Читать книгу One Winter's Sunset: The Christmas Baby Surprise / Marry Me under the Mistletoe / Snowflakes and Silver Linings - Rebecca Winters - Страница 16
ОглавлениеCOLE SLEPT THROUGH his alarm. Slept through the buzzing of his phone. Slept through the sunrise. He’d slept in the best hotel rooms in the world, owned a mattress that cost more than a small car, and yet he had never slept as soundly or as well as he had in the double bed in the pale blue room on the second floor of the Gingerbread Inn.
He rolled over, blinked a bleary eye at his phone and decided whoever was calling him could wait a little longer. This...decadence filled him with a peace he had never felt before. Whatever was happening at work would be there later, while Cole just...was. Right here, right now, in a cozy bedroom across the hall from Emily, in a quaint inn in Massachusetts. He lay in the bed, watching the sun dance on the floor, while birds chirped a song above the faint sounds of a distant lawn mower.
Then he heard the soft melody of a woman’s voice, singing along with the radio. It took him a moment to realize it was Emily’s voice. He hadn’t heard her singing in...
Hell, ten years. At least.
He pulled on his jeans and padded barefoot out of his room and across the hall. Her door stood ajar, the bed made, the room neat and clean. When had Emily become a neatnik? She’d always been the messier one in their relationship, something that had driven him crazy when they were together. Then, when he was on his own, he’d missed seeing her makeup on the bathroom counter, her coat tossed over the dining room chair, her shoes kicked off on the bedroom carpet. He’d tried leaving his own things out but it wasn’t the same. He hesitated only a moment, then took a single step inside the room. “Em?”
The bedroom was empty. Light and steam spilled out of the attached bathroom. The shower was running, and Cole could see the familiar outline of his wife’s curves behind the translucent white curtain. Desire rushed through him, hardened against his jeans. How long had it been since he’d been with Emily?
Months. Three, to be exact. A long damned time.
He hesitated. He knew he should leave but couldn’t tear his gaze away from her shapely outline, the curve of her breasts, her hips. She was hidden by the curtain, yet he knew every dimple, every valley, every scar. He knew how to make her moan, how to make her smile, how to make her...
His.
Except she wasn’t his anymore, and he needed to face that. Accept it. Move on.
Since the separation, he’d told himself he should take off his ring. Date again. But he hadn’t. No woman had interested him the way his wife did. And maybe never would. He missed her, damn it, for more than just the warmth of her body against his.
The water stopped with a screech and a shudder of old pipes. Cole told himself to move. Leave. He didn’t do either.
The song ended and a commercial came on the radio. Emily’s voice trailed off as she reached up and tugged down the towel draped over the shower curtain. She jerked back the curtain and let out a shriek. “Cole! You scared me. What are you doing in here?”
Shit. He should have left. Now he looked like some overeager hormonal teenager, which was how he felt whenever he was around Emily. Even now, even after everything.
“Your, uh, door was open. And I heard you singing and...” He forced his gaze up from the hourglass shape outlined by the fluffy white towel. “I can’t remember the last time I heard you singing.”
A flush filled her cheeks and her gaze shifted to the floor. “I’m a terrible singer.”
“Didn’t sound that way to me. It was nice.” He swallowed hard. “I’ve missed your singing. You used to sing all the time when we were first married.”
She laughed. “That’s because we couldn’t even afford a TV. My singing was our only entertainment.”
“I wouldn’t say it was our only entertainment.” His gaze met hers. Heat filled the space between them. Cole had never been so acutely aware of his wife’s naked body, and the thin scrap of cotton separating them. She’d put on a few pounds in the past couple months, but they only added to her curves and made her more desirable. He ached to take her in his arms, to let the towel fall to the floor and to taste that sweet, warm, peach skin.
“Those were different days then,” she said, her voice low and soft. She fiddled with the edge of the towel. “Better days.”
