For This Christmas Only Read online

  He tried to explain. “I have Tokyo on my schedule almost every other week this summer. I don’t have any reason to rent this house in June. It’s nothing personal.”

  Eliza kept walking. It was too late, the damage had been done.

  No, damn it. I have to fix this.

  “The rental agreement is only through May,” he said to her back. “I couldn’t stay through June if I wanted to.”

  Eliza turned around. “You could own this house by June. If they didn’t want to sell it, you could make them an offer they couldn’t refuse. You have the money to do anything you want. The only reason you won’t have this house in June is because you don’t want it. You don’t think it’s worth what you’d get in return.”

  She walked away.

  Damn it.

  He turned to his brother. “I don’t know what she means.”

  TJ only shrugged and walked off the dock, too.

  Eli watched them go. They didn’t need him. He felt the loss, but he also felt the fairness of it. How many times had he walked away, back to college, back to Wall Street, leaving them behind, making them feel unwanted? If he’d known how it felt...

  It felt terrible.

  A hand took his. “I don’t know what that was about,” Mallory said, “but I’m so sorry.” She laced her fingers with his, and stayed by his side. His friend.

  I love you.

  He couldn’t say it, not yet. He needed to figure out where he kept going wrong in his other relationships.

  “It’s about money. I screwed up something with money again.” He had to laugh or else he’d cry out of sheer frustration. “I paid for their whole Vegas party, anything they could wish for, but they seem pissed off every time they mention Vegas. You’re pissed off that I gave you money. Nobody ever seems to want it when I try to give it to them, but now Eliza is pissed off that I won’t buy this particular house. She said I would think it wasn’t worth what I’d get in return. What in the hell would I get out of owning this house besides a place for her to stay in... June... I’m an idiot.”

  He turned to Mallory, appalled at himself, relieved to have cracked the code, embarrassed not to have done it sooner. “It’s her. What I’d be getting in return if I bought this house is her. I’d get her company for the summer. But I told her I wouldn’t buy the house, so she thinks I value her less than a house. Than a house. That’s crazy.”

  But that was it. From a very young age, Eliza must have thought every decision he made reflected her value to him. She wasn’t worth the cost of a trip to Vegas to see her on her birthday. She wasn’t worth the financial loss if he left a business consortium in Berlin to be at her high school graduation. Every time he hadn’t shown up, she’d assumed something else had been worth more than she was. What else could she have thought?

  “Would she be happy if you bought it?” Mallory sounded doubtful. “You won’t be here in June.”

  “I don’t know her very well anymore. She was so little when I moved away from home. She just wanted piggyback rides from me. She wanted...my time.”

  Mallory bit her lip.

  “Do you think that’s still it? That’s—that’s amazing. Does she still think I’m cool to hang out with?” The thought made him laugh. Mallory thought he was funny. Could Eliza think he was cool?

  “She could come to Tokyo with me in June. It’s a little crazy there. These executives, these icons of industry, do karaoke for hours. I don’t, but God, it would be great to have her come with me. She’d love it. I think she would, anyway.”

  Mallory was absolutely beaming at him. He was blown away by her beauty in the December sunshine.

  He squeezed her hand. “What are you so happy about?”

  “I’m smiling because you’re smiling.”

  He was smiling, wasn’t he? “I need to go talk to my sister.”

  Mallory gave him one of those little shoulder shoves. “Go get your sister back,” she said.

  So he did.

  * * *

  This was the most bittersweet date Mallory had ever been on, real or fake.

  The sun was setting, but the front porch faced west, capturing enough warmth for them to sit there, all four of them, waiting for the car that would take the twins back to the airport.

  “Are you going to come in June as well?”

  Eli was speaking to his brother, not to her.

  Mallory could have melted at the effort Eli was making to reach his brother, it was so touching. But the question made her wonder where she would be in June. She looked at the trio of Taylors sprawled on the steps, and tried not to picture herself here.

