Home for Christmas

by Lizzie Lane

  He was too slow to stop Sam as she took a large sip and wheezed. “My, that is…warming.”

  “Isn’t it?” Mrs. Claus enthused cheerfully. Then she whipped out a state-of-the-art laptop and smiled beatifically. “The room is $122.50–Holiday Special, because you look like a nice couple. I’ll just need a credit card and ID.”

  Jase handed over the necessary plastic as Sam began to protest. “Are you sure you don’t have any other rooms available? Maybe a nice comfy manger?”

  Mrs. Claus giggled, typing Jase’s information into her system with the deft speed of a computer hacker. “Will you be wanting breakfast in the morning? We usually have breakfast service in the restaurant in the mornings, but with the weather like this we’re on a skeleton staff so you might want to place any room service orders tonight.”

  “No room service,” Sam said hurriedly. “We’ll be leaving first thing in the morning. As soon as the roads are clear.”

  “Is there anywhere to get food around here tonight?” Jase asked. It had been a long time since lunch on the plane and Sam had even slept through that.

  “Pretty much everything is closed for the storm and I’m afraid our cook has gone home for the night, but I’ll see what I can muster up and have a little something sent up as soon as you two are settled. For now, take some cookies. Fresh from the oven.”

  Jase thanked the Mrs. Claus clone and accepted his credit card and driver’s license from her as Sam selected a couple cookies from the plate.

  “You’re in the Winter Wonderland suite—which is our very best room,” Mrs. Claus enthused, her eyes twinkling merrily. “The internet password this week is Christmas—but you two don’t look like you’ll be doing a lot of surfing tonight.” She winked.

  Sam flushed and shifted to the side, edging away from him. “We aren’t—”

  “Oh look, dear! You’re under the mistletoe!”

  Sam and Jase both looked up automatically. Sam’s nervous side-step had indeed put her underneath the bough of mistletoe hung over the desk.

  “Go on, dear. Kiss her,” Mrs. Claus insisted. “It’s tradition!”

  Kiss her. Mrs. Claus made it sound so simple. As if his lips hadn’t been missing hers for almost a year now. As if he hadn’t dreamed of little else, waking up with the fading memory of her lips on his a thousand times. He’d wanted this for too long. He wasn’t going to pass up even the flimsiest excuse.

  “It’s tradition,” Jase echoed, bending close to Sam.

  “Jase, I…”

  He kissed her—just a light brush of the lips and the rightness of it zinged down to his core. It was tempting to lean in, to deepen the touch, but he didn’t want to spook her, not now. But that little touch was enough to make her words fall away and kindle something dazed in her eyes.

  Mrs. Claus sighed. “Lovely. Shall I show you to your room?”

  *

  Mistletoe was officially the bane of her existence.

  Sam stood in the middle of the spacious Winter Wonderland suite clutching her eighty proof hot chocolate and trying not to freak out. Remembering the press of Jase’s lips on hers. Staring at the single king sized bed dominating the center of the room.

  “I’ll sleep on the floor,” Jase volunteered, as soon as their hostess closed the door behind her with a lilting, “Sleep tight, lovebirds!” Leaving Sam and Jase alone with that bed in possibly the most romantic room she’d ever seen.

  It really was a Winter Wonderland.

  Considering the over-the-top Christmas kitsch of the lobby, Sam had expected the room to be similarly overdone, but it was absolutely lovely. Decorated in wintery shades of pale blue and muted grey, the highlights were a fireplace framed in pale grey stone and—of course—that bed, dominating the space with a gleaming white comforter accented with sparkling silver thread in snowflake designs.

  The bed she would share with Jase.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” She took a fortifying swig of the lighter fluid cocoa. “We’re capable of being adult about this. There’s plenty of room for both of us.”

  He nodded, not arguing since there wasn’t even a couch, but she noticed he didn’t crowd her, giving her a wide berth as he set down their bags on opposite sides of the bed. “Do you want the first shower?”

