  So tightly, he held her, never wanting to let go.

  But when he finally loosened his hold on her, she gave a gentle push to his shoulders. He took the hint and braced up on his arms to grin down at her.

  But his grin didn’t last.

  She met his gaze, her eyes haunted looking in her flushed face. Her soft mouth trembled. “Oh, Matthias.”

  “What? Sabra, what’s the matter?”

  Her face crumpled and she burst into tears.

  Chapter Nine

  “Sabra—sweetheart, talk to me. Come on, what is it?” Matthias was staring down at her, golden eyebrows drawn together, clearly stunned at this out-of-nowhere crying jag.

  The tears poured from her, blurring her vision. “Sorry. So sorry. I can’t... I don’t...” Apparently, complete sentences were not available to her right now. She sniffled loudly and swiped at her nose.

  “Stay right there,” he instructed, easing his body off hers. She squinted through her blurry eyes, trying to contain her sobs as he removed the condom and tied it off. The tears wouldn’t stop falling.

  Miserable, she turned away from him. Curling herself in a ball, she tried to get control of herself, but for some reason, that only made the tears come faster.

  The bed shifted as he rose.

  A minute later, he touched her shoulder, the gentlest, kindest sort of touch. “Hey. Here you go...”

  With a watery little sob, she rolled back to face him. “Just ignore me. That’s what you should do. Just go on downstairs and—”

  “I’m going nowhere. Here. Take these.” He handed her a couple of tissues.

  “Oh, Matthias.” She swiped at her nose and her cheeks. “This, um, isn’t about you. I hope you know that. I’m so glad to see you. So glad to be with you. But this...” She gestured with the tissues at the whole of herself. “I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t know...what’s the matter with me, to be such a big crybaby right now.” She sniffled and stared up at him, willing him to understand, though she’d said nothing coherent so far, nothing to help him figure out what was bothering her. “I don’t know what I’m saying, even. Because, what am I saying? I have no idea.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it is not.”

  “Well, I can see that. But I mean, between me and you, everything is okay. I’m right here and whatever you need, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you get it.” He got back on the bed with her. “Now, come here.” He took her shoulders gently. She scrambled into his lap like an overgrown child and buried her face against his broad, warm chest. “You’re safe,” he soothed. “I’m right here.” He stroked her hair, petted her shoulder, rubbed his big hand up and down her back.

  She huddled against him, relishing the comfort he offered, matching her breaths to his in order to calm herself, endlessly grateful to have his steady strength to cling to.

  For several minutes, neither of them spoke. He held her and she was held by him. Finally, she looked up to find his eyes waiting.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Talk to me.”

  She sniffled and wiped more tears away. “My dad died.”

  His forehead scrunched up. “Oh, Sabra.” He ran his hand down her hair, brushed a kiss against her still-wet cheek. “When?”

  “In the spring. He, um, it was cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He didn’t get treatment. Not for years, I found out later. And by the time he did, it was too late. He, well, he wanted to die. He told me so, right there at the end—not that he had to tell me. I knew. He never got over my mom’s death. He just, well, he didn’t want to be in this world without her.”

  Matthias pulled her close again. She felt his warm breath brush the crown of her head. “I’m so sorry...”

  She wiped her nose with the wadded-up tissues. “I should feel better about it. I mean, he got what he wanted, right?”

  He kissed her temple. “That doesn’t mean you can’t miss him and want him back with you.”

  “He was ready. He said so.”

  “But you weren’t ready to lose him.”

  She tipped her face up to meet his clear blue eyes again. “You’re right. I wasn’t ready. I also wasn’t there when he needed me. He would always say he was fine and he understood that I needed to get out, make my own way, move to Portland, all that.” Another hard sob escaped her. She dabbed her eyes and shook her head. “I should have tried harder, should have kept after him, gotten him to a doctor sooner. When he said he was all right, I just accepted it, took his word for it. And now, well, he’s gone and I’ve got more regrets than I can name. I can’t bear to sell the farm, but I couldn’t stand to live there, either. It’s like I’m being torn in different directions and I can’t make up my mind, can’t decide which way to go.”

  “So don’t decide.”

  She blinked at him, surprised. “Don’t decide?”

  “Do you have someone you trust taking care of the farm?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “If you don’t have to decide right now, don’t. Wait.”

  “Wait for...?”

  “Until you’re ready.”

  “But I’m a mess. How am I supposed to know when I’m ready?”

  He looked at her so tenderly, not smiling, very serious. But there was a smile lurking in his eyes, a smile that reassured her, that seemed to promise everything would somehow work out right in the end. “The question is, do you think you’re ready to decide about the farm right now?”

  “God, no.”

