Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Weaver Christmas Gift\The Soldier's Holiday Homecoming\Santa's Playbook (8 page)

“You and Jane been friends long?”

Casey met the other man's eyes. “Since she bought Colbys.” He remembered the first time he'd met her. He'd thought she was beautiful. And a snob. They'd gotten along like oil and water. Calling themselves friends for that duration was an exaggeration. One he didn't feel a speck of conscience over, even if they were in a church.

He'd learned she was no snob. But it seemed the oil-and-water thing still applied as often as not.

Unless they were in bed together.

He brushed aside the thought.

“The bar and grill's become more successful than it ever was before you bought it for her,” he added. The manner in which she'd acquired his favorite hangout shouldn't have bugged Casey. But it did.

“She tried paying me back.” Gage was unsmiling. “But I figured she deserved the place after putting up with me for the two years we were married. Is it serious between you two?”

He guessed it was up to the other man whether or not he wanted to get into that on the doorstep of his mother's memorial service. But Casey figured Gage had had nearly ten years since their divorce to get Jane back if he'd wanted.

And oil could mix with water for a while if it was shaken hard enough.

“Serious enough.” He glanced down the hallway she'd taken and saw no sign of her yet. “She wants a baby.”

The other man's eyebrows shot up. “You're kidding me.”

Casey had grown up going to Sunday school. He still stuck his head into church on Christmas and Easter and whenever his mom gave him that look that said he'd been absent for too long. So he believed in God, even though he didn't generally feel the call to put his hind end in a pew every Sunday. But since the roof of this particular church hadn't crashed down on him yet, he took another chance and shook his head. “No joke. Janie wants a baby.”

“Didn't think I'd ever see that day.” Gage scrubbed his hand over his cheek, then stuck it out toward Casey again. Casey must have passed muster with the other man, because there was only a glint of surprise left in his eyes. “Well, good luck to you, then,” Gage said. “Jane's one of a kind.” He shook Casey's hand, then lifted it to acknowledge another person entering the church behind them and excused himself.

Jane returned a few minutes later. She'd removed her coat and rubbed some shiny stuff on her lips, making the pink a little pinker, and brushed out her hair. He wasn't used to seeing her wear high heels, and in the narrow black dress that clung to her figure, she seemed both familiar to him and unfamiliar.

There wasn't a part of her body that he hadn't explored.

He knew everything except the things that ticked inside her brain.

And her heart.

But he'd been getting enough glimpses to know there was no possible way things between them could go back to the way they were before. And, given her plans, going forward was just as impossible.

“Everything all right?” she murmured when she rejoined him. She glanced at Gage, who was greeting another older couple who'd just arrived. There was a steady stream of people now coming into the church.

Gage and Casey hadn't come to blows. He figured that was something. “Fine.” He closed his hand over her elbow, feeling the slight jerk of surprise she gave, and steered her through the double doors that closed off the sanctuary from the entry where they were all gathering.

She slid into one of the pews near the back, well away from the clusters of people who were already seated, and draped her coat over the pew beside her, then unfolded the program that an usher handed them. She kept running her thumb nervously along the edge of the thick parchment paper. “I'm glad it's a memorial and not a funeral,” she whispered. “Althea would have hated a funeral. She told me once she never wanted to be in a box on display.”

Casey pushed away the image of Jonathan's casket and curled his program into a cone. He leaned his head closer to her. “What's the deal with Noah?”

She let out a faint sound. “He was a selfish, entitled brat when he was thirteen,” she whispered. “I'm guessing nothing's changed. I feel sorry for Gage, though. He's sixteen years older than Noah. I think Althea always expected him to be more father figure to him than brother.”

“Is that all you feel for Gage?”

Her eyes lifted. Her lips firmed, and he thought she wouldn't answer.

“He's a better
ex
than he was a husband,” she finally said. Then she shushed Casey and tugged a hymnal from the rack in front of them. She pushed it into his hand. “I assume you know what that's for.”

He gave her a look and flipped the book open to the first hymn listed in the program.

A long ninety minutes later, Casey's butt was numb from the wooden pew, and Janie was sniffling into the white handkerchief he'd offered her when she'd started rooting around in her tiny purse and had come up with only one square of tissue.

But the service was over and she seemed glad to leave just as immediately as he was.

The same car they'd arrived in was waiting, and they took it to the hotel. Unfortunately, the hotel had only one room reserved for them.

And it was sold out otherwise.

Janie's cheeks were flushed, but without argument, she grabbed the key card the clerk gave them and headed toward the elevator bank, leaving Casey to wonder if she'd known there would be only one room. If she'd warned Gage she was bringing a “friend.”

If she'd given the matter any thought at all.

He yanked at his tie, loosening it again.

As many times as they'd slept together, they'd never
slept
together.

