Healing Beau (The Brothers of Beauford Bend Book 6) by Alicia Hunter Pace Page A

dash. But, then, she didn’t need it.
    “You’re pretty,” he blurted out. And it was so true. Not beautiful, not cute, not flamboyant. Just creamy, pretty perfection.
    She blushed and smiled widely. “Thank you.” He could tell she didn’t believe him. “Merry Christmas.” She set a cup of coffee on the bedside table. There was a Christmas tree on the mug.
    Christmas. Great. Surprisingly, Christmas Eve hadn’t been hard at all. He’d wakened feeling better than he had in weeks, physically and mentally. Christian had been amazed and impressed when he’d brought her writing desk home, had sworn she couldn’t tell it had been mended. And it was true. He’d done a great job. Even realizing he needed to go Christmas shopping hadn’t dampened his spirits. Shopping wasn’t his favorite sport, but he didn’t hate it as much as most men did. It was just another task that sometimes had to be done.
    Last year, he hadn’t arrived at Beauford Bend until Christmas Day, so he had not experienced Christmas Eve under the reign of Emory before. To his relief, it had been unlike his childhood Christmas Eves when they had eaten shrimp gumbo and Japanese fruitcake—neither of which he liked—in the formal dining room before going to church. Then there had been the ritual of leaving cookies and milk for Santa before being hustled off to bed.
    But Emory had changed all that. They’d had Gwen’s chicken and dumplings in the family dining room and then settled in to the family room to eat Christmas cookies and watch the
A Christmas Story
marathon. Emory had insisted that the Yule log had to burn out on its own, and considering what a good year it had been, she wasn’t willing to risk bad luck. There had been a lot of good natured teasing about who was going to sit up with it, because leaving an unattended flame was never going to happen at Beauford Bend.
    Christian had looked so serene and happy with one of Rafe’s twins on her lap that Beau had wanted to draw her into his arms, child and all, and kiss her.
    Then he’d been horrified at the thought—and he was horrified now that she still looked kissable. Their relationship was too important to risk for lust.
    “Tell me again why we have to get up at this ungodly hour?” he asked.
    “You know the Beauford Bend rules. Stockings, breakfast, and then Santa.”
    Yes, he did know. Then there would be lounging around the tree, playing with presents, and entertaining kids until lunchtime in the formal dining room. They would eat ham, turkey, cornbread dressing, and ambrosia on those special dishes with the flowers that some Beauford bride had hidden in the woods during the war. Then more lounging, and Jackson would sing. Someone would turn on a basketball game—only because there was no football on Christmas Day—and someone else would grumble about having to abandon a new video game for basketball. Someone would play Scrabble. Gabe would eat again an hour after lunch. The kids would be put down for naps. Then the ham and turkey would come back out for sandwiches, and there would be more basketball.
    Beau knew all this because that’s how it had been last year. His brothers seemed to take comfort in the familiarity, but not Beau. With the familiarity, came the ghosts of Christmas past, like some Southern gothic Dickens tale. Every single second of it was torture. He vowed last year he wasn’t coming for Christmas this year, but hell had happened, so now he had Christmas hell to endure and the ghosts with it.
    Beau was not so egotistical as to think that his loss had been greater than his brothers’, but they hadn’t been the cause of the deaths. And then there was Aunt Amelia. They had loved her, and he didn’t doubt that they missed her, but in many ways, Beau felt he’d lost two mothers. After the fire, he’d still been young enough for bedtime stories and cuddles, and Aunt Amelia had been there for him. But at least he hadn’t killed her. She’d died just a few