by Lisa Plumley
“That doesn’t mean it was about you. Maybe it was about her. Maybe she just couldn’t listen right then. Maybe you won’t ever know why, either.” Mr. Moosby picked up his second beer. He could nurse them like the unlikely championship penny-pincher he’d always been. “That doesn’t mean she never will.”
“She never will,” Jason said morosely. He didn’t dare hope.
“She never will if you never try again. Shirker.”
“What did you just call me?”
“You heard me.” Blithely, Mr. Moosby adjusted his earmuffs. Then he added, “Do you know why our partnership worked?”
“Because you’re so damn nurturing? Like today?”
Mr. Moosby ignored his sarcasm. “Nope.”
More seriously, Jason guessed, “Because you needed me for my toy-making. And my ability to schmooze. And my incredible—”
“Hold on, Big Head.” Mr. Moosby held up his hand. “Geez, have you’ve been hanging around with a bunch of suck-ups, or what?” Incredulously, he shook his head. “I needed you for those things, sure,” he agreed heartily. “But I also needed you because you had something I didn’t. Something that kept me from expanding my toy store for all those years before your petty thievery made me think about taking on a new broom jockey.”
Jason harrumphed. “Broom jockey. That’s what that asshole should call that unauthorized biography of me.”
At his mention of that, Mr. Moosby . . . smirked? What the . . . ?
“Hmm. Okay, we’ll get to that in a minute,” he promised enigmatically. Then, “What you had—and I didn’t—was the ability to roll the dice. To take chances. To wipe out big, if it came to that.” Mr. Moosby pantomimed what Jason could only assume was an epic surfing wipeout. “Back then, you had nothing to lose. But I did. While everyone else was protecting what they already had, you were just grabbing for more with both hands.”
Jason frowned. “Hey, something beats nothing any day.”
“Exactly.” Mr. Moosby looked pleased. “It sure does. And against all common sense, you made me a believer back then.” He spread his sweater-covered arms. “Look at us now.”
Oh hell. Belatedly, Jason recognized the moral to this story. “If you think Danielle will forgive me because she’s impressed by my insane naïveté, it’s long gone now. For good.”
“Is it?” Mr. Moosby pushed. “Because as far as I can tell, you’re still a damn rookie when it comes to being in love.”
He was right. Ridiculously and embarrassingly . . . he was right.
Jason bit back a swearword. “This is making me feel worse.”
“It’s making my hemorrhoids act up. These bar stools . . . ugh.”
“Sorry.” Stifling a grin at Mr. Moosby’s aggrieved tone, Jason made a move to get up. “There’s no point going on about this anymore anyway. It’s over. She told me to leave town.”
Mr. Moosby snorted. “You could already have driven to Grand Rapids and hopped a plane back home by now, and we both know it. You could have hired a private jet, called in a helicopter, or hired a car to take you. You didn’t do that, though, did you?”
No. He hadn’t been able to bear the thought of quitting.
Especially of quitting on Danielle.
But Jason was finished baring his soul. And Mr. Moosby was going to need medical intervention if they kept on gabbing. So he—firmly—changed the subject. “That biography—do you know something about that?” he asked. “I shut it down once, but—”
“Yeah, you did, you punk. I had to do some pretty fast talking to get the deal in the works again.” Mr. Moosby grinned, then took a mouse-sized sip of beer. “Can’t even let me enjoy my damn retirement, can you? You just had to get a hand in.”
“Huh?” Totally confused, Jason stared at him. “I what?”
His mentor sighed. “That ‘unauthorized biography,’” Mr. Moosby informed him while making air quotes like one of his grandkids, “is about me, you moron.” He rolled his eyes. “When my publisher leaked to the press that it was about Moosby’s ‘infamous’ cofounder, everyone assumed it was about you.”
“It was about me.” Jason shook his head. “Wasn’t it?”
He’d been threatened with the specter of that book so often by the board that it seemed inconceivable it wasn’t about him.
“The hell it was! It’s about me!” Mr. Moosby pounded his chest. “Me! Do you think nothing interesting ever happened to me, just because I’m old? I have stories that’ll set your hair on fire! I happen to be a pretty good writer, too.”
