Colorado 02 Sweet Dreams (74 page)

I stood statue-still, fingers frozen clutching his arm, eyes still locked on the ring.

Tate carried on. “Same people there as tonight, ‘cept your family too.”

I finally pulled my eyes from the ring and looked at the lights of Carnal but I still didn’t speak.

This went on for awhile and Tate’s arms, now both wrapped around me again, gave me a tight squeeze.

“Laurie?” he called.

“You spent thousands of dollars on me for my birthday,” I said, my voice rough, abrasive, sounding weird.

His arms squeezed me tight again but they stayed tight this time.

“Yeah, babe, and I get why you didn’t want to make a big thing about it but that shit’s whacked. That isn’t a lesson to Jonas. The lesson he needs to learn is life goes on and we’re lucky enough to be livin’ it so we should do it, as much as we can, while we got the chance.”

It was like he didn’t speak.

“You spent thousands of dollars on me for my birthday,” I reiterated.

He sighed then replied, “Overhead’s reduced, Ace, shit’s not tight. It ain’t even comfortable. We’re good, more than good.”

“Martinis and top of the line appliances,” I whispered.

I felt Tate’s body shift into hardness when he muttered, “Somethin’ like that.”

I stared at Carnal and Tate’s arms remained around me, his body solid behind me.

“Lauren,” he called again but I didn’t answer, I stared at Carnal, a Nowheresville town that looked magical after midnight. “Shit, baby, give me something,” Tate growled in my ear.

“Brad never remembered my birthday,” I told him.

Tate made a move as if to shift me, turn me toward him but my fingers curled deeper into his arm and he stilled.

“When he asked me to marry him, the first thing I felt was fear,” I went on.

“Ace –”

“Fear because I wanted him and I knew, eventually, I’d make it so he didn’t want me.”

“Lauren –”

“And I did,” I continued.

“Christ almighty, Laurie, I thought we were passed –”

“Not once, not once in all the years I was with him did I feel happy.”

Tate was silent.

“Not even a little,” I said.

Tate remained silent and so did I and we both stayed this way for a long time.

Finally, Tate asked, “You happy now, baby?”

“Yes,” I answered instantly and felt his face in my neck. “A small wedding,” I whispered. “Maybe Ned and Betty will let us have a pool party after.”

His head lifted and his voice was a thick growl when he said, “Sounds good.”

“You fucked up, Captain,” I told him and his arms got even tighter.

“Come again?”

“I’m not drunk anymore. You could have had Drunk Lauren Sex.”

I felt his body moving behind me and I knew it was with laughter.

“I was in the mood to attack,” I informed him. “You could definitely have had it dirty. You could have had anything you wanted.”

“I don’t get that now?” he asked, his voice still thick and now rumbly but with humor.

“Oh yeah, you still get it,” I started to turn, his arms loosened, I faced him and mine went around his neck as I pressed deep into him. “But it’s my birthday and I’m not drunk anymore so now you have to do all the work.”

His mouth came to mine and he muttered, “I’m up for that.”

 I pressed my lips to his, opened my mouth and slid my tongue inside. Tate’s head slanted and his hand sifted into my hair, tilting mine the other way as he took the kiss far deeper and made it much, much better.

When his lips broke from mine, he whispered, “Happy birthday, baby.”

To which, I whispered back, “Love you, Tate.”

His neck bent, his lips brushed mine and then slid to my ear, where he kept whispering, “Love you too, babe.”

I melted completely into my old man thinking how could I ever have not wanted him to call me babe?

Chapter Twenty-Seven

December

The garage door was going up, Tate was turning the key in the ignition and I was strapping in when I remembered to ask Jonas, “Did you get the gift for your teacher?”

“Where was that again?” Jonas asked from the backseat.

I twisted to look at him. “On the kitchen island.”

His eyes hit mine and he muttered, “Whoops.”

“Go get it, Bub,” Tate said from behind the wheel.

I twisted to forward as I heard Jonas unbuckle his seatbelt, open his door and jump from the SUV. As he ran across the front of the truck, I remembered something else, unbuckled my own seat belt, leaned clean across Tate, hit his electric window opener and shouted as the window rolled down, “Did you get your Secret Santa gift?” right before Jonas hit the door to the mudroom.

