Married Till Christmas

Chapter Two

Declan McGrath had done what he set out to do. He’d created the success he’d always wanted.

This year, his company, Justice Creek Barrels, had made number 245 on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing companies. The broke nobody from the wrong side of town had officially arrived.

He had it all. Except Nell, who was stubborn, full of pride and unwilling to let go of the past and admit that they belonged together.

Didn’t matter, though. She could keep on refusing him. He wouldn’t give up.

And, one way or another, she would finally be his.

This, tonight, was a big step. She’d actually said yes to him, even if it was only for a drink. He had to go carefully with her, he reminded himself. If he got too eager, pushed too fast, she’d be off like a shot.

Still, as he led her to a quiet corner booth at the casino/hotel’s most secluded bar, he had a really hard time suppressing a hot shout of triumph. Or at the very least, a fist pump or two.

She slid into the booth on one side and he took the other. The light overhead brought out the deep, gorgeous red of her hair. Her eyes, green as a secret jungle lagoon, watched him warily.

God, she was beautiful. Even more so than when she used to love him. And back then she’d been the most beautiful girl in the world. All the guys had wanted a chance with her.

But she’d only wanted him.

He’d thrown her away. Sometimes even a smart guy made really bad choices.

It had taken him eleven years and a failed marriage to face the truth that he was one of those guys. He didn’t love easy, but when he finally did, that was it. She was it, the one for him. For four never-ending months now, he’d been actively pursuing her. In all that time, she’d never given so much as a fraction of an inch.

Until tonight.

Her mother had been right. He’d needed to get her away from Justice Creek and all the reminders of how bad he’d messed up with her back in the day. Vegas was the perfect place to finally get going on the rest of their lives together.

Now, if he could just keep from blowing this...

* * *

Nell tried to figure out where to begin with him as the waitress came, took their orders and returned with their drinks.

When the waitress left the table for the second time, Nell took a sip of her cosmo and jumped in. “Why me—and why won’t you take a hint that I’m just not interested?”

He stared into his single malt, neat, as if the answer to her question waited in the smoky amber depths. “I don’t believe you’re not interested. You just don’t trust me.”

“Duh.” She poured on the sarcasm and made a big show of tapping a finger against her chin. “Let me think. I wonder why?”

“How many times do I need to say that I messed up? I messed up twice. I’m so damn sorry and I need you to forgive me. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. And...” He shook his head. “Fine. I get it. I smashed your heart to tiny, bloody bits. How many ways can I say I was wrong?”

Okay. He was kind of getting to her. For a second there, she’d almost reached across the table and touched his clenched fist. She so had to watch herself. Gently she suggested, “How about this? I accept your apology. It was years ago and we need to move on.”

He slanted her a sideways look, dark brows showing glints of auburn in the light from above. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So then we can try again?”

Should she have known that would be his next question? Yeah, probably. “I didn’t say that.”

“I want another chance.”

“Well, that’s not happening.”

“Yes, it is. And when it does, I’m not letting you go. This time it’s going to be forever.”

She almost grinned. Because that was another thing about Deck. Not only did he have big arms, broad shoulders and a giant brain.

He was cocky. Very, very cocky.

And she was enjoying herself far too much. It really was a whole lot of fun to argue with him. It always had been. And the most fun of all was finally being the one in the position of power.

Back when they’d been together, he was the poor kid and she was a Bravo—one of the Bastard Bravos, as everybody had called her mother’s children behind their backs. But a Bravo, nonetheless. Her dad had had lots of money and he’d taken care of his kids, whether he’d had them by his wife or by her mother, who was his mistress at the time. Nell always had the right clothes and a certain bold confidence that made her popular. She hadn’t been happy at home by any stretch, but guys had wanted to go out with her and girls had kind of envied her.

And all she’d ever wanted was Deck. So, really, he’d had all the power then.

Now, for some reason she didn’t really understand, he’d decided he just had to get another chance with her. Now, she was the one saying no. Payback was a bitch, all right. Not to mention downright delicious.

He finally took a slow sip of his Scotch. “Look. It almost killed me to lose you. But I couldn’t afford you then. You have to know that. I had things to do, stuff to make happen.” His eyes were brown in this light, brown and soft and so sincere. “I had nothing to give you then.”

“I wanted nothing from you and you know that. Nothing but your love.”

He looked away. She stared at the side view of his Adam’s apple. Just like old times. “Come on, Nellie. I had too much to prove. It would never have worked then.”

