Читать книгу Snowbound With The Single Dad - Cara Colter - Страница 12

“SHE PICKED THIS?” Noelle asked, shocked. “Your daughter, Tess, could have anything she wanted for Christmas and she picked my grandfather’s old place in the middle of nowhere?”

“Almost anything,” Aidan clarified. “No pony.”

Uh-oh. Did that explain nasty little Gidget’s arrival on the ranch? Her grandfather had said it was the secret he didn’t want let out yet.

“And no puppy,” Aidan added after a moment. “I actually was foolish enough to say, in a moment of utter weakness, that she could have anything else.”

Noelle suspected he had been momentarily so caught up in the guilt of refusing Tess a pony or a puppy that he had caved easily on her request to come here. But why had she wanted to come here?

“And she picked this?” Noelle asked again.

“I’m as flabbergasted as you are.” He regarded her thoughtfully. “What do you think a little girl who could have anything would choose?”

Her opinion really seemed to matter to him. He was looking at her with discomfiting intensity. She hoped he wouldn’t run his hand through his hair again.

“Disneyland?” she hazarded, after a moment’s thought.

He looked disappointed in the answer, and she was annoyed with herself for feeling that she had not wanted to let him down.

“Yes, Disneyland. According to my research staff, the number one wish of children around the world is to visit a Disney resort.”

She had not only disappointed, she hadn’t even been original. Still, if for a moment she didn’t make it all about her, what did it say about him that he had set his research staff on the task of discovering what would make his daughter’s dreams come true?

“So, you took her?”

“Yes. Tess declared, at the top of her lungs, lying on the walkway in the middle of the park, It is not Christmas without snow,” he informed Noelle solemnly. “Even though I explained to her the very first Christmas would not have had any snow, we were, at that point, beyond rational explanations.

“I’m lucky I wasn’t arrested. Fortunately, four-year-old meltdowns are not the unusual in ‘the Happiest Place on Earth.’”

She had to bite back a desire to laugh at the picture forming in her mind of this self-contained man being held hostage by a four-year-old having a tantrum.

He went on, “The holiday transformation of It’s a Small World failed to impress my daughter, despite the addition of fifty thousand Christmas lights, which is also the number of times I think we went through that particular attraction. For weeks after, I had ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘Deck the Halls’ jangling away inside my head.”

“Oh, dear,” Noelle murmured. “Would you like me to take those off the caroling list?”

“There’s to be caroling?” Aidan asked, horrified.

“All part of an old-fashioned Christmas,” she said, deadpan. Of course, she had not planned a single thing for an old-fashioned Christmas. Was it wrong to take such delight in his discomfort? “I think it’s a requirement, as well as snow. You can see we have plenty of that.”

“The Christmas before Disneyland we had snow,” he confessed. “My team found a place in the Finnish Lapland. We stayed in a glass igloo and witnessed the Northern Lights. We rode in a cart pulled by reindeer. We visited Santa’s house.”

“That sounds absolutely magical.” Noelle actually was not sure anything her grandfather could offer would compete with such a Christmas.

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, dear, I can tell by your tone—”

He nodded. “Another Christmas fail. She was three at the time. Santa was not as depicted in her favorite storybook. I think creepy is the word she used in reference to him. Cweepy. Rhotacism is perfectly normal until age eight.”

“Rhotacism?” Noelle asked weakly.

“Trading out the R sound for W.”

Which meant he had checked. Or his research staff had. It was all a bit sad, and somehow made him more dangerous than his wisps of dark hair falling gently back into place after he had raked his hand through them.

Before she could reconjure the red dress, he continued. “And the reindeer were a major letdown. Non-fliers. None with a red nose.”

“I guess some elements of Christmas might be best left to the imagination,” Noelle said. It seemed to her that Aidan, in his feverish efforts to manufacture the Christmas experience, might have missed the meaning of that first Christmas entirely.

She saw, again, just a hint of vulnerability in him—the single dad trying desperately to make his daughter happy. Especially at Christmas. Desperate enough to join strangers…

Noelle searched her memory. His wife had been a very famous and extraordinarily beautiful actress. Hadn’t she died around Christmas? Three years ago? The papers had not been able to get enough of that sad little toddler’s face. And then, to his credit, Aidan Phillips had managed to get his daughter out of the limelight and keep her out of it.

She could feel herself softening toward him the tiniest bit.

“And then you would think you could salvage Christmas with lovely gifts, wouldn’t you?” He sighed with long-suffering.

