The Texas Christmas Gift (22 page)

He forced himself to show no reaction. Although this wasn’t what he wanted to hear—not by a long shot—part of him had always figured it would come to this. Eve was simply not a woman who wanted to let anyone in.

“Are you breaking up with me?” he asked quietly.

Still holding his eyes—even more reluctantly now, he noticed—she cleared her throat. “Derek, we’re not even dating.”

He stood, hands braced on his waist. “Right. We’re just sharing confidences and spending time together and making love with each other every chance we get.”

Pink color flooding her cheeks, Eve stood, too. “Your family pretty much has us married off!”

Derek strode nearer, positioning himself so she had no choice but to look at him. Hands on her shoulders, he held her in front of him when she would have run. “That’s because they know the two of us are made for each other,” he said gruffly.

Tears misted Eve’s pretty amber eyes. “You can’t know that.”

Aware of all that was at stake here—their future happiness—he held his ground. “I do know that.”

Her tears spilled down her cheeks. She pulled away from him. “Well, I don’t.”

He watched her pace to the window, then stand there as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. “What are you saying?”

She pivoted back around to face him, looking edgy and upset. “I’m saying I know how, once you make up your mind about something—like buying a home or vacation retreat— that you just want to find a way to get it done. Ideally, as fast as possible.”

It wasn’t the first time Derek’s success and determination had been held against him, but it had never hurt this much before.

She gazed into his eyes, a soul-deep weariness in her expression. “With that in mind, I know how determined you are to make sure that your little girl has parity in her two homes, so that she doesn’t suffer because she comes from divorced parents.” Eve drew in an uneven breath. “And I know that Tiffany wants a mommy and a daddy at both of her houses, that the three of us work well as a team, and that Tiffany adores me as much as I adore her.”

She was making their connection sound so cold and calculated. “You think I made love with you because I need a bed buddy, and a friend, and I want you to be a mother to my child?”

“No.” Eve’s eyes were steady, but her lower lip trembled. “I think you made love to me because it’s Christmastime and you want someone to celebrate with...and you find me as wildly attractive as I find you. I think you want me because it’s easier to have two people parent a child at any given time than just one.”

What about heart? Didn’t that come into all this? His? Hers? In her view, Derek realized, it apparently did not. Hurt beyond measure, he stared at her. “But you don’t want a future with me, is that it?” How could he have been so wrong about her, about all of this?

A shadow of regret crossed her face. “I’m saying what I’ve been saying all along—that I don’t feel comfortable rushing into anything, Derek.” She wrung her hands together. “And the truth of the matter is we have rushed into this, for a lot of reasons, none of them good.”

Derek reached out and caught her by the waist when she would have moved away. “Okay, you’ve told me my reasons. As you see them, anyway,” he amended brusquely, stung by the look in her eyes. “What are yours?”

She threw up her hands. “My mother had a heart attack and that made me realize how short life is, and how one-dimensionally I’ve been living.” Raw emotion filled Eve’s voice. “The crisis made me want comfort, and it made me want a lot more than I’ve had.”

She deserved a whole hell of a lot more, too. Derek drew her against him and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I want more, too,” he confessed.
“I want you.”

She splayed her hands over his chest, still holding him at bay. “There were other reasons, too.” Her voice sounded thick with unshed tears. “I told you that I get depressed and lonely around the holidays. That I never ever felt like I could quite get into the Christmas spirit the way others did.” She paused, her teeth raking across her delectably soft lower lip. “Reaching out to you and Tiffany and celebrating the season with you made all of that go away.”

For him, too.

But for him it had been just the beginning.

For Eve, it seemed it was the end. And that scared Derek more than he wanted to admit. “And that’s all our love affair was?” he prodded, desperately wanting her to rise up angrily and tell him otherwise. “A temporary reprieve from a family crisis and some scary, uncomfortable feelings?”

Eve paused. She started to say something, stopped. She pushed away from him entirely and ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know if that’s what it was or not,” she said brokenly. The tortured words came straight from her heart. “I don’t know
what
we are to each other. Or how we’ll even feel once the holidays pass, and you and Tiffany settle in at your place. Which is why...I want to take a break.”

