by Jillian Hart
“Congratulations. I thought I recognized that smile. The look of a happy woman.”
“I notice you have that look, too.” Lori winked as she backed away. “I’ve got to get back to Wade. Bye.”
Jack. Katherine could feel his approach. She knew the way the air changed when he was near. The way her spirit turned toward him like the moon to the earth. The sight of him eclipsed all else.
His hand found hers and made her joy double. “Hi, beautiful. I see you’re popular.”
“Oh, that was Lori. Practically everyone from town seems to be here.”
“It’s supposed to rain up here by week’s end. That’ll be the end of skiing. I guess everyone’s here for one last day. Good news. I secured a fairly quiet table for two.”
“Romantic.”
“That’s the idea.” Jack guided her through the crowded lobby and into the dining room. On the other side of another fireplace wall was a dining room the same as the one they’d been in before, except the tables were set and ready for customers.
One table, beside the fireplace and facing the windows, held menus, a steeping pot of tea and water glasses. He pulled out the chair that had the best view for Katherine. She brushed past him, sweet floral and vanilla fragrance, and the memory of their kiss heartened him. She poured the tea, his cup first.
He pushed the sugar jar in her direction. “See how well this second date is going? I’m luckier on second dates. Usually there are fewer disasters.”
“Wow. This means no meteorites will suddenly burn through the roof and strike our table?”
“Nope. There won’t be a kitchen fire, an avalanche that wipes out the lodge, nothing on a personal level of disaster either. Like an old girlfriend walking into the dining room or someone I arrested accosting me while my back is turned. Those are all first-date disasters.”
“I’m glad we’re well past that. You never did finish telling me about the rest of your top worst. I suppose you just did?”
“Yep, but I’m all past that now. For good, I’m thinking.” He laid his hand over hers.
His loving touch could erase any hurt. Make her forget the past.
That’s when she saw the past walk into the dining room, in the wake of a busy, fast-walking waitress, and a pleasant-looking woman. Kevin, with his infant son in a baby carrier, tucked in beneath a blue blanket. Kevin, unaware of her yet, held the chair for his wife, much the same way Jack had held her chair moments ago. The woman smiled up at him adoringly as she settled into the chair. The moment Kevin set the little baby on the table, she checked on him. They were the picture of a perfect family.
I’m glad for him, she thought. Kevin wasn’t the right man for her, but seeing him now felt like a slap to the face. A wake-up call. A sign.
No, it isn’t a sign, she thought stubbornly. That was past. His rejection didn’t hurt anymore. But Jack’s would devastate her.
“Is something wrong?” Jack was studying her with concern. “You look as pale as a ghost.”
“I’m all right. You know how you mentioned an old girlfriend showing up? Well, I almost married that man.”
“Who, him?” Another waitress had bounded into the room, leading another couple to one of the tables.
“The other guy.” She watched Jack twist to study the small family at the other side of the dining room. Kevin’s back was to him, which was good. That meant he was looking in the opposite direction. “It’s okay, I was over it long ago.”
“He’s the one who changed his mind, right?” Jack turned back around.
The waitress hurrying toward them to take their order saved her from having to answer. She swallowed hard, trying to tuck her emotions inside. The happiness she felt dimmed a little, and she could feel her shadows and fears.
Don’t think about those, Katherine. She studied the menu and randomly picked something. Her pulse thudded in her head. Her palms were damp. She felt the shadows and fears deepen.
Jack isn’t like Kevin, she reminded herself while Jack ordered and handed over his menu. The waitress hurried off. Katherine had no idea what Jack had ordered.
“I’ve given some thought to what you said.”
She blinked. What had she said? Her mind was spinning. She couldn’t remember, couldn’t focus. There was Kevin in the background, sitting ramrod-straight, shoulders perfectly parallel to the floor, just like Jack. Every hair in place, just like Jack. Wearing a ski sweater and jeans ironed into wrinkle-free perfection. Just like Jack.
