I'll Be Yours for Christmas

They no longer had the petting zoo, unfortunately, but Abby could never part with her horses. Riding them along the lake was one of her favorite ways to relax. Her parents had given her these two colts when she was fifteen. As she headed down to the barn and looked out over her land, the sight always took her breath away in any season. Today, there’d been a light snow all day long, and it was shining like diamonds in the moonlight.

This was hers. It was home. Like her parents, she’d love to travel more, but she’d never really wanted to live anywhere but here.

All of the stress and work that went with it was hers, too. Lunch with Hannah yesterday had left her with a lot of food for thought and a lot of worry for the future.

Inside the barn she was greeted by soft, muffled welcomes, and she grabbed feed buckets, hay and fresh water and took care of business, which included much brushing and stroking.

“Hey, babes,” she crooned, feeling guilty that she hadn’t done more than put them out in the field that day. “I promise tomorrow you’ll both get some good exercise. I’ll get Hannah and we’ll see you both early in the morning for a nice ride.”

After long moments of petting warm muzzles and feeling more relaxed than she had when she walked in, she locked the doors and said good-night, turning back toward the house. Her gaze drifted down over the landscape to the Winston property. She noted some lights on in the house, although the winery was dark. Was Reece really going to sell?

She shivered, pulled her thick wool coat tighter around her and stared at the upstairs light. Reece? In his room? Was he there alone? She shivered for a different reason.

She’d been all fired up yesterday, having fun with Hannah, but she was crazy to think she could seduce Reece into … what? Not selling his land? No doubt he would think that was very funny; she was still out of his league, always had been.

But she was going to talk to him. She had no idea what she’d say to try to convince him to hold off, but if he didn’t rush into a sale with Keller, maybe she could help find someone who would buy in with her. It was a huge gambit, but not impossible. Not entirely. She had money saved, and she’d have to mortgage her home to the hilt, but what other choice did she have?

She had to do whatever she could to protect her home and business. Keller would ruin the entire area.

The little hamlet that had sprouted up around the wineries a few miles up the lake from the city of Ithaca offered a coffee shop, a few quaint boutiques, a gas station and a convenience store, and all of her friends were here. Unlike Reece, who had gone away as far as he could as soon as he was able, she’d gone to college locally, at Cornell, and she went down into the city a few times a week. They sold many of their wines in local stores, as well as all over the region.

She wished she could go inside, open a nice bottle of wine, make some dinner and sit in front of the fireplace in the living room, then finish decorating her trees without it feeling like work.

It would be even nicer to not have to do it alone.

Maybe she wouldn’t have to. Biting her lip, she walked faster toward the house and didn’t think too much about what she was contemplating. If she did, she’d lose her nerve.

Entering the warmly lit kitchen that hadn’t changed too much since she’d grown up, she went carefully down the cellar steps to the room where they kept their private stock and grabbed a bottle she had been saving for a special occasion.

Back upstairs, she pulled two glasses from the shelves and a wedge of brie and a few other goodies from the fridge.

The trees could wait. Her talk with Reece could not.

If she didn’t do it now, she’d could lose her chance as well as her nerve. Setting aside her doubts and worries, she started out walking across the land between their homes, a windy half mile, her eyes focused on the lit windows. The snow and moon illuminated everything, making it easy to walk, and she covered the distance quickly. As she neared the house, her eyes focused in on a form in the upstairs window.

Her mouth went dry and she dropped the bottle of wine, which didn’t break, thank goodness, but landed softly in the snow.

She picked it up again and walked closer. It was Reece. He hadn’t pulled a shade or a curtain, thinking—rightly—that no one would be looking in his windows from the field side of the house.

He was nude. Completely. Stretching his arms up over his head, and then bending at the waist, she couldn’t see everything, but she saw enough to make her heart slam against her rib cage as he did something that looked very much like yoga.

He was strong. Muscled, but graceful in his movements.

Gorgeous.

