Holiday Heat: The Men of Starlight Bend Page 18

  She couldn’t stop thinking of the giant Wishing Tree and the card she’d pulled from Santa’s bag.

  Your wish is granted.

  So why did she feel like someone had cut all the heads off of her flowers? Why wasn’t she ecstatic over the revenue that just kept rising? The realization that, thanks to Ty, the plan she’d crafted was about to succeed?

  Her calendar mocked her every day now and each X she’d made felt like a wound that would never heal.

  Your wish is granted.

  She’d already ordered the gifts for the children in the letter she’d pulled from the tree. She’d shopped online and found the Wookie and Loopdedoo Kit—which could, indeed, be used to make bracelets and necklaces. She’d even found something for fourteen-year-old Sara. Something that would make the young woman feel just like everyone else. The outfit Kari had ordered came from Abercrombie Kids—the ultimate equalizer. She’d paired the perfect jeans and the perfect top with the perfect boots. Understated, totally cool. With labels, because girls her age knew their labels. Sara would be dressed like ninety percent of the adolescent girls her age—only she’d be wearing the original brand, not just the knock off.

  Still, Kari hated the idea of playing to the social norms. Of turning spunky Sara of the Wish Tree into a clone. Average. Ordinary. The opposite of weird.

  The opposite of special.

  Words that sounded like a death sentence for the young woman who’d spoken so bluntly to Santa, placing her brother and sister above her own needs. Refusing to ask for help with something she’d deemed unchangeable.

  Kari had wrapped the other two gifts for the younger siblings and had them sitting on the table, ready to deliver. But she just couldn’t bring herself to box up the outfit, let alone wrap it in frolicking reindeer paper with a big red bow on top.

  Sighing, she left it alone and got ready for her date with Ty. It was Friday night—her first night off since Thanksgiving—and he wanted to take her out. Staying in and having dinner in bed would have suited her just fine, but the truth of the matter was that the harder she worked at distancing her emotions, the more she failed. She couldn’t wait to be with him—anywhere. They were both quiet, though, as he drove from her house to the outskirts of town. He’d promised her the best steak of her life and, evidently, The Pinnacle was the place to get it.

  The restaurant was lovely, with beautiful views of the mountains, and heavenly smells coming from the kitchen. Let It Snow played softly in the bar where they had a drink while waiting for their table. In a room full of revelry and sparkling lights, though, both Kari and Ty remained subdued. For some inexplicable reason, the jolly customers and festive ambiance made her want to cry. Not just a few tears either.

  At last a hostess led them to a booth in a secluded, candlelit corner, and Ty slid in beside her. A chill had settled in her bones and she welcomed his heat. Only after the waiter had taken their orders and poured their wine, did either of them speak.

  “You’re quiet tonight,” she observed.

  “I was going to say the same to you. Got something on your mind?”

  You. Always you.

  She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I don’t know. Maybe. I keep thinking about Sara—the girl whose letter I chose from the Wish Tree.”

  “Okay,” he said with a wary glance.

  “Henry—your dad—”

  “I do know who he is.”

  She smiled. “Sorry.”

  “What about Henry?”

  “He said that the card picks you, not the other way around. Do you think that’s true?”

  “In a way, sure. But it’s hard not to feel an affinity for any of the kids that put their wishes on that tree. They’re all missing something and that’s a feeling we can all relate to one way or another. Right?”

  Kari sipped her wine and nodded. Ty had already picked out, purchased, and delivered his Wish Tree gifts earlier in the week. She knew she was making it more difficult than it needed to be.

  “So I guess that leads to the bigger the question,” he went on. “What are you missing, Kari?”

  She didn’t have an answer. Not one she could share, anyway. “It’s just . . . there’s something about what Sara asked for—what she didn’t ask for—that hit me. Ever since I read her note, I keep thinking about how I felt at her age. The things that didn’t matter, but I thought they did. The things that did matter that I ignored. Like my dad.”

  Ty watched her, listening in that way he had. Making her feel heard when she wasn’t even sure she was making sense.

  “I was always ashamed of him. Of my mom, too, for that matter. Because she enabled his crazy. At least that’s how it seemed to me. I thought his ideas were stupid. Who in the hell needed or wanted a damn feet dryer? Or an automated hairbrush cleaner? Or any of the ideas he had for kitchens. You don’t even want to know what some of them were.”

  “Great minds are hard to understand.”

  “I know. Even then, I knew that.”

  “So are you beating yourself up because you didn’t appreciate his genius? Or is something else going on?”

  “He never even came close to seeing one of his ideas become more. Not once. I guess, standing where I am . . . knowing that I’m on the brink of a breakthrough . . . it makes me wonder how he survived all that disappointment. All the naysayers. Me.”

  “Dreams come in different shapes and sizes, Kari. Maybe you’re looking through the wrong lens.”

  Her head came up. “What do you mean?”

  “For you, it’s the golden ring. Grabbing it. Keeping it. That’s what you want, right?”

  She nodded, but she knew a bigger message was coming. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to hear it, though.

  “For your dad, maybe it was the vision that fulfilled him. Knowing he’d thought of something no one else had.”

