Just for Christmas Night Read online

  There it was again—vulnerability. This was a father’s plea. Joaquin couldn’t imagine—would never know—what it meant to love someone unconditionally even as they devastated you and what you valued most.

  Martha’s laughter, entwined with Othello’s, rang out from the lounge. Joaquin felt his jaw tighten with envy he didn’t want.

  “The Slayers are heading to the play-offs with a better record than the team has ever had. We withstood Charlotte’s training camp indiscretion in the preseason. We’re still getting past Danica’s choice to give up the general manager position to have a relationship with our quarterback. There’s no room for screwups in the postseason.”

  “You’re assuming it’s Martha’s turn to get on the media’s bad side, Marshall?”

  “She’s already there. Not because she made an unpopular decision for some personal convictions, but because she’s careless.”

  “C’mon. What are you saying?”

  “Businessmen make assessments. I’ve assessed that she’s a liability—bad for my franchise. What she needs is the right person to get through to her.”

  That’s not me. If I was unselfish enough to tell you why, you’d agree.

  “Give her some of your time. Distract her. Just through the play-offs, then Tem and I will redirect her attention.”

  “Fire her ass, you mean?”

  “Martha’s sabotaging her reputation, and she’ll drag the Blue name, the team’s name, down with her.” Marshall’s frown deepened the creases on his face. “Unless you stop her.”

  Chapter 2

  It was her own fault.

  If Martha were in the mood to be fair, she’d admit that no one had coerced her to give her mother access to her house.

  Blame it on the season of giving, but she’d been in particularly generous spirits when she’d gifted her parents and sisters with spare keys on Cartier key chains. Over Pinot Grigio and shrimp appetizers that she’d prepared with her own two flawlessly manicured hands—after she’d ruined the first couple of attempts and had resorted to phoning a chef friend who’d talked her through the recipe, because come hell or high water she’d prove that she could accomplish something—she’d shared with her family the new entry code to the mansion’s security gate and with a big, fat grin had encouraged, “Visit anytime you’d like!”

  Oh, how she wished she’d choked on the Pinot Grigio…an appetizer…her own spit. Anything to intercept the words she had instantly regretted saying. After twenty-three years of crawling through life beneath her parents’ power, reputation and intimidating existence, she should know exactly how Marshall and Temperance Blue operated.

  An unlimited, unrestricted invitation to her house had been a way to soften the impact of living on her own. But like a Band-Aid placed atop the carnage of nuclear destruction, what good did it serve?

  Baby steps toward independence, they might be. But passing up the frills of a private wing in a crème-de-la-crème Las Vegas mansion in favor of her sister’s hand-me-down divorce settlement property plus a position as a youth crisis center volunteer was the perfect route to rescue.

  When a girl needed to save herself, she couldn’t always be choosy. Even Martha, who’d enjoyed the world’s finest delights, had come to grips with that. She had numbed herself to insults that rolled off her satin-smooth back as easily as she rolled off her favorite silk sheets. A partyer extraordinaire whom the American media criticized while obsessively tracking the clubs she frequented, the trends she set, the booze she tasted and the men who lured her close on the dance floor, she was cognizant to the fact that life—no matter how trussed up in glamour—was never perfect.

  She did appreciate that her sister’s place was beyond spacious and had a turret just perfect for Martha, who’d proudly brought along her beloved storybook collection to college in New York.

  For someone who screwed up as often as Martha, it helped to have a happy ending lying around.

  Of course, there wasn’t a fairy tale within reach now, as she scrambled about the sitting room for something to adequately cover her ass. Partially sleep-addled, partially hungover and partially pissed off that she’d managed only two gulps of steaming caffeine before her mother had barged into the house at such a cruelly early hour, she was struggling to get her brain to function. It didn’t help that Tem’s anger was rising to impressive heights with each shriek.

  Tem pointed at Martha with the end of her spare key. “This is a new low point! You’re standing around naked with some man I’ve never met—and I’m sure your father hasn’t met him, either.”