Casey looked at the reception clerk. “Dude. Cut me some slack here.” He pulled out his wallet and discreetly set his credit card on the desk. Beneath it were several folded bills. Working for Hollins-Winword, he'd stayed in hundreds of hotels around the world. He knew the way this all worked. “There's
always
a room left.”

The clerk's gaze darted left. Then right. “It's a suite, sir.”

“I don't care what it is,” he assured him.

The clerk ran the credit card and programmed another key card that he slid into a thick paper sleeve. He wrote the number on it. “Two floors down from your friend.” To the hotel's credit, the guy didn't take the cash. Casey took it, and the key card, and picked up his duffel, then reached across and shook the guy's hand. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

Tip—he preferred that term over
bribe
—duly transferred unseen into the guy's palm, Casey followed Jane to the elevators where she was still waiting.

“Don't worry.” He tapped the key card against her chin. “Your virtue is safe from me.”

The elevator doors chimed softly and slid open.

“It's not my virtue I'm worried about,” she murmured, and entered the empty car ahead of him. She punched the button for the top floor and for his floor as well before he could, then moved to the rear corner of the car, leaning her head back with a sigh. She slid her right foot out of its shoe. She was wearing sheer black nylons, and watching her wiggle her narrow ankle around was oddly entrancing.

They'd just been to a memorial service.

And she
should
have been worrying about her virtue. Because all men were dogs, and he was no better.

He was glad when she slid her foot back into her shoe.

The light on the panel steadily worked its way from button to button. Third floor. Fourth. “What is it that you
do
worry about?”

“Dying alone.” She sighed the words immediately, as if they'd already been on her tongue. Circling in her thoughts. She straightened, giving him a thin smile he guessed was meant to discount the answer.

“Is that why you want a husband?” He wasn't going to touch the baby topic with a ten-foot pole. “You think that'll keep you from being lonely?”

She closed her eyes. Shook her head. “Casey, it was...nice...of you to come with me.” She made a sound. “To bring me here, even.” She opened her eyes again but didn't look at him. “But I'm not up to a round of verbal sparring with you. And I'm not lonely.”

“Never?”

She exhaled. She lifted her palms. “What do you want me to say?” The elevator hummed to a smooth stop and the doors slid open to the accompaniment of a soft musical chime. She looked at the display, needlessly. “This is your floor.” She hitched the long strap of her tote higher over her shoulder. “Gage has dinner set up in a private dining room downstairs at six. He specifically told me to bring you, but I'll just meet you there, okay?”

She looked tired. But even with the smudges beneath her eyes, she was still prettier than a new spring foal on his grandfather's ranch.

Prettier. And, for the first time since he'd known her, just as delicate.

“Okay.”

Chapter Eight

K
nowing her ex-husband the way she did, once Jane found her way later that evening to the room where the dinner was being held, she wasn't surprised at the lavish display he'd arranged in his mother's memory.

She'd changed from the black dress into a dark purple one—less funereal but still modestly sober as long as she kept the surplice front tugged above her cleavage—but she hadn't brought another pair of dress heels, so she'd pushed her protesting toes back into the black pumps after her failed attempt at having a nap. She'd started to tie up her hair but hadn't.

Althea had always liked her with her hair down. Just as purple had always been her mother-in-law's favorite color.

Neither choice made up for not having spoken with the woman except through the exchange of Christmas and birthday letters for the past few years, but it made Jane feel a little better.

There were already a dozen people milling around the room when she arrived. They all had cocktails in hand and gave off the impression that the dinner was more of a social event than what it really was. Which was also a detail that would have suited Althea immensely.

Gage was easy to spot. He was deep in conversation with Quigley Decker, the vice president of Stanton Development, and didn't notice her at all.

Aside from him and Quig, she didn't recognize anyone. Sighing a little, she wished she'd told Gage that she wouldn't be staying after the memorial service. Had she done so, she and Casey would already be back home again.

As if her thoughts had conjured him, he appeared, stopping next to her where she was hovering just inside the doorway of the private room. “I've seen you wear more dresses in one single day than in all the time I've known you. You clean up real good, sport.”

She managed a small smile.

He hadn't changed anything. From the tie knotted perfectly at his neck to his gleaming wing-tip shoes, he looked unfamiliarly urbane.

He tilted his head toward her a little and dropped his voice. “If I hadn't seen you naked as many times as I have, I might never have known you had legs.”

Her face heated. Annoyed, she shot him a look.

He gave a satisfied smile. “There you are.” He cupped her elbow in his warm palm. “Can't stand seeing that waifish look on your face. Makes me feel all protective-like, and I know you'd be the first to deny you needed any protecting from anyone.”

“At least that's something you got right.” Her arm was tingling beneath his touch, but he didn't let go as she aimed for the cocktail bar set up in the corner of the room.

