This Christmas (3 page)

I
t hadn’t been easy for Sabrina Gervais. Giving up her dream, or at least modifying it, so she could raise her daughter, had tested her at every turn. Yet nothing prepared her for Jake. Nothing. But there he was. Large. Looming. And obviously connecting the dots.

“Whoa. Wait. Is that...” Her good friend Jade’s words hung in the air as Sabrina hugged Charlie and stared into the eyes of the man she never thought she’d see again.

“Jake,” Bree swallowed. “Oh, God.”

“He helped with the clinic.” Charlie turned her face up and Bree pushed a sweaty lock of hair away from her brow. “He knows Uncle Ryan.”

“Yes, he does.”

Bree looked back toward Jake and saw he was still staring. The man hadn’t moved an inch. There was a twitching low in her belly, while her heart... her heart damn near beat out of her chest. Emotions she’d buried long ago washed through her, filling Bree from head to toe with grief, regret, and the oh-so-familiar longing she felt whenever Jake had been close by. How was it possible he was better looking than the last time she’d seen him?

But he was. He was bigger, more rugged than boyish—this Jake was all man. The ten years had made him broader, harder—and yes, hotter. His eyes still blazed a brilliant blue and his hair was shorter, a little darker. But at the core she could see in his gaze his passion, his drive, and the tightness in his jaw revealed his anger.

This was Sabrina’s worst nightmare. The way he looked at her, and then looked back at Charlie, he knew. He knew she was his daughter and Sabrina had some serious explaining to do. Turning toward Jade, whose mouth was still hanging open, Bree needed help and she needed it fast.

“Can you help Charlie get changed?”

“I guess?” Poor Jade. She was making a major life change of her own; the last thing she’d expect when she decided to stay a couple of extra days after Thanksgiving was Bree’s drama. And there would be drama. “I don’t know how to undo all the stuff she’s wearing.”

“She knows how.” Bree gave Charlie a hug. “Aunt Jade will take you back to change, sweetie. Okay?”

Charlie raised an eyebrow, skeptical, because if nothing else her daughter was bright. “Why?”

“I’ll explain another time.” At that point she saw Jake start to skate toward them.
Damn.
This would not happen here. It couldn’t. “Take her now,” she whispered to Jade, who also saw Jake coming.

Wrapping her arm around Charlie, Jade hustled her down the tunnel toward the changing rooms. Bree’s eyes stayed locked on her daughter, whose face was awash with questions, and she was sure Charlie wasn’t the only one. When they were out of sight, Bree turned back toward the ice and came face-to-face with the man who had changed her life.

Dear God. It was more like face to stomach, because in his skates, Jake was at least six-four. Bree was barely five-one.

“You and I need to have a conversation,” he growled.

Then, before she could respond, he left, walking into the dark area near the locker rooms, leaving her to think about the way this was going to turn her life, and more importantly Charlie’s, upside down.

Her eyes were still focused on the tunnel, on the place Jake had been, wondering what he was going to do next.

“You want to tell me what that was all about?” Bree turned and looked up into her brother’s eyes. “Killen looked like he saw a ghost. Tell me what he said to you.”

“No.” She wasn’t going to say anything now. Bree had kept the identity of Charlie’s father a secret for ten years. Other than Jade and the other girls who were with her on that Thanksgiving that felt like a lifetime ago, the only other person who knew was her mother. The last thing she needed was her brother going off half-cocked. More, it was the last thing Charlie needed.

“You’re not going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“Why I shouldn’t kill that son of a bitch for leaving my baby sister pregnant?”

So much for a secret. The revelation dropped between them like a large weight. Bulky and immovable, there was no way for Bree to get around the truth, especially when Ryan already knew.

“I don’t want you to do anything.” The words caught in her throat as the emotion rushed to the surface.
Jake.
Jake was back and he knew about Charlie and now nothing would be easy. Bree had managed to put so much out of her head since he left. It was the only way she could survive.

Surprisingly, her brother stepped toward her and reached out. She didn’t hesitate and walked into his waiting arms, and let the boy who’d taunted her turn into the man who would not only comfort her, but kick the ass of the person who made her cry—if that was what she needed. Ryan’s hand patted her back in reassurance. “I really want to kill him.”

“I know, but you can’t. He has to meet Charlie.”

“How do you think she’s going to take it?”

Holding onto Ryan’s warm up jacket, Bree buried her face again.

“I have no idea. I think she’s going to hate me. A lot.” Jake was one thing, but dealing with her ten-year-old was going to prove to be the real test.

“I don’t think she’ll hate you, him maybe, but not you.”

“No, it’s on me, Ry.” She looked up. “I never told him.”

He was quiet. Her big brother looked like a dangerous, dangerous man, but in truth he was a pussycat. “Damn. Why?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t want to be hurt again. He left me to go back to Sydney, and what if he really just didn’t want me.”

“He’s divorced, you know. He went back to Sydney, but they split two years later. The kid she was pregnant with wasn’t his.”

Bree knew the story. She knew all about his divorce and the baby belonging to some other guy. All she could think about was that Jake hadn’t come back to her. He’d left to try and do the right thing, she got that, but he didn’t come back when he was free.

And that was what had driven her decision. She couldn’t want a man who didn’t want her. Who hadn’t come back. Jake would do the “right” thing and ask her to marry him, but she didn’t want to trap him. No. If Jake wanted her, he would have been there on his own.

