Stranded for Christmas Read online

  “You can organize everyone else in the world, but you don’t need to organize me.”

  “I’m not trying to organize you.”

  “Aren’t you?” He stepped closer since she looked so pretty and Laura-like in the glow of the fire with the phone in her hand.

  “No. I’m not. I’m trying to help. Do you really want wet clothes?”

  “I can take care of my own wet clothes.”

  “Okay. Fine.”

  His brows drew together when he saw she looked almost hurt. He took another step toward her and reached out to cup her face with one hand. “Hey. I wasn’t rejecting your help. You just don’t need to try to organize me. I do okay.”

  “I know you do okay. I’m just used to...” She cleared her throat, her eyelashes dropping the way they had earlier in the day when he’d had her trapped against the wall. “Sorry. You can wear wet pants if you’d prefer.”

  He chuckled, telling himself it was time to lower his hand. Stop touching her.

  He needed to stop touching her now.

  She was gazing up at him, and she seemed to be leaning her face into his hand just slightly.

  Russ’s breath hitched, and his body tightened.

  “Russ.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re doing it again.”

  He let out his pent breath in a rush and dropped his hand.

  She’d told him not to, so he needed to respect her wishes, no matter how much he needed to touch her.

  No matter how convinced he was becoming that she wanted him to touch her too.

  “I guess we’re stuck here for a while,” he said, trying to sound casual and move them back to normalcy. “Maybe we can follow Tommy’s example and find a movie to watch.”

  “Yeah. We might as well. What else do we have to do?”

  Russ could think of something, but Laura wasn’t going to allow it.

  And it was likely that she’d never change her mind.

  Three

  LAURA REMEMBERED RUSS from when she was a child as the younger brother of her father’s best friend.

  Russ had been significantly younger than his brother, so he’d been in college the first time she’d become aware of his existence.

  He’d been in college, and she’d been in elementary school. She remembered him coming home on breaks and occasionally hanging out with them when the two families got together. When she got into high school, Russ had already started his fast-track career in Richmond. She’d rarely thought about him—only as the good-looking man who’d never gotten married and would show up now and then for holidays.

  The only time she could remember even speaking to him was the Christmas of her senior year in high school. Her father had built a bonfire, and the Mathesons had all been invited over. Russ had helped her when she’d spilled her hot cider. He’d done it without smiling, with the lofty, ironic look she’d learned was his typical expression. She’d thanked him since he’d helped her clean up the mess and had gotten her another cup of cider. Then, when he’d been about to turn away and rejoin his brother, she’d asked, “Don’t you ever laugh?”

  He’d given a small jerk, which she understood meant she’d surprised him. “Why do you ask that?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen you.”

  He’d looked at her for a long time, and she’d been far too young to understand what she saw in his eyes. It was something deep and oddly poignant. She hadn’t known what it meant, but it made her heart hurt anyway. “I laugh.”

  She’d never been shy, and even as a teenager, she’d known how to make things happen. She wanted an answer from Russ, so she’d pursued her questions. “I’ve never seen you laugh.”

  “You haven’t?”

  “No. You smile sometimes. In a kind of stuck-up way. But you never laugh.”

  He’d frowned, as if he were really thinking through what she said. She wasn’t used to that from adults, so it had struck her as special. “I think you’re wrong. I laugh sometimes.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t know what to say to that, so she’d turned away and gone back to her sisters.

  That was the only real conversation she and Russ had had until her father and his brother died. They’d said some polite, subdued words at the funerals. And then the following year she’d found out about her father’s cheating the Mathesons out of their share in Holiday Acres, so she’d approached Russ with the partnership deal.

  It was a couple of months after they’d started working together that she’d first seen him laugh. And even then, even after they’d gotten to know each other and were working together well as partners, he’d always felt distanced, set apart, like he was too smart and too guarded to fully engage in the world.

  He laughed a lot more now than he used to, but she’d still never seen him angry.

  Not once.

  Something else had started to change in the past year, however.

  She was feeling closer to Russ. He was making more efforts with other people—particularly with his nephews. And he’d started looking at her in a certain way.

  A way that made her heart stop.

  She had no idea how or when the change had taken place, but she was thinking about it more and more.

  Thinking about Russ more and more.

  Having all these odd moments when she wanted to touch him, wanted him to touch her.

  It was wrong. There was a fairly significant age difference between them, and they worked together. She wasn’t going to get things muddled and end up ruining one of the best things in her life—working with Russ in Holiday Acres.

  So she needed to be strong.

  And not keep waiting breathlessly for Russ to look at her that way again.

  She was reminding herself of that as she went to the bathroom and then called Penny’s number for the fourth time.

  She still wasn’t answering. It was going straight to voice mail.

  Something was wrong.

  “Still nothing?” Russ asked, coming over to the kitchen bar where Laura had just sat on a stool.

  Laura shook her head. “No. I’m really worried. I’m going to call the sheriff in another half hour if I haven’t heard anything.”

