by Toni Blake
That was when the door swung open. The handsome man across the threshold squinted slightly at her. “Suzanne?”
She wasn’t certain if his reaction was surprise, or trouble recognizing her, but under the circumstances either seemed fair. She was wrapped up tight, her head covered by a snug hood, her face half buried in a scarf. She suspected she was snow-covered, too. She nodded. “Yes.”
He blinked, twice, still appearing taken aback. “Good God, come in.” He took a step back to welcome her into the warmth and dryness of his home.
“Thanks,” she said, moving inside as she reached up one glove to begin undoing the scarf. Her eyes fell to her boots, currently dropping clumps of wet snow onto his hardwood floor, but rather than apologize, she lifted her gaze to the home’s interior, taking in thick wood beams, tall windows, and a massive stone fireplace worthy of a ski lodge.
Focus. Stay focused. But now that she stood here, face-to-face with the object of her affection, her chest tightened and her stomach churned.
“What on earth are you doing out in this weather?” he asked.
Just be cool. Be the woman he seemed so enamored of when you first met. Whoever that is.
She blew out a breath, tried to get her bearings. “I need to talk to you.”
And he blinked again, clearly confused. He had no idea what was coming, that she was making a grand gesture to express her ardor for him. She’d sort of hoped maybe he would sense that, or at least seem more happy than puzzled. But again—blizzard. So that’s fair.
“Can...can we go sit down?” she asked. “By the fire maybe?” Her goal was twofold—get more comfortable for this conversation, and get warm.
“Of course,” he said. “Let me help with your coat.” After freeing her from it, he hung it on a hook near the fireplace—only then allowing her to see exactly how wet and snow-covered the long parka was.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. For the mess. Though I should probably take off my boots, too.”
“No worries—but you must be freezing.”
“Yeah, pretty cold,” she confessed, laying her gloves on the long hearth and, a moment later, sitting her boots there, as well.
“Can I get you something hot to drink?” Then he made a slight face. “Not that I have much that’s hot. Instant cocoa?” He raised dark eyebrows.
“Do you have any wine?”
“That’s not hot.”
“I know.”
“Sure,” he said on a short nod. “Red or white?”
“Whatever you lay your hand on first is great.” This part wasn’t about warmth; it was about liquid courage.
She warmed her hands and toes by the big fire roaring in the grate, struggling with what she was going to say. Her mind felt jumbled, though, and when he returned with two glasses of red wine, she was still stuck at winging it.
As they sat down on two sofas that faced each other, she took a gulp of the wine—then tried to get used to looking him in the eye. He had such great eyes. Eyes she wanted to drown in. But as was so often the case with Beck, she had trouble holding the gaze—too profoundly enamored, and now too profoundly nervous. Nervousness often got the best of her in his presence, but this took it to new levels.
He leaned forward slightly. “Whatever brought you out, Suzanne, it must be urgent. What’s going on?”
She pushed out a shaky breath, her chest tight. Again, not the lead-in she’d been hoping for. But just roll with it. “It’s urgent only because... I feel I haven’t been clear with you. And now that I’m clear on things, I just...” She stopped, shook her head slightly. “I just don’t want any uncertainty hanging between us. Not even for another day. Even if...” She sighed. “Even if it seems pretty extreme that I’ve come here like this.”
“No,” he said. “It’s all right.”
She swallowed another sip of wine, then peeked up at him from where her gaze had dropped to the coffee table that rested between them. She tried to read his expression, but found it difficult since she still couldn’t maintain eye contact for long. She wanted to believe he didn’t look uncomfortable. But hell—who wouldn’t look uncomfortable? She’d created uncomfortable here. She just had to change it now—that was all. Everything would get more comfortable once she told him why she’d come.
“I’m just going to say this straight out,” she told him with another swift glance.
“Okay,” he replied.
She took a big drink from the wineglass in her hand, letting it instill the fearlessness she’d sought from it. Here goes nothing. Here goes everything.
“I know I pushed away your affection in the bluntest of ways when we first met. And I know that more recently I’ve indicated to you that my feelings were beginning to change and that I’d be interested in getting better acquainted.” She raised her gaze, caught a glimpse of those brown eyes, shifted her focus to the stone of the fireplace. “But the truth is—I’m...more than interested in getting acquainted. In fact, I...have feelings for you. I realize we don’t know each other well, but there it is—I have feelings for you. Ardent ones. Serious ones. And while I was content to just wait until the holidays passed and see if we crossed each other’s paths, now I’m...not. Because it’s almost Christmas. And there’s a blizzard on. And I know that means you won’t get home to see your relatives before the holiday. And because...because... Christmas just seems like the right time to...let someone know you care for them. And so—I care for you, Beck. I want more with you. And if you still think you might care for me, too—well, maybe the holiday would be a nice time to...move forward exploring that.”
Okay then. She’d really just said all that. Made it plain. Cleared up any confusion that might have existed. She’d just said it—and now her heart beat like a drum and the simple act of breathing had grown even more difficult. She threw back another sip of wine, and discovered she hadn’t the wherewithal to even attempt looking at him again.
