Christmas at Bravo Ridge

“You falling asleep on me?”

He scrubbed his hands down his face, shook his head to clear the fuzziness and dragged himself up straighter in the chair. “What time is it?”

“After two.”

“Impossible.”

“But true.”

“I should get going.” He ordered his body to drag itself upright. But before he could actually make that happen, she got up and circled the coffee table to stand above him. He squinted up at her. “Huh?”

She leaned down and put her hands on his shoulders. Those blue eyes were so serious and she was frowning. “No way you’re driving anywhere tonight.” She captured his hand. “Come on. You can have the spare room.”

He liked the feel of her hand in his and also the way the firelight made her hair shine like spun gold. “Naw.”

She tugged on his fingers. “Get up, Matt.”

“I’m fine here. Really. You go ahead to bed, I’ll just sit here and…enjoy the fire.”

“Uh-uh. I know you. You’ll snooze for a while and then get up and go. It’s not a good idea.” She pulled on his hand some more. “Come on with me now. You can make it up the stairs.”

“Acourse I can make it. The question is do I want to make it?”

“You’re going.” She spoke flatly, bracing her free hand on her hip.

He opened his mouth to tell her he wasn’t. But then he shut it without a word. He could see that she’d made up her mind. Corrie’s mind was one thing a man had no hope of changing. Not once it was made up anyway.

“Come on, I’ll help you.” She yanked on his hand for the third time.

“Corrie.”

“What?”

“I’m a little high, yeah, but I’m not totally whacked. I can get up and walk up those stairs just fine on my own.”

“Well, all right. Let’s go.”

He let her pull him up. Then, gently, he extricated his hand from her grip. “I’m going, all right?”

“So go.”

He went. Halfway up the stairs, he realized she wasn’t behind him. He glanced back. She was turning off the fireplace and switching out the lamps. He waited until she started coming up and then he went the rest of the way to the top and down the upstairs hall into the guest room, where she caught up with him. She flipped the switch by the door and the room became blindingly bright.

He blinked against the glare. “Ouch. Do we really need that light?” He aimed himself at the bed.

She grabbed his arm and pushed him down into a chair. “Stay there. I’ll change the sheets.” She started stripping the bed.

He considered the strangeness of that. The bed had been all made up, but she was taking it apart? “What’re you doing?”

She shook the pillows out of their pillowcases. “Getting you fresh sheets. Bob stayed over last week and I never got around to changing them.”

It took him about five seconds to process that, but his fuzzy mind finally picked up her meaning. “Hold on. Pastor Bob slept in here?”

She had the blankets off and the sheets gathered up in her arms by then. “Yeah. So?”

He frowned in thought. “But you and Bob…you’re engaged.”

Her mouth was kind of pinched up. “Is there a point that you’re making?”

“Well, it’s only…I mean, why wasn’t he sleeping with you?”

She only looked at him. Her expression did not invite further comment.

He hit himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand and commented anyway. “Got it. You and Bob don’t sleep together. Right?”

Again, she said nothing.

So he asked, “Why not?” He couldn’t imagine being engaged to Corrie and not having sex with her. What would be the point?

Her chin hitched higher. “Not that it’s any of your business, but if you have to know, Bob has certain principles.”

“And by that you mean?”

She answered reluctantly. “We’re waiting.”

“Waiting.” He pondered the word. “For…Moses to part the waters? For the second coming of…”

She shut him up with a look. Corrie had a talent with the looks. “If you know what’s good for you, Matthew, you’ll stop mocking what I have with Bob.”

Okay, yeah. He was a little juiced. But he did know what was good for him and getting Corrie mad wasn’t it. “Okey-dokey,” he answered cheerfully. Then he slumped back in the chair, leaned his head against the wall and shut his eyes.

He heard her hustle off. A moment later, she was back and bustling around over by the bed. He let his eyes drift open just as she bent to smooth the elastic on the bottom sheet. It was a great view. She had a beautiful, heart-shaped ass. And also this incredibly sexy tattoo of red roses and black vines that curled diagonally up out of her jeans from the left, across her lower back and halfway around the right side of her waist. From where he sat he could only see a section of it, between the top of her jeans and where her sweater rode up. He hadn’t seen all of it in much too long…

Corrie had a sixth sense as to when a man was looking. Probably from dealing with an endless chain of horny, drunken fools at Armadillo Rose. She glanced back over her shoulder and caught him staring.

“Oops,” he said with a slow grin.

“You are hopeless, you know that?”

“Yep. I am. Completely hopeless.” He tried to look pitiful.

She fired the pillows and a pair of pillowcases at him. “Make yourself useful.”

He put the pillowcases on the pillows. That took about a minute. Then he got up and went to help her tuck the blankets in—just to prove he was more than willing to do his share.

Not that she needed any help. With swift efficiency, she folded and tucked and smoothed. He ended up kind of following her around the bed, tucking what she’d already smoothed, kidding her by bumping against her—with his shoulder and then with his hip.

“Will you cut it out?” She snorted the words through a half-stifled laugh.