  Russ nodded. He was looking ridiculously sexy in that bathrobe, and Laura told herself to keep her eyes focused away from his lean, strong body, his mobile lips, and his deep, intelligent eyes. “I’m sure Penny’s okay. She’s pretty tough. Not nearly as absentminded as she acts.”

  “Yeah.” Laura smiled just slightly and was about to say something else when her phone buzzed with a text. She snatched it up and exhaled deeply when she saw the message. “It’s Olivia. Scott just got a call from Kent. Penny is with him.”

  “With Kent?”

  “Yeah. She got stuck too, I guess, and Kent was the closest person around. She’s okay. Just stuck like the rest of us.”

  “Well, that’s good then. So you can relax.”

  “Right. I can relax. Stuck here in the Candy Cane Cottage with you when I should be working and while the store is losing a whole day’s worth of business.”

  “Nothing to do about it, so you might as well relax.” Russ’s voice was soft and dry.

  Laura made a face at him. At least when he was being annoying, she wasn’t tempted to kiss him. She got a bottle of water out of the fully stocked refrigerator and went to sit on the couch. “So TV it is, I guess.”

  Russ came to sit beside her. He was on the opposite side of the couch, but he still felt too close. It was like she could feel the heat from his body across the distance. “TV it is.”

  She’d just picked up the remote when there was a sudden clicking sound as appliances powered down. The lights in the room all went off.

  “Shit.”

  “That was inevitable, I guess,” Russ murmured.

  “Damn it.” Laura leaned her head back against the couch cushion and closed her eyes. “Now what are we going to do?”

  Russ didn’t answer.

  When she looked o
ver to see what he was thinking, his eyes were on her face with a small hint of that expression that scared her so much.

  She straightened up quickly, looking away. “I hope they didn’t lose power in town. Poor Tommy will be so upset if he can’t finish his movie.”

  Needing something to do, she called Mae and was relieved to discover that Mae’s neighborhood still had electricity.

  Once that call was complete, she had nothing left to do.

  She had to do something. She couldn’t just sit here in front of the fire with Russ when he was looking at her that way.

  There was no telling what she might end up doing.

  “Have you ever been stranded in the snow before?” she asked lightly, hoping some casual conversation might distract her from the tumbling emotions building in her chest and belly.

  Russ shook his head. “Not really. I’ve had to stay home when it’s snowed before, but snowstorms like this are few and far between in Richmond.”

  “We don’t get them much here either. I remember in high school we had a lot of snow one evening when I was out with my boyfriend. I ended up stuck at his house all night. Dad wasn’t happy about that at all.”

  “Who was this boyfriend?”

  Laura checked his face but saw only leisurely interest. He was simply making conversation. “Danny Fielding. I dated him for two years in high school. My junior and senior years.”

  “The Daniel Fielding who sells cars at the Ford dealership?”

  “Yeah. That’s him.”

  “I didn’t realize you dated him. He... doesn’t seem like your type.”

  She gave him a crooked smile. “How would you know my type? I haven’t dated anyone in ages. But it was just a high school thing. You know how it goes. You end up with someone just because they’re around, whether or not you have a lot in common. I thought I loved him. I thought I would marry him.”

  “Really?” Russ had turned toward her, and his voice was less casual now. “It was that serious?”

  “I thought it was.” She shook her head, experiencing all the years’ old waves of indignation and humiliation again as she remembered. “He said he loved me. He said it over and over again. But as soon as we graduated high school, he broke it off.”

  “Why?”

  “He said he didn’t want to be tied down in college. It’s funny. Both he and Tommy’s biological dad told me the exact same thing. They said...”

  “What?”

  That they’d just been having a good time.

  She couldn’t say the words out loud. They’d hurt too much to hear them. They would hurt even more to speak out loud.

  She had to say something, however, so she thought of something safer.

  “Just that they weren’t serious. Danny acted like I should have known it was just a high school thing that didn’t mean anything.” Laura stared down at her hands, which were twisting together on her lap. “But I didn’t know. I thought it was real. I was so stupid.”

  “You were not stupid.” Russ sounded resentful now, which was very unusual for him. He reached over and covered her hands with one of his. “He was obviously an asshole. He still is, if those smarmy commercials he runs are any indication.”

  Laura laughed softly, feeling better. “Yeah. I had a near escape, that’s for sure. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to be stuck with him. But I didn’t know that back then. I was crushed.”

  “So you haven’t been anti-romance all your life then?”

  Laura darted him a quick look. “I’m not anti-romance.”

  He didn’t answer. Just gave her a little eyebrow arch.

  She smiled and shook her head. “Well, maybe I am a little. I’ve had nothing but bad experiences.”

  “So you assume all your experiences will be bad?”

  “It’s certainly shaping up that way. What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Are you anti-romance? You don’t have much of a social life.”

  “There’s no one around here to date.”

  “That’s not true. There are a lot more eligible women in town than men.”

  Russ gave a slight shrug. “No one I’m interested in.”

  “Then what about back in Richmond?”

