Part of the problem there was that he had no desire to give her a chance to push him any farther away.
The other part would be getting Rory to see past whatever it was holding her back from him to see their potential, too.
* * *
Rory had hoped for snow. For Tyler’s sake, because that was what he’d said he wanted for Christmas. But Christmas morning had dawned with a gray sky that promised little beyond more rain.
Until a week ago, every other time she’d asked him what he wanted Santa to bring, all he’d wanted was a big tree. The day after Erik had left, he’d told her he’d changed his mind. Since he already had the tree, what he wanted Santa to bring was Erik.
She’d explained that Erik would be with his parents for Christmas, so Santa wouldn’t be able to bring him. Though decidedly let down by that bit of news, he’d decided later that he wanted snow.
All he seemed to want as far as a gift was concerned were things beyond her power to give him.
Without any sort of hint for something that Santa could bring down the chimney, she, being Santa’s helper, had left him a mini kick scooter that he could ride between the counters in the store while she worked to get it ready. He’d been excited when he’d come downstairs a couple of hours ago to see it by the tree. He’d been tickled to see that Santa had eaten all but a few crumbs of the cookies they’d left out for him, and awed and delighted by the small tuft of faux-fur trim that appeared to have snagged on one of the fireplace stones when the jolly old guy had departed.
What had truly thrilled him, though, had been discovering the present from Erik among the others from her and her parents beneath the lit and glittering branches. It had been delivered yesterday with a note asking her to please put it under the tree for him to find Christmas morning. Except for the “Thanks” he’d scrawled at the bottom, that was all the note had said.
Tyler had declared the huge pop-up book about sailboats his “very favorite” and gone through every page with her while they sat on the sofa.
It had been only two days since Erik had left her standing in the kitchen feeling as if the world was falling out from under her all over again. Two long nights of missing him more than she’d thought humanly possible. The man was a rock. A truly decent guy. And while she suspected he was fiercely loyal to those he cared about, he held back from needing anyone himself—from needing her, anyway—in the way she now knew she needed him. It wasn’t about survival. She could survive on her own. It was about the need to share, and he had worked his way into her life and into her heart as if he was simply meant to be there.
That had only happened with one other man.
Too unsettled to stay still any longer, she left Tyler with his book and cleaned up the bright paper wrappings and ribbons from the carpet.
She had no idea how to repair the damage done to their relationship. He was her mentor. He’d become her confidant. His voice had been one of experience and his advice had been invaluable where other situations were concerned. She just didn’t know how to ask what she could possibly do to make things right between them when he was part of the problem, even though she’d picked up the phone a dozen times to try. He had no responsibility to her beyond the agreement he’d made with her benefactor, and now even that part of their relationship had been jeopardized.
The two-tone chime of a bell startled her from her painful thoughts. She’d only heard the chime ring twice before: the first morning she’d met Edie, when the woman had stopped by to welcome her to the neighborhood, and two days ago when Talia had brought the twins over to play. Erik had explained that the service bell was used for after-hours deliveries. A few of the locals obviously used it as a doorbell to save themselves from having to walk around back.
Thinking it might be one of the neighbors she and Tyler had delivered Christmas cookies to yesterday, she headed through the store and opened its front door.
No one was there.
Stepping out, the cold breeze tugging at her hair, her glance caught on a small package on the weathered plank boards.
The little gold box was tied with a red bow.
Now conscious of the dark truck in the parking lot, her heart beating a little too fast, she picked it up.
The neat print on the back of the gold tag read “I want you to find it again.”
She knew exactly what it was. It meant the inexplicable feeling of magic she’d told Erik she’d once known every Christmas. The feeling of everything being right in her world. He knew it was the feeling she’d wanted her son to know and something she’d given up hope of ever experiencing again herself.
Yet that sense was what she felt now as she lifted the lid on the box to find a glittery little life preserver on a thin gold cord.
She had the feeling he was only letting her know he’d help her stay afloat with the business. And that was huge. But the way he’d done it had her closing the box and holding it with both hands to her heart.
It was only then that she looked to where Erik unfolded his arms and stepped away from his driver’s side door.
Gravel crunched beneath his hiking boots as he moved past the bits of storm debris still strewn over the wet grass. Dark plaid flannel hung open over a navy Henley shirt, his broad shoulders looking impossibly wide as he climbed the steps and stopped in front of her.
He hadn’t been at all sure what to expect when he’d left the box for her. He’d just wanted her to discover it the way she had the others she’d told him about. They seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, she’d said, so that sense was part of what he’d wanted to give her, even if only for a moment.