  Martha climbed onto the sofa, sinking her feet into the cushions, peering behind the leather beast for her shoes. She’d kicked them off last night and couldn’t recall where they’d landed. As for her jeans, this morning she’d spilled bourbon on them while transporting the remnants of last night’s refreshments into the kitchen, and had peeled them off and dropped them into the sink to soak. “I’m not naked, Ma. Just pants-less, if you will.”

  “I won’t.”

  Martha’s already paper-thin patience dissolved. In deliberate, serpent-like movements, she stepped off the sofa and draped herself over the cushions, slithering her slim body across the cognac-brown leather. Clothed in panties and a baggy sweater, she was reasonably covered except for her exposed legs and feet—which were, in fact, the physical assets she most admired.

  Attractive, they were. But Martha was grateful for their strength…that her legs’ length could make her always stand tall even when she shrank beneath feelings of insignificance, that her feet carried her to freedom, whether she was dancing from one club to another on a sleepless Vegas night or running away from conflict.

  But the mere suggestion that the lone man in the room was the reason for Martha’s current pants-less state was doing strange things to her mother’s disposition.

  Tem was normally a gust of refreshing, perfumed air. Only family, or people acquainted with her inside the proprietary walls of the Blues’ NFL franchise’s front office, were aware of the hell storm that slumbered in the shadows of her personality. A thoroughly angry Tem was not someone to bait.

  She had graduated from pointing the business end of the house key to viciously jabbing it in the air. In the direction of the six-foot slab of good-looking testosterone standing between Tem and her youngest daughter.

  Clearly, Gideon Crane, who’d still been sprawled across the sofa asleep when the Teminator had come charging into the house, had no clue what was going on. He knew only the truth—that he, Martha and the others had spent a platonic night together, drifting to sleep after the second helping of bourbon ice cream and Candyman’s first kill.

  The night had wound up an effective distraction for Martha, who’d wanted to distance herself from the messy feelings that had resurfaced when she’d walked into Jules Ryder’s gym yesterday. Sports media pursued the next-to-perfect Las Vegas Slayers, but it also pursued Joaquin. To the press, he was perfect.

  To Martha, he was anything but. And seeing him again yesterday in his arena, identifying the damage beneath his rough beauty, only confirmed that.

  Between the hours of two and seven, Martha’s party of four had been reduced by half, but she hadn’t minded that the others had slipped away. She’d woken up where she’d fallen asleep, deep in the suppleness of a club chair, and had been relieved that someone had turned off the plasma-screen television and made at least a half-assed effort to clear away their mess. What she hadn’t wanted to see was an image of blood and gore—already her dreams had been spooked, thanks to the Ouija board she’d discovered in storage, too much liquor and old horror movies of the Nightmare on Elm Street and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre variety.

  But she’d prefer even that to the look of untainted rage on her mother’s face. Tem had burst through Martha’s doors unannounced, and, from the looks of the high-end retailers’ bags she’d set down at her feet, had been raring to start decorating Martha’s place for Christmas. Now she looked as though she’d
rather do more damage than Freddy Krueger’s most depraved fantasies could conjure.

  Better get you on your way, Gideon. In college, Gideon, then an aspiring model and crappy barista, had earned his stripes as a friend—the strong shoulder to cry away her frustrations on, the guy who called her on her crap when she deserved it and stayed out of her way when she needed space. They’d had sex once, while skinny-dipping during a group getaway in Nantucket last summer. And when Martha had told him that it wouldn’t happen again, he’d accepted it.

  The very least she could do now was make sure he returned to Los Angeles in one piece and lived long enough to see his big-deal national cologne commercial premiere.

  Martha sat up, trying for nonchalance. Not fear—never that. Her oldest sister had once joked that their parents fed off fear, but Martha secretly wondered just how much truth lay buried in the barb.

  Tem’s designer high heels stabbed the floor as she approached Martha and her friend. “Martha Chastity Blue—”

  A male snort had daughter and mother snapping their attention to Gideon.

  “Your middle name’s Chastity?” Another snort of laughter.

  Before Martha could warn him to shut the hell up, her mother intervened. “Yes, that’s her middle name. Her father and I didn’t foresee the irony.”

