Cole's Christmas Wish

by Tracy Madison

  “That’s great to hear. Plenty of horseback riding to have here in Colorado. I still think, though—” Cole broke off and scratched his jaw “—I know! How about if we pick a day and hit the bunny slope, Andrew? We can go over the basics, get you up to speed, as it were.”

  “I can handle a bit more than the bunny slope,” Andrew replied in a dry manner. “And frankly, I’d rather have my girlfriend as my teacher. I think of it as one more way for us to grow closer. Which is, after all, an important aspect of this visit.”

  Cole glanced at Rachel and her frisson of alarm escalated. She knew that expression. It meant trouble with a capital T. Darn it all, what had he latched on to now? She reached toward him, intent on grabbing his arm to divert his attention, but he leaned away before she could get a proper hold. Her fingers skimmed against his skin and the mere touch sent a bolt of heady awareness through her body, startling her with its strength.

  “Wow, guys. I’m sorry to hear that. I mean,” he said with a slow, methodical beat, “if you need a vacation to grow closer, something must not be going well. Let me know if I can be of any help...anything at all, just say the word.”

  “Our relationship is fine,” Andrew snapped. “If there were problems, I wouldn’t assume a vacation could fix them.”

  “We’re absolutely fine!” Rachel said a good deal louder than necessary. Andrew’s declaration stung, though. She had, indeed, brought Andrew with her in the hopes the time away, the time together, would erase her reservations. “Just fine.”

  “Ah, hell. I didn’t mean to hit a sore spot.” Cole held his hands up, gesturing a truce. “Forget I said anything. I’m sure you guys are...fine. Just as you’ve both said.”

  Itchy with frustration and nerves, Rachel did the only thing she could think of: she changed the subject. Again. “How’s business at the store this year, Cole?”

  “Same as always during the winter months” was his quick, humor-ridden, reply. “Lots of folks in and out. Between rentals and new sales, classes, and private lessons, we’re doing well.”

  Andrew tightened his hold on Rachel’s shoulder. “That’s right. You work for your parents now. I hear you were quite the skier in your day, so I’d imagine the unexpected, even traumatic, change in careers could feel...stifling? Limiting, perhaps?”

  Whoa. Rachel pulled out of Andrew’s grasp, shocked by his words, his rudeness and his insinuation. He was never like this, never purposely hurtful to anyone. Jealous or not, uncomfortable or not, he’d gone too far.

  “You don’t understand how the Foster family functions, Andrew,” she said. “Cole and his siblings are an integral part of the family-owned businesses. They manage, work and own them together. Isn’t that right, Cole?”

  “That’s correct,” Cole answered, still appearing more amused than anything else. “But no, Andrew, there isn’t anything stifling about the arrangement. I’m grateful to my folks for what their hard work and commitment has provided me and my brothers and sister with.”

  After a lengthy pause, Andrew combed his fingers through his short hair and sighed. “My comment was uncalled for. I apologize.”

  “No harm done,” Cole said with ease. “My family is exceedingly close. Sometimes, a bit too close, but we are what we are and I wouldn’t want anything to change.”

  “That’s important,” Andrew said, his voice almost gruff. “My family...isn’t as close. You’re a lucky man.”

  In a heartbeat, Rachel forgave Andrew for his jab. Something had happened to put distance between him and his family. She didn’t know the details, but she knew he missed them.

  “I am lucky,” Cole agreed. “In many ways.”

  “I consider myself fortunate, as well, for finding Rachel.” Andrew exhaled a breath, and when he spoke again, she heard the man she’d been dating for the past few months instead of the stranger he’d become upon meeting Cole. “Are you seeing anyone special, Cole?”

  Every one of Rachel’s knotted muscles relaxed. The posturing was finally over, thank goodness and hallelujah. Maybe now, the two men would find some true common ground.

  She waited for Cole to answer Andrew’s question, but when he didn’t, she did for him, saying, “Nope. Cole isn’t dating anyone.”

  After all, Cole would’ve told her if he’d met someone. He always had in the past. And in truth, Cole rarely dated. It was something she used to tease him about, way back when.

  A prickle of apprehension appeared at the nape of her neck a millisecond before Cole said, “Actually, Rach...I’ve been meaning to tell you—” He paused, locked his vision with hers and thrummed his fingers against the table. The rat-a-tat-tat beat mimicked the pounding of her heart. “There is someone in my life. Someone special.”

  No way. She must have heard him wrong. “You’re seeing someone? Someone...special? Really?”

  One by one, each muscle in her body tensed again as she waited, as she tried to come to grips with the possibility that Cole was involved in a serious relationship. With someone special, someone important.

  Someone who wasn’t her.

  “Yes,” he said firmly, still looking directly, almost intensely, at her. “There is an important woman in my life. She might even be—no, she definitely is—the one for me.”

  “Okay.” Rachel swallowed and tried to push past the nausea that had crawled into her throat. Why did this bother her so much? They were friends. She’d accepted that and had moved on. She shouldn’t care. At all. “Well, that’s...great news! Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  Of course, she hadn’t mentioned Andrew until a week ago, so who was she to throw stones? Relationships were private. Cole was a private man. He had the right to keep anything to himself for as long as he chose. Solid logic, but his secrecy bugged her. A lot.

