“I didn’t know.” He touched her elbow. “What are you going to do now?”
“Well, I thought I had a backup plan. I would open a dance school for kids. If you can’t dance- then teach. Dad offered to co-sign on the old grange hall by the farm. We both liked it and I could walk to work and strengthen my bad leg. But, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Something else will come around, though.” She shrugged. “It’s okay. My family taught me to keep my head up no matter what.” She gave him a weak smile. “It looks like you kept your head up, and look what you got- My horse’s hoof in your face.” She touched his cheek. Her fingers were warm.
“I’m fine.”
“It looks like it hurts.”
Jon smiled back. “You know me too well for me to lie. Yeah, it hurts. But, it’s only a bruise and my lip will heal.”
“I better go.” Laura looked back - at her car. “Sorry I took up your evening, but I wanted to come over in person and thank you again.”
“It should be Red who’s thanking me. It was his butt I pulled out of the pool, not yours.” Jon watched as she laughed and looped a scarf around her neck. Suddenly, he realized how much he missed talking to her over the past years. She had always been his best friend as well as his lover.
He started to say more, but she headed off down the driveway.
She stopped about half-way and turned. “Would you and your dad like to come over and have Christmas dinner with my family? I know my mom would love to see you. She always said that you were another one of her sons.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t do or say anything anymore without thinking though the implications. I don’t know if you’d give me another chance-I know I hurt you. As soon as I figure out a few things, I’d like to see you back in my life. If it’s just as a friend, I’ll settle for that.”
Laura got into her car and drove away. Jon watched until the taillights disappeared.
Yesterday, he told himself that he would never forgive her and no longer held feelings for her.
Today, he’d proven that was a lie too.
Chapter 3
Jon came back into the house to find his dad sitting at the table, waiting for him.
“So…?”
“So… that was Laura. She brought us shortbread and wanted to thank us for our rescue mission.” Jon leaned a hip against the kitchen counter and bit into another cookie. “She’s working through some things, but she didn’t say exactly what.”
His dad peeled back the plastic on his TV dinner. “Did she ask you again about roofing the building she’s trying to buy?”
“No.”
“The roof of that building is in bad shape- the loan will never go through.”
Jon eyed him. “How the heck do you know all these things?”
“I’m a business man. I need to know where all the rotten roofs are in town, that’s what keeps us busy.”
Things started to fall into place.
Moving into the living room, he grabbed his cell phone and dialed. He guessed Laura would go to the Northwest Mountain Bank since they were both friends of the bank’s manager. “Hey, Bill, it’s Jon. I know with all the confidential client rules these days you can only say so much, but, if I was going to do some roof repair on the grange hall… how many days would I need for it to be… helpful? Say-like, if someone was thinking of getting a loan to purchase it.”
Bill chuckled. “You back with Laura? I always knew you guys would end up together somehow.”
“No. She’s just had some bad things happen. As you probably know, she’s trying to open a dance school and I thought I might help out. It’s Christmas after all. You’re supposed to do good things for people, aren’t you? Can you give me the approval to do the work?”
“Yeah, I can do that, and you have two days. The morning of Christmas Eve, I just might have the final building inspection before the loan’s approved or denied. With the roof repairs done, the loan would… let’s say, hypothetically, be approved.”
“Thanks. This conversation never took place. But, if you happen to give me a call in the next week or two, the beers are on me.”
He put his phone back on the end table and walked into the kitchen.
“Who was that?” his dad asked.
“Nobody.” Jon grinned. “You know, those days off we had before Christmas? Looks like we have another job.”
****
Laura spent the next few days trying to figure out an alternative to the building she’d looked at for her dance school. Another place would become vacant after the first of the year. The grange would be perfect, but someplace else could work.
There was too much of a time crunch with the bank wanting the repairs on the former grange hall. It was too close to Christmas. It wasn’t feasible. Looking at another site would give her more time. She’d drive around town and take another look, then call her realtor. She could use all the sketches and plans she’d drawn up for the grange… at another place.
It will work out.
She took another sip of her cappuccino and wondered if that was true. Did Jon give a second thought to her proposal about accepting her back in his life? From the moment she’d seen him, all the memories of their time together flooded back. She still loved him, but everything was a mess.
Had she expected him to greet her with open arms? When she left for the big city, he’d been right. He wouldn’t have fit in. She knew it hadn’t been fair expecting him to give up his life and adapt to hers.
Would things be different now? They weren’t kids any longer.
She pictured Jon as he stood in his driveway with his dark hair still damp from a shower and broad shoulders filling out his t-shirt. Beard stubble only added to his handsome good looks. Some things about not being kids had their advantages. Jon was definitely a man now.
Laura had a few flings and short-term relationships in New York, but Jon was always on her mind. He was her first… really, her only.
Looking up at the wall clock, Laura pushed aside the paper stacked on her desk and stood. It was time to feed Red then head off to meet Bill at the grange hall. She knew the loan would never fly, but she needed to keep up her professional persona for the next possible site application.
As she approached the stable, her heart sped up. It was way too quiet.
“Red?” Laura called as she walked inside.
A note was thumb-tacked to the post.
Meet me at the grange
Red
Red hadn’t written the note, so someone kidnapped her horse?
Should she call the police? No, a true kidnapper wouldn’t have written her the humorous note. Laura swore she recognized the handwriting, it looked like her dad’s.
What the hell is going on?
Laura rushed into the house and grabbed her coat and purse. She snatched her keys up off the table then ran out the door.
A few minutes later, she arrived at the store. Shutting down the engine, she slowly got out of her car.