Again, she felt he was missing the point, but she went along. “Aren’t gifts for little girls easy? Hair ribbons and teddy bears and new pajamas? A jangly bracelet? A miniature oven?”

“Oh, right,” Aidan said, as if Noelle was hopelessly naive.

Of course, his little girl probably got those things as a matter of course, so what did Tess then have to look forward to?

“Doesn’t she tell you what she wants?”

“Yes, a puppy. And a pony. Every other item on her wish list is reserved for Santa. The fat happy Santa at the mall, not the skinny fellow in odd clothes with a real beard in Finland. And it’s a secret. If you tell anyone, then Santa won’t bring it to you, because the hearty laugh and twinkly eyes are just fronts for a mean-spirited old goat that would punish a little girl for telling her dad what she really wants.”

Noelle was struck by an irony here. Aidan Phillips, one of the most wealthy and successful men in Canada, if not the world, was in hopelessly over his head when it came to being a daddy at Christmas.

What had her grandfather just said? That a man who thought money was the only way to be rich was very poor indeed?

Still, it seemed like it should all be fairly easy. Was he the kind of man who could complicate a dot?

“How about that line of dolls that is such a big hit? Millie something?”

“Jilly,” he corrected her. “Jilly Jamjar. And her friends. Corrinne Cookiejar. Pauline Picklejar. They all come with the ‘jar’ they live in.”

“Are you making this up?”

“Really? Do I look like the kind of man who could make up a line of dolls who live in jar houses?”

“No,” she had to admit, “you do not.”

“I wish I was making it up. She already has the first three in the series. But then along came Jerry. Jerry Juicejar.”

It was quite funny listening to this extremely sophisticated man discuss the Jar dolls, fluent in their ridiculous names, but she had the feeling it would be a mistake to laugh.

“The Jarheads—my name for the toy manufacturers, not their own—in all their wisdom, made a limited edition of dear Jerry. There’s a few thousand of him. Period. For millions of children screaming his name in adulation. I swear the Jarheads are in cahoots with the mean-spirited Santa.

“Which brings us to I-Sell. One momentary lapse on my part. Okay, go ahead, see if you can find a Jerry Juicejar on there.”

“You let your five-year-old daughter go on the internet?”

Noelle was treated to a flinty look of pure warning. Do not judge me.

“She’s not five going on six, she’s five going on twenty-one.”

Which Noelle found terribly sad. Really, Tess was little more than a baby, only a year ago being quite capable of throwing a tantrum in the middle of a theme park. Still, she refrained from saying anything. She was beginning to suspect that the do-not-judge-me look she saw in his eyes had something to do with the fact that he had already judged himself with horrendous harshness.

“Plus, she wasn’t by herself. Nana was supervising. I’ve got two acquisitions assistants looking for him full time, and they have not found anyone willing to part with a Jerry. There are some things,” Aidan said with a miffed sigh, “that money can’t buy.”

“There are all kinds of things money can’t buy,” Noelle said firmly.

He looked dubious about that, even after his failed attempts to purchase Christmas happiness for his daughter with lavish holiday plans, research teams and acquisitions assistants.

“Is it possible Tess would like to just stay home for Christmas?” she suggested softly, as gently as she could. “She just wants what any child wants. To be with you. To be with her family.”

“I’m it for family,” he said tightly. “Me and Nana. Another fail in the Christmas department, I’m sure. And we don’t stay home for Christmas.”

A fire, Noelle seemed to remember. In their apartment? Christmas morning? A nation pulled from their Christmas joy to mourn with that very famous family.

“Anyway, she was looking for Jerry Juicejar, and what did she find while her supervisor nodded off on the sofa? An Old-Fashioned Country Christmas.”

“You’re quite lucky that’s all she found,” Noelle said.

Again, she got the flinty look, but underneath it she saw just a flicker of the magnitude of his sense of drowning in the sea of parenting requirements.

“You couldn’t dissuade her?” She deliberately made her tone neutral, vigilantly nonjudgmental.

Not that he seemed to appreciate her effort! He shot her a look. “You’ll soon see how easy it is to dissuade Tess. And I did, very foolishly, promise her she could have anything. A promise is a promise. She’ll be the first to let you know that, too. She has a book by that title that she carries in her hip pocket for reference and reminder purposes. So be very careful what you tell her.”

“I’ve made a note,” she said seriously, and he shot her a suspicious look to see if she was making light of him.

“I had…er…some of my staff make sure your grandfather was legitimate.”