But you need to. You need to look into his eyes. Let him see what’s in yours.
And that was when it hit her what a horrible, ridiculous position she’d just put him in.
He’d had no warning this was coming.
For the first time, she took in more details about him: he wore a blue-and-white Kentucky Wildcats hoodie with gray sweatpants and white socks. His jaw sported the stubble that came from a few days of not shaving, and his thick, dark hair was messy. He’d been sitting here alone in his house, minding his own business, having an easy day while the snow fell outside—and she’d barged in professing her sudden and wild passion for him.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured quickly.
“Huh?” he asked.
“I...” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have come. I should have handled this in some more subtle way. Only...” She stopped, lifted her head, then forced herself to look at that handsome, rugged face. “I kept trying to be subtle and it wasn’t working. So I thought maybe being direct would get the job done.”
His eyes shone on her with kindness.
Even though she’d barged into his privacy without warning. Even though she possessed all the romantic finesse of a tenth-grade girl wallowing in the throes of first love. Even though...she suddenly knew, before he even said a word.
She’d already said it all—she’d been subtle, made her moves, and he hadn’t responded. That was his answer. She’d simply refused to see it.
“Thank you, for being direct,” Beck said. Wishing he knew...well, more than he did. About the future, and his heart, and what he really wanted. “At least now I...well, I know where you stand, and I appreciate that.”
“I...thought it might be refreshing. After the way things started between us.”
He nodded. “I appreciate you coming. I appreciate you caring enough to come.” Of course, he felt like he’d opened his front door and been hit by a Mack truck. And he felt awful—awful t
hat she’d been so brave, put herself out there so boldly, and that he didn’t know what to say to it.
He knew what he wanted to say. What it probably made sense to say.
Suzanne, I feel the same way. I’m glad you’re ready to move on. I’ve been attracted to you and intrigued by you literally since the moment we met. You’re a beautiful woman. You have a soft heart I’m drawn to. Yes, let’s use these cold December days to spend time together, start a relationship. Let’s be what I’ve hoped we could since the spring.
After all, he cared for her. True, they didn’t know each other well, but he still cared. And pure logic made this easy. Suzanne was a sure bet. A lovely bet. She was a sweet, funny woman he could very possibly have an extremely happy existence with here.
The only problem was...he’d been using logic his whole life. To build a business and a lifestyle he wanted, to live more comfortably than his dad had chosen for himself and his family. But logic didn’t work when it came to love. After all, marrying Chandra had seemed logical—and it had been a disastrous decision.
And the idea of moving forward with Suzanne, while it sounded simple and pleasant and suddenly like the path of least resistance, brought him an entirely different kind of clarity than she’d intended to give him by coming here.
Taking a shot at love with Suzanne made all the sense in the world—except for one thing that he could no longer deny.
Lila, who would leave as soon as the ice melted, had his heart.
He’d been trying to move around that, push it down, stop feeling it, but she had his heart—that simple. And even if he had no future with Lila, and even if he hated this, he knew he had to, as gently as possible, break Suzanne’s.
She’d been sitting quietly, waiting for him to respond, and now he stood up, stepped around the coffee table, and sat down on it to bring them closer, where he could take her hand in his. It was soft, delicate, and a part of him deeply regretted what he was about to do—because if Lila had never stood in front of that bulldozer, he’d be giving Suzanne an entirely different answer right now. Damn, but God did work in mysterious ways.
He squeezed her hand in his and tried to find the right, honest words. “I care for you, too, Suzanne, but...it wouldn’t be right, or fair to you, to move forward. There’s...somebody else.” He knew those words stung, more than stung. Who hadn’t, at some point in their life, been given that same heartbreaking news from someone they wanted to be with? But the words had needed to be said. Now he was the one who had to be clear. He didn’t want to lead her on. He worried he had already—without meaning to.
He shook his head, lowered his gaze, swallowed back the awkwardness. “I don’t even have a chance with her, but it wouldn’t be right to start seeing you while my heart is in another place.” He gathered the courage to look at her then—but her eyes were closed.
He sighed, and went on. “And I hate that. Because you’re amazing. You’re beautiful, and funny, and warm, and smart, and...bold as hell. You’re a woman of your own. You follow your heart wherever it leads you. And what more could a man want in a woman? I wish... I wish...hell, I don’t know what I wish exactly because this is all pretty damn confusing. But, if it makes any sense, I wish like hell I wasn’t telling you no.”
“Me, too,” she whispered, the softest of sounds.
And his heart broke a little—for both of them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
EVERY MUSCLE IN Suzanne’s body felt like a lead weight. She’d truly thought this would go her way. She’d told Dahlia she was prepared for any outcome, but she’d been wrong. She’d never have put herself in such a position if she’d really believed he’d turn her down. She’d made the mistake of believing she could have what she wanted, that she could get the hot guy, that she wasn’t awkward and romantically clumsy. Only Cal—only Cal had ever really seen past all that.
You have no one to blame but yourself. You ignored the signs and signals. You were the blind, desperate tenth grader too overcome with longing to simply keep it classy and back away. And now she was stuck here, on his couch, holding his hand. Wishing she could hold it forever. Except that it was a handhold of kindness, of letting her down easy. The worst of all known handholds.