Had she stopped singing because she’d stopped being happy? Started again today because she was happier without him? Or had he stopped paying attention to Emily so long ago that he didn’t notice her singing? Her happiness?
“You liked it better when we were poor?” he asked. “Living in that tiny fifth-floor walk-up, freezing in the winter and roasting in the summer?”
“Yeah, I did.”
He’d hated those days. Always struggling, feeling like he’d failed, the constant battle to get his business off the ground at night while he sweated on a construction site during the day. Working, working, working, and getting frustrated at how long it took to get from nowhere to somewhere. “Why? We had nothing, Emily.”
“Nothing except each other,” she said. She raised her gaze to his. Tears shimmered in her green eyes. “That was always enough for me, Cole. But it was never enough for you.”
He let out a gust. Why did it always come down to this? Didn’t she understand, he’d done all of this for her? For them? For their future together? The hours he’d worked, the effort he’d put in to take the business from their apartment kitchen table to a global power had been a constant source of friction between them. In the early days, Emily had supported him, but as the years wore on, that support had eroded into frustration and a cold, silent war.
“You can’t blame me for wanting more, Emily. For wanting success. Look at us now. We have everything we always wanted.”
A bittersweet smile crossed her face. “No. You have everything you ever wanted.” The smile shifted, became something he couldn’t read, as if Emily had a secret that only she knew. She nodded toward the door. “I’d appreciate it if you left now.”
He did as she asked and left the room, shutting the door behind him, and feeling more lost than he had ever felt before. Cole was a smart man who had built his company from nothing into a global player. Who had taken them from a run-down apartment to a mansion in a tony suburb outside New York City. All along, he’d thought he was on the same path that Emily wanted.
Now it turned out he’d been wrong. For a long, long time.
* * *
Sleep eluded Emily. She tossed and turned, then got up, tried to write and couldn’t get any further in the book. The whole day had been like that, her creativity stalled. Her mind was still stuck on the moment Cole had walked into the bathroom and looked at her with that hungry, admiring gaze she knew so well. One step forward, and she would have had him in her arms, in her bed, in her.
She craved that, deep down inside, in places that only Cole knew. But she’d held her ground, and after he left the room, she’d told herself she’d done the right thing. Even if it didn’t feel that way.
Her stomach rumbled. She pulled on a robe and headed downstairs to the kitchen. The inn was silent, and only a small light burned on the kitchen table. Moonlight streamed in through the windows, providing enough light for her to make her way through the rooms.
Emily pulled open the fridge, and mulled over the choices. She settled on the leftover apple pie. A second later, she was dishing a hearty slice onto a small dessert plate. After all, she was eating for two now. She could afford an extra serving of dessert once in a while. She heard a sound and looked up to find Cole standing in the kitchen.
He wore only a pair of old gray sweatpants that she knew well. He’d had them for as long as she could remember, the fleece worn and soft as butter. His chest was bare, and the desire that had been burning inside her all day roared to life again. Her hand flexed at her side, itching to touch the hard muscular planes, to draw his warmth to her.
“Great minds think alike,” Cole said, taking a step closer and gesturing toward the pie.
“Do you want a piece?” Then she looked down and realized she’d taken the last of the pie. “Sorry. Um, would you like to share?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” She pulled open the drawer and handed a second fork to Cole. He leaned over one side of the kitchen island, she leaned over the other side and they each took a bite of the pie. Their heads were so close, they nearly touched. It was so much like the early days, when they’d been inseparable and in love, that Emily could almost believe she’d gone back in time. She ached to run her fingers through Cole’s dark hair, to kiss the crumbs off his lips, to giggle when his shadowy stubble tickled her chin.
“Carol’s pies are legendary,” she said instead.
“I can see why.”
Emily forked up another bite. “The other Gingerbread Girls and I would sneak down here in the middle of the night all the time and eat the leftovers. She’d yell at us in the morning, but half the time she was laughing at the same time. And sometimes she’d bake an extra pie, just so we’d have one to scavenge.”
“Those must have been some amazing summers,” Cole said.