It was faintly insulting, and yet she could hardly blame him.

“And then I spoke to your grandfather on the phone and it all seemed aboveboard. Nice old guy, first Christmas alone. Of course, he neglected to mention Ellie-born-on-Christmas-Day.”

“Maybe your research teams just aren’t that good,” she said drily. “They can’t find out what a little girl wants for Christmas and they totally missed me. I go by Noelle, actually, and being born on Christmas Day was not an indictable offense the last time I checked.”

“Did I say it like it was?”

“You did.”

“It’s just so darn…cute. Most people, of course, would hate having their birthday overshadowed by the ‘big’ day, but I bet you aren’t one of them.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What would make you presume anything about me?”

He lifted a broad shoulder. “Presumptions are a part of life. You made some about me—that I was not the type of man who would need to join strangers for Christmas—and I have made some about you.”

“Do tell,” she said, though in truth she was bracing herself. She was not sure she wanted him to tell at all.

“There’s a look about you. A country girl.”

A country girl? She had lived in the city now for nearly five years. She considered herself fairly sophisticated.

Not that you would know it at the moment. She was dressed in a pink parka and her jeans were stuffed into snow boots. On her hurried way out the back door, she had put her grandpa’s toque back on. Her cheeks were probably pink, and no doubt her nose was, too.

“Not a touch of makeup. Wholesome,” he went on, ignoring the fact that she was looking daggers at him. “Giving. Christmas magic and all that. Hopelessly naive. Probably made a bad choice in a man and Grandpa has stepped in to find you a suitable partner. Right at Christmas. Cue the music.”

He began to hum “White Christmas.”

She hoped it wouldn’t get stuck in her head.

“Are you always so insufferable?” she asked.

“I try…and that’s out of character. Not giving at all. Tut-tut.”

“Let me tell you my presumptions. You hate Christmas. I can tell by your obnoxious tone.” She thought of adding, No wonder you haven’t been able to succeed at giving your daughter a good one, but stopped herself. It would just be mean. And he was, unfortunately, right about the wholesome and giving part of her nature.

“I wondered about an ulterior motive in getting us here,” Aidan said. “Who just invites strangers for Christmas?”

“Well, you can just quit wondering. You will never—never—meet a man with more integrity than my grandfather. He’s invited strangers for Christmas because he feels he has something to give, not to take anything.”

“Humph,” he said with an insulting lack of conviction.

Was Aidan Phillips annoying her on purpose? Surely her face had softened in sympathy at his vulnerable dad side, as he had revealed each of his Christmas failures? Now, he was successfully erasing that. If he was now trying to make her angry—a defense against her unwanted sympathy—it was working all too well!

“My grandfather might be trying to look after me. I hope not, but he’s old and his heart is in the right place, which I’m sure you figured out when you accepted his generous invitation to spend Christmas at his home. I may be single, but really, you would both be presuming too much by thinking I would be interested in you!”

Of course, there was the momentary lapse over his hair, but he never had to know.

He stopped. It forced her to stop, too. She tilted her chin and glared at him.

“And you wouldn’t be?” he asked, incredulous.

“Oh!” She fought a desire to take off her grandfather’s toque and stuff it in her pocket so she wouldn’t look quite so folksy. “Why would you sound so surprised? Do you have women flinging themselves at you all the time?”

“Yes.” He cocked his head at her.

“I am not some country bumpkin who is going to be bowled over by your charm, Mr. Phillips,” she said tightly.

“I don’t have any charm.”

“Agreed.”

“You’ve had a heartbreak, just as I guessed.”

The utter audacity of the man. It made her want to pick up a handful of snow and throw it in his face.

“There might be other reasons a woman would not fling herself at you,” she suggested tightly. Even though that one happened to be true.

“There might be,” he said skeptically.

But, also true, perhaps a woman would recognize instantly that she was not in the same league as you, she thought to herself. Perhaps she’d recognize she had failed to hang on to a relationship with even a very ordinary guy, so what were her chances of—

She stopped her train of thought because he was still watching her way too closely and she did not like the uneasy feeling she had that Aidan Phillips, astute businessman, could read her mind.

“It would be very old-fashioned to think a woman’s main purpose in life is to find herself a mate,” she told him primly.

“And yet here we are at an Old-Fashioned Country Christmas.” He tilted his head at her, his eyes narrow and intent again. “Recent?”

“What?”

“The heartbreak?”

“I’m beginning to take a dislike to you.”

“It’s not my fault.”

