by Amy Andrews
The real kicker came though, when he reminded her they had to be at his parents’ in half an hour and she blinked at him, obviously having forgotten. She grimaced. “Do you mind if I beg off? I’m afraid I’m not good company now and I really just want to get this report done while everything is fresh in my mind.”
And she returned her attention to her laptop.
Reuben totally understood about not wanting to be social after such a horrid event yet still he felt a cold prickle at the base of his spine. Holding her close, feeling the tension in her body as they’d watched the shop glow orange last night, then sitting with her in the shower shouldering the weight of her grief, he’d never felt closer to Vivian.
But today—on Christmas morning—he felt like she’d erected some kind of barrier between them. That she was withdrawing. Doing it deliberately too—even if it was subconsciously due to the ordeal she’d been through. And that churned in his gut.
“Of course not,” he said with a smile, “we can stay here. I’ll just ring Mom and let her know.”
She glanced up at him, alarm in the set of her brow. “What? Oh no, Reuben, don’t be silly. I’ll be fine here but you have to go—it’s Christmas.”
Yeah but…he didn’t want to go. Not without her. “There’ll be other Christmases.”
“Reuben…no.” She shook her head. “They’re your family.”
He swallowed as another bar in that barrier clanged into place. What if he wanted Vivian to be his family, too? Oh Jesus…
He wanted Vivian to be his family.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Don’t fall in love with me she’d said. And here he was, fallen so deeply his ass was being broiled by the molten magma at the Earth’s core.
The sinking feeling in his gut felt terminal. Merry fucking Christmas, dickhead.
“Which is why they’ll understand,” he pressed as his brain madly scrambled to find some kind of equilibrium.
“Your mom already has doubts about me.” She unfolded herself from the couch and stood, pulling off her glasses and putting them and her laptop down on the table beside the couch. “I don’t want her thinking I’ve thrown some kind of hissy fit and made you stay at home with me.”
“She wouldn’t think that, Vivian,” he said softly. “She’ll understand me being here with you.” Wanting to be here with you.
The woman I love.
“I don’t care…I can’t…” She started to pace. “Reuben, there’s been enough upheaval in this past day, please don’t cancel on your mom like this.” She stopped and looked at him, a plea marring her features, her hand raking through her hair, pushing it off her face. “It’s not fair to her when you’re supposed to be there soon. I would feel terrible.”
Reuben did not want to go without her but the distress in her voice was genuine and, for a second, he thought he even saw a glimmer of moisture before she blinked and it was gone. But even the hint of it was like a sledgehammer to his chest—seeing her undone last night had been bad enough.
“Okay.” He held his hands up in surrender. “It’s fine, I’ll go. It’s okay.”
She came to him then, sliding her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek to his chest and hugging him tight. Reuben slid his hand into the hair at her nape and rubbed lightly. “But I’m only stay for a couple of hours and then I’m coming back here.”
She nodded and he thought he heard a sniffle before she whispered, “Thank you.”
*
Reuben pulled into his parents’ house half an hour later, so not feeling the joy of Christmas. He walked up the front path, blind to the beauty of the clear starry night as his warm breath misted into the freezing air and the cold hurt his lungs.
Or maybe it was just that breathing hurt in general, hitching every time he inhaled because he couldn’t stop thinking about Vivian at the cottage all alone on Christmas Day. And how much he wanted to be there with the woman he loved, instead of here.
But she’d asked him to go—needed him to go—and so here he was.
Worse than that, she was going to leave, he just knew it. Sure, she’d always been going to leave but these past weeks they’d grown so close he’d been lulled into a false sense of security. And he’d been counting on having three months. Hell, he’d been hoping she might be amendable to pushing that to the full six months. But with the store gone and a rebuild/remodel likely months away according to the conversations she’d been having, there was no reason for her to stick around.
And she was going to walk away. Maybe not today or tomorrow…but soon. He felt it in the way she was withdrawing from him, in the way she was pushing him into the arms of his family. Hell, he felt it right down to his fucking bones.
And he didn’t know what to do about it because he’d promised her he wouldn’t fall in love. He’d sworn it on his deputy badge. So he couldn’t confess his feelings.
Which meant he was going to have to let her walk away. Watch her walk away.
The front door was locked so he knocked and waited, a container full of his mother’s favorite hot chocolate stirrers in hand. “Hey, Reuben.” His mother grinned and pulled him in for a tight hug on the doorstep. “Merry Christmas.”
Reuben shut his eyes for a second and leaned into her embrace before saying, “Merry Christmas, Mom,” and pulling back.
Gaylene looked over his shoulder. “No Viv?”
“She sends her apologies and these.” He passed over the container. “She’s pretty wiped from last night and not much in a celebrating mood.”
“Of course.” His mom nodded sympathetically. “I don’t blame her. It was so awful, poor thing.” And then she frowned, her shrewd gaze narrowing, those eagle eyes inspecting what felt like every skin cell on his face. “Are you okay?”