“They were. Some of my best memories are wrapped up in this place.” She sighed. “I’m going to hate to see it sold off and turned into condos or something awful like that.”
He scooped up some ice cream. “Why don’t I buy it? Let Carol run it...keep things as they are.”
Emily let out a gust. She put her fork down and leaned away from the counter. “Not everything can be fixed with money, Cole.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
She read honesty in his face, and relaxed. He had helped over the past few days, more than he knew. She couldn’t fault him for wanting to do more. After all, finding solutions to impossible situations was Cole’s specialty. He’d built a business on designing creative answers to customer problems.
For years, he’d been the one she relied on to solve everything from a checking account error to a strange noise coming from her engine. For the past six months, she’d relied only on herself. As scary as it had been, the independence had given her a newfound confidence. It was a feeling she wanted to keep, which meant no more running to Cole to fix the things that went awry. “Listen, I appreciate all the help you’re giving Carol with the repairs, I really do.”
“But...?”
She forked up some pie, but didn’t eat it. Instead, she turned to the fridge. “Do you want some milk?”
“Yes,” he said, coming around the counter to face her, “but I also want you to tell me what you aren’t saying.”
She grabbed the gallon jug, then two glasses, and poured them each an icy glass of milk. She slipped onto one of the bar stools and wrapped her hands around the glass. She debated whether to tell him what she was thinking, then decided she’d done enough of ignoring the issues, and maybe it was time to speak up instead of letting those thoughts simmer. “You have a tendency to throw money at a problem and then leave,” she said. “At least when it comes to us.”
He dropped into the opposite bar stool. “I don’t do that.”
“When something needed fixing at the house, you called someone to do it. When I needed to buy a new car, you called a friend at a dealership and had him show me the newest models. When I wanted to go on a vacation, you called a travel agent and told her to send me anywhere I wanted to go.”
“What’s wrong with that? It’s problem solving.”
Emily bit her lip, then raised her gaze to his. “The problem wasn’t the leaky faucet or the old car or the need for some time in the sun. It was that I wanted to do those things with you, Cole. I wanted you and me to install that faucet, even if it was messy and frustrating and time-consuming to do it. I wanted you to go with me to pick out a car, and go along on the test drive, and give me your opinion, then laugh when I bought what was prettiest. I wanted you to go on vacation with me and—” she exhaled “—just be. You and me for a few days.”
He reached up and brushed a tendril of hair off her head. “I never knew, Emily. Why didn’t you say anything?”
She slipped off the stool and away from his touch before she found herself in his arms again. In the darkened, silent room it was so tempting just to curve against Cole’s bare chest and to forget the separation, the problems between them, the difficult road yet to come. Instead she crossed to the window and looked out over the darkened lake beyond the trees. “I could say that I never said anything because you were never home to talk to, but really, that’s just an excuse. I never said anything because—” and now her throat swelled and tears rushed to her eyes “—I didn’t want to hear you say no.”
He was behind her in a second, wrapping her in his arms, and despite her resolve a second ago, she allowed herself to lean back into him, just this once, just for this minute. “I wouldn’t have said no, Emily.”
“Ah, but you did, Cole. A hundred times.” She stepped out of his embrace, and turned to face him. “Every time we went our separate ways, you to work, me to my charity work and golf dates and all those meaningless things that filled the hours between breakfast and bed, it added a little distance to the gulf between us. Eventually, that gulf got too wide, Cole, and crossing it was a Herculean task.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t do it anymore.”
He took in her words, then nodded. “And to be honest, I don’t think I even realized that gulf existed until you asked for a separation. I had on these blinders that told me everything was just fine. When it was far from that.”
“That was my fault, too. I didn’t speak up.” Emily flicked a crumb off the counter and watched it skitter into the sink. “When I was growing up, my parents fought all the time. If they were getting along, it made me nervous. It was like being around a purring tiger. You never knew when it would lash out again. That made me afraid to rock the boat, so I’d let things go that I should have done something about.”