He was probably right. “And it’s not going to work now.” She leaned across the table toward him, held his gaze steady on and concentrated on trying really hard to get through to him. “I don’t trust you. I can’t trust you. It’s not that I hate you. I don’t. I don’t despise you. I just want you to let it go. Leave me be and move on.”

He drank more Scotch. “Have dinner with me.” She opened her mouth to say no, but then he reached out and covered her hand with his. The words backed up in her throat. “Just dinner.” His grip was hot and a little bit rough, and it felt unbelievably right.

How could that be? Words and breaths and even her heart felt all tangled up together in the base of her throat, all tied in hot, sweet, hurtful knots. She opened her mouth to tell him no and he slid his thumb under her fingers, into the vulnerable secret center of her palm, and squeezed, just a little.

Impossibly, she squeezed back. The light from above caught in his eyes, burned in them.

She swallowed, hard. “It would...only be dinner.”

The flame in his eyes leaped higher. Dear, sweet Lord, had she really said that? She needed to take it back this instant. She pulled free.

He didn’t try to hold on, just slid his hand back to his side of the table and said in a neutral tone, “Only dinner. That’s good.”

And she couldn’t help thinking that, really, what could it hurt? Here, in this glittery, sprawling desert city where nobody knew them? It could be a good way, a graceful way, to finally say goodbye.

* * *

He took her to the hotel’s French restaurant, Quatre Trèfles. The food was wonderful and there were several courses, different wines offered with each new dish.

Nell drank sparingly. She planned a full day at the trade show tomorrow and didn’t want to be hungover. Plus, she needed all her wits about her when dealing with the impossible man across the white-clothed table from her.

Deck looked so good by candlelight. It burnished his thick brown hair and brought out the wicked gleam in his eyes. She had to watch herself around him, she really did. She wanted to handle this goodbye evening with grace.

There was actual chitchat. He asked how she’d gotten into business with Garrett. She explained that after two years at Colorado State, she’d had enough of college. Garrett was doing pretty well building houses. She’d started out working for him. They got along well together.

She laughed. “He’s always calling me a pain in his ass.”

“But he couldn’t get along without you.”

“You’ve got that right. A few years back, he wanted to start building spec houses. I put in some of my inheritance for that and we became partners.”

Deck talked about his barrel business, which he’d started eight years ago in the garage of the house he’d been living in then. At the time, he’d tended bar at Teddy’s Bar on East Central Street. Essentially, Justice Creek Barrels found and sold whiskey and wine barrels to winemakers, breweries and distilleries. His company also made barrel furniture and other custom barrel-based gadgets and knickknacks. In the time he’d been building JC Barrels, he’d also managed to get a business degree, taking classes online and at State.

She asked about his sister, Marty. “I heard she got married.”

“Yeah. His name’s Hank Jackson. He’s a good guy.”

“I’m glad.”

“They live in Colorado Springs. And as of three weeks ago, I’m an uncle.”

“Wow.” Nell remembered Deck’s younger sister as too thin and painfully shy, one of those girls who seemed to want to be invisible. “A boy or a girl?”

“Little boy.”

“Have you seen him?”

He nodded. “Hank called me when Marty went into labor. I drove straight to the hospital.”

“You were there for the birth?” For some reason, the thought of him jumping in his big, black Lexus SUV and racing to be there for his nephew’s birth did a number on her heartstrings.

“Well, I sat in the waiting room for four hours, until the baby was born. Eventually, they let me in to see them. Marty was exhausted, but she was smiling. And I got to hold the baby. They named him Henry, after Hank.”

“Give Marty my best?”

“Sure.”

“And, um, your dad?” Keith McGrath had been a major issue between them, when it all went to hell. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned him, but avoiding the subject would have felt like cowardice on her part. Plus, the whole point of spending this evening with him was to let the past go.

“I don’t see him often.” Deck’s voice lacked inflection. He sounded careful. Too careful. “But he’s all right. He manages an apartment complex in Fort Collins, does a little carpentry on the side. He’s, uh, been doing pretty well the past couple of years.”

“Excellent.” She allowed herself a small sip of wine.

Deck regarded her distantly for several uncomfortable seconds—and then he changed the subject, which was fine with her. Great, as a matter of fact. It was only an evening they were sharing, not the rest of their lives. Yes, she wanted to talk honestly, but they didn’t need to get into anything too messy.

After dinner, they gambled a little.

And then, around ten, he suggested, “Take a walk outside with me?”

She wanted to, she really did. But it was too cold out and, really, she ought to just tell him good-night. “It’s windy and in the forties out there and my jacket is upstairs.”