  She shook her head, clutching her cocoa. “You go ahead.”

  He vanished silently into the bathroom—giving her the space she needed to process being here. With him.

  It would be easy to get caught up in the romance of the moment. A beautiful snowy night. A honeymoon suite at a gorgeous inn. The fates drawing them back into one another’s arms…

  But that was Old Samantha thinking.

  She’d always made her decisions with her heart first, letting logic and rationality play catch-up—and look where it had gotten her. She needed to be thinking with her head. And her head was telling her to keep her distance from Jason MacGregor.

  Sam gulped cocoa—which had started going down nice and smooth after her third sip—and pulled out her phone.

  Elise answered on the third ring. “Where are you?”

  “In a hotel room. The weather got bad. We didn’t even make it as far as Milwaukee. So now I’m spending the night with my ex.”

  Elise squealed. “Details!”

  “There are no details. I’m just freaking out. There was only one room and it only has one bed and I’m trying to be cool about it and failing miserably.” She heard the water come on and turned her back on the bathroom door, as if that would stop her from fantasizing about Jase in the shower.

  “So you haven’t talked?”

  “To Jase? As little as humanly possible.”

  Elise groaned softly. “I should have guessed.”

  Sam stiffened at her sister’s tone. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Elise.”

  “You’re just both so stubborn! I bet neither of you are really listening to the other. Just like always.”

  “Hey. You’re supposed to be on my side here. I’m having a crisis.”

  “Your crisis is being trapped in a hotel room with a sexy man. I have no pity for you.”

  “A sexy man who broke my heart into a million pieces! I’d think you would respect that since you were the one who had to pick up the pieces.”

  *

  Jase froze in the act of stripping off his slacks. The walls were thin, but with the water on she must have assumed he couldn’t hear her or she wouldn’t have all-but-shouted the words.

  A million pieces.

  Christ. He forced himself back into motion, stripping down and testing the water again to see if it was any less frigid than it had been initially. The urge to eavesdrop was strong, but when the water proved to be pleasantly warm he stepped into the shower, trying to wash away the impact of the words still echoing in his brain.

  A million pieces.

  His parents had said Sam seemed fine. His sister had encouraged him to move on, reminding him that Sam hadn’t come after him. Hadn’t fought for him. He’d let them convince him she was coolly unaffected by their split.

  But since when had Sam been coolly unaffected by anything?

  He’d let them tell him what he wanted to believe because he was mad at her for ending it. For not giving them a chance. For not even considering coming with him.

  Had he really broken her heart? He’d been so busy feeling betrayed by her decision to give up on what they had together, he’d barely considered that she might have been as crushed as he was. In spite of all the evidence. That had just been Sam being dramatic, hadn’t it?

  He showered quickly, not wanting to waste the warm water in case she wanted to shower as well. He’d had time to think on the plane, but he hadn’t gotten much farther on his plan than Step One: More Time. Now he was realizing that begging forgiveness was going to have to move to the top of his list. Even though what he really wanted to do was ask again why she’d refused to even consider California and then run off
to join some reality television show that filmed in LA.

  Jase shut off the water and ran his hands through his hair, sluicing off the excess. “Shit,” he muttered softly to himself. Clearly he was still more hurt by her decision to break it off with him than he’d thought. One day with her and it all rushed back. Everything they’d had—that she’d taken away. All because she wouldn’t consider a life outside White Falls.

  He couldn’t hear her in the other room anymore, so whatever pep talk Elise had given her must be over. He grabbed a towel, rubbing briskly in an attempt to wipe away all his frustration with the moisture that clung to his skin. Why couldn’t it have just been easy? Things had always been easy between them before. They’d just clicked.

  Until they hadn’t.

  Jase pulled a spare set of boxers and a plain white undershirt out of his carry-on. The long-sleeved T-shirt that completed his spare change of clothes would be gigantic on Sam, but at least it would give her something to sleep in other than the clothes she’d worn for the last day and a half on planes.

