Santa's on His Way

by Lisa Jackson

  When Sarah finally did, her cheeks were flushed and she was grinning. “Lindsay! Oh, gosh . . . Did I know you were coming?”

  “No. I . . .” She noticed there was a man sitting on the couch, and based on Sarah’s flushed face, Lindsay didn’t think they’d been chatting.

  “I’m interrupting.”

  Sarah’s grin all but split her face. “Just a little bit. But um, come inside for a sec. I want to introduce you.”

  “Sure.”

  “Lindsay, this is Bill. Bill, this is Lindsay. She’s one of the Tylers. She used to date Cal a long time ago, so she was like a big sister to me. I’ve told you about her.”

  Bill got up off the couch and held out his hand. “It’s good to meet you. Sarah really looks up to you.”

  “Oh, that’s sweet.”

  “Bill’s my . . . fiancé,” Sarah said, still grinning.

  Lindsay dropped Bill’s hand and turned to face Sarah. “Your . . . what?”

  “He just asked.” Sarah held out her hand, where a pretty little ring glimmered. “I mean, not just, but tonight he asked and . . . Well, yeah.”

  “I . . .” Lindsay was speechless, for a lot of reasons, but Sarah looked so damn hopeful all Lindsay could do was engulf her in a hug. “Congratulations, Sarah. Oh, I’m so happy for you.”

  Sarah squeezed her tight. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.” She pulled back a little but kept her arms tight around Lindsay. “Maybe you could . . . Maybe you could check on Cal for me.”

  “Oh, Sarah.” She couldn’t even imagine what this might do to Cal. Cal wanted what was best for Sarah, but this would still be difficult for him. A very complicated kind of difficult.

  Just like Lindsay was to him. “I . . . I don’t know if I’d be the right person for that.”

  “No.” Sarah smiled and released her completely, holding out her hand for her fiancé. “But I’m not the right person, and he doesn’t have anybody else.”

  Oof. “Okay. I . . . can let him yell at me. It might be cathartic for him.”

  Sarah laughed, but it was tinged with sadness. “I wish—”

  “Don’t wish. Celebrate with your fiancé. Enjoy your night, and I will . . . I will figure out a way to handle Cal.”

  “You are the best, best, best.”

  “I know,” Lindsay joked. “Remember that when picking out my Christmas gift. Now, let me guess, he’s out in the stables?”

  “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but that’d be my guess.” Lindsay nodded and adjusted her scarf to head back out into the cold. “Congrats, you two.” She walked outside and tried to form some kind of battle plan. It just about broke her heart that Sarah had said he didn’t have anyone else.

  She couldn’t regret leaving Gracely. Those six years away had been necessary to learn and understand home was not the prison her teenage self had imagined it to be, but she wished . . . She wished she’d had the kind of adult fortitude to have made it hurt less for Cal.

  She trudged over to the stables and she had no plan, no clever or sympathetic words. She didn’t have a clue what to say or do for him, but she couldn’t very well leave him alone.

  The stable doors were open and Cal stood right there in the entry, staring up at the sky. It was a pretty winter night. The kind of frigid air that made the moon and stars really glow. Everything looked sparkly and silver, including Cal himself.

  “Hi,” she offered.

  He didn’t move. Not a stiffening, not a sneer. He stood exactly as still as he’d been on her approach, with the exact same blank grimness to his expression. She moved closer, tightening her fingers into fists so she wouldn’t reach out to touch him like she wanted to.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice raspy, his breath puffing out like smoke.

  “I brought by some designs Sarah had asked for and she told me . . . Well.”

  Cal stood there, so absolutely still, staring up at the sky. How long had he been standing in the frigid cold with only a coat to keep him warm? He said nothing. She said nothing. He watched the sky. She watched him.

  After a silence that had to be minutes, if not hours, he finally spoke, his voice a quiet rasp against the dark.

  “I understand why my dad was drunk all the time.”

