His By Christmas

“You are so lying.”

“You don’t know that.”

Sam Hart, his older brother, stared at him for several moments, gave him a pitying look, then laughed. “I’d put money on the fact that I’m right.”

“I don’t need money.” Cal was the president of Hart Energy and had plenty. “What I want is that classic car Granddad left you.”

“The Duchess? That’s never going to happen. And it wasn’t personal. He said it needs tender loving care and that takes time. Which you don’t have because you’re always working.” Sam shrugged. “And I’m the oldest. Get over it.”

Cal knew he meant get over second-son syndrome. He would never be first. In the line of succession he was the spare to his older brother’s heir. For as long as he could remember, if Sam was going somewhere, doing something, Cal wanted to do it, too.

Although not marriage, which is why family and friends were gathered in a banquet room at Blackwater Lake’s newest hotel—Holden House. Sam had just gotten married and promised to love and honor Faith Connelly, the town florist. The invitation had said Reception Immediately Following and apparently the groom believed it was open season on Cal’s sex life since his own was in pretty good shape. And he’d never seen his older brother look happier. For once the thought didn’t crank up his acute competitive streak. The truth was, Cal envied him.

“I’m over the whole car thing,” he declared. It was another lie, but he was hoping the groom would be distracted and quit ribbing him about his missing-in-action personal life.

“You’ll never be over it, little brother.”

“You’re only nine months older,” Cal reminded him.

Sam straightened his black bow tie, the one he wore with his traditional black tuxedo. “And an inch taller.”

Cal couldn’t do anything about that, either. He blamed the combination of chromosomes, DNA or whatever it was that had resulted in his own light brown hair and blue eyes and being six foot one instead of six foot two or more. But the reminder was just as annoying now as it had been for his whole life.

“Sam, you’re an ass,” he said. “Tell me again how you talked Faith into marrying you.”

His brother glanced around the crowded room until he found the beautiful bride dressed in a lacy, long-sleeved, floor-length white gown. She met his gaze as if somehow knowing he’d been searching for her and blew him a kiss. “I had a little help from a miniature matchmaker named Phoebe.”

The bride’s little girl. Cal couldn’t deny she was a cute, precocious child. “What did she see in you?”

“Good question. Maybe she knew I needed her and her mom more than they needed me.” Sam was dead serious. “I’m adopting her.”

“Even more reason to congratulate you,” Cal said just as sincerely. “You really do have it all.”

“And you don’t,” his brother needled him. “In fact, you’re not getting any, either.”

So much for having a moment. “How can you possibly know that? Are you stalking me?”

“Don’t have to. I always know where you are. Working.”

“So you’re studying surveillance footage?”

“Don’t have to do that, either, now that you’ve set up an office for Hart Energy here in Blackwater Lake.” Sam slid his hands into the pockets of his tux trousers. “And, in spite of that, there was still some question at the last minute about you being here for the wedding.”

Cal felt a little guilty about that, but negotiations regarding a parcel of land for a wind farm were going south and he needed to be involved. “I made it, didn’t I? I should get points for that. I haven’t missed a Hart wedding yet. Except the one ten years ago Linc didn’t tell anyone about.”

“True. And you’re the last Hart bachelor. Here alone, I notice. Evidence that you work too much to have a life and a plus-one.”

There was more truth in that statement than Cal would admit. “Who retired and promoted you to relationship monitor?”

Just then Katherine Hart, their mother, joined the conversation. “Calhoun, this is your brother’s day. Be nice.”

And so, Cal thought, just like in football, it was the retaliatory hit the official penalized, not the inciting one. “He started it.”

“Sam—” The older woman stood between them, linking arms with them. She was ageless and still beautiful, even after raising four children. “What did you do?”

“I simply pointed out that Cal is a workaholic.”

“Not exactly how you phrased it.” Cal didn’t miss the gleam in his brother’s eyes, the one that dared him to tell her the disagreement was all about him not having sex in a long time. That would happen when pigs went airborne.

“You do work too hard,” Katherine said. “I was seriously thinking about staging a family intervention.”

“Isn’t that a bit dramatic, Mother?”

“No.” Her expression said she wasn’t kidding. Not only that, she’d left no room for rebuttal.

That didn’t stop him from trying to make an argument. “It takes time and effort to run a successful company.”

“No one understands that better than me. But some things are more important.”

Not when he was competing with Sam for the best bottom line of all the companies that encompassed Hart Industries. “Look, Mom—”

“No.” There was that rebuttal stopper again. “Working too hard is a flaw of the Hart men. It’s a trait that nearly destroyed my marriage to your father, as you both well know.”

Cal was aware that his parents legally separated when he and Sam were hardly more than babies. Because they were so close in age, she’d always called them twins the hard way. His dad worked all the time and she’d felt isolated and alone. Katherine’s one-night stand during the separation had resulted in her getting pregnant and his brother Lincoln was born. Against the odds, Katherine and Hastings Hart had reconciled and their union became even stronger.

“I’m not married,” Cal reminded her.

“You were once, but you never will be again if you don’t make changes in your life.”

Cal had left himself wide-open for that one. “Look, I just wasn’t very good at marriage.”

“That’s no reason to give up. It’s like vegetables. One taste doesn’t get you a pass from them. Your body needs them and they’re good for you.”

Kind of like sex, Cal thought.

“You’ll wither and die if you don’t get any.” Sam’s remark was a clue that he was thinking along the same lines.

“Seriously,” Katherine said, “there are studies that prove married men live longer. I want you around for a very long time, not working yourself into an early grave.”

“Come on, Mom. You’re exaggerating.” When her eyes flashed with maternal intensity, he knew that was the wrong thing to say.

“When was the last time you took a vacation?” she demanded.

He thought for a moment and drew a blank. “I’d have to check my calendar. Can I get back to you on that?”

“I already checked with Shanna and she told me you haven’t taken time off since she’s been with the company, so that’s at least four years.”

“You went over my head to my assistant about this?”