Free Holiday Homecoming by Cheryl Douglas Page A

like
you’ve got company.”
    Ryan had dated
Gayle on and off for the past year. She was a flight attendant who
often needed a place to crash when she was in town, so he’d shown
her where he kept his spare key. They agreed his bed was as good a
place as any, but that was before he started to question his
feelings for Brianna.
    “I should get
home.” She reached for the door handle. “Have fun with… what’s her
name.” She turned back to look at him. “You gonna bring her to
Christmas dinner?”
    “No!” He
planned to get rid of her as soon as possible. “Hey, at least let
me walk you home.”
    “Don’t be
silly. It’s only a few blocks. Besides, it’s light outside
now.”
    “I don’t
care.” He opened the car door and stepped out, grateful for the
bite of wind that helped wake him up. “This will just take a
second, Bri.” He ran up to the door and Gayle pulled him into a
hug.
    Brianna
followed him up the driveway. “Hi,” Brianna said, raising her hand
to acknowledge Gayle. “I hope you didn’t have to wait too long for
him to come home. We were having a get-together with family and
friends when my cousin went into labor. Can you believe that?”
    “No way!”
Gayle braced a hand on Ryan’s shoulder, neither blushing nor
shivering in her lingerie. “Are they okay… your cousin and the
baby?”
    “Yeah, they’re
fine. She had the baby at home with a midwife. Can you imagine
delivering an eight pound baby without benefit of pain meds?” The
two women shared a laugh and Brianna said, “When my time comes, I
want the epidural as soon as possible. I have no tolerance for
pain.” She hit Ryan on the arm. “Remember that time I sprained my
finger playing softball? I cried all the way to the doctor’s
office.”
    Ryan looked at
her a long time before he said, “Yeah, I remember.” Why had it
taken him so long to realize Brianna wasn’t that little girl
anymore?
    “Well, I
better get home.” She offered a hand to Gayle. “Since he obviously
forgot the manners his sweet mama tried like hell to instill…” She
nudged Ryan out of the way, giggling when he stumbled. “I’m
Brianna. Ry and I are practically family.”
    Gayle regarded
the pair before accepting the hand Brianna offered. “Is that
right?”
    “Yeah, my dad
worked as Titan’s head of security for years before my older
brother, Mike, took over the job. Ryan and I have grown up
together.”
    “That’s nice.”
Gayle smiled. “I’m a flight attendant, so I rarely have time to
make those kinds of connections. My parents have both passed, but
my sister and her family live here in Nashville. They invited me
for Christmas, and I managed to get the day off, so I thought, why
not?”
    “We all need a
little R&R now and again. Well, I should be getting home. Happy
holidays, Gayle. It was nice meeting you,” Brianna said, waving a
hand as she turned to walk down the driveway. “I’ll see you later,
Ry.”
    “It was nice
meeting you too,” Gayle called after her, tugging a little on
Ryan’s arm.
    A warm,
willing, half-naked woman was trying to lure him inside, but Ryan
couldn’t think past the woman trying to get away. “I just wanna
make sure she gets home okay,” he said, hooking a thumb over his
shoulder. “I shouldn’t be too long.”
    “No problem,”
Gayle said, placing a chaste kiss on his lips. “I’ll be here when
you get back.”
    That’s the
part he dreaded. He jogged to catch up with Brianna, and when he
finally fell into step beside her, he asked, “Hey, why didn’t you
wait for me?”
    She stuck her
hands in the pockets of her jacket and pulled the cashmere scarf up
to cover her mouth. “I’m not blind, Ry. I saw what she was wearing.
I knew you’d take one look at her and forget all about me.”
    She had no
idea how wrong she was. Even a half-naked woman with lust in her
eyes and a cocktail in her hand couldn’t compete with the soft
curves Brianna hid under layers of winter wear. “My friends