Jingle All the Way

by Debbie Macomber

  “Go,” Daisy whispered, as if understanding his dilemma.

  Asher noticed that the captain was making small talk with the Browns and joined them.

  Janice smiled as her husband continued with the story. “And overboard she went. Good thing Asher kept his wits about him. Both Janice and I were frozen. We didn’t know what to do.”

  “You did help, dear,” Janice reminded him.

  “He did,” Asher said. “David helped me pull Ms. Lancaster out of the river.”

  “Ms. Lancaster,” Captain Martin repeated, slowly shaking his head. “I should have known it was her. She seems to have a talent for trouble.”

  Asher had to agree, although none of what happened was anything but coincidence.

  “Thankfully, the cruise ends in a few days and she’ll be disembarking.”

  A day Asher both dreaded and welcomed.

  “I’d best check on the young woman myself,” the captain continued, as the Browns left. He frowned and added, “The company would frown upon a lawsuit.”

  “I don’t believe Ms. Lancaster has any intention of taking legal action,” Asher assured him.

  “That’s good to hear.”

  When he glanced over to where Daisy had been sitting, he saw that she was gone. He could only assume she’d returned to her stateroom. As tempting as it was to check on her, he resisted. At first, he’d been determined to keep out of her way, but it seemed the universe was drawing them together.

  His attempts to avoid her had been a miserable failure and he’d felt he had to explain himself. Now he felt closer to her than ever. The last thing he intended when they’d met the night before was to kiss her again. She’d asked where they were headed now. Asher wished he knew. One thing was certain: If he let her weave her way into his heart, this relationship was guaranteed to fail. Outside of this attraction, their lives had shockingly little in common.

  He knew it.

  She knew it.

  They were both smart people who recognized the odds of making anything come of this shipboard romance. Nevertheless, this attraction they battled seemed electric. Every time they were together, Asher found himself smiling. He genuinely liked Daisy as a person.

  Furthermore, he strongly suspected she was a different person in Chicago than the woman he had come to know in the Amazon. It would be far better for him to hold on to the memory of her as he knew her now. In Chicago she was Everly, confident, capable, and savvy, but here in the Amazon with him, she was Daisy, lovable, funny, and disaster-prone. Daisy was the woman he was attracted to, and he wasn’t sure he would feel the same way about Everly.

  When the time came, he’d bid her farewell, put her out of his mind, and move on with his life.

  So why did he feel like forgetting Daisy was going to be much harder than he wanted to accept?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The last days of the cruise flew by far too quickly to suit Everly. As part of the itinerary, the Amazon Explorer took a tributary off the Amazon River that led the ship back to the port in Manaus.

  Janice and David Brown were staying on for an additional week and trekking deep into the rainforest to stay in an elaborate tree house. Everly had to give Janice credit; the older woman was willing to follow her husband to the ends of the earth and was determined to experience every adventure with him.

  The cruise had been far and away better than Everly could ever have anticipated, and that was due in a huge part to Asher. She’d learned more about the fragile ecosystem of the rainforest and experienced adventures that would last her a lifetime. But it was only a small part of what had made this trip such a success. Everly had made good friends with the Browns and the Kotzes. Professor Kotz promised on their next trip to the States, they would visit America’s Windy City and connect with Daisy.

  The one drawback was that she’d be leaving Asher behind. On the flight in, Everly had dreamed of finding a Latin lover, never expecting that she would meet a man who would turn her world upside down. Now that she knew Asher, she didn’t want their connection to end with the cruise. She’d done a lot of thinking in the last two weeks. Thinking about her position with Easy Home. Thinking about her relationship with her family. And a whole lot of thinking about Asher.

  Everly knew she was falling in love with him. It excited her and terrified her at the same time. Meeting him had changed her. The whole world felt fresh and new. The sun seemed brighter, the stars clearer. Everly longed to wrap this feeling around her like a thick winter sweater and hold it tight against her heart.

  She wanted to believe Asher felt the same. The way he kissed her said he did. Yet several times over the course of the last week, he’d insinuated that whatever it was between them wasn’t sustainable, implying that at the end of the cruise she would leave, and she’d never hear from him again.

  Now that the ship was nearing the port in Manaus, Everly knew she couldn’t do it. If she was truly never going to be with Asher again, then she needed to speak up and tell him how she felt. She’d survived a negative reaction to a mosquito bite, been lost in the jungle with fierce Amazon warriors, and fallen into piranha-infested waters, but telling Asher that she was falling in love with him felt scarier than anything she’d endured while on this trip.

  Bolstering her courage, she reminded herself that if he felt anything close to what she did, he’d be willing to give this romance a chance. She’d been in the business world too long to ignore the fact that if there was a will there was a way. Though it might sound clichéd, experience told her it wasn’t.

  Asher might not admit it, but she was convinced that deep down he wanted her to remain in his life as badly as she wanted to be in his. He couldn’t have kissed her the way he did if this was nothing more than a shipboard fling. Those toe-curling kisses sparked hope that he’d recognized whatever it was that held him back and agree they needed to give this…whatever it was…a shot.

