Christine Rimmer - Same Time, Next Christmas

“And now you run a restaurant.”

“The chef would disagree. But yeah. I manage the waitstaff, the hiring, supervising and scheduling, all that.”

He shifted in the hard chair, wincing a little.

“Your leg is bothering you,” she said. “We should go in.”

“I like it out here.” He seemed to be studying her face.

“What?”

“I like you , Sabra.” From the snow-covered trees, an owl hooted. “I like you very much, as a matter of fact.”

A little thrill shivered through her. She relished it. And then she thought about James. She’d almost married him less than a week ago. It was turning out to be much too easy to forget him.

“What’d I say?” Matthias looked worried.

“Something nice. Too bad I’m not looking for anything remotely resembling romance.”

“It’s not a problem,” he said in that matter-of-fact way of his. “Neither am I.”

She felt a flash of disappointment, and quickly banished it. “Excellent. No romance. No...fooling around. None of that. We have a deal.”

He nodded. “Agreed. And I sense a story here. You should tell it to me.”

“Though you won’t tell me yours?”

“I’m sure yours is more interesting than mine.” Again, he shifted. His leg hurt. He just refused to admit it.

“I’m braver than you, Matthias.”

He didn’t even try to argue the point. “I have no doubt that you are.”

“I’ll put it right out there, tell you all about my failures in love.”

He looked at her sideways. “You’re after something. What?”

She laughed. “I’m not telling you anything until you come back inside.”

In the cabin, they hung their coats by the door. Matt took off his boots and settled on the sofa with his bad leg stretched out.

“You want some hot chocolate or something?” she offered.

Was she stalling? He wanted that story. He gestured at the armchair. “Sit. Start talking.”

She laughed that husky laugh of hers. The sound made a lightness inside him. She was something special, all right. And this was suddenly turning out to be his favorite Christmas ever.

She took off her own boots, filled his water glass for him and put another log on the fire.

Finally, she dropped into the brown chair across the coffee table from him. “Okay. It’s like this. I’ve been engaged twice. The first time was at Santa Cruz. I fell hard for a bass-playing philosophy major named Stan.”

“I already hate him.”

“Why?”

“Was he your first lover?” As soon as he asked, he wished he hadn’t. A question like that could be considered to be crossing a certain line.

But she didn’t seem turned off by it. “How did you know?”

“Just a guess—and I’m not sure yet why I hate him. Because I like you , I think, and I know it didn’t last with him. I’m guessing that was all his fault.”

“I don’t want to be unfair to Stan.”

Matt laughed. It came out sounding rusty. He wasn’t a big laugher, as a rule. “Go ahead. Be unfair to Stan. There’s only you and me here. And I’m on your side.”

“All right, fine.” She gave a single, definitive nod. “Please feel free to hate him. He claimed to love me madly. He asked me to marry him.”

“Let me guess. You said yes.”

“Hey. I was twenty-one. Even though losing my mom had rocked the foundations of my world, I still had hopes and dreams back then.”

“Did you move in together?”

“We did. We had this cute apartment not far from the ocean and we were planning an earthcentric wedding on a mountaintop.”

“But the wedding never happened.”

“No, it did not. Because one morning, I woke up alone. Stan had left me a note.”

“Don’t tell me the note was on his pillow.”

Stifling a giggle, she nodded.

“Okay, Sabra. Hit me with it. What did the note say?”

“That he couldn’t do it, couldn’t marry me. Marriage was just too bougie, he wrote.”

“ Bougie? He wrote that exact word?” At her nod, he said, “And you wondered why I hate Stan.”

“He also wrote that I was a good person, but I didn’t really crank his chain. He had to follow his bliss to Austin and become a rock star.”

“What a complete douchebasket.”

“Yeah, I guess he was, kind of.”

“ Kind of? People shouldn’t make promises they don’t mean to keep.”

Sabra sat forward in the big brown armchair.

Was he speaking from painful experience? She really wanted to know. But he didn’t want to talk about himself—not as of now, anyway. And those deep blue eyes had turned wary, as though he guessed she was tempted to ask him a question he wouldn’t answer.

“Keep talking,” he commanded. “What happened after Stan?”

“After Stan, I decided that my judgment about men was out of whack and I swore to myself I wouldn’t get serious with a guy until I was at least thirty.”

Now he was looking at her sideways, a skeptical sort of look. “Thirty, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“And as of today, you are...?”

“Twenty-five,” she gave out grudgingly.

“And why am I thinking you’ve broken your own rule and gotten serious since Stan?”

“Don’t gloat, Matthias. It’s not attractive—and you know, I kind of can’t believe I’m telling you all this. I think I’ve said enough.”

“No. Uh-uh. You have to tell me the rest.”

“Why?”

“Uh.” His wide brow wrinkled up. “Because I’m an invalid and you are helping me through this difficult time.”

She couldn’t hold back a snort of laughter. “I really think you’re going to survive whether I tell you about James or not.”

“So. The next guy’s name is James?”

She groaned. “The next guy? Like there’ve been a hundred of them?”

He sat very still. She could practically see the wheels turning inside his big head. “Wait. I think that came out wrong.”

“No, it didn’t. Not at all. I’m just messing with you.”

“You’re probably thinking I’m a jerk just like Stan.” He looked so worried about that. She wanted to grab him and hug him and tell him everything was fine—and that was at least the second time tonight she’d considered putting her hands on him for other than purely medical reasons.

It had to stop.

“No,” she said. “I honestly don’t think you’re a jerk—and look, Matthias, I’ve been meaning to ask you...”

Matthias felt like a jerk, whether or not Sabra considered him one. He’d been having a great time with her, like they’d known each other forever.

Until he went and put his foot in it. As a rule, he was careful around women. He wasn’t ready for anything serious, so he watched himself, made sure he didn’t give off the wrong signals.

But Sabra. Well, already she was kind of getting under his skin. There was so damn much to admire about her— and she was fun. And hot.

But they’d agreed that the man/woman thing wasn’t happening. He was friend-zoned and he could live with that. Anything more, well...

It would be too easy to fall for her. And he didn’t want to fall for anyone. Not yet. Maybe never. The last year or so, he’d finally started to feel like his life was back on track. True, getting something going with a woman could turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to him.

But it might send him spinning off the rails.

He just wasn’t ready to find out which.

“Do you maybe have some sweats I could wear?” she asked. “Something soft to sleep in would be great...”

She was going to bed now? It wasn’t much past nine.

No doubt about it. He’d definitely screwed up.

“Uh, sure,” he said, and tried not to let his disappointment show. “Take anything you want from whatever’s upstairs.”