Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

THE NEGOTIATION

Holly

I race into the cottage, chased by the cold, stamping my feet and pushing my windblown hair out of my face. I drop my coat on a chair and the bag I grabbed from my loft on the floor beside it before I realize Jack’s asleep on the couch. I freeze, instantly regretting my loud entrance.

He stirs but doesn’t wake. I slip off my shoes and creep silently across the floor. I spot the platter piled high with treats on the kitchen island and recognize Merry’s handiwork. There’s a Snowflake Cafe tumbler upside down in the sink and another, right side up, on the island. I lift the lid from the one on the island, peer inside, and smile as I inhale steam and the unmistakable scent of coffee, just plain old coffee. I take a long drink of the still-hot brew and recognize it as the Stonebridge Roasters’ Arabica blend that Delphina stocks especially for me. She’s officially forgiven.

I savor the coffee, then break off a corner from a piece of Merry’s addictively good toffee and nibble it while I study the man dozing on the couch. His tanned face is relaxed in repose and his unfairly long eyelashes brush his cheeks. Sleeping, he seems younger. This observation makes me realize I don’t know how old he is. The sum total of what I know about Jack Bell is that he drives a red station wagon, must like books, and is either independently wealthy or broke and unemployed. Taking in his broken-in boots, faded jeans, and scruffy beard, I’m betting on the latter. I can’t think about it too much or the fact that I’m essentially living with a stranger for the next month will freak me out.

He jolts awake and I hurry to avert my eyes from his face to the array of goodies on the tray. I catch him scrubbing his hand over his eyes and chin, and look up.

“Nice nap?” I ask.

He gives me a groggy look, and I see in his eyes the moment he remembers where he is, and why. He clears his throat and sits up straighter. “How long have you been back?”

“Maybe a minute. I think I woke you up when I came in.” I lie because the alternative is to tell him, oh, just long enough to watch you sleep while I drank my coffee, which would probably freak him out about staying with me.

He narrows his eyes and gives me a close look. I smile innocently and pop a chocolate peppermint in my mouth. He holds my gaze a moment longer and it’s like looking in a funhouse mirror, well minus the tan and scruffy beard—his eyes are the exact shade of cornflower blue as mine. I refuse to look away first.

He blinks and I hide a smile. Amateur.

He gestures toward the desserts. “Your sister said to tell you dinner is at five. And then we’re all going to the tree lighting.”

I pick up my coffee, walk into the living room, and pull the armchair close to the couch. Once I’m seated, I lean forward and search his face. “We need to talk.”

One eyebrow crawls up his forehead. “Sounds serious.”

“It is.” I reach into my bag and remove the revised order. “Judge MacIntosh clarified his order. You don’t have to spend every minute with me. The judge realizes I have a job, and there’s no point in making you stay in this cottage. If he did that, you might as well just be in prison. But you have a curfew. Once the streetlights come on, you can’t be outside without me.”

“What am I, twelve?” he cracks, but the bobbing of his throat gives away his bravado.

“No, Jack. You’re a criminal defendant. So, between dusk and dawn, you need to be with me.” This comes out wrong, and I feel my cheeks heat. I hurry past it. “The judge also recommended, but didn’t order, that you attend some of the holiday festivities while you’re in town. Don’t worry, we don’t have to go to all of them.”

“That’s no problem. I love Christmas. I want to go to as many as I can.”

Judging by the way the corner of his lip quirks up, he’s being sincere. I groan inwardly. Just my luck.

“Whoa, slow down. There’s a stipulation.”

“Okay, hit me.”

I twitch my mouth to the side. “I have to attend them with you.”

“The ones at night?”

“No, all of them. Which, for the record, will not be all of them.”

“Why not?”

“Where to start?” I tick reasons off on my fingers. “One, I have a job to do. A job that includes keeping you out of prison. Two, this town has approximately six billion winter activities between tonight and New Year’s Day. It’s not even physically possible to attend them all. And you’d have to be a masochist to want to. Which leads me to the third reason. I don’t want to. And since you can’t go unless I go, you’re not going to them all.”

