Home for Christmas (17 page)

Just ahead of them, Caitlin stopped abruptly, blocking the doorway with Peony's placid bulk. Peering over her shoulder, Caitlin gave them a mischievous grin and pointed up. “Ha ha, caught you!”

Libby blinked, as clueless as Owen felt, but when her gaze followed the path of Caitlin's pointing finger, he saw her chest heave in a quick, sharp breath. Craning his neck, Owen peered up at the circlet of greenery trimmed with red and gold bows. “What's up? It's just a wreath.”

Clearing her throat, Libby said, “It's not the wreath. It's what's hanging in the middle of it.”

Owen looked closer, frowning at the cluster of white berries and teardrop-shaped leaves dangling in the center. “Is that…?”

“Mistletoe!” Caitlin crowed gleefully. “Real life mistletoe. It's not plastic and if you eat it you'll be sick, the horses, too, so that's why it's up high. Also to catch people and make them kiss! And now you have to kiss Miss Libby!”

Beside him, Libby went still. She wasn't even breathing.

The air between them suddenly felt charged with electricity, like the sky before a thunderstorm. Caitlin had presented him with the possibility he'd been trying to avoid thinking about for days. And now that he'd flashed on the vivid image of himself wrapping Libby in his arms and tasting her candy sweet mouth, he couldn't stop imagining it. Everything low in his body tightened and pulsed, filling him with an animal hunger that howled for satisfaction.

But Owen had worked hard to become the kind of man who could control his animal urges. The beast inside, who'd had free rein when he was a young man angry at the world—that beast was chained now. Owen let it out in the heat of battle, to lead and inspire his men, to keep them safe and whole. The rest of the time, Owen kept the leash taut.

He slowly forced his shoulders to relax, releasing the sensual tension that had held him captive for the space of a heartbeat. He turned to Libby with a half smile, intending to make light of the moment. But when he looked down at her flushed cheeks and bright eyes, Libby didn't look embarrassed. And she didn't look upset or angry or reluctant, either.

She looked as hungry as Owen felt.

He drew in a sharp breath when Libby went up on tiptoes and pressed her lips to his.

 

Chapter Fifteen

“It's Christmas. We can't disappoint your daughter,” Libby whispered against Owen's lips as they parted in surprise. She meant to give him a quick peck, just a brush of their mouths for show more than anything else, but the instant they touched, her mind was swept clean of anything except her need for more.

She wobbled, her knees turning to jelly, and Owen's strong arms came around her shoulders to steady her. His back hit the side of the arena enclosure, his cane falling away, and Libby found herself half leaning on his chest with her arms locked around his neck. Their lips sought and clung together in a sweet, almost chaste kiss that held the promise of so much more. When Libby breathed, she shared Owen's breath. When he breathed, she felt the rise and fall of his powerful chest under her. The nape of his neck was warm beneath her stroking fingertips, and she couldn't stop herself from stretching her fingers up into the short scruff of his buzzed hair.

Desire rolled through her core like a powerful wave, surging and devouring and pulling her under the surface. Owen made a sound deep in his chest that she felt more than heard, and the kiss turned deep and ravenous for a shuddering instant before he stiffened and gently put her back on her feet.

The distance between their heated bodies was only a few inches, but it suddenly felt like an unendurable separation. Libby leaned toward him, her gaze locked on his tempting mouth, but Owen's steady hands on her shoulders kept her from coming closer. She drew in a breath, flavored with cold winter air and the dusty warmth of the barn instead of Owen's smoky essence, and her head cleared.

“I'm sorry!” she gasped, feeling a flood of embarrassed heat scorch her cheeks. “That … got a little out of hand.”

“Don't apologize.” Owen's voice was low, intimate, and it made other parts of Libby's body go hot.

“That was a good one,” Caitlin commented, sounding impressed. “Most people just kiss on the cheek or the back of the lady's hand like a princess or something.”

Libby had to laugh, covering her eyes with one of her unkissed hands. “Oh my gosh.”

