She regarded him for a long moment as she thought over his disclosure. Unexpectedly, shame hit her low and hard. He was right. It was important—if it weren’t, she wouldn’t be here. And if things had gone according to plan, she would have been telling everyone else in the broadcast market that it mattered more than anything else they might hear on another channel.
She felt ill. “But if this vestigial organ was so important to some people, why did they keep quiet once they found out about it? Because if it was important to them, they wouldn’t keep it to themselves. Trust me on that one.”
That was how she made her living—people knew something they weren’t supposed to and they just couldn’t keep their mouths shut. More than that, though, they were looking to capitalize on their knowledge. Knowing something that other people didn’t know was exciting. Knowing you could get paid for it was power.
He adjusted the angle of one of the snow globes on the mantel. “You lie, of course. You tell them it was a practical joke, that you were just pulling their leg. You laugh it off. And then, a few weeks after that, you break up with them.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “They never figured it out, because they never noticed that you had a tell. And then you decide not to tell anyone else.”
For some reason, that bit about the tell made her smile. But it didn’t last. Because no one else had ever figured out her tell, either. All those people watching her and following her online every day—and none of them had seen that simple truth. Not like CJ had.
She looked him over again. Years of not telling anyone? They weren’t that far away from Denver—an hour, maybe. The Beaumonts and their soap-opera lives would be unavoidable. And he said she was lonely.
“She couldn’t tell? Because I can. I can see the vestigial organ in you.”
He turned to face her head-on again. “My dad—”
“Pat?”
He nodded, politely ignoring her interruption. “He’s six-two. He’s a little bit Scot and more than a little Irish. Eyes that aren’t quite blue, aren’t quite green. When he was a kid, he was strawberry-blond—although his hair’s darkened and now he’s a light-brown kind of guy.”
“You look like him.” True, he could’ve been describing Hardwick Beaumont—but that would explain why no one would have seen the Beaumont in him if he also looked like Patrick Wesley.
“I look like both my parents.” It was such a simple statement—and nothing twitched in any of his muscles.
A new feeling—unfamiliar—blew up faster than a winter storm. Guilt. Because she knew what was going to happen next.
Oh, sure—maybe for the rest of the Christmas holiday things would be quiet. But after that?
“I’m so sorry, CJ.”
His brow wrinkled. “For what?”
“For finding you.”
CJ exhaled heavily and came over to the couch. He slumped down in it, a couple of feet still between them. But it wasn’t uncomfortable, that space. “You’re not ruining my Christmas,” he told her. “So stop worrying about it.”
“But...”
He shook his head. “Natalie, I told you—we’re dealing with the present today.” Never mind the fact that they hadn’t actually been doing that at all, beyond thinking about where to put the snow globes. “The future isn’t going anywhere and I’ll deal with it when the time comes.”
So he understood, then. She had found him, after all. She’d spent weeks asking questions about Carlos Julián and Isabel Santino, about Beaumont’s bastard son. She had made the connection and in doing so, she’d paved the way for others to make the same connection, too.
And he knew it.
“Why aren’t you madder at me?” She stared at him, but he kept his gaze on the fire. “You should be furious, you know.” He should’ve left her in the snow. It probably wouldn’t have solved anything in the long run, but she deserved his anger.
She wasn’t going to get it. That much was already clear, and it became clearer when he just shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said in an amused tone, as if he couldn’t believe he wasn’t more upset with her, too. “Maybe...” He glanced at her and forced an awkward smile. For a moment, she thought he was going to finish that statement.
But then he stood and nudged a nearly empty bin with his toe. “We should get this mess cleaned up and then I’ll see if I can get out to the generator.”
They finished decorating and carried the empty bins back downstairs. The whole time, Natalie tried to figure out why he wasn’t raging at her. She hadn’t exactly destroyed his life—but she had upended it, at the very least. She’d had people threaten to do all sorts of horrible things to her for far less than this.
But if they were threatening her or talking about how stupid she was, at least she knew they were paying attention. That was how the world worked.
Or it had, before she had met CJ Wesley. Finally, someone who should be legitimately angry with her, someone who had plenty of opportunity to exact revenge, and what had he done?
Saved her life. Kept her safe and warm. Made sure she was comfortable and fed. Hell, he’d even let her celebrate Christmas with him. He had offered her the simple reassurance of a hug when she’d let down her guard and accidentally thought about her childhood.
And all he asked in return was that she not pry. There had been no threats, no physical or sexual intimidation. Just kindness.
She wished she’d never found him.
Six
“How much do you think we got?” He and Natalie were standing by the big picture window, staring at a world muffled by white.
“Two and a half feet, maybe a little more. That,” he said, pointing toward a tiny mound just a little higher than the rest of the snow, “is your car.”
“Wow,” Natalie said, sounding awestruck.
He snorted. She’d be lucky if she got her car back before March, CJ thought as he watched the moon finally appear out from behind the last straggling clouds. Suddenly the world was bathed in a bright, crystal white.
