* * *
The next morning, when the girls came downstairs and asked where Carter was, Paige played it vague. “He, um, decided to spend the night at his house.”
Dawn made a groaning sound low in her throat. “Have you looked in the mirror? You’ve been crying all night, haven’t you—and where’s your ring?”
The tears crept up the back of Paige’s throat again and filled her eyes. “We’re, um, having some problems. Taking a little break, is all.”
Dawn wasn’t buying that. “He broke up with you. That idiot. I’ll kill him.”
“No!” It came out on a sob. “It’s at least as much my fault as his.”
“No way.”
“Yeah. It really is. I hurt him. I’ve been hurting him for a very long time. And I...oh, Dawn. I think we both really blew it and I don’t know what’s going to happen. He said it’s over. He really seemed to mean it.”
Dawn grabbed her and hugged her as Biscuit moved close and whimpered in sympathy. “I’ll kill him,” Dawn threatened in her ear.
“Don’t say that. I love him.”
“I know you do.”
“I’ll always love him. And...and he loves me, even though he can never make himself say it.”
“Oh, Paige. I know that, too.”
A laugh that was more like a sob escaped her. “Because everybody knows, right?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
Paige held on tight, breathing in the familiar smell of Dawn’s strawberry shampoo, grateful beyond measure that she had her sister to hold on to.
Molly got up and joined the hug, too. The three of them just stood there in the kitchen, holding on to each other, as Paige let go and cried even harder than she had the night before, and Biscuit whimpered at their feet.
Later, when they sat down to Molly’s special German pancakes, Paige told the girls what she’d planned. “Carter gave me vacation time till the first of the year. And I’m going to take it. I’m calling an old college friend, a travel agent, tomorrow. I’m seeing if I can book a last-minute trip to someplace where I can sit on a beach in the sun in the yellow bikini I bought last summer and never took the tags off of. I want to leave right away and I’ll be back by New Year’s, in time for your spring semester. Either of you want to go?”
Dawn and Molly exchanged a look. Dawn nodded. “I’m in.”
And Molly said, “I’ll call my mom and see if it’s okay.”
* * *
Carter was at the shop, alone, that afternoon, when Dawn pounded on the side door.
He let her in and then he grabbed her in a hug. She didn’t seem to care if he got grease all over her, just hugged him back as hard as he was hugging her.
When she pulled away, she clutched his shoulders and glared up at him. “God, Carter. You look as miserable as she is.”
What was he supposed to say to that? He settled for saying nothing.
Not Dawn. “I told you I’d kill you. I still kind of want to. I mean, all guys are stupid a lot of the time. But you... I don’t get it. Paige won’t really talk about it. What happened?”
“I screwed it up.”
“Well, then fix it.”
He pulled free of her grip. “Just let it go, Dawnie. Just, you know, let it be, huh?”
“We’re leaving, Paige and me and Molly.”
“Huh? Going where?”
“I don’t know yet, but we’ll be gone until New Year’s. Paige won’t ask you, so I will. Would you take care of Biscuit while we’re gone?”
“Of course.”
“You should call her.”
“Stay out of it, Dawn.”
She pressed her lips together and muttered, “You are the king of stupid and I have zero sympathy for you.”
* * *
Paige’s college friend worked a miracle, though at a premium price. It was high season, but still, they got a two-bedroom bungalow in a resort on Saint John, Virgin Islands.
Dawn took Biscuit to Carter’s on Monday night. When she got back to the house, Paige demanded, “Did you tell him where we’re going?”
Dawn shrugged. “He didn’t ask and I wasn’t about to volunteer anything.”
“Good,” Paige replied, and tried to sound as though she meant it.
They left before daylight the next morning. Snow was falling when they boarded the plane in Denver.
On Saint John, it was eighty degrees under a cloudless sky, the sun beaming down on the blue ocean and the sparkly white sand. Paige got out her yellow bikini and cut off the tags and tried to care that she’d soon be basking in the Caribbean sun.
* * *
In Justice Creek, Carter shoveled his front walk and hung out with Biscuit and Sally. He wasn’t good for much else.
In that final week before Christmas, business was kind of slow. A good thing, because for the first time since he was thirteen and Dobs Kelvin, the old biker who lived down the street, put a wrench in his hand, Carter couldn’t work on his cars. They reminded him of Paige.
But then, everything reminded him of Paige. He had it so bad. Worse, even, than he’d realized on Saturday when he told her he was cutting her loose.
Cutting her loose.
Yeah, right. And while he was at it, he might as well cut out his heart.
And come to think of it, he kind of had.
Now that the fury had faded, he was starting to see the truth.
And it wasn’t pretty.
He was worse than Willow had been back in the day. He might as well have emptied Paige’s underwear drawer in the street, the way he’d carried on Saturday night, threatening to bust up their partnership at BCC, blaming her for all the times he didn’t make it work with other women...
He wanted to go to her so bad.
But she was gone and he had no idea where to find her.