She forgot to move forward, entranced, but then as she realized where she was and what she was doing, she averted her eyes—though she couldn’t erase what she’d seen. How could she? The strong line of his back, the muscles of his shoulders and arms were stunning. She could imagine running her hands over him and wondered what it would be like to have those slim, strong hips settling in between her legs….

“Oh, no,” she said to herself, breathless with lust, her hands trembling as she almost dropped the wine again.

She hovered for a second on the porch. Reece was home, alone and naked, and she was standing here at his front door with a bottle of wine. Her courage flagged. Maybe she should talk to him another time, like during the light of day, or at a bar with a lot of other people around.

Don’t be a coward, Abby, she scolded herself. She sucked in a deep breath and pressed the doorbell before she could change her mind.

REECE STEPPED GINGERLY out of the shower, wrapping a large towel around his waist, wincing from the pain in his left leg, where pins and needles shot back and forth along his thigh, causing weakness in his stance.

Each pinprick was like an individual jab, reminding him that he couldn’t get in a race car again and do the thing that he loved most. Headaches had come back earlier that afternoon as well, and he’d spent most of the day on the sofa with an ice pack.

What if this never went away? What if they never signed off on letting him race again? At this point, doctors gave him a fifty-fifty shot, but he had to be one hundred percent, his reflexes perfect, completely reliable before he could race.

The betrayal of having his own body prevent him from doing what he loved most was utterly unacceptable. He’d gotten through the worst of it, and he’d defeat this, too. There was no alternative other than … what? Staying here?

Not an option.

Crossing the hall, he walked into the guest room and dried off. His mother had long ago, with his blessing, turned his old room into a place where she did her sewing and other crafts. He came home for holidays and a few short vacations but not often enough for his parents to have preserved his room. At the moment, he was glad they hadn’t. He’d been feeling strangely sentimental about the old place, and that wasn’t like him. He supposed it was because of the close call with his dad. Almost losing someone—as well as almost losing your own life—made you see things differently.

He loved his family, but this was just a house, he reminded himself. A building. One he couldn’t get away from fast enough when he’d been a teenager looking for something more exciting.

He started going through the stretching routine that he’d been taught by his last physical therapist to relieve the pins and needles. Focusing on his breathing, his form, he drove away unwanted thoughts. The hot shower had helped loosen him up, but it still hurt like hell at first to push through the moves and hold them, though the symptoms lessened after a few repetitions.

He felt better as he relaxed, going through the rest of his exercises for good measure. He’d talked to his neurologist earlier in the day for the umpteenth time, and he had been reassured yet again that it was all normal.

Easy for him to say.

Reece turned to grab a pair of jeans when the ring of the doorbell caught him by surprise. Who would be here now?

Surely not Charles with someone to see the house. No one had called.

Pulling on his jeans and grabbing a shirt, he rushed down the stairs and pulled open the door, unable to believe his eyes.

“Abby?”

He took in her pink cheeks and tousled hair, and stepped back, inviting her in as the frosty air nipped at his bare toes.

“C’mon in. It’s freezing out there,” he said.

“Thanks, it is,” she said, moving quickly. Her eyes flew to his chest. He hadn’t had time to completely button his shirt.

“Oh, sorry … just got out of the shower.”

Her cheeks turned even pinker and she didn’t meet his eyes. He wondered why she was here holding wine, two glasses and some other foods.

Reece prompted her again. “What’s all this?” he asked, looking down at the stuff she still held in her arms. One glass was tenuously dangling from her fingertips.

“Let me take that for you,” he offered, and reached forward to take the flute. When his fingers caught with hers around the stem, her hand jerked away and they fumbled the glass, nearly dropping the fragile crystal.

Reece frowned. “Are you okay?”

She finally smiled. “Yes, I’m fine. Sorry to intrude on your evening, but I saw your lights on and felt like some company. You said you wanted to have a drink, so …” She shrugged, holding up the bottle. “Unless this is a bad time?”