  The Amazon Explorer arrived at the port in Manaus at eight that morning, and once the vessel had been cleared by the port authorities, they were told they should be able to disembark at around ten.

  Asher sat with her in their favorite spot, the alcove in the main gathering room, and held her hand. Other passengers mingled about, chatting and sharing photographs. The Browns were chatting with Penny, and Professor Kotz spoke to Mike, the safety officer.

  It was now or never. She’d either speak up and tell Asher how she felt or walk away and regret it for the rest of her life.

  Her heart was pounding so hard it echoed in her ears, cutting out all ambient conversations.

  “There’s something I need to tell you, Asher,” she said, gathering her courage.

  Something in her voice must have alerted him to the fact that she was serious. His eyes locked with hers.

  Laying her heart before him, she said, “I’m falling in love with you…I know we have only known each other two weeks. But they have been two of the most wonderful weeks of my life, and I don’t want them to end. I know there are obstacles in our way, and questions we need to answer, compromises that we’ll need to make. I’m willing, so willing, and I hope you are, too.”

  Her big declaration was met with stark silence. It felt like all the air had been vacuumed out of the room by a giant hose and as if the sun had sunk low in the sky, taking the warmth and the light with it.

  When Asher did speak, his voice was low and regretful. “You’re not actually falling in love with me, Daisy.”

  She shook her head, denying his words. “I know my own heart.”

  “You might think you do,” he said. “These shipboard romances are pretty common. After watching what happens with other members of the crew, I know these feelings quickly fade. By the time you’re back in the office and settle into your routine, I’ll be a distant memory.”

  She was about to argue, but Asher abruptly changed the subject.
“You are ready to get back to the office, aren’t you?” he asked, as if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. “I can only imagine how many hundreds of emails you have waiting for you to answer.”

  Embarrassed that he’d responded to her declaration with comments about emails, she stared back at him. She was about to speak when Alex Freeman and his wife strolled past with suitcases in hand. He paused when he saw Everly sitting with Asher.

  “I hope despite your adventures you enjoyed the cruise, Daisy.”

  “I did, and thank you.” She noticed his suitcases. “Are you off for the holidays?”

  Alex frowned at Asher. “The entire crew is. The ship is going through maintenance, so we have two weeks free. Alice and I are heading to Rio for some Christmas fun.”

  “The entire crew?” she asked. Asher hadn’t mentioned having any free time. This changed everything.

  Alex strode off and Everly turned to Asher, excitement churning in her like an oil rig gusher. “Asher,” she said, tightening her hold around his hands. “Fly back with me. You said your brother has been wanting you to visit. And Chicago at Christmastime…It’s magical. All the lights and the festivities. And you can meet my family and taste my Grandma Ruth’s recipe for fudge. You like fudge, don’t you? Everyone does.”

  Asher pulled his hand free. “I won’t be going to Chicago.”

  “But…” She didn’t finish as it hit her like running face-first into a brick wall. Asher hadn’t wanted her to know about this break in his schedule. He’d purposely not told her.

  If Asher thought she would ignore this, he was wrong. “You have a whole two weeks free, and—”

  “Daisy, please,” he said stiffly, cutting her off. “Don’t do this.”

  “Don’t do what?” she asked, her brain working at laser speed. She refused to believe he didn’t share her feelings. He was lying. He had to be. He’d insisted he wasn’t one to play with her heart, that he didn’t routinely fall into romantic relationships. She was the exception. And she’d believed him. He’d been sincere. Honest. He couldn’t have held her and kissed her without experiencing even a small part of what she did.

  Shifting uncomfortably, Asher looked away as if he wasn’t sure what to say next. He’d put his foot in a big pile of regret and didn’t know how to back out of it without making an even bigger mess.

  “I think you’re wonderful, Daisy, and I’ve grown fond of you.”

  “You’re fond of me?” She hated that word. Fond. It sounded weak. Watered-down affection. He liked her the same way he liked dessert following dinner. Sparingly. In small doses.

  Asher lowered his head as if the words were as difficult for him to say as they were for her to hear.

  An awkward silence stretched between them as thick as concrete. Everly found it difficult to breathe.

  Asher refused to look at her.

  When she found she could speak again, she said, “I guess this means that everything you said was a lie—”

  “No,” he said, cutting her off, “I meant every single word. Please accept that it’s better this way.”

  “Better for whom? Better for you? Better for me?”

  Squaring his shoulders, he looked at her then, his gaze intense. “You’ll go back to Chicago and be Everly again. I don’t know that woman, and I’m not entirely sure I would even like her.”

  She flinched at his words. “I’m one and the same person, Asher. It doesn’t matter if I’m standing in front of hundreds of real estate brokers or milking the family cow. I can’t be anyone else but me…the very woman you’re looking at.”

  “And I can’t be anyone else but myself,” he fired back. “I don’t fit in your world and you don’t fit in mine.”

  He stared at her, his eyes intense and full of regret, as though pleading with her to understand.

