“Kat?” Yvette prompted.
Kat looked up from her disheveled salad to see them both watching her. Waiting.
Dang it, they weren’t going to let up until she answered.
Did she like him?
Her heart constricted instantly, like it had just been waiting for her to ask. Her brain, meanwhile, froze up. Images of Bryce bombarded her—Bryce at the lodge making her laugh; Bryce in her office making her furious; Bryce in the back of a cab reaching for her hand on their way home.
Her heart clenched painfully. Achingly. Longingly. She’d moved a hand to grip her chest without even realizing it.
Her brain had plenty of images to throw at her but she couldn’t seem to come up with one reasonable thought. It was all images and feelings.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled. And she didn’t. She logically did not know how she felt about him.
“Yes, you do,” Yvette insisted. “You know—you just don’t want to admit it.”
Kat drew in a deep breath. Maybe Bryce was right. Maybe her friends were right. Maybe this was one of those times where her brain didn’t have the answer and she had to listen to her heart. Or her gut. Or her instincts.
Whatever.
It all sounded like hocus pocus when Bryce had said it earlier and it still sounded that way now.
Caleb reached out a hand and gripped her shoulder. “Kat, what do you want? Right now. Don’t overthink it, just say it. What do you want?”
“Bryce.” His name came out on a whisper, but they’d all heard it.
The silence that followed felt epic, monumental. Like the world had shifted and everything had fallen into place.
She wanted to be with Bryce. She wanted Bryce. Bryce was who she wanted, he was what she wanted, he was the future she wanted.
She couldn’t stop reformulating the thought, parsing it, rephrasing it, trying out new ways of expressing it.
Because holy cow, it felt so good. Admitting it to herself lifted the weight that had been crushing her all morning. Heck, it lifted a weight she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying around for weeks. Ever since she’d left the lodge she’d had the feeling that something was missing. That someone was missing. Like she’d gone into the lodge one person and come out another—one who needed someone. One who wanted someone.
And she could have him. He’d made that clear. Her mind and her heart were racing with possibilities. The future seemed to open up before her as she tossed aside her old plans.
Those plans were screwed anyway. She was now jobless… and she had a boyfriend. Several years too early, but what did that matter? Her plans were garbage.
Well, they’d done well for her while they lasted, but now it was time to revise and re-plan.
That brought on a whole new wave of excitement. She freakin’ loved to plan.
And now she had a clean slate. A new future. She could make a whole new plan…with Bryce.
Holy crap. She’d never even considered making a plan with someone else before. Was that what it meant to be in a relationship?
Her mind was officially blown.
“Can I get another coffee over here?” Yvette’s voice rang out next to her, startling her out of her moment of silent wonder.
Clearly she was the only one so struck by the revelation.
Caleb had gone back to eating his burger. When he caught her staring, he talked around his mouthful of food. “What are you waiting for? Go tell him.”
Yvette was texting someone on her phone as she drained the last of her mug.
Apparently, this intervention was over.
Logic and reason might have had no place in deciding that she wanted to be with Bryce, but they were critical in figuring out where he was staying.
Her brain finally whipped back into action now that it had a task it was suited for.
She’d never thought to ask him where he was staying, and calling every high-end hotel in the city would take forever. Also, they probably wouldn’t even tell her if he was staying there on the off chance that the hysterical woman on the other end of the line was some kind of psycho stalker.
And there was no doubt that she would sound hysterical, because she was hysterical. Her excitement had reached critical levels. She’d figured out she wanted to be with Bryce, but she had to tell him.
Right. This. Minute.
It was imperative that he know. And that he reciprocate. Which she supposed he already had since he’d told her he loved her.
He loves me.
She stood on the middle of the sidewalk outside the restaurant, staring at nothing in dazed delight. Joy, unfiltered and undiluted joy, coursed through her as she allowed his words to replay.
All the happiness she hadn’t let herself experience in the moment were there now, suffocating her in the very best possible way.
She would happily drown in love.
But that couldn’t happen until she told him she felt the same. The urgency behind that need was almost frightening. She had to see him now. He had to know right this second.
Because she’d caught the hurt in his eyes before he left. The desolation and the heartbreak as she kicked him out of her home.
Bryce. The man who made her happier than she’d ever known she could be.
She stared down at her phone in horror. She didn’t even have a phone number for him. The guy who loved her. And how on earth was she supposed to get anyone to give her his personal phone number on a Saturday?
She started scrolling through her contacts. She had personal cell numbers for quite a few of her colleagues—former colleagues, rather. Kennedy’s name popped up and Kat let out a little squeal of excitement.
Kennedy could get her the information she needed.
It would be unethical and she’d probably say no, but at least she had an in.
Twenty minutes later, she was still on the sidewalk, waving goodbye to her friends as she continued to plead her case on the phone with an insanely inflexible Kennedy. “But you don’t understand,” she whined for the millionth time. “I love him. I have to tell him that I love him.”