  “I dated a lot in Richmond.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. She didn’t like the idea of him dating other women. But she knew enough to realize she had no grounds for feeling that way. “Nothing serious?”

  “No.”

  “What was the longest you dated someone?”

  “I don’t know. Two or three months.”

  “And you’re talking about me being anti-romance? You’re forty-five, and the longest you’ve dated someone was three months!”

  Russ was giving her a careful, thoughtful look. “Not because I’m anti-romance.”

  “Then why?”

  “I just never... never met the right woman.” He was staring at the fire, and his voice was soft, slightly stilted.

  She gasped. “You’re a romantic!”

  “I am not.” He sounded as defensive as if she’d insulted him.

  “Yes, you are! You’ve been waiting for the right one all this time. You might never admit it, but you are.” She was strangely thrilled by this realization, as if she’d discovered the world’s best secret.

  Russ’s face was slightly flushed, although it might just have been the firelight. “You’re making things up.”

  His voice was perfectly calm. And it would have been convincing had she not known him as well as she did.

  “I am not. You’re secretly romantic. No reason to deny it to me.”

  He cleared his throat. “You can believe what you want. I wouldn’t mind finding a woman to marry, but I’m not sitting around daydreaming about it. At least I’m open to possibilities, which isn’t true of you.”

  “It is true of me.”

  He lifted his eyebrows.

  “Okay. Maybe it isn’t true. But I just don’t think romance is all it’s cracked up to be. I’m happier now than I’ve ever been before. I’m not going to mess it all up in pursuit of a delusion.”

  She was liking the feeling of his warm hand on hers too much, so she made herself pull her hands away.

  Russ withdrew his hand immediately.

  “Maybe it’s not a delusion. Some people are happy in love.” His voice was soft, slightly husky.

  She loved the sound of it. Way too much. She forced herself to remain matter-of-fact. “Maybe it works out for some people. But even those people who think they’re passionately in love eventually have to face reality and learn to negotiate through the work of living with someone else. It’s not a fairy tale.”

  She was hit with a sudden flash of revelation. She suddenly knew what needed to be said.

  She knew she needed to say it. It was the best way to bring all these weird, fluttery feelings to a stop.

  She didn’t want to say it though. In fact, she had to force the words out of her throat.

  She did it. She always did what she needed to do, no matter how hard it was.

  She went on. “Romance might not be a complete delusion, but it also isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And I really am happy right now. I have Tommy. And I have work I love. And I have my family. And a lot of friends. And I have... I have...”

  “What do you have, Laura?”

  She took a ragged breath and met his eyes. “I have a business partner I really love working with. A... friend and a better partner than I’ve ever had before. I’m not going to mess it up.”

  She knew what she was telling him, and she could see he knew it too.

  There was a flicker of something on his face that was painful, heartbreaking, but the one thing that was unbreakable about Russ was his composure. He nodded and gave her a dry smile. “That makes sense.”

  She worked on evening out her breath as she stared at the fire. Ridiculously, she felt close to tears. She wasn’t a crying person, so it annoyed her that she was feeling
this way.

  Hopefully Russ had gotten the point now. Hopefully he would go back to the way he used to be—when he’d always been clever and distanced... and safe.

  Four

  RUSS’S HEART MIGHT as well have been stuffed into a blender over the past four years, and Laura had just turned on the switch to pulverize it to mush.

  He’d never considered himself a particularly emotional person. His parents had been from sober, hardworking, Appalachian stock. They’d never been touchy-feely, and they’d made sure to rein in excessive emotion in their boys. Russ had had it a lot easier than his much older brother. At least his parents weren’t barely scraping by when he’d been raised. He hadn’t had to work until he was sixteen, and he’d had the ability to go to college—which his older brother had not.

  His life wasn’t as hard and cold as his brother’s had been, but strong emotion had been discouraged. His father had never even let him cry.

  So he wasn’t used to feeling this way—like he’d been battered by emotions, like he could barely contain them.

  He’d known his feelings for Laura were too strong, too deep, too much. But he’d convinced himself he could handle them.

  He couldn’t handle this, however.

  He sat on the couch in a stupid white bathrobe and stared at the fire. If he moved, if he even blinked, he was afraid he might shatter into pieces.

  He’d thought he’d resigned himself to never having Laura, but he’d been fooling himself. He’d been holding on to hope, and Laura had just stripped it away completely.

  Laura was right about him.

  He was a romantic at heart, no matter how hard he might try to hide it.

  And the weight of a bitter world would always crush romantics eventually.

  She was sitting silently beside him on the couch, occasionally glancing over. To check his expression, he assumed.

  He was pretty sure his face conveyed nothing but a frozen stiffness.

  They were stuck together in this cottage for hours—maybe longer if the snow kept up like this. They had no electricity—no lights and nothing to do—and he couldn’t leave, couldn’t get away, couldn’t hide his broken heart.

  If the universe had been trying to devise the worst torture imaginable, it couldn’t have done better than this.