“I wish you had said something. I couldn’t read your mind, Em. Though Lord knows I tried.”
“Would you have listened?” She shifted closer to him. “You’ve been so dedicated to the company for so long that I don’t think you would have heard me if I’d said the house was on fire.”
“Well, I think I would have heard that.” He chuckled, then sobered. “You’re right. But you don’t understand, Em. A company is like a puppy. It needs constant attention or it will wither and die.”
“That’s why you hire good people. To give you a break once in a while.”
He shook his head. “You sound like Irene.”
Emily raised a shoulder, dropped it again. “If everyone is saying the same thing, maybe they have a point.”
“Or maybe none of them understand the demands on me as the owner. Being at the top is far more difficult than anyone understands.” He let out a long sigh, then ran a hand through his hair. “Just when I think everything is under control and I can step back, something goes wrong. Hell, you wouldn’t believe the number of calls and emails I’ve got just in the couple of days I’ve been here.”
Tension had knotted his shoulders, furrowed his brow. The part of Emily that still cared about Cole filled with concern. She knew that look. Knew it well. She’d seen it hundreds of times. Before he had a team of employees under him, Cole would come home to their cramped apartment, a smokestack ready to blow, and she would be his sounding board. When had Cole stopped coming to her? When had she stopped asking him to share his day? “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
“You’ve got enough on your plate.”
She could see him distancing himself, doing what he always did and taking all the problems on his shoulders. Putting another brick in the wall between them. Her first instinct was to throw up her hands and walk away, but really, had doing that made anything better?
Emily reached out and put a hand on his arm, a touch of comfort, but one that sent a zing through her. “Remember when we first got married and you were working around the clock, trying to pay the bills and launch the business?”
He nodded. “We’d stay up half the night, eating junk food and talking.”
She laughed. “Kind of like we’re doing tonight.”
His gaze softened, and she let her touch drop away. “Yeah, kind of like tonight.”
“Then why don’t we sit down and talk it out? I may not know anything about technology, but I can be a good listener.” I’m still here, Cole, she wanted to say. I’ve always been here. Even if you stopped reaching out to me. “I know you, Cole. If you’re up in the middle of the night, it’s because something is troubling you.”
His features softened. “You still know me better than I know myself.”
She didn’t reply because a part of her felt like she didn’t know him at all. Maybe they’d kept too much of themselves back for too long to ever find that connection again.
“Before I came down here, I was pacing my room, jotting down ideas, trying to figure out a solution to a problem at work.” Then he waved it off. “But I don’t want to keep you up, too. Go to bed, Em. I’ll figure it out.”
Maybe he’d stopped coming to her because she’d stopped asking. Stopped being there. Could he be caught in the same feeling of disconnect as she was?
Either way, she hated seeing this stress and tension on his face. She reached out and gave his hand a light touch. “Let’s finish that pie and save the world. Or at least the world of Watson Technology Development.”
“You sure you want me to bore you with the details?”
“I don’t mind. If you want my opinion, that is.”
“Of course I do, Em. You’ve always had great ideas when it came to the business. Maybe I should have hired you to work for me as a consultant.”
She laughed. “That would have been a disaster.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no.” A tease lit his eyes. “Will you work on commission?”
She feigned deep thought. “Depends. Is there pie involved?”
“Always.” He grinned. They crossed to the bar and took their seats again. The small kitchen light washed the room in a pale gold glow, while the moonlight added touches of silver. Outside, an owl hooted, but the world was quiet and still, except for this small corner of the Gingerbread Inn.
Cole steepled his fingers, a move Emily knew signaled he was getting serious. “I’ve got a huge order for the next generation of cell phones from one of my biggest customers. The launch is in place, the customer is ready for the rollout, but the product is delayed. We’ve had them under development for over a year, and things were on track, but then the plant that is making the screens was damaged in a storm. We found a backup supplier for the screens, but their quality hasn’t been the best. So now we’re stuck without a screen supplier, and the first order is due to drop in a week.”