  She reached out, even knowing it wouldn’t be wanted. She touched her gloved fingers to his cheek until he finally moved that blue, piercing gaze to her face. “You are not your father,” she said fiercely. “You care. You try. You would never hurt that girl out of your own misery.”

  He shook his head, moving away so her fingers fell away from his face. “Except I did. Because I couldn’t cheer and celebrate and find any fucking joy in the fact she’s going to marry someone. He asked me . . . He asked my permission. Did you know that? After this stale, stilted dinner he asks to speak to me alone and asks permission to ask to marry her. This man she’s been keeping a secret from me. This man.”

  “I think that’s sweet.”

  “Of course you do,” he muttered disgustedly. “You probably think she won’t get her heart crushed, either.”

  Lindsay gave herself a few seconds to consider her words. To try to find the right ones. “Maybe she will. Maybe she won’t. Either way, she’ll have you to wipe up the tears, so I think she’ll live.”

  He looked down at her as though she’d cursed him instead of given him a compliment, but that confusion and irritation faded into something else the longer he looked at her. The shimmering air seemed to warm, and somehow they were closer than she’d thought they were.

  She sucked in a breath as Cal’s gaze moved down to her mouth. He wasn’t going to kiss her. Of course not. But he’d at least thought about it for a second. What it would feel like now. He looked at her mouth and he remembered what it had been like between them.

  She knew he did, because she could bring so many of their old kisses to mind. So many memories of the different ways he used to touch her, kiss her, love her.

  She hadn’t come here to kiss him. Or tell him she still loved him. She hadn’t come here to beg for a second chance. She’d wanted to lay the foundation first. To start with friendship or reminders or at least him not hating her.

  But this close to him, this close to kissing him, it was all she wanted. Screw plans and foundations, she wanted this man who’d spent six years haunting her.

  With shaky hands, she pulled a glove off. Then she reached up and pressed her fingers to his cheek. His skin was near frozen, but she felt heated. She wanted to share that heat. She wanted . . .

  He was still simply standing there staring down at her, but he wasn’t pushing her away or telling her to stop and she wanted to remember what it felt like to have his mouth on hers. No man she’d kissed since had ever come close to those memories.

  So she lifted onto her toes and pressed her mouth to his. He let out a shuddering sigh against her mouth, and then she was wrapped firmly in his arms, against his hard body. There wasn’t a second of gentleness or kindness in this kiss. It was hard and desperate and oh, oh.

  It was exactly the same, and somehow a little better. Like they’d been made for each other in the stars, stitched together to fit each other perfectly. Because her memories of Cal hadn’t been nostalgia. His kiss was just as potent and meaningful as it had ever been.

  She melted into it, softened the kiss, poured all of that care she’d held in her heart for him even in six years apart. Because she’d never wanted to leave him. She’d wanted to leave home. She’d wanted to leave the Tylers and find Lindsay. She’d needed to.

  But she’d loved him then, and the whole time in-between, no matter that she’d tried to convince herself that wasn’t possible.

  His grasp on her loosened, his arms slowly letting her go, then nudging her away from where she’d plastered herself against him. He looked down at her, and she couldn’t read that expression. The furrowed eyebrows, the flat mouth, something like chaos in his blue eyes.

  “Cal, I still—”
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  He released her so abruptly she stumbled.

  “No.” He laughed, the sound caustic and ugly on such a pretty night. “No. None of that.”

  “But you—”

  “Good night, Lindsay.” And he left her there, in the silvery moonlight, the heat of that kiss still moving through her even in the cold.

  CHAPTER 6

  Cal felt as though he’d spent the next two days with a hangover even though he hadn’t touched a drop of liquor.

  He’d wanted to. Lord, how he’d wanted to after that kiss with Lindsay. But he hadn’t. Still, it was as if Lindsay’s kiss had intoxicated him to the point of illness. That was still going on even forty-eight hours later.

  Sounded about right.

  He spent the morning dragging ass through chores, then some of the afternoon selling trees before he’d settled in to help Sarah with the preparations for the wedding rehearsal that would go on tonight. He’d even tried to talk with Bill the Chair Guy without threatening to kill him if he ever hurt Sarah.

