A Maverick Under The Mistletoe

by Brenda Harlen

  “That I don’t know,” he admitted. “Until I get back and assess the situation, I wouldn’t even want to guess.”

  “Try anyway,” she suggested. “Days? Weeks? Months?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know, but I don’t expect it would be too long.”

  So Paige let it go. Because she couldn’t force him to give her an answer, and she couldn’t force him to stay. And she was an idiot, because she’d fallen for his smooth lines and sexy smile—hook, line and sinker. And he was leaving her again.

  She wanted to bang her head against the wall, but right now her head was cushioned against a nice fluffy pillow and Sutter’s arm was wrapped around her middle. She should tell him to go. If he was planning to leave, he might as well go now. Her throat tightened and her eyes burned as she wondered if she was ever going to learn.

  Oblivious to her inner turmoil, he snuggled closer and his breathing soon evened out, confirmation that he was sleeping. She stayed in the warm comfort of his arms and tried to convince herself that everything was going to be okay, that this time they would make it. But she couldn’t stop the tears that slipped from her eyes.

  * * *

  Sutter woke up alone.

  Paige’s pillow was still indented from where she’d slept and he could smell her perfume on the sheets, so he figured she hadn’t been up for very long. Still, he was disappointed that she’d managed to slip out of bed without waking him. He would have enjoyed easing into the day with her—or easing into her, he thought with a grin.

  He sat up in bed, scrubbed his hands over his cheeks. He needed to shower and shave, then he wanted to make love with Paige again. They’d come together several times through the night, and still his body wasn’t close to being sated. No matter how many times he had her, it was never enough. He never stopped wanting her.

  He considered the possibility that she might be in the shower, but he couldn’t hear the water running—which eliminated another one of his fantasies. So he showered alone and shaved with a disposable pink razor he found in the cupboard under the sink, and then he made his way downstairs. “Paige?”

  There was no response.

  In fact, he suddenly realized there was no sound at all. There was no scent of coffee brewing or breakfast cooking, no footsteps in the kitchen or anywhere else. Then he saw the note propped up on the counter, in front of the empty coffeepot.

  It didn’t take him long to scan the brief message, and as quickly as he did, his euphoric mood plummeted.

  Sutter—

  I’m really glad that we’ve found our way back to being friends again. But as wonderful as last night was, it would be a mistake to let it happen again. What we had was in the past, and I can’t let myself think that we have a future together. Have a safe trip back to Seattle and I hope when you come home again that what happened last night doesn’t make things awkward between us.

  Sincerely,

  Paige

  Sincerely? For real? He was head over heels in love with her and she’d signed a kiss-off note with an impersonal sincerely?

  He skimmed the message again as if doing so might enable him to decipher some hidden meaning, because the words on the page didn’t make any sense to him.

  “…as wonderful as last night was…” Okay, at least she got that part right. Making love with her had been not just wonderful but phenomenal. Even after five years, he’d remembered every little detail of how and where she liked to be touched. And he’d taken great pleasure in pleasuring her, cherishing every soft, sexy sound she made, glorying in the instinctive and sensual movements of her body, loving the way she said his name when he was buried deep inside of her.

  “…it would be a mistake to let it happen again.” He shook his head over that. It would be a mistake to let it not happen again. And he was honestly baffled to think that she could make love with him as openly and passionately as she had the night before and not believe that they were meant to be together.

  He refused to accept it. He grabbed his phone and called her cell. After the fourth ring, the call went to her voice mail. He waited five minutes and tried again, but there was still no answer. He tried sending a text message, asking where she was. She ignored it.

  He considered tracking her down, and Rust Creek Falls wasn’t so big that he couldn’t do it. He wanted an explanation—something more than a scribbled note that didn’t make any sense to him. If it was really over, he wanted her to look him in the eye and tell him.

  He didn’t care that he was expected back at Traub Stables. Nothing was more important to him than Paige. But when she failed to answer his third phone call and another text message, he decided that it might be smarter to give her some time. If she was feeling half as churned up inside as he was right now, it might be better for both of them to talk when her emotions had settled.

  Since he’d promised to return to Seattle, he would do so, even though he suspected that promise had set Paige off—that she’d assumed his decision to go back to Washington was an indication that he intended to return to his life there. But after last night, how could she not know that his life was with her, wherever she was?

  Or maybe her disappearing act this morning had nothing to do with his trip. Maybe she’d simply decided, as she’d stated in her note, that their relationship was in the past and she was ready to move on—without him.

  But that explanation didn’t sit right with him, either. If she’d made the same claim twenty-four hours earlier, he might have believed it. But the connection between them when they’d made love had been more than the joining of bodies—it had been the merging of hearts. Yeah, he knew it sounded corny, but it was true. And that was why her decision to end things when they were just getting started again completely baffled him.