His mouth turns down and he thinks for a minute. “But you said the judge wants me to.”

I sigh. “He thinks it would be good for the community to get to know you as something other than a criminal. If Anderson doesn’t drop this and it goes to trial, we’ll seat a jury from Mistletoe Mountain because the Swansons technically live within the town limits. So the holiday events are a chance for you to show people who you are.”

He grins. “People love me.”

His smile is so open and genuine that I can see why, but I maintain a neutral expression. “Let’s hope so.”

Aside from the fact that it’s a solid defense strategy, I have reasons of my own for following the judge’s advice. The main one being, he’s the chief judge for the county and I’m going to appear before him dozens more times. I don’t want to tick him off. That said, there’s a limit to how many Christmas activities I’m willing to do.

I set the order aside and hand Jack the full-color Mistletoe Mountain Merriment Calendar that I grabbed from the stack in the lobby of my apartment building.

He scans it, grin widening. “This is awesome. Look at these—there’s a 5k run, a snowman-building contest, ice skating, a concert in the park … there’s something every day.”

“I know. Pick two for each week.”

His head jerks up. “Two? I can’t pick just two. How about four?”

“Four a week? Absolutely not.”

He exhales. “Okay, three.”

“No way, Jack.”

He holds my gaze and drops his voice into a low, husky whisper. “Please? This might be old hat to you, but we don’t all live in a winter wonderland. This is my chance to make up for all those Christmases at the beach in Florida.”

I’m about to play the world’s smallest violin for him, but something in his soft voice stops me. I sit back in my chair. “You really never had a white Christmas?”

“No.” Then he pauses. “Okay, that isn’t true. We did spend one Christmas with my dad’s folks in Colorado before he split. I’m told it snowed there, but I was three. I don’t remember it.”

“Your dad left your mom?”

He nods. “He wanted to ‘find himself.’”

The air quotes tell me I probably know the answer, but I still ask. “Did he?”

“I guess so. He found himself at the bottom of the ocean when the catamaran he was sailing around the world sank in the Torres Strait.”

His voice is cool, but pain flickers in his clear blue eyes.

“I’m sorry, Jack.”

He tries to shrug it off, but I reach over and squeeze his hand. “I lost my mom a year and a half ago. It still hits me in waves.”

He covers my hand with his free one. “Thanks. And I’m sorry. My mom passed away recently, too. I know what you mean. But believe me, that’s not what I feel about my father.”

“It sure looks like grief,” I venture.

He takes a moment to answer. “If I grieve anything it’s the choices he made when he was alive, not his death.”

I consider this, then clear my throat. “Got it.”

He brightens. “So does my status as an orphan melt your icy heart enough to agree to four events a week?”

Despite myself, I laugh at the dark humor. “Let’s meet in the middle. I’ll agree to three. That gives you one dozen holiday activities.”

He sighs. “Fine, three. I don’t understand what you have against jumping in wholeheartedly.”

A lot, I think. The last time I jumped into something wholeheartedly, I made an absolute fool of myself. But I’m not about to say any of this to him.

“I don’t have anything against the celebrations. I’ve lived here a long time, though. So I’m kind of over them.”

It’s a weak reason, and I can tell he doesn’t believe it. In a bid to change the subject, I glance pointedly at the clock hanging over the mantle. His gaze follows mine.

“I didn’t realize how late it was. I still need to hit the shower before dinner.”

He stands and stretches his arms overhead, and I pretend not to see the flash of flat abdominal muscle when his argyle sweater lifts. I turn away fast, my cheeks burning, and busy myself in the kitchen until he starts to pad toward the bedroom.

“There should be towels and toiletries set up because the house was already made up for the Bryants. But if there’s anything you need that you can’t find, give a shout.”