“It’s in my backpack,” he yelled back.

“And the cookies for your class party?” I bellowed.

Jonas was inside and his disembodied voice could be heard hollering back, “Backpack!”

I closed the window and sat back. I’d buckled my seatbelt again when I felt eyes on me and I looked at Tate to see he was staring at me, a strange look on his face.

“What?” I asked.

“Christ almighty, Ace, you’re like the Christmas Beast.”

My eyes narrowed, Tate watched them and his lips twitched so they narrowed further.

The Christmas Beast, easy for him to say.

He
didn’t buy Christmas cards, write and festively design a witty Christmas letter (with pictures, which I sent to all my old friends in Phoenix because any picture with Tate in it, and I included
loads
of them, would make them all green-eyed with jealousy), print out dozens of letters, sign the cards, address them and send them.

He
didn’t buy presents for everyone we knew, wrap them and deliver them, packing up the ones to send to Indiana because, with baggage restrictions, we couldn’t carry them with us. This meant I had to memorize the post office’s schedule and rush around so I was sure the packages were away on time.

He
didn’t bake twelve dozen Christmas cookies to sell at the Junior Football League’s table at the Christmas Fair in Carnal in an effort to help the Moms raise a bunch of money because the boys needed new jerseys and equipment for the next season.
He
also didn’t man that booth for five hours in the Colorado Mountain cold.

He
didn’t organize, put together party trays, coordinate the staff Secret Santa gift exchange and throw the Christmas party at Bubba’s for staff and regulars and whoever was around including a big bowl of spiked eggnog and another big bowl of spiked, spiced Christmas punch on the bar with the trays covered in cheeses, cold cuts, veggies, varied Christmas treats and bowls of chips in the office for the staff (as well as Jim-Billy, Nadine, Steg, Wings, Stoney and select other regulars) to munch on through shift.
He
also didn’t decorate Bubba’s. Me, Wendy, Jim-Billy, Amber and Krys did.

Further,
he
didn’t have many Christmas decorations at his house but even so,
he
didn’t run around Carnal, Chantelle, Gnaw Bone and the mall finding decorations, lights, Christmas cookie jars (for the personal cookies I made us), Christmas dishtowels and bathroom hand towels (because even bathrooms needed Christmas cheer). Okay, so he set up the tree and he and Jonas did a really good job on the outside lights and they both helped decorate the tree, but the rest of the house was
all me.
We were going to Indiana for Christmas, leaving the next day, but that didn’t mean we didn’t need a little bit of Christmas at home on the lead up to it.

He
also didn’t pack for the three of us to be away for two weeks which I’d already done, mainly because there was a lot to do between now and leaving and I didn’t want to pack in a rush but also because I was excited to go home for Christmas.

And lastly,
he
wasn’t helping to plan the wedding, which I’d already started doing. Sure, it was a small wedding but it was still
a wedding
which required
planning
and a lot of it.

He
went after a skip and was gone for two weeks. Sure, that skip was a high bond and the payoff was mammoth, so mammoth Tate didn’t really have to work for months if he didn’t want to (and it meant I could double the flower and catering budgets for the wedding which Holly, who was doing our flowers, and Shambles, who was doing the catering, were ecstatic about). But still!

“The Christmas Beast?” I asked on a warning whisper.

“Yeah, babe, seriously, half the shit you been doin’ you don’t need to do,” Tate answered.

 I felt pressure in my head indicating it was about to explode.

“I’m sorry?” I was still whispering. “Which part would you leave out? Do you
want
the boys in Junior Football League to have tatty jerseys? Do you
think
we shouldn’t have decorated and given Jonas a festive house, especially
this
Christmas, his first one with us and without his Mom? Do you
think
I should bypass the opportunity to shove my smokin’ hot, badass biker fiancé down the throats of my ex-friends in Horizon Summit? Do you
think
Jonas shouldn’t give his teacher a present when all the other kids are going to do it which will make her think we’re bad parents or Jonas is a shit kid? Hunh? Which part would you leave out, Tate?”

He studied me then deduced on a mutter, “I see the shit you been doin’ is shit you need to do.”

