CHAPTER 8

C HAPTER 8

Judging from the little moans of pleasure that Reese was still making, the sex had been amazing. It certainly had been for him, and while he wasn't moaning, he was enjoying the feel of her naked body snuggled to his. He was savoring her scent, too. And the steady beat of her heart against his.

He stopped mentally naming things since, heck, there was no part of this he wasn't enjoying.

Reese and he had been dancing around their attraction since the moment she'd stepped into the sheriff 's office, and he'd hoped it would eventually lead them to this. No way could he regret it.

But Reese might.

He figured they'd have to deal with that soon enough. She wasn't big on taking risks, and landing in bed with him was exactly that. A risk. And she might decide it was a mistake that couldn't be repeated.

Zack scowled as that dismal notion wormed its way through his thoughts. This could be it. Instead of their lovemaking being the big start he wanted with her, it could end up being the finale.

"I'm trying not to overthink this," she muttered, snuggling in even closer to him. "How about you?"

The overthinking was already happening, but Zack kept that to himself. In fact, he kept everything verbal to himself, located her mouth, and kissed her. It was an instant cure for his worries. An instant cure for a lot of things, since kissing Reese drowned out all the other stuff.

Well, everything but the knock at the door.

Reese and he groaned in unison, and while obviously neither of them wanted to get up, it could be her great-aunt or his grandfather. That got both of them hurrying off the bed and racing to gather up their clothes and get dressed. They were still in the process when there was another knock. And still scrambling when there was a third knock.

"Does it look as if we've just had sex?" Reese asked, yanking on her shoes and finger combing her hair.

Yeah, it did, but Zack didn't verify that. Instead, he kissed her again and followed her to the door. She opened it not to Sylvia or his grandfather, but to a man he recognized. Or rather he thought he did until Zack noticed something different about the familiar face.

A tiny scar running through the man's eyebrow.

This wasn't Harry Floyd but rather his twin, Elwood. Aka Happy Harry.

Judging from the slight gasp from Reese, she had figured out his identity as well. She shook her head and stared at the man as if she was trying to figure out what to say. "We've been looking for you," she finally managed.

Elwood nodded. "My brother made a bunch of calls to try to track me down, and a couple of the people he spoke to called me to let me know that both the sheriff and a lady PI were searching for me. I went to the police department, but the nice deputy there told me you were probably both at the inn." He held out his hands to Zack in a cuff-me gesture. "I'm here to turn myself in."

Zack sighed. "Are you admitting to being a bigamist?" he asked.

"I am." Elwood didn't hesitate. "And I'm ready to take my punishment."

Zack eased the man's hands back down. "I'm not arresting you." But then he stopped and rethought his statement. "Unless you've married another woman in the past seven years."

Elwood smiled, but there didn't seem to be any humor in it. "Nope. I had a partner, sweet Bessie, for nearly thirty years, but she flat out refused to marry me. She passed away last Christmas." He paused, squared his shoulders. "If you're not going to arrest me, then would it be possible for me to speak to Sylvia, Maeve, and Arabella? The clerk said they were all staying here."

Zack looked at Reese to see how she wanted to handle this, and she took out her phone. "I'll have them meet us. But not here," she muttered, glancing back at the rumpled bedcovers.

"There's a small, private, party room downstairs," Zack suggested, and when he got a confirming nod from Reese, the three of them headed in that direction while she made calls to the three wives.

"I'm guessing they're gonna be real mad at me," Elwood muttered.

"I think that's a good assumption," Zack said. "Mad and hurt."

Elwood winced. "Yeah. I'm sure I did cause them plenty of hurt."

The man didn't say anything else as they went to the party room. When they moved past a pair of six-foot-tall artificial Christmas trees, the motion-activated firs started to bounce and sing. Not the same song either. A tinny version of "Here Comes Santa Claus" clashed with "Frosty the Snowman."

Thankfully, when they moved deeper into the room, the trees stopped, and the room grew quiet again. The perky Christmas decorations didn't create an ideal venue for a showdown, but Zack figured a showdown was coming.

And fast.

They'd hardly gotten into the room before he heard the sound of hurried footsteps, and Sylvia arrived. His grandfather was with her, but he stayed back in the doorway.

The trees sprang to life again, their fake fir branches slapping with the up and down movements while they moved onto another pair of songs: "Jingle Bells" and "Holly Jolly Christmas."