  Kari paused, staring at him while his words sunk in. She’d never considered it that way before, never looked at it through that particular lens. And something inside gave, like a tight band that suddenly snapped, letting her take a deep breath for the first time in a long time.

  “Maybe to your dad, it didn’t matter if anyone else valued what he’d made,” Ty finished softly.

  “Even when it mattered to the people who loved him?”

  “Love shouldn’t have contingencies,” he said, brows pulled together, as if he questioned himself even as he spoke.

  She took a deep breath, knowing that his own father had entered the conversation. It pained her to see the hurt their estrangement caused. Not just because it was pointless, but because she’d give anything to be able to see her parents again, to tell her father she was sorry she hadn’t understood his genius. To tell her mother thank you for caring so much for them both. Ty’s dad lived less than a handful of miles away and yet it might as well have been light years.

  “Have you told your dad that, Ty?” she asked softly.

  He leveled a steady gaze at her, but his eyes were shuttered and she had no idea what he was thinking.

  “I know you want to help, Kari. But this thing between me and my dad? It’s been years in the making. You’re not going to solve it in the next—what do you have? Twenty days?”

  He never raised his voice or edged it with anger, but his words hit her like a slap, and she had to look away. She didn’t want him to see how badly he’d hurt her.

  Their food arrived, saving her from a response while the waiter served them. But a pot had been stirred and neither of them knew what to do with the thickening broth.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ty couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he’d fallen in love with her. Maybe it was that first moment when she’d walked through the door like a spring breeze, confident, vibrant, and so very beautiful. Whenever it happened, he was in deep. Now, the calendar has become his enemy. He’d known from the start that it would come down to this—this gut wrenching feeling of the inevitable. And he had no one to blame but himself. She’d tried to make a cle
an break. But even in the beginning, he couldn’t let her go.

  Now that he knew her . . . The complexities of her thoughts, her desires . . . he only loved her more.

  They hardly spoke after they left the restaurant. And their lovemaking had a desperate edge to it that lacerated his already overworked thoughts. She lay curled against him, her head on his chest, hand low on his belly, stroking the skin there, lost in thought.

  “Why do you think the card you chose from the Wish Tree was meant for you?” he asked softly.

  He’d been thinking of it ever since she brought it up, knowing that a deeper meaning had been rooted in her concerns. Grasping at it like a ledge over a bottomless pit.

  “Because she doesn’t know what she really wants,” Kari said without hesitation.

  As soon as the words were out, he felt her stiffen, as if saying it out loud had finally exposed the secret meaning. Did she understand the parallel? Or would she remain stubbornly blind to it?

  “What do you think she really wants?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she answered, wariness in her tone. “She didn’t ask for anything for herself. Not outright. But she longs to fit in so much . . . . I bought her this outfit that I know she’ll love. It’s trendy—what every other teenaged girl will be wearing. But giving it to her feels like . . . I don’t know. A sign that she’s supposed to change, make herself fit in.”

  He waited, silently urging her to keep talking. Whatever point she was headed for, he knew it would expose something he needed to know.

  “But she doesn’t. And she won’t, just because she’s wearing the right clothes, or saying the right thing. All she’ll be doing is pretending. And if I give her this gift, I feel like I’ll be guiding her down that path.” She laughed softly, sadly. “I guess I have illusions of grandeur. It’s just a Christmas present, after all.”

  “From a tree that’s meant to make wishes come true,” he said. “That’s a powerful thing.”

  She was still a moment, then she tipped her face up and looked at him. “So what do I do?”

  “Let her know she has a choice. She thinks she wants to be normal. You think the things that make her different are what makes her special.”

  Kari sat up and stared at him with wide eyes. “Yes.”

  “So send her the message that she gets to choose. That all of us, get to choose. Whatever path you’re on, you can get off.”

  He wasn’t talking about Sara anymore and Kari knew it.

  “But that’s a lie. Just like you said with your dad. Your choice is to let the past go and reconnect. His choice is to hold onto it and stay apart.”

  He came up on his elbow and locked eyes with her. “What about your choices, Kari?”

  “I don’t have choices. I have a plan.”

  “Plans can change.”

  Her eyes glistened and her bottom lip looked shaky. She bit it and shook her head. “I’m two feet from gold, Ty. Close enough to touch everything I’ve dreamed of, worked for. Want.”

  “But where does that leave us?”

  Her lashes came down, but not before he saw the panic in her eyes. “I thought . . . I know it’s crazy, but I thought we could try the long distance thing. Wherever my next step takes me, we could find a way—”

  “No,” he said, touching her face with his fingertips, aching inside. He cupped her jaw and closed his eyes. “You know that won’t work. Not for us.”

  “Why?” she asked in a broken voice.

  “We’re all or nothing, sweetheart. Have been since the start.”

  “I don’t want to say goodbye to you, Ty,” she whispered.

  “Then don’t.”

  “But, you said it yourself. The reason you came home, your dad, it isn’t working out. Pack your bags. You and I could make—”

  “No,” he said again, though it felt like cutting out his own heart. “This is my home. It’s a part of me. What I do here, teaching. That’s part of me, too.”

  “You wouldn’t have to stop teaching.”