  As much as he puzzled over it, he couldn’t come up with an explanation for Paige’s abrupt change of heart. What he did know was that the next time he saw Paige, they were going to figure things out once and for all. And by “figure things out” he meant that he was going to tell her he loved her, and when she finally admitted that she loved him, too, he wasn’t ever again going to let her go.

  But before he could start on the long journey to Seattle, he had one stop to make.

  * * *

  She was a coward.

  At the very least, she was weak—especially where Sutter was concerned. And that was why Paige had slipped out of her own bed and escaped from her own house in the early hours of the morning while the man she loved was still sleeping. Because she couldn’t handle another goodbye. And because she knew that if he took her in his arms and promised to come back, she would wait for him, counting the hours, the days, the weeks. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—do that again.

  There weren’t a lot of places that she could go without running into someone she knew, and there were even fewer places within walking distance. She hadn’t considered that his truck was parked behind her car until she stole out of the house with her keys in hand and realized she wouldn’t be able to get out of the driveway. At that point, any rational person would reconsider the plan and perhaps acknowledge that it was both impulsive and desperate. But she wasn’t feeling very rational; she was feeling impulsive and desperate. And so she started to walk.

  She didn’t have a clear destination in mind, and it was probably by habit more than design that she turned in the direction of the elementary school. But once she thought about it, the school seemed like a logical choice. Because it was a holiday, she knew there wouldn’t be many people—if any—at the site today, and she was right.

  She made her way down the barren hall to her classroom and looked around at the open space. It wouldn’t be too much longer before the desks and cabinets were brought in and displays were tacked up on the pristine walls. But right now it was as empty as Paige felt inside, and she sank down against the wall and let the tears flow.

  A long time ago she’d been certain that she’d shed all the tears she was ever going to cry for Sutter Traub—obviously she’
d been wrong. She’d had other relationships in the five years that Sutter was gone, but not one of those relationships had ever ended in tears. Because she’d never cared enough about any other man to mourn the end of their relationship.

  Apparently she was destined to always love the one man who wouldn’t stay with her.

  He’d said that he was looking forward to a future with her, but all it took was one phone call from Seattle and he was gone. He hadn’t even asked her to go with him this time. Of course, she couldn’t have gone if he had asked. She had students who needed her and a lot of preparations still to make before the holidays.

  As she wiped at the tears, she accepted that he was already on his way back to Seattle. He’d tried to call, several times in fact, but she hadn’t answered any of his calls. In the end he’d sent her a text message, telling her that he was on his way to Seattle and he’d call when he got there. She hadn’t responded to that message, either. But she’d taken it as a sign that she could return home without worrying about their paths crossing.

  Sure enough, his truck was gone from her driveway when she turned onto North Pine, but she wasn’t ready to go into the house yet. Not while the memories of last night were still so fresh in her mind and deeply entrenched in her heart. Groceries, she decided. She needed to stock up on supplies, which meant that she’d have to make a trip into Kalispell.

  She’d just turned onto the highway when she realized she was behind a shiny black pickup truck just like Sutter’s. Of course, black pickup trucks were hardly an anomaly in Rust Creek Falls, and she chided herself for the instinctive blip in her pulse. But as the vehicle slowed to turn into a driveway, she drew close enough to see the Washington State plate on the bumper.

  Washington State plates, on the other hand, were anomalies. As she watched his vehicle bump along the long gravel driveway, she felt as if her heart was being squeezed inside her chest.

  Apparently Sutter had decided to take a little detour on his way back to Seattle—to Shayla Allen’s ranch.

  * * *

  Ten hours later, Sutter finally turned into the drive by the sign that welcomed him to Traub Stables. It was after eight o’clock, so he was surprised to see Jenni’s truck still in the lot. Considering that she was invariably at the stables by six every morning, she was working extra late today.

  He found her with Midnight Dancer, grooming the horse she’d helped birth two years earlier. She didn’t seem particularly worried or stressed about anything, but she didn’t seem her usual bubbly self, either.

  “So are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “You’ll have my letter of resignation tomorrow—consider this my two weeks’ notice.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t stay here, not if it means I have to work directly with Reese.”

  “I don’t know if my brain’s a little slow because I drove five hundred miles today or if this conversation just isn’t making any sense to me,” he admitted. “There’ve never been any issues between you before, so why—after three years—do you suddenly have a problem with Reese?”

  She met his gaze head-on. “I slept with him.”

  These were his friends as well as his employees and Sutter liked and respected both of them, but he couldn’t deny the protective instinct that rose up in him. “Did he take advantage of you?”

  She laughed, though the sound was without humor. “No. Actually I probably took advantage of him.”

  “Should I be worried about a sexual-harassment suit?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, you need to give me more information here. Not details,” he hastened to clarify. “Please—no details. Just explain to me how you went from sleeping with Reese to wanting to give up a job I know you love.”

  “Because I love him, too.”

  “Still not seeing the problem.”

