Christmas in Echo Creek_A Sweet Holiday Romance

by Kacey Linden

  “Willow, this is Marissa Beckett, Tess’s sister.” Only then did he lift his gaze to the woman who had once destroyed his Christmas and mangled his heart. “Marissa, this is my girlfriend, Willow.”

  The expression on Marissa’s beautiful face encompassed surprise, anger, disappointment and calculation. Cale guessed she would be seething over being introduced as Tess’s sister, but he didn’t care. It was Willow he wanted to protect, and he would do that by whatever means Marissa forced him to use.

  “Hi, you two.” Tess came around the island and hugged Willow, who appeared to remember only belatedly to hug her back. “Thank you both for coming. I hope you’ve been enjoying your evening.”

  “We have,” Willow said, almost mechanically, glancing briefly up at Cale with an unreadable look in her eyes. “Tess, I’d love to see what you’ve done to the house for Christmas, if you wouldn’t mind showing me.”

  Tess’s eyes flared in surprise. “I wouldn’t mind,” she said cautiously. “Cale, would you like to…”

  “No.” Willow didn’t look at him again. “I’m sure he’d prefer having a chance to catch up with an old friend.” She turned on her heel and left the kitchen.

  After a concerned look in his direction and an almost angry glance at Marissa, Tess followed suit, rounding up the boys and forcing them out ahead of her.

  Frustrated—and concerned about what Willow might be thinking—Cale turned his attention back to the woman he had once loved.

  “Are you back in town for Christmas, Marissa?” He might have to talk to her, but he didn’t want to give her the chance to start the conversation. He didn’t think he was going to enjoy any of what she had to say.

  “I came back to see you.” She took two steps closer and reached for his arm. “I thought maybe you would be glad to see me…” Her hand dropped when he made no move to reciprocate. “No one told me you already had a girlfriend.”

  A flash of anger shot through him, but he forced himself to respond calmly. “Already? You left me two years ago. Broke up with me over the phone and mailed your ring back without so much as a note. Was I supposed to hang on to my broken heart until you decided you wanted it back?”

  “Okay, so maybe it’s been a little longer than I thought.” Marissa looked down and let her dark hair fall forward over her face. “But it was Christmas and I was alone, and I’d started to hate the city, so I decided I just needed to come home. I really didn’t think you’d be with someone else. Tess or Finn would have told me if there was anything serious going on.”

  “So you keep tabs on my ‘serious’ relationships to make sure your territory is safe?” Cale hadn’t remembered her being this shallow. “Is that what this is about?”

  “No!” Marissa somehow managed to look desperately sad. “I just… I guess maybe I missed Echo Creek. And you were always a big part of that. Somehow, I convinced myself that if I could see you again, everything would go back to being the way it was.”

  “I’m sorry.” Cale wasn’t sure that was honest, but it seemed like the polite thing to say. “I don’t know why you thought that, but you need to know that things will never go back to the way they were between us. I’m with someone else. I’m happy. Your family still means a lot to me, but under the circumstances I don’t see how you can expect to have any place in my life.”

  “You mean…” Marissa sucked in a quick, horrified breath. “Cale, are you serious about her? How long have you even known her?”

  “Does it matter?” he said harshly. “I’ve known you for most of my life, and look where that got me. I’ve known Willow for a few weeks and I can already see that we have something deeper and more real than you and I ever had.”

  Marissa winced and Cale almost felt bad. Almost. She’d ambushed him in the middle of his first date with Willow and his sympathy wasn’t functioning very well at the moment.

  “I understand,” she said finally, sounding broken. “I should let you get back to your date, then. Tess always made it sound like you were doing so well… like you were being totally reasonable about the whole thing. I thought you’d be able to forgive me. I’m sorry if that was a hasty assumption.”

  She put a hand over her mouth, turned, and walked out of the kitchen.

  Willow followed Tess mechanically, nodding and smiling in all the right places, trying to appear as mature and complacent as she’d pretended to be in the kitchen. All the while, she was a seething mess of doubts and nerves and crushed hopes.

