Mistletoe in Paradise

by Jill Shalvis

  “It’s you who’s breathing like you just ran a marathon.”

  “Yeah, well, desk jockey . . . You going to jump?”

  He hesitated, and she turned to face him. “It’s about Jason,” she said softly.

  “It just hit me that I’ve never done this without him on one side and you on the other,” he admitted.

  “I know.” She reached for his hand. “We’re missing a third of our posse.” She looked into his eyes. “You’re not okay.”

  “I’m . . .” He shook his head. “I stayed away so long . . . I think in part to avoid this. Facing it.” He swallowed hard. “The truth is, I’m not quite sure how to be here without him.”

  “You do what needs to be done when you’ve got to say goodbye to someone who should still be here.” Grief and sympathy in her warm eyes, still holding his hand, she stepped into him. “You live for him.”

  “I’m trying.” He lifted his gaze to hers, not steady on his feet and extremely grateful for her presence as he realized there was no one but Hannah who could’ve gotten through to him in this moment. “But I feel guilty that I’m here and he isn’t.” He shook his head. “I’ve taken so many chances that I’m lucky to still be standing, and all he ever did was live his life to help my dad, and then fight like hell to stay alive for as long as it was physically possible for him to do so. It’s not fair.”

  She tightened her grip on his hand and stared right into his eyes, her own sparkly with emotion and a few tears. “I know you miss him more than I can possibly imagine, but he wouldn’t want you to feel guilty that you’re still standing. He’d want you to remember the good times and think of him.”

  “I do,” he said fiercely. He looked around. “Do you remember that first time we stood right here? It was our third year on the boat. We were what, maybe fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen?”

  She gave a small smile. “I wanted to jump, but I was scared. My dad promised he’d jump with me, but he got busy.”

  More like Harry had forgotten his promise to her. This happened a lot with both her parents, a fact that had always pissed him off for her. Jason and his dad had also always included her in everything they’d done. But that had been for only one week of the year. The rest of the time, she’d grown up in an unstable household that no doubt had felt unsafe, watching adults being unkind to one another and not witnessing the best of human behavior.

  Which made her generosity and kindness all the more a miracle.

  But on the third year of being stood up by the Cap, Jason finally sweet-talked her into joining them up the bluffs. Jason had been good at sweet talk. After promising he’d go first and be there in the water waiting for her, he jumped, and then he had indeed stayed right there in the water, waving up at her.

  James had never been much of a sweet talker. When they’d been young, he and Hannah had pushed and dared and challenged each other. But now, with the dubious honor of maturity, he could care less about one-upping her, he just wanted to be with her. Terrifying in its own right.

  “We going to jump?” she asked quietly.

  “I am. But you don’t have to.”

  She looked at the water, as if she wished Jason were waiting for her.

  Same, babe. Same.

  “You first,” she finally said.

  He laughed. “No can do, Hannah Banana. The second I jump, you’ll walk back down.”

  “Yes, but that would technically still be meeting you down there,” she said, biting her lower lip, staring down at the water with genuine trepidation.

  Watching her, something in him softened. “If you don’t want to jump,” he said, “we’ll both walk down.”

  “But you always jump. Every time. That’s what we do.”

  “That’s right. That’s what we do.”

  She stared at him. “Yeah, but the adult half of this so-called we realizes what a stupid and idiotic tradition that is.” She paused and looked down again. “I don’t remember this being so scary.”

  “Hannah.” He squeezed her hand. “We don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes we do. Jason might be watching. Besides, I want to.”

  “Really? Because you look like you’re going to throw up.”

  “I always feel this way before I jump,” she said. “It’s just been a long time. And . . .” She took another peek over the edge and swallowed hard. “I mean, shouldn’t things look smaller when you’re older? Does this cliff seem higher and bigger to you? And the waterline far lower? Global warming, right?”

  He laughed and felt some of the weight lift off his chest. “It’s called fear. It’s okay, Hannah, seriously. We don’t have to do this.”

  “We’re doing this.”

  He knew that stubborn tone and that equally stubborn set of her chin. There’d be no turning back now. “Fine,” he said, “then we do it together.”

  Staring at him, she nodded.

  So they jumped.

  Or more accurately, he jumped and she came along with him, since he was still holding her hand. And then they were flying through the air together, she screaming at the top of her lungs, the sun making her anklet glow, he feeling a ridiculous carefree grin cross his face for the first time in far too long.

  Chapter 5

  Hannah stopped screaming to suck in a lungful of air just before she and James hit the water. When she broke the surface, she was thrilled to find herself not dead. “Oh my god. We lived.”

  James, who’d surfaced at her side, laughed, looking far lighter and freer than he had at the top of the bluff.

  Her heart ached for him, deeply. He and Jason had been inseparable. For her, losing Jason had felt like the hacking off of a limb, so she couldn’t even fathom the pain James felt. “You didn’t have to hold my hand,” she said, treading water. “We’re not kids anymore.”

  “Maybe I felt like one again.”