  Cole shrugged. “You’re hearing about her now, and—” Andrew’s cell phone buzzed, stopping Cole short.

  “I need to take this,” Andrew said after glancing at the display. He stood. “Excuse me for a minute.”

  She watched Andrew step away from the table. Refocusing on Cole, she said, “Go on. What’s her name? And what do you mean she’s the one for you? When...um, when did you meet her?”

  “None of that’s important right now.” Cole angled his body toward her, so they were eye to eye, and clasped Rachel’s hands in his. The heat of his touch didn’t come close to thawing her sudden chill. “I’m a goner, Rachel. I’ve fallen in love and there’s no looking back.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “What do you think?”

  Rachel stared into the eyes she knew so well. Eyes she’d seen filled with almost every emotion in the book. And now, she saw something intense and passionate lurking in the depths, along with a desperation that made her heart ache. In other words, she saw love.

  Every instinct she had wanted to deny what she saw, but she couldn’t. “I think I have to meet the woman who finally captured Cole Foster’s heart,” Rachel whispered in shock. “I never thought...never...” She blinked. “Well, isn’t this terrific? I’m so happy for you.”

  Leaning in closer, Cole plopped a friendly—brotherly—kiss on her cheek before easing away again. “You’re with Andrew and think he might be the one. I’ve fallen in love with someone I know is the one. I have a hunch,” he said with a wink, “that this Christmas will be very memorable.”

  “Right. Memorable.” That was one description.

  “You look a little pale, Rach. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Oh, yes!
I’m just...tired.” She gulped another large mouthful of coffee. “You know how traveling is.”

  “I do.”

  She tried to think of something, anything, to say to fill the gap, but couldn’t. Cole was in love. That was fine! Of course it was. She had Andrew, for crying out loud. “Um. Andrew should be back any minute,” she mumbled. “That was probably a business call.”

  “Business on vacation, huh? He must be dedicated.”

  “He is. He... I know he wasn’t on his best behavior at first,” she said, suddenly finding it very important to build up Andrew. For her sake or for Cole’s, she didn’t know. Even so. “But he really is a great guy.”

  “I’m sure he is,” Cole agreed.

  “Just...give him a chance before deciding you don’t like him. That’s all I ask.”

  “I can do that. He took me off guard with that Kyle crap, but it’s obvious he cares a lot about you. The fact he does, and makes no bones about it, goes a long way for me.”

  “So...are you saying you approve?”

  “You don’t need my approval, Rach,” Cole said quietly. “You know that, right?”

  Rachel shook her head, still trying to clear cobwebs. “Yeah. Of course I do.”

  Cole beamed a smile. “Just like I don’t need yours.”

  “Right. No approval necessary.” She sucked in a breath, taking the air in so deep it almost hurt. “But I’d like to meet your...girlfriend. I mean, if she’s going to be a part of your life...”

  “I’d like that, too. Unfortunately, Cupcake—that’s what I call her—is a little shy. Might take some time, convincing her to agree to an introduction.” Pausing, Cole closed his eyes as if thinking something through. “Maybe if it were just you at that first meeting, that would be okay. Less...intimidating than introducing her to you and Andrew at the same time.”

  “Sure,” she said without thought. Cupcake? He called her Cupcake? Cole didn’t do terms of endearment. Or he never had before. “Andrew can stay at the house.”

  “He won’t mind?” The concerned pretense from earlier returned. “Gee, I don’t know about that. I’d hate to cause problems while you’re trying to...repair your relationship.”

  “We’re fine, we’re not—” Screw it. Let him think what he wanted. Besides, he wasn’t wholly off base, even if Andrew hadn’t yet arrived at that realization. “That isn’t an issue.”

  “I’d also hate to upset him by taking up too much of your time,” Cole said in complete and utter sincerity. “From what I gathered, Andrew appears to have a jealous nature.”

  “Now that Andrew is aware you’re in love with another woman,” Rachel said, nearly choking on the admittance, on the reality of the situation, “I expect the jealousy to fade.”

  Cole hesitated, as if mulling over the idea. Finally, he nodded. “Well, then, I’ll set something up. Just try to keep your schedule open. Convincing my Cupcake to step out of her shell won’t be all that easy. And while she isn’t impatient, exactly, once she makes her mind up about something, she can be rather determined.”

  “What is she? Shy or bossy?” Rachel said the words that popped into her head, even though she probably shouldn’t have. “Because by your definition, she’s both, and honestly, I haven’t met very many people who fall into both categories.”

  “Let’s call her...complicated. That’s a good word to describe this particular woman.”

  “Complicated?” She snapped her mouth shut and silently counted to ten. Cole jumping through hoops to please some shy, determined, complicated woman didn’t sound encouraging. It was annoying. And the image, the very thought of it, rubbed Rachel in all the wrong ways. “I already don’t like this woman,” she muttered.

  “What’s that? I couldn’t quite hear you.”