And she had no idea what to say, how to gracefully exit the situation she’d so haphazardly created. Then again, she was pretty sure the graceful ship had already sailed. Now? Now I see it all clearly?
More winging it. “Thank you for being so nice. And honest. And for the wine—the wine helped. But I should go now.”
He looked doubtful. “You don’t have to rush away, Suzanne. Why don’t you stay, warm up some more? I could attempt to make us something to eat.” He grimaced slightly then, looking doubtful in a way that normally might have made her laugh. “Or we could just talk a while—I’m not much of a cook.”
A heart-weary sigh left her. He was trying to keep being kind, trying to do the right thing, make her feel less awkward and more normal. But that was actually terrible, because it only made her like him all the more.
And she’d had just enough wine now that she didn’t weigh her words as they spilled from her in total candidness. “That’s tempting, and sounds nice. But I can’t. I’d just end up confiding in you about my life, and then you’d confide in me, and I’d leave here more infatuated with you than I already am. So the wisest move really seems to be cutting my losses and hoping that by the spring thaw this will all just seem like a distant memory or a bad dream.” As she spoke, she pushed up from the couch and sat down on the hearth to put her snow boots back on as swiftly as possible. It allowed her not to even have to try to look at him anymore, and would enable her departure.
“It’s a small island,” she went on, “so we’ll be neighbors for a long time to come, and that will be easier if we never speak of this again and act as if it never happened. And that will be easier if I just go.”
She was on her feet, reaching for her calf-length parka, which had dried at least a little, for which she was thankful—since she didn’t plan to wait around. In fifteen or twenty minutes, she could be back in the privacy of her safe little cottage where she belonged, getting warm and dry for good this time, so a little more wetness seemed minuscule in comparison to her need to get out of Beck’s house.
Only as she put the coat on and zipped it up, then reached for her scarf and gloves, she realized there was more she wanted to say. And maybe she shouldn’t at this point, given the whole concept of cutting her losses, but wine and cutting losses perhaps worked at cross-purposes.
“I do want to thank you, though,” she went on, “for...changing something in me. I didn’t think I’d ever...want anything with a man again. After Cal died, I thought that part of me had died along with him. You made me think there could be life after...well, life after death. His death. So even if it didn’t go anywhere, I’m grateful for that—that shift in myself.”
“I’m grateful for it, too, Suzanne. I know you’ll find happiness again.”
She didn’t think so. It had taken five years for a man to truly interest her romantically, and that man didn’t want her. Cal had been the only man to ever truly connect with her in a deep way—and the brief hope she’d experienced with Beck, now dashed, reinforced what she’d known all along: Cal was the only man who ever would.
Only when she made a move for the door did Beck say, “Wait.”
She stopped, looked up, a last renewed tiny burst of hope blossoming in her chest. Was he changing his mind?
“Let me walk you. Just give me a minute to grab a coat and some boots.” Oh. He wanted to walk her home in the storm. Because he was a gentleman. A gentle man. She feared there weren’t many of those left in the world, at least not available ones, and it only reminded her even more that she’d lost out here, big-time.
“Thanks, but no,” she insisted. “It’s terrible out there—no need for both of us to suffer through i
t, and your walk would be twice as long as mine.”
“But—”
“I’ll be fine, I promise.”
As she headed for the front door, she hoped he heard that in the bigger picture way, as well. I’ll be fine. And that he believed it. Even if she wasn’t so sure herself.
She didn’t give him a chance to protest—just opened the door and barreled forward that quickly, back out into the blizzard.
She hadn’t even taken the time to bundle herself up properly, so as she hit West Bluff, the street unmarked even by footprints, long since covered by drifting snow, she struggled to pull her hood up, tighten it, get her scarf adjusted, as the wind howled and the snow fell sideways. Dusk had come, dimming her path with flat, fading light, turning her walk back to Mill Street almost otherworldly, as if she traversed a lonely, barren white river.
Tears began to roll down her cheeks as she walked—she pushed her scarf up, using it like a tissue to blot them away. He’d been so nice. And she’d been so...honest. And now felt...foolish. And lonely. As lonely as the wintry desolation of West Bluff Drive at the moment.
Maybe she would forever.
A long lonesome winter loomed. What did she have to look forward to, after all? Sounded like Dahlia would be leaving on this sudden, mysterious trip of hers, a thought which made the isolation feel even worse already. And who knew when the ice would clear enough for Meg to come home. And when she did...well, she had Seth now. Suzanne knew Meg wouldn’t abandon their friendship or anything, but it made things different.
She’d thought she’d have all she needed here. All she wanted. Her shop. Books to read, a quaint cottage, a few friends, a simple life. But now she wanted more. And she wasn’t sure she’d ever have it. Or how to face that.
Maybe she shouldn’t have thanked him for reawakening the part of her that yearned for romance. Maybe she’d been better off without it.
Beck had called her a woman of her own. She wasn’t even certain exactly what that meant, but it struck her as a supreme compliment. I want to be that. I’ll try to be that.