“Now,” he repeated, when she still refused to look him in the eye. “Four days before
Christmas?
”

Another nod. A sigh. And this time she did look at him, as calm, cool and collected as the day they’d first met. “For at least a month, Derek. Maybe two.”

And then what? he wondered. Did she honestly think this would hurt them any less if they delayed the inevitable? He folded his arms in front of him, legs braced apart. “No.”

Eve blinked, obviously as unprepared for his reaction as he had been for hers. “What?” she asked, as if she couldn’t possibly have heard him right.

“I’m not going to go through some arbitrary time-out,” he told her flatly. Hurt and disappointed beyond measure, he stepped closer and stared down at the beautiful woman he adored so much, the woman he had foolishly hoped he would spend the rest of his life with.

He had wanted Eve to feel as he did, that they were made for each other.

Clearly, she didn’t. And if that was the case, he’d already been down this particular road. He damn well wasn’t traveling it again.

Aware that she was still staring at him in shock, he exhaled wearily, then forced himself to go on in a matter-of-fact tone. “If you don’t already know that you and I are the best thing that ever happened to each other, then you’re never going to know, Eve. And I can’t—won’t—be part of another relationship where I’m the only one ready and willing to put my whole heart in, and give it my all.”

“You’re breaking up with me?” she asked, aghast, looking as if this possibility hadn’t ever occurred to her.

Derek grabbed his coat and headed for the door. He didn’t want to end it, but he didn’t want to prolong the pain, either. He nodded curtly. “You’ve given me no choice.”

Chapter Fifteen

Eve spent most of Sunday night crying her eyes out. Monday morning was just as bad. And it got worse when she received the latest news on the real estate front.

Reluctantly, she went to see her mother and tell her in person.

“The offer on Flash’s condo fell through.”

Marjorie didn’t look surprised.

Eve swept a hand through her hair. “There are no other bids. And probably won’t be until after the holidays.”

Her mom nodded slowly. She put down the novel she had been reading. “The Santiago Florres‒designed house?”

The ache of defeat grew. “Red is passing on it. He is, however, in negotiations with Santiago to build him something just as unique on the beach in Galveston. Unfortunately, there’s no chance we’ll see a commission there, either. Their lawyers will be brokering that deal.”

Marjorie pursed her lips, looking surprisingly calm. “Anything else?”

Eve gulped. And here was the worst part, as far as business was concerned, anyway. She looked her mother straight in the eye. “Sibley & Smith sold another four-million-dollar listing over the weekend.”

“So in other words, they’ve won.”

Eve went and perched on the edge of her mother’s bed. “Unless someone takes over the negotiations on a property for Derek McCabe.”

Her mom rose and went to the mini-fridge next to the sink. “Why can’t you do it?”

For so many reasons, Eve thought. Most of which were currently breaking her heart. She clenched her hands on either side of her. “It’s complicated.”

Marjorie passed Eve a can of low-sodium tomato juice and kept one for herself. “Fortunately, I’m in cardiac rehab, so I have all the time in the world when I’m not down in physical therapy, working on regaining my strength.” She smiled wryly at her daughter. “So give it to me straight.”

Eve looked down as she popped the top on her drink. “I got too involved.”

Marjorie sat down next to her on the hospital bed. “Too involved or not enough?”

Eve gave in to the need to be comforted, and rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. “He wanted things from me, Mom, that I’m just not cut out to give.”

Marjorie wrapped her arm about her shoulders and pulled her in close, the way she had when Eve was a little girl. “Things like what?” she asked gently.

Eve swallowed a lump in her throat. “Marriage.”

“He proposed?”

She straightened, took a drink. “No.”

Marjorie moved so they were facing each other, then studied her with a mother’s knowing eye. “Then...?”

Eve flushed and took another sip of the sweet, mellow juice. “We were headed in that direction.”

“Since when is that a bad thing?”

Barely able to believe she’d said that, Eve blinked. “You’ve never wanted to get married, Mom!”