On Wednesday, he left the shop early and went to Romano’s for dinner. He ordered the veal piccata, which was excellent, as always, though he barely managed to choke down a few bites. Because, come on. Who did he think he was kidding, to try to eat dinner at the restaurant where he’d met Paige?
Murray and Sherry were there, sitting in a booth in the corner, eyes only for each other. He wanted to be happy for them. But he kept asking himself why they got to be happy and he had to lose everything that mattered most.
Because you’re the king of stupid, Dawn’s voice echoed in his ear.
On Christmas Eve, his cousin Rory married Walker McKellan in a rustic chapel in the national forest. Carter went because he couldn’t think of an acceptable excuse not to. Rory’s parents, the sovereign princess and prince consort of Montedoro, were there. It was a beautiful setting, and the bride and groom looked so happy, and that just made Carter feel worse than ever.
His brothers and sisters asked him where Paige was. He said he didn’t know. They all wisely left it at that—well, except for Nell. She took him aside and told him he was crazy if he’d let Paige go.
He told her to mind her own damn business.
She grabbed his arm and whispered, “Carter. Don’t blow this. Don’t throw away what matters most to you.”
“Leave it, Nell.” He jerked his arm free and got the hell away from her.
On Christmas Day, he got the visit he’d been dreading, the one from his mother. She came at seven in the morning, which shocked the hell out of him. He’d never actually seen her awake at that hour.
Willow told him she was giving him and Paige the property as a Christmas present. She petted the dogs and said gently, “Nothing is unfixable.”
He admitted the disgusting truth. “I acted like a drama queen.”
And his mother smiled. “Well, at least you come by it naturally.”
“It’s not funny, Ma.”
; “I never said it was. Now get your ass to wherever she’s run off to, admit how wrong you were and tell her you’re not leaving until she comes home with you.”
He opened his mouth to order her out of his house. But the words that came out were “I messed up on so many levels. She’s probably never going to speak to me again.”
Willow hugged him. That was seriously weird. “She loves you and you love her,” she said softly when he saw her to the door. “I know you’ll work it out.”
Half an hour later, he sat on the couch with Biscuit on one side and Sally on the other, channel-surfing like mad and telling himself that Paige had to come back eventually. She had a house and a dog—and Dawn and Molly had school.
His phone trilled three notes: incoming text.
It was from Dawn. She still loves you, you idiot. You need to come here and work it out.
The address of a luxury resort in the Virgin Islands followed, complete with a bungalow number.
* * *
At eight the next morning, it was seventy-two degrees on Saint John and the sun was shining bright.
Carter, his heart banging like a gong in the prison of his chest, stood at the door to Paige’s bungalow and lifted his hand to knock.
The door swung open before his knuckles made contact.
Paige. She wore a gauzy sky-blue shirt that came to midthigh. Her hair needed combing. Her cheeks were pink from the sun and she’d sprouted a few freckles across her adorable nose.
“My God,” he said prayerfully. He’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
She scowled at him—but her eyes were shining. “What did you do with my dog?”
“My mother’s looking after both Biscuit and Sally. Believe it or not, she’s good with them. She also gave us the property as a Christmas present.”
“Us? I thought there was no us. I thought you just wanted to be done.”
“I lied.”
She said nothing, only gazed up at him, waiting.
He knew he owed her more, so damn much more. “I...you were right. I messed everything up with that stupid test-drive engagement. I never wanted that. I was just afraid that if I came right out and asked you for forever, you might turn me down. And then I didn’t tell you about my mother trying to bribe me with the property, because I was scared I’d lose you over that. Then the night of our party, when all my lies came back to bite me in the ass, I lied some more and told you I was through. That was the biggest lie, Paige. Because for me, you’re the one. I’ll never be through with you.”
She swallowed. Hard. “I’ve lied, too—to myself. About you. About who you really are to me. I should have opened my eyes to the truth sooner. Jim Kellogg hurt me and I held on to that hurt for way too long.”
“Are you...over that now?”
“I am, Carter. I really am.”
“Ahem. Well, then. I know it’s a lot to ask. Maybe too much to ask. Because I know I blew it, and I’m so sorry that I did. But still, I want to try again. I would give anything, if you and I could try again.”
Her face seemed to light right up from within. “My mom always used to say it’s not how bad you mess up, it’s how hard you work to heal the pain you cause each other.”
“I’m...I’m willing Paige. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it. For you.”
Her sweet mouth trembled. “I’m willing, too, Carter. For you.”
“Paige?”
“Um?”
“I just need to get my arms around you.”
She made a tight little sound, as if her throat had locked up on her. Her shining eyes had tears in them now. “Well, um, you’d better do that, then.”
“Dear God. Yes.” And he reached out and hauled her close, splaying his hands across her slender back, burying his face in the crook of her neck, loving the feel of her, so soft in all the right places, drinking in the scent of her, like soap and vanilla.
Like home.
“You’re my home, Paige,” he whispered idiotically.
