Free A Yowling Yuletide by Celeste Hall Page B

about.
    Unlocking the drawer, he yanked it open with
more force than necessary, nearly ripping it from its sliders.
Reaching in for the check, he heard a noise at the door and looked
up to see Rachel standing there, watching him.
    His first reaction was a bone-chilling
panic. If his sister was here, that meant Tyson and Miranda were
alone at the front desk. Then he was filled with a blinding fury.
With the little slip of paper crushed within one hand, he slammed
the drawer shut so hard it rattled everything seated on his desk
and nearly toppled a small receptacle filled with pens.
    Marching back towards the door, he felt only
a vague sense of regret as Rachel cringed away from him. She knew
that he’d never hurt her, but she hadn’t seen him in this black a
mood since they were small children.
    Grabbing her wrist, he plopped the crumbled
check down onto her palm.
    “ There’s your check, now
get that guy out of here before I do something we’re both going to
regret.”
    Miranda’s lighthearted laughter was echoing
down to him from the entry and it about made him insane to hear it.
He wanted to punch Tyson just for making her that happy. The man
obviously knew no boundaries.
    Well, maybe it was time for Matt to teach
him a few things. But Rachel caught his arm as he attempted to move
past her and back down the hall.
    “ You broke Mom’s heart
when you refused to come to Thanksgiving dinner with the family,”
she murmured the one thing capable of derailing his murderous
rampage.
    The moment she mentioned their mother,
Matt’s rage was swallowed up by a tidal wave of guilt.
    His chin dropped slightly as he paused,
sighing with regret.
    “ I know. I talked to her
later,” he admitted. The day after Thanksgiving, his mother had
piled up a big plate full of leftovers and hiked through the snowy
pasture that separated their houses, so that she could tell him how
much she loved him and had missed him.
    He’d rather walk through fire naked than see
that worry and sadness in his mother’s eyes again.
    “ She asked me to come
today, to plead with you to forgive me and to come spend time with
us on Christmas Eve,” Rachel explained. “She said she’s going to
make all of your favorites, including the pumpkin spice rolls that
you overdosed on last year. You know, the one with the cream cheese
filling?”
    He groaned miserably. He knew all right,
he’d practically crawled away from the table after eating so many.
Those rolls were sinfully good.
    “ I don’t know,” he
wavered, not wanting to hurt his mother’s feelings, but desperately
needing to keep a safe distance from the man that was currently
standing in the office reception area, speaking to a woman that
Matt was feeling unusually possessive of. “Will your boyfriend be
there?”
    Rachel gave him a reproachful look.
    “ At some point, you’re
going to have to get over this irrational dislike for him,” she
pointed out. “He wasn’t the one that made Tanya leave. You know
that. Besides, Tyson cares about me and we’ve been talking about a
more permanent future together. If I marry him, I won’t allow any
more of this hostile attitude from you. You’ll have to at least
learn how to tolerate him at family dinners.”
    Not more than a month ago, Matt had given
his sister a similar lecture about Tanya. The two women had never
gotten along. Now he was the one alone and bitter, while she was
the one envisioning wedding bells.
    It made his gut clench.
    “ I’ll think about it,” he
growled, looking down the hall toward the sound of Miranda’s
lighthearted voice. What the heck was she talking to Tyson about?
She sure hadn’t sounded that happy when she’d been talking to Matt
earlier.
    “ Bring her,” Rachel
abruptly suggested, startling him into hesitating a moment
longer.
    “ What?”
    “ Bring Miranda to the
Christmas dinner. She’s sweet and fun, and you obviously have a
thing for her. You should see your face right now. You look as if
you could