Читать книгу Mills & Boon Christmas Set - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 23
ОглавлениеANGIE SAT AT the window of the coffee shop, sipping a cup of tea, waiting. She should have felt nervous. But she didn’t. She felt strangely and wonderfully elated.
She had experienced an epiphany that night of A Black Tie Affair, coming home on the boat with Jefferson. He had told her everything about himself, exposed what he perceived as his weaknesses to her. She knew he had been trying to chase her away.
What he had done was the exact opposite. Angie realized she had pursued love for all the wrong reasons for her whole life. She had wanted to feel safe and secure. It had always been all about her.
But what she felt for Jefferson—what had grown over their two weeks together and culminated on his boat that final night—was so much bigger than that.
It made her realize who she had to be to love that man. And that realization made her feel bold and fully alive for the first time in her life. The realization that she loved the man beyond reason required her to fearlessly embrace the unknown, not retreat into safety. It required her to be whole and strong, not to go to Jefferson weak and afraid and filled with neediness.
A voice crackled in her ear. It startled her, but she resisted the urge to reach up to her ear and adjust the tiny bud that had been planted there.
“We have the subject parking his car. He’s out. He’s coming to the door.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
Hidden in a brooch she had attached to the lapel of the suit jacket she was wearing was a microphone. She was “wired” just like in the movies.
Angie watched as the door to the restaurant slid open. She felt her heart begin to beat hard. Up until this point, they had not even been sure the message she had left on Winston’s Facebook page had reached him or if he would respond to it if it had.
Winston stood there, scanning the room. Angie’s sense of confidence evaporated. He was innocent enough looking: an ordinary bespectacled man in a sports jacket and jeans. The bow tie, and blue-checkered shirt, added to the air of benign befuddlement, as if he was a professor trying to figure out which class he was supposed to be in.
But underneath that, when he narrowed his eyes and caught sight of her, Angie saw the truth of him. His gaze was that of a predator who had spotted prey. There was the glint of pure malice before it was masked with a smile. She fought a desire to shudder and, more, to get up and bolt.
She took a deep breath. She reminded herself she was in a crowded room. She reminded herself that the police were right outside, and that they would listen to every word. She reminded herself that this wasn’t just about her. Or even about Jefferson. It was about putting away a dangerous man; it was about protecting another unsuspecting woman, or maybe even more than one.
She had, with police help, rehearsed a script. She needed to put Winston at ease enough to talk about the woman who was missing.
Winston sat down across from her. A little smile flickered across his face as he looked at her. What was it? Suspicion? Hope? Slyness?
“Hello, Angie,” he said.
She took another deep, steadying breath. She reminded herself of the fearless woman she had been on the deck of that pitching boat. Her lips stretched into what she hoped was a smile of amiable greeting.
“Hello, Winston.”
It was a game of cat and mouse, luring him into her confidence. After a few pleasantries, she began to talk about Harry and his new girlfriend. She claimed she had gone away because she needed to think, to recover from Harry’s betrayal. She had to manufacture indignation, because these days, she saw Harry as a necessary step to being put on the most important road of all. The road to herself.
Once she had talked about Harry, it was an easy enough thing to turn the talk to Winston’s ex, to follow a carefully crafted script that led him deeper and deeper down a road he could not retreat from.
As his barriers dropped, Angie had the chilling feeling Winston wanted her to know what had happened to his ex. That he was pleased with himself. That he wanted her to know what he was capable of, so that he could use it to control her.
He told her everything. He trusted her. He incriminated himself. He, no doubt, thought that even if she wasn’t so frightened she would never speak of this again, no one would ever believe her if she repeated this chilling tale.
“Good job. We’ve got him,” the voice said in her ear. “Tell him you have to leave now.”
She looked at her watch. “Oh! Look at the time. I have to go, Winston. It’s been nice catching up.”
He looked stunned at this easy dismissal. And then he looked angry. He was seething as he followed her to the cashier.
“I’ll get it,” he snapped, when she reached for her purse.
But the thought of his money paying for one thing she had ingested nauseated her. She shook her head. She was pretty sure he noticed her hand trembling as she passed the bills to the cashier.