  “Well, there you go. Take it from someone who’s had a whole hell of a lot of therapy. When you’re grieving, it’s not a good time to have to make big choices. Sometimes life doesn’t cooperate and a choice has to be made anyway. Then you do the best you can and hope it all works out. But you just said you don’t have to decide right this minute. So don’t. Procrastination isn’t always a bad thing.”

  She turned the idea over in her mind. “Don’t decide...”

  “Not until you either have to decide, or you’re sure of what you want.”

  What he said made a lot of sense. “Okay then. I will seriously consider procrastination.” She giggled at the absurdity of it—and realized she felt better. She really did. Sometimes a girl just needed a long, ugly cry and some excellent advice.

  She snuggled in close, enjoying his body heat. For a little while, they simply sat there in the middle of the rumpled bed, holding each other.

  “What about you?” she asked softly. “Any big changes in your life since last Christmas?”

  He told her of his sister-in-law, who’d died in early September after giving birth to twins. “Her name was Lillie. She was only a year older than me, but still, she was kind of a second mother to all of us after our parents died, so losing her is a little like losing our mom all over again.”

  She lifted up enough to kiss his cheek. “That’s so sad.”


  “Yeah. We all miss her. And my brother Daniel, her husband, has always been one of those too-serious kind of guys. Since Lillie died, I don’t think anyone has seen Daniel crack a smile.”

  “Give him time.”

  “Hey. What else can we do?”

  “Life is just so hard sometimes...” She tucked her head beneath his chin and he idly stroked her hair.

  Downstairs, she heard Zoya’s claws tapping the wood floor. The husky gave a hopeful little whine.

  Sabra stirred. “We should get moving. Your dog is lonely and your Jeep is not going to unload itself.”

  * * *

  The next day, Christmas Eve, they decorated the tree and Matt took her out to dinner at that seafood place in Manzanita. When they got back to the cabin, they sat out on the porch until after midnight, laughing together, holding hands between their separate chairs until he coaxed her over onto his lap. It started snowing.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said as they watched the delicate flakes drifting down.

  “And the best kind, too,” he agreed.

  She chuckled and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Yeah. The kind that doesn’t stick.”

  By Christmas morning, the snow had turned to rain.

  All Christmas day and the day after, Matt tried to find the right moment to talk about the future. That moment hadn’t come yet, though. But he was waiting for it, certain he would know when the time was right.

  It was a bittersweet sort of Christmas. Sabra had lost her dad and Lillie was gone from the Bravo family much too soon. Still, Matt was hopeful. He felt close to Sabra—closer than ever, really.

  Every hour with her was a gift, fleeting, gone too soon. But exactly what he needed, nonetheless. She was everything he wanted, everything he’d almost given up hope of having in his life.

  Like last year, they went hiking together. He loved that she enjoyed a good, sweaty hike, that she didn’t mind slogging through the rain on rough, overgrown terrain for the simple satisfaction of doing it, of catching sight of a hawk high in the sky or a misty waterfall from deep in some forgotten ravine.

  He wanted her, all of her. He wanted her exclusively and forever. They were meant to be together. He just knew it was time for them to make it more.

  Too bad that the right moment to ask for her phone number never quite seemed to come.

  And the days? They were going by much too fast.

  * * *

  Five days after Christmas, they got up nice and early. Matt made the coffee and was silent while Sabra had her first cup. They ate breakfast and took Zoya for a walk.

  Back in the cabin, Sabra grabbed his hand and led him upstairs. They peeled off their clothes and climbed into bed. The lovemaking was slow and lazy and so good. It only got really intense toward the end.

  They’d just fallen away from each other, laughing and panting, when Zoya started whining downstairs.

  Sabra sat up, listening. “Is that a car outside?”

  Zoya barked then, three warning barks in succession.

  By then, Matt was out of the bed and pulling on his jeans. “I’ll see what’s up.” He zipped up his pants and ran down the stairs barefoot, buttoning up his flannel shirt as he went.

  The knock on the door came just as he reached the main floor. From the foot of the stairs, he could see out the front windows.

  Parked behind his Jeep and Sabra’s Outback was a Silverado 4x4 with the Oregon State Police logo on the door and State Trooper printed over the front wheel.

  Matt instructed Zoya to sit and opened the door. “Jerry,” he said wearily.

  Jerry grinned. “Hey, buddy. Hope I didn’t interrupt anything. I was in the area and I thought, why not stop in and say hi?”

  As if he didn’t know what his old friend was up to. “You should call first.”

  Jerry got that busted look. “Yeah, well I...” He swiped off his hat and leaned around him. “Hey!”

  “Hello,” Sabra said as she came up beside him wearing the sweater and jeans he’d taken off her a half hour before.

  Matt introduced them.

  Sabra seemed okay with Jerry dropping in. Matt had mentioned his friend to her in passing more than once. She was aware that Jerry and Matt had known each other most of their lives.