Would
Casey ever protect her if she needed it?

She mentally brushed away the futile thought as if it were an irritating gnat. But like all good irritating gnats, it kept coming back, hovering around, dodging all of her efforts to dispose of it.

She ordered a white wine and turned, glass in hand, to survey the room while the tuxedoed bartender poured Casey's red.

In all the years he'd been patronizing Colbys, she'd never once served him wine. White, red or otherwise. He was a beer man through and through, with only the occasional whiskey thrown in on special occasions.

The only time he'd had wine of any sort was when he'd brought that one bottle to her place.

“I'm surprised you didn't order a beer.” There were several bottles of craft beer, labels turned out, on the portable bar's tasteful display.

He tipped the rim of his glass against hers and the crystal clinked softly. “Guess there are things about me you don't know either.” He settled his hand against the small of her back as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “You want to sit or mingle?”

The warmth from his fingers was burning through her dress. A few people had found spots along the long rectangular table already, so they wouldn't be the first. “Sit.” The word emerged more abruptly than she intended. Spurred, no doubt, by self-preservation.

If she were sitting, he couldn't very well keep his hand on her back.

She quickly led the way around the table, choosing two seats at the far end. Casey was left-handed. He'd want to be on the outside, where he'd have more room.

Before he could, she pulled out her own chair and then sank down on it with embarrassing haste.

“My feet are killing me.” She muttered the excuse when he slid a look her way. To prove it, beneath the veil of the white linen tablecloth that reached all the way to the floor, she slipped her bare feet out of the torturous pumps. She'd ditched the black nylons along with the black dress. Probably a mistake in hindsight; the hosiery would have been a welcome buffer between her feet and the beastly toe-pinching leather.

She much preferred her boots or tennis shoes, or nothing at all.

He pulled out his chair and sat down, then stretched his arm across the back of her chair.

He might have just been making himself comfortable.

Or deliberately spreading on a fresh layer of torment.

With Casey, it was difficult to tell.

He angled his head toward hers. “You don't know anyone here at all, other than your ex-husband.” It wasn't a question.

She shook her head. “No. Oh, well, I know Quig. Quigley Decker. He's Gage's right hand.” She shifted in her chair, the better to put some space between Casey's distracting fingers and her shoulder. “How did you know?”

His fingers tapped the back of her neck, then returned to grazing her shoulder. “Come on, sport. You haven't said so much as a hello to anyone. If these were people you used to be related to, you'd be at least offering a hello-how-are-you even if you loathed them.”

She gave up and sat back comfortably in her seat, because his hand seemed determined to stay put no matter what she did. “Althea didn't have a lot of family. I think that older couple over there in the corner might have worked at Locke with her—they look vaguely familiar. But I'm guessing the rest here work with Gage.” She took a quick drink of her wine when she felt him twirl his finger in her hair.

Was he doing it deliberately? Or was it just an automatic reflex designed to disturb her?

“Who divorced whom?”

“What?” She looked at him.

He was idly rubbing the thumb of his left hand along the rim of his glass. “Did you leave him or did he leave you?”

She shook her head a little. “I can't believe you're asking me that here.”

He glanced around. The chairs next to and across from them were still empty. Gage was still standing across the room, talking to Quig. Casey's point was clear—nobody was paying them any attention at all. They might have been alone together. “Something else you'd like to talk about?” he asked mildly. “The weather, maybe? You think we'll have an early or late snow?”

She exhaled. “I'm the one who filed,” she finally said. “But Gage knew it was coming.” She gestured subtly with her wineglass toward her ex-husband. “He spent more time working than he did with me. Neither one of us was even brokenhearted. If that doesn't prove we should have never gotten married in the first place, I don't know what would.” The admission had come much too easily and she took a hasty sip of wine. “At least you've been smart enough not to make the same mistake.”

His lips twisted a little. “You'd think.” His gray gaze slid over her. “But I was engaged. Once upon a time.”

Her jaw loosened. She stared. The puzzle pieces where he was concerned shifted around into a whole new, equally indecipherable pattern. “When?” Certainly not in the five years she'd lived in Weaver. She'd have heard about it.

“College.”

He wore a wry expression that struck her as too practiced and she angled her legs toward him, studying him more closely. His eyes were annoyingly unreadable. “What happened?”

“Turns out we wanted different things.” He sipped his wine, then set his glass back on the linen. The corner of his lips jerked slightly. “She changed her mind.”

“Hmm.” Jane realized she was studying the shape of those mobile lips. Somehow or other, her knees were pressed against his beneath the tablecloth. She took a quick gulp of wine. “Probably got tired of being left dangling while you went to play with your Cee-Vid games.”

Something came and went in his eyes. The quirk at the corner of his lips deepened. “Probably.” The one word dripped with sarcasm.

