by S Doyle
She waited, I’m sure for me to say more, but I didn’t know what else there was to add. She was going to go interview for a big-time job in New York. She was going to get it, of course she was going to get it. I’d only had to watch her around the inn for a couple of weeks to see how effective she was.
Then she was going to leave. For good.
A week from now, two weeks from now. Whatever number she had to convince herself that she wouldn’t be abandoning her farther.
I hadn’t lied to her about what I said. Ethan was here. Now Lexie was in the picture. Who knew where that was going? Regardless, I was still on the property, if not in the house, with the old man. Together, we would make sure he was covered.
“That’s it. Yep? That’s all you have to say?” she pressed.
“I’m going to miss the sex.”
Okay, while it was true, it was also an asshole thing to say. Yes, we’d been together every night this week, but that was the last thing I was going to miss about her. Or at least the second to last thing.
But I got the reaction I was expecting. She was pissed now. If she was pissed at me, it would make it easier for her to go. If she was pissed at me, she wouldn’t feel so bad about leaving everything behind. It seemed crazy, because the last thing I wanted was for her to go, but I also hated the idea of her feeling guilty about it.
Not when it was the life she really wanted.
“Oh. I get it,” she said, her voice clipped. “I’m a good lay, a good time, but that’s it.”
“Didn’t say that. Just said I’m going to miss it.”
“It. The sex. Not me.” She had her arms crossed over her stomach again. Defensive. Guarded.
That’s right, Kay-Kay. Get good and mad at me. I’m the bad guy. The jerk who diminished what we had together. Made it seem small, when it was anything but.
Was this the part in the Hallmark Christmas movie where the guy was supposed to tell the woman how he felt?
Or was he supposed to swallow his feelings, choke them down, and pretend he wasn’t going to be gutted the second he saw her back?
Shit. Maybe I should have watched more of them when I had the chance.
“Kay,” I sighed. “What do you want me to say? You want me to ask you to stay? To run the inn? To get married and raise babies with me? Make this gorgeous, amazing slice of the world our paradise? You know I’m not going to do that.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” she snapped.
“Then how about the truth? I don’t want you to go. I would love to see where this thing between us is going. I think you should stay and help your dad run the inn and turn it into the biggest operation this side of the Colorado River. I think you should leave New York and all your fancy shoes behind, except maybe one pair I would make you wear when we’re having sex. But what I want doesn’t matter. So, yeah, I’m going to say asshole things right now because I’m a little hurt. And because I know if you’re pissed at me it will make it easier for you to leave. Does that sound about right?”
“This isn’t easy,” she finally said. “None of this is easy.”
I smiled at her then. A little sadly. “Good. I’m glad I’m not making this decision easy. Hard is good. Someone once told me she eats stress for breakfast and washes it down with black coffee. Well, I embrace the hard calls in life and follow that with a beer.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she pouted.
“Maybe not, but it’s all I got.”
“It’s just an interview,” she insisted.
“Yep.”
Because there wasn’t anything else to say and we both knew it.
It wasn’t just an interview. It was goodbye.
17
New York
Kristen
The conference room was impressive. Twelve foot glass walls, an amazing view of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. My office, if I got the job, would most likely be on this floor. Would have the same views.
Buildings instead of mountains. Metal and steel instead of lumber and brick.
Suits instead of flannel.
“Your work at Hart’s was impressive, Ms. Kringle,” Evan Webb said. Evan was the current CEO of Harbor Benefits. “When we heard you were no longer with them, I immediately started putting feelers out to all the various headhunters in town.”
“You know I was fired, right?”
That was stupid. Why had I said that? The last thing I wanted to do was bring attention to the fact that they had fired me. I was supposed to be framing the narrative as if my job loss had been a consequence of the merger. Not through any fault of my own.
Evan merely chuckled. “That’s what I heard about you. You’re blunt. Cut right to the chase. I like that about you. You don’t waste time.”
I don’t? I wasn’t wasting time, right here, right now? Because I was sitting in this massive conference room, while four men in impeccable suits stared at me with smiles plastered on their faces. I was sitting here thinking my skirt was really tight around my waist and then I remembered the brownies and the pasta and the eggs for breakfast. I was sitting here thinking my toes were pinched in these shoes, and the reality was, I wasn’t listening to half of what these men were saying.
A steady hand at the helm.
Someone to make the tough calls.
A hard ass who would set the right corporate culture of work first, play later.
They wanted someone tough, smart, and driven, for one thing, and one thing only, and that was the success of the company.
Meanwhile my thoughts kept drifting back to all the events happening at the inn. The sledding competition, the pageant Lexie was putting together. Was Dad staying off his feet? Was Paul selling as many Christmas trees as he could in these final hours before Christmas?
Paul.
Was he thinking about me? Missing me? I’d only been gone a day, but I felt completely lonely in this big, massive city. Without my brothers, my dad… my Paul.
“I know Troy from Emerson laid out the benefits package,” Evan said, “But I’m sure you’ll want to review it again in more detail. If you open the folder in front of you it’s all there in black and white.”