  All in all, a very shitty day. But one day closer to it all being over. Weddings and Christmas. He’d feel normal again after all this.

  Had to.

  “It looks great. Doesn’t it?”

  Cal opened his mouth to reassure Sarah that it did indeed look great, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at Bill.

  “It looks amazing. We make a good team.”

  Cal just barely stopped himself from making a finger down his throat gagging motion.

  “I better get up to the house to meet the wedding party when they get here. You two stay here and finish lighting the lanterns, okay?”

  “I could go up to the house and meet the wedding party,” Cal offered. Anything to get away from these two lovebirds.

  Sarah looked at Cal as if he’d spoken in a foreign language. “You . . . could . . . You could, what?”

  “I can lead people to the right place, Sarah.”

  “You’d have to smile. Be welcoming. You know, personable.”

  Cal straightened his coat. “I can . . . I can do those things.”

  “No,” she said shaking her head, her tone firm. “You can’t.”

  “I could if I tried to. I just never try to.”

  “Bill won’t bite,” Sarah returned, heading for the four-wheeler she’d ridden down earlier.

  “I know Bill won’t bite,” Cal muttered. He looked over at the man in question. Man. “I was trying to help, not avoid you.”

  Bill smiled. Cal wanted to attribute some oozing charm or fake bullshit to that smile, but every interaction he’d had in the past few days had been fine. The man was polite, deferential even, and he always looked out for Sarah.

  It irritated the piss out of Cal.

  “So, um, we haven’t had much time to talk privately since Sarah said yes.”

  Cal wanted to say thank Christ, but he kept it to himself.

  “Sarah . . . Well, she’d like to stay here. Have me move in with you guys. That way she could still work the tree farm and I could still work the chair business. Once we’re married of course.”

  Chair business. Apparently that was a business. Married. To his sister. This man.

  “Obviously, it’s up to you. I just thought I’d put it out there since I think Sarah’s hesitant to bring it up.”

  “You want to move into my house,” Cal repeated.

  “I want to make Sarah happy,” Bill said firmly. “She’s worried about leaving you, and she doesn’t want to leave the business. It makes sense for us, and it makes sense for you, but if it’s not what you want . . . Well.”

  “Well what?”

  “I don’t know you very well, Cal. I just know what Sarah’s told me. I think you’d do anything for her. Even let a stranger move in with you. But maybe I’m wrong.”

  “You’re not fucking wrong,” Cal returned, jabbing his hands in his pockets as Bill carefully and methodically lit the remaining lanterns.

  Cal watched him work for a few minutes, trying to figure him out. Trying to figure this brand-new world out he hadn’t even seen coming because Sarah had kept Bill a secret.

  “Let me ask you something, Bill. If she decided she didn’t want to get married. If she wanted to leave you and go back to college, what would you do?”

  “I’d follow her.”

  Cal could only frown at the simple, sure way Bill said that as if it was the only response. “You have responsibilities here. You can’t follow her.”

  “I’d find a way. I’d find a way to make something work. My parents lived in two different countries for over a year. They made it work. That’s what love is.”

  “Even if she wasn’t willing to compromise what she wanted? You’d just do whatever she wanted?”

  “Depends, I suppose. My mom always told me relationships are a balance, but that doesn’t mean you’re always giving fifty-fifty. Sometimes the other person needs eighty, and you only get twenty. Then you need eighty and they give up their sixty for you.”

  “That doesn’t make a lick of sense.” Except that it did. He just didn’t want it to.

  * * *

  It was something like bedlam. Between her large, overloud family and Cora’s large, overloud family—complete with baby niece and nephew twins—rehearsal was chaos. Loud, beautiful, loving chaos.

  Lindsay tried to pay attention to the rehearsal and what she was supposed to do as one of Cora’s bridesmaids, but she kept looking back to where Cal stood stoically with Sarah and Bill, who happily whispered things to each other.