He nods, then pads across the room and disappears into the bedroom. After a moment, I hear the shower turn on. Maybe this won’t be so bad, I encourage myself. It’s only a month, after all. We’ll be smack in the heart of the festivities because the inn is Christmas Central this time of year.

Of course, this prime location is exactly why I planned to avoid the inn. But, on the bright side, the cottage is super cute and I can still plow through my pile of books on the four nights a week that I don’t have to fake Christmas cheer. Besides, maybe it’s better to face the town and my failure head-on rather than prolonging the pain by avoiding everyone until the new year.

Rip the band-aid off, I tell myself as I stack the plethora of treats into a glass storage container. Lost in thought, I don’t register the sound of the water turning off. So when Jack materializes in the doorway from the bedroom wearing a candy cane-striped towel slung low around his hips, a sheepish grin, and absolutely nothing else, my grip on the platter slips. I lunge for it and barely manage to catch it before it falls to the floor.

“Forgot my bag.” He dashes across the living room, grabs his backpack, and disappears behind the door.

I place the platter down carefully, press my palms against the kitchen counter, and look out the window over the sink, focusing on the sound of my shaky breath and the sight of the icy gray-blue sky until the image of the mostly naked man in the next room fades from my mind.

The door opens again a few minutes later and Jack emerges fully dressed, his thick blonde hair damp from the shower. In place of the sweater and faded jeans, he wears khaki pants and a forest green long-sleeved shirt.

“Sorry about that.”

I wave it off as though it’s no big deal. “Don’t worry about it. I need to get ready, too.”

I scoop up my bag and dart into the master bedroom, trading my severe work suit for a wine-colored, knee-length sweater dress and low-heeled black boots. I run a brush through my hair and pile it on top of my head in a loose knot. Then I swipe a lipstick in a shade that matches the dress over my lips and stick it in my pocket for later touch-ups. A minute later, I join Jack in the living room.

His gaze travels slowly over my body, then lands on my face, where it lingers. “You look festive,” he rasps.

A tingle works its way up my spine. “Thanks.” We lock eyes for a beat too long. I swallow. “We should go.”

He hands me my coat from the chair and I shrug into it while he puts on his jacket.

“I was thinking,” he says, as I lock the door and we start down the walkway from the guesthouse to the main house. The sun still hangs low in the sky but our path is already lit by the glow of tiny white twinkle lights strung overhead and big red globe lights nestled in the trees.

“About what?”

“I don’t think the Christmas tree lighting should count as one of my twelve events.”

“On what basis?”

“I didn’t ask to go. Your dad and sister basically insisted. In fact, everyone we’ve seen in town has said, ‘Will I see you at the tree lighting?’ or ‘See you at the tree lighting.’ So this one seems mandatory.”

He makes a pretty good argument, especially for a layperson. But like any halfway decent lawyer, I turn it around on him.

“Precisely because the whole town will be there, you really need to attend. It’s a high-value opportunity, not a freebie.”

“Don’t think of it as a freebie. Think of it as a bonus. Like a baker’s dozen.”

“Nice try. I’m a lawyer, not a baker.”

Undaunted, he tries again. “Christmas spirit?”

I laugh. “Fine. You got yourself into this mess by doing a good deed, or trying to. So this is my good deed. One bonus event—and you’re cashing it in on the Christmas tree lighting.”

He sticks out his hand. “Deal.”

“Deal,” I say.

As we shake hands, the faint gingerbread scent of the soap my dad puts in the guest rooms wafts from his warm, calloused hands. Then I hear giggles and whispers on the other side of the kitchen door and drop his hand with a quickness. He cocks his head.

“My sisters are spying on us from the kitchen window.”

He lifts his hand and waves. The laughter inside intensifies. I shake my head. We all used to peek through that window to watch each other say goodnight to our boyfriends on the porch. I guess some of us haven’t matured.

I push open the door with a jangle of bells and lead him inside.