“All you have left to do is add the screens?”
He nodded. “If we had some to add, yes.”
“Then do what you do best, Cole. Build it yourself.” She tapped the counter before him. “Remember when you first started out, you had those prototype screens you made? You never used them because you found a supplier who could make them cheaper.”
“That’s right. They’re still in the warehouse somewhere.” He sat back, and Emily could see the wheels turning in Cole’s head. “We could substitute those, at least for the first drop order, and that’ll give the Japanese supplier time to get back online and ship the order to us.” He gave his forehead a smack. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself.”
She shrugged. “Sometimes it’s just a matter of hearing another opinion.”
“A smart and wise opinion at that.” He leaned back on the bar stool, his gaze skimming over her features. “I’ve missed hearing your opinion, Em. I guess I stopped asking. Or I stopped getting up in the middle of the night for pie.”
If he had, would things be different? If he’d included her in the day-to-day of his company? Or asked her to do more than just attend another banquet or golf tournament? “It’s been a long time since you asked what I think,” she said.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
The moment extended between them, full of regrets and missed opportunities. Cole was the first to look away, shifting his gaze to the plate before them. “Last bite. It’s all yours. Payment for services rendered, as agreed.”
“Oh, you can have it, Cole. I don’t—”
He speared the last bit of pie, then held it before her lips. “I know you, Emily. And I know you want this.”
His voice was low and dark, and sent a wave of temptation through her. Not for the pie—he was right, she always wanted pie—but for him. Damn. She’d always wanted him, too. No matter what.
She opened her lips and took the bite from him, slow, easy, their gazes locked, and the piece of pie became about much more than just some slices of cinnamon-glazed apples and flaky crust. Heat unfurled in her gut, and for a second she wished Cole would just lean her back against that counter and take her right here, right now. That it could be like it used to be, without the muddle of the past ten years.
“Delicious,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
“Very.” She licked her lips and watched Cole watching her tongue. “Too bad it’s all gone.”
“Definitely too bad.” Was she talking about the pie? Or the fact that she had enjoyed Cole feeding her? Enjoyed that one-on-one attention, like a laser?
The clock on the wall ticked by the wee hours. Somewhere outside, an owl hooted. Cole’s eyes met Emily’s. “Oh, Em, what are we doing here?”
“Having pie.”
“And now that the pie is gone?”
He was talking about more than whether they were going to put the dish in the sink or grab another snack. Cole was asking her the one question she couldn’t answer. What was going to happen next? With them?
As much as she wanted to believe they could take this moment and use it to rebuild their marriage, she was acutely aware that a new life was growing inside her. A child Cole didn’t want.
She’d become a package deal, her and Sweet Pea. The problem was, Cole only wanted half the package.
She drew back. “I don’t know, Cole. I really don’t.”
“Then let’s leave it here, on this sweet, pie-flavored note.” He quirked a grin in her direction. “Always leave them wanting more, isn’t that the old saying?”
“And do you? Want more?” Damn it all, she still wanted him, still couldn’t back away.
He cupped her jaw, his thumb tracing over her lips, following the path her tongue had taken. “God, yes,” he said. “That’s one thing that’s never changed, Emily. I always want you. Always have. Always will.”
That sent a little thrill through her, but she tamped it down. Desire was never their problem. She’d wanted him from the moment she’d met him, and still did. She drew in a breath, held it, then exhaled again, with a dose of clarity. “A marriage requires more than just sexual attraction.”
He sat back on the stool. A whisper of cold air filled the space between them. “Then let’s work on the other things a good marriage requires.” She started to protest, but he held up a finger, stopping her. “We’re here together for a few days at least, right? And yes, I know we’re separated and a step away from divorced, but at the very least, let’s try to learn how to connect with each other so that going forward, everything is amicable.”
It made sense, though she doubted his motives were that simple. Cole had made it abundantly clear that he wanted to get back together and didn’t want a divorce. At the same time, he’d made it clear he didn’t want children.