“No problem. We’ll go up, get our coats. You can put on some walking shoes if you want to.”

She let him take her arm and lead her to the elevators.

They went up to her floor first. She let him in her room, because to make him wait in the hallway would have been as good as admitting she felt awkward being with him in a room with a bed. It only took a moment anyway, to change into flats and grab her coat.

They got back on the elevator. He had a suite on the penthouse floor. She stood in the living area and gazed out over the waterfall lagoon below and the lights of the strip farther out as he disappeared into the bedroom.

“What do you see down there?”

She turned and gave him a smile. “Bright lights.” He’d thrown on a gorgeous leather jacket and she couldn’t help remembering his hand-me-down shirts and beat-up Vans with the holes in them back when they were kids.

Down on the main floor, they went out the lobby entrance, under the porte cochere and around the famous waterfalls and the minilake out front. As they strolled under the palm trees, she buttoned up her coat against the wind.

And when he took her hand?

She let him. Because this was a real goodbye at last, and it felt good to be with him finally in this friendly, easy way. If touching him still thrilled her more than it should, well, so what?

She wouldn’t act on that thrill. She was only enjoying a last, companionable evening with an old flame, making peace with the past, ending things gracefully.

At a little after midnight, he took her back to her room. He didn’t try to kiss her at her door. Which was great. A kiss would be too intimate and she would have ducked away.

With a whispered “Goodbye, Deck,” she went in and shut the door.

* * *

The next day, she half expected to find him waiting in the hallway outside her room when she went down for breakfast.

He wasn’t. And she was not disappointed. Last night had been perfect. She’d had a great evening with him; however, it really was over between them and had been for eleven years. He must be on his way home by now.

After breakfast, she went to the trade show and spent the morning watching installation demonstrations and connecting with granite, marble, tile, concrete and quartz composite distributors. At around eleven, she met up with Sherry Tisbeau, who lived in Seattle and worked with her husband, Zach. Tisbeau Development built condos mostly. Nell had struck up a friendship with Sherry a few years back. They’d met in LA at Build Expo USA. This trip, Sherry had brought along Alice Bates, the Tisbeau office manager.

At half past noon, just as Sherry was suggesting they ought to go get some lunch, Nell spotted a guy who looked like Deck. He lounged against the wall by a granite dealer’s booth about twenty feet away, a glossy brochure in front of his face. Her pulse started racing and her stomach got quivery.

As she gulped and stared, he lowered the brochure, revealing that gorgeous, dangerous slow smile. Every nerve in her body went on red alert. It felt amazing. Invigorating. And scary, too.

She knew she was in trouble and somehow didn’t even care.

She turned to Sherry. “Listen. I see an old friend and I need to spend some time with him. I’m going to have to take a rain check on lunch.”

Sherry gave her a hug and reminded her to keep in touch. A moment later, the two women were gone and Deck stood at her side.

She met those eyes and felt as light as a sunbeam, fizzy as a just-opened bottle of Dom Pérignon. It had to stop. She needed to remind him that they’d said goodbye last night. And then she needed to leave. If she hurried she could catch up with Sherry and Alice.

About then, she noticed the lanyard around his neck and the official trade-show badge hanging from it.

“You stole someone’s badge,” she accused.

His grin only deepened, revealing that dimple on the left side of his mouth. “They wouldn’t let me in here without one.” Way back when, she used to watch for it, that dimple. She used to hope for it. It only appeared when he let himself relax. He rarely relaxed back then. He was constantly on guard.

How completely things had changed.

He took the badge between his fingers. “But then, luckily, I found this one on the floor outside—and it’s not stealing if I found it on the floor.”

Just turn and leave him standing here. Walk away and don’t look back.

But she didn’t budge. Instead, she opened her mouth and something stupid came out. “We’re here in Vegas. Stuff happens in Vegas and that stuff is meaningless. That’s all this is.”

He gave her the lifted eyebrow. “Meaningless, you mean?”

“That’s right. It’s just for now. Nothing more. Nothing changes when we go home. I have my life, you have yours.”

For way too many glorious seconds, they simply regarded each other. She had that sense she used to get with him, when they were together so long ago. The sense that they were the only two people on the planet.

Finally, he asked, “Hungry?”

She slipped her arm in his. It felt absolutely right there. “Starved.”

* * *

She never returned to the convention floor.

They had lunch and then they played the slots. She had a great time.

Was she being an idiot?

Oh, absolutely. She knew she shouldn’t give the guy an inch.