  She’d known Marissa would be beautiful. She just hadn’t expected someone quite that beautiful, or tall, or outgoing. Someone quite so completely her own opposite.

  Nor had she expected the woman would have the nerve to show up and throw herself at Cale during the same time of year she originally abandoned him.

  Forget mature—Willow wanted to walk back into the kitchen and punch the other woman in the throat. But because she had a tentative friendship with Tess and didn’t want to upset Finn or the boys, she reined in all of her anger, her fear and her doubts.

  In the end, the only real question was, did she trust Cale? She thought she did, but it was hard not to compare herself to the woman he’d lost. Willow would always come out second in that contest. And yet, Cale had chosen to introduce her as his girlfriend. He’d claimed her decisively and publicly. That had to mean something, especially in front of Marissa’s family.

  They needed to finish their visit and leave. Then everything would be okay again.

  Except that it wouldn’t. The evening was ruined, and Willow was barely able to hold back tears as they finished touring the house and re-entered the living room, where Marissa stood facing the windows while Cale stared doggedly into the fire, his hands in his pockets.

  “There you are.” He greeted Tess and Willow with apparent relief. “It was good to see everyone, but we’d better be getting back to Marcia’s.” He and Finn silently shook hands, and exchanged an unreadable look. Tess gave Cale a quick hug, followed by a much longer one for Willow.

  “I hope we can still be friends,” she whispered, and Willow hugged her a little harder.

  “Of course,” she said. She meant it, even if she was having trouble expressing it properly at the moment. She liked Tess, and enjoyed their fledgeling friendship. Unless it meant seeing Marissa on a regular basis, she had every intention of remaining close to Tess… for as long as she was in Echo Creek.

  “You ready?” Cale was clearly trying hard to sound cheerful, but it wasn’t working. She knew him well enough to see that he was upset, she just couldn’t tell what kind of upset. Was he doubting his feelings for her? Was he angry at Marissa?

  She couldn’t even manage words, so she nodded and moved towards the door. Her hand was on the knob when Marissa turned from her contemplation of the window, rushed across the room and put her hand on Cale’s arm.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you. Whether you’re willing to be my friend or not, I want you to know that it was good to see you in Seattle a few weeks ago. It made me think of home, and convinced me to come back, so I’ll always be grateful to you for that.”

  Willow froze. Cale had been in Seattle? He’d gone to visit Marissa and lied about it? He’d told her after that trip that he hadn’t seen his ex-fiancée in two years.

  She looked helplessly at Cale, feeling a stab of horrified betrayal, but he looked just as shocked as she did. So shocked that Marissa was able to lean forward and kiss his cheek before he snapped out of his paralysis, grabbed her arms and set her away from him.

  “Marissa, what are you talking about? I didn’t see you in Seattle.”

  “I waved through the window, but I wasn’t sure whether you saw me or not. It was in that coffee shop downtown. You were meeting with that cop friend of yours. Is it… Russell? I can’t remember.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I could tell you were there for work, so I didn’t interrupt, but seeing you brought back so many memories, I knew I had to come back and let you know that I still…” She looked down and bit her perfe
ctly shaped bottom lip. “Please say we can at least be friends.”

  So he hadn’t been there to see Marissa. He hadn’t lied about that. But the rush of relief lasted for only an instant before Willow realized what it meant that he’d been in Seattle for work. Talking to another cop.

  Could it be nothing more than a coincidence? Maybe he made regular trips to Seattle to talk about work with other cop friends. But why Seattle? Portland was closer. And why had he never once mentioned it? In fact, he had completely avoided talking about those days he’d been gone.

  She barely heard what he said to Marissa. She didn’t care any more. All she knew was that she needed to get away from there. She couldn’t think, couldn’t be rational, until she was alone, so she turned the knob, went out the door, and made her way mechanically down the walk.

