James knew he’d be grateful for the quiet, but it didn’t last because a second later, Addison came bounding into the kitchen like an excited puppy, her ponytail bounced with her, and James could see that her apron pocket was stuffed with tips. He wasn’t in the mood for anything right now, and the headache that had started behind his eyes wasn’t helping. But he never even got a chance to speak before she started right in.
“Well, it looks like the last customer is done with their dessert, so nothing left to do but clean up the dining room and count our tips! Hey, where are all the cooks? They didn’t leave already, did they? I never even got a chance to say goodnight. Oh, well. I’m sure I’ll see them tomorrow. So, James, how are you doing? I really miss Daisy! And you, of course…”
“ADDISON!” James shouted a lot louder than he meant to. She jumped a foot back toward the door in surprise, so he quickly held his hands up to calm her jangled nerves. “I’m sorry, it’s just… could you please just… slow down? My head is killing me, and I can’t focus on anything you’re saying when you talk that fast.”
She covered her mouth in embarrassment and whispered. “I’m so sorry! No one told me you weren’t feeling well! Is there anything I can do?” She walked up to his side and touched his arm softly. He tried not to flinch away, but that was his immediate response. It was his turn to take an uncomfortable step in the other direction, but he did it because he was hoping to put as much space between them as possible.
“No, Addison. Why don’t you just head home and I’ll take care of the dining room myself? I’m going to be here for a while longer anyway, so I might as well.”
She turned on her best toothpaste commercial smile again and shook her head. “No, no. Don’t be silly. I’m happy to help. Besides, you should have the company! There is no reason for a handsome man like you to be alone on a night like this.”
Nope. That’s the last straw, he thought as every alarm in his head starting blaring at once, sending his headache off into another realm.
“Can we talk in the dining room please? The kitchen staff will be back any minute and I’d rather we not be interrupted.”
Addison looked completely pleased with herself, as if she had finally accomplished a goal she had worked toward for years, and James had a feeling she thought she had.
The last customers had just left the dining room; their dirty dishes were still sitting untouched by the busser on their table, something that would normally bother him but tonight, he couldn’t have cared less. He pointed Addison over to a stool by the bar and she sat excitedly, but then looked disappointed when he remained standing a few feet away from her.
“Aren’t you going to sit? Maybe we can have a drink?”
“No, Addison,” James said, shaking his head, “I’m not going to drink with you. I’m not going to do anything with you. Ever. I need you to understand that nothing is ever going to happen between us. I don’t look at you like that, and every time you try and force it, it makes me really uncomfortable. Not to mention that I’m your boss. There are lines that I won’t cross.”
Addison’s face fell for a just second, but then her eyes flashed as if she had the most brilliant idea ever. “What if I don’t work here anymore? I could quit!”
James groaned aloud. She absolutely was not getting it and it was starting to seem like she never would.
“It doesn’t matter if you work here or not. I’m not interested, Addison. I never have been. I never will be. You’re a nice woman and I’m sure one day you will find someone to make you really happy, but it’s not me. And it will never be me.”
Addison’s mouth pinched into a tight grimace of anger. For a second, James thought she might throw something at him, so he prepared himself to duck quickly if he had to. Instead, she sighed in frustration.
“After everything I did…” she mumbled. James leaned forward and tilted one ear toward her.
“What did you say? After what?”
Addison sunk down into the stool. “I didn’t say anything. What did you hear?”
He took a hesitant step in her direction, afraid to get too close, but intent on figuring out exactly what it was that Addison had been doing.
“I heard enough, Addison. What did you do?”
She petulantly crossed her arms over her just like a child, which was exactly how she was behaving. “It’s not a big deal or anything. Just… that afternoon when Annabelle came in here, I told her she wasn’t right for you. It’s true. She’s not good enough for you, especially after how amazing Marisa was. And then when I found that article, it just proved it, you know?”
James couldn’t even find the words to express what he was feeling. All he could do was stare at Addison, blinking, his jaw set in a combination of frustration and something beyond anger. It was resignation to the fact that this whole mess was partially his fault for being so obtuse about Addison for so long. If he had realized what she was up to ages before, he could have saved them both a lot of trouble and misplaced effort. Instead, she had managed to somehow scare Belle away and simultaneously just make things worse for both of them.
“Please, Addison… just tell me what you said to Belle. I won’t get angry. But I need to know how bad this is and what kind of mess you’ve made.”
He thought she might actually tell him the truth, or try to make up for what she did, but she just smile at him with a stubborn glimmer in her eyes. “I told her the truth; that she will never be enough for you. And I think deep down, you know it’s true, James.”
James shook his head sadly. He couldn’t wrap his mind around anything that had happened or that Addison had really been that devious.
“The only thing that I know to be true, Addison, is that you need to leave. Now.”
For a second, she looked shocked. But then the shock and arrogance melted away, leaving nothing behind but the realization she had royally messed up. She stood up from the stool and took her apron off, slowly gathering the tips from the pocket. “I think maybe it’s best if I find another job, huh?”