But he was so much fun—a lot more than he used be, now that’d he’d found the success he’d always craved. There was an easiness about him now, a confidence that made him even more attractive than before, if that was possible. She liked just being with him.

And why shouldn’t she indulge herself? Just a little. Just for this short time that they were both here in Vegas.

She got lucky and won a thousand-dollar jackpot. She collected her winnings.

Then he suggested a couple’s visit to the hotel spa, of all things. No way she was passing up an offer like that.

They took mud baths side by side and he told her all about the things you could make with a barrel, everything from cuff links to wall clocks, chandeliers to yard art. They got massages, their two tables pushed together. It was intimate in the most relaxing, luxurious sort of way. And she went ahead and allowed herself to love every minute of it.

After that, they had facials, then mani-pedis. Somehow, he looked manlier than ever, sitting in that pedicure chair as a sexy blonde took an emery board to his toes.

It was a little past six when he left her at the door to her room.

“I’ll be back for you at seven thirty,” he said in a tone that teased and warned simultaneously. “Be ready.”

She was ready, all right. In her favorite short black dress, sleeveless and curve-hugging with a cutaway back, her red hair pinned up on one side by a rhinestone comb, wearing killer black heels with red soles. His eyes darkened when she opened the door to him, and his gaze moved down her body, stirring up sparks. He wore a gorgeous graphite suit and she wondered how she’d gotten here, about to spend an evening that could only be called romantic with the penniless, dark, damaged boy she used to love, the boy who’d grown up to run his own company and look completely at ease in the kind of suit you couldn’t buy off a rack.

She grabbed her beaded clutch and her metallic Betsey Johnson wrap and off they went.

Down at the lobby entrance, beneath the porte cochere, he had a car waiting. She sat beside him on the plush leather seat and stared out the tinted side window as they rolled by one giant pleasure palace after another, the bright lights melting into each other, gold, green, red, purple, blue. Eventually, the driver turned down a side street and stopped in front of modest-looking restaurant with a red-and-white-striped awning over the door.

Inside, they sat beneath a stained glass ceiling with chandeliers shaped like stars. They had champagne and caviar, lobster bisque and the best filet mignon she’d ever tasted, the meat melting like butter on her tongue.

Okay, yeah. It was dangerous, doing this with him. Every moment she spent near him she could feel herself giving in to him, the sharp edges she used to protect herself leaving her, morphing into vulnerable softness that invited his touch.

He leaned across the table and so did she. She shouldn’t have, but she was full of a happy, giddy sort of longing—to savor every minute, to get closer.

And closer.

And then he touched her, so lightly, a brush of his index finger across the back of her hand, over the bones of her wrist, up her forearm, drawing the nerves with him, making a trail of pleasured sensation along her skin. She shivered, a hot kind of shiver, the kind that promised forbidden delights to come.

“It really can’t happen,” she whispered.

“Why not?” That voice of his, sweet and rough, was like raw molasses pouring out.

She was in trouble. Worse, she was loving it. “A thousand reasons. It’s over. You know it. It’s been over for years.”

“Nellie.” His finger at her elbow, sliding higher, over the bright tattoo that covered the evidence of what he had been to her. “It doesn’t feel over. That’s what I know. And you know it, too, whatever lies you think you have to tell yourself.”

She caught his hand, gently pushed it away. She sipped more champagne and treated her taste buds to another wonderful bite of buttery steak. “This is like some kind of dream. And I really need to wake up.”

A moment later, he somehow had her hand in his. He turned it over, smoothed open her fingers and pressed those warm, soft lips of his into the heart of her palm, his breath like a brand on her skin, his beard scruff tickling just a little. “Remember that first time?”

“Oh, God. In a tent.” They’d been seventeen. It was the summer between their junior and senior years, and they’d hiked up into the National Forest, to Ice Castle Falls, pitching the patched-up tent he’d brought in the center of a clear spot, a miniature meadow not far from the falls.

She’d told her mother that she was going camping with a group of kids. Willow might have been Frank Bravo’s accomplice in cheating on his wife Sondra for more than two decades, but when it came to her daughters, she had certain rules. No overnights with a boy as long as Nell was underage. So she’d lied and said she was sharing a tent with Shonda Hurly, a friend from school. Deck hadn’t needed to make up stories about his plans. His father had a lot of stuff going on and pretty much let Deck do what he wanted.

Across the table, still holding her open palm in his hand, Deck said, “I couldn’t believe I got so lucky, to spend a whole night with you.”

