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  Savannah Martin has always been a good girl, doing what was expected and fully expecting life to fall into place in its turn. But when her perfect husband turns out to be a lying, cheating slimeball - and bad in bed to boot - Savannah kicks the jerk to the curb and embarks on life on her own terms. With a new apartment, a new career, and a brand new outlook on life, she's all set to take the world by storm. If only the world would stop throwing her curveballs...

  It’s Christmas Day—the morning after the events of A Done Deal—and Savannah is looking at Rafe Collier, a pair of fuzzy handcuffs, a economy sized box of condoms (one of which plays Christmas carols), and the rest of her life... but first, there’s Christmas dinner with the Martins to get through.

  Between Margaret Anne at her most poisonous, the ugliest Christmas sweater the world has ever seen, and yet another jewelry box under the tree, Savannah has plenty to worry about, not the least of which is whether Rafe will still want to stick around after dessert.

  CONTINGENT ON APPROVAL

  A Savannah Martin Christmas Novella

  Jenna Bennett

  Chapter 1.

  I woke up on Christmas morning with the same kind of anticipation I used to feel as a little girl, when I knew that Santa had come during the night and downstairs in the parlor were a whole lot of presents with my name on them.

  The only difference was that this year Santa came early, and my present was lying next to me, one muscular arm thrown across my waist and his steady breathing ruffling the hair at the back of my neck.

  He’d shown up last night, in the middle of the shindig my mother always hosts at my ancestral home, the Martin mansion in Sweetwater, every Christmas Eve. Everyone had been there: my brother and sister, their kids, my brother-in-law, my aunt and uncle. Mother’s best friend. Mother’s boyfriend, the sheriff. His son, my brother’s best friend: the man my mother wanted me to marry. The man who wanted to marry me.

  In the middle of it all, the doorbell rang.

  There was nothing unusual about that: the citizens of Sweetwater—a small town in Middle Tennessee, and hour and a little more south of Nashville—had been coming and going all evening, stopping in for a glass of eggnog and to pay their respects to the lady of the manor. My mother’s a Martin—by marriage, true, but a Martin nonetheless—and there have been Martins in Sweetwater since the early 1800s. The mansion itself was built in 1839, but the family has been here longer than that. I know it isn’t true, but sometimes I feel like there’s always been Martins in Sweetwater.

  Anyway, the doorbell had rung. My brother had gone to answer it, and had come back with presents for his girls, five-year-old Abigail and three-year-old Hannah.

  When I saw the contents of the colorful gift bags—Police Barbies—I knew that the new arrival had to be Tamara Grimaldi, my friend from the Nashville Police Department. She and Dix had met during the investigation into my sister-in-law’s murder a month or three before, and they had stayed in touch. I think she liked him. It was much too soon for him to consider dating again, of course, but I knew they spoke regularly, and I hadn’t questioned the fact that she’d driven all the way to Sweetwater on Christmas Eve to give his daughters Christmas gifts.

  When he said there was something for me in the foyer, I didn’t think anything of it. I’d put down my glass of wine and walked out of the parlor, only to come face to face, not with Tamara Grimaldi, but with the man now lying in my bed. A man I loved with all my heart, in ways didn’t realize I could love anyone, and a man I’d almost lost numerous times, to death and to my own stupidity.

  Now he was here, he was mine, and I wasn’t letting him go again. Ever.

  Carefully, without disturbing the arm holding me close, I rotated so I could look at him. And as usual my heart lurched and my breath went. Not just because he’s beautiful, although he is, but because I love him, and I almost lost him, and I didn’t think I’d ever get him back, and now that I had, the feelings were so big I couldn’t breathe.

  But he’s beautiful, too.

  For the past couple of months, whenever I’d seen him, he’d had longer hair, perfectly gelled, and a little goatee he’d cultivated to pretend to be someone he isn’t. Literally. It’s a long story.