“I think so...”
Addison nodded as she walked toward the door, but then turned back before she opened the door. “Merry Christmas, James. Can you give Daisy a hug for me, please?” Then she walked out without saying anything else, leaving James alone in the dining room and unsure what to do next. When Raphael came out from the kitchen, he was startled by the sound of another person in the restaurant, having already forgotten that the kitchen staff was still nearby.
“Boss? Where did Addison go?”
James laughed awkwardly. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Raph.”
“Oh, boy. Did she finally tell you that she has the hots for you?”
He threw his hands in the air. “Did everyone know but me?”
“Kinda.”
“Well, then,” James said resolutely, “it looks like I have a few more mistakes to correct tonight before it’s too late. Do you mind closing the place down for me? You can take all of those pies in the fridge and I’ll give you time-and-a-half for however long you’re here.”
Raphael didn’t even answer. He just turned around, went back in the kitchen, and started ordering around the rest of the staff, which made James chuckle as he grabbed his coat and ran out the door. Thank goodness Patty was staying with Daisy because he had no idea how long he was going to be gone or much time it was going to take to apologize and he definitely didn’t want to rush it.
James ran through the front doors of Wintervale Memorial Hospital and tried to sneak past the reception desk, but the elderly woman playing solitaire held up a bony finger to stop him.
“Sir, visiting hours are over and have been for some time,” she said in a heavy Irish accent. “You have to register ahead of the conclusion of designated visiting hours in order to enter the patients’ wing without prior authorization from a doctor, nurse, or pre-approved guardian.”
James paused to try and make sense of what she had just said, especially because none of it se
emed to line up. “Ma’am, it’s very important that I get up there. You might even say it’s life or death.”
The woman tilted her head and raised an eyebrow in utter disbelief. “Sir, unless you are carrying a human heart in one of your pockets for the transplant team, I doubt that it is life or death. So, how about you turn around, go back to your car, and return tomorrow during designated visiting hours?”
James had to choke back a frustrated groan since he knew that losing his patience with her wasn’t going to increase his odds of getting past the desk. He leaned a little closer to look at her nametag, because addressing people by their names tended to form a personal connection with them and he hoped that might soften her a little bit. When he saw her name, he squinted and did everything in his power not to convey his horror. Caoilfhoinn? Oh, no… He tried to pronounce it in his head before saying it out loud, but he knew there was no way he was going to get it right.
“Cay-oil-fo-inn?”
She scowled at him as if she thought she could burn him to ashes on the spot with only the hatred she felt for yet another person mispronouncing her name. “Key-lin,” she shouted phonetically.
“Caoilfhoinn,” he responded patiently, pronouncing it correctly this time, “have you ever made a huge mistake, a mistake so huge, that it could change the entire course of your life?”
She scrunched up her face at him, as if she still thought he might be exaggerating. “And what does that have to do with flouting the hospital’s rules about visiting hours?”
James sighed and tried to summon up a smile. “The grandmother of the woman I love is in this hospital. And before I can apologize to the woman I love, I need to get the forgiveness of her grandmother. Not for anything I did to her, but just for the fact I’ve been such an idiot for so long. And I need to do that tonight, before I lose my nerve, because I might not be feeling this brave tomorrow. Can you understand that, Caoilfhoinn?”
She gave him the surveying glance of a woman who was a grandmother herself and probably even had a granddaughter of her own. He could tell that he had won her over when she chuckled and shook her head, then took a visitor’s log out from under the desk.
“I could get in a lot of trouble for this, you know. Sign in. And if anyone asks, Dr. Fisher from the ER gave you clearance to be here after hours. She’s my grandson’s wife and she won’t roll over on me if you’re found out.”
“Oh!” James said excitedly. “She treated the woman I’m going to see! She’s a good doctor. You should be proud.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Caoilfhoinn grumbled. “Save the flattery. I’ll be here until midnight. I best be seeing you leave before then.”
James leaned over the desk and gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek, which made her blush in spite of her crankiness, then he ran to the elevators that went up to Meg’s floor.
Given everything she’d been through, he half-expected her to be asleep when he got up there, but instead, she was wide awake, watching White Christmas and drinking hot cocoa out of a red plastic mug.
“James? What are you doing here so late? Is Daisy okay? What’s going on?”
James hurried to her side. “Everything’s fine, Meg. I just needed to talk to you, and the sooner the better. I’m glad you weren’t asleep.”
She waved a dismissive hand at him. “Who can sleep in a hospital? Every ten minutes, someone is coming in, going out, or sticking you with something! I might as well be a dang pin cushion. Now tell me, young man, what are you doing here at eleven o’clock at night?”
James ran his hands through the hair, suddenly unsure of what to say now that he was actually sitting in front of Belle’s grandmother. Once again, he hadn’t put any thought into what he’d do once he got to her room.
He just knew that he needed to get there.
For a moment, he thought he wouldn’t be able to say anything at all. And then, it all came pouring out, and he had absolutely no control over it.