  That stung. A lot. Martha cast her gaze downward, to her poinsettia-red toenails. She’d get up and walk, and the dig wouldn’t hurt anymore. “C’mon, guy.” Unfolding herself from the sofa, she entwined her arm with his and steered him toward the kitchen, gracing her mother with a neutral glance as they passed. “I’ll pour you a cup of joe.”

  Once they cleared the threshold, she dropped his arm. “Done laughing?”

  “Sorry.” He pressed his palms together and bowed his head. “Were you serious about that coffee, ’cause…”

  Martha’s incredulous glare had him trailing off and scanning the granite countertops for any contraption that might provide his morning caffeine fix. “It’s fine,” she said after a moment. Taking pity—after all, what fault was it of his that he had the Y chromosome and was incapable of understanding a woman’s emotional plumbing?—she grabbed a mug from the tree on the island and filled it halfway with hazelnut-flavored salvation. “I suppose Chastity is ironic. The only name that would be more ironic is Virgin.” She tried to smile, make light of her mother’s words, but a snap of embarrassment killed the effort.

  “She hurt your feelings.” Gideon set down his mug. “Tell her that.”

  “No. Get going.” She punched his arm, without any genuine force behind the gesture. “Don’t want you to be a casualty of the Tempest.”

  Gideon took a final gulp of coffee, then left Martha alone with her mother.

  “You spent the night with a man who didn’t even know your middle name?” Tem inquired, gliding into the kitchen, picking up the attack where it had left off. “What’s his name, by the way?”

  “Gideon Crane.”

  Tem eyed the room with transparent distaste. “Your sister never used this space to its potential, but at least it was always clean. Am I seeing three empty bourbon bottles?”

  “Bourbon ice cream requires bourbon.”

  “Based on the fact that the liquor bottles outnumber the ice cream containers three to one, I’d say your recipe was heavier on the bourbon.”

  Not exactly. When we ran out of ice cream, we drank straight bourbon while trying to make contact with the otherworld using a Ouija board. The retort was sliding around on Martha’s tongue, but she kept her mouth shut as she carried her friend’s mug to the sink.

  “Is that hazelnut coffee in the brewer?” Tem inquired. “I’d like a cup.”

  “Got plenty of clean mugs on the tree.” After a beat of silence, Martha turned away from the sink to find her mother ogling the array of mismatched mugs with a narrow-eyed, twisted-mouth expression. “Problem, Ma?”

  “The Pillivuyt porcelain mugs I bought when you moved out of the Bellagio. Where are they?”

  “Put away.” Be patient. She’s your mother. She gave you life a full ten years after she thought she was done with breastfeeding and potty training. “Why don’t I fetch one?”

  “Quickly.” Tem cast a subtle glance at her wristwatch. “Then get yourself dressed.”

  Martha scanned the chef-style room. As gorgeous as the custom-made white cabinetry, stainless steel appliances and abundant windows were, the kitchen could be blinding when sunlight hit it just right. And the immediate problem was that the cabinets rose high up the walls, practically kissing the coffered ceiling.

  Of course, the mug her mother wanted was one Martha had given a home on the highest shelf.

  Easing her bum onto the counter, she gave a little gasp at the granite’s chilled temperature on her skin. Undeterred, she carefully got to her knees.

  “What the hell, Martha?” Tem whispered, frozen on the safety of a modest stool at the island counter. “I didn’t tell you to climb—”

  “Climbing’s good exercise.”

  “Prancing around on a countertop is an ER visit in the making.” Tem’s footsteps sounded on the floor. “These cabinets are tall, which is why Danica kept a stepladder handy.”

  “Danica doesn’t have a pair of stems like mine.” Martha rose up on her tiptoes, reaching.

  “Be careful— Oh, God, my eyes!”

  “What?”

  “The knickers you’re wearing belong in a sex shop.”

  “Or a lingerie convention, which is where I bought them. Got a visual on the mugs.”

  “About your gentleman. Crane. Is it serious?”