  When he showed up last night, he was back to looking like himself again. His hair was shorn into the barely-there crop he’s been wearing since he grew out of the cornrows he had in high school, and his face was smooth-shaven. The only thing remaining was the small stud in his ear. He hadn’t had a pierced ear before. Jorge Pena, the man he’d been pretending to be, did. And since that particular likeness had been easy to emulate, Rafe had pierced his ear too.

  The dragon tattoo Jorge had had on his back was a different matter. It would have taken too long to have that done, and it would have looked too new, so Rafe’s had been a fake. It was gone now, or mostly gone. There was still a faint outline, but it would fade over time. The only tattoo of his own that he has, is a viper wrapped around one bicep. It was looking at me, sticking out its little forked tongue.

  I stuck mine out in return, and was rewarded with a low chuckle. “Morning, darlin’.”

  “Good morning.” I blushed. Not exactly the sultry, seductive image I wanted to present, that one.

  “Is it?” His eyes were only half open, deep and dark under long, sooty lashes.

  “Of course it is,” I said. “You’re here.”

  He stretched, hard muscles sliding against my body. “Did you think I’d sneak out in the middle of the night?”

  I hadn’t. Now I wondered if I should have. “Would you?”

  He settled back down into the pillows, his arm still snug around my waist. “I usually do. Avoids that awkward morning after.”

  We’d had a few awkward mornings after, he and I. He’d never snuck out on me, though. Then again, we’d always been in his bed the next morning. But aside from that, it had usually been me who couldn’t wait to leave, shocked and appalled all over again once daylight came that I’d succumbed to temptation and slept with him.

  There’d be none of that today. “This isn’t awkward.”

  He smiled. “It’s a little awkward.”

  “What’s awkward about it?”

  He did a quick eyeroll, indicating the room. My childhood room, on the second floor of the Martin Mansion. Virginal white sheets, antique four-poster bed, drippy canopies, and everything nice. It hasn’t changed much in the time since I left it to go off to finishing school, and to be honest, it didn’t change much in the hundred years before that either.

  “I’m in your mother’s house,” Rafe said. “Me. Your mother’s house. And not just that, but there’s a couple hundred years of history at work here.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said.

  “I ain’t being silly, darlin’. A hundred and fifty years ago, they’d lynch me for this.”

  “No, they wouldn’t. My great-great-great-grandmother Caroline slept with the groom. They didn’t lynch him.”

  “What?” Rafe said.

  “It’s true. My aunt told me yesterday. It happened just after the War Between the States. If I remember correctly, my great-great-great-grandfather went off to fight the Yankees, leaving great-great-great-grandma Caroline at home to hold down the fort. With the slaves. I’ve always known that. It’s a source of great family pride.”

  “Of course it is,” Rafe said.

  “Sorry. But when you’re from an old Southern family, it’s important to be able to prove you were on the right side in the conflict.”

  “People still care about that?”

  “Some people do. My ex-husband’s family did.”

  A corner of his mouth curled up. “Thought I’d made you forget about Bradley.”
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  “You have,” I said. “Totally. I don’t think about him at all anymore. Anyway, Caroline had an affair with the groom, either before or after her husband was killed in action. She got pregnant.”

  “You serious?”

  I nodded. “Haven’t you ever wondered why my sister Catherine looks different from Dix and me? We’re blonde and blue-eyed, but she has darker hair and brown eyes?”

  “Yeah,” Rafe said, “so?”

  “Dix and I take after mother’s family, the Georgia Calverts. Catherine looks like the Martins. And great-great-grandfather William was part black.”

  I had no idea how big a part. I’d looked at his picture my whole life, and I’d never once thought he looked African-American. But he was definitely dark. Hair, eyes, skin tone. Chances were that a male Martin—or a friend—in an even earlier generation had also dabbled in the pool, and the groom might have been part white. That would make William only about a quarter black, maybe even less. Enough to pass as white, at least to someone who didn’t know the story.

  Rafe was quiet for a minute. “Your mother know about this?”