Reuben thought about denying how he was feeling for a nanosecond but his heart was too heavy not to talk to somebody. “No.”
Her hand slid onto his arm. “What happened?”
He let out a long exhalation. “I’m in love with Vivian.”
She laughed then. Not unkindly. It was soft and low as she shook her head, her expression full of exasperated patience. “You don’t say?”
“Mom.” She didn’t realize how bad this was. “I promised on my deputy badge I wouldn’t do that.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Well that was kinda stupid wasn’t it?” But then she gave his arm a squeeze and stood aside. “Come on in.”
*
The next few days flew by for Vivian in a kind of a haze. She’d switched into survival mode. The way she saw it, she had two options. She could wallow about the misfortune that had befallen them or she could start the process of getting the store back on its feet.
And she chose the latter.
It wasn’t just a point of pride for her, or for Delish—two local employees depended on the store opening again. And they were her priority. So, she put her head down and did what had to be done.
By the end of the day after Christmas the investigators had given them the all clear, finding it was an electrical fault in the hand dryer in the staff restroom that had caused the blaze. Then, for the next two days she and Robbie and Mackenzie worked their fingers to the bone clearing the store, salvaging the few items that could be salvaged and tossing everything else, taking it back to a shell.
When the insurance was all settled—probably by the end of March according to head office—Delish would send their guys to fit out the store again but in the meantime, it would stay empty.
Empty but ready.
The whole town pitched in with the cleanup. Dumpsters suddenly appeared at the back door for them to throw stuff into. The firehouse chief sent several of his men to help them move the heavy stuff—something that was very much appreciated by Mackenzie in particular, who was single and grateful for any eye candy to help the medicine go down. The hardware store loaned them high-pressure water cleaners. People stopped by and brought them coffee and lunch and baked goodies for morning and afternoon tea.
Edwin even sent huckleberry pie from the Graff.
The only help she hadn’t accepted had been from Reuben. He’d wanted to take a couple of days off but Viv had been adamant that he didn’t. She knew they were understaffed and she didn’t want him pissing off his boss. They had plenty of help and she was trying really hard not to have to deal with them at the moment. She could only deal with one big thing at a time and salvaging what she could from Delish right now was taking up all her physical and emotional energy.
The same went for when she got back to the cottage. She was just too damn tired at the end of the day to deal with anything. All she had the energy for was scrubbing herself in the shower then flopping into bed and crashing into sleep with barely a kiss good night for Reuben.
Not that she was particularly desirable at the moment.
Coming home with soot on her face and under her nails and her filthy sweats she was the exact opposite of that sophisticated woman in a silky blouse, tight skirt and Louboutins Reuben had picked up in Bozeman. And then there was the stench of smoke that clung to her clothes and her skin and stuck in her nostrils long after she left.
Oh yeah, baby. She was a real femme fatale these days.
Viv was just damn lucky he was so understanding and that they had the kind of relationship where he didn’t need to be with her every single second of the day and was happy to do his own thing. It would have been hell on earth if Reuben had been the type to stomp around bitching about how little attention she was paying to him and she was glad they’d laid down the ground rules from the beginning.
On the thirtieth of December, Harriet Walker, Delish CEO, drove into town to check out the damage. Viv almost cried when she saw the big boss get out of her vehicle. Until now they’d been talking over the phone and Skype but to see her in person and to have her hold her arms out and give Viv a hug was way more emotional than Viv had expected.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I am now,” Viv said with a watery smile.
Viv went to perform the introductions of Robbie and Mackenzie but Harriet already knew who was who and moved forward, shaking hands warmly, asking after them and thanking them for all their hard work. The two women were beaming by the time the introductions were over, which made the sad task of showing Harriet the store a little easier.
She was obviously shocked at what she saw but hastened to assure them all. “Nobody is to blame here,” Harriet said. “It was nobody’s fault. The most important thing was that nobody got hurt and the fire was contained and didn’t spread. All this—” She waved her hand around. “We can fix this. It’s just bricks and mortar. Now…I’ve booked a table at the Graff for us all. Let’s go get us some nice lunch, my treat, and talk about how we’re going to get this shop up and running again.”
*
Several hours later it was just Viv and Harriet remaining at the table, chowing down on huckleberry pie. Viv took the opportunity to pitch her idea for a trial range of Delish huckleberry chocolate as they ate.
Harriet laughed. “You never stop thinking of the company, do you?” She reached across the table. “We’re lucky to have you.”
“But I’m right, right?”
“It’s a good idea. I’ll definitely look at it when I get back to the office.”
Viv grinned and punched the air. “I’ll volunteer to do the taste testing for it.”
They laughed some more before Harriet sobered and said, “So…the executive has been talking about what’s next for you. There’s a few months before Marietta will be fitted out again and what you’ve been through has been traumatizing so we would totally understand if you wanted to have some time away.”