  Gripping her coffee cup so hard that her knuckles ached, Rachel forced her mouth to move into a smile. “I said that I can’t wait to meet this woman.”

  “I knew you’d be excited for me.” Cole reached over to tug a lock of Rachel’s hair, just as she’d seen him do a thousand times to his sister, Haley. “Thank you for being such a wonderful friend.”

  “Forever friends,” she said, using their childhood phrase. As the words left her lips, the last bit of hope—hope she hadn’t known still existed until that second—fizzled out.

  Suddenly, she sort of wished she’d chosen Hawaii.

  * * *

  An hour later, Cole watched Andrew and Rachel leave the coffee shop, unsure of what, exactly, had propelled him to create a pretend girlfriend. The touching had irritated him, though he didn’t have the right to be irritated. Andrew’s posturing had, surprisingly, been more amusing than infuriating. Well, except for the comment about Cole’s career.

  Even so, he hadn’t reacted to the push—Rachel had done that for him—and Andrew’s apology had seemed sincere. At that point, the tension emanating from Andrew had lessened, and Cole saw a glimmer of the real man Rachel had brought with her to Steamboat Springs. And damn if he didn’t begin to like him...just a little.

  Cole certainly had no intention of making up a woman—a special woman, no less—when Andrew had then asked about his relationship status. But Rachel stepped in, answered in the negative, and that—yep, that was what had done it—had compelled Cole to lie. She’d been so sure, so damn positive in her response, that Cole had wanted to shake her up and prove that she didn’t know every microscopic detail about him or his life.

  The maneuver had worked, too. If Cole was a betting man, he’d have wagered cold, hard cash that she’d turned green with envy over his declaration.

  If she was in love with another man, why would she care if Cole was seeing someone? She wouldn’t. Or, he corrected, she shouldn’t. By the way her skin had paled a good two shades and her stunned expression, not to mention the wobbly state of her voice, Cole had to believe she did, indeed, care. He couldn’t deny his satisfaction over that.

  But he’d lied, and that bothered him. So now he had to decide what to do about the fabrication. Confess the truth or keep the pretense in play? Hell. Lying didn’t sit well with him, but Rachel’s reaction, especially her whispered statement, “I already don’t like this woman,” egged him on, teasing him with the possibilities of what both could mean.

  Cole stood, waved goodbye to Lola and headed out into the December night, thinking through those possibilities. What he’d said wasn’t a complete untruth: there was a special woman in his life. A woman he loved, a woman he saw himself quite capable of spending the rest of his days with, having children with, growing old with and every last thing that entailed.

  Rachel, of course.

  A plan, crystal clear in its clarity, formed in Cole’s mind. He could use his real feelings for Rachel, along with what she believed to be true, and enlist her help in wooing “the woman of his dreams.” If Rachel was jealous, if she did hold more than friendship for him in her heart, wouldn’t that be enough to propel her to act? Maybe.

  Or it could backfire. Send her scurrying even deeper into Andrew’s arms, into a future with him, and—like she’d done before—away from Cole. But hell, what did he have to lose?

  If he did nothing, he’d gain nothing.

  The snow still fell as he walked toward the sports store, where his truck was parked on the street out front, and a magical—dare he say, Christmassy—feeling wove in and wiped out his inner Grinch. He had to try. Had to see if he could resurrect the flame between them.

  And if he couldn’t? If Rachel loved And
rew, if he made her happy, then nothing Cole did would change that. But maybe, if luck was with him, the process would allow him to put the past to rest. So he could move on and get Rachel out of his head.

  Once and for all.

  Chapter Three

  Rachel finished loading the dishwasher with the breakfast dishes and faced Andrew, who had just returned to the kitchen after taking a phone call. “What do you want to do today? The snow’s falling a little too thick for skiing, but we could walk around the town, take in the sights, look for a tree...do some Christmas shopping. Whatever you want.”

  “I’m sorry, Rachel, but that was the office,” Andrew said, gesturing toward his cell. “There are some issues with a potential client that will likely require my attention.”

  “Oh.” Rachel fought off her disappointment. Andrew owned a management consulting firm, and she was already well-versed in the putting-plans-on-hold department. He was busy, traveled extensively and rarely made it through a meal, let alone an entire day, without an interruption. “Well, you warned me this would be a working vacation. Is it serious?”

  “Maybe. Too soon to tell yet, but we should probably—”

  “Stay in today,” Rachel finished his sentence for him. “That’s fine! We can dig out the Christmas decorations, so they’re ready to go when we find a tree, watch some old movies, play a board game.” An idea occurred to her. A nice, homey, tradition-filled idea. “Hey! Feel like baking some sugar cutouts?”

  “You’re amazing, do you know that?” Approaching her, Andrew dropped his phone on the counter and pulled her into a hug. “You’ve never given me grief over my job, over the demands placed on our relationship because of it. I appreciate that in you, Rachel.”

  “I’m glad you’ve noticed,” she joked, standing up on her tiptoes to brush her lips over his cheek. “Because sometimes, your job is a pain in the butt.”