Flabbergasted, Jason stared at him. “But it’s an unauthorized biography,” he reminded Mr. Moosby. “That means it’s not approved by the subject. Or written by the subject, for that matter. So if you’re the subject . . .”
“I’m a savvy marketer, that’s what I am.” Mr. Moosby nodded at another passing hotel staffer. Had he met everyone? “It’s common knowledge that unauthorized biographies sell better.”
“So you pretended that’s what yours was. Unauthorized. You old dog.” Jason laughed, shaking his head. “That move alone makes me wonder if you’re right about those hair-raising stories of yours.”
“I am right. I wasn’t born white-haired and doddering, you know. I had a life before you came along, and I’ll have a life after you’re gone, too.” Mr. Moosby gave Jason a straight look. “I had to do something. Retirement was making me nuts. Bessie was worried. She’s the one who got me a laptop to write on.”
Jason frowned. “I’m sorry you had to leave Moosby’s.”
Mr. Moosby waved off his concern. “I’m not. I don’t mind being rich, that’s for sure! That’s because of you. I knew the deal going in—trade off some control for a big payday. I know the stores have my name on them, but they’re not me. They’re just a part of me. A big part. But not the whole enchilada.”
Suddenly, Jason couldn’t help wondering what Mr. Moosby’s “whole enchilada” would entail. He’d thought he knew his mentor inside and out. It turned out he didn’t. Not entirely.
“They’re not you, either,” Mr. Moosby informed him.
“Not anymore, they’re not. I quit, remember?”
“Yeah. About that . . .” Mr. Moosby’s gaze sharpened. “You don’t seem too broken up about not going back to Moosby’s corporate.”
“If I could,” Jason admitted, “I’d work in one of the local toy stores someplace. I’d forgotten how much I liked it—talking with people, demoing toys for kids . . . getting ideas for new toys.”
Mr. Moosby patted his duffel bag. “These are winners.”
Jason slumped his shoulders. “Nobody’ll ever know that. Not now. Anyway, they weren’t supposed to be winners. Just gifts.”
Gifts for Karlie, Aiden, and Zach, to be precise.
“You know,” Jason mused as he lifted his beer bottle again, “I’d actually begun thinking I could make a difference in this town. There’s a factory that’s closing here. Lots of workers got laid off.” He gave a rueful headshake. “I’d actually started thinking I could buy that factory. I could hire those workers.”
“If you did, Chip and the board would shit a brick.”
At that typically blunt remark, Jason grinned.
“If they thought you were buying a factory?” Mr. Moosby pressed. “A factory for our mysterious new venture?”
Their combined gazes fell on his duffel bag.
“Nah.” Jason shook his head. “You’re the production guy.”
“And you’re the creative guy. This could work.”
“I don’t care about work anymore. What we talked about before, getting even with the board of directors, it’s—”
“Petty? Small-minded?” Mr. Moosby chortled. “Mean?”
“—just talk,” Jason acknowledged. He took another swig of beer. “I’m mad, yeah. But I don’t want to be that guy. That guy who can’t move on. That guy who lives on revenge.” He gazed across the bar, considering it. “If I do that, they win.”
“From what you’v
e told me,” Mr. Moosby mused, “that guy would definitely never get a smarty-pants hottie like Danielle.”
And that was the crux of it, Jason realized. Wasn’t it?
He wasn’t trying to get Danielle to listen to him. Or let him explain. Or do any of the rest of the bullshit he’d been telling himself all this time. What he wanted her to do—what he wanted everyone to do, but especially her—was respect him.
Appreciate him. Admire him. Assure him that, despite his tough beginnings and his willingness to bend the rules, he wasn’t the same scrawny, defiant, vulnerable kid he’d once been.
Wasn’t that what he’d been afraid of, all along? That he didn’t deserve his success? That he might lose it at any second?
Now he had lost part of it. And he was still standing.
In fact, losing Danielle had hurt him far more.
“Or would he?” Mr. Moosby went on. “I mean, you said Chip has proof of Danielle’s inventory manipulation. You thought it was damaging enough to make you quit to keep it from being exposed. So . . .” His mentor raised his eyebrows. “Maybe you’re making this woman out to be a lot nicer than she really is.”