  Martha pivoted to face her mother. “If you call plans to get hitched and name our firstborn child Ichabod serious, then yes.”

  “Want the kid gloves off? We can do it that way. I’m done forcing myself to be polite. You’re the one who was caught with a strange man in her house.”

  “Gideon’s not strange, and he isn’t the only person who spent the night. My friend Leigh Bridges stayed, as well. Get the Post-it off that bourbon bottle on the end of the row there.”

  Tem touched a finger to each of her dainty pearl teardrop earrings. Always so elegant, so regal, in designer fashions and a flattering hairstyle that made her appear refined rather than distinctly middle-aged, she was nothing short of classic beauty perfected. A “style icon,” a fashion critic at the BET Awards had declared her.

  That had been a few years ago—before Martha’s sister Danica’s divorce from a music mogul, before the Blue family had immersed itself in professional sports—but the assessment still held true. Tem’s ability to remain timelessly lovely through the strains of beauty pageantry, the stress of bringing up three daughters and the pressure of acquiring and cultivating an NFL team was a marvelous mystery.

  “What happened here last night?” Tem asked, ignoring the bottles altogether.

  “If you won’t read the note for yourself, I’ll recite it verbatim. ‘Bart has an early morning. We’re taking off. FYI, a Ouija and horror flick cocktail is terrifying. Let’s do it again soon. Kisses.’”

  “Who’s Bart?”

  “Leigh’s boyfriend.”

  “Then you were hosting an orgy?”

  “I’m not turning this house into a sex dungeon.” Martha returned to her task, retrieving one of the basket-weave mugs.

  Tem sighed, and it sounded almost anxious. “Speaking of your butt, please get some real clothes on. An NFL team publicist should care that people might see her indecent.” Another sigh, though this one was heavy with weariness. “Quit shutting your eyes and ears to the truth. Everything counts. Your reputation counts. It counts, Martha, whether or not a young woman must depend on a spreadsheet to keep track of the men she’s had sex with.”

  Martha was relieved to have her face half buried in shelves and dishes. She wiggled her nose to ease the prickly forewarning of tears. “A spreadsheet. Is that what you recommend? Maybe there’s a phone app for that.”

  Tem’s voice was softe
r, perhaps with regret, as she said, “What you do today, the people you let get close to you today, affects your tomorrow. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “But it’s my today. It’s my tomorrow. This is my kitchen now, and if I choose not to use a stepladder to reach a high shelf, then damn it, that’s my choice.”

  “Um—”

  “And if I want to turn this house into the nastiest, most hard-core sex dungeon Las Vegas has ever seen, then that’s my choice, too.”

  As though the room had been trapped in a choke hold, the oxygen seemed to vanish. There were no sounds except for the rush of Martha’s pulse in her ears. The atmosphere had changed.

  Turning her back to the cabinets, she saw Tem in her French fashion-doll getup with her gaze averted. No, not simply averted, but pinned on Joaquin Ryder.

  The man whose hard, angry sexiness ate up the air in the room. The man whose vicious rejection had once sank into her as savagely as attraction did now.

  The man whose coal-black stare—she knew with untainted certainty—had been fixed on Martha’s ass.

  Chapter 3

  A gentleman, Joaquin was not. Anyone who’d ever held the misguided impression that he was, didn’t make the mistake twice. Confronted with a worm’s-eye view of Martha’s rump peeking out of striped bikini panties, a gentleman would’ve shifted his attention to something that didn’t spike his heart rate. A decent man wouldn’t have swallowed the image of her stretching up toward a high shelf.

  A man who wasn’t hunting for trouble would’ve interrupted his body’s primal response to what he’d overheard.

  If I want to turn this house into the nastiest, most hard-core sex dungeon Las Vegas has ever seen, then that’s my choice, too.

  Whatever argument he’d walked in on, it had Temperance Blue on the losing end. Belatedly he remembered that Tem stood within slapping distance of him. He sent a shallow prayer that cooling his thoughts would ease the hardness in his crotch. As Martha turned to face them, he pulled his gaze from her nicely displayed butt cheeks to the diamond ring that circled one of her toes.