Still, the part of her that had got up in the middle of the night, worried, scared and lonely, craved the connection they’d had in their early days. Would it be so bad to rely on him, just for a few days, especially as she got used to the idea of the changes that lay ahead for her? What could it hurt?
Or was she just looking for a reason to be close to the man who was no longer her perfect fit?
“Tell me,” he said, draping an elbow over the bar, “what has you up in the middle of the night besides pie?”
“There are other reasons to get up besides sneaking the last piece of pie?” She grinned.
“I don’t know. Pie’s a pretty compelling reason.” He leaned in closer to her, and for a second, she thought—no, hoped—he was going to kiss her. “So what’s on your mind? I know you, Emily, and I know that look on your face. The way your brow furrows right there—” he laid a gentle finger on her temple “—tells me you’re worried about something.”
In that moment she wanted to tell Cole about the baby. Tell him how worried she was that she wouldn’t be a good mother or that she would let the baby down somehow. A long time ago, Cole had been her best friend, the one she told everything to. But as they’d drifted apart, their friendship had eroded, and that, Emily knew, was what she mourned most about the end of her marriage.
Besides, if she told him about the baby, she knew how he’d react. He’d be angry that she had deviated from the careful plan they’d had. He didn’t want kids now—and maybe not even later. He’d made that clear several times over the years and had reiterated the point the other day.
“I’m, uh, writing a book,” she said. “I got a little writer’s block and I was up, trying to figure out the next step in the plot.”
He arched a brow in surprise. “You’re writing a book?”
“I used to do that back in college, you know. I just put it aside for a while.”
“I remember. Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“Why did you ever stop writing? You used to love doing it.”
“Well, when we first got married, we were both working a crazy amount of hours while you got the business off the ground. Then once you were successful, my days got sucked up with things to support that.” She fiddled with the fork, tapping it against the empty plate. “That’s an excuse, really. I had the time, if I’d really wanted to find it. I just didn’t.”
“Why not?”
She raised a shoulder, dropped it. “I guess I was afraid. Once I finish a book, I have to send it out, and that...”
“Means you could get rejected.”
She exhaled. “Yeah.”
“But you’ve started now.” Cole’s hand covered hers. “That’s all that matters. And if no publisher wants your book, I’ll buy a printing press and—”
Emily jerked to her feet. Damn it. Why did he always return to the same answer? “Cole, I don’t want you to solve my problems with money. I wasn’t even asking you to solve it. I just wanted to talk, like you did with me, and have you listen, and most of all, let me find my own solution. If I get rejected, I get rejected. Maybe I’m not meant to be a writer. But you have to let me find that out instead of trying to fix everything with money.”
“I don’t do that.”
“Yes, you do. When I was upset because my mother was moving to Florida, you bought her a house near ours. When I struggled to learn golf, you hired the best PGA coach in the business and flew him out to show me how to improve my swing. When I was sick with the flu, you had a doctor move into the guest room to be sure I was taken care of.”
“That’s what money buys, Emily. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Yeah, there is,” she said. She put the dishes in the sink and propped her hands on either side. “It’s the whole reason we’re not together anymore, Cole. You talk about wanting to fix our relationship, about being a better husband, about being there for me. That was all I ever wanted, Cole, you. And what did I get instead?” She turned away from the sink. “Your checkbook.”
“I was just trying to make things easier.”
“Because it’s easier to throw money at a problem than to actually get your hands—and your heart—into it.” She shook her head, and wondered why she kept letting hope rise in her when they always circled back to the same disappointing end. Even if they stayed together and had the baby, she didn’t need a crystal ball to predict the future. Cole would buy toys and trips to Disney World, but never be there for the first steps and soccer games. She let out a long, sad breath. “All I ever wanted was you.”
Then she left the room, before the tears in her eyes spilled down her cheeks and told Cole the truth. That all she wanted now, and always, was him.