  “We could both try to keep these feelings alive, attempt a long-distance relationship,” he continued. “You in Chicago and me down here. We could write letters, email and text or video-chat when possible, even manage a few trips back and forth. But to what end?”

  Everly opened her mouth, prepared to answer. Asher wasn’t finished, though, and seemed to have a lot more to say.

  “A few weeks, months, maybe even a year from now, one of us would recognize the futility of it all. It might seem cruel to let you go now with nothing more than what we had these last two weeks. But eventually either you or I will accept that the only viable answer is to walk away. By doing it now, I’m saving us both the angst and heartache.”

  Clenching her hands together to the point that she cut off the blood supply to her fingers, she glared at him. “Forgive me, Asher, I thought we had something special. I was wrong. These two weeks were nothing more than an enjoyable romantic interlude…as you said, a shipboard romance. I apologize for putting more into it than warranted.”

  He looked away, as if struggling not to contradict her.

  She faked a short laugh. “I blame all those silly romance books I read. That must be the problem.”

  “How’s that?”

  “How?” she repeated. “Those books led me to believe in happy endings. This is the real world, so please forgive me for being silly and looking for more. It’s clear you don’t have more to give. It’s unfortunate, too, because I do. You could have had my heart so easily.”

  “Daisy, you think this is easy? I’m never going to forget you.”

  She didn’t believe him. Out of sight, out of mind. That was what he was hoping for, and she didn’t doubt he would make it happen. “Nice of you to say. I, on the other hand, am going to put the full force of my will and determination toward forgetting I ever met you. It’s what you want, and as you’ve said, it’s for the best.”

  He paled but didn’t disagree.

  “Before I leave the ship, I want to thank you. When I arrived, I was overworked, overstressed, and strung out. I’m not any longer, and it’s due to the lessons I learned from being with you. Seeing nature through your eyes was a beautiful experience.”

  “Thank you.”

  In another day, Everly would be back in Chicago and Asher would fill his time with whatever he had planned. What he didn’t know was that she wouldn’t return the same woman who’d left. The Amazon and Asher had changed her, and if for no other reason, she had him to thank for that.

  After two weeks away Everly could see clearly where she had veered off the path and become absorbed in work to the exclusion of everything else. Rescuing Jack, taking on responsibilities that were meant to be shared, had cost her far more than she’d realized. It was only when she’d had time to clear her head, and she’d had plenty of that while down with that fever, trapped in her stateroom, that a curtain had lifted, a fog had dissipated, and she could see the woman she had become. It had been eye-opening, to say the least. Everly discovered she didn’t want to be that woman any longer. She had a new set of priorities, and once she was back, one of the first things she intended to do was enlighten Jack.

  Before long it was time to leave the ship. Asher chose to skip over their awkward conversation.

  “What time is your flight?” he asked.

  She told him, and reached for her suitcase when Asher stepped up and tried to take it himself.

  “I’ll get that. Thanks anyway.” It was a matter of pride that she carry it herself.

  “It’s a shame you never had a chance to visit the opera house or the fish market,” he said, as if looking for nonsensical ways to fill the silence.

  “Maybe next time,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion. She had to wonder if she’d ever return to Brazil. She hadn’t seen much of the country, other than the rainforest and the Amazon River. In her present state of mind, she preferred to avoid any place that would remind her of Asher.

  “The varieties of fish in the market are something to behold,” Asher continued
, as if delivering one of his lectures. “The Amazon has the largest number of freshwater fish in the world, with more than fifty-six hundred species.”

  His commentary did little to fill the silence. She stood in line, waiting to disembark, looking out at the row of taxis. Within minutes she would walk away from Asher and it would be the end, just the way he wanted.

  He went down the gangway with her, something she hadn’t expected him to do, and led her toward the row of cabs. He spoke to the first one in line in fluent Portuguese. The driver nodded and stepped out of the vehicle before taking her luggage and placing it in the trunk.

  “I guess this is it,” Asher said. He stood in front of her, his hands resting gently on her shoulders.

  Everly broke the contact and stepped back. It had taken this long for her fighting spirit to ignite. “Are you seriously going to let me walk away, Asher?”

  He blinked as though her words shocked him. It was clear that as far as he was concerned, this matter had already been settled.

  “We’ve already been through this, Daisy. I’m saving us—”

  “Don’t say ‘us,’ because this is your decision, this is all about you. I don’t know what happened in your past that makes you afraid to fall in love. Whatever it was must be a doozy.”

  He shook his head. “You’re wrong.”

  “I very well could be. What I know now is that you’re not the man I thought you were, Asher Adams. You’re a coward.”

  He flinched and retreated a step.

  “One day you’re going to look back and remember that you walked away from a woman who would love you with all her heart. A woman who would welcome you into her world and be willing to share yours, only you were afraid to take the chance. You shoved her away, giving in to your fears and deciding what was best for her without giving her a say or caring enough to make the effort. Have a good life, Asher. I suspect it will be lonely and empty. Just remember it was by your own choice.”