Rancher’s Christmas Storm by Maisey Yates

Eleven

“I’m okay, Dad,” she said, pacing back and forth in the living room. It was a little bit dastardly that she had left Jericho to talk to Hank. She had realized at some point that Hank was itching to do it, and she knew that unless she did something like this, Jericho was going to come back to the cabin with her.

But, she needed to talk to her dad. He needed to talk to his.

“I wish you would’ve talked to me about leaving in the first place. By the time I found out you’d gone up north, you were already gone, and then I had no way of knowing that you were trapped in a snowstorm.”

“Jericho found me,” she said. “We found a vacation rental. We hunkered down there.” And the less she said about it the better. “And then I decided to come up with him to support him while he met with his dad.”

“You’re not usually all that friendly with him.”

“Well, he saved my life. I mean, really, if I hadn’t been with him I don’t know what would’ve happened. And I’m not moving. I changed my mind.”

She’d left it all in her note. Well, nothing about her virginity of course.

“Really?” her dad said.

“Yeah. Really. I talked to Jericho, and he said that he’s going to sell me a portion of the vineyard back.”

“Did you... Did you want some of the vineyard?”

“Yes, Dad. I wanted it desperately. It’s why I’ve been furious for the last few months.”

“You’ve been furious?”

She’d been so honest with Jericho. And the walls she’d always felt existed between herself and the world felt thinner now. And she liked it that way.

So why not speak?

Why not now?

She’d been ready to leave. Which was so extreme in hindsight. More ready to run than have a conversation.

But being with him had changed her.

And this was her moment to live in that change.

“Yes. Furious. Absolutely incensed that you would do that to me. That you would sell the winery out from under me without talking to me first. It’s why I decided to move away. But, Jericho saved me from the snowstorm, and we talked about my future.”

There. Now Jericho sounded like a hero.

She heard female voices in the background. “Are you at the Maxfields’?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Are you and...”

“I really do love her, Honey.”

“Right. You love her and...I guess you’re going to marry her and close this big strange circle of our families?”

“Well, that depends. She ended up getting so much of the winery. She’s a very rich woman. I’m not sure that she’s interested in getting hitched. We might just live in sin.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Dad. I don’t want to know that.”

“You should be happy for me. I’ve been miserable for a long time.”

“I am happy for you. Only if you can be happy for me too. And realize that for me the winery is happiness.”

“Of course, Honey. I only want what’s best for you. I’m sorry if I didn’t see it. I just... I was never very good at having a daughter.”

“I don’t know, sometimes I wonder if I was any good at being one. I just wanted to be like the boys. But I’m not. They’re outspoken and they know how to tell you what they want. And they do it without emotions. But I have feelings. A lot of them, and I just spent a lot of time shoving them down deep. I didn’t want to cause trouble. I know how much it upset you... The way I was at Mom’s funeral.”

It was a memory that lodged deep inside of her. One that she didn’t like to talk about.

“It was an upsetting time.”

“I just didn’t want to upset you. Not again.”

“I love you, Honey. You don’t upset me. I think sometimes I just don’t look at you and know immediately what you want.”

She thought of Jackson and Creed and the different things they’d been through, and honestly, she didn’t think her dad knew anymore what they wanted. Hell, they hadn’t known what they wanted until they’d gotten with Wren and Cricket. So maybe that was just it. Maybe everybody was always learning, and they needed to do a better job of talking.

“I love you, Dad,” she said. “I’ll be home in a couple of days.”

“Tell Jericho no funny business.”

And then her dad laughed, as her heart shimmered down into her stomach. And she realized he thought it was a hilarious joke.

“I think I’ll let him have his way with me,” she said.

“You do that,” her dad said.

“Merry Christmas,” she said.

And then got off the phone, happy that the idea of Jericho touching her was just such a joke.

She frowned furiously, and was still frowning at the front door when it opened and Jericho came in.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

“I told my dad I was going to let you have your way with me, and he literally laughed.”

“Oh, don’t take offense to that,” Jericho said, shrugging out of his jacket. And she couldn’t help but admire the muscles in his body as he moved. In fact, she just went ahead and ogled him, because she was out of sorts, and she felt owed.

“Why should I not take offense?”

“Because it’s to do with it being you and me. It’s not you.”