Jack took a swallow of tea. “I appreciate what you want to do for Hayden. I’ll leave it up to you. If you want to hire her, then offer her a job. See what she says.”
That surprised her. “That’s okay? I guess I thought—” She let the sentence drift and added more sugar to her tea.
“You thought when I said I wanted Hayden to work for free, that nothing would change my mind, right?”
“It did occur to me.”
“I get why you think that. I come on strong. It’s a fault, and I try not to, but it happens. Like the afternoon we first met. I come across as it’s my way or the highway, but I always listen to reason, eventually.” He leaned closer, intimately, his voice dipping low, full of promise. “I’ll always listen to you.”
He cradled her hand, as if he thought her the most treasured woman in the world. But it was the way he was looking at her that made both terror and joy rip through the core of her spirit, with admiration, with respect, with all-out adoring love. This is what she saw in his heart, the kind of affection he held for her. More than anything she’d ever known before.
It was also terrifying because she’d passed the fail-safe point in this relationship and there was no turning back. Her heart was wide open, her love for him soul-deep. He’d peeled back every layer of defense she had simply by being in love with her, and she was helpless. Defenseless. That was the only way to love someone, but love was a risk. It came with no guarantees.
How had it happened? She’d fallen so hard in love with him she felt a piece of her deepest self crack in fear. Danielle’s words kept burdening her, when they should have been reassuring. If this guy isn’t the kind of man to accept what happened to you, then he isn’t good enough for you.
The waitress arrived with their food, setting down her bowl of soup and his plate with a thick sandwich and a mountain of curly fries. Katherine bowed her head for the blessing, adding silently to Jack’s prayer, Lord, I put my trust in You, that You will help me. I need a sign. Give me a sign of whether I can trust him.
So much of her was at risk, she couldn’t hold down the terror. After the blessing, Jack withdrew his hand from hers and dug into his roast beef sandwich.
She could only stare at her steaming bowl of soup. There was a horrible sense of impending doom, like the finger of a tornado overhead, swirling and waiting, looking for the right moment to touch down.
You’ve given this to the Lord, remember, Katherine? She tried to relax. To stay calm. This was out of her hands. It was in God’s.
And in Jack’s.
“There’s Hayden,” he said, nodding toward the window.
Marin’s teenagers were awkwardly trudging sideways on their skis up on the slope, along the crest of the small incline and down, out of sight. Katherine forced her voice to sound normal. “By this time next year, she’ll be taking the advanced run by storm.”
“You know it. She’s also going to be happy again. And I owe it all you, Katherine.”
She froze, feeling the wind shadow from that tornado overhead, like the first sign that her dreams were about to shatter.
Jack kept on going, confident, and his adoration quadrupled. It was in his words, in his gaze, in his touch as he reached across the small table and caught hold of her hand, and in the very air surrounding them. “None of this would be happening if you hadn’t come into our lives. Hayden’s turning a corner, I think. I was able to forgive Heidi when I didn’t know I hadn’t. You showed me that by your example, Katherine.”
; “You give me far too much credit. Please, Jack, don’t—”
“You’re modest, too. You have been a stellar role model for Hayden. You are a prayer answered for me. You’re just…perfect.”
Perfect. There was the tornado touching down, right in the middle of her heart. Shredding any chance, every chance at a lasting love with Jack. Pain splintered through her. Perfect. Why had he chosen that word? “J-Jack, you have n-no idea.”
“I know that every hardship in the past few years, after losing Heidi nearly did me in. It’s been tough. I didn’t understand why at the time, but I see it now. I had to go through that to get to the other side. To be different, to be better. To be with someone as amazing as you.”
“N-no, Jack.” Stop him, she had to stop him, but she couldn’t seem to make her tongue form the words she had to say. She had to tell him. Right now. Before he went one step farther and started talking about how she’d make the perfect wife and mother of their children.