I nodded slowly.
“Good,” Evan said, clapping his hands together. “Let’s go over it together. You’re going to make a great addition to the team.”
That’s when I lifted my head and looked at him. He thought my nodding was agreeing to take the job. He thought I was probably happy to go over the benefits package, which would make me a very rich woman. He thought I didn’t care about life and fun and Christmas Eve parties and small town Jamborees and Christmas decorations. Lots and lots of Christmas decorations, even in my office.
He didn’t think I would do something so ridiculous as walk away from a job I’d wanted my entire professional career, to go back home so I could be with my family and a Christmas tree farmer.
An arborist with an ax.
Because things like that didn’t happen in real life.
“I’m sorry, Evan,” I said, standing on legs that were a little shaky.
Was I doing this? Was I really doing this?
“Yes? Is something wrong?” he asked, a furrow in his sculpted brow.
I took a deep breath and hoped like heck the button in my skirt didn’t pop open.
“Yes. There’s someplace else I need to be. After all, it’s Christmas.”
A hectic race to the airport, a standby seat on a flight that just opened up, and four hours later, I finally landed in Denver where I’d left my rental car in short-term parking. Only to find myself stranded on the side of the mountain because my rental car ran out of gas just a few miles from Salt Springs.
I couldn’t help it. It was all too much. I started to cry hysterically.
Wait. I didn’t cry when things got difficult, I acted!
Pulling myself together, I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to work through what had happened.
“I know I checked the gas gauge before pulling
out of short-term parking at the airport. I had to have. I wasn’t so stupid to think I could make it back home on less than a half a tank of gas! Except obviously I didn’t do those things, because here I am! How could this happen to me twice?”
I was standing next to the car, my butt leaning against the hood. It wasn’t snowing tonight, which was a bonus, but I was still in my New York interview clothes, which would never be warm enough for Colorado. My feet were blocks of ice. My hand was numb around the cell phone I was holding, as my thumb hovered over Paul’s number.
I still couldn’t call Dad to help. Ethan had way too many things going on. Matt was probably out doing some publicity event, which was exactly what he needed to be doing.
No, there was only one person realistically I could call, but could I do it? Could I ask him to save me again?
“What do I even tell Paul? That I was miserable the whole day? I wanted to take him to my favorite brunch spot. I wanted to show him this place in Central Park I love. I wanted his thoughts about the company. I wanted him there with me to say I deserved that job and more, because he makes me feel special like no one else has ever done besides my parents.”
I had no choice. I had to call him.
“But if I do call him, he’s going to ask me how it went. I’m going to have to tell him I didn’t take the job. I’m going to have to admit that I want him more than my old life back in New York. There, I said it. I like him. I really, really like him and I want him more than any stupid job. But what if he doesn’t want me the same way?”
I took a deep breath and stared up at the pines surrounding me.
“Are you listening to me, trees? Because I don’t think you are!”
“Just so you know, the trees don’t actually answer.”
I screamed at the sound of the voice behind me and fell off the hood of the car. Scrambling to get back to my feet, I turned and glared at the now very familiar voice of the man standing in front of me.
A couple of paces in front of his silent electric car.
“What are you, like, some new version of Batman?” I asked Paul.
He shrugged. “I could tell you I tried to get your attention, but I didn’t. This time I was just listening to you.”
“What did you hear?” I asked him, my eyes narrowing.
“That you really, really like me.” He took a few steps forward. His bearded face and flannel-covered chest came into focus through his headlights.
“Figures you would focus on that.”
He smiled so that I could see his white teeth. “It was the best part.”
I thought of all the things I could say. Things maybe I should ask him. Only I didn’t need to know where his head was. He’d said everything there was to say. He’d put it all out there for me to digest, and in the end, all of this was my call. Or so it seemed.
I wished it wasn’t.
“You can’t possibly tell me this is a coincidence,” I said. “That you’re here where I happened to have run out of gas.”
He crossed his arms over his down vest and shook his head. “Pops told me that you were flying back tonight. I don’t know why, but I had this flash in my mind when they dropped off your car after the flat tire got fixed, that I needed to fill your gas tank. Only I forgot. So I worried maybe you wouldn’t think to check. Most folks always take rental cars for granted as always being full of gas, but I knew you wouldn’t make it to Denver and back on what was left in the tank. So I thought, just drive out and check to see if there are any stranded ladies by the side of the road I could talk into giving a lift.”
“You could have brought some gas,” I pointed out, and this time I took a step in his direction. “Then I could drive myself home.”
“Don’t believe in gas,” he said, stepping closer. “Trying to save the planet.”
I took another step until I was close enough that I could touch him. Touching Paul seemed like a thing I might want to do for the rest of my life.
“They offered me the job.”
“I heard that part too.”
“It’s an excellent opportunity,” I said.
“I imagine it is.”
“I didn’t take it,” I said. It wasn’t just about Paul, either. I wanted to help my dad. I wanted to make the inn fabulous again. Bigger and better than ever, in honor of my mom. It was the Kringle family business and my name was, in fact, Kris Kringle Jr.