“When am I going to see you again?” he demanded.
“I’m just not sure.”
He stared at her. “There’s someone else,” he said. “Isn’t there?”
She was not safe yet. She edged toward the door.
“I can see it in your face,” he said. And then he sighed with what might have seemed like defeat if she was not so wary of him. “I’d like to give you something. To remember me by.”
She was sure that was true.
“Just walk out to my car with me.”
She had no doubt he would love her to accompany him to his car, that he would look for an opportunity to overwhelm her.
“Sure,” she said, and went out the door. He was gloating over her acceptance. She had rehearsed this part with the police, too. Get out the door. Go instantly right. A policeman grabbed her and pulled her out of the way.
Winston, still gloating over the fact she had agreed to accompany him to his car, did not even see it coming. He was on the ground in a sea of blue in the blink of an eye. Then he was yanked to his feet.
Panting, he pulled against the arms that held him, glaring at her, radiating pure malevolence. “I’ll get you, you bitch,” he promised.
Angie stared at him. And then she actually threw back her head and laughed. “Don’t you get it? I got you. Your game is over.”
And then, feeling as free and as fearless as she had ever felt in her life, she turned and walked away.
Now, she was worthy to love Jefferson.
* * *
Jefferson’s phone rang. He snatched it out of his pocket and felt a whoosh of pure relief at the number on the screen. He had been waiting for this call for three days.
He had not been able to work. Or sleep. Or eat. The photographers had come and gone with him hardly noticing their presence. He was not sure if he had ever experienced the sense of helplessness that had gripped him over the past few days.
“Have you found her?” he demanded.
“Yes, we’ve located her.”
“Is she safe?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Jefferson felt as if he had been holding his breath and was finally allowed to breathe. He was not sure what to make of the cavalier tone in the PI’s voice.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked.
“She’s more than fine. Angelica Witherspoon is quite the woman.”
“Excuse me?”
“I tracked her down through a source at the Calgary Police Service. She was at the center of a sting. They got that bastard. Because of her.”
“Huh?”
“My source says he’s been doing police work for twenty-two years and has never seen anyone perform like that. She was so calm and cool, and confident. She walked him right into a trap. He’ll never breathe another free breath.”
“She did what?” Jefferson sputtered. “We’re talking about Angie? Angelica Witherspoon?”
His detective repeated the whole story with great relish and more detail.
Jefferson tried to make this line up with the woman who had arrived at his door four weeks ago.
He couldn’t make it happen.
But as he thought of who she had become over their two weeks together, he knew what he was hearing was true.
She was braver than he had ever believed. And she was stronger than she had ever believed.
Still, when he hung up the phone, what he felt was an abject sense of loss. He felt the desolation of a man who had somehow touched heaven and was being sent back to earth.
Her foolhardiness only reminded him of what he already knew. Life was capricious. Things had turned out well, but they could have just as easily gone the other way. He could have gotten a phone call that reminded him, again, of his impotency. Of his failure to protect.
His phone rang again.
He saw Angelica Witherspoon flash across the screen. He wanted to talk to her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. He wanted to scream at her for her foolishness and tell her to come home.
Home.
The place that both held hope and dashed hope. The place that tantalized with a vision of love, and then could take it all away.
He didn’t answer her call. And when he listened to her message and heard her words, he was so glad he had not.
I love you.
He clicked it off without listening to the rest of the message. She loved the one who could not protect her. Had he heard her speak those words, his every strength would have fled him. He would have begged her to come and fill this empty void his life had become.
Instead, he turned off his phone and tucked it away. He would get about the very serious business of proving to himself and to her he could go on without her.
It felt like a mission as he made his way to the kitchen, opened the freezer, remembered some particularly wonderful thing she had done with chicken breast. He had seen in her eyes, that first day, when she had looked at his tinned collection of food, that she had felt pity for him.
And one thing about Jefferson Stone? He despised pity. He had been on the receiving end of too much for his entire life. His parents. His grandparents. Hailey. He was not going to be the object of anyone’s pity, ever again.
He probably had some kind of curse on him. The curse of loss.
