Matt Sanders

Aubree's doorbell rang just as the Christmas tree fell over. Thankfully it made a whooshing sound, probably because it was so large, so she heard it and leaped out of the way, narrowly missing being hit by it.

"Hell and damnation!" she said, regarding the tree lying in a pool of bent branches and dead needles on her floor.

Her bell rang again, Aubree climbed over the tree that blocked her entrance hallway and went and flung open the front door.

Matt Sanders stood there, looking like damnation itself. Despite the cold out, he wore a black leather jacket and jeans. Whiskers darkened his cheeks. his eyes sparkled with a light that would have put the devil himself to shame.

"I thought you were opposed to cussing," he said mildly.

Silently, she cussed the lack of insulation in her old house that had allowed her voice to carry right through the door. She also cussed the fact that she was wearing a horrible pair of gray sweatpants and a sweatshirt that said Teachers Spell It Out.

While she was on an inward cussing spree, Aubree also cursed the fact that she could imagine, all the well, what the slide of that warm breath across her neck would feel like.

"I am opposed to cursing in front of children!" she defended herself. "In cases of duress, amongst consenting adults, it's fine."

His eyes narrowed with fiendish delight. She wished she would have chosen a term different from consenting adults. It was a mark of how flustered his unexpected appearance had made her feel that she said that!

And it was obvious he was thinking that phrase usually referred to something quite a bit more exciting than cussing.

"What was the crashing noise?" he asked, peering over her shoulder.

"Nothing!" she said stubbornly. It was her first Christmas by herself. She had never set up a tree before. Frankly, it was one of the loneliest and most frustrating experiences of her single life. And she wasn't pretending otherwise because someone she didn't know and was was not likely to meet thought such efforts at aloneness were character building!

He glanced behind her. The tree was lying there blocking the door.

"Did your tree fall down?"

He did not sound gentle. Did he? Maybe he did, a little bit. But it didn't matter!

"I set it there," she lied, hoping to hide both of her loneliness and her frustration from him. "It's too tall. I'm going to put the lights on before I stand it up."

"Don't take up poker," he advised her solemnly. "You made that decision after it fell, didn't you?"

She shrugged, trying not to let on how his appearance had made her aware of a dreadful weakness in her character. Aubree wanted a big, strong guy just to come in and take over.

She wanted a man to figure out the blasted stand, saw off those bottom branches, muscle the huge, unwieldy tree into place, put the star on top, and figure out lights that looked as if they required a degree in engineering to sort out.

Matt truly was the devil, arriving here at a horrible moment, when she felt vulnerable and lonely. He was tempting her to rely on something--or someone--other than herself. She was sending him back into the night.

"Do you want help with the tree?"

"No," she spat out quickly before the yes, yes, yes clawing it's way up her throat could jump out and betray her.

he nodded, but he could clearly see the horrible truth. She was the kind of helpless female the new her was determined not to have any use for!

"I brought over the board to put the coat hangers on. I could put it up for you if you want."

Her eyes went to what he was holding. A helpless female might weep at the beauty of the board he had reclaimed for her. It was honey-colored, the grains of wood glorious, the surface and edges sanded to buttery smoothness.

Well, right after he put it up for her, she was sending him back into the night. She would draw the line at allowing him to help with the tree.

Despite wanting to rebel against the teachings of the blissfully single book, Aubree knew she would be a better person, in the long run, if she put that tree up herself. She stepped back from the door, and he stepped it.

She touched the board. "That's not what I was expecting," she said. "Something worn and weathered. When you said it was barn wood. I thought it would gray."

"It was, before I ran it through the plainer. Some of this old wood is amazing. This piece came from a barn they pulled down last year that was a hundred and ten years old." His fingers caressed the wood, too. "Solid oak, as strong and as beautiful as the day they first milled it."

Aubree was struck again by something about Matt. His work always seemed to be about things that lasted. There was something ruggedly appealing about that in a world devoted to disposable everything.

Including relationships.

There was a tingle on the back of her neck. A relationship with this man would be as solid as he was, a forever thing, or nothing at all.

Don't you dare think of him in terms of a relationship, the devoted-to-independence woman inside her cried. But it was too late. That particular horse was already out of the barn.

"Where's Ace?" she said, glancing behind him.

"The Bakers took her to see the Santa Claus parade and then she's sleeping over at their place. Ace is thrilled, she loves Zack's nephew, Gavin."

As she closed the door, she read a moment of unguarded doubt on his face. "You, not so much?"

"I don't know I don't quite get the purpose of it. I get going tobogganing, or to a movie. I don't get sleeping at someone else's house."

Don't blush. she ordered herself. They were not talking about adult sleepovers.

"Sleeping is not an activity," he muttered.

"Believe me, they won't be doing much sleeping. Probably movies and popcorn. Maybe some make-up."

"Makeup?" He ran a hand through his hair and looked distressed. "I hoped I was years away from makeup. And don't even mention the word bra to me."