  He was brushing his teeth when he heard Mrs. Claus return with whatever she’d found them for dinner. Moving briskly, he tucked his toiletry bag back into an outer pocket of the roller bag and repacked his suitcase with his plane clothes.

  He’d already texted his family to let them know he’d been delayed, though he hadn’t mentioned Sam. They didn’t know he was returning to White Falls to win her back and he wasn’t ready for them to know yet. Especially since he wasn’t entirely sure what kind of reception that news would get.

  He emerged from the bathroom moments later, rolling his bag and carrying the shirt for Sam in one hand like an olive branch. She sat on the bed with her shoes off and her feet tucked up beneath her. Both of her hands cradled a mug of cocoa as she stared out the window at the blizzard in progress. She’d turned on the television above the fireplace, but left it muted, the familiar scenes of It’s a Wonderful Life filling the screen.

  “Our hostess brought us some snacks,” she said, hesitantly turning to face him and indicating the large tray resting on the foot of the bed since the room didn’t have a table large enough to support it. It overflowed with finger sandwiches, cheese and crackers, and a wide assortment of Christmas sweets. “And more of that cocoa.” She nodded toward a carafe on the bedside table. “Peppermint schnapps, this time.”

  Jase settled down on the opposite edge of the king sized bed, giving Sam plenty of space as he reached for a tiny sandwich. He set the shirt between them. “Thought you might want that. More comfortable.”

  She eyed the shirt as if it might bite her, muttering something under her breath about evergreen and frost. Jase frowned, taking a closer look at her. She was sitting very upright—and very still—like someone making a concentrated effort not to sway. He eyed the cocoa. “How many of those have you had?”

  Her chin went up and she met his eyes. “Are you implying I’m drunk on cocoa?”

  “Actually I was implying you’re drunk on Fireball Whiskey and Peppermint Schnapps.”

  “Nonsense,” she said, with the careful precision of the lightly inebriated. “I have excellent tolerance for alcohol.” She plucked a cookie off the tray, nibbling at the edge.

  She might have had excellent tolerance, but she’d also had the equivalent of several shots on an empty stomach. No wonder she was spinning. “I hope the thought of spending a night in the same room with me hasn’t driven you to drink,” he teased.

  “Why would it?” She shot him a haughty look. “I am entirely over you, Jason MacGregor. Like Julia Roberts without the opera gloves.”

  “I have no idea what the part about Julia Roberts means, but I’m sorry there was anything to get over. I’m sorry about last Christmas. And everything that’s happened since.”

  She met his gaze, confusion alive in her own. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Apologizing?”

  “All of it.” She waved at the room.

  Because I have never wanted anything as badly as I want you back. Because I never stopped loving you. Because I would move heaven and earth for one more chance to make you happy.

  But he couldn’t say any of that. The wariness in her eyes screamed that she wouldn’t believe him. Not yet.

  So he settled for admitting, just as honestly, “Because I miss you. You were my best friend for ten years.”

  She looked down at her cocoa. “I miss you too.”

  But she didn’t trust him yet. It was written all over her. So he nodded toward the television, navigating them toward less dangerous waters, “I see you found a Christmas movie.”

  Sam turned toward the screen, flicking on the sound as it came back from commercial. She was silent for a moment, watching Jimmy Stewart’s hangdog face filling the screen, before softly admitting, “I used to worry that you’d turn into George Bailey. The man who never appreciated the life of the small town banker. The man who always felt like a failure because he didn’t run away to see the world. I worried that you’d hate me for making you stay in White Falls. But then you did run away to see the world.”

  She’d clearly had enough industrial strength cocoa to loosen her tongue. Sam had a tendency to say whatever was on her mind when she was worked up—or liquored up—and even if she might not remember all this in the morning, he owed her honesty.