“So?” Marjorie shrugged. “I’m not you.” After a short pause, she said, “It has to be more than that.”

Eve lurched to her feet. “Everything was just happening way too fast.” As usual when upset, she started to pace.

Marjorie shifted back against the pillows. “Sometimes life is that way.”

Eve had expected her to take her side in this! Whirling toward her mom, she said stubbornly, “I wanted a break. He wouldn’t give it to me.”

“Hmm.”

Once again, hurt mixed with disbelief. Eve scoffed. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

Marjorie finished her juice and set the container aside. “What do you want me to say?”

That was just it...Eve didn’t know. She shook her head miserably. “Something to make me feel better!”

Marjorie smiled sympathetically. “I don’t think I can do that, honey.”

“You always have before.”

“You were never really and truly this—”

Eve expected her mom to say “wildly infatuated before.”

Instead, she said, “—foolish before.”

It was Eve’s turn to study her mother, long and hard. “I know he’s well-off financially, Mom. I know he’s phenomenally successful, professionally. But just because everything is easy for him doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy for me, never mind easy for us.”

Her inscrutable demeanor fading, her mother nodded sagely. “Especially if you do everything you can to make it more difficult than it has to be.”

Honestly! “Whose side are you on?” Eve demanded angrily.

Her mother replied flatly, “Yours.”

It sure didn’t seem like that was the case. Eve squared her shoulders and regarded her defiantly, aware they hadn’t been this far apart in anything since her teenage years. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this.”

Surprisingly, her mother agreed. “It does seem like you need to do a little more soul-searching.” Marjorie rose and guided Eve toward the door. She gave her a long, heartfelt hug. “But I have faith that, given enough time and solitude, you’ll figure it out.”

* * *

A
CUTELY AWARE THIS
was the last place he had expected to be at noon on December 23, Derek stood in the doorway of Marjorie Loughlin’s room. He didn’t know Eve’s mother all that well yet. He also didn’t know where else to go for help in, if not making things right, at least trying to make amends. He drew a breath. “Got a minute?”

Marjorie put down the crossword puzzle she’d been working on. She removed her glasses and looked down her nose at him. “For you? I’m not sure, given that you’ve broken my daughter’s heart.”

“Hey.” Derek lifted both hands defensively. “She’s the one who refused to get serious about me.” He was the one who had wanted an enduring relationship. Not in the distant future, but right now. “She is the one who kept saying no.”

The older woman quirked her lips. “Maybe for good reason, since she says the two of you were never even dating.”

Derek sauntered in. He pulled up a chair and got comfortable. “And if you believe that, I’ve got some swampland in East Texas to sell you.”

Marjorie grinned and began to relax. “Why are you here?”

He sobered. “I want help buying enough property to help Loughlin Realty win the sales competition.”

A long, suspenseful moment passed. “Why?”

“Because it’s Christmas, a time of giving, and it means something to Eve,” Derek informed her. “And because I feel I owe her that much.”

“For?”

This was tricky. “Hurting her without meaning to.”
Hurting us both by pushing her too hard, too fast.

“Balderdash.” Marjorie stood abruptly.

Derek got to his feet, too. “Excuse me?”

The woman stomped closer, at that moment looking a lot like her beautiful, tempestuous daughter. “What a load of hooey.”

Like hell it was.

Derek faced off with Marjorie. “Eve wants to win that sales race.”

With a shake of her head, her mom corrected, “
Wanted
to win. For me. I told her it wasn’t necessary. There’s always next year.”

Derek blinked in disbelief.

Marjorie shrugged. “Three and a half weeks of cardiac rehab will make a person examine what does and does not make him or her happy. For me, it’s a successful business, always has been, always will be. For Eve, it’s a lot more complicated.” Marjorie wandered over to adjust the holiday wreath affixed to her wall before turning back to Derek. “She wants emotional satisfaction—not just fiscal—in her work.”

Derek listened to the strains of a Christmas carol being played a little farther down the hall. He wasn’t sure why; he just knew the rendition of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” made him feel melancholy. “What does Eve want in her personal life?” What could he have given her, and hadn’t?