Frowning, both Sylvia and his grandfather moved away from the trees to silence them, and Zack made a mental note to tell the inn owner to try to sync the decorations or move one elsewhere. The performances of the songs were bad enough without the lyrics running together.

"Happy Harry," Sylvia murmured when her attention finally landed on their visitor. The shock was in her voice and all over her face. She touched trembling fingers to her mouth and went a few steps closer to Elwood before she froze in place.

"Sylvia," Elwood greeted. "You're as beautiful as you always were."

Zack groaned—he was pretty sure that wasn't the right thing to say. It wasn't. Anger flared in Sylvia's eyes, and she likely would have hurled some insults at Elwood if there hadn't been more footsteps. Seconds later, Maeve and Arabella hurried in with Hal and Harrison. Like his grandfather, the men stayed near the door. Maeve and Arabella went to stand alongside Sylvia.

And in doing so, set off the blasted trees.

"We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Santa Baby" made up this unwanted round. The newcomers quickly figured out they had to move away to stop the cacophony, and they did.

"Has the lying scumbag said why he cheated on all three of us?" Arabella snarled, clearly more riled than Sylvia. But Maeve was having a different reaction. She seemed to be on the verge of tears.

"Not yet," Sylvia supplied.

Elwood took a step toward them. And then immediately retraced that step when Arabella shot him some stink eye. "I don't have an explanation or an excuse," he admitted. "Not one that'll help any of you understand why I did what I did."

"No explanation," Arabella snarled in a duh tone. "Well of course you don't. Because there's nothing you can say that'll explain or excuse squat."

"I was in love with all three of you," Elwood blurted.

That didn't light the same fury fuse as his remark about Sylvia being beautiful. Nor did it prompt Arabella to snap or spew anything. The three women just stared at him.

Elwood dragged in a long breath before he continued. "It's true. I met all three of you at different times in my life. Sylvia, when I was so young and didn't have a care in the world. Love at first sight that swept me away."

Sylvia made what seemed to be a sound of agreement, but since her eyes were still narrowed, she probably wasn't about to dole out any forgiveness.

"I had three of the best years of my life with you, Sylvia," he went on, pinning his attention on her, "and then I got some bad news. Cancer of the lymph nodes. These days it's known as Hodgkin's disease. I'd watched my own daddy die from it and didn't want to put you through that, so I left."

Hell. Some of the color drained from Sylvia's face, and now she looked on the verge of crying.

"But you didn't die," Reese quickly pointed out. Obviously, she wasn't ready to let go of her anger.

Elwood shook his head. "I went through two years of treatment, but the doctors told me even though I was in remission, it could return. I'd hoped Sylvia had moved on with her life by then, and I sort of spied on her to make sure that was true. You seemed happy enough. And by then, I'd met Maeve." He shifted his gaze to her.

"I was a nurse at the hospital where he was being treated," she muttered. A tear escaped and slid down her cheek. "He said it was love at first sight."

"It was," Elwood insisted.

Arabella rolled her eyes. "And you thought being in love excused you from telling Maeve the truth that you were already married?"

"No, it wasn't an excuse," he admitted. "But I got swept away. We had two wonderful years together before the Hodgkin's returned."

That dried up Maeve's tears, and her jaw tightened. "And you disappeared."

"Because I didn't want you to have to nurse me. I thought you should have someone whole, someone who could love you as much as you deserved."

Silence fell over the room. Everyone was probably trying to decide whether they should sympathize with Elwood or do some kind of verbal tar and feathering.

"And then you moved on to me," Arabella snapped, clearly in the tar-and-feather corner.

Elwood sighed again and shifted to her. "Yes. After another year of treatment, I was in remission again and took a job working at the dude ranch your daddy owned. And, yes, love at first sight," he volunteered, causing everyone in the room to huff. "I know it sounds impossible, but it was true. I took one look at you, Arabella, and I knew I didn't want to draw another breath without you."

Even Elwood seemed to realize he'd gone too far with that flowery account because he winced.

"My daddy would have run you off the ranch if he'd known you were already married to two women," Arabella pointed out.

Elwood made a quick sound of agreement. "And that's why I didn't mention it. By then, Maeve had moved on with her life, too, and she'd filed for divorce."

"But I hadn't gotten a divorce because I couldn't find you," Maeve said.

