Christmas was in two days and she had come over to Charlotte’s to help her bake. Her sister was hugely pregnant, yet still insisted on tricking out her house for the holiday.
“So, are you bringing anyone to dinner?” Charlotte asked in a casual voice that did not fool Abby one iota, as she helped Rose stick a silver ball on the top of her own tree cookie.
“You mean, like a date? No.” Abby switched colors from red to green.
“No? No one that you’re seeing?”
“No.” She gave Charlotte a look, hoping she would drop it. Abby hadn’t dated since she had seen Darius walk back to his motel room naked, his ass on display, tormenting her.
It had been difficult, but she hadn’t answered any of his calls. Eventually he had stopped contacting her. The hardest thing of all had been staying out of his dreams, but she knew it was necessary. She had built a relationship on those dreams, on fantasy, and it wasn’t reality.
Her reality at the moment didn’t involved men. Certainly not men like Darius who she could fall in love with way too easily.
She may not have responded to him, but it hadn’t stopped her from checking up on him. What she’d discovered had unnerved her. Darius Damiano was a generous philanthropist, donating nearly twenty percent of his annual income to various charities, especially those involving children. He also had paid for the restoration of an ancient no-kill animal shelter.
Which told her that one, Darius was a good guy, and two, she had approached their relationship all the wrong way. She should have gotten to know him, clothes on, in a traditional environment. Like normal people.
So until she could figure out how to do that with a man, she wasn’t dating.
“You know, it took Will and I seven years to admit our feelings for each other.”
“That’s because you’re slow,” she told her sister, teasing. She didn’t want to talk about her love life, which at this point was a ghost of a memory.
“What’s this?” Georgia asked her, fingering the mistletoe Abby wore in her hair.
“Mistletoe. It’s from a tree. I’m using it as a hair decoration.”
“Pretty.”
“Thanks, cutie.” She had found the mistletoe crushed in the bottom of her backpack and she had attached it to a clip. The message was a good one—bringing love into her life. But now she meant it as family, not a man.
Or maybe she had just been slightly defiant in wearing it. But it was what it was.
“Maybe if you just talk to Darius,” Charlotte started.
“No.”
“Because you know—”
“Not happening.” Abby cheerfully cut her sister off. “I’m happy and you’re not going to ruin it.”
So what if she thought about him every single day? So what if she regretted her rash behavior? There wasn’t anything she could do about it at this point.
She always went forwards, not backwards.
Even when it hurt.
She could have loved Darius, but it wasn’t meant to be. Nor was she meant to own her grandmother’s house. It had sat empty for another twelve months and she had long since stopped worrying about a For Sale popping up in the yard. Darius seemed determined to let it rot. The Cuttersville episode of
Ghost Tracker
had never aired. She had watched the show every week, bracing herself, gazing moony-eyed at him on the TV screen, but the Victorian house had never made an appearance.
The front door opened. “Bree’s here.” Thank God. Maybe now they could move on to more exciting topics, like Alistair’s new molars and his ability to walk standing upright.
“Hello,” Bree called.
“In the kitchen.”
“I found someone pacing outside. I brought him in.”
Abby’s head snapped up. In a split second she knew. It was him. Darius was in the house.
She was wiping her hands free of sugar sprinkles and fussing with her hair before he even rounded the corner. When he did, her breath caught. She couldn’t help it. For five years, she’d had him in their mutual sleep. Then for a brief two days she had had him in the flesh. The last twelve months had been lonely, the loss profound. Now he was standing in front of her, filling the doorway of Charlotte’s tiny kitchen.
“Oh!” Charlotte said. “Hi, Darius. How wonderful to see you.”
It was wonderful. Agonizing.
Bree grinned.
“Hi, Charlotte,” he said. “Abby. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Darius.”
What do you want?
she had the urge to scream. Her peace of mind was hard won and she didn’t want to spend this Christmas with a pit in her stomach and tears always threatening to appear. “What brings you to town?”
“You. I came for you.” He held up a packet of papers. “The house is yours if you still want it. Free and clear. I’ve signed it over. You just need to add your signature.”
Abby stared at him, not sure she was comprehending what he was saying. “What?”
Darius had known he was taking a huge risk. He knew Abby was capable of tossing him out of her sister’s house without a second thought. But he couldn’t stand the thought of one more day going by without at least trying to see her.
She looked beautiful. There was a sprig of mistletoe in her hair and her cheeks were pink from the heat of the stove. There was flour on her chin and she was standing next to her niece, who was on a chair on her knees.