“Damn straight,” I muttered back, straightening in my seat.

“Next year, Laurie, we’re goin’ to a beach,” he told me and I twisted to him.

“We can’t go to a beach!” I screeched. “My mother would have a stroke! Christmas is about family!”

He again studied me and I was thinking that he was thinking much what I thought the night he asked me to marry him (or, more accurately, gave me a ring and told me we were getting married next April which I decided to think was the same thing). That was, there were many of my ways that had or would become clear to him. There were others that would remain a mystery.

“So, you’re sayin’, every year you’re gonna go Christmas crazy?” he asked when Jonas hit the garage carrying the shiny red and green Christmas bag with a big gold, glitter star on it, satin ribbon handles and big tufts of gold, glittered tissue paper spiking out of it.

“Yes,” I answered.

He grinned then murmured, “Good to know.” Jonas jumped into the cab, slammed the door and Tate announced, “Just had the talk with Laurie, Bub, she gets this way at Christmas. Get ready, every December we’re gonna be neck deep in Christmas until the day we die. But, good news is, next year we’ll know to brace.”

Jonas chuckled then said, “Gotcha.”

I jabbed a finger at Tate and snapped, “Scrooge One!” And then twisted in my seat and snapped, “Scrooge Two!”

Jonas burst out laughing.

Tate put the SUV in reverse and backed out of the garage. He was turned in his seat to look out the back window and his smile was wide.

I crossed my arms on my chest, looked out the front window and harrumphed.

* * * * *

I walked out of the office at Bubba’s, turned and locked the door.

I’d just finished the schedule for the next three weeks and finished payroll as well as wrote out the Christmas bonus checks that I’d talked Tate and Krys into giving the staff. They weren’t huge but anything at Christmas was welcome.

A Christmas miracle had happened and Tate had talked Krys into letting Bubba take shifts while we were away. Krys had hired Izzy, a new bartender, and he was good but she also stayed open throughout Christmas, every day just like normal, and with Tate and me both gone, and ski season upon the mountains, she needed an extra pair of hands.

Not to mention, for Tate’s peace of mind, he wanted that extra pair of hands to be the big, bad Bubba.

Bubba had got a job working for Tate’s attorney, Nina Maxwell’s husband Holden Maxwell. It was construction, the job they were doing just finished and Maxwell was giving his crew until the New Year off.

Bubba was already burning the candle at both ends, working construction during the day, sitting on his Harley at three thirty waiting to follow Krys home at night if it wasn’t snowing, that was. If it was snowing or the roads weren’t clear, Bubba sat in a pickup truck that was more beat up even than Jim-Billy’s, but he sat in it every night Krys was on. Still, taking shifts through Christmas would probably seem like a break after the schedule he was keeping.

I walked down the hall and into the bar to see Krys standing inside the bar, bent over it, head close to Jim-Billy who looked, even though it wasn’t even two in the afternoon, like he was drunk as a skunk. She was murmuring to him and Jim-Billy was staring into his beer. This was the third day in a row this had happened.

This was also surprising. Jim-Billy liked his beer and he drank a lot of it but he was no drunk.

The bar was pretty empty, too early for people to be off the slopes and looking for a different kind of fun. It was also a weekday prior to a Christmas where the bar would not close. This meant, to give them some kind of break, I scheduled lots of time off for our staff and only Tate, Krys and me were on and Tate, I suspected, was only there because I was.

I walked around the bar to where Tate was standing, his hips against the back bar, his eyes on Krys and Jim-Billy.

I stopped where he was, got close and put my forearms on the bar. Tate saw me, pushed away and came in close, putting his forearms on either side of mine.

“What’s that all about?” I whispered with a barely there tilt of my head toward Krys and Jim-Billy.

“Christmas,” Tate replied.

“What?”

Tate’s eyes got funny and not in a good way before he explained, “Jim-Billy used to be married to a woman named Elise. Pretty thing, reminded me of Betty. Lots of energy, fuckin’ sweet. They were tight, always tight. Jim-Billy was a trucker but, he was in town, you wouldn’t see them apart.”

“And?” I prompted when he stopped and I did this even though I wasn’t certain, with the way his story had started, that I wanted to know.