“Glad you approve,” Owen said to his daughter as he stooped to retrieve his walking stick. “Now what about this riding lesson I've been hearing so much about?”

Owen followed Caitlin further into the arena. Grateful for the way he'd managed to redirect Caitlin's attention, Libby hung back a moment to collect her wits—and to cement the memory of Owen's kiss in her mind. Her fingertips drifted up to trace her lips, sensitive and a little plump from the pressure of his mouth, and she shivered in the weak winter sunlight filtering through the trees. She needed to remember how it had felt to be the center of Owen's world for that too short moment, because it could never happen again. She didn't deserve it, and he wouldn't want her if he knew the truth.

Blowing out a breath, Libby pulled up a determined smile and plastered it on her face before marching into the arena to spend a torturous hour sitting close to Owen's side and watching Caitlin ride her pony around the ring.

For the first half hour, every movement, every breath, every accidental brush of Owen's arm against hers, had Libby's pulse racing. But eventually she managed to force her attention off of the tension between her and Owen by focusing on Caitlin with all her might. The little girl displayed a fierce concentration while on horseback. She listened to her instructor's comments and directions as if the fate of the world hung on her ability to urge Peony from a walk to a trot while doing something called “posting.”

“She's got so much focus,” Libby observed to Owen in an undertone while Caitlin set her jaw and worked to catch her horse's rhythm while lifting herself out of the saddle in time with Peony's strides. “I haven't spent a ton of time around kids her age, but aren't most of them more scattered than this?”

“Not necessarily.” Owen leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and keeping his unwavering gaze on his daughter. “I was an unholy mess after my mom died, too much energy and too many rules, but if it was something I cared about—I could lock in on it for hours without getting bored or distracted.”

It was the first time Libby had heard Owen talk about his childhood. Intrigued, she pushed for more. “What kinds of things made you lock in?”

Owen laughed a little, but it wasn't a completely happy sound. “There was a fire station down the street from the house where I grew up, and I used to sneak off and hang out there. Looking back, the guys who manned the truck might not have loved having a kid underfoot all the time, but they were cool. They'd let me climb around the fire truck with them, inspecting the rig. The best were the days when they decided to wash the truck. I'd come home soaking wet and get the hiding of my life from Dad, but it was worth it.”

Libby's heart clenched. “Was he worried when he didn't know where you were?”

“Nah.” Owen's hands curled into fists, then flexed open again as if he didn't know he was doing it. “My old man was a cop. All the men in our family were, going back generations. He took that dumb rivalry between cops and firefighters seriously. Hell, probably half the reason I ran off to the firehouse was because I knew it would piss him off. But when I was there, it was funny—I'd forget all about whatever was going on at home. There was something about being around those guys, who'd go from relaxed and joking around to being ready to risk their lives at a moment's notice.”

“So you wanted to be a fireman when you grew up.”

“Probably it's more accurate to say I didn't want to be a cop,” Owen said, shaking his head at his younger self. “But not for any good reason. The force is a calling, and the men and women who serve that way are amazing. It would have been an honor to serve with them, but I didn't see it that way at the time. All I could see was that it was what my dad expected of me. What I wanted didn't factor into the equation at all, as far as he was concerned. So of course, I had to rebel.”

“You don't have any regrets, do you?” Libby was wistful. She'd give anything to be able to live a live without regrets or shame. “It seems like you felt the calling to serve and protect people—just in a different way, in the army.”

“I don't regret joining up. The service took a hotheaded idiot of a kid and turned me into someone I can face in the mirror every morning.”

A sudden flash of insight hit Libby. “You think if you're not in the army anymore, you'll go back to being who you were before you enlisted? I don't believe that. The things we do and see and experience—those things change us for good. Or bad, sometimes, but permanently.”

Heaven knew, she wished that wasn't the case. But she knew that it was. The lies she'd told, the lie she was living, had tarnished her forever.