But she didn't have a chance to pursue it, because just then Gage moved over to the head of the table and lifted his glass. “To my mother,” he said. “A woman ahead of her time.” His voice went a little gruff. “She's gone too soon, but she'd have my head if she thought any of us were crying in our soup. So. Althea Stanton.” He cleared his throat. “One hell of a grand old broad. You'll be missed.”

Jane's eyes flooded, but she couldn't help smiling. Because the woman she'd known—the woman who'd actually applauded Jane's decision to divorce her workaholic, inattentive son—had been exactly what Gage described.

She lifted her glass and drank to her memory.

And was glad that Casey's palm had curled warmly around her shoulder.

After that, the waiters arrived, delivering plates of food so beautifully prepared they seemed more like works of art than something to be consumed. And though Jane hadn't expected to feel hungry, she realized she was.

Along with the food, though, came more wine, which one of the servers kept pouring into her glass.

By the time crème brûlée was served—Althea's favorite, just as the endive-and-frisée salad and the fancily presented lamb chops had been—Jane could hardly see straight.

Casey recognized it, too. It wasn't hard, given the way she was slumping farther and farther down in her chair as she reminisced about her former mother-in-law.

“Shewasagreat, great lady.” Jane slurred slightly. She picked up her wineglass to emphasize her words, trying to enunciate and failing ridiculously. “When I'm gone, I'd like to think somebody says that about me.”

“I'm sure they will.” He slid the glass out of her lax fingers. Most everyone was beginning to depart, except for her ex-husband and a few others. They were talking about the latest resort Stanton Development was planning.

“Wha—?” She frowned at Casey, belatedly noticing what he'd done. She planted her index finger in the center of his chest. “I wasn't finished with my wine.”

“Trust me, sport. You're finished.” He wrapped his hand around hers and kissed her knuckles. “You'll thank me in the morning.”

Her lips parted. She blinked at him.

Realizing what he'd done, he squeezed her fingers and managed a goading grin. “Who knew the bartender couldn't hold her drink?”

She pressed her lips together in a pout she'd regret if she ever remembered it. “I can, too.”

He pulled her to her feet. Her bare feet, since she'd discarded her shoes somewhere beneath the floor-length tablecloth.

“Whoops.” She wiggled her toes. “Missing somethin'.” She started to bend down and nearly lost her balance, butting her head accidentally into his ribs. “Whoa there, baby.”

“That's my line.” He steadied her. “I'll get them.” Keeping one hand on her slender hip, he knelt down to fish out the shoes. They were shiny black leather with pointy toes, lethal heels and tiny little leather bows. “Lift.”

She clamped her hand over her mouth, covering her giggle as she “helpfully” tried to push her toes into the shoe.

He smiled despite himself and caught her ankle, holding it still so he could get her shoe in place.

“Ouch.” She made a face when he was finally successful. “I
hate
high heels.” She stuck her other foot out, wriggling it around. Her toenails were painted a bright pink. “I'm sure they were created by some
man
.”

He corralled that foot, too. “Why's that?”

“Jus' 'cause women's butts look better when they're wearing high heels,” she muttered.

He choked back a laugh. The shoes were sexy as hell. But her butt needed no assistance in the looking-perfect department. “Sweetheart, next time you'd better stop after two glasses.” He straightened and cautiously took his hand away from her hip.

“You never call me sweetheart.” She turned toward the door, spotted Gage and aimed—listing a little sideways—toward him. The other man caught her up for a hug and eyed Casey over her head as if he were to blame for the fact that she was obviously tipsy.

He'd take the blame. Particularly if it kept Gage from thinking he ought to see Janie to her room personally.

He tugged her away from Gage and steered her out of the private dining room, down the corridor to the elevators. The doors slid open as soon as he pushed the call button, and he nudged her inside and pushed the top-floor button.

The car started its ascent and she took a steadying step, bumping into him. “Stupid shoes,” she muttered.

He scrubbed his hand down his face to keep from laughing. “Why'd you wear them if you hate them so much?”

“'Cause that's what you do when you wear a nice dress,” she said as if the reasoning were obvious. “If I wore flats, my ankles would look like tree stumps.”

It was a lost cause. Laughter barked out of him. “Trust me, Janie. Your ankles will
never
look like tree stumps.”

She smiled, then rubbed her eyes. “Contacts're killin' me.”

“You can take them out as soon as we get you into your room,” he assured her. Which led him to the next issue. She wasn't carrying a purse. “Where's your room key?”

She inhaled deeply, then reached into the purple fabric that crisscrossed over her breasts in a V that had distracted him all evening. “Ta-daa.” She pulled the key card out just as the elevator chimed.

He took the card from her and steered her out of the elevator. The card was warm from having been tucked into her bra all evening. And when they reached her room, it didn't work.