In front of the building, Red was tied to a post. He had a Christmas wreath around his neck and a Santa hat on his head, his ears stuck through holes cut in the white fur. The place was abuzz with activity. The first person she spotted was her brother, Dan.
“What’s going on?” Laura asked.
Dan lifted a box of nails and smiled. “Rick, Donald, and I got a call from Jon a few days ago something about needing our help with a job. We didn’t have anything better to do, so we came down to see how we could help.”
Her dad popped his head around the corner of the truck. “You must have finally got the note from Red. He was wondering where you were. Took you long enough.”
“I’m here because I have a ten o’clock appointment with Bill about the loan.”
Bill came up behind her and said, “Well, he
re I am. I’ll have the papers to sign for the approved loan on the 26th… if that’s okay with you.”
“Did you know about this?” she asked Bill. “Did you ask Jon and his dad…”
“I knew nothing about this,” Bill cut her off and tried to look surprised. “This was all Jon’s idea.”
She looked up just as Jon appeared at the edge of the roof. He put his hammer back in his belt, grinned, and headed down the ladder. That was when she noticed the hand-painted sign over the door of the grange.
A Step Ahead Dance School
That was the name she’d picked out.
The other people moved away to give her and Jon privacy when he came towards her.
“You said you were booked through the holidays.” She looked into his face.
“Had some time open up.” He stepped close and pointed to the sign. “I realized, you have to take ‘a step ahead’ because you never want to go back. I want you back in my life more than anything, and I want the two of us to start over. No baggage. No regrets.” One corner of his mouth lifted in the barest hint of a smile.
She felt a tear slip from the corner of her eye. Jon brushed it off her check. The calluses on his fingers felt rough when he touched her face.
“I’m sorry for everything,” she whispered.
“No,” he said in a deep tone. “When I kiss you, we start here and now with a new beginning.”
Her heart pounded at the feel of his mouth against hers. He slid his hands around her back and pulled her close, as he tipped his head to deepen the angle. She wanted him to kiss her until she was drunk from the taste.
He broke away and his gaze trailed over her face to linger on her mouth. She’d forgotten that his eyes were a unique mix of brown and green with flecks of gold. They were filled with warmth and love that left her breathless.
Laura hadn’t had enough. She pulled him in for round two.
Jon made a rough sound and hauled her against him. His mouth was so warm against hers and he tasted like the lemon shortbread cookies.
“I’ve missed you so much.” He planted a trail of kisses across her check and his breath was warm on her neck. “I want the two of us to start fresh, but not just as friends.” He kissed her again softly. “We’re already friends and we’ve been lovers, so I guess all that leaves is… I’d like you to be my wife. I would have married you five years ago, but it wasn’t the right time. Times have changed, and I hope now the time is right for both of us. I love you Laura. It would be a lie if I told you I’d ever stopped.”
Her heart swelled as she threw her arms around his neck and cried with joy.
A blush tipped Jon’s ears. “I was going to wait until Christmas Day.” He pulled a tiny piece of ribbon off the wreath on Red’s neck and tied it around her finger. “I know this is lame. I’ve been too busy here with the roofing to go to the jeweler. I should have thought this through. I don’t have a ring.” He swallowed hard. “Will you marry me, Laura Doran?”
It was the most romantic proposal she could imagine.
“Yes! I never stopped loving you either.” She was so full of happy emotions she thought she would burst.
When she and Jon finished kissing he sat her back on her feet. She turned to Red. “Were you in on this?” Laura asked the horse as she patted him on the flank. “You didn’t need to fall into a pool to play matchmaker.”
“I know Santa has reindeer,” Jon said. “But I wonder if he has room for a Christmas horse. Red’s pretty smart if he staged this whole thing to bring us back together.”
Laura looped a hand under Jon’s coat and pulled him close. “He’s the smartest horse in the world!”
Red whinnied, snorting his approval, then flicked his ears and swished his tail.
Laura was certain Red was smiling and he wasn’t the only one!
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If you enjoyed The Christmas Horse look for Jennifer Conner’s Other Christmas Stories:
Christmas Chaos
Josiane shifted the large Christmas goodie basket she’d bought at the market to her hip. When the elevator door opened she stepped in. The tall man in front of her moved to the side to allow room for her and the basket.
“I thought I was the only one left in the building,” the man said in a deep voice. “It looks like all the offices are empty and I didn’t see many around the condos.”
Josiane surveyed the man’s dusty cargo pants and Carhartt jacket. “Are you in construction here in the building?” she asked.
“This week, I am.” He smiled. A dimple made an indent in his cheek. He was awfully cute. Dark hair. Deep blue eyes. Her holiday dream package.
“And next week?”
“It depends on if I survive this week.”
Josiane laugh was cut short when the elevator shuddered and shook. The light overhead snapped off and left them in the dark. She let out a little yelp and heard the man next to her swear under his breath.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and grasped her elbow.
“Yes… no. I’ve never really liked elevators. I usually take the stairs, but I was trying to hurry.”
“A bad elevator experience?”
“No, not really,” Josiane answered. “Too many horror movies. Where the doors open between floors, she tries to climb out… and you know.”
He squeezed her elbow tighter. “I don’t suggest either one of us climb anywhere. Do you have a cell phone? I left mine at my brother’s place.”
The dark was disorienting, so she thought she better set the basket on the floor. When she straightened, Josiane fished in her large leather purse. She swung her hand out with the phone and hit the solid wall of the man’s chest. “Sorry.” She let out a nervous laugh
The Christmas Horse Page 2