He told Meg everything, about Addison and about his fears and about Daisy’s worries over being left behind again. He told her about his concerns that Belle wouldn’t be able to leave New York behind and that he wouldn’t be enough to make her happy.
Everything tumbled out until he was sure there was nothing left but the emptiness of Belle’s absence, which was just enough to make him feel her loss all over again.
Meg simply started at him with her eyes wide, not saying a word, listening as he dumped out every feeling and thought in his head. When he was finally done, Meg just blinked a few times to clear her head.
“That’s a lot of information, Jamie. Can I have a minute to think?” James nodded, then watched Meg intently for what felt like an eternity until she shook her head with a laugh. “It’s hard to think with you staring at me like that, kid. I take it you’ve called and spoken to my Annabelle?”
James shrugged. “Not since I found out she left. Not since we fought. Why?”
“You’re telling me that you came to me first? Why? What do you expect me to do about it?”
“I just needed you to forgive me for every stupid decision I’ve made over years. And it would help if you told me what to do because I’m drowning here...”
Meg smiled at him like she used to when he was teenager and she’d caught him about to do something ridiculous. “Jamie, it’s not my place to tell you what to do. All I can do is make a suggestion. You need to stop being so hard on yourself, then ease up on Belle while you’re at it. You’ve both got your own troubles and your own insecurities and if you stopped taking each other to task every time one of you got it wrong, you wouldn’t keep ending up in this situation. You aren’t teenagers anymore, James. You’re starting from scratch. New people with entire lives behind you… and ahead of you.”
James gulped in nervousness as he processed Meg’s words. He knew that she was right, and more importantly, that he had to do what she’d suggested. He had to talk to Belle and make it clear that the past was just that; the past.
They needed to move on as the people they had become and not the people they used to be. It was time for both of them to grow up, and the only way they could do that was to forgive each other for their mistakes.
He got out of the chair and leaned forward to give Meg a huge, gentle hug. She was still in an air cast with her leg suspended on a cable, so the last thing in the world he wanted to do was hurt her. But she squeezed him back even tighter and kissed his cheek.
“Just call her, James. She isn’t going to ignore you, I can promise you that.”
He nodded with a grin and started for the door, but then something jumped back into his head. James turned around and looked at Meg quizzically.
“I just have one question… Who is Sam?”
Meg raised an eyebrow. “Sam? Sam Patton? That’s Belle’s best friend. They’ve known each other since culinary school.”
“So, they’re not… a couple?”
She burst out into laughter. “Oh, honey. No. Sam and Annabelle are most certainly not a couple.”
“Oh…” James didn’t push but he could fill in the blanks in his head and it was enough. “Thank you, Meg. If you need anything…”
“I’ll call a nurse,” she said with a chuckle. “Go do what you need to do.”
When James left the hospital that night, he still wasn’t sure how he was going to make things right with Belle, but for the first time in days…
He felt happy; really and truly happy.
23
Belle
As Belle drove over the state line into Vermont in her sensibly sized rental car, she turned up the volume on the music echoing out from the Christmas station and allowed herself the luxury of singing along.
For the first time in what felt like a long time, she was relaxed enough to think about something other than the restaurant or all of the things she should have been doing that she wasn’t.
Until she’d stepped away from the stress of Arcadia, she hadn’t realized how much the panic of the day-to-da
y operations was controlling her life. It was like a fuel that kept her going, but at the same time, it was keeping her from having any sort of meaningful existence. And she knew now she couldn’t keep going like that anymore.
Belle took the exit off the main highway that would eventually lead her to Wintervale, riding the sharp turn carefully so she didn’t accidentally spill the trays of cookies sitting her back seat. When she’d left the restaurant after the debacle with Logan Gale, she went straight back to her apartment and started baking like a woman possessed until she had four trays full of pink peppermint sugar cookies. They were exactly like the ones James had loved when they were teenagers; she only hoped she had managed to recreate them to perfection because it had been a really long time.
She was almost at the edge of Wintervale near the hospital when her cell phone started ringing in her bag and startled the heck out of her. Her drive from New York had been so uneventful, she’d almost forgotten that Sam was supposed to call her to let her know how the rest of the dinner had gone. When she picked up the phone, she barely even finished saying “hello” before he started shouting.
“Annabelle, we are never letting actors in our restaurant! Again! Ever!”
Belle started laughing without meaning to, mostly because she knew Sam was being dramatic; if they barred actors from Arcadia, they’d lose a quarter of their Manhattan business, especially now that their popularity had grown so much. “It couldn’t have been that bad, Sam!”
“WANNA BET?” he screamed at her. “After you left, that punk Logan Gale knocked over the entire Christmas display, he stole a bottle of the Chateau Blanc ’87, and then when he posted about his dinner later on social media, he was so drink… he got the restaurant’s dang name wrong! He called it Academia Diner!”
A Sugar Cookie Christmas: A Sweet Holiday Romance (Wintervale Promises Book 1) Page 16