  She looked away, but not before he saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “Reese said it was a mistake—that he never should have let it happen.”

  Sutter winced.

  “See? Even you know that’s the wrong thing to say to a woman you were naked with,” Jenni noted. “But instead of saying ‘wow, that was incredible,’ because it was incredible—”

  “Details,” Sutter reminded her.

  “He’s more concerned with the fact that our actions would be seen as unprofessional.”

  “By whom?”

  “You.”

  “You’re both adults—what you do on your own time is your business and absolutely none of mine. In fact, I’m quite happy to pretend we never had this conversation.”

  “I told Reese that’s what you would say, but he was adamant. Which means that I’m either in love with a man who values his job more than he values me, or who’s looking for an excuse not to get into a relationship. Either way, I can’t stay here.”

  “Please don’t make any hasty decisions.”

  “I’m sorry, Sutter. I know this puts you in a difficult position, but I need to move on.”

  “Instead of giving me your notice, why don’t you take a vacation?” he suggested.

  Her brows lifted. “That’s your solution?”

  “You’ve been working hard for the past few years—and even harder over the past several months. You deserve some time off, a break from the routines.”

  “A break from Reese, you mean?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe what he needs is some time to think about what his life would be like without you in it.”

  “And maybe he’ll decide he likes it better that way.”

  “If he does, then he doesn’t deserve you.”

  She sighed. “Do you really think it will work?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m probably the last person who should be giving relationship advice.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it seems that I keep screwing up with the only woman I’ve ever loved—and I actually thought things were back on track.”

  “This would be the girl you left behind when you first moved out to Seattle?” Jenni asked.

  Sutter nodded. “But only after I asked her to come with me, and she said no.”

  “And when you started to get things back on track—and by that, I assume you mean you got her back into bed,” she said drily, “you left her again.”

  “Because you called and said I was needed here.”

  Now it was her turn to wince. “You slept with her and then left because of a call from another woman?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” he protested.

  “It sounds exactly like that to me,” she told him. “And I’m sure that’s how it sounded to her.”

  Sutter scowled. “Then she wasn’t listening to what I was saying, because I told her I would be back.”

  “Did you tell her when?”

  “I could hardly give her a firm return date when I didn’t know how long it would take to work things out here.”

  “You also didn’t say, ‘I’ll be gone for a few days—a week at most—but I’m coming back to you.’”

  “You think that would have made a difference?”

  She huffed out an exasperated breath. “You’re as much an idiot as Reese.”

  “At least I know what I want,” he said. “Which is why I’m thinking about making a permanent move back to Rust Creek Falls.” His thoughts shifted to his meeting with Shayla Allen—had it really only been earlier that morning? So much had happened since he’d awakened alone in Paige’s bed that he felt as if days had passed.

  He frowned now, realizing that although it hadn’t been days, a lot of hours had passed and he still hadn’t heard from Paige. She hadn’t returned any of his calls or responded to any of his text messages, which wasn’t really surprising. Based on the letter she’d left for him, she was trying to cut all ties between them. He had no intention of letting that happen.

  “What would you do in Rust Creek Falls?”

  He gestured to encompass the stab
les. “Something like this.”

  “Then you’ll need a trainer there,” she noted hopefully.

  “Probably. But I know I need a trainer here.”

  She shook her head. “I’m going to check online for an all-inclusive in Maui.”

  Though it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, he figured it was a compromise he had to accept—at least for now. He couldn’t imagine Traub Stables without her, but if she insisted on leaving… “Would you really be willing to move to Montana?”

  “I’d prefer Florida,” she said. “But Montana would suffice.”

  “Why Florida?”

  “Because it’s as far away from Seattle as you can get while still staying in the country.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll figure out what’s going on in Montana and let you know.”

  “She must be one special lady,” Jenni noted.

  Sutter had no doubt that she was, even when she was driving him completely crazy. “I’ve never known anyone like her,” he admitted.

  “So who’s going to handle things around here if I suddenly decide to take a trip to Maui?”

  “I will.”

  “I thought you were anxious to get back to Montana?”

  “I was,” he agreed. “But I’ve decided that someone else needs some time to think.”

  * * *

  Paige’s cards had been sent, her cookies were baked and her house was decorated—aside from the tree, which she would get two weeks before Christmas. Though she spent the day with her family, she still liked to put up her own tree. Christmas was her absolute favorite time of the year—she loved everything about the holiday, especially the fact that she had all kinds of things to keep her busy and absolutely no time to waste thinking about Sutter Traub. But that didn’t stop her from thinking about him anyway.

  She went shopping in Kalispell with Lindsay. She’d invited both of her sisters to make the trip with her, but Lani had already committed to babysitting for a friend who needed to shop without her kids in tow.

  “When’s Sutter coming back?” Lindsay waited until they were resting their feet after a marathon trek through the toy store and savoring gingerbread lattes before she asked the question that Paige had been anticipating all day.