A Bravo For Christmas

He leaned a little closer. “I know you like me. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be keeping track of who I go with.” His minty breath touched her cheek, and longing burned through her—to be like every other girl her age and take a chance now and then, to flutter her eyelashes, to blush and smile and say she would love to go to that party at Cal’s.

But she had plans for her life, and they didn’t include ending up where she was right now—in a double-wide at the Seven Pines Mobile Home Park. He was too popular and too good-looking, and it wouldn’t last and she knew it. When it was over, he would move on to the next pretty girl, leaving her with her heart in tatters. She had no time for a battered, broken heart. She needed her focus on what mattered: a better life for herself.

She tried to explain. “It’s just...a bad idea. You’re nothing but trouble for a girl like me, Dare.”

He scoffed. “‘A girl like you.’ I don’t know what that means.”

“I already told you. I’m too young for you, and I’m from the south side of town.”

“I don’t care where you live. And I’m not asking for anything that’ll get either of us in trouble. I just want you to go to a party with me. You’re putting limits on yourself because you’re scared.”

He refused to understand. But why should he? He was a Bravo and he had it all.

Of course she put limits on herself. Limits protected her from making the kinds of bad choices that could mess up her life all over again. “I am not scared.” Her voice didn’t shake at all. “I have no reason to be. ’Cause I’m not going to Cal’s with you.”

He leaned in even closer. She should have jumped back. But her pride wouldn’t let her. “Liar,” he whispered. “You are scared.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I’m. Not. Scared.”

“Fine. Be that way. But someday you’re gonna say yes to me, Ava.”

To that, she set her shoulders and shook her head. Darius backed off then. He gave a low laugh, as though he knew things she didn’t have a clue about and now she would never find out what those things were. And finally, with an easy shrug of those sexy broad shoulders, he turned and walked away.

She heard a week later that he took Marilyn Lender, head of the cheerleading squad, to Cal’s party. Marilyn didn’t last long. Dare was with someone else by Homecoming. And someone else soon after that. He didn’t ask Ava out again, so she never got a chance to prove to him that he had it all wrong and she would never say yes to him.

And then that spring, he graduated and left town. She heard that he moved to Las Vegas for a while, of all things. And then to LA. Eventually, he returned to Colorado and got a business degree from CU. By the time he came back home to take over his father’s metal fabricating business, she’d married Craig and moved to San Diego.

Seventeen years had passed since those few moments by her locker at Justice Creek High.

And yet somehow, today, as Dare stood at her shoulder in the Blueberry clubhouse on the Monday before Thanksgiving, seventeen years ago felt way too much like yesterday.

He moved, bending closer. She knew what was coming: a teasing fake pass. She was right.

“Tonight,” he whispered. “Eight o’clock.”

She should have done what she always did when he pretended to put a move on her, given a shake of her head, stepped away, maybe let out a little chuckle of mingled amusement and annoyance. It was only a silly game between them, and they’d been playing it the same way for months now, ever since she’d begun working with Bravo Construction, made friends with his sisters and started getting invited to Bravo family gatherings. They did this all the time, and it didn’t mean a thing. All she had to do was stick with the program.

Shake your head. Move away. Her mind told her what to do, but her body and her heart weren’t listening. She had so much yearning all bunched up and burning inside her. The yearning had her hesitating, frozen on the brink of a dangerous emotional cliff.

Maybe it was her crazy Christmas-fling fantasy. Or his sweetness with the girls. It might have been loneliness stirred up and aching from too many years of self-control and strict self-denial.

Or maybe it was simply the perfect manly scent of him, the low, rough sound of his voice that had haunted her as a teenager and now, as a grown woman, stirred her way more than she ought to allow.

Whatever it was that finally pushed her over the edge of the cliff, she went. She fell. She turned her head back toward him behind her and whispered so low he probably shouldn’t have been able to hear it, “Great. See you then. I’ll be naked.”

Chapter Two (#uf7dd171b-e02a-5333-88bd-8343b087be82)

Darius heard her, no doubt about that.

She knew by the way his big body went dead still, by the sudden sharp intake of his breath.

Run away, run away fast! shouted the internal voice of smart, practical, everyday Ava, who knew better than to issue blatantly sexual invitations to a man she’d always promised herself she would never be foolish enough to fall into bed with.

But she didn’t run away. Not immediately.

Instead, she compounded her own idiocy by turning fully toward him and looking him straight in the eye.

He gaped back at her, his expression pure deer-in-the-headlights. Clearly, she’d surprised him.

And not in a good way.

So then. In spite of what he’d said seventeen years ago, the last thing he really wanted was for her to finally say yes to him.

Her heart beat a sick, limping rhythm under her ribs as she accepted the fact that she’d just made a complete fool of herself.

Dear God, please let me sink right through this floor this very instant.

But God didn’t come to her rescue and suck her beneath the surface of the earth. The world kept on turning. Behind her, Janice continued scheduling volunteers—and Dare Bravo stared at her like she’d just sprouted horns and a long, forked tail.

Behind her, Janice dismissed the group. “All right, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving. See you all next Monday.”

Ava wheeled and made a beeline for her daughter. She had Sylvie in her coat, wool hat and mittens in seconds flat. Then, with a cheerful wave and a “Happy Thanksgiving!” she got the hell out of there.

* * *

“I don’t see why you won’t come with us.” Kate Janko ate a bite of mashed potatoes and gazed reproachfully across the dinner table at Ava. “The weatherman’s promised no more snow until next week. The roads will be clear for the drive tomorrow. Ava sweetie, everyone will be there.” There was Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where Ava’s parents, her brothers and their families would all be attending a big Janko family reunion over the coming Thanksgiving weekend.

“Mom, I’m sorry, but I can’t,” Ava said for the umpteenth time. “I’ve got a closing on Wednesday and an important open house on Saturday. It’s just not doable.”

“You work so hard, honey.” Her mother cast a wistful glance around Ava’s dining room, with its gorgeous built-in cabinets and art glass chandelier. Ava was proud of the cozy two-story bungalow she’d bought when she first returned to Justice Creek from California. It might not be large, but she’d restored it meticulously, keeping true to its Arts and Crafts style. “I just don’t see why you can’t take a few days off and be with your family for Thanksgiving.”

“Gramma, we just can’t,” Sylvie piped up. “We’re having Thanksgiving at Annabelle’s aunt Clara’s house. And then Saturday night, I’m going for a sleepover at Annabelle’s house.”

Kate frowned. “Aren’t you a little young for sleepovers?”

Sylvie puffed up her thin chest. “Annabelle’s too young ’cause she’s only six.” Every s had a soft, sweet little hiss to it. Sylvie had lost two front baby teeth, one in October and one just two weeks ago. “But I’m seven, and that is old enough.” She glanced Ava’s way. “Mommy said so. Right, Mommy?”

Ava hid a smile and gave her daughter a nod.

Kate opened her mouth to voice further objections. But Ava’s dad, Paul, put his hand over his wife’s. “Looks like our girls are staying home for Thanksgiving, Kitty Kat.”

Ava’s mother turned her hand over and gave her husband’s fingers a squeeze. They shared a glance both tender and fond. They still called the double-wide at Seven Pines home. And all you had to do was look at them together to know they still lived on love. “Well, I wish you would change your mind,” said Kate as Paul reluctantly took his hand back and both of them picked up their forks again.

“Sorry, Mom. But we just can’t get away.”

“We’ll miss you,” said her father.

“We’ll miss you, too,” Ava dutifully replied.