His resolve to stand on his own, to not ever invite anyone else into his wretched life, firmed. If he truly wanted chicken dinner and muffins, he was quite capable of doing that for himself. He did not need Angie Witherspoon aka Brook Nelson. He did not need anyone. It was safest that way.
He returned to his office, but only to pick up his electronic tablet. He put what he needed into the search engine, and snorted to himself at how ridiculously easy it was to cook a rosemary chicken breast. Buoyed by that success, he also looked up muffins.
It occurred to him that he didn’t know where the mixing bowls were or even if he had any. Wasn’t it high time he found out?
Whistling with grim determination—and not Jingle Bells, either—Jefferson renewed his vow of complete independence. He found the bowls and some rudimentary ingredients. He began to slap things together.
* * *
Angie set down the phone. Jefferson had not answered. She felt the first real fear she had felt since she had returned to snare Winston. She looked at her watch. She could be back at the Stone House in a matter of hours.
But what if he didn’t want to see her? What if it was over between them? What if she could not restore his faith in himself?
This, she told herself, was not the time to allow her courage to fail her.
She made the trip in what she imagined was record time. She was surprised she had not gotten a speeding ticket.
Now, she stood outside that door where she had stood just a few weeks ago, when she was a totally different person. She took a deep breath, and she gripped the knocker firmly in her hand.
She could hear him coming.
The door swung open.
She stared at Jefferson.
Oh, beloved, she thought to herself. He had regressed. His shirt was rumpled, and his hair was uncombed. He didn’t look as though his face has seen a razor since she had left. He looked utterly exhausted.
She loved him more than she had ever loved him, more even, than that night of enchantment when he had been dressed so beautifully in a formal suit, and she in a gown suited to a princess.
“Nope,” he said.
It was hardly the declaration of undying love she had hoped for after her absence!
He started to close the door, but not as firmly as he would have if he really did not want to see her. Come to that, if he really didn’t want to see her, he wouldn’t have even come to the door.
She stuck her foot in it before he managed to get it closed all the way.
He reopened it and glared at her foot, before lifting his eyes to hers. There were walls up that a less determined person—a less courageous person—might not be able to scale.
“Are you burning the house down?” she asked. “Because it smells as if you are.”
“What’s it to you? You didn’t even leave a note.”
She saw the hurt in him before he quickly masked it with a scowl. “Yes, I did. I left it right on the kitchen counter where you would be sure to see it.”
“There was no note. What did you say in it? That you were going to single-handedly apprehend a very dangerous person?”
“How did you know that?” she asked.
He glared at her.
“It wasn’t single-handed,” she said. “I had an entire police team working with me. Jefferson, something is burning. Could we—”
He turned from her, and she followed him through the living room to the kitchen.
It was a shambles.
“No wonder you couldn’t find the note,” she said.
“It didn’t look like this, then.”
Black smoke was pouring out of his oven.
“Hell’s bells,” he snapped.
She was not sure how it was possible the room could be in worse shape than the day she had first seen it, The overhead lights were on, shining an unforgiving light on the disaster and illuminating the thin wisps of smoke that layered the air despite windows opened wide.
Gooey bowls were over on their sides. The countertops dripped mysterious substances onto the floors. A muffin tin—which looked suspiciously as if it was filled with partially cooked muffins—was upside down on the island.
And Jefferson Stone stood, with his back to her, cursing. His hair was silky and just a little too long, and it touched the collar of that same rumpled denim shirt. The shirt showed off the incredible breadth of his shoulders and how the wideness of his back tapered to narrowness at his waist. The untucked shirttails, thankfully, covered most of the enticing curve of his bottom but clung to strength of his legs, set wide. His feet were still sexily bare.
Angie felt an almost animal awareness of how beautifully he was made, how mouthwateringly masculine he was. It made the mess all around him fade.
He turned from the oven to her. She hoped it wasn’t the little gasp of pure weakness that rose in her throat and escaped past her lips, like a sigh of longing, that turned him.
He swung around to her, and her sense of being too aware of how beautifully he was made, intensified. The shadow of whiskers on his cheeks and chin had darkened even more. His features were honed and masculine and perfect.
