Beach Blanket Santa

could enjoy it without having to run into each other. “I thought Elaine always took Christmas week?”
    “Usually, she does. But this year, she’s getting married. Remember? She’ll be on her honeymoon. The place is all yours!”
    Matt started to think about that. The gentle melancholy of the seashore… A few six-packs of beer. Surf fishing in the waves. Letting his beard stubble grow for a week. Skipping out on the suit and tie routine… And finally— finally —forgetting about Katya. After a full week of that, he’d probably feel fine handling Christmas at the beach solo. Or, even heading back to Maryland if that was what he decided to do. Neither he nor Robert were going to Chicago this year. They and their siblings had pooled together to send his folks on a forty-year-anniversary trip to Tuscany’s lake region. It would be one of the first seasons in memory the greater Salvatore clan hadn’t gathered together to ring in the New Year, a plethora of grandchildren bustling about and blowing plastic horns. Of course, everyone had agreed it was worth it. There’d been tears in his mom’s eyes at Thanksgiving when Robert, as the eldest, had handed over the airline tickets and broken the news. Everyone deserved the kind of happiness their parents shared. They’d stuck together through all kinds of weather and seemed to care for each other even more now than Matt had recalled as a kid.
    “What about the Barnes case?” he asked his brother.
    “I’ve put our team of interns on it. They’ll be busy pulling documentation together until after the first.” He shot Matt an encouraging grin. “There’s really not much left for you to do here…other than pout.”
    “Hey!” Matt didn’t pout. Did he? Scowl a little, perhaps. Take on the brooding look of an artist. Appear mysteriously morose… But pout? Not on your life he didn’t. If this was what Katya had reduced him to, it was way past time to change it. So, yeah, maybe he’d been deluded into believing she was the love of his life. What with that sexy accent and sharp wit, she’d had him practically from hello. But now she was gone. Long gone, and it was time he stopped rehashing the past. It was ironic that the one woman he’d really fallen for had been the one to walk out on him. While Matt had never purposely hurt anybody, he did have a history of the being the guy who was good with good-byes. He’d become really adept at sensing when a woman was getting in deep and knew it was kinder to cut things off early rather than unfairly lead somebody on. Matt wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he believed he would know it when he saw it. With Katya, he’d just been vision impaired. Not that he’d ever let that happen again. “Give me that key.”
    Robert blinked in surprise. “Just like that? You’re leaving already?”
    Matt held out his hand, and Robert slid open his desk drawer, extracting a key chain with a dangling fake sand dollar attached. “Merry Christmas, brother,” he said, slapping it into Matt’s palm.
    “Thanks. And Happy New Year to you.”
    “Wait a minute. You’re not coming back to…?”
    “I’ll call you,” Matt said with a wink.
    Robert eyed him suspiciously. “You got another girl stashed away somewhere I don’t know about? Someone you’re taking there with you?”
    “You wish,” Matt said. I wish , he thought. But this year, he’d have no such luck. Matt had grown weary of the dating game. That fiasco with Katya had been the final blow. He’d already taken her home to meet the family . His big Italian family, grandmother and all. And she’d apparently bedded the congressional hopeful less than a week later. Matt was supposed to be smart, primed to see things. His work as a corporate attorney demanded keen mental acumen. But every single bit of his brainpower had let him down when Katya had batted her pretty green eyes. Well, no more of that, Matt thought, clutching the key. He was done with women for the next little bit. After this breather at the beach, he’d return refreshed to focus on his career. Robert really had been doing more than his share lately. And with a new baby at home, it simply wasn’t fair. By all accounts, Matt was the one who should be picking up any extra slack. And he planned to see to it post haste.

    Sarah Anderson refilled Elaine’s slender sherry glass, then lightly fluffed her veil. “You look gorgeous,” she said. “Really you do.”
    Elaine studied her reflection