  “My aunt doesn’t think so. She had it from her father, who told Aunt Regina and my dad. But Aunt Regina doesn’t think dad ever told mother.”

  “I can see why,” Rafe said. “She’d prob’ly leave him.”

  “Surely not.” Although she wouldn’t be thrilled.

  “You planning to tell her?”

  “If I have to,” I said. “It depends.”

  “On?”

  “How she treats you later today.”

  “What happens later today?”

  “Christmas dinner,” I said. “At my sister’s house.”

  He stared at me. “You’re taking me to Christmas dinner at your sister’s house?”

  I stared back. “You mean you don’t want to go?”

  He did a sort of squirm, one I’d never seen him do before. “It ain’t that I don’t wanna go, darlin’...”

  I didn’t answer, just looked at him, and he added, “OK, so it is that I don’t wanna go.”

  “They’ll be nice to you. Most of them.” All except mother. She’d be excruciatingly polite.

  “I ain’t afraid of what they’ll do to me,” Rafe said. “I’ve been in more uncomfortable spots than your sister’s house for Christmas dinner.”

  No question about that. “What is it you’re afraid of, then?”

  “I ain’t afraid,” Rafe said. “I just don’t wanna upset your family on Christmas. That’s why I wasn’t gonna stay last night, either.”

  “I told you. You couldn’t drive all the way here to tell me I could have you, and then leave before I could actually have you.”

  “You’ve had me,” Rafe said. “Couple of times.”

  Yes, I had. But that was last night. “I haven’t had you this morning.”

  “You can have me this morning. If you still want me.”

  “I always want you,” I said. “But first I want to finish talking about this.”

  He shook his head. “Ain’t nothing to talk about, darlin’. Me being around at all is gonna be a big enough deal for your family to swallow. Don’t have to shove it down their throats on Christmas.”

  “I’m not shoving you down anyone’s throat. But I don’t want to hide, either. And that means they’ll have to get used to seeing you.”

  He didn’t answer, but he looked mutinous.

  “Did you have other plans?” He didn’t have any family left in Sweetwater, and I certainly didn’t want him to sit alone on Christmas.

  And then it hit me and I felt guilty. “Were you planning to spend the day with your grandmother?” His paternal grandmother, the grandmother he’d only met a few months ago. Mrs. Tondalia Jenkins, in Nashville.

  His lips curved, but the smile was bittersweet. “She don’t know it’s Christmas, darlin’. It’s just like any other day to her. Half the time she don’t know me when I walk in.”

  “I’m sorry.” He’d found his grandmother—his father’s mother—at thirty, only to have her not recognize him half the time. I reached out and touched his cheek. “We can go visit her if you want. Together. Later.”

  He tilted his head to kiss my palm. “Uh-huh.” I didn’t get the impression that he was paying much attention to what I was saying, but I soldiered on.

  “Dinner’s at one. It’ll be over by three or four.” We could be back in Nashville by five, maybe five thirty. We could go see Mrs. J then.

  “Sounds good.” His lips had left my palm to skim down to the pulse beating in my wrist. He kissed me there too, and then moved on. The next stop was the crook of my elbow, where the thin skin tingled at the touch of his lips. For good measure he gave the spot a little lick before moving on. By the time he got to my shoulder, I had forgotten about Mrs. Jenkins and Christmas dinner and all the rest of it. And that’s when he pushed me over on my back and grinned down at me. “Merry Christmas, darlin’.”

  “Merry Christmas,” I said, breathlessly. And that’s the last thing I said for a while.

  Chapter 2.

  By the time we made it out of bed and down to the kitchen, it was going on eleven o’clock. We’d both had showers, and Rafe had dressed in yesterday’s clothes, since he hadn’t brought an overnight bag with him when he drove down. He’d actually been serious about not spending the night. Initially, that is. I’d convinced him otherwise. This morning I’d suggested trying to hunt up a pair of clean underwear for him—some of my dad’s clothes were still sitting around, and I didn’t doubt that some of Bob Satterfield’s might be as well—but he told me he didn’t mind going commando.

