To Do List (2 page)

“I’m only forty-five minutes late. I left San Francisco at five after six so that’s darned good time with all the traffic mess and then the blow out. I told Dad to have everyone start without me.”

She said all this as she accepted hugs and kisses from the family, including her very pregnant sister.

“As if Mom is going to let us touch the roast when you’re not here. You look tired, even if it’s damned good to see you. Skinny and pale. I don’t like the dark circles under your eyes. You getting any sleep? Don’t you eat anything more than wheat grass and coffee?” Chelsea, her older sister and the only other female Taylor child murmured into her ear as she hugged her.

“Yes, I know. You’re the tenth person to tell me that. It’s such an ego boost to come home. How are you?” Belle ran a hand over her sister’s belly.

“Pregnant. Don’t tell these clowns but Mom let me have a sandwich already. Sit before Kevin or Scott busts a gut moaning about how hungry they are. Grandma hasn’t complained. If an eighty-five-year-old woman can live without eating, you know they can.”

“I can hear you, Chelsea,” Scott, her next older brother called out from across the table where he helped their grandmother into a chair.

“Duh.” Chelsea laughed and let her husband Bill lower her into a chair.

“Come sit next to me, Belle.”

She looked up to see Rafe pulling a chair out for her. Damn he looked good. Big brown eyes, dark hair always in dire need of a trim, Raphael Bettencourt was big and 10

www.samhainpublishing.com

To Do List

muscled and worked hard out in the sun all day long. He was good looking farm boy personified and he and Brian had been best friends since the second grade when the Bettencourts moved to Davis and started their family-run dairy. And he’d totally made love to her mouth not even twenty minutes before. Yeah, vacation was already better than working.

He kissed her cheek as she sat at the table and she tried not to make a big deal out of sniffing him. It’d be nice if he’d take one for the team, or twelve, to help her relax. She smiled to herself as warm, hard male surrounded her when he bent around to help her get the chair in.

“Thanks, Rafe. I like that sweater. Did one of your smitten harem make it for you?”

He laughed and the sound shot to all sorts of low places. “Now, Annabelle, jealousy doesn’t become you. I’d be perfectly happy to add you to my harem any old time.”

Brian smacked the top of Rafe’s head before shoving a bowl of peas into his hands.

“Stop coming on to my sister. Make yourself useful.”

“What kept you so late anyway? I thought you said you were only working half a day today?” Kevin called across the table as the noise rose.

“That was the plan. I got into work before six this morning. But you know what they say about the best laid plans. Anyway, I’m trying to rush out the door and some senior partner wants me to stay back and finish up.” Belle didn’t elaborate, it wasn’t necessary anyway. He’d berated her for taking vacation when she led by nearly a third above the highest billable hours of anyone else in the firm. Jerk.

“Who are these people to think they own every bit of your time? It’s been a year, Annabelle. You are a member of this family and it’s high time you remembered that,” her grandmother admonished from a few seats down.

“Nana, I know. I haven’t forgotten I’m a member of the family. It’s hard trying to make it into that corner office. It takes time. This case I just finished up is really important and I think it will make me. I’m here though and I will be for the next five days. I turned off my cell phone and left my laptop at home. It’s all family all the time. I www.samhainpublishing.com

11

Lauren Dane

promise.” Belle nearly laughed at the look on her grandmother’s face as she waved a hand.

“These people! No values. Working you younger attorneys like slaves. I bet
they
all go on vacation.” Her father harrumphed and Kevin winked at Belle from his place across the table.

“Dad, Nana, Belle has worked hard. It takes a lot of hours to get as far as she has.

She went to law school and we all knew she’d be busy when she started at the firm. I don’t think it’s fair to say she’s forgotten her family because she’s doing what all young lawyers at big firms have to, to get ahead. No one complained when I was in residency.”

Brian, her defender, squeezed her hand under the table.

“Of course not. I know Nana didn’t mean it like that.” Her mother frowned. “But it’s been a year since we’ve had all our children at this table. We miss Belle. We are proud of you, honey.”