  She could tell he wasn’t kidding, and that reached right into her chest and squeezed her heart. They were still treading water and staring at each other when a big swell nudged them together. His hands gripped her waist to keep her with him, their legs brushing together as he kicked to keep them afloat.

  “Is this really your first time back here?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He gave a small smile. “I’ve seen nearly every stretch of beach on the planet, but not this one, not since . . .”

  “I know,” she whispered, shifting closer without thought. Their thighs bumped again. Their chests, too, so he tightened his grip, holding her against him.

  “What made you come back this year?” she asked, her hands going to his shoulders. “Why now?”

  “I told myself it was because my mom asked, and because I needed to talk to my dad, but I’ve gotta admit . . .” He held her gaze. “I’m glad I did.”

  Her heart tightened. “What about Candy?”

  “She’s an employee of mine,” he said. “Married to one of my investment partners. They’re very happy together and have an adorable little kid.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Oh,” he said with a smile, the kind that changed the rhythm of her heart. “We were in Belize scoping out some future vacation stops, talking to some resorts willing to give us deep discounts for our clients.” He lightly touched his nose to hers. “Now you.”

  “Now me what?”

  “You still with that suit who works at a bank?”

  She went brows up at him, and he smiled. “You’re not the only one who gets gossip from a parent. Our moms are still like two middle-school girls.”

  She laughed. “Yeah. They are.”

  “So. The suit?”

  She met his warm but curious gaze. “He was too . . . suity.”

  He laughed, and the sound woke up all her good parts. Looking at him, she could almost feel the forces of gravity shift from pulling her under the water to pushing her even closer to James in the hope that he might kiss her. Just thinking about it had her gaze dropping to his mouth.

  Maybe he felt the same pull because he
said her name in a low sexy timbre that wasn’t technically a question but sure felt like one.

  She answered with a nod and a “yes, please,” and then his mouth was on hers. Not forcefully, but with enough intensity that she could feel the promise behind the kiss, along with the promise of much more if she wanted it.

  And in that moment, there wasn’t anything she wanted other than more—more of this, more of him, more of them . . . All of which she tried to convey with her kiss, something he returned with a heat and hunger that stole her breath. He had one hand fisted in her hair, the other low on her back pressing her against him as his legs continued to work at keeping them afloat. He pulled back, studied her face, and then smiled.

  And then she kissed that smile off his face.

  When they started to slide underwater, he kicked them back to the surface, both of them coughing and laughing.

  By mutual silent agreement, they began to swim to shore. Which of course turned into a race and then a dunking contest. When they stepped out of the water, still cracking up, they made their way through the stuff Harry had left for them, which included a Nerf football. While they tossed it back and forth, Hannah worked on doing something she rarely accomplished anymore—staying in the moment and enjoying it.

  Although she thought of herself as a natural athlete, she hadn’t flexed those muscles in a while. It’d been a long time since she’d thrown a ball, yet she could still get it to James—well, in his vicinity at least. He was a good sport, running and diving for her errant tosses in nothing but board shorts hanging dangerously low on his sexy hips. Of course he was able to get the ball right into her hands. Tired now, but also determined, she gave the ball one last toss just to see him run. He hurled himself into the air to make the catch, then hit the sand hard and stayed down. And still—way too still.

  “Oh my god,” she whispered and ran over to him. “James?”

  Nothing.

  She dropped to her knees and put her hand on his bare back. His skin was smooth and warm. “James!”

  He moved so fast she never saw him coming. In the next breath, she was flat on her back and he was braced above her, mischief in his gaze.

  “I take it you’re done playing football,” she managed, her pulse kicking into gear. He was big and warm and hard. Everywhere.

  “Babe, that wasn’t football. You were too busy ogling me to even try and throw it the way I taught you.”

  She bit her lower lip and stared at his mouth. “You’re too . . . tempting.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  He smiled, lowered his head until his lips touched hers, and then finally kissed her until her toes started to curl and she was panting and trying to get inside his bathing suit.

  Which was when he rose to his feet and headed back to their picnic area.

  “Are you serious?” she asked his back.

  “Thought I’d wait until you were sure you wanted to be tempted.”

  “That wasn’t tempting me,” she called after him. “That was provoking me into a huge . . . state.”

  He sat and began to eat a sandwich as he looked at her curiously. “What kind of state is this, exactly?”

  Blowing her hair out of her face, she waited for her heart rate to slow down from stroke level. “Never you mind.”

  He grinned. “You can take it back, you know, and just admit you want me.”

  Over her dead body. She plopped down in front of the basket and accepted the sandwich he handed her. She was all too aware of her phone vibrating on the blanket. It’d been vibrating on and off since they’d gotten here. After an internal debate, she gave an apologetic smile and answered. Work, of course, and it took a bit to get everything handled, but finally she disconnected. “Sorry.”

  “That thing’s been going off since you stepped onto The Therapist. Is work always this intense?”

  “Usually it’s worse. This is my boss showing restraint.”