He knew he could have just left it for her. But that would have defeated another part of his purpose. He’d needed to see her reaction to his gift so he’d have some idea of what to do next. It was so unlike him not to have a clear plan, but he felt much as he suspected he would setting sail without a compass or preparation. He wasn’t totally sure how to get where he wanted to go, or if the waters he’d face would be calm, rough or totally unpredictable.
Encouraged by the way she held his gift, he quietly said, “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” she echoed, still clutching the little ornament. Caution merged with disbelief. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in San Diego.”
“I was. I spent Christmas Eve with my family and caught the first flight out this morning. I don’t want to keep you from Tyler. I just wanted you to have that.”
Rory watched him nod toward her clutched hands. She could have hugged him for his gift. The reserve carved in his expression held her right where she stood.
Considering the bated relief she felt at his presence, her “Thank you” seemed terribly inadequate. “Do you want to come in? Tyler loves his—”
Erik was already shaking his head. “There’s one other thing.” More than one, actually, but he wanted them alone right now. “The other day, you said you didn’t want to set yourself up to lose something you don’t even have. You said it would be a mistake for you to count on me. I understand the need to protect yourself,” he insisted. He’d mastered that one in spades himself. “And I get the reasons you don’t want Tyler to start believing I’ll be around for him. But I’m not all those other people who’ve let you down, Rory.
“You seem so certain the only way you can create stability for yourself is to keep anyone who could rock your boat at arm’s length. But you’ve rocked mine, too. You already have me,” he admitted. “I figure the least we owe each other is a little time to reconsider our positions before we totally blow something that could have a lot of potential.”
She looked at him warily, a betraying glint of a smile in her eyes. “You think we have potential?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
She’d rocked his boat. The thought made relief harder to suppress. His admission
that she already had him made it nearly impossible.
She took a step closer. “If I let myself count on you,” she began, already wanting that more than he could possibly know, “what are you offering to reconsider?”
“Are we negotiating?”
“Apparently,” she replied, holding his gift even tighter.
She couldn’t begin to identify what she felt as the tension left his handsome features. Reprieve, for certain. But something that felt suspiciously like hope had risen right behind it. He didn’t want them to close any doors.
Lifting his hand toward her, he curved it to the side of her face.
“In that case,” he said, more relieved than he could have imagined when she tipped her cheek toward his palm, “you should know I’ve already considered how much my hang-ups were getting in the way of possibilities where we were concerned. I’ve spent years thinking I just wanted to be away from here. But once I moved past thinking about what I’d wanted and considered what I might need, I realized that what I needed was another chance with you.
“You made me realize how much I still want a family. And a home here. It’s not just the place,” he assured her. It was how she made it feel. Comfortable. Familiar. As if he belonged there. “It’s you. And Tyler.”
He knew he already had a good life. Until he’d met her, he’d just refused to let it matter that he didn’t have anyone to share it with. He’d work or play late so that he was too tired to care that he had no one to come home to who actually cared that he’d had a great day or a bad one, or whom he could care about in return.
“We’re good together. If we want to make this work between us, we can. I’m in love with you,” he confessed, finally acknowledging what he’d denied to his partner well over a week ago. Pax had somehow known that she was the woman he’d been waiting for, though he hadn’t realized he’d been waiting for her at all. “All I’m asking is if you’re willing to try.”
Rory knew his walls had existed far longer than hers. Yet he’d just put his heart on the line for her. Her own heart feeling full enough to burst, she went up on tiptoe, curved her arms around his neck and hugged him hard.
Folding her to his chest, his hold just as tight, he chuckled against the top of her head. “That’s a yes, then?”
“Absolutely.”
“Are you okay?”
She nodded against his shoulder. “I’m falling in love with you, too, Erik. I think that’s what scared me. I knew the day we met that it could happen, but I wasn’t ready for it. It happened so fast.”
Drawing a deep breath, she lowered herself to her heels and let her hands slide to his chest. Still holding the little box, she met his eyes. “I think I panicked,” she explained.
He brushed back the hair the breeze fluttered across her cheek.
“I know you did.” She’d been no more prepared than he’d been to put a name or label on what had seemed to be growing more complicated by the moment. A little apprehension on her part hadn’t been surprising at all. He hadn’t dealt with it all that fearlessly himself. “We’ll take it slow now. Okay? No pressure. No rush. We’ll just take our time and stay open to possibilities.”
“Possibilities,” Rory repeated. “That’s what Phil told me I should look for here.” She’d only been thinking about the property, though. As Erik smiled into her eyes and drew his hand to the back of her neck, Rory remembered that the woman had also warned her to keep an open mind about him.
“She told me that, too,” he told her, and lowered his mouth to hers before she could say another word.
There was relief in his kiss as he pulled her closer, and promise, hunger, possessiveness and need. It was the need she felt most. His, definitely, but her own, too, in the long moments before he lifted his head and eased back far enough to release her hands from where they’d been trapped against his chest.