“Well, why do people think we’re so incompatible?”

“Because we bicker.”

“So what?”

“Well, we bicker quite a bit.”

“Clearly unresolved sexual tension. Haven’t they ever seen a romantic comedy?”

He crossed the room, wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her up against him. He gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger, his dark eyes intense. “Honey, we are not a romantic comedy.” And she could feel the evidence of his desire pressing against her body. And no. They were not a comedy. There was nothing funny about this.

“Okay,” she said.

And what she meant was, I trust you. What she meant was, you matter to me.

And he seemed to know that, because he leaned in and kissed her on the lips.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” she said.

“It’s Christmas Eve.”

“Did you like Christmas when you were a kid?”

“No,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I hated it. I always had to figure out ways to get Christmas decorations up. Get a tree. Get a meal from the local church, so that we had something nice, even though in the end my mom didn’t want to eat. But somebody had to make Christmas happen. And she didn’t have the energy to do it. So I always did. After she died, I just didn’t do it. I mean, I would go be with your family, but I haven’t put up a decoration in my own house... Ever.”

“Jericho,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.” Because for all that she had felt like she had to do something to hide her emotions, there had always been people there taking care of her. It might not have been perfect, but she wasn’t alone. She might’ve had moments of loneliness, but that was different than being alone. It was different than being a child who was expected to be an adult. Different than being forced to be the one that brought the Christmas magic into the house when people should’ve been making it happen for you.

“You never believed in Santa Claus, did you?”

He shook his head. “No. Because I figured I was about as good as a kid could be. So if I was going to magically get gifts... No. I didn’t. I wanted to believe in Jesus though. Because that made me feel less alone. So that was about...the only point of Christmas as far as I could see. Well, and Christmas dinners made by church ladies.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ve made it okay.”

But when he smiled, it didn’t reach his eyes, and she wondered how she hadn’t realized that before.

And she knew what it was like. To carry things that were absolutely not okay, but to also realize there was no point mourning what you should’ve had, because none of it was going to bring it back to you. But her heart ached for the little boy who had made sure there was Christmas for his mother. Who probably needed there to be Christmas so that she didn’t feel quite like she was failing him so badly, but it had rebounded and turned into something he had to perform. And it made her feel so... So desperately sad.

And for the first time, she wanted to tell the story of what happened at her mother’s funeral. She had never talked about it with anyone. Until she had mentioned it with her dad a few moments ago, they had never even brought it up to each other.

“I was so sad when my mother died,” she said. “I couldn’t stop crying. I thought I was going to die myself. I was gasping for air, gulping. It lasted...days, Jericho. Days. Then I stopped. And it was just sort of a horrible silence. But then at the funeral it all came back. And I just... I screamed. And I cried. My father was so distressed, he didn’t know what to do with me. He was stoic, and the boys were stoic. And...”

“You were a little girl.”

“I know,” she said. “I was a little girl who really really missed her mother. And... My father found it so upsetting. He didn’t know what to do with me. He told me to be quiet. And he told me to stop crying. He told me to wait outside the church until I could get my emotions together.”

“Honey...”

“So I just sat there and I bit my tongue through the whole thing. And eventually, the pain did something to block out my sadness. The tears. I just tried after that. Every day. To be a little bit stronger. Because I realized that...on top of everything else my dad couldn’t handle my sorrow.”

“Dammit,” Jericho said. He put his hand up to her cheek. “That’s wrong.”

“He was just trying his best. It’s like Christmases that you have to throw yourself when you’re a child. Yeah, it’s sad. But... There’s nothing you can do about it. We just got stronger. We just did the best we could.”

“You don’t have to hide yourself. Not now.”

She could tell he hadn’t meant to say it.

“You don’t have to hide yourself either.”

And then he was kissing her. When she thought they might both be consumed by it. By the flames of their desire. The fire of this need between them that could no longer be controlled. And she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around this Jericho. Vulnerable, strong. Sexy. So much more than the man she’d always seen. The man she’d wanted, but the man she hadn’t really known.

He was... He was brilliant and wonderful and everything. And so strong, so amazingly resilient, having been through so much.

And she wondered how she had ever believed that it was a crush. How she had ever thought that all that they were could be reduced to something so basic, so...juvenile.