“She’s nice,” Jason insisted heatedly, “and more.”
“All right, all right.” Mr. Moosby held up his hands—and offered a brash grin, too. “Don’t get your Jockeys in a bunch.”
But his friend did have a point, Jason realized reluctantly. He was the one who’d thought Danielle was judging him. He was the one who’d bristled at her suggestions that he kowtow to the board, apologize to the public, and make nice with his critics.
Maybe, Jason thought in retrospect, Danielle hadn’t been judging him. Maybe she’d simply been applying the only principles she had: her own. She would have worked harder to satisfy Chip and the board. She would have said she was sorry, as many times as necessary. She would have defused every criticism by working harder, faster, better, and longer.
She was the one, he realized too late, who’d thought her promotion was hanging on Jason taking all those same steps. She was the one who’d wanted, so desperately, to give her kids what she thought would be a better life in L.A. Knowing Danielle as he did now, Jason couldn’t fault her for that.
She would have done anything for Aiden, Karlie, and Zach.
Even pretend all the B&Bs were full to keep her famous CEO boss nearby while she schmoozed him . . . right into falling for her.
That part, he figured, had probably been an accident. And once Danielle had realized things were turning real between them . . . well, she could have explained what she’d done. But she hadn’t. Just as he hadn’t explained about #sleighride.
“If Danielle is so nice,” Mr. Moosby said, “you probably shouldn’t be wasting time getting drunk with an old man.”
“You’re not so old.”
“And you’re not so smart, if you can’t figure out by now that you shouldn’t be sitting on your ass right now.”
Jason took offense at that. “What am I supposed to do?”
Mr. Moosby gave him a long look. “Trust her,” he said.
Trust her. That was it?
That was it, he realized an instant later. He’d trusted Danielle not to have committed the inventory fraud Chip had accused her of—at least not without good reason. Would it really be so impossible for him to trust that she might stick by him?
Even if she hadn’t done that the first chance she’d had?
“If you want Danielle to give you the benefit of the doubt,” Mr. Moosby said as he studied his beer, “you’re going to have to do the same for her. You might even have to go first.”
Everything in Jason rebelled at that. “That’s not fair.”
“You want fair? Or you want love?”
Jason looked away. Crabbily, he grumbled.
“You want another chance? Or you want regrets?”
Even less articulately, Jason grumbled some more.
“You want to man up?” Mr. Moosby persisted. “Or you want—”
“I want her,” Jason said, as clearly and as loudly as he could. Maybe that would shut up his mentor. “Okay? I want her.”
“Then go get her, champ. I know you can do it.”
Mr. Moosby’s warmhearted look assured him it was true.
Jason had always believed in Mr. Moosby. He did in that moment, too. A weird sense of relief engulfed him. “You know,” he said gruffly, “you were supposed to mail those prototypes.”
But Mr. Moosby could read him. As always. “You’re welcome.”
“You were supposed to enjoy your golden years.”
“Watching you fall ass over teakettle in love with a small-town mom is pretty damn entertaining.” Mr. Moosby saluted him with his beer. “I knew this would happen eventually.”
“You knew I’d fall in love with a small-town mom?”
“I’m not going to admit otherwise, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” Mr. Moosby drew himself up, exuding his usual air of joie de vivre. “How many kids are there?”
“Three. Two boys and a girl. Six, eight, and ten.”
Mr. Moosby chortled again. “Ha! Are you ever in for it.”
But, all at once, Jason felt ready for that.
If he had Danielle by his side, he felt ready for anything.
“I’ll know where to go to get good advice,” he said.
A headshake. “To Bessie, that’s where,” Mr. Moosby guessed.
“To you,” Jason assured him. “You can count on it.”
For a moment, they were both silent amid the bar’s twinkling Christmas lights and low-playing holiday music. Then . . .
“You know,” Mr. Moosby mused, ignoring the sentimentality in Jason’s assurance, “you can’t ‘go get her’ when you’ve been drinking this heavily. You might do something stupid.”
“I’ve already done something stupid.” I walked away.
“Something stupider.”
“That would be a stretch.”
