The Texas Christmas Gift (12 page)

She studied him, her eyes taking on a turbulent sheen. “You thought it wouldn’t happen any other way?”

Derek sobered. “Not as fast as I’d like it to happen, anyway.”

She peered at him through a fringe of thick golden-brown lashes, smiling briefly as she asked, “Does anyone ever say no to you?”

She seemed to think, erroneously, that this went back to him being part of one of the most powerful clans of Texas. “That’s not really the issue.” It had nothing to do with him being a McCabe. “The issue is, do I ever say yes.”

Eve shifted on the carriage seat again. “What do you mean?”

Ignoring the heat her brief, accidental touch generated, Derek forced himself to focus on his reply, not on how good she felt whenever she pressed up against him.

“At work, as a venture capitalist, I’m constantly sifting through proposals and hearing pitches from start-up businesses,” he explained. “I turn down ninety-nine for every one that I fund, because they’re just not ready for prime time, so to speak, or the idea is terminally flawed in some way.”

A mixture of understanding and compassion lit her smile. She seemed to realize what so few others did—how much he hated being the bad guy in a situation. “So you’re always saying no,” she guessed, with no small trace of irony.

“In my business life,” Derek specified. “Which is why, in my private life, I want to say yes as often as possible.”

She gave an encouraging nod, as if that made sense to her, so he reached over and took her hand. “I’d think you would want to say yes a little more often, too.”

“When it comes to you,” Eve returned softly, looking down at their entwined fingers, “I do.” After a moment, she withdrew her hand. “But that doesn’t mean we
should,
Derek.”

Clearly, he thought with a frustrated sigh, he had a lot more convincing to do. But he’d get there. When he wanted something as much as he wanted to be with Eve, he always did.

Chapter Eight

“So what do you think?” Derek asked, a half mile of beautifully decked out houses later. “What kind of decorations should I go for?” There was another manger on one lawn, a menorah several houses later and a Charlie Brown Christmas display at the end of the block.

The truth was, Eve didn’t know him well enough yet to say. Wishing he didn’t look so handsome in his cashmere coat and scarf, or that she still didn’t want him quite so much, she demurred, “You could always call your designer.”

He watched her adjust the velvet lap robe. “That would take all the fun out of it.”

She fought the urge to cuddle against him. “True.”

He sat back and draped his arm across the top of the seat, seemingly content to just be there with her. In a low, gravelly voice that sent prickles across her skin, he said, “The only thing I know for sure is that it should be something that would delight Tiffany.”

Unable to help herself, Eve shifted to better see his face. “Well, there you go,” she teased in a soft, sultry voice.

“But,” Derek said, “in that realm, as we have seen, there are a lot of choices.” Everything from Sesame Street characters to teddy bears and reindeer.

Curious, she asked, “Do you want her to believe in Santa?”

He nodded. “Carleen and I both do.”

It was nice, the way he and his ex worked together to co-parent their child. Eve wished there was more of that in divorced couples. Certainly her own experience, with her mother and father detesting each other, had been less than ideal.

Aware that Derek was waiting for her reaction, Eve said, “Then there you go. Something to do with Santa and his workshop would be perfect.”

Derek radiated enthusiasm. “Next question. Where do I get the stuff?”

Glad for something else to focus on aside from the dashing man beside her, Eve opened up her bag and whipped out her phone. She scrolled through several options, paused to type another more specific query, then finally came up with a list of choices. “I would recommend this place.” She pointed to a popular home improvement store.

Derek glanced at his watch. “How late are they open?”

She checked the posted hours. “Until ten o’clock.”

“Which means we could go now,” he suggested.

For a second, Eve was tempted, but then she shook her head. “I have a big day tomorrow.”

“I understand.”

Moments later the carriage arrived back at Eve’s office. Derek climbed down and helped her to the ground. A little sad that their time together was over, she looked up at him. “But good luck.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “I’ll be thinking of you.”

“And I,” Eve thought she heard Derek murmur as she walked away, “will be dreaming of you.”