Because it was easier. Because it was then. But all it had taken was a few honest conversations, and it was different. She was different. And she saw the ways that he was different.

And that they were the same. All the ways that he was able to fill the gaps in who she was, and who they both were. And the way that she was able to do the same for him.

And she kissed him. Because she wanted him. Because he was the man she’d always known, and this man she had gotten to know over the past few days. Because he was her brothers’ friend, but most importantly he was her friend. Because they were business partners and they had known each other half their lives. Because... Well, quite simply because she loved him.

And it was a truth that rang out as clear and lovely inside of her as anything ever could have. It was a truth that reverberated across her soul. She loved him. And she was in love with him. It was every layer, every piece of all the ways she’d seen him bonded together in one strong undeniable feeling. Because she saw the truth of who he was now. The whole of him. All of him. And because of that she saw the whole of herself, as well. The woman that she was. The woman that she wanted to be.

The ways that she had been hurt and the way that she had overcome. And the way that she wanted him. The way that she loved him. She was no longer protecting herself, because that was what it had been. Telling herself it was a crush. Pushing herself to find a way to get over him. To be with someone else, because of course being with someone else would’ve been easy. The easiest thing.

Because Donovan might have taken her clothes off her, but he would never have stripped her bare. And Jericho had brought her down to the truth of who she was.

Jericho was... He was the only man for her. The only one that she could ever love. And she did. She had told him... Oh, foolish her, she had told him that she didn’t expect them to get married or be in a relationship, or be anything. And she had been wrong. She had lied, even though she hadn’t meant to. Because she had hoped. She had always hoped. And in a life that had given her so few reasons to hope, this one last bit of light had existed in the very corner of her soul, reserved for him, reserved for this. For all that she wished they could be.

And she kissed him with that truth. All of it, resonating inside of her.

And when he picked her up and carried her to his bedroom, she didn’t make any comments about his carrying her, didn’t try to defuse the tension with a joke. No. She was there. Completely. Doing nothing to block out the intensity of her need for him. The intensity of their desire for one another.

It was raw and real, and she would do nothing to make it less.

She wrenched his black tie loose, slid it through the collar of his shirt and cast it down to the floor. Pushed his jacket from his shoulders and unbuttoned his white shirt, revealing a wedge of tan skin. He was so beautiful.

Utterly brilliant in all of his glory. Whether he was in a T-shirt and jeans or a suit. Naked, which was how she preferred him most of all.

She stripped him bare, like it might give her access to the deepest parts of him. Like it might give her a part of his soul, that part of him that she so desperately craved.

She stripped him bare, as if she was dependent upon it.

And then he was naked before her, his eyes shining with the light of intensity that ignited her from within.

She reached behind her back and grabbed the zipper pull on her dress and let it fall free, let it pool at her feet. She was wearing some of the lingerie. Lacy and white, bridal, it could be said.

And the way that he looked at her, as if he wanted to devour her, satisfied her. Made her feel utterly and completely captured. By a look. By the promise of his touch. By the desperate hope of his love.

And when they were finally joined together, laid out on the bed, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. Poured out every ounce of her love—her love because she would name it now—into that kiss.

She had been afraid before, of all the things rising up inside of her.

Because she had been afraid of her feelings for so long. For too long.

But they were here, and they were big. Bigger than she was. Maybe bigger than the both of them. Maybe they would consume her. Maybe they would swallow them both. Maybe it would leave her with desperate, sad scars, but she could no longer live a life where she denied all that she was for the sake of safety. For the sake of making everyone else comfortable.

She had to do this. She had to step into who she was. Into who she hoped to be. Because the only reason she had ever been unhappy was because of her own self. Because she had kept too many things to herself. Whether it be her feelings about the winery or her feelings about Jericho. The way that she felt disconnected from her family sometimes... She was the one that had chosen to keep them locked down deep, and it might’ve been for other people, but no one had ever outright asked for it. And even if they had... Why did she have to give everybody what they wanted?

Couldn’t she have something for herself?

Perhaps this was growth, and other people needed to grow right along with her.

Perhaps, she wasn’t the one who was broken.

“I love you,” she whispered.

And then they both went over the edge together.

Jericho was shaking. The aftermath of the pleasure he just experienced roared in his blood, in his head, along with Honey’s words.

“I love you.”