“All the same,” Mr. Moosby advised, “you’d better sober up first. A plan of action wouldn’t go awry, either, hotshot.”
“I’m already on it,” Jason assured Mr. Moosby—who, as usual, was undeniably right about everything.
Then Jason set aside his beer, got busy making a plan that would make up for all he’d done, and then got busy making sure that Danielle—the woman of his dreams and the keeper of his heart—couldn’t possibly resist him when he implemented it.
Chapter Twenty-One
The day after her breakup with Jason, Danielle called in sick at work. Most of her employees boggled at her absence—because she’d never taken a sick day for herself, only to take care of her children—but Gigi and Henry understood.
“Take all the time you need, g-friend,” Gigi said.
“We’ll handle everything here,” Henry promised.
Chip Larsen, on the other hand, was notably less understanding about not being able to reach Danielle. He had called six times and left an equal number of (probably irate) voice mails. Danielle hadn’t listened to a single one.
“Whatcha doing, Mommy?” Aiden wandered into the living room where she’d been curled up on the sofa beneath a knitted throw with a notepad and pen in hand. “It’s kinda late to write a letter to Santa. I don’t think he’s going to get it in time.”
If he had gotten it, Danielle knew, her letter would have included only one item: please give me Jason for Christmas.
Okay, and maybe one more: and a new job. Thanks a million.
But Christmas was only days away. Miracles took longer than that, she knew. Even if Santa was in charge of them.
“I’m writing a letter of resignation.” She’d decided not to accept the executive position Chip had offered. She wanted to be able to look at herself in the mirror every day. Doing whatever devious, “ambitious” things Chip would ask her to do would make that impossible. “I decided not to take that job in L.A. I told you about.”
“Oh. Okay.” Blithely, her son nodded. She glanced up as
he held out his hands to her. “Will you help me with my mittens?”
At a glance, Danielle deciphered the problem. As usual, Aiden had gotten his mittens—which were on strings to avoid losing them—mushed up inside his coat sleeves. Smiling, she gestured for him to come closer. She wiggled out one mitten.
“It’s pretty nice out.” Danielle double-checked his snow pants and boots. She gave his knit hat a yank to position it more securely on his head, then flipped up his hood and tied it in place, too. “Are you and Zach going outside to play?”
“Not Zach. Just me.” Her little boy held out his arms, letting her pull down his coat, too. Aiden held still while she arranged his scarf, muffler-style, over his nose and mouth.
“All right. There you go.” Danielle glanced at the clock. It was early afternoon. There were a few hours of daylight left. “Stay in the yard, okay? I’ll check on you in a bit.”
“Okay! Later, Mommy!” Aiden put out his arms, starting zooming, then sped to the front door like an airplane.
An instant later, the door slammed. He was outside.
Shivering at the blast of frigid air her son’s departure had let inside, Danielle snuggled more deeply beneath her throw.
If Jason had been there, she couldn’t help thinking, she would have been as warm as toast. She would have been laughing. She would have been flirting. She would have been apologizing, too. She was sorry they’d ended things the way they had.
But when she’d returned home yesterday, there’d been no sign of Jason—no sign he’d ever been there, in fact. He’d cleared out his belongings so thoroughly it was as if she’d dreamed him. Except, Danielle imagined, she could still catch a whiff of him, now and then, on the knitted throw she’d chosen.
Remembering that, she resisted an urge to inhale. Deeply.
She could have tried to track down Jason. She could have swallowed her pride and asked around town. Because someone would have seen Jason leave. Someone would have given him directions, sold him a ticket, or noticed him driving away.
But Danielle hadn’t done that. She hadn’t been able to.
She was still embarrassed. Still heartsick. Still stuck.
She wanted to step off the sidelines and skate. But without any assurances of success—without a plan or to-do list or rule book—Danielle wasn’t sure how to begin. Her life wasn’t a movie. She couldn’t race dramatically to the airport to stop her beloved from leaving town. For one thing, the TSA wouldn’t have let her inside the terminal gates without a valid ticket—which she couldn’t afford. For another, she had children to care for. She couldn’t just pick up and start making sweeping romantic gestures with three elementary-school-age youngsters in tow.