But it was also about Paul.
“I don’t really, really like you,” I admitted.
“No?”
I shook my head.
“I’ve never been in love before,” I confessed quietly. “So I’m not exactly certain how it feels.”
This time, he moved closer to me. “It feels big. Scary, even. All-consuming really. Like you want to try and think about something else, but you can’t. And it happens fast. Faster than you ever thought it could happen, but damn, you know it when you feel it.”
I puffed out a breath and could see the chill in the air. I wanted to speak but I was too choked up.
“That’s just a guess,” he added, when I remained silent.
I laughed. Because that’s what I did when I was around him. I laughed and smiled and had fun. I was the best version of me when I was with him.
That didn’t make me weak. That didn’t mean I was turning away from the goals I’d set for myself.
“You asked me if I wanted kids,” I reminded him.
“Yep.”
“Yep. Is that all you can say?”
He had to think about it. “Yep.”
“I do,” I told him. “At least, I want to try.”
This time, he moved to wrap his arms around me. But I put a hand against his chest to hold him back. I needed to get all of this out.
“That doesn’t mean I’m not going to work. I plan to run the inn, sure. But there are other small businesses I might want to start. Like maybe a Christmas ornament store in town. Or maybe we could build a Christmas themed park. My ideas are endless.”
“Sounds like it,” he said, with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Which means if I’m going to be the mom I want to be to my children, I’m going to need help.”
He nodded. “I can appreciate that.”
“I don’t think you do,” I said, trying to make him understand what I was really asking. “I’m going to need someone who is there for me, who supports me, who has my back when I need to be focused on my work. Someone who will have coffee waiting for me in the morning and dinner ready for me at night. Do you know what I’m asking? Do you see how big this job would be? Paul McCleer, I’m asking you to be my wife.”
Again, he nodded thoughtfully, then he smiled so brightly I knew I would never ever forget this moment. I wasn’t going to have lunch and spa days with the future Mrs. McCleer.
I was going to be the future Mrs. McCleer.
“Yep.”
He kissed me then, and suddenly I wasn’t in my head at all. There were no questions, no decisions to be made, no second-guessing. There was just us. In this moment.
He pulled away, but only a little bit, and frowned.
“I still get to wear pants though, right?”
“We’ll see.”
Want to read about how Ethan accidentally found himself married to Lexie? Keep reading the Kringle Family Christmas series in Very Merry Married
Turn the page to read an excerpt!
Very Merry Married
Christmas
Last Year
Ethan
Whoever was doing that pounding needed to stop. They needed to stop or I might kill them. Oh God, I was going to have to kill the person flashing the searchlight in my room too. What the hell is going on?
I pried open one eyeball only to find the searchlight was just sunlight coming through a gauzy curtain and the pounding…the pounding was coming from inside my skull.
I closed my eyes. Hungover. I was hungover like I hadn’t been in years. Maybe ever.
What did I do last night
?
What died in my mouth last night?
Yesterday was the last day of meetings with United Earth and they’d gone well. Really well. I remembered that. I stepped out of the building onto Bonanza Street, feeling like I wanted to celebrate. There was that dog…
Despite the risk of blindness my eyes flew open. This wasn’t my hotel room. Oh shit. Carefully, so I didn’t die of extreme dehydration, I rolled over to see a woman’s blond hair on a pink satin pillowcase next to mine. A pink satin pillowcase that matched the rest of the room decorated in pink and cream and gold.
Trixie. No. Not Trixie.
Shit. Something like that. She had that mean little dog.
Pixie? No, that would be ridiculous. No woman was named Pixie. Was the dog named Pixie?
But the blonde in bed next to me had been on Bonanza Street, too. Something happened with her dog and it got loose and was making a run for the street when I scooped it up.
And the damn thing bit me.
I looked down at my hand. There was a cut where the dog’s teeth had broken the skin.
She’d taken me for a drink to celebrate, which turned into lunch. She had to leave but we made plans to meet up again. She was going to show me the Vegas tourists never got to see.
Things got hazy after that.
God. She was beautiful, I remembered that. And easily the sexiest woman I’d ever met. And fun. The kind of fun that didn’t seem real. Not in my life. I remembered laughing. A lot.
She’d sparkled.
The fact that I couldn’t remember her name was deeply embarrassing. And not at all my style. But I did remember tequila shots, and tequila was my Achilles heel. Things went off the rails when I drank tequila.
Fuck, my brother would kill himself laughing at me. He will never know. I will take this night to my grave and die a happy man.
I just wished I could remember what happened after the tequila. I was naked under this cream velvet duvet. I lifted the edge of it and yep…she was naked too. And Jesus…her body. She was curve stacked on curve with long lean muscles in between. An athlete for sure. Despite the pounding in my brain, my body responded to hers. My body would have to be dead not to respond hers. Satin smooth skin, I remembered that. And she smelled like peaches. And we’d laughed.