Elwood nodded. "I knew eventually the divorce would happen, so I married Arabella. What I did was wrong," he quickly added. "Like I said, there's nothing I can say that'll excuse my actions."

"You're right about that," Sylvia said, just as Maeve muttered, "Absolutely nothing."

"Damn straight," was Arabella's contribution, and she continued with a question. "So did you grow a conscience or another ball when you decided to leave me, too?"

"No." That was all Elwood said for several long moments. "I left because I knew eventually I'd have to tell you the truth, and I took the cowardly way out and just disappeared. I figured you'd get on with your life too, and that you'd be better off without me."

A fresh round of anger slid over Arabella's face. "I would have been better off if you hadn't asked me to marry you when you already had two wives."

Both Maeve and Sylvia nodded and made soft, sad sounds of agreement. Elwood made his own sound and muttered an "I'm sorry," before he headed for the door.

No one stopped him, but Elwood got plenty of glares as he made his exit, activating the trees, which jumped into the same song at the same time. Zack supposed it was sort of a Christmas miracle. The firs contributed an odd kind of farewell serenade to this miserable moment as they belted out "All I Want for Christmas Is You."

* * *

Reese wanted to say something, anything, that would make the situation better. First, though, she had to wait for those darn trees to quit singing, and then she had the silence she needed. First to think, and then to come up with something that would remove that sad, stark look from Sylvia, Maeve, and Arabella's eyes.

But nothing came to her.

Absolutely nothing.

They all knew that Elwood had screwed them over six ways to Sunday. They all knew this couldn't be fixed. So, on a heavy sigh, Reese just went to the three women and gave them all hugs. Zack and the other three men stayed put, maybe in fear of setting off the singing trees, or perhaps because they were even more uncertain than Reese about offering comfort.

"I feel like such an idiot," Maeve muttered, shaking her head. "I should have sensed something was off and not married him."

Sylvia made a sound of agreement. Arabella grumbled something about a three-balled bastard.

"You didn't know," Reese said. "You trusted the man you loved." She had some firsthand experience about that, and Sylvia must have filled Arabella and Maeve in on her failed marriage because they all gave her brief pitying looks.

"But I should have known something was off," Maeve insisted, and she looked at Sylvia. "At least he wasn't married to anyone else when he proposed to you."

Her great-aunt nodded. Sighed. "It crushed my heart when he left."

That brought on more sounds of agreement and more pitying looks between the women.

"Are you okay?" Reese asked.

"No," the women said in unison.

Sylvia no doubt saw the concern in Reese's eyes because her great-aunt patted her cheek and attempted a smile. "I'll be fine. I just need . . ." She stopped, glanced around, and aimed one of those half smiles at Zack's grandfather. "I'm sorry, but I really need to go home."

"So do I," Maeve was quick to say, and Arabella added her own agreement.

"I'll be fine," Sylvia repeated, her gaze slipping to Zack for a moment before returning to Reese. "You stay here and enjoy, well, the moment."

The suggestion settled like a lead weight in Reese's stomach. The moment . The relationship with Zack that suddenly seemed as if it had moved way too fast and was way too intense. The one that could lead to a crushed heart of her own.

Yes, lead weight.

And even if it hadn't been there, Reese was well aware of something else. She couldn't just let her great-aunt go home to spend the holidays alone. No. Sylvia needed family right now.

The three women walked away, no doubt heading to their rooms to pack. Hal, Harry, and Harrison followed them, but their heads were hanging, as if they had all come to the conclusion that there was nothing they could do to fix this situation.

The trees launched into "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer." Reese didn't even attempt to compete with that. She just locked gazes with Zack and waited for the noise to die down.

"You're going with them," he said, and it wasn't a question. His statement only added more weight to her stomach. He wasn't objecting, wasn't trying to convince her there was another way.

"I need to take some time," Reese forced herself to say.

He nodded, leaned down, and brushed a kiss on her mouth. It would have been chaste coming from any other man, but Zack didn't do chaste. And that was yet another reason she should take some time. It was impossible to think straight with so much heat, need, and hope swirling around inside her.

Zack pulled back from the kiss and smiled. A smile that didn't make it to his eyes. "Take that time," he muttered. "And if . . ." He stopped, and something came into his expression that she couldn't interpret. "Take that time," he repeated, and then added, "Merry Christmas, Reese."

As she watched him walk away, she realized that it was the first time those two words, Merry Christmas , had sounded like a goodbye.