Angel's Rest(49)

“I figured as much when you showed up here out of the blue. Don’t you have something better to do on Christmas than babysit an old friend?”

“Actually, I do.” Jack shifted his stare away from the sad excuse of a Christmas tree and met Gabe’s gaze. “I’m headed to one of those other homes I mentioned for a week or so of R, R, and R.”

“Rest, relaxation, and …?”

“Rum. It’s my place in the Caribbean. I just stopped by here to see if you wanted to tag along.”

Gabe rose to his feet. “When do we leave?”

“As soon as you can throw your swimsuit, flip-flops, and a toothbrush in a bag. Although”—Jack gestured toward the tree—“it’s probably best to go ahead and take that down before we go. Fire hazard, you know.”

Emotional hazard, he meant, and he was right. No sense running away from Christmas just to find it waiting for him when he got back. Half an hour later, all sign of the holiday had been returned to boxes and stored out of sight. “What about the dog?” Jack asked. “If he was smaller, we could take him with us, but he won’t ride easily in the bird.”

Gabe looked at the boxer, who responded with a lazy thump of his tail against floor. The obvious person to call for help here would be Nic, but he’d rather eat glass than make that call here in front of Jack. “I’ll text somebody in town to come get him. The letters, too.”

“Excellent. Then let’s roll. I want to watch the sunset from my beach cabana with an umbrella drink in my hand.”

As they left the house, Gabe turned to his friend. “Jack … I … thanks.”

“Merry Christmas, Gabe,” Jack Davenport said with a grin. “You can call me Santa.”


The mouthwatering aroma of roasting turkey wafted through Sarah’s house early in the afternoon on Christmas Day as Nic heard her cell sound the arrival of a text message. She flipped open her phone, checked the message, and her chin dropped. “A text? He sends me a text?”

Sarah looked over her shoulder. “Who sent you a text?”

“That jerk!”

“Your ex?”

Apparently. If she even could be considered an ex. After all, it hadn’t even been a one-night stand. She hadn’t even had a night. “Gabe Callahan.”

“You’re calling Gabe a jerk? Why?”

“Look.”

Nic shoved her phone at Sarah who read aloud. “ ‘Leaving town. Dog @ EW. Code 195847362. Pls get him & letters for C.’ I guess EW means Eagle’s Way, and I guess C is for Celeste? What letters?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. He’s got a lot of nerve. This is Christmas! He shouldn’t expect me to drop what I’m doing and run up to his precious estate.”

Sarah handed back Nic’s phone. “Maybe it’s a trick. Maybe he’s trying to lure you up to his lair. I think he has a thing for you. He looks. I’ve caught him watching you.”

Nic stared at the screen on her cell. She hadn’t told the girls about the Christmas Eve event. What had happened at Eagle’s Way was personal and private and … devastating. For that short time, she’d become a part of Gabe’s pain, and it had destroyed her.

It wasn’t the sex that had left her quaking like a stand of aspens on a breezy day while she drove back to town yesterday. To be honest, sex with Gabe Callahan had been the most thrilling—if not satisfying—of her life. But afterward, to see him lose it, to watch him break down and mourn from the depths of his soul, had literally changed something inside her. Yesterday, through his grief, Gabe had shown her love with a capital L. Love like she’d never experienced.

If it hurt him that much to lose it, think of how wonderful it must have been to live it. How different from her own marriage it must have been.

She’d mourned her marriage and the dreams it had represented when it ended. She had loved Greg, or at least she’d loved the man she’d believed him to be. But even at the very worst of it, she’d never felt even a tenth of the emotion that Gabe had demonstrated yesterday. It had taken her years to recover, to get to the point where she could be ready to try again. If she’d needed years, Gabe Callahan would need decades. Chances were he’d never be ready to love again.

She wasn’t willing to play those odds. How could she compete with a dead woman? She couldn’t, so she wasn’t going to try. She’d played second fiddle enough in her life already. She refused to do it again.