* * *

D
EREK WENT TO
the hardware superstore that night, then recruited two of his brothers and his sister-in-law to help put up the decorations on Saturday morning.

“You’re certainly in a cheerful mood, considering what you’re dealing with in there.” Derek’s older brother, Grady, pointed to the crowd of contractors working on the interior of his newly purchased home.

Grady’s wife, Alexis, was unraveling several outdoor extension cords. Above the sounds of hammers and saws, and vehicle doors being slammed, she called, “It’s because there’s a woman in his life.”

Grady turned to his wife, the love he felt for her shining in his eyes. He ignored the whine of a power saw coming from the open garage. “How do you know?”

“Easy.” Alexis pulled out a set of thin metal stakes and unboxed those, too. With all the authority of a professional matchmaker, she stated, “I haven’t seen Derek smile the way he has today, ever. And no house, no matter how much potential it has, will ever light up any McCabe male’s face like that. That kind of smile, my dear husband, comes from falling head over heels in love.”

Squirming, Derek averted his gaze. He wasn’t in love.
Yet.
It was way too soon for that. He was head over heels in lust. And so was Eve, if the way she had kissed him and made love to him was any indication.

Grady grinned at him. “I would have to agree,” their brother Rand teased, lifting his voice above the ongoing racket. An environmentalist, he generally disliked anything that used too much energy, but for sentimental reasons made an exception when it came to Christmas lights. He lifted the boxed yard ornament from the back of his pickup truck. “I think I know who it is, too.”

Although Derek was happy to see his baby brother—who was passing through Dallas on his way to a job in East Texas—he didn’t want his family nosing around in his private life. They’d already done enough of that already, questioning first his marriage and then his divorce from Carleen.

“You can’t know,” Derek retorted.

That was the beauty of living several hundred miles away from everyone but Grady and Alexis, who resided in nearby Fort Worth. His family couldn’t usually just drop by and check in on him. It had taken big news—like the fact he was buying a home on the spur of the moment—to get his parents to drive to Dallas to see him.

Grady exchanged knowing glances with his wife and then grinned slyly. “So you admit there
is
a woman.”

“No one special,” Derek fibbed, growing increasingly impatient. The last thing he needed was more familial interference.

“I heard you were sweet on the Realtor who sold you this place,” Rand stated. “At least that’s the impression Mom and Dad got when they stopped by to congratulate you the other day.”

“Mom and Dad are wrong,” Derek said, noting that Alexis suddenly had a very peculiar look on her face. “Eve and I are friends. That’s it.”
As far as I’m going to admit at this point, anyway.

“Good to know,” a cool feminine voice said from behind him.

Swearing silently, Derek turned to confront the interloper.

Eve looked as appealing as ever, in professional garb even on a Saturday. A large embroidered carryall was slung over her shoulder, and she had a pamphlet in her hands. “This is from the neighborhood association,” she said briskly. “It details their requirements for any light displays. Tells you about the parameters for taste, when they’d like the lights on and off, etcetera. I thought you would appreciate having a look at the guidelines before you got everything up.”

“Thanks,” Derek replied, doing his best to telegraph with his eyes that he hadn’t meant what he’d just said, that he’d just been trying to keep his nosy family from interfering in their budding relationship.

If you could even call it that.

But Eve either didn’t get, or didn’t want to get, his message.

That impersonal look still on her face, she smiled again, gave a desultory wave and took off down the walk.

* * *

D
EREK CALLED
E
VE
several times throughout the day. She didn’t pick up. Nor did she respond to any of the messages he left, asking her to phone when she had a minute.

Unwilling to let things stand with a misunderstanding of that magnitude between them, he found out where she lived and drove to her condo, a rectangular three-story building made of white stone. Luck was with him. Since it was 7:00 p.m., her car was in the lot and the lights were on in her unit.

Hoping she didn’t have company over—it was Saturday night, after all—he walked up to her front door and rang the bell. Eve opened on the second ring. In a V-necked T-shirt, snug, worn jeans and shearling-lined lounging boots that came to midcalf, she looked ready for a comfortable evening at home. Her hair was tucked into a messy knot on the back of her head, and on close examination he discovered that her face was scrubbed of all makeup. Which made her skin look all the fairer. Seeing him, she sighed. “I heard you were trying to find me.”

