Page 20 of A Mustang River Christmas

“She did mention today that you don’t really like to let yourself do things that you like.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t like to let myself do things I like, because sometimes the things I like are a quick road to hell.”

“I’d like to think having sex with me isn’t that.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re different.”

His words made goosebumps break out on her arms. “I am?”

“Yeah. You are. I don’t know, I’d like... I’d like to let myself off parole. It’s been ten years. And I’ve been keeping myself in a kind of halfway house situation. Denying myself... A lot. But I’m so grateful for what I have.”

“A relationship with Chloe?”

“That. Also, my ex-wife not hating me.”

“Are you still in love with her?”

It wasn’t her business. She and Pike were having a physical affair, it didn’t mean she needed to dig that deep into his other relationships.

“No,” he said. “That... my addiction shattered everything so... So violently that it isn’t the kind of thing where you could go put the pieces back together. By the time I came back to myself, her feelings were different, mine were different, Chloe was different. I was really angry at Melinda for a long time. She kept me from Chloe. And there were times when I thought that I was well enough that I should have been allowed to see her. But now I can see her perspective. She was protecting our daughter, she needed to be absolutely certain that I was safe and stable for Chloe to be around. I’ve gotten to a place where I’ll never hold that against Melinda. And she has been able to forgive me for what I did, but that doesn’t mean that she likes me. It doesn’t mean that what happened was okay. It wasn’t. Nothing that happened was okay.”

“But you still feel so badly about it that you felt like you had to tell me before you kissed me.”

“Yeah. I did. Because I thought you ought to know. I didn’t want you to go kissing somebody you thought was one thing, and then it turned out I was another.”

“You’re probably the most stable guy I’ve ever made out with.”

He barked a laugh.

“It’s true,” she said. “I speak about ruinous line cooks from experience, Pike. I wasn’t merely stereotyping.”

“Yeah. Well. I’m forty-five. I ought to be something like stable now.” He shook his head. “I ought to be.” He trailed off, his expression growing distant.

“And do you think maybe you should let yourself live in this decade and not the last one?”

“Touche,” he said. “I have to give you that one.”

“Well, let’s get this thing loaded up. And then you can come back to my room.”

“I’d be down with that,” he said.

“Good. Then let’s go.”

Chapter Six

He hadn’t meant to spend the night, but spend the night he did. And that meant he went ahead and called in unavailable for a shift at the ranch. He might as well just stay at the resort and work on the gingerbread house.

But when his phone rang at six thirty, just when he was getting dressed after the quick shower he’d taken while Laney still snoozed in the other room, and he saw his daughter’s name on the phone, he grimaced.

He stepped quickly out of the room and into the hall. He answered.

“Hello.”

“Just making sure you were alive,” she said.

“I’m alive,” he said.

“I had to eat dessert by myself.”