“Of her accomplishments, always. Not of the way she looks. Too thin. Pale like she hasn’t seen the sun in a very long time. And if you take what I said personally, I’d have to spank you.” Her grandmother sipped her water calmly and Belle gave in to the smile threatening her face. “And you, Brian, you had residency and then set up practice here in town. We didn’t see you often for about two years and then it all calmed down. We want Belle to be successful but that doesn’t mean we want to trade her away and never see her again.”

Belle knew it. She knew her life had spun out of control and she’d had no time at all for anything but working. It was a crappy existence and she’d told herself as she’d driven away from the city that evening that some to do lists and perhaps even a spreadsheet was in order. Her life wasn’t the way she’d envisioned it, not at all.

12

www.samhainpublishing.com

To Do List

Chapter Two

Rafe couldn’t quite believe he’d actually kissed Belle in his front entry. But she’d been standing there, looking so damned delicious and remote in her business attire and the mistletoe had been so convenient, he’d had to give in.

And now that he’d tasted her? He planned to do it a lot more before she disappeared back to San Francisco for another year.

Yes, she was pale and too thin as people had pointed out, but her pretty blue eyes had glittered in the lights hung in the entry and even now, the candles on the table gave her skin a warm glow. His fingers itched to slide through that gorgeous spill of dark blonde hair hanging in shiny waves to her waist.

Rafe had always thought of Annabelle Taylor as an obsessive, anal retentive, control freak of a little sister until five years prior at her law school graduation party. He wasn’t sure what exact moment had brought about the change but suddenly, he’d looked and the girl he’d grown up helping his friend torment had transformed into a beautiful woman.

Still a complete control freak, but he wanted to strip her naked and make her lose control ever since that day.

She’d worked so hard and he’d spent so much time organizing his family dairy and taking on the marketing and PR for the Taylor’s organic farming venture that they’d never had the time.

From the look on her face and the tired way she held her shoulders, she needed some diversion in a major way and he was damned sure she wasn’t getting any between the sheets.

Fate put her right next door to his bedroom and he wasn’t one to look askance at fate now was he? When Belle went back to work after Christmas, she’d have some meat on her bones and a very satisfied glow about her.

www.samhainpublishing.com

13

Lauren Dane

“Here, have some pie.” He put a giant slice of apple pie on her plate and she goggled at him. He knew it would rile her and get her mother’s attention too. Rafe wasn’t above using others to get what he needed done, done.

“Whoa there! I can’t eat all that.”

“You will eat every bit, Annabelle Louise!” her mother chided from her place just down the table. “Rafe, put some whipped cream on top and I’m sending down the ice cream too. It’s fresh, Belle. I made it earlier today.”

Rafe wisely held back a laugh when Belle sat back and didn’t argue with her mother.

The woman was raised right, didn’t argue with her elders so he knew when Rita Taylor backed him up on the pie, Belle would eat it.

“You involved her on purpose,” Belle hissed without looking directly at him. She forked up a heaping mouthful and his cock threatened to burst from his jeans at the sound she made.

“I did. And I’d do it again to make you moan like that. Better yet, I have other ways to make you moan,” he whispered in her ear.

“You think you’re gonna shock me? Don’t tease me, Rafe because I’ll totally take you up on your challenge,” she said back in an undertone.

“Not a tease at all. Now eat your pie and ice cream.” He plopped a huge spoonful of freshly made vanilla on top of the pie. “You’ll need your strength.”

“You’re going to have to roll me out of here.” Belle patted her belly and groaned she was so full.

“Whatever it takes.” Her mother handed her a sheet of paper. “It’s the schedule. I expect to see you over here tomorrow by nine. We’re going shopping and then we’ll do lunch and wrapping. The next day we’ll have tree trimming and after dinner tomorrow we’ll do cranberry and popcorn garlands. The rest is on there. Your aunt and uncle will bring their RV and stay Christmas Eve and your cousins will all come in between now and then as well.” Her mother kissed her cheek. “You all right staying over at Brian and Rafe’s?”