  “I’d like to tell you that I wish I hadn’t gone, but I’m not sure that’s true,” he admitted. “If I never left White Falls, I think I would have always wondered what I could have been somewhere else—and that curiosity might have turned into bitterness. I wouldn’t have wanted to blame you, but I needed California to figure out that I might need something else more. Someone else. But I never meant to hurt you, Sam. I never wanted to break your heart.”

  “I know,” she said without taking her eyes off the screen. “We never meant to hurt one another. That was never our problem.” The movie went to a commercial and Sam hit mute again before turning to face Jase over the snack tray between them on the bed. “Do you think we had communication issues?”

  “Of course not. We talked constantly. About everything.”

  “We talked. But Elise said something about how we never listened to one another. And I’ve been thinking about it. We were masters of assumptions. Both of us just assuming the other person was on the same page. Like when you proposed to me. Only you didn’t propose.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “No. You didn’t ask me. You just assumed I was going to say yes and started talking about where I would buy my dress and which beach we should get married on. Not that I was any better. I just assumed we would always stay in White Falls. Even when you were always talking about wanting something else.”

  Denial was instinctive, a reflex, but he stopped himself, thinking back. Remembering his botched proposal and a thousand other little things. All the things he’d tried to ignore.

  All the arguments they’d had during those last four days before he left, and all those awful phone conversations. Both of them talking. Neither one listening.

  “You aren’t wrong,” he admitted. They’d both known they wanted different things, but neither of them had ever wanted to compromise, so they tried to wait one another out. They were both too busy believing the other wasn’t as serious about their dreams, because it was inconvenient to actually have to deal with their difference. So they pretended there weren’t any conflicts, keeping it light and easy and fun, until they couldn’t pretend anymore.

  She went on, finishing his thought for him. “And then we were both shocked that the differences that had been there all along actually mattered, because we’d never really talked about them.”

  “I’m listening now.” He finally asked what had been bothering him for the last year. “Why didn’t you come to LA, Sam? Would it really have been so horrible to give it a try?”

  Something defensive tracked across her face and for a moment he thought she wouldn’t answer. Then she set aside her empty cocoa mug and me
t his eyes with resolve in hers. The resolve to not shy away from the uncomfortable topics like they always had in the past.

  “Do you remember when you had that summer internship in San Diego in college and I came out to visit you?”

  “Of course. You said you loved laying out on the beach catching up on your reading. I think that’s the only other time I’ve ever seen you this tan.”

  “I hated it.”

  He blinked, the words like a blow to the face. “What?”

  “The entire time I was there I was just a parasite on your life. Hanging out with your work friends. Living in your apartment. Trying to keep myself busy during the day, but never really feeling like me. I was Jase’s girlfriend and nothing else. I couldn’t imagine living that way again in LA.”

  “It wouldn’t have been that way,” Jase protested. “You would have found your own friends, gotten your own job, found your own place in Los Angeles.”

  “But I already have a place. I have friends. I have my family and I like my job. In White Falls, I know who I am. Thanks to Marrying Mister Perfect, I’ve been all over the world now, but everywhere I went I was always that girl from White Falls and I like that about myself. I’ve never felt like there was anything missing or anything wrong with that, but you did. You always wanted more. And whenever you talked about it, it made me feel like I wasn’t enough for you.”

  “Sam, nothing could be further from the truth. I wanted more for both of us. I wanted to give you the most amazing life imaginable. I wanted to make something of myself for you.”

  “But I never wanted that. I thought we had an amazing life.”

  “I know. We did. But there was more out there.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Everyone was always telling me that I was capable of anything.”

  “Your parents…”

  “It wasn’t just them. I needed to be more than I was in White Falls. To prove to myself that I could be. I wanted to give you so much that you would never for one second wonder if there was something more.” He looked into the eyes that had lingered in his dreams. “I just wanted to give you the moon, Sam. Was that so wrong?”