  A wistful pang was still a pang.

  TJ only answered Eli with a shrug.

  Eli looked at his watch. “You know, we’re running out of time. There could be a half-dozen good reasons for you to be giving me the silent treatment, TJ, but I wish you’d give me one to work on. What’s going on?”

  TJ heaved a sigh. “I don’t have a problem with you. You followed in Dad’s footsteps. Did what was expected of you. I’ll have to remind him he got at least one son to stay in the family business.”

  “When you tell him what? What are you planning to do?”

  “I’m teaching. By June, I’ll be teaching in India at a boarding school for girls. It’s been in operation for years now. I saw a documentary on it when I was a freshman, and I’d never forgotten it, so I applied for the job. They provide top-notch educations to girls in the most poverty-stricken communities. It’s astonishing how much impact there is on the whole community by educating just one girl. There’s a socioeconomic ripple effect that—” TJ cut himself off.

  “It sounds fascinating,” Eli said, and Mallory could hear the sincerity in his voice. “If you need anything at all—”

  “Nope. I’m sure they need money. I’m just not here to ask for that.”

  Mallory remembered their stormy fireside chat. People I care about won’t take my money. I have to pay bills for them when they aren’t looking. A school in India was going to be the beneficiary of some major grants very soon. Poor Eli—it wouldn’t bring his brother any closer to him, but it was all Eli thought he could do. TJ didn’t want to travel to Tokyo or even stay in this house in June. He had plans.

  TJ flicked acorns off the steps. “You know Dad. It’s going to be a merry Christmas when he finds out. He doesn’t approve of teaching. There isn’t a lot of money in it.”

  “I approve of teaching.” Eli made the announcement, and the twins both looked at him in surprise.

  Mallory gave Eli their signal, making that rolling motion with her hand. Keep going.

  “Do you know what I’m doing here? Either one of you? It was in the Masterson alumni news.”

  Eliza threw an acorn at him from her seat on a lower step. “If you don’t know that neither I nor TJ went to Masterson, I’m going to throw you in the lake.”

  Eli put his hand on her head. “Vassar.” He nudged TJ with the side of his shoe. “Columbia. Of course you don’t know what I’m doing, because I didn’t tell you, and that’s my fault. I’m working on it.”

  Mallory could have laughed at the matching expressions of shock on the twins’ faces—but they weren’t her siblings, and this wasn’t her family. She needed to remember that.

  “I’m teaching at the university. Only for a semester, but I’m going to have MBA students in a classroom. Between you and me, TJ, teaching is now part of the family business. If Dad’s unbearable about it, you’ve got my jet at your disposal. Go have a merry Christmas somewhere else. Or here. You could come here.”

  Eli glanced Mallory’s way. She knew he wanted to know if that had gone well. It sure seemed to her like TJ wanted someone to back him up on his career decisions. Eli had figured that out quickly, once TJ had started talking. She nodded at Eli and tapped her heart lightly.

  Eli wink
ed back.

  Mallory felt more in her heart than bubbly champagne. She felt like she belonged.

  Except she didn’t. She liked Eli’s brother and sister. She liked Eli so very much, and he liked her. But that was where it ended.

  Before his waking nightmare, he’d spoken to her about talking like lovers, but not making love. She’d told him to stop seducing her, and she’d stormed out of the room. That had been the end of that. After his terrible nightmare, he’d held onto her for a long time, but he’d flat-out told her he was being careful not to fall in love, that it would be bad for him, psychologically, right now. She’d fallen asleep watching the fire with him, but there’d been no kisses. No more attempts at kisses. They’d held hands today, but only because he wanted to put on a good show for Eliza and TJ.

  January would come, and they’d see each other in the office now and then. Maybe a lot. But she wouldn’t be his girlfriend, and she wouldn’t be part of his family. There was no point in sitting out here now, watching them like a child with her nose pressed against a toy store window, getting a glimpse of what she could not have.