“Are you drunk?” Kennedy asked for the billionth time. “I can think of no other explanation for your behavior this morning, I seriously can’t.”
They’d been going in circles for ages and Kat suspected that their tentative friendship was the only reason Kennedy hadn’t hung up on her. She wasn’t above using that positive friendship-like feeling to her advantage right now.
“Please, Kennedy. I promise he won’t be mad. He loves me too, he told me so.” Yeah, her voice totally gave away her giddiness at that bit of news. “And I won’t tell a soul that you helped me, I swear.”
Kennedy sighed on the other end.
“I’d do the same for you, you know,” she added.
Kennedy sighed again. “All right, I’ll tell you what I’ll do…”
Kat jumped up and down but held her tongue. She was close. She was sooo close.
“I’m not telling you where Bryce is staying, and I wouldn’t give you his personal number even if I had it. Which I don’t.”
Kat stopped jumping. She also studiously ignored the looks from passersby. “But you’ll help me… somehow?”
Kennedy’s next sigh was followed by the sounds of her shuffling something in the background. Her voice became distant like she was now on speakerphone. “I’ve got his assistant’s phone number here somewhere. The guy’s name is Darren and he came sniffing around my office looking for your address.”
Kat brightened. “See? I told you he loves me. Bryce must have sent him to get my address just like I’m bugging you to get his number.”
“Mmhmm. Very sweet.” Kennedy did not sound like she meant it. But no one was going to rain on Kat’s parade. Not today.
She had a man to find.
Twelve
When Bryce came back from grabbing a snack in his apartment’s kitchen, he found Darren in the middle of the living room staring down at his phone, his brows drawn toge
ther as if he was perplexed.
“Everything all right?”
Darren didn’t speak for a second. Then he said, “Yes, I think so.” He said it so slowly that he was clearly pondering something.
“Thanks for bringing the files over on a Saturday,” Bryce said. “Do you want to go over them now?”
Darren shook his head. “No. No. Uh… no.” He reached for his discarded jacket as he oddly and vehemently refused.
But, Bryce supposed it was a Saturday. Most people tended to view this as a non-working day. Himself included, when he wasn’t trying to drown himself in work to forget a particularly unforgettable blonde.
All morning he’d stewed over the way they’d left things. In the worst possible way, really. Because of his stupid “one night” idea, he’d thoroughly backed himself into a corner. Now how was he supposed to convince her that she was the one for him?
Darren left quickly. Probably had a date, the sly devil. The guy was so private, so quiet, it was impossible to tell what was going on behind that cold, quizzical stare. Did he have a girlfriend in New York? Did he have a whole other life that Bryce knew nothing about?
That train of thought was mercifully cut off by his doorman buzzing up to let him know that he had a visitor. Miss Jones.
Miss Jones? Who the heck was…
Katherine Jones.
For one instant his heart leapt into his throat. And then it fell to the pit of his stomach as he convinced himself that he must be mistaken. Maybe Miss Jones was the name of the new housekeeper his assistant had hired for him while he’d been traveling.
Even as he thought it, he held the door open to the hallway, eagerly anticipating this Miss Jones’s arrival.
When she stepped off the elevator, his heart once more took a leap, this time off a high dive. He was free falling. His gut couldn’t speak, it was too busy screaming in terror. And his heart? Forget about it. His heart was too busy racing a mile a minute to slow down and tell him what was going on.
His entire body wanted to believe that she’d come to her senses, but his brain—and more importantly, her face, said otherwise.
Kat looked… grim. Determined.
She bit her bottom lip and took a deep breath as he held the door open for her and she walked past. Neither of them had said a word.
Only when she’d reached the center of her living room did she finally speak. She looked around, seemingly confused, and said, “Wait, you have an apartment here in New York?”
Huh. Well, that was unexpected. He looked around the cold, sterile modern apartment trying to see it through her eyes. She probably thought it looked cold and sterile, too. But that was what happened when you hired an interior decorator and let Darren-the-possible-android manage the situation.
Bryce assumed the question was rhetorical since she was in said apartment, but he responded for lack of anything more intelligent to say. “Yes,” he said needlessly. “I have an apartment.”
She looked so perplexed, it would have been funny if he wasn’t so anxious to hear what she was doing here. “But you didn’t say…” She shook her head. “I mean, I’d just assumed you were staying at a hotel, and you didn’t contradict me.”
He nodded. “Yeah, well…” He scratched the back of his head as he tried to come up with a better answer than the truth. He didn’t. “You seemed to think I was just visiting New York and I didn’t want to scare you off…” He cleared his throat. “More than I already had.”
She nodded, apparently appeased by that answer. “I get it.”
She did? He didn’t. He hadn’t truly understood any of his actions since she’d walked into his life. It was like his brain, body, and gut had gotten their wires crossed that first night they’d met and now it was never quite clear who was in charge of things.
At the moment, he didn’t really care about that. All he cared about was why she was here. The anticipation was killing him, as was his not-terribly-successful attempt to keep his hopes under control.