  They had wine chilling in a cooler, and when she pulled out ridiculously fancy glasses, a few rose petals fell out as well.

  James laughed. She did not. “Nothing about this is anything like the hot dogs and s’mores that we used to get.” She shook her head. “He’s upped his game.”

  James touched his glass to hers. “That he has.”

  “I’m sorry your parents aren’t here for this.”

  He shrugged, and she set her glass down, alerted by something in his carefully blank face. “So . . . what made you come this year?”

  “Maybe it was for this,” he said, gesturing between them with his wineglass. “After all, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without someone calling me on my shit every five seconds.”

  “Aw,” she said with a laugh, “you missed this.”

  “Yeah, I missed this.” He set his glass down. “And you,” he added, surprising her. “I missed you.”

  Her heart fluttered, but her brain was afraid to believe. “Right. That’s why when you first arrived, you looked like you were dreading this trip.”

  His smile faded. “That wasn’t about you.”

  “What was it about?”

  “Long story.”

  She lifted her hands and gestured around them. “Literally, nowhere else to go or to be.”

  James looked at her for a long beat. “My dad had always groomed Jason to take over the lumber business. Growing up, I was the . . . spare.”

  She made a sound of regret for him, but he shook his head. “I was okay with that, believe me. I never wanted to stay in New York and run the company. I always wanted to leave and explore, to find my own thing that suited me. But then Jason died and the spare was pulled into play. You know I took off first, needing some time. I told myself it was my nature, but the truth was, I knew if I stayed in one place too long, I’d have to face the fact that Jason was really gone.”

  “James,” she said softly, pained.

  “I came back, and ever since then I’ve tried to run both sides of my life at the same time, helping Dad while keeping my own business afloat, too. I gave it everything I had, but I’ve known the truth for a long time. I’m never going to be happy fulfilling my dad’s dream. I’ve tried to break it to him gently, but he’s not hearing me. That’s what this trip was for. So you’re not the only one here with a mission. I’ve got a clock running, counting down the time until my dad catches up to us so I can tell him I want out. That the many years of grooming his sons to take over the family business were all for nothing.”

  “Maybe he’ll understand. He’s a good man. I bet what he wants more than anything is for you to be happy.”

  “Actually, what he wants is for me to be Jason,” James said. “But I’m not him. I can’t be. Not that it matters, because if my dad really needed me, I’d put my all into it in a heartbeat. But the thing is, he’s got a great team. He doesn’t actually need me there.”

  “What about you?” she asked, feeling for him in a big way. The desire not to disappoint one’s parents is intense, even greater for James because of the loss of Jason. “What do you need?”

  He looked surprised at the question, like maybe no one had ever asked him what he needed, which had her heart swelling until it felt too big for her rib cage.

  “I need to be doing my thing,” he said quietly. “Running the expedition company has never felt like work to me. I can’t imagine not doing it. But splitting my focus is starting to affect both businesses.”

  “How in the world have you been managing to do both? It must be killing you.”

  “It’s taken a lot of juggling. And now my company’s growing faster than I can keep up with for the hours I can put into it. I just signed a huge corporate account that’ll keep me busy for the immediate future, and Google’s looking at me to be in charge of their team-building adventures. They want me to take their executive team to Madagascar as a test.”

  She smiled, unbelievably proud of him. “Congrats, that’s huge. How much of this does your dad know?”


  “None of it.”

  She blinked. “Wait, so you’ve known how you felt for . . . five years, and you haven’t said a word?”

  “I’ve tried to say many words.”

  “Okay, but now you’re just going to drop the bomb on him here that the status quo no longer makes you happy and that’s it, you’re out? You walk away without looking back?”

  He let a stunned beat of silence go by before asking quietly, “Why do I have the feeling we’re no longer talking about me and my dad, but about your mom?”

  She covered her face. “I’m sorry. I’m not judging you. I’m . . . confused.”

  He pulled her hands down, forcing her to look at him. “By this?”

  “Yes.” She searched for the right words. “For me, happiness isn’t jumping off a cliff. For me, Vacation Happiness isn’t real.”

  “Everything we do is real, Hannah. It’s all a part of life.”

  “My life isn’t like yours.”

  “I know.”

  She looked at him, chest aching. “At the end of the day, we’re two very different people who want very different things out of life. Which is why I left six years ago.”

  “And here I thought you ran because you were scared.”

  This had her sucking in a breath because . . . well, because it was actually accurate. She could still remember making love with him for the first time that Christmas. The next morning he’d sat up, said he was going to go explore the world and wanted her to go with him. Essentially, he’d wanted her to give up her scholarship, her internship . . . everything. On a whim.

  But she’d known she couldn’t maintain a relationship and get where she wanted to professionally, where she needed to go. She wanted stability and a steady future, unlike the one she’d had growing up with parents who’d each had their own agenda. “Not all of us have the luxury of doing whatever we want.”

  “It’s a choice, Hannah. I work hard, but I also want to live hard, and I don’t see why I can’t do both.”

  “You make it sound so simple.”

  “Because it is,” he said.