  Really, it shouldn’t be a big deal, but it pissed Matt off that Jerry had dropped in without checking first, mostly because of what Jer had said that night in September, about how he had to meet Sabra, had to see what was so special about her.

  “You want some coffee?” Matt asked grudgingly, causing Sabra to shoot him a questioning frown. She’d guessed from his tone that he wasn’t happy.

  Jerry gave a forced laugh. He knew he was out of bounds. “Coffee would be great.”

  They had coffee and some Christmas cookies Sabra had brought. They made casual conversation. Jerry said the tree was beautiful and too bad the snow hadn’t stuck at least through Christmas day and blah-blah-blah. At least he was charming and friendly with Sabra.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Matt said when Jerry got up to go.

  “Uh, sure.” Jerry said how great it was to have met Sabra and she made the same noises back at him.

  “I’ll be right back,” Matt promised.

  She gave him a nod, and he followed Jerry out to his patrol truck.

  “Okay, what?” mumbled Jerry when they reached the driver’s door. “Just say it.”

  “You got a phone. I got a phone. Why didn’t you call first?”

  Jerry put his hat back on. “I wanted to meet her, okay? I was afraid you’d say no.” Matt just looked at him, dead-on. Jerry stuck his hands in his pockets. “All right, yeah. I should have called. And I’m sorry.” He looked kind of sad.

  And why was it always damn-near impossible to stay pissed off at Jerry? “I told you the situation. As of now, friends and family don’t enter into what I have with her.”

  “I get it. My bad.”

  “Don’t pull anything like that again.”

  “Never.” Jerry looked appropriately chastised—but then he slanted Matt a hopeful glance. “She’s hot and I like her—and you said ‘as of now’? You’re planning to take it to the next level, then? Because really, man, I only want you to get whatever makes you happy.”

  Matt kind of wanted to grab his friend and hug him. But he needed to be sure that Jerry got the message. “Stay out of it, Jer.”

  “Yeah. I hear you, man. Loud and clear.” He climbed in behind the wheel. “Happy New Year, buddy.”

  “Happy New Year.”

  * * *

  “I liked your friend,” Sabra said when Matt got back inside the cabin.

  “Everybody likes Jer. He told me he thinks you’re hot.”

  One side of her gorgeous mouth quirked up in a reluctant smile. “I’m flattered—I think.” She caught the corner of her lip between her teeth, hesitating.

  “Go ahead and say it.”

  “Well, is everything okay with you and him? You seemed kind of annoyed with him.”

  His heart rate accelerated and his skin felt too hot. He wanted to tell her, right then, how he felt, what he longed for with her.

  Was this it, the right time, finally? He stared at her unforgettable face that he missed the whole year long and ached to go for it, this very minute, to finally ask her to consider giving him more than the holidays.

  Staring at her, though? It never was enough. He reached out and slipped his hand under the silky fall of her hair. Curling his rough fingers around her smooth nape, he pulled her nice and close. She tipped up her chin and he claimed a kiss.

  And when he lifted his head, somehow the moment to ask the big question had passed.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  “I wasn’t happy that he just dropped in without calling, that’s all.”

  “Isn’t that k
ind of what friends do?”

  “Sure, mostly. But Jerry knows.”

  “About us, you mean?”

  He nodded. “I told him that I’m crazy about you.”

  She smiled then, a full-out smile. “You did?”

  He wished she would smile at him like that every day. Every day, all year round. “Absolutely. Jerry knows we just have Christmastime, that it’s just you and me, away from our real lives.”

  “So, if he’d asked first, you would have told him to stay away?”

  “I don’t know. I would’ve asked you. Found out how you felt about his coming by. We would have decided together.” And now he had to know. “How do you feel about it?”

  She was biting the corner of her lip again. “I guess you’re right. It’s supposed to be just us, just for the holidays. Inviting our friends in isn’t part of the deal.”

  Ouch. That wasn’t at all what he’d hoped she might say.

  Tell her. Ask her. Do it now.

  But he hesitated a moment too long.

  And she asked, “When you went out to the truck with him, did you make it up with him?”

  He let the main issue go to answer her question. “I did. I can never stay mad at Jerry.”

  “Well, good.” She stepped in close again, put her slim hands on his chest and slid them up to link around his neck. “What do you say we take Zoya for a nice long walk?” At their feet, the husky whined her approval of that suggestion. “The weather’s just right for it.”

  He grunted. “Yeah, cloudy with a chance of rain.”

  “Welcome to Oregon.” She kissed him, after which they put on their boots and took the dog outside.

  The rest of that day was gone in an instant and the night that followed raced by even faster.

  All of a sudden, it was New Year’s Eve. Time for naked Scrabble and naked Clue—naked everything, really. Matt and Sabra only got dressed to take the dog outside.

  At midnight, they toasted in the New Year with a nice a bottle of champagne courtesy of Sabra. Upstairs, they made love again. And again after that.