“No, I want you to hear this.” He was smiling, gazing down at her as if he thought her beyond compare, as perfect as he’d made her up to be.
As she’d let him believe because she hadn’t told him. But it was too late now, she saw, as he lifted her left hand and leaned forward just enough to press his lips to her ring finger. Did he pick that finger intentionally? Agony sheared through her, and she pulled her hand away, wadded up the napkin in her lap and shoved off from the table.
He’d stood too, his forehead furrowed with concern, surprise on his face, love in his eyes.
He didn’t understand. He would never understand. And she knew why, hearing his words, his voice, as fresh in her memory as when he’d said them over the phone after their first date. I have to do what’s best for my little girl, hands-down.
Of course he did. Absolutely. But how was she going to be able to tell him the truth, when he was gazing at her as if she was his answered prayer? She was certainly far from that, and she knew, no, she feared, that if she opened her mouth and the truth spilled out about that horrible time that had nearly broken her spirit forever, he might sympathize. Maybe he’d be fairly understanding about it. Maybe he wouldn’t be as harsh as Kevin had been in his rejection of her.
But it would come in a worse, more devastating way. His precious love for her would fade. The tenderness in his voice would vanish. And the way he looked at her—the way she treasured more than anything in her life—would wither away. She was scared that when he looked at her, he would see a woman not good enough to be a stepmother and influence on his teenage daughter. Someone he could not respect for a wife.
So, instead of his adoration, she would look into his warm, dark eyes and see disrespect. And imagining that cracked her into a thousand pieces, like the crater in the aftermath of a twister, nothing but scorched earth and devastation where life and hope used to be.
Tears blurred his handsome face, as she fought hard to find the right words to fix this. To salvage his regard for her.
But what? There were no words, no easy phrases, no way to lightly comment that not all first-date disasters were funny. That some were the exact opposite of what a date should be, with mutual respect and regard, with the hope for the first step to a great lasting love. That some were destructive and violent and cruel.
Maybe she’d simply walk away now because in the end, it would be the same. She would lose Jack eventually, as soon as he learned the truth. He wasn’t the man she was searching for. He wouldn’t understand. No matter how hard she’d prayed for him to be.
Why couldn’t she have seen this coming? She could have realized this sooner, she knew how important his daughter was to him. That was one of the reasons she loved him so greatly. But it was a love that could not be.
“I’m sorry, Jack. I—” Blindly, she grabbed her coat and her bag and took off, choking back her tears, holding down her sobs, willing down the pain. Leaving him confused behind her, then running after her, but she beat him to the parking lot. She slid behind the shadow of a minivan, blocking her from his sight.
But he followed her anyway, tracking her through the icy parking lot. “Katherine? Are you all right? What’s going on?”
Why did he have to be so caring? Didn’t he know what he was doing to her? Ripping her to pieces a second time? She turned to face him when she wanted to run. She found words when she didn’t know she had any left inside her. “I thought this was going to work, but it’s just…not.”
“I don’t understand.” He’d reared up like a startled bear looking around for the threat. “Is it that guy in the dining room? Did seeing him upset you?”
“No. This isn’t going to work.”
“We were in there having a meal and everything was fine. What happened? What upset you like this?”
Just tell him, Katherine. Tell him the truth. That’s what her heart was saying, but her mind—logically, she knew if she did, it would be a worse disaster than this.
She was minimizing the pain and the loss. That was the mistake she’d made with Kevin. She’d waited too long to tell him, trusting him when that trust had been misplaced. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. And not when the love she felt for Jack was so strong, she could feel the confusion roiling inside him, the protective anger and confusion and, greatest of all, his love for her.
She took a step back, shivering, as the first flakes of snow fell, drifting from heaven like purity and goodness, like a brush of grace she couldn’t let herself feel.