“It’s so peaceful out here.” She crossed her arms and shivered.
They were far from the fire, but neither of them moved away from the window. He fought the urge to wrap his arm around her shoulders and pull her closer. “You say that now, but that’s just because the cabin fever hasn’t hit yet.”
She gave him a sideways glance. “Is that going to be a problem?”
Hell, yes it was going to be a problem. It was a problem already. They’d killed an afternoon decorating the living room. Even then, they hadn’t managed to stick to the here and now. Instead, he’d held her and she’d asked about third nipples. What the hell would happen tomorrow?
Would they get bored? Boredom couldn’t be good.
He knew the cure for cabin fever—it would be to peel her out of all of those clothes, curl his body around hers and spend hours getting lost in her.
And he couldn’t do it. He wanted to, though. It was probably a normal thing for two consenting adults who were attracted to each other and stranded together during a Christmas blizzard to spend some time working through sexual frustration, right?
But that wasn’t the only reason why he wanted to pull her into his arms. Part of it was the devastated look on her face when he had said she was lonely. He actually wasn’t sure if she was or wasn’t. But saying it out loud made him realize something.
He was lonely. Aside from Cindy back in college, he hadn’t told anyone about being a Beaumont—because he hadn’t given himself the chance to do that. He had kept to himself for years.
Long, lonely years. All because he didn’t trust another person with the truth. He assumed that whoever he told would react much the way Cindy had—with shock, quickly followed by greed.
But Natalie? He hadn’t even had to tell her—she’d figured it out. She knew the truth—and it was true. There was no point in lying about it because she would be able to tell.
She knew that Hardwick Beaumont was his father and...
It wasn’t like
she didn’t care. She wouldn’t have gotten this far if she didn’t care. But she wasn’t acting like he was her personal bank account and she was hell-bent on making a withdrawal. Instead, she had apologized. And he had no reason to believe it wasn’t a sincere apology.
He still didn’t want to be a featured segment on her show. But today she’d made him realize how damnably exhausting it was to keep other people’s secrets and he didn’t want to do that anymore, either. Hell, he didn’t know what he wanted.
So he focused on the present. “Tomorrow, when the sun’s out, I’ll get the generator going. If I can get to the barn, I’ll be able to get the snowmobile out. We can go for a ride after I feed my horses.”
She beamed up at him and damn if it didn’t make him feel warm inside. “Really?”
“Yep.” He’d have to take her with him. No matter what she promised and no matter how sincerely she apologized, he couldn’t leave her alone in his house.
But it would also be fun. He loved the snowmobile and this was perfect weather for it. He’d take her out and show her the ranch—a perfect, pristine white version of his ranch, that was—and then he’d take her over to where there were some wild holly bushes. They’d need to get a tree, so he’d better pack a rope and...
It had been thirteen years since he’d almost asked Cindy to marry him. It’d been four years since his parents started going south for the winter, testing out retirement and avoiding things like blizzards and Beaumonts.
He was startled to realize that this was the first time he’d had company for Christmas in his adult life. But that wasn’t as startling as it was to realize how much he had missed having someone to talk to. Yeah, he talked to his parents, but this was different.
She leaned into him, shoulder to shoulder. “You know, I don’t think I’ve taken a day off in... Well, can’t remember when. This has been—okay, maybe not a vacation,” she said with a rueful smile. “This has been nice.”
“Better than being miserable,” he agreed. “We’ll have fun tomorrow.”
She didn’t pull away from him. Instead, they stood next to each other, watching the moonlight sparkle over the landscape.
It was so tempting to think that the rest of the world didn’t exist anymore. She wasn’t a television personality and he wasn’t going to have to walk into town dressed as Santa Claus in less than three days and wonder if everyone looked at him and saw a Beaumont instead of a Wesley. Right now, it was just him and her, the quiet and the snow.
He was struck with the oddest urge to keep it this way. He wanted to stay in the present. This time was a gift, in its own way, and he wanted to make the most of it.
Without really making a conscious choice, he slid his arm around her shoulders and hugged her tight. “If I get the generator going tomorrow, we can watch movies. What’s your favorite Christmas movie?”
Unexpectedly, it took her a long time to answer. “I’ve never really celebrated like this before. I tend to skip Christmas. For obvious reasons,” she added with a sigh.
Not for the first time, he wondered about what she had said about herself—a whiny, spoiled brat who ruined everything. There was a certain measure of truth to the fact that she had upset his life—but he wouldn’t go so far as to say that she’d ruined it.
It wasn’t the sort of thing a person said about herself. It was, however, the sort of thing someone might say to a little girl, and that little girl might believe it.
“We’ve got time,” he said, giving her a squeeze. She rested her head on his chest. “We can watch as many as you want.”
Another shiver passed through her. “Hot cocoa?” he asked. He didn’t understand his strange urge to take care of her but he was tired of fighting against it. He would regret it...eventually. But right now? He was just going to go with it.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide and sparkling with humor. “Only if you have marshmallows.”
“What kind of man do you take me for? Of course I have marshmallows.”