“What?” he asked, seeing the question in her flushed features.
She looked at the little gold box, lifted off its lid. Suddenly she felt certain the little life preserver didn’t represent what she’d thought.
Erik’s voice was quiet. “You said there was a time when you could always count on something like that being there for you Christmas morning.”
Her smile came easily at the reminder. “I thought this had something to do with the store. Something about keeping it afloat. But it’s a lifeline, isn’t it?”
“It is,” he murmured, touching his lips to her forehead. “I’m just not sure which one of us I thought needed rescuing.”
“Erik!”
In a flash of maroon fleece and gray denim, Tyler bolted through the door onto the porch.
“Hey, buddy!”
“You’re here!”
“I’m here,” Erik agreed, and pulled him between them for a hug.
It was then that Rory felt what Erik had wanted her to glimpse again.
At that moment, all felt truly, completely and utterly right in their little world. That was the magic, and it was the most wonderful gift of all.
As they headed in from the cold, it started to snow.
Epilogue
“Why are we waiting in here, Erik?” Confusion shadowed Rory’s smile. “We’ve said hi to Phil and Cornelia,” she pointed out, their purpose at the FGI office accomplished. Or so she’d assumed.
“We’ll go in a couple of minutes. This is just some of that year-end stuff I need to take care of.”
He’d been busy with work off and on for the past week. That afternoon, though, he was going to show her and Tyler where he built boats.
As if anxious to get business behind him, he tugged her closer to where he stood by a gold filigree chair. “Do you want to spend tomorrow night on my houseboat? Tyler might get a kick out of the fireworks.”
Tomorrow was New Year’s Eve. “He’d love that. I’d love it,” she stressed.
She hadn’t seen his place yet, though he had warned her it was small. By land-standards, anyway.
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Looking more preoccupied than impatient, he glanced to the open door of the room the elegant older woman presently used as her private office. The space off the lovely conference room wasn’t much bigger than a closet, but it apparently served her purpose until the major construction behind the sheets of heavy plastic in the entryway would be completed.
Beyond them, Phil and a petite, honey-gold blonde sat beneath the crystal chandelier at the mahogany table. On its surface, hundreds of letters from the mailbags mounded by the delicate French writing desk teetered in stacks. Others had been sorted into piles as the women carefully read each one.
Cornelia had introduced the pretty woman with Phil as Shea Weatherby. She was the reporter who’d written the article that had resulted in the continuing deluge of mail from prospective Cinderellas, or “Cindies,” as Rory had just learned her fairy godmothers called the ladies they sponsored. She’d also just learned she’d been their second success.
As focused as Shea appeared to be on her reading, she seemed even more intent on ignoring Pax. Erik’s business partner had come over with them after Erik had showed her and Tyler around their client office next door. Pax had used the excuse of needing a decent cup of coffee, something he apparently mooched off the women with some regularity. Yet it was as obvious as the charmingly devilish smile that clearly wasn’t working on Shea that she was the reason he was hanging around with Tyler by the pretty little Christmas tree, checking out the boats beyond the window.
“Do you mind if I ask what we’re waiting for?” Rory ventured.
“Not at all,” came Erik’s easy reply. “I just need to give Cornelia a check and pick up a deed from her. I
’m paying off the mortgage on your property so you can stop worrying about it.”
He was paying off her mortgage? “I never said I was worried.”
The look he gave her said she couldn’t possibly be serious. “Honey.” Brushing back her bangs, he planted a kiss on the furrows between her eyes. “You’ve never had to tell me when you were concerned about something. I can see it. This way, the pressure’s off.”
“You’re giving me the place?”
“Consider it a pre-engagement present.”
She opened her mouth, closed it again.
“Pre-engagement?” she finally asked.
“Yeah. You know. It comes before an official engagement. If you want, I can hold off titling it to you until then. Either way, the property is yours to do with as you please.”
He’d figured they could eventually live together there or he could have a bigger house built back by the woods. Whichever she wanted. With the boatworks here, he’d commute by plane most of the time. If she decided to sell or lease the place, that was her call, too. He just wanted them together. But he’d already gotten way ahead of where he figured she mentally was with their relationship.
Seeing that he’d left her a little speechless, he figured it best to change the subject. He’d told her they wouldn’t rush. That they could take their time.
“Hey. Ignore me. I was just in business mode,” he explained. “I hadn’t intended to bring that part up until you got used to me being around.” He hitched his head toward the open door. “I’m going to see what’s holding up Cornelia.”
He gave her a kiss, quick and hard, and turned away.
Catching his arm, she turned him right back. “I’m getting used to you,” she assured him. “How long an engagement are you talking about?”
Her Holiday Prince Charming Page 20