  Mallory excused herself as she should have done more firmly at breakfast. “I’ll let the three of you have a few minutes to say goodbye.”

  “Wait a minute.” Eliza, of course, had something else to talk about. “I think it’s amazing that you didn’t know my brother was a stud when it came to rowing and fencing. What did you first see in him? Where did you guys meet?”

  Mallory implored Eli silently. I told you I didn’t want to be your fake girlfriend. Don’t make me lie.

  Eli turned his palm up. What’s the problem?

  At their silent exchange, Eliza’s face fell. “Dumb question, huh? I always forget that he’s famous now. It was bad enough when he was rich. Rich and famous? Everyone he meets is already predisposed to like him. It’s too easy for him.”

  Mallory was offended. “Not me. He didn’t tell me who he was at all. I had to find out the hard way.”

  Eli settled back on the stairs. “I think we should tell them the truth, Mallory, my dearest, darlingest cupcake.”

  He did?

  “Okay,” she said, not knowing if it was okay or not. “You go first.”

  “I met Mallory at the annual lighting of the Yule log in the town park. She walked right up to me and started talking. Must have been something she liked about the way I looked.”

  Mallory shook her head at Eliza. “It was really dark, and he was doing this whole wild-man thing with his hair, and he had a beard. I didn’t know who he was. He said his name was Eli. Not Taylor. He bought me hot chocolate, which cost one dollar, so you can’t say I was dazzled by all the money he spent on me.”

  “Actually, it was one hundred dollars. I only had one-hundred-dollar bills on me.”

  “You—you paid one hundred dollars to drink a cup of hot chocolate with me?”

  “I bought you two cups.”

  “Two hundred dollars?” Mallory was appalled. It didn’t matter how much money Eli had. Two hundred dollars for hot chocolate in a paper cup was outrageous. “Don’t do that. It’s crazy.”

  “The nuns would beg to differ, I’m sure.”

  His sister looked between them like they were playing ping-pong. She settled on Mallory. “So, if it wasn’t the money or the fame, what did dazzle you?”

  “Yes,” Eli said, clearly enjoying himself. “What did dazzle you?”

  “We talked.”

  “You talked,” he corrected her. “I listened.”

  “Really? It was hard to tell you were listening when you were doing that whole statue imitation, staring at the bon...fire. Oh.”

  The look they shared was one of a kind. Only the two of them knew what he’d been going through when she’d walked up to him. Only the two of them knew how they’d spent last night, staring that fire down together. It wasn’t sex or even a kiss, but it was an intimate bond.

  “We both talked, and some of the topics were serious, and he was very patient and kind when I got all choked up.” She was getting choked up now.

  Eli looked away, all nonchalance. “She wept like a waterfall on me. Very sexy first impression.”

  “He refused to shake my hand when I introduced myself.”

  “She got mad at me after she finished crying, because I wouldn’t tell her that she looked bad.”

  Mallory crossed her arms. “He picked me up and set me on top of a hay bale without even asking.”

  Eli huffed out a sigh. “So, I’m not supposed to buy her things, and I’m not supposed to tell her she’s pretty. She’s really hard to date.”

  Eliza and TJ both stared at their big brother.

  Eliza recovered first, turning to Mallory with a beaming smile. “Well, I love you!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Learning Objective: Define the term “mature firm.”

  —Senior Year Project by Mallory Ames

  “How long did your therapist say that reconciliation should take?”

  Eli smiled at Mallory’s pert question. “I don’t want to be too smug about it. The fact that Eliza and TJ showed up on my doorstep probably accelerated the timeline by six months. The fact that they seemed pretty...open? Is that the word for it?”

  “Openhearted. Your brother and sister are very openhearted people.”

  “Good word. The fact that they are so openhearted with me, even TJ, probably skipped another six months. They get the credit. I’m grateful, though. Today was a really good day.”

  “You didn’t wake up with strangers looking at your bare butt.”