Together, they turned toward the kitchen. He didn’t let go of her and she didn’t pull away from him and that was okay. The more time he spent with her, the harder it was to see the morning television host who traded in gossip and innuendo.
Instead, she was just a woman. Natalie. Complicated and messy—yes. No one here would argue with that.
But, when she wasn’t trying to be a morning television host, she was also soft and vulnerable, the kind of woman who could find happiness in marshmallows.
He was being an idiot. This was nothing more than a delusion. A pleasant one, but a delusion all the same. There was no guarantee that anything they said or did wouldn’t wind up on her show.
But he hadn’t expected this feeling of freedom. She already knew the truth. He didn’t have to keep hiding it from her. He could just be himself. Well, maybe not entirely himself.
What a mess.
In the kitchen, he got out the Ovaltine and the marshmallows while she put the kettle back on. “Ovaltine?” she asked, not even bothering to hide her amusement. “You’re really just a big kid, aren’t you?”
He dug around in the pantry until he came up with the bottle of peppermint schnapps. “I didn’t drink it spiked when I was a kid.”
Her eyes widened and she stared at him and he remembered last night, when she’d made a move. Was she thinking about that again? Because he was. He’d been trying not to think about the way her body melted into his last night, the way her fingers had felt stroking over his cheek—but he’d been failing most of the day.
Would she try again? Would she press her breasts against his chest and run her fingers through his hair? Until he had no choice but to kiss her, long and hard and deep?
The more important question was, would he let her? Was he so hard up that he would ignore all logic and common sense and let himself get lost in her body?
He would. His gaze dropped to her mouth and she ran her tongue over her lower lip and he knew that, without reservation, he wouldn’t be strong enough to push her away.
They doctored up their cocoa and carried it into the living room. “Here,” he said, handing her his mug as he threw a few more logs on the fire. When he turned back around, she was sitting in the middle of the couch, watching him with those eyes of hers.
If he were smart, he’d get his mug back and sit on the floor. He’d maintain a modicum of distance between them.
But he must not be as smart as he thought he was because instead, he sat down next to her and put his arm around her, drawing her close. She gave him his mug and rested her head on his shoulder. In a comfortable silence, they sipped their cocoa and watched the flames dance.
“What would you be doing if I weren’t here?” she asked.
“This. Except alone.”
“You really don’t have anyone?”
He took a long swig of his cocoa, letting the schnapps burn on its way down. “I have my parents, but it’s not the same. They’re snowbirds now and I won’t see them until March.”
“I haven’t talked to my dad since last Christmas,” she admitted. “I try once a year but...it’s not worth it.”
“It must be rough during the holidays.”
She shrugged and burrowed deeper against his chest. He rested his head on the top of hers. Everything about this was a mistake but, God help him, he wasn’t going to get off this couch anytime soon. “I stay busy. Really, Christmas is just another day.”
That was possibly the saddest thing she had said yet. “Christmas is one of the best days of the year—and I’ll prove it to you. Assuming we can get out, I’m supposed to be Santa in two days at the Christmas Eve party in Firestone. And you,” he said, giving her a tight squeeze, “are going to be Santa’s little helper.”
Which was yet another piece of evidence that he had lost his mind. If he could get her to Firestone, someone was supposed to come get her. He didn’t know who but that wasn’t his problem. He would get her to town, someone would retrieve her and at some point whe
n he could plow out his drive, he would get her car back to her. That had been the plan.
But it wasn’t the plan anymore. He had to show her that Christmas was more than just another day. It was a time of hope and renewal. It was a time of change.
And since everything had already changed and would continue to change, he might as well spread the joy around and hope for the best.
Deep in the back of his mind, he knew his days of anonymity were numbered. She asked too many questions—questions other people would keep asking. But maybe he could...
Hell, he didn’t know. Maybe he could get out in front of it? But he wasn’t even sure how to do that. He could contact Zeb Richards. Or even Chadwick Beaumont. They were both his half brothers. CJ had to let them know what was coming and maybe they’d have the public relations know-how to spin the impact in a positive direction for everyone involved.
Natalie looked up at him. “You’d let me help you hand out presents?”
“It’s better to give than receive. It restores your faith in humanity.”
She looked at him for a long time, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. He felt the same way. Away from cameras and relatives and townsfolk, he was starting to realize that Natalie Baker was someone he could like quite a bit.
She nuzzled back into his side. “Do you ever talk to them?”
He didn’t have to ask who them were. “No.”
“When Zeb Richards got married, we all wondered if you would show up. Everyone was there.”
He knew. That wedding had been the focus of weeks worth of coverage on A Good Morning with Natalie Baker. “I saw.”
He had gotten an email inviting him, but he hadn’t wanted to go public. Months ago, Zeb had contacted him and asked him to come to dinner. Looking back, CJ now knew that was the beginning of the end. Zeb had found him and their other illegitimate half brother, Daniel, and like an older brother, Zeb had invited both of them to join him at the Beaumont Brewery as they took it back.
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