Under His Spell (Holiday Hearts #4)

by Kristin Hardy

  She missed him. She found herself turning on the television to see if she could catch a glimpse of skiing, reading through the sports section to find mention of his name.

  Put it away. Don’t think about it. At least there were some things she could rely on, Lainie thought as she listened to the jingle of the door at Cool Beans, inhaling the scent of coffee. It smelled the way it had always smelled, looked the way it had always looked. George walked in through the swinging door from the kitchen, carrying a tray of scones.

  “Hey, Lainie.”

  “Hey, George, how are you?”

  “Better than you, it looks like.” He handed her mug. “Hey, everything okay?”

  “Of course. Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know, you look tired or stressed out or something. Hey, you want to come over to our house and watch J.J.’s race tomorrow?”

  “The one in Val d’Isère?”

  “Yeah. I figured you’d want to see your guy.”

  “J.J.’s not my guy.”

  “He was. He should still be.” George gave her a level stare. “He’s one of the good ones, Lainie. I know he screwed up—”

  “And left us all hanging,” she put in.

  “Yeah, and left us all hanging, but he’s come through more often than he hasn’t. Come here.” He waved her behind the counter. “I want to show you something.”

  “But your customers—”

  “They can wait.”

  She followed him through the kitchen and into the tiny, chaotic room he called his office. It was more of a closet, really, stuffed with a desk that held pigeonholes, a low shelf and a computer.

  “Take a look at this.” He waved her over to the thick folder that sat on the desk. “I got it in the mail a couple of days ago.”

  She reached out to flip back the cover and saw a sheet of paper with J.J.’s chaotic writing. Notes on how to get a zoning variance, she saw. Setting it aside, she found an invoice for a set of basic plans. There was more: a computerized list of materials suppliers; beneath that, a letter from a lumberyard in Peabody pledging to donate three thousand board feet of lumber.

  It was planning material for the Boys’ and Girls’ Center. A comprehensive plan, she realized as she leafed through the stack of photocopied sheets. It had to have taken hours to put together. “J.J.?” she asked.

  George grinned. “Pretty wild, huh? It’s kind of messed up because I’ve been going through it but take a look at