Take Me Home for Christmas (Whiskey Creek #5)(81)
Author: Brenda Novak

“You can’t wait for me to answer the door?” he asked, thrusting Sophia behind him to shield her.

“I wouldn’t expect to find my son having sex in the living room!” she retorted. “Especially when he doesn’t even have a girlfriend.”

“Can you please go out and give us a chance to dress?”

He didn’t have to ask twice. No doubt she was as embarrassed as they were. Leaving the presents where they’d fallen, she pivoted abruptly and headed down to the kitchen.

He turned to Sophia. “It’s okay. No big deal. You don’t need to worry about this.”

“I’m sorry,” she said as if it was somehow her fault. “I should’ve known better. I did know better.”

“Better than what?”

She was so upset she was shaking, which made it difficult for her to get her sweater on. He saw that it was on wrong side out and stopped her to change it around.

“Relax,” he soothed. “This isn’t the end of the world. She’s the one who walked in. She shouldn’t have done that.”

“But it was my fault we were in the living room.” She started toward the door leading out to the deck, but he grabbed her hand.

“Stay. Don’t scurry off like we were doing something wrong.”

“According to your mom, we were doing something wrong. She’s not happy she found you naked with me. Eve can have sex with you because she’s a good person, someone she’d deem worthy of being her daughter-in-law. But me? Never.”

She pulled away but he went after her. “Sophia, stop! We’ve got to go in there together, or she’ll continue to treat you the way she’s always treated you.”

She cast a longing glance at the door. “Dealing with your mother is a no-win situation for me. She’ll never believe I’m not the terrible person she thinks I am. How could I convince her, anyway? With the embarrassing scene she just witnessed? I can guarantee she’s not impressed.”

“Maybe she can’t be convinced, but she’d damn well better respect my choices!”

“That’s between you and her. It has nothing to do with me.”

“It has everything to do with you,” he insisted.

When she started to dig at her cuticles, he stopped her.

“Fine. I’ll go in there if you want me to,” she said. “But…don’t get into a fight with her, okay? I don’t want to feel responsible for that, don’t want to ruin your Christmas.”

Christmas was the last thing he was worried about.

“Whether or not we get into an argument will be up to her,” he muttered and walked downstairs to the kitchen, gently tugging Sophia behind him.

The second they walked in, his mother glanced pointedly at their clasped hands, and Ted didn’t have to look at Sophia to know that her color had returned—with a vengeance.

“Well, wasn’t that a lovely surprise!” his mother said.

He shrugged off her sarcasm. “I’m not the one who walked into your house uninvited.”

“I apologize. When you told me you weren’t sleeping with your housekeeper, I made the mistake of believing you.”

“Why didn’t you wait until I answered the door?”

“I assumed you’d be writing. Last I heard, you had a deadline looming. I thought I’d slip a few gifts under the tree, since I’d gone to the trouble of hauling them over here.”

The fact that she’d been bringing gifts reminded him how much she loved him and helped keep his temper in check. “Mom, I appreciate what you do for me, what you’ve always done. And when I said I wasn’t sleeping with my housekeeper, I wasn’t. But…things change. At least, they did tonight.”

Her lip curled. “As I’m sure she’s been hoping all along.”

Sophia tried to release his hand, but he tightened his grip, stubbornly believing that he could achieve some sort of truce. “If she was hoping for that, all she had to do was come to my bed,” he said.

“She would’ve been there long before now if she’d known that,” his mother said. “My God, Ted. You’re not some randy teenager anymore. Can’t you see what’s happening?”

“Whatever it is, it’s none of your business.”

“It’s none of my business that she’s using you?”

“You don’t even know her, not anymore!”

Rayma came to her feet, and her voice rose an octave at the same time. “What’s to know? Can’t you be objective enough to see the truth? Of course she’s going to cling to you, and put out for you and do whatever you want. How else will she survive? There isn’t another person in this entire town who gives a damn about her!”

Shocked silence followed this outburst. Even his mother seemed to realize she’d gone too far. He opened his mouth to tell her just how out of line she was, but before he could say a word, Sophia interrupted.

“You’re right,” she said. “You’ve revealed my whole diabolical plot. I’m the worst person ever born, and I wanted to sleep with your son so I could manipulate him into…what? Giving me money? Is that what you’re afraid of?”

He’d offered her a loan for that car just tonight and she’d refused. Although he wanted her to say that, she didn’t. Maybe she feared that it would only make his mother angrier at him.

Rayma started to answer, but Sophia cut her off.

“It doesn’t matter. I take full responsibility for what happened tonight, so there’s no need to be mad at him. But before you panic, I’m not trying to twist his arm into marrying me. I won’t be staying here long enough for that. My typing’s improved. I’ll have other options soon.”

When she walked out, Ted let her go. He regretted dragging her in here to be lambasted by his mother. Damn it! He’d known how fragile she was, how much she’d endured, but this encounter hadn’t turned out as he’d expected. For one thing, he’d thought it might do Sophia good to see that he felt enough loyalty to her to tell his mother that she needed to butt out.

Now he realized how stupid he’d been to put her through more of the same kind of bullshit she’d been contending with since her husband betrayed her….

The door leading to the deck slammed as Sophia left the house. “Happy now?” he murmured in the wake of her departure.

Taken aback that Sophia had given him up that easily, his mother blinked. “Is it true?” she asked.