“The house. I’m giving it to you.” He moved closer and put the envelope in her hand. “Merry Christmas,” he repeated. He gazed into her eyes, desperate to know what he would find in there. Did she care at all about him?
She had disappeared from his life, awake and asleep, and Darius had been miserable. Short of harassing her, he hadn’t known what to do to apologize, so he’d done nothing. But he couldn’t bring himself to sell the house on the open market, to a total stranger, so he’d held on to it. As the year had dragged on and his unhappiness hadn’t gone away, he knew what he needed to do. The house belonged to Abby, to her sisters. He needed to restore it to them and put this chapter behind him.
Apparently it was a dream that was never meant to be.
“Just like that? You’re giving it to me.” Anger flashed in her eyes.
Not the reaction he was expecting. “Yes.”
“I told you I don’t want to live there alone. You can keep it.”
Suddenly he knew what he really wanted to do. He didn’t want to be the altruistic guy who gave her the house so she could marry some local tattooed coffee shop barista and live there with him.
She was going to live there with Darius.
That was why he’d been so damned miserable. Because while it wasn’t logical, he hadn’t been able to shake off his burning desire, his love, for Abby.
Oh, my God, he was in love.
“I love you,” he said, before he could panic and walk out of there empty-handed.
“What? Are you insane?”
“Probably. But I’ve missed you so much.” He brushed the hair off her cheek. “Abby, you took yourself out of my dreams. It broke my heart. And I realize that for my heart to break, it had to mean you hold it. I love you.”
Her lip trembled. “I missed you too. But how could I be there when you didn’t want me there? When you thought I was making it up?”
She seemed to be failing to hear the important part of what he’d said. “I didn’t think you were making it up. I just didn’t know how to wrap my head around the truth. I mean, why would a woman as amazing like you be interested in me?” It was true. He was just Mr. Regular Guy.
By the way, he had told her he loved her, the first time he’d ever said that to a woman, and she hadn’t even acknowledged it.
She turned her head into his touch, her lips brushing his palm. “I’m interested in you because I love you. I always have. “
“Really?” Darius took a deep breath, afraid to move, to shatter the perfection of this moment.
“Really. I’ll accept exactly fifty percent of the house if you’ll agree to spend at least fifty percent of your time here in Cuttersville, living in the house with me.”
“Deal.” He couldn’t ask for anything more perfect. Or a woman more perfect. Darius cupped her cheeks and kissed her.
“Come on, girls, let’s get these cookies in the oven and leave Auntie Abby with her friend.”
Right. There were other people in the room. He pulled back and gave Bree and Charlotte a sheepish grin. “Sorry.”
“Not a problem.”
Bree fingered her necklace, one Darius vaguely recognized as something symbolizing witches, but he wouldn’t swear to it. He supposed he was going to have to learn more about it since he was going to be living with one.
“That’s three for three,” Bree said. “It may be time to retire that mistletoe before one of the babies gets a hold of it. We can’t have lusty preschoolers walking around.”
Darius eyed the mistletoe in Bree’s hair. “Did you put a spell on me?”
“Nope. I just asked for love, remember?”
His heart did a weird slam-dunk in his chest. “You have it.”
“So…” Her fingers fisted in his shirt. “I feel in the mood for giving.”
“Oh, me, too,” he told her.
Abby laughed at the look on his face. Darius had definitely caught her meaning. The first thing they needed to buy for
their
house was a bed. A big one. Four-poster, with camel colored bedding.
“I’ve been saving up all this giving for a year.”
“Well, you’re going to have a lifetime to give to me,” he said, with a naughty wink.
“That’s the spirit.” Abby pulled the mistletoe out of her hair, took her lover’s hand, and led him forward into their future. “Let’s go home.”
End
Abby’s Christmas Spirit
by
Erin McCarthy
First published as a Kindle Edition by Erin McCarthy, 2011
Copyright 2011© Erin McCarthy
Cover Photo Copyright 2011© Lisa Thornberg | iStockPhoto.com
Cover created by Barbara Satow
All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Erin McCarthy.
About the Author
USA Today and New York Times Bestselling author Erin McCarthy sold her first book in 2002 and has gone on to pen more than 38 novels and novellas in the paranormal, contemporary romance, and young adult genres. A RITA award finalist and an American Library Association winner of the Reluctant Young Reader award, Erin is a member of Romance Writers of America, Horror Writers Association, and Ohioana. Visit
www.erinmccarthy.net
and
www.vampireband.com
for contests, excerpts, and the latest information on her upcoming projects.
Contents
Table of Contents