She knew she had been traveling, and her appearance was probably disheveled. She had been so eager to see him she had not even stopped to run a comb through her hair or dab a bit of lipstick on her lips. She put a hand to her tangled hair. His eyes followed her hand, his gaze so dark and direct it sent a delighted shiver up and down her spine.
Stop it, she ordered herself. They had things to say to each other. Or at least, she had things to say to him. But the awareness that hissed in the air between them, like static, like the coming of a storm, was distracting.
A blackened, smoldering chunk of something was dangling from a fork in his hand.
“Is that on fire?” she asked, dragging her eyes away from the piercing gray-blue of his eyes to the welcome distraction of what he held in his hand.
He looked down at the chicken breast, turned quickly and tossed it into the sink before swiveling back to her. “Of course not.”
She sniffed the air and raised an eyebrow at him.
He frowned. “Smoldering.”
“Ah.”
“Prefire, at best.”
“Of course.”
“The smoke detectors didn’t even go off.”
“Maybe they aren’t working properly,” she said, and that earned her a scowl. “Have you tested them recently?”
He was silent.
“I’ll add it to my list of things to do,” she decided out loud.
“Your things to do?” he sputtered.
“How did the photo shoot go?”
“Swimmingly,” he bit out.
She hazarded a few steps in, stopped at the kitchen island and lifted the upside-down muffin tin with cautious fingers. Gluey strings tried to hold it to the counter top, but she succeeded at flipping it over. She stared down. The openings were filled with half-cooked batter that had evidently risen over the confines of the wells provided for them.
“What on earth were you trying to accomplish?” she finally managed to ask him, lifting her eyes to his.
“I had a sudden inexplicable need to lower my sodium intake,” he said, crossing his arms defensively over his chest and glaring at her as if this was all her fault.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I went away.”
He lifted a shoulder as if he didn’t care. “You can go away again,” he said, his voice hoarse, his posture so stiff it looked as though the tiniest nudge would break him in two. “Clearly, I don’t need you.”
“Clearly,” she agreed softly.
He glared at her with suspicion. He nodded at his mess as if it were a success. “Your presence is unnecessary,” he said, lifting his chin in defiance of the wreckage all around him. “I am quite capable of looking after myself.”
“Yes,” she said soothingly. “Yes. I can clearly see—”
A terrible little giggle escaped her. She tried to stifle it by putting her fist to her lips. It didn’t work.
“I wanted the chicken like that. Blackened.”
She swallowed hard and spoke over her fist. “Of...course...you...did.” Between the words were the strangled remnants of suppressed laughter. She really had said quite enough, but she felt compelled to add, “And the desire to cook...muffins came from?”
“Men,” he informed her proudly, “are extremely suggestible animals, particularly when it comes to food. I wanted a muffin, I saw no reason I should not make one for myself.”
“A statement of independence,” she said.
He looked annoyed at her deduction.
Laughter. It had become, until a few weeks ago, as foreign to her as a forgotten language. Her life had been so strained. She had lived with the extreme tension of feeling hunted and not safe. All that had changed. Her laughter died when she realized that Jefferson was not in any way, shape or form sharing her enjoyment. In fact, Jefferson Stone looked downright grim.
“I wasn’t laughing at you,” she said, contrite. “It’s just that it feels so good to be here. And so right.”
Jefferson frowned at that. In case she mistook his silence as an invitation to exchange confidences, he looked long and hard at her, and then gave his head a shake. “I can’t see how this is possibly going to work,” he muttered.
“We could give it a free trial,” she suggested softly.
“I already told you. I don’t need you.”
“If you decide it’s not what you want, I’ll refund your misery.”
“I told you,” he said, “I don’t need you.”
“What if it’s not about need, Jefferson? What if it’s not about what either of us needs?”
He didn’t say anything.
“What if it’s about want? About wanting a different kind of life, not needing it?”
He looked unimpressed. How he reminded her of the man who had first stood in his doorway, arms folded over his chest, his one word—nope—hanging between them.
She hadn’t let his attitude stop her then, and she wasn’t going to let it stop her now. Just like then, it felt as if her life depended on changing that nope to something else. “Can I tell you what I see?”