“That I dislike you?”

“That women fling themselves!”

“You’re handsome and you’re wealthy and you’re extremely successful and perhaps somewhat intelligent, though it’s a bit early to tell.”

“I used rhotacism in a sentence!”

She ignored him. “Women fling themselves at you. You’ve become accustomed to it. They probably find the fact that you are a single dad bumbling through Christmas very endearing. Oh, boo-hoo, Mr. Phillips.”

It occurred to her that her sarcasm might be coming more from a deep well of resentment that Mitchell was, at this very moment, surrounding himself with bikinis on a beach in Thailand than at Aidan Phillips, but she would take all the protection the shield of sarcasm could give her. Aidan was exactly the kind of man a woman needed to protect herself from. And worse, he knew it.

“Bumbling through Christmas?” he sputtered. “You call Christmas at the Happiest Place on Earth and at Santa’s original place of residence bumbling?”

“Failures by your own admission,” she said, with a toss of her head, “and should you have doubt, ask your daughter.”

Aidan glared at her, though when he spoke, his voice was carefully controlled, milder than his glare. “I think I’m beginning to take a dislike to you, too.”

“Good!”

“Good,” he agreed. He continued, his voice softly sarcastic, “It’s setting up to be a very nice quiet Christmas in the country, after all.”

“Emphasis on quiet, since I won’t be speaking to you.”

“Starting anytime soon?” he asked silkily.

“Right now!”

“Good,” he said again.

She couldn’t resist. “Good,” she said with a curt nod. They strode along the path back to the house in a silence that bristled.

She watched out of the corner of her eye as he yanked his cell phone from his pocket and began scrolling furiously, walking at the same time. It took him a few seconds to realize it wasn’t going to work. He stopped.

“Is there cell service?” he asked tightly.

“We’re not speaking.”

“That’s childish.”

“You didn’t seem to think so a few minutes ago.”

“It’s just a yes or no,” he said.

“No.” She should not have felt nearly as gleeful about the look on his face as she did. Clearly the thought of not being joined to his world, where he was in control of everything and everybody—with the possible exception of his daughter—was causing him instant discomfort.

“Will there be cell service at the house?”

“No.”

“I’m expecting an important email. I have several calls I have to make.”

“Did you get cell service in the Finnish Lapland?”

“Actually, they take pride in their excellent cell service all across Finland.”

He managed to make that sound as if they had managed to be more bumpkin here than in one of the most remote places in the world.

Noelle had the sudden thought Tess’s string of Christmas disappointments might, at a level she would not yet be able to articulate—despite being five going on twenty-one—have had a lot more to do with her father’s ability to be absent while he was with her than the inadequacies of Disneyland or the Northern Lights.

“You can make the calls from his landline in the house,” she said, maybe more sharply than she intended. “And I guess you could go to the library in the village and check emails. That’s what my grandfather does. Mind you, he has to drive. You could take your helicopter. You could be there in minutes. Maybe even seconds! But it would cause a sensation. There would probably be that unwanted publicity involved.”

“You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?” He sounded hopeful. He was holding his phone out at arm’s length, squinting at it, willing service to appear.

“Do I look like the type of person who would pull your leg?”

He regarded her suspiciously, but didn’t answer.

It was because he didn’t answer that she decided not to tell him there were a few “sweet spots” on the ranch. One was in the hayloft of the barn. You could get the magic bars on your cell phone to light up to two, and sometimes even three precious bars, if you opened the loft door and held your arm out. If the stars were aligned properly and the wind wasn’t blowing. You had to lean out dangerously to take advantage of the service. It was a desperate measure to go sit out there in the cold trying to reconnect with the world.

And somehow she knew she’d be out there later tonight, looking at Mitchell’s latest posts about his new and exciting life, tormenting herself with all that she wasn’t.

She glanced at Aidan. When he felt her eyes on him, he shoved his cell phone in his pocket. His face was set in deep lines of annoyance, as if she had personally arranged the lack of cell service to inconvenience him.

They came over that rise in the road where they could see the house. She wondered if, in his eyes, it looked old and faintly dilapidated instead of homey and charming, especially with the snow, mounded up like whipped cream, around it. He did not even comment on the house at all, or on the breathtaking spectacle of sweeping landscapes and endless blue skies and majestic mountains.

Noelle thought that what she had said earlier in a pique might be coming true.

She disliked Aidan Phillips. A lot.

And that was so much safer than the alternative! She marched on ahead of him, without bothering to see if he followed.