Believe me, that was the last word I was going to mention to you.

He could fluster her in a hair, damn him. She tried not to let it show. "Not serious makeup. Not yet. You know, dress-up stuff. Bit hats, an old string of pearls, some high heels."

"Oh."

"Is there something deeper going on with you?" she asked. "Something that needs to be addressed."

Aubree saw she could fluster him in a hair, too.

"Such as?" he asked defensively.

"Any chance you don't like losing control, Matt?"

He scowled, and for a moment she thought she was going to get the lecture about knowing everything again. But then she realized he wasn't scowling at her. After a long silence, he finally answered.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," he admitted reluctantly. "I feel like I wanted to call Zack and conduct an interview."

Interrogation, she guessed wryly. "What kind of interview?"

"You know."

She raised her eyebrows at him. He sighed. "Just casually ferret out information about their suitability to have Ace over with Gavin, if they can handle the two of the together."

Aubree tried not to laugh, but he didn't notice.

"Even if I got the all the right answers," he continued, "I still would want to invite myself over and check up on her, make sure there weren't any hazards."

"Hazards? Like what?"

"You know."

"I'm afraid I can't even imagine what kind of hazards might exist over there."

His scowl deepened. "Like loaded weapons, dogs that bite, unplugged smoke detectors."

She was biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. She knew it would be the wrong time to laugh. "Zack's your best friend," she said reassuringly. "Gena would never let anything like that happen or be out."

He sighed. "Intellectually, I know that. That's how I stopped myself from phoning or going in. I grew up with Zack. He was a good kid I guess. I guess if Ace has to sleep somewhere other than her own bed, I would want it to be at a house where I know she will be well looked after."

"Still, what about next time? What if Ace gets invited to someone's house where I don't know the parents. Or worse, what if I did, and I remember the mom was a wild thing who chugged her hard lemonade and swam naked in the school pool? Then what?"

No wonder he had an aversion to doing his grocery shopping locally. That was way too much to know about people.

"I'm not sure," she admitted.

"Oh, great. Thanks a lot, Miss Dawson! When I really want an answer, you don't have one. What good is a know-it-all without an answer?"

Aubree was amazingly offended. In fact, she felt she could see this man as clearly as she had ever seen him. She suddenly saw he was restless. And irritable. He had needed to do something tonight to offset his loss of control.

"This is the first night you've been apart since the accident took her mom?" she asked softly.

He stared at her. For a moment he looked as though he would turn and walk away rather than reveal something so achingly vulnerable about himself.

But then instead of walking away, he nodded, once, curtly.

And she stepped back over the fallen tree, motioning for him to follow her, inviting him in.

Aubree knew it was crazy to be this foolishly happy that he had picked her to come to, crazier yet that she was unable to resist his need.

But how could anyone, even someone totally emancipated, be heart-hearted enough to send a man back into the night who had come shouldering the weight of terrible burdens? Not that he necessarily knew how heavy his burdens were.

He hesitated, like an animal who was paused, sensing danger. And what would be more dangerous to him than someone seeing past his hard exterior and to his heart?

And then, like that same animal catching the scent of something irresistible, he moved slowly forward. He stepped over her tree, and she wondered if he knew how momentous his decision was.

If he did, he was allowing himself to be distracted. he surveyed the strings of lights strewn around her living room floor, the boxes of baubles, the unhung socks. For a moment it looked as if he might run from the magnitude of what he had gotten himself into.

But then he crouched and looked at the tree stand, a flying-saucer-type apparatus, that was still attached solidly to the trunk of the tree. It just hadn't kept the tree solidly attached to the floor.

"Is that what you expected to hold your tree?" he asked incredulously.

It was the kind of question that didn't really merit an answer. Though it had been the most expensive tree stand at the store, a tree nearly crashing down on top of her was ample evidence that the design was somewhat flawed.

"It's worse than your hammer," Matt decided, with a solemn shake of his head. Still, he looked pleased that he had found something in dire need of his immediate attention.

"I bought a new hammer," she said.

After his last visit, she had decided she wasn't having her hammer choice keep her from the promised bliss of the single woman.

Though somehow, in this moment, Aubree knew she had missed the point because she felt ridiculously eager to show it to him, secretly, weakly wanted his approval of her choice.

"Really?" But he hardly seemed interested in her new acquisition of a hammer. He had already moved on to other things.

With raw strength that made her shiver, he yanked the stand off the trunk of the tree and scowled at it, looked at if from one way and then another.

"I think I can fix it." He began to whistle though his teeth, a song that sounded suspiciously like "Angel Lost" through she decided against pointing that out to him, because he was so obviously pleased to have things to look after since Ace was out of his reach for the evening.

Aubree told herself she was duty bound to resist this beautiful gift of a man coming to help her. Duty bound.

So, naturally she didn't.

"I'll go make cocoa," she said, and then, in case that might be interpreted as far too traditional, she let the independent and blissful woman speak up, too. "And I'll get my new hammer."