“I’d better get Charlie,” she whispered.

“Can I kick the crap out of him, at least?”

“No, not that either.”

Ryan stepped back, and Sabrina could see in Ryan’s eyes that her wonderful big brother was at a loss. He always knew what to do and how to act, but not this time. “I’ll come by the house tomorrow. Are you guys still baking?”

“You bet. I’ll put some pizzelle aside for you.” Bree knew the waffle-like cookie was his favorite.

Ryan kissed her on the top of the head and then went back to the crowd of kids who were waiting for autographs. Bree on the other hand, turned toward the dressing room, and her little girl whose life was in for some big changes.

J
ake swallowed hard as he slammed through the dressing room door, trying to wrap his head around what he’d just seen. Was that his daughter? Had Sabrina had a kid and not told him about it?
His kid?

His head was swimming with thoughts and images and his heartbeat kicked up just thinking about Sabrina. Pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes, he saw her in a thousand different ways. Some of the images were from a few seconds ago; others were burned into his memory from ten years before.

“Holy shit,” he said to no one in particular. The room was empty and he sat down on the bench in front of his stall. “Holy shit,” he whispered again. He’d come to accept losing Sabrina because he’d left her to marry Sydney and take care the child she said was his.

A child, who, it turned out, didn’t belong to him.

Sydney had lied, and he’d been forced to face the biggest mistake of his life.

And if losing Bree wasn’t enough, if the universe hadn’t screwed him over with that decision, he learned today there’d been a little girl without a father he’d never known about.

Standing, he stalked the room, moving with no particular purpose and suppressing the urge to do real violence. How had this happened? How had he fucked this up so badly? With the pressure building in his chest, he roared before kicking over a small table in the center of the room that had been loaded with stick tape and water bottles, sending everything flying.

He crouched down in the middle of the floor, surrounded by the colorful tape and plastic bottles, and buried his head in his hands. “Jesus, Bree,” he whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell me why I shouldn’t give you the beating of your life?”

Jake picked up his head and saw Ryan standing at the entrance to the room, his gloves off, ready to kick Jake’s ass.

Jake rose and held his arms wide. “Go ahead. I couldn’t possibly feel worse than I already do.”

Ryan advanced, both men still in skates, stood their ground. Jake, however, was ready to take Ryan’s best shot.

“You got my sister pregnant. My baby sister! She was eighteen. What were you thinking?”

Jake shrugged and raised his hands in surrender. All the fight had left him, all he could see were Charlotte’s eyes staring up at him. “I was thinking about her. I still think about her. Why didn’t she tell me about the baby?”

Ryan relaxed his stance and shook his head. “She was eighteen.”

“I know. I should have left her alone, but it just happened.”

“That kind of stuff doesn’t
just happen
,” Ryan snarled. “And on top of everything, you kept her a secret. You didn’t tell anyone.”

“I didn’t try to keep it secret.” He didn’t. He wanted to take her out places, but she was the one who was nervous about what her parents and her brother would do if they found out. “Bree was the one worried about us being found out. I wasn’t.”

“So, she was the girl you were so broken up about when Sydney told you she was pregnant? The one you didn’t want to hurt?”

“The one you told me to make as miserable as possible so she’d hate me and be able to move on? Yeah.”

“Oh... I...”

Jake chuckled wryly. “It worked. She must hate me good, because she didn’t tell me about the little girl.”

He thought about Charlie, a little peanut of a thing with fire in her eyes and wings on her feet. He wondered again, how it had happened? It had happened because he was an idiot. It happened because Jake didn’t follow his heart.

“Tell me what went on.”

He returned to his stall and Ryan took a seat next to him. Big and intimidating, Ryan Gervais was loyal to his family and fiercely protective of his little sister, so much so, Jake often wondered if he’d had some kind of death wish pursuing Bree like he did.

“She found out on Thanksgiving. From what my mother says, she was about two months gone when she took the test.”

Jake had been out of her life for a month when she found out, which meant, when he was going back to Sydney, and breaking Sabrina’s heart, she was already pregnant.

“She was miserable, but no matter how many times I asked her, she wouldn’t tell me who the father was. As far as we knew, she hadn’t ever had a serious boyfriend.”

“It was serious for me,” Jake said. “I know she was young, but I would have married her, pregnant or not.”

He meant what he said; he loved Sabrina so much it hurt. It killed him to return the engagement ring he’d bought. He’d planned on giving it to her on their first Christmas together, but then the bottom dropped out of... well... it dropped out of everything.

“I wish she’d said something.”

“Me too,” Ryan agreed. His friend blew out a long breath. “What are you going to do?”

Jake didn’t want to wait. He had to talk to her and find out when he could start getting to know his daughter. It didn’t matter how Bree felt about him, he was going to be a father to his child and he had a lot of time to make up. “Does she still live in Holly Point?”

“Yeah, they live with my parents.”

That settled it. He started unlacing his skates, because Jake knew what he had to do and he had a long drive ahead of him.

He remembered the day he told Sabrina he was going back to Sydney like it was yesterday. No matter how hard he’d tried to get Bree out of his head, she’d come back when he’d least expect it. He’d never been more anxious, or more miserable, in his life. Walking away from Sabrina was the hardest thing he’d ever done.