  No matter how much she wanted to believe it was coincidence, how could she? If Cale’s trip to Seattle had nothing to do with her, why had he hidden it? She could remember Marcia asking about his absence, remember his oddly vague answers. These were hints Willow couldn’t afford to ignore in her situation. She had to assume he knew more than he was saying.

  But how much did he know? And if he knew something, why had he hidden it from her? Had he been faking their relationship this whole time, trying to get information? She couldn’t think of a single reason for him to go to such bizarre lengths.

  But no matter what his motives were for getting close to her, she had little choice but to assume that he’d been going behind her back and digging into her past. She’d been stupid to believe she could trust him. Foolish to share information that could lead him to uncover more than she wanted him to know.

  Was Mrs. Dillon a part of it too? Or was all of this just paranoid conjecture? Could there be a logical explanation for Cale’s trip to Seattle that had nothing to do with her own flight from the same?

  “Willow, wait.”

  She heard the door shut behind Cale, heard him jogging through the snow, but she didn’t turn. Didn’t stop. Whatever he said, whatever he did now, would tell her exactly what she needed to know.

  “Willow, please. You need to let me explain.”

  “No, I don’t.” She kept walking. She could walk forever if she had to.

  “That wasn’t what Marissa made it sound like.”

  “I don’t care what Marissa said.”

  “Can we please talk, Willow? I’ll tell you everything, but please don’t run away.”

  “You’ll tell me everything? Which everything is that?” She jammed her hands into her pockets to keep them from shaking. “The everything I want to know, or the everything you want me to hear?”

  “Whatever you want to know.” He was only a few steps behind her, apparently ready to follow her as far as she was prepared to walk. “You can ask me anything. Just give me a chance to tell you what happened before you run away.”

  She whirled to face him, fear warring with anger in her heart. “Fine. Tell me this then: was I the reason you went to Seattle?”

  He didn’t draw back or hedge or hesitate. “Yes.”

  “Then you knew where I was from,” she accused, feeling utterly betrayed. “You went behind my back and investigated me, and you’ve been hiding it from me since the beginning.”

  “Yes, but Willow…”

  “Then we’re done.” She turned around and kept walking, fighting back tears that threatened to choke her.

  How could she have been so stupid? Why had she ever trusted him? She knew not to trust. Knew not to get involved, but she’d done it anyway because this crazy town with its shiny promises of cozy Christmas cheer had blinded her to reality.

  She heard Cale striding up behind her. He went around and stood in front of her, forcing her to stop and face him, and suddenly her fear was drowned in pure, blinding fury. Even Elliot had never made her this angry. He didn’t have the power, because she had never, ever, cared enough to feel this much of anything.

  “Willow.” He ran both hands through his hair as if he didn’t know what else to do with them. “Please give me a chance to explain.”

  She wanted to rage, wanted to scream and cry and hit him until he felt as wounded as she did, but she had just enough control to answer as coldly as she would answer a stranger.

  “Why?”

  “Because I care about you,” he said instantly, with what only an hour ago she would have called sincerity. “Everything I’ve done, even the mistakes I’ve made, has been because I wanted to keep you safe.”

  “Why should I believe you?” She threw the words in his face. “No matter what you tell me now, I have to deal with the fact that you’ve clearly been hiding something from me for weeks. At this point, I’m not even sure that I care whether you’re willing to tell me the truth. You should have told me in the beginning, but you went behind my back and pretended everything was fine!”

  Cale brushed a hand over his face and let out a huge breath that sounded as though he’d been holding it in for days. “Yes, I did.”

  “I trusted you, Cale.” She felt tears welling up again, tears of frustration, betrayal and heartache. “I don’t trust anyone, ever. But I trusted you, and Rory and Marcia because I believed in all those things you told me about family, about giving this place a chance. What do you expect me to do now? Just go on trusting as though you never lied to me?”

  He flinched. “Will you at least let me tell you why I went to Seattle?”