“Please don’t,” he said, his voice hard and cold.
She smiled, because she had already seen beyond that mask. She had already seen the strength and the decency that were at his very core.
“I see a man,” she said quietly and firmly, “who despite his dizzying career and financial success, lives with an abject sense of failure. I see a man who viewed himself as helpless when it counted the most, when he most wanted to be powerful.
“I see a man who has suffered way too much loss, and all that loss has left him feeling guarded about love, unwilling to risk such terrifying powerlessness and loss again.
“I see a man who doesn’t need love but who wants it desperately. And yet he’ll say no to that—to rediscovering the richness of his emotional life, to learning to laugh again—because the risk of pain seems like too great a risk.”
“It is. Too. Great. A. Risk. And I don’t want to talk to you about risks. How could you have done that? Put yourself in the path of that psychopath?”
“I had to.”
“But why?”
“Because I was like the Cowardly Lion, I had to find my courage.”
He snorted.
“Because there is no love without courage. To choose love? Even though it has wounded you? That is the greatest courage of all.”
Angie heard the firmness in her voice, the new strength of a woman who had found the courage to face down her own fears—all of them. “It’s the only risk worth taking. The tremendous payoff is worth the risk. The payoff is love.”
* * *
When Angie had laughed he had known the gig was up. The minute he had let her in that door, all those weeks ago, he had opened up a whole world of danger to himself.
Her laughter had shown him, all too clearly, who she really was.
And who she really was? Vivacious and fun, alight with life. Smart. Capable. And now this added element: pure, unadulterated courage. What could be more dangerous to his shut-down world than someone like her who was willing to grow and change, to let life teach her all its lessons, both easy and hard? What could be more threatening to the comforting darkness he had come to live in, than her promise of light?
Still, he tried. He cleared his throat.
“Let’s look at the facts,” he said.
She wrinkled her nose at him. He hated it that she did that. It made her look so adorably cute.
He cleared his throat. She had been back in his house less than three minutes and he was already reacting to her.
“That moment of madness when I decided I was capable of making muffins?”
“You totally miss me,” she said.
He scowled at her. “It is the result of your intrusion on my world, influencing me, filling me with a desire to prove things that did not need proving a mere month ago!”
He had thought, when she had first arrived, that it was only for two weeks. That was all. He’d been clear about that. A man could handle anything for two short weeks.
She moved toward him. He had plenty of opportunity to move away. Plenty. But he did not.
She came and stood before him. Everything she was, was before him. It was in her eyes, sparkling with unshed tears, and in her posture and in her exquisitely beautiful but tentative smile. She was courage and she was delicacy. She was strength and she was tenderness. She was tears and she was laughter.
She was offering him a world that would go from black-and-white to full color; she was offering him a world that would go from bleak to glorious. All of that was in her as she reached out her hand and cupped his jawline, her fingers stretching out to touch his cheekbones.
He froze. He could feel the utter tenderness of her touch. In her shining eyes was love and acceptance. He understood every man dreams of such a thing, without knowing that it was his greatest longing.
Jefferson Stone’s strength completely failed him, crumbled like rock from an ancient wall.
Or maybe that was not it. Maybe that was not it at all. Maybe it was that his strength was replaced with the courage she had talked about. And that courage unfurled within him like a flag that had felt the wind.
The wind was her love, showing him all that he could be and all that they could be and all that their world could be.
Because, instead of moving away from the promise of her touch, he moved toward it. He covered her hand with his, and then he guided her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingertips with the reverence of recognition.
Of who this amazing woman was and what she was offering him.
She felt his moment of surrender. Her eyes widened, and the tears were finally freed. Her mouth formed the most delectable little O. And then she was crying, and laughing at the same time.
He gathered her in his arms and felt the pure homecoming of his heart finding its way back. He whispered his thanks to her and to the universe and to whatever forces had guided them toward this moment.
This exquisite moment, when all the world stopped, when every other single thing fell away in insignificance, when all the world bowed before the glory of it.
When all the world acknowledged that there really was only one truth.
And that one truth was love.