“Carter.” She pressed those sweet lips to the side of his throat. “I love you. I missed you so. I’m so sorry, that I couldn’t be...with you sooner. I’m so sorry I hurt you, that I didn’t understand.”
He made his own confession. “I didn’t let you see, didn’t tell you the truth. I wanted you so much and I worked so hard for so long to tell myself that being your friend was enough. And in some ways, it was. It really was. It was a whole hell of a lot better than not having you at all. But...” His mind was a fog, with jet lag and longing, with the unbelievable wonder of her right there, breath and flesh and heart and soul, all held at last in his hungry arms.
She pulled back and looked up him through those big, misty eyes. “It’s okay. You don’t have to—”
He put a finger to her lips. “Yeah. I have to. I need to say it. I need you to know that I do love you, that I always have. That I walked into Romano’s that night eight years ago and I saw you standing there with an order book in your hand, wearing that white shirt and that short black skirt and that little triangle of an apron, with your hair pulled up in a knot on the top of your head, laughing at something a customer had said. I took one look at you and I thought, Oh, yeah. Mine. I’ll take her for the rest of my life...”
She scanned his face, drinking him in, as though she’d been wandering in the desert and he was made of water. “Carter. You said it.”
“Yeah, I did. And I’ll say it again. I love you. You’re the woman for me, Paige. You’re the only one.” He pulled her close again and he kissed her.
She let him kiss her.
She more than let him. She wrapped her arms good and tight around him and she lifted that soft, fine mouth to his.
When he raised his head, she took his hand.
He grabbed the suitcase he’d dropped on the step and let her lead him inside, through a simply furnished, sunlit living area, down a short hall to the open door of a bedroom.
“Dawn and Molly?” he asked.
“In the other bedroom, still sleeping.” She entered the room and pulled him in with her, pausing only to quietly shut the door and turn the privacy lock.
He barely had time to set the suitcase down again before she got to work unbuttoning his shirt. “I love you,” he said as she undressed him. “I love you so much, Paige. I thought I would lose you. I couldn’t work, couldn’t sleep—”
“Shh. You haven’t lost me. You never could. Not really. We would always find our way back to each other in the end.”
And then she kissed him again and they fell across the bed together.
Make-up sex. Nothing like it.
Especially make-up sex with love, spoken freely, given honestly.
An hour later, she put her blue shirt back on and he got dressed again. They went out to the tiny galley kitchen. He made coffee.
“So good,” she said, when she took that first sip. “Nobody makes it like you do.” She let him fill his own cup, then led him outside to the small private lanai with its own perfect view of white sand and blue ocean.
They shared a chaise. It was cramped, but neither of them could bear not to be touching the other.
He held her close against him and drew lazy figure eights on the velvety skin of her arm. “Remember the love quiz?”
She groaned, “How will I ever forget? That was awful. It really was, Carter. You have to understand, it hit me hard, to realize out of the blue that I’m in love with you. And that I probably have been for a very long time. And I had no hope at all then that you might love me that way.”
He gave a pained laugh. “But I did love you that way. I’d just been telling myself not to go there for eight long years.”
“Because of me, because for so long that was all I could handle, for us to be just friends.”
“
Exactly—and didn’t you ever wonder how I got twenty out of twenty to ‘prove’ you were in love with me?”
She turned in his arms, so she was half lying on his chest. And she pressed a kiss on the end of his chin. “I just thought it was what you told me, that you knew me so well, you’d guessed and you’d guessed right.”
“Wrong.”
“Well, okay. Then what?”
“There was no guessing involved.” He cradled the side of her face, ran his hand down the length of her warm, silky hair. “Those answers were my answers. Twenty out of twenty.”
She sighed. And then she tucked her head under his chin. “Your answers. I never had a clue...”
He kissed the top of her head. “Happy day-after-Christmas.”
She snuggled in closer. “I missed you so much yesterday. Dawn and I agreed it was hardly like Christmas, without you standing at the counter mixing stuffing at the crack of dawn, getting the turkey ready to go in the oven. We left all the presents, untouched, under the tree at home...”
“When we get back, I’ll roast a turkey,” he promised. “We’ll have Christmas all over again.”
“And we’ll do it right this time.” She laid her hand over his heart. “Is it snowing in Justice Creek?”
“It was when I left.”
“I missed that, snow for Christmas...”
He ran a hand down the sweet curve of her back. And then he asked, low and rough, for her ears alone, “Will you please come back to me, Paige? Will you give me one more chance? Come back and be my wife and my best friend and my partner at BCC. I swear to you that I’ll never lie to you again, never hide the truth no matter how painful the truth might be, no matter how bad it makes me look. I’ll never make a game of loving you, never hold you at a distance by not showing you my heart. Because you’re everything to me, Paige. And life without you is nothing but a gray, depressing slog.”
“Yes,” she whispered without hesitation. “Yes, I will marry you and be your wife, your best friend and your business partner for the rest of our lives. Because you are the man for me, Carter Bravo. And no one else will do.”
Carter Bravo's Christmas Bride Page 18