  “That’s not going to change anything,” she almost yelled at him. “I can’t even begin to calculate the number of things that are wrong with this. If you knew enough to go to Seattle, you know enough to realize why I can’t stay here. You should have known better than to pretend this thing between us could work.”

  “But it can,” he insisted, reaching for her, but letting his hand fall when she took a step back. “Willow, it isn’t what you think.”

  “Then what is it, Cale? Tell me what took you to Seattle if it wasn’t the fact that you already knew I stole my brother’s car?”

  Cale was shaking and it wasn’t from the cold. He’d had too many shocks: first Marissa, claiming she wanted him back, and now Willow, who’d finally learned the truth he’d been trying so hard to hide. Of all the times and places for this to happen, he would have chosen almost anywhere else. Definitely not here, not right after she’d seen his ex-fiancée throw herself at him.

  But he had to make her understand. Had to come clean about all of it. She might not be willing to give him another chance, but he hoped she would, with a desperation that shook him to the core. If he let her walk away now, he knew he’d regret it for the rest of his life.

  “Yes, I knew about the car, Willow,” he said quietly. “I’ve known since the day after you got here. When I went over to talk to Marty about fixing it, I looked at the registration card in the glovebox. Also”—he took a deep breath—“I found your brother’s phone. He called it, accused you of stealing his car, and wanted to know where you were.”

  Willow looked instantly stricken. “Did you tell him anything? Cale, please tell me he doesn’t know where I am.”

  “Elliot doesn’t know anything.” He took a step towards her, wanting to reassure her, but she moved backwards again. Away from him. “He also called you a lot of names I knew weren’t true, so I told him I didn’t know you and that his phone was in Boise before I turned it off and decided to investigate.”

  “You…” Willow turned to face the street and folded her arms. “You knew that long ago. You knew I stole a car, you’ve been investigating me for weeks and you haven’t done anything about it?” She fell silent, then whirled to face him, her eyes blazing. “Cale, that could cost you your job! How could you hide something like that?”

  Wait, what? She was worried about his job?

  “Willow, my job is fine. I knew what I was doing. If we could prove that your brother was responsible for abusing you, and that he has a history of violent and coercive behavior, no judge on earth was going to convict you o
f theft.”

  He saw the moment it hit her. She looked like she was about to collapse in a boneless heap on the street.

  “Then why…” A sob escaped her. “Cale, I’ve been so afraid. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “When we first met, you didn’t trust me enough to tell me what you were running from,” he said, desperate for her to understand. “If I’d started asking questions, I knew you would bolt because you were worried that I would find out about the car and arrest you. I thought about telling you I wouldn’t, but you had no reason to believe me, and I was terrified of you leaving town alone, without any money, without a phone, without any way to protect yourself. We might never have known what happened to you and I couldn’t—wouldn’t—risk that.”

  “But you’ve known about this… for weeks! Why not say something?”

  “Because I wanted you to trust me.”

  Her tear-ravaged face begged him to explain, so he took another step until he was only a few inches from touching her.

  “There were a lot of things I hid from you, out of fear. At first, you seemed so fragile, and you’d already been through so much that I was afraid of breaking you. Later, I realized you were stronger than I’d given you credit for, but by then I knew I was falling for you and I couldn’t bring myself to do or say anything that might drive a wedge between us.”

  Willow sucked in a shocked breath.

  “It was selfish, I admit it, but I didn’t want to lose whatever it was that we had, for as long as we would have it.”

  Her lips curled bitterly. “So you risked losing me forever instead.”

  “I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have you forever,” he told her bluntly. “And ever since I realized that I might have a chance to convince you to stay, I’ve been agonizing over ways to break the news to you that wouldn’t result in you hating me and believing I broke faith with you.”

  “This wasn’t it.” Willow’s tone was cold, uncompromising.

  “I know.” Cale braced himself. “And there’s more. You may hate me more for this than for anything else, but I’m going to tell you so there are no more secrets between us.” He clenched his hands. “The night you came to town, after Marty towed your car, I lied to you.”