  Cal. Solitary and alone even when he wasn’t.

  He expressly didn’t look at her. Not once the whole evening. She didn’t know how he managed it. Well, she supposed pure hate was how he managed it.

  Except he had most definitely not kissed her with hate in his heart the other night. No. No hate at all.

  She smiled a little to herself at the memory.

  “Lindsay?”

  “Oh, what?” She blinked at her mother, who glanced once at Cal, then back to her, then sighed. “You’re first back down the aisle. When the minister says—”

  “Right. No, I remember.” She smiled reassuringly at Shane’s disapproving frown. “I’ll be in tip-top shape tomorrow and listening to every word and following every command.” She saluted him, which only sent his frown deeper, but she’d been kind of going for that.

  She walked back down the aisle as she’d been instructed, marveling at the way lanterns flickered against the snow and garland to make this absolutely magical wedding venue. It’d be even prettier tomorrow, fully decorated, right at sunset, her brother and Cora pledging their lives to each other.

  She’d be home to witness the way they came together to build a life for themselves and Cora’s son. It infused her with joy, and hope, and that rare, amazing feeling she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

  Cal’s gaze met hers as she finished her walk back down the aisle and she didn’t temper her smile.

  He didn’t look away, even if he didn’t smile back. She’d count that as progress. Progress was all she needed. Inch by inch, heck, millimeter by millimeter. She wasn’t the spoiled little girl who needed it all now and exactly like she wanted anymore.

  She could wait. She could put in the work.

  The rehearsal ended in the same kind of chaos as it had begun, and once they were all back at the cars that had ferried them over Lindsay held back, watching the Barton house and trying to figure out a way to be left behind without raising any questions or causing any concerns she would miss tomorrow’s all-day-wedding-readying chore list before the actual wedding Saturday.

  Keys suddenly appeared over her shoulder, and she glanced back at her soon-to-be sister-in-law.

  “Take these,” Cora offered.

  “But—”

  “Micah and Shane are heading back with your mom, and Lou’s coming up to fix a few issues with the garland. She can drop me off at the ranch. You take my car and do whatever you need to do.�
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  “You know you’re my favorite sister-in-law, right?”

  Cora rolled her eyes, but she pressed the keys into Lindsay’s palm. “I’m a sucker for love these days, and . . . Well, I don’t know anything that’s happened between you two aside from what little Shane has told me, but I do know fear when I see it.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “No, but he is.”

  Lindsay curled her fingers around the keys. Yes, Cal was. She’d never seen that in him when they’d been together. She’d understood his insecurities to an extent, but she hadn’t really empathized with them because she’d been so wrapped up in herself. In the future. “Thanks, Cora.”

  “Just don’t be late tomorrow, huh?”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Cora and the rest of her family scattered, heading home. Lindsay made a fake effort to find Sarah to talk business, but really she was looking for Cal.

  It was no surprise to find him in the stable. What was a surprise was finding him in the little back room surrounded by wrapping paper and ribbons.

  “Did I stumble into an alternate dimension?”

  Cal sighed heavily. “I’m too irritated to even be surprised you’re here. Are you stalking me?”

  “ ‘Stalking’ seems like a harsh word. But I was looking for you.”

  He shook his head, dropping a knotted pile of ribbon on top of crumpled piles of cheerful wrapping paper. He raked fingers through his already-wild dark hair. “Sounds about right.”

  “We kissed, Cal.”

  “We’ve kissed lots of times, Lindsay.”

  Oh, he could be such a pill. Still, she looked around at the mess he’d made no doubt trying to wrap a few pretty packages for Sarah to open on Christmas morning. But Sarah had Bill now and . . .

  Lindsay knew Sarah wouldn’t desert Cal completely, but he’d certainly feel a little deserted no matter what.

  “I could wrap them for you.”

  He looked up at her suspiciously. “What’s your angle?”

  She smiled sweetly. “You have to keep me company while I do it.”

  He grunted and surveyed the mess. “I’d keep company with the devil to get this done. Go ahead.”