14

www.samhainpublishing.com

To Do List

“Of course! I know Nana and Poppa need a bedroom without stairs and you need to have Chelsea and the kids all in one place. It’s just up the road and it’ll be a heck of a lot quieter tomorrow morning than it’ll be here.”

“Gives me a reason not to be so sad my nest is empty after a week with the grandkids.” Her mother winked. “We’re doing lunch and you’re going to talk to us about your job, so don’t even try to avoid it.”

“Good night, Mom.” She hugged her mom and moved to her father. “And you too, Dad. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

Back at the house, Belle waved off Brian’s attempt to get her to talk and headed straight for the guest room.

“She’s going to work herself to death,” Brian muttered to Rafe.

“I don’t like it any more than you do. But you have to let her deal with it in her own way. Clearly she knows she has some prioritizing to do. If you push her too far, she’ll pull away entirely.”

“Shit. You have a thing for her don’t you?” Brian leaned against the kitchen counter and watched Rafe.

“What makes you say that?”

“First of all, you didn’t deny it right now, which you would have if I’d made the same comment about Chelsea or any of my other female relatives. Second of all, I saw how you looked at her earlier tonight and lastly, you just made sense about her and told me to back off. You’re usually a rush-in-and-solve-problems kind of guy.” Brian grabbed two beers and handed one to Rafe. He cracked it open and took several long pulls before he answered.

“Well, Chelsea is eight months pregnant and married with two small kids. So not my type. No offense or anything.” Rafe sobered a moment. “Would that be a problem? If I had some indefinable something for Belle?”

“Chelsea wouldn’t have you. As for Belle? Depends on what you did, now, wouldn’t it? Like say, if you used her for sex and hurt her? Yeah, that would be a problem, a big one. At the risk of sounding like a cliché, what are your intentions?”

www.samhainpublishing.com

15

Lauren Dane

Rafe took a deep breath before he said anything. She’d had his head swimming since that moment earlier when he’d sniffed her neck. “I don’t quite know. I’ve been attracted to Belle for several years now. But we don’t see each other more than a few times a year and in the last year or so, not even that. But tonight I kissed her. Things feel different. By the way, I don’t use
anyone
for sex, asshole. But what I feel for Belle isn’t casual. She’s someone special to me and she has been for pretty much the entire time she’s been alive.

I know her. She knows me. I’ve never been attracted to someone I already had such an intimate relationship with before. It’s intense and sort of scary. But the time is right, or at least it might be.”

Brian put his hands over his ears theatrically a moment. “Okay. That’s enough. For now. Hell, maybe you can give her a reason to quit her job and move back to Davis. Slow down and work at a job that doesn’t kill her. But please, for the love of all that is holy, if you…well, just keep it down. I’ll turn on the fan so I can’t hear anything.” He shuddered and Rafe laughed.

“That’s enough of that topic. Never fear, I have no desire to involve you in my romantic life.”

They spoke for another half an hour or so, working through the oddness of Rafe and Belle possibly being an item. It was important to Rafe that Brian understood he’d never intentionally hurt Belle. Important to have his blessing in a sense and in the end, it felt like he had it.

“I have to be up at four-thirty tomorrow. I’m going to bed.” He put his empty beer bottle in the recycle bin before nodding in Brian’s direction and heading toward his room.

Belle had gone back to her room and changed. She’d brushed her teeth and gotten into bed, closed her eyes only to end up tossing and turning.

She’d wanted to think about Rafe but instead the scene at her office when she’d been leaving came back to her.

16

www.samhainpublishing.com

To Do List

Everyone had known she had plans to leave early. She’d gone in way before dawn to tie up any loose ends and had promised her family she’d be home well before dinner that night.

“Annabelle, are you actually going to leave now?” David Pendergast, the lead attorney on the Morgan project stood in her office doorway as she grabbed her things and made ready to finally get the heck out of there.

“It’s already six, I’ve been here over twelve hours and I promised my family I’d be at dinner by seven. I’m already going to be late.” Belle looked him square in the face, knowing the situation demanded that sort of calm assertiveness. How depressing to think that even just leaving her office was like a PhD project in psychology.

He remained blocking her exit and she sighed inwardly.