She paced toward the window and then spun to face him. “Okay, so here’s the thing. I like plans. I like rules. I like knowing what’s coming next.”
He nodded. None of this was news. So why had she come here to tell him this? She seemed to be waiting for an answer. “Understood.”
Her nod was brief. Businesslike. “Good.”
The ensuing silence nearly killed him. “Is that what you came here to say?”
She shook her head. “No.”
Silence. Unrelenting silence. He cleared his throat. “Was there something else you wanted to say to me?”
Please, say yes. Please tell me you didn’t come here to break my heart. Again.
“Yes.” She stood there. Neither of them moved. Then, abruptly and startlingly, she dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, I’m making a mess of this.”
Hope soared before he had a chance to squash it. “What exactly are you making a mess of?” When she peeked up, he added, “Sorry, I seem to be a tad confused as to what’s, er… what’s going on here.”
He bit back a groan and tried to remind himself that not so long ago he’d been considered quite the catch. He used to have charm and charisma. Maybe even game. He used to be confident and eloquent.
Until Kat came along. Now he was a bumbling ball of awkward.
“My point was that I’ve always lived by my plans,” she said, her voice higher than he’d ever heard it and breathy, like she’d run up the thirty flights to his apartment and not taken the elevator. “It’s not like there’s some traumatic childhood event that made me this way.” She paused, looking mildly confused. “Actually, it sort of is because of my mom that I’m like this, I guess, but…it’s not really fair to blame her for the way I reacted to her regrets, right?”
He stared at her. He was fairly certain he was going to combust. What on earth was happening here? He’d poured his heart out to this woman and she was here doing…what exactly?
But the fact that she was clearly nervous, that had to be a good sign, right? Heck, the fact that she was here at all was a win, as far as his heart was concerned.
Gut, where do you stand on the subject?
We’re in complete alliance with the heart on this one.
Right, so it was only his mind that couldn’t quite jump on board. Not just yet. Not until she told him what she was doing there.
She stopped her babbling about her parents and stared at him with wide, slightly panicked eyes. “I love you.”
Yes! Finally, he let the hope free and all parts of him—body, mind, and heart—went soaring right along with it.
“At least, I think I do? This is new territory for me. I can say with certainty that I like you enough that we should definitely keep doing…this. Whatever it is we’re doing.”
She kept talking but he was only half listening. He was too elated and her voice had taken on that panicky edge again.
But it didn’t matter. Because she was here and she was giving them a chance. So he did what he did best. He acted on his gut. Closing the distance between them, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her with all the passion he had inside him.
She kissed him back with the same urgency and that right there was all he needed to know.
She loved him.
She might still doubt her heart, but listening to instincts and ignoring her brain were new territory for her.
Luckily, she had him as her guide.
The thought made him grin and since his lips were currently pressed against hers, she noticed.
“What are you laughing about?” she asked, pushing back slightly so she was still in his arms but she could see his face.
It was true, he’d started laughing. “I’m just happy.”
Her smile made the world brighten around him. “Good. Me too.”
He leaned forward. “Say it again.”
“That I’m happy?” she teased. When he growled, she laughed. “Kidding, kidding. And I do need to say it again because I messed up the first time I
tried to say it. I got all caught up in my head.”
She let out a sigh as she slipped her arms more firmly around his neck. “This whole listening to your heart thing isn’t as easy as people make it out to be.”
“People?”
“Caleb and Yvette.”
“Ah,” he drawled. “So I have them to thank for this change of heart.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I guess. Partially, at least. I’d like to think I would have gotten there on my own…”
“Uh huh,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her again. Because now he could. He was almost positive his kiss allotment was well over five now that she was his girlfriend.
And she was his girlfriend…although he’d wait to inform her of that. She needed to ease in to this whole relationship thing, his beautiful, adorable, lovable Kat.
“But I suppose I ought to give them more credit,” she continued when he pulled back for air.
He heard her voice turn serious. “They may not know how to balance a checkbook between the two of them, but they clearly are much smarter than I am when it comes to love.”
He reared back at her use of the word again. “Say it,” he ordered.
She laughed. “I love you.” Then she grinned up at him. “No doubts and second thoughts this time. Just…I love you.”
He growled low in his throat as the words found their home in his heart. “Not ‘just’ anything.” He kissed her quickly. “Those words mean everything to me.”
When he pulled back, he looked into her eyes and saw the amusement he loved so much, the almost ever-present enthusiasm and vivacity that made her hum with energy. But he also saw the hints of confusion, the speck of doubt.
But that was all right, too.
They were both changing, growing, becoming different people based solely on having met one another. He sure as heck didn’t recognize himself in the mirror half the time since she’d come along, and he knew she must be feeling just as off-kilter.
Probably more so since she was used to following logic and plans rather than her instincts.
He tilted her chin up and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “Scary stuff, huh?”
Once Upon a Lumberjack Page 13