“News travels fast.”

Another sigh. Her amber eyes glittering, she clamped her arms beneath her breasts. “What did you need?”

Derek noted that her delectably soft lower lip hadn’t relaxed in the slightest. He dragged his gaze back to hers, swallowed around the telltale constriction in his throat. “I owe you an apology.”

“No,” she said sharply, “you don’t.”

“You misunderstood what was being said today.”

She took a moment to consider that. “I think you were pretty clear, McCabe.”

It was the first time she had called him by his last name. He kind of liked the reverse-intimacy of it. “I was trying to maintain my privacy.”

She made a shooing motion. “So go! Maintain it!”

It was the last thing he wanted right now. Derek settled in, his shoulder braced against the door frame. “My family can be a little nosy.”

She glared at him as if to say,
Beat it, buster!
Out loud, she snapped, “Not. My. Problem.”

“Well, Loughlin, the fact that you’re clearly mad at me is mine. And I would say it’s a pretty big problem. One that needs to be dealt with right away before any more damage is done.”

Scoffing, Eve folded her arms in front of her like a shield. “I would have to be interested in you to be ticked off at you.”

Derek peered at her mischievously. “And you’re not interested in me,” he drawled, not believing it for one red-hot minute.

“Now you’re getting the picture, McCabe.”

There she went again with his last name. Derek grinned. Resisting the urge to take her in his arms and kiss her until she forgot why she was so mad at him, he said instead, “Let me make it up to you.”

She shrugged, demonstrating her disinterest. “There’s nothing to make up.”

She was wrong about that. “Have you had dinner?” Derek persisted.

Temper gleamed in her eyes and her lips clamped shut. “Again. Not your concern.”

Once more Derek dug in his heels. “So you haven’t,” he remarked genially, as if they had just made a date, after all. “What would you like?”

A smug look on her face, she replied sweetly, “Pizza and wine. Here.”

There was no “we” in that equation.
Yet.
Derek vowed to keep working on her. “Okay. Tell me exactly what you want, from which pizza place, and I’ll have it delivered for you. Same with the wine.”

Clearly, she was as tired of sparring with him as he was of arguing with her. Her slender shoulders began to slump. “Again, McCabe, it’s really not necessary.”

Derek said, even more tenderly, “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?’

She sized him up for a long, long time. Then sighed, and said finally, “You know, McCabe, just because you like to say yes a lot in your private life doesn’t mean everyone else does.”

This time he laughed. “Why not?” He edged closer. “It can be fun.”

She didn’t step back. When she finally spoke again, resignation laced her voice. “We had our fun, remember? We made love once, to satisfy our curiosity, and now we’re done.” She paused. “Surely some of this must sound familiar.”

It did, unfortunately.

Determined to change the narrative, Derek spoke again, even more cajolingly. “Please.” He held her eyes, doing what he never did—laying bare his soul. “Give me a second chance. Let me make this up to you.”

* * *

E
VE COULD HAVE
refused a lot of things. Cool reason, a mea culpa. Teasing, or outright seduction. But to see a man like Derek practically get down on his knees and beg her to forgive him unthawed her heart. Not all the way. Just enough to allow her to open her front door and wave him in.

“You won’t regret it.”

She rolled her eyes, wondering what it was about this man that got to her so. “I already am.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re beautiful when you’re angry?”

Eve chuckled despite herself at the dated cliché. Knowing he wasn’t the kind of guy to ever deliver a line to a woman, unless it was a joke, she swatted his biceps playfully. “Watch it. Or I might put you in the deep freeze again.”

He flexed his shoulders and rose to his full height. “I do not want to go there.”

Eve could see that. Just as she could see how desperate he was to set things right between them. And that told her something, whether she wanted to admit it to herself or not. “What kind of pizza do you want?” she asked. If he was going to be here, they may as well eat. She was starving.