  Ah, this woman made him laugh. Eli looked down at Mallory’s pretty face as she lay with her head on his thigh, looking at the fireplace.

  He stretched one leg out as he sat on the floor, virtually in the same position as the night before. Nothing seemed harrowing tonight. The power was on, and they’d found a string of twinkling lights in the garland on the mantel and plugged them in. They’d done a shot of tequila for the fun of it, instead of hoping it would ease strained nerves. The fire looked like a fire to him, although they’d been smart about it and were burning only one log at a time. If he should start to feel anxious, it would be easy to extinguish. So far, he felt great.

  And, yeah, his brother and sister didn’t hate him. What a difference a day could make.

  “He wanted you to spend twelve months reconnecting with your siblings? What kind of snail’s pace is that?”

  Eli brushed a strand of hair off Mallory’s forehead as she frowned. “Want to guess how long I was supposed to look at little fires before I moved on to medium fires?”

  Her sleepy eyes opened wider at that. “You showed him. You went to the biggest bonfire of the year, you rebel.”

  “That didn’t exactly work. It was kind of hellish, actually, until you showed up.”

  “Mmm. And then you did it again here, anyway, by yourself.”

  “Also hellish, until you showed up.”

  “So, which one of us is not the paragon we thought the other one was? Someone around here was labeled ‘stubborn to an asinine degree.’”

  “I told you, we’re two peas in a pod.”

  He was smiling down at her when she looked up at him and said, “I really like you.”

  Game over. This was the woman. His one and only.

  A piece of a star just landed next to me. I’m so damned lucky that I get to be with you. He wanted to say that out loud to her once more. And this time, he didn’t want any of his own insecurities to mar their happiness under a starry sky.

  She was almost asleep, her whole body going slack. His whole body was not slack.

  “One thing left,” she mumbled. “Your pilot.”

  Eli’s drowsy desire was doused as effectively as if he’d jumped off the dock into the December lake water. The pilot was in a wheelchair bec
ause of him, trapped.

  Eli was trapped with him; he could see that now. He’d been waiting for the wheelchair to disappear, hoping that he hadn’t permanently injured this distant friend. That day might never come. The wheelchair might never go away. If he couldn’t face that, if he allowed that piece of the traumatic event to fester, his heart would never be whole.

  He needed it to be whole. It could be cracked and patched, because scars made things stronger, but it had to be whole. His to give. God willing, Mallory’s to receive.

  He sighed and lay back on a luxurious pillow that wouldn’t feel luxurious by morning. But he had a sleeping Mallory in his lap, a fire burning safely in front of him and a long night ahead of him.

  He needed to make a plan to see—not the pilot. Owen. Owen Michaels. He needed to drive down to Houston and meet with Owen in person. He owed it to the man to give him the chance to give him hell for the damage he’d done.

  Eli was ready to recover, and baby steps weren’t his style. Forget the drive. He might as well fly to Houston.

  * * *

  Eli swept into the hospital, his open trench coat flaring out behind him, a man on a mission in a suit and tie, his armor for battle.

  He’d just defeated one obstacle. Completing the flight from Masterson to Houston hadn’t been much of a challenge. The luxury jet was nothing like the tiny prop plane that had bounced on every air current. Either that, or Eli had just been too keyed up about facing the man he’d put in a wheelchair to spare any energy worrying about the airplane. It had been anticlimactic, in its way.

  Mallory had poked about the cabin, once she’d realized he wasn’t particularly fazed by the flight. She’d been amused by the luxurious bathroom with its shower. Delighted with the pastries that had been arranged for their breakfast. When she’d made a joke about joining the Mile High Club, he’d completely forgotten he had any problems in the world for a minute or two.

  Some day...

  But they were in the hospital now. Owen Michaels was expecting them. Eli wished he knew what to expect in return.

  “Slow down.” Mallory pulled back on his arm. “These pencil skirts limit my oh-so-confident strides. How do you swagger into a hospital and know which way to go?”