“Too bad about the ants.” She laughed and he laughed with her. And then the laughter faded. They watched each other across the table, the tender old memory fresh and new between them. They’d gotten down to their underwear before they realized they’d pitched the tent on an anthill. “I did a lot of shrieking, as I recall.”

“They were all over you.”

She’d slithered out of the tent, twisting and turning in the moonlight in her white cotton panties and sports bra, madly slapping ants away. Deck had followed her out. He’d put his hands on her shoulders and told her to stand still. And she had. She’d stilled—for him. And he had run his hands all over her, starting with her hair, her neck, her shoulders and on down, until all the ants were gone and there was only his tender, wonderful touch.

Then he’d gathered her close to him, pressed his lips to her temple, her forehead, her mouth. She’d kissed him back, twining her arms around his neck, whispering of her love.

It was chilly up there in the mountains at night, even in summer. So they shook out their clothes and put them back on and moved the tent to the other side of the cleared space.

And then they’d crawled back inside, wrapped their arms around each other—and been each other’s first time. She remembered it as awkward and intense. And beautiful, too.

Even later, after he’d stomped all over her heart, she couldn’t quite bring herself to regret choosing him for her first.

* * *

The car was waiting out in front when they left the restaurant.

She felt so soft and pliant by then, her mind a happy haze from the champagne and the wonderful food, the sweet, shared memories—and Deck. Laughing with her. Touching her. Reminding her of just how good it used to be.

When he pulled her down across his lap, she let him. She kicked off her shoes, folded her legs on the seat and gazed up at his wonderful face as the bright lights flowed over him, turning his skin from gold to red to blue. He smelled of some dark spice, familiar in the deepest way. She could ride like this forever, her head in his lap, wrapped in the scent of him.

In no time, the car glided in beneath the porte cochere at their hotel. She sat up, smoothed her hair and slipped her shoes back on.

Inside, he took her hand and she let him. He led her straight to the elevators. They went up. She made no objection when the car kept right on gliding upward past her floor.

At the door to his suite, she hesitated. “We’re going to have to...” That was as far as she got, because his arms went around her.

“Listen,” he said.

“What?”

And then he kissed her for the first time in over a decade.

She couldn’t suppress the low, pleasured hum that escaped her as his lips met hers. He just felt so good. And, well, she wanted it, that kiss, wanted those strong arms around her. So she didn’t push him away.

On the contrary, she pulled him closer, sliding her hands up that hard chest of his, up and over his thick shoulders to clasp around his big neck. He tasted of the cinnamon in the coffee they’d had after dinner—hot and wet and so very right.

Her wrap slithered to the rug at their feet and she hardly noticed it was gone.

He was...bigger. Broader. More encompassing than before. She’d known that already. After all, she had eyes. But there was something so much more immediate about feeling it, about having him hold her, surround her. His body gave off waves of heat. That hadn’t changed. And he smelled even better than she remembered—of that unnameable, too-tempting spice and also faintly of some no doubt ridiculously expensive cologne.

“We have to talk,” she blurted out anxiously when he finally lifted his head.

“That’s a bad idea.” His hands brushed up and down her arms and she knew he was soothing her, settling her to his will. The ploy should have annoyed her, would have annoyed her if only his touch didn’t set her on fire.

How long had it been since she’d felt this way, like she might burst out of her skin with longing? Like if she didn’t make love with this guy tonight, she just might crumple to the floor in a swoon of unsatisfied lust, of thwarted desire?

Too long. Forever. A lifetime, at least.

Not for eleven years, if she let herself be painfully honest about it. Deck just...did it for her in a big way.

No other guy even came close.

Not that she would ever tell him that.

Somehow, she made her lips form the words that had to be said first. “We need to set boundaries.”

A couple of swear words escaped him.

She put the tips of her fingers to those wonderful lips. He stuck out his tongue and licked them. She almost gave it all up right then, grabbed him close again, kissed him hard and long, demanded he take her to his bed right this minute.

But no. Things had to be said. Though she shouldn’t be doing this, right now her yearning exceeded her need for self-protection by an alarming degree. She just couldn’t resist him tonight.

But they needed a clear agreement as to how it would be. “We talk first.”

“Nellie—”

“We talk first or I’ll say good-night.”

“You can’t go now.”

“Watch me.” She tried to step back.

He only held on. But at least her insistence had gotten through to him. He gave in to her demand with a reluctant nod. “All right. We’ll talk.”

Bending, he picked up her wrap and handed it to her. She took it gingerly, draping the filmy, glittery fabric over her arm as he turned away to run his key card past the reader. The green light flashed.

He pushed open the door.