  “It’s not just that, sweetheart. I don’t want to be baggage, and eventually, I would be. You’d call me your anchor, but I’d feel like a ball and chain. I can’t live on the kind of plan you have in your head. I can’t sit by and watch you work yourself to death for something I know you don’t really want.”

  She pulled back. That had stung. He’d meant it to. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “This dream of yours. It’s not about proving yourself. Landing the big deal. Money. You’re trying to compensate for something you think is missing in you. Something I know you already have.”

  “What’s that?”

  He stood up, though getting out of her bed was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. “You’re like Sara, sweetheart. How can you not see that? You want this thing—this intangible, unattainable thing. Success, to compensate for your dad’s failures. Documented plans that can prove you’re worth what you’ve achieved. Numbers, lining up the way they should. But that’s not what you really want. You want something that will free you. That will blast away the power your fear has over you. You want to risk it all and be happy with whatever happens.”

  She stared at him, her mouth open, her brows pulled tight. She didn’t like what he’d said, but she’d needed to hear it. Really, hear it.

  “I’m not afraid,” she said in a wooden tone.

  He let out a deep breath, and shook his head. She was, and they both knew it.

  “You need to make up your mind, Kari. Do you want the cool kid’s clothes? Or do you want to stand out and be yourself, warts and all?”

  Her eyes were filled with anger, confusion, hurt. All the things he was feeling himself.

  “I want to be with you, Kari. I’m in love with you. I don’t care if you’re Entrepreneur of the Year or you decide to sell hot dogs on the corner. And I don’t think you care either. Not really. Not deep down.”

  Her lips moved silently over the word love. He couldn’t tell if she was giving it back or simply trying it out.

  He fished his clothes out of the tangle on the floor and pulled on his briefs, then his jeans. Kari watched with widening eyes.

  “You know where to find me when you make up your mind.”

  “Wait. You’re leaving?”

  “I’m going home. I didn’t choose to come back just for my dad. I came back for me. I love being a part of community. This community. I want to live here, in a place where people know me. Where the work I do matters to the people I do it for. I want to settle down. Maybe raise a family here. And no, I’m not walking away from my father just because he’s a pain in the ass. I’m not walking away from you, either. I want to be with you, Kari. But not if it means I’ve got to hold on so tight you can’t get loose.”

  “You want . . . .”

  “You. I want you, Kari Dale. I’m willing to fight for you, too. But I meant what I said. I won’t be the consolation prize. The thing you got because you didn’t make it up, up and away.”

  He shut his mouth before the pain of leaving her made him say more. Made him abandon his resolve, ignore what he knew was right, and climb right back in bed with her. While she watched with a stunned expression, he finished dressing, pulled on his boots, and grabbed his coat.

  Before he walked out the door, he took her face between his hands and kissed her, pouring everything he felt into it.

  “Choose me,” he said.

  She blinked her tearful eyes at him, but she didn’t say the words he wanted to hear. She didn’t say anything, which was answer enough. He’d put it all out there, but Kari had plans. He couldn’t even feel cheated as he left her house for the lonely drive home. She’d told him from the start that she’d be long gone come the New Year.

  He just hadn’t realized she’d be taking such a big part of him with her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The call from Leimann’s came the week before Christmas. Eight days after Ty had walked out on her. Everything that had happened since
had been marked by that point of no return.

  Simone answered the phone at seven thirty in the morning. Both women had arrived early to work on the books and prepare their deposits. Their desks faced one another—it was the only configuration the small office would allow—so Kari heard both sides of the conversation. She could have scripted the first part from her daydreams of how this call would go.

  Them: We’ve been watching the success of your stores. We think you have your finger on the pulse of the young male buyer.

  Us: We’ve worked very hard to see our vision become reality.

  Them: We’d like to take your brand to the next level. We’ve put together an offer we think you’ll want to entertain.

  Us: We’re listening.

  After Simone hung up, the two women stared at one another in shock.

  “Did that just happen?” Simone asked.

  Just like in the movies. Everything they’d wished for was about to come true.

  A representative from their corporate office showed up to negotiate terms the next day. Forty-eight hours later, the written offer arrived via a FedEx driver. Henry Timberlake was in the store at the time, flirting with Simone as she helped him pick out “new duds” for his date with Becky Smith.

  “She makes me feel like a young man again,” he said.

  “You look like a young man,” Simone teased. “I wouldn’t put you a day over forty.”

  Henry laughed at that, but when the delivery man walked through the door as Simone rung up his purchases, Henry grew quiet and watchful. He couldn’t miss the look of excitement that passed between the two women.

  “Good news?” he said.

  “Leimann’s Department Stores wants to buy us out,” Simone blurted.

  “The bastards,” Henry said, mistaking the intent for a hostile takeover.

  “No—it’s good. They want all five stores—well the stock anyway. They don’t plan to keep the bricks and mortar.”

  Henry frowned, still not following. Kari said nothing. The churning emotions inside her were too sharp, too confusing.

  “They’ll shut you down?” Henry asked.

  “No. They’ll take our brand and make it theirs. Make it big. And they’re going to pay us a whole lot of money to do it.”