Viv frowned. Time away? What the hell? To do what? This experience had been rough but sitting around doing nothing wouldn’t help. She needed to keep busy, to have something to do, to fill the void losing the Marietta store had created.
She needed to work. She’d always worked. For Delish.
“No.” She shook her head. “I want to work; I need to work. And then I want to come back here when everything is ready to go and get this store going again with Robbie and Mackenzie.”
Harriet laughed again. “Yeah, we had a feeling you’d say that. But you don’t have to come back here—we can send someone else.”
“No.” She shook her head. It had to be her. Viv’s time here had been cut short and she didn’t like to leave anything unfinished. “I want to.”
She already knew she was going to miss this town and, who knew, maybe she’d get a chance to settle some other unfinished business on her return? Like Reuben. But even as she thought it, a deep throb clenched tight in her chest.
“Okay, so…how about you spend the next few months doing some satisfaction audits for us? Check in on some stores who are having issues, do some trouble shooting, check the lay of the land? It’ll involve a lot of travel but we know how much you like that.”
Harriet grinned and Viv smiled back but it felt a little tight and the normal swell of enthusiasm she felt at the prospect of moving around was decidedly lackluster.
I thought maybe you needed to hear that it was okay to want to settle somewhere at some stage.
Gaylene’s words from Thanksgiving came back to her but her boss, who had given Viv her career and who she admired, was asking her to do something. And Viv knew how important it was to check in locally with the people running and working in their stores. So many potential problems could be nipped in the bud by discussing things face-to-face and finding out what people needed to do their jobs.
It was measures like that which not only kept the company successful but a place people wanted to work as well.
“It sounds awesome! When do you want me to start?”
“As soon as you’re ready.”
Viv nodded. “Okay then. I’ll leave tomorrow.”
*
She did a quick round of the town after Harriet left. She dropped in at Sage’s for a very big thank you and I’ll be back and at the diner and Grey’s and a dozen other places along the way. She called Robbie and Mackenzie and told them she was leaving in the morning but she’d stay in close touch and she couldn’t wait to return and set up shop again in the new year.
The new year.
It hadn’t really struck her until then that she’d be ringing in the new year somewhere that wasn’t Marietta. Probably in an airport or on the road, depending on the info Harriet was going to email. It wasn’t where she’d thought she would be but then, nothing this past couple of months had gone according to plan.
Not from the very beginning.
She hadn’t planned on being such a controversial figure. She hadn’t planned on having to prove herself to the town. She hadn’t planned on the fire.
And she hadn’t planned on Reuben.
Reuben. God…she was going to miss Reuben. But she tried not to think about how much as she packed her bag that evening and waited for him to come home. Gah! The cottage, damn it.
If she explored her feelings too much she might not pack any bags and be tempted to give in to Gaylene’s voice playing in her head and take that time Harriet talked about, lolling around naked with Reuben.
And that was just idle. And dangerous. To her career. To her dreams. She’d be back in a few months for crying out loud. It wasn’t goodbye forever.
But, she had to admit to being relieved when he called around seven to say he was going out to a multi-vehicle pileup on the interstate and he’d probably be back quite late. She’d never been a coward and wasn’t a believer in putting off until tomorrow but she was grateful for the reprieve from the conversation she knew she had to have. From the goodbye she knew wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d thought it would be two months ago.
And Reuben had the day off tomorrow. So they could have a leisurely breakfast and discuss things like adults. And he’d be fine because she’d always been going to leave. And so would she.
She’d walk out the door and everything would be just fine.
*
Viv had been awake for several hours the next morning when Reuben joined her in the living room. She was in jeans and her favorite baby-pink cashmere sweater and socks and had been working on her laptop in front of the fire, trying not to think about what would happen when he woke and realized her bag—Delish were keeping the cottage for her return so no need to worry about the other stuff—was at the front door.
Head office had directed her to Houston and she’d deliberately booked a flight out of Bozeman Yellowstone International at nine tonight, which wouldn’t touch her down until after the New Year’s shenanigans were over. She had zero desire to be in some bland business hotel when the ball dropped. She’d rather be sitting in business class with her laptop and noise-canceling headphones and forgetting that she could have been ringing it in with Reuben.
The smell of warm clean skin filled her nostrils as scratchy whiskers nuzzled into her neck. “Good morning,” he murmured, the stir of his breath adding to the avalanche of goose bumps breaking out both north and south.
Viv shut her eyes on a sigh, reaching behind her to ruffle his hair as her nipples stiffened to tight peaks. She adored his sleepy morning voice. “You’re awake,” she said, forcing herself to unhand him.
He dropped a kiss on her neck before straightening and stretching if the noises he was making were any indication. “I hope I didn’t wake you when I got in last night?” he said, rounding the couch and sitting on the opposite end.
All he had on was a pair of boxer briefs and despite telling herself not to ogle his almost naked body, her eyes betrayed her.
Damn eyes!
“No, I barely heard you.”