  “Ain’t the first time. And it’ll give you something to think about when we’re at your sister’s house, having dinner. Maybe give you some added incentive to get outta there quickly.”

  He winked.

  I resisted the temptation to fan myself.

  By eleven o’clock we were in the kitchen. I had shown Rafe all around the upstairs, including the old daguerreotype of great-great-grandpa William hanging on the wall in the hallway. In light of what I now knew about him—William—I could kind of see that he might have had some mixed blood in him, but to be honest, he looked enough like Caroline’s other children that nobody may have thought much of it back then.

  Or maybe that kind of thing was a lot more common and widely known and accepted than we’re led to believe these days.

  I fully expected to find my mother downstairs, preparing something to bring to Catherine’s house later, but just like the upstairs, the kitchen was empty. I raised my voice.

  “Mother?”

  There was no answer.

  “Guess she went out,” Rafe said.

  I nodded. Maybe she’d gone to Catherine’s house early, to help with the cooking. Or maybe she and the sheriff had breakfast plans.

  Or maybe she was being polite—or evasive—and wanted to make sure she didn’t run into Rafe this morning.

  “Are you hungry?” I headed for the refrigerator.

  “I can eat.” He took a seat at the counter. The kitchen is the only room in the whole mansion that’s been updated for the twenty first century. (Except the bathrooms, of course.) Everything else dates from 1839. Not the plumbing and electrical systems, obviously, nor the central heat and air, but the walls are plaster, ditto the fifteen foot ceilings, and there are wide plank floors everywhere. Including here. Everything else has been redone, though. There’s granite and tile and stainless steel and all other sorts of conveniences we’ve come to take for granted in our day and age. Including an overlarge refrigerator stuffed full of leftovers from the party yesterday. Food neither Rafe nor I had tasted, because we’d been in too much of a hurry to get upstairs to be alone.

  “There’s plenty of party-food.” I dug through containers full of dips and veggies, cold-cuts and bacon-wrapped sausages. “Or do you want me to make you something hot? Eggs or pancakes? Something breakfast-like?”

  “I ain’t difficult,” R
afe said. “Just give me what you’ve got.”

  “No problem.” I’d cook for him some other time. We had the rest of our lives for that, at least if I had anything to say about it.

  I pulled out bread and cold-cuts, sausage-stuffed mushroom caps and deviled eggs, and lined them up in front of him. Rafe’s eyebrows lifted higher and higher as the containers mounted. “All this from the party yesterday?”

  “My mother goes all out,” I said. “We eat off it for days. Maybe weeks. What do you want to drink? Beer?”

  “Your mother stocks beer?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Not at eleven in the morning, darlin’.”

  “I think the sheriff probably drinks it,” I said, and pulled out a gallon of milk instead. “Coffee?”

  He shook his head. “Milk’s fine.”

  I grinned as I pulled two glasses out of the cabinet and put them on the counter. “The big bad criminal eats leftover cocktail wieners and drinks milk for breakfast?”

  He grinned back. “The big bad criminal eats little girls like you for breakfast. This is dessert.”

  “That reminds me.” I hiked my bottom up on the stool next to him and reached for the container of cold-cuts. “You said you’re finished. No more undercover work.”

  He nodded, mouth full.

  “Any idea what you’ll be doing now?”

  He swallowed. “We’ll have to talk about it.”

  Sure. “That wasn’t really what I wanted to know, anyway. I don’t care what you do, as long as you do it with me.”

  “Naturally.” He grinned. “So what was it you wanted to know?”

  “Did they give you your identity back? Or do I have to call you something else now? Rudolph? Rolf? Ralph?”

  “God forbid.” He shook his head. “No, darlin’. You’re stuck with just plain old me.”

  “Good. I like your name.”

  “Glad to hear it. Makes things simpler.”

  Indeed.

  We ate in silence for a few minutes, and then he pushed his stool back from the counter.