Jack swiped his hand to his forehead, as if he were trying to think, as if he were so upset it was an effort to stay calm and logical. “It was me. It was something I said. I was pushing you. I just have never…”
He shook his head, a big mountain of a man, looking helpless, open and vulnerable. All heart. “I’ve never felt this way before. So strongly before. So fast and one hundred percent. I just wanted to let you know what I think of you. That I’m committed. That I’m not like that lunkhead over there who changed his mind. I’m not that way. You know that, right?”
She was hurting him. That was the last thing she meant to do. She laid her hand on his, and the connection from her soul to his zinged through her like a rainbow across the sky. It wasn’t real. As beautiful as it was, it was only an illusion.
And that’s what this love between them had been. All it could ever be. She wanted Jack to be a man that he wasn’t, the same way he wanted her to be a perfect example of what was good and right for his daughter.
“Goodbye, Jack.” She held her chin high, determined to do this the right way. Dying inside, appearing calm on the outside took all her strength of will, but she did it. “I think you are an incredible man. I wish more than anything that this could have worked out. You deserve the woman you think I am.”
She backed away, watching as the sky opened up and snow fell in a veil between them. Like a sign from heaven separating them. Hadn’t she prayed for a sign? And God had answered that prayer.
This is for the best, she told herself as she hurried through the jam-packed lot. Car after car was empty and still, quickly blanketed by snow. No one was around, everyone was inside the lodge or skiing on the runs, and she felt the vast loneliness with every soundless footstep.
He never would have loved her anyway. Not enough.
She caught a blur of movement through the blur of the snowfall, at the edge of her vision. Jack, come after her? She wondered, turning instinctively toward him. But it was someone else heading toward the lodge. Jack was a faint shadow standing right where she’d left him, a perfect image with hands fisted, jaw set and powerful body braced as if ready to fight. Then he hung his head in defeat.
I’m so sorry, Jack. It was fear that drove her forward; loss that numbed her to her core. She was too cold inside to feel the icy needles of snow or wind on her face. She beeped her car door unlocked and dropped into the seat, finally alone, willing down tears. It never would have worked anyway, this is better, she told herself. There would only be more pain and hurt, more anger
and bitterness. She knew that for a fact.
Her cell phone chimed and she dug in her purse for it. Stabbed it off without even seeing who was calling. It didn’t matter. She didn’t care. She’d lost Mr. Right, her soul mate, Jack who made her feel whole, who made the pain in her past fade away like shadows at high noon.
I had wanted him to be the one. She rested her face in her hands and gave in to the heartache.
Chapter Sixteen
On his way back to the table, Jack kept going over their conversation in his mind, especially what Katherine had said. You deserve the woman you think I am.
What did that mean? And what had he said to make her run out on him like that? He’d come on strong, that was it. He sent a glare across the dining room at the man who’d changed his mind about marrying Katherine.
How did anyone change his mind about Katherine? Jack didn’t get it. Love wasn’t about deciding who to marry; it was a power that came from down deep, a binding affection that had little to do with logic and everything to do with heart. The strongest forces in life were that way. Faith. Honor. Commitment. Integrity. Love for family. The need to protect and take care of them.
“Oh, good, you came back.” The waitress hurried up to him. “I thought you’d run out on the bill. You’d be surprised how often that happens. Is there something I can do?”
“Box up the food for me.” Hayden would probably snack on it later. As for him, he’d lost his appetite.
Was it over, just like that? He dropped back into his chair. He didn’t know what to do. By the time he chased Katherine back to town, he’d have to turn right around and head up the mountain to pick up Hayden.
How could things do a complete one-eighty like that, just out of the blue? He remembered the look on her face, one of pure regret. Whole misery.
He looked over his shoulder. Katherine had had a clear view of her ex-fiancé and his wife and infant son all the while he’d been going on about how great she was and their future together.
On their second date. Maybe he’d pushed too hard. Maybe she was afraid of getting another proposal, and then having a man change his mind about her. That was not going to happen. He felt the dedication down to the underside of his soul. When God gave you a shot at a great blessing, a smart man didn’t accept it with his brain, but his heart.