His chest felt like it had been rent. With sharp claws and sweet words, and everything Honey.

“Honey... Don’t do this.”

“Don’t do what?”

She rolled away from him, all soft and naked, and he wanted to bring her back into his arms, because what he wanted to do was hold her all night. He didn’t want her to do this. They were supposed to have this thing until they all went back to their real lives. It was still Christmas. He was still supposed to get to have this.

“Don’t do what?” she repeated.

“Don’t make this into something that it isn’t supposed to be,” he said.

“Who gets to say?”

“We already said.”

“Yeah. Things change. Life is not fair. You and I both know that. Why are you acting like just because we decided on something doesn’t mean we can’t change our minds.”

“Because I can’t,” he said, looking at her earnest face, feeling his heart beating so hard he thought it might tear through his chest and land bloody on the bed in front of them.

“So I was just supposed to keep my feelings to myself again. How is that any different than what my dad wanted me to do when he made me sit outside of my mother’s funeral.”

“Because that was real,” he said. “Those feelings were real. But this... This is just you having your first sex partner.”

He felt like he was standing on the edge of a dark, endless well and all that was down there was...grief.

All-consuming, terrifying.

It was the only path love led to.

It took and took and took, until in the end, love took itself away too and you were cut off at the knees.

He couldn’t.

He couldn’t.

“Don’t do that to me,” she said. “Do not be condescending to me. I am not a child. I am a woman. And what life has thrown at you it’s thrown at me too. I know what it’s like to lose somebody that I love. I know it. Deep in my soul. To miss someone all the time that you can never see again. To feel so isolated in your grief, even though there are people around you who should understand. To feel the way that it burns when you just need this person who’s gone forever. I know. I had to grow up early too. I get it.”

“You didn’t have to throw your own Christmas.”

“No. I’m not saying I had every hardship you did, but I am not a baby. Don’t treat me like one. Don’t you dare.”

“I’m not treating you like a baby, but I am treating you like what you are. A woman with vastly less experience than I have. And I think you want to listen to me when I tell you that you’re probably just putting too much weight on this.”

“As if you don’t put any weight on it,” she said. “As if it doesn’t matter to you at all that we had sex.”

“I’m not saying it doesn’t matter.”

“What are you saying then?”

“I don’t want love. Not yours, not anyone’s. It is too much work, Honey. And I am not worth the struggle.”

“That isn’t true.”

“Fine then. I don’t think it’s worth the struggle. I don’t want it. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want your love. I don’t want to love you back. I just wanted to fuck. That’s it. I think you’re hot—I have for a long time. You told me you were going to go give your virginity to some other guy, and it pissed me off. Because I’m a guy. But that’s it. It’s the beginning and end of the story.”

Tears were running down her face, and he felt like... He was the worst. He was the absolute worst person. He hated himself just then. But all he could think of was that horrific, weighted feeling when Christmas rolled around. When he had to do everything and make things merry and bright and pretend that he wasn’t living in some damned horror show in his heart, where he knew that the end of his mother’s life was coming, and he knew that he was facing a future by himself, and it was just spinning out slowly and terribly, and he was putting on a grim performance in the meantime. He couldn’t stand it. He simply couldn’t stand it. The expectation. The certain feeling that no matter what, no matter how much he loved, no matter what he did, he was hurtling toward an inevitable end, something that would never be fixed or satisfied.

And he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

“Honey... No. We can’t do this.”

And her face crumpled. And he felt like an absolute ass.

But there was nothing he could do about it. Sitting there, lost in every bad feeling that he’d ever had in his life, every grief that he never contended with, he simply couldn’t do it. She got up, and she walked out of the room.

And it took him a few minutes to realize that she wasn’t just leaving the room. She was leaving.

A car pulled up to get her some fifteen minutes later. And then she was gone. And he was left. Crushed beneath the weight of damn near everything.

He looked outside the cabin window and he saw the Christmas tree shining through the window of the main house. And he nearly choked.

Merry Christmas.

This was what Christmas was all about. At least what it always had been for him.

Being given a taste of something, something brilliant and beautiful and hopeful, the light of the damned world.

Knowing that darkness hovered around the edges, knowing that this feeling could never really be his.

That was what Christmas was to him.

Apparently, it was what it always would be.