“Nothing is permanent,” Owen countered. “The only thing you can count on is that everything changes over time. And since I got my medical discharge, I've definitely felt different. Like a boat without an anchor, set loose to drift. The only thing giving me direction right now is the idea of getting back where I belong.”

Libby glanced over at him. His eyes were trained on his daughter, his entire body canted forward as if he were riding the horse along with her, and Libby's heart fluttered up into her throat. “Maybe you belong here.”

*   *   *

She's married. She's not free. Separated isn't the same as divorced.

Owen kept the litany going in the back of his mind. It was the only thing preventing him from snugging her close to his side, reeling her in for another of those mind-tilting, addictive kisses.

He reminded himself that Libby wasn't for him—no matter how much this conversation made him wish otherwise. And no matter how much it seemed like Libby might want the same thing. He couldn't lead her on. There could be nothing more cruel than letting her think there was any possibility of a future with him.

“I wouldn't begin to know how to make a life someplace like this,” he told her. If there was a note of regret in his voice, he couldn't help that. Part of him wished he had what it took to be a husband, a father, a family man—but all the softness had been burned out of him years ago, and he was better off without it.

But despite her outward softness, there was a core of steel to Libby too. A stubborn light glinting in her eye, she tilted up her chin and said, “There's nothing to know. You don't have to qualify or pass some test. You just stay. The rest will work itself out.”

Something sharp slid into Owen's heart like a bayonet, piercing him through. “I can't stay,” he snapped back. “That's not who I am.”

Libby stiffened at his harsh tone, but she didn't back off, and against his will, Owen felt a tendril of respect uncurl in his gut.

“But maybe you want to stay,” Libby replied, her hazel eyes dark with understanding. “And that's what scares you. Because you don't know who you are without the army—and I'm telling you, the army might have made a man out of you, but so will being a father to that little girl.”

Before he knew what he was about to do, Owen was on his feet. Without glancing back at Libby, he started climbing down off the bleachers.
Running away,
said the taunting voice in the back of his head—the voice that sounded an awful damn lot like his father's.
Running away like you always do.

Libby called after him, regret clear in her voice, and Owen paused long enough to say over his shoulder, “One kiss doesn't give you the right to tell me what to do with my life, Libby. Tell Caitlin I had to leave for my physical therapy appointment. It's time I got back to work.”

*   *   *

Nash poked his head in the door and scanned the Firefly Café for glossy black hair and a red-lipped smile. There—back corner, lounging in the red vinyl booth and wearing a denim jacket and a bright purple headscarf over her curls. Ivy Dawson tended to stick out in a crowd. She lived her life in vibrant color, making the rest of the world look like shades of beige. Nash had been drawn to her from the first moment he set eyes on her at a bar in Atlanta.

It wasn't the kind of place he usually went. There were more motorcycles than sports cars out front, and inside, the place was loud, smoky, and more than a little rough around the edges.

She'd laughed at his button-down Oxford blue shirt, he remembered, and accused him of slumming it. He'd denied it, but there was a grain of truth there. Nash Tucker didn't spend a lot of time in biker bars listening to honky tonk music and drinking cheap beer.

After the scandal of his parents' forced marriage and his father's desertion, Nash had learned early on that the smoothest path through life involved making no waves and breaking no rules. He got good grades, played varsity baseball, went to a good college, and did his level best to never be the reason his mother came home from church or a PTA function with furious, humiliated tears sparkling in her lashes.

It was a small town, and people had long memories. Nash understood why his mother had left it behind—even though it had been weird to come “home” from college on breaks to a condo in Atlanta instead of the big white house he'd grown up in. There was something peaceful about the anonymity of a big city after the scrutiny of small town life. Nash had pretended to be happy to be done with Sanctuary Island, because that's what his mother wanted.

Story of his life. He knew what was expected of him, and he didn't rebel.

At least, not often. That night out at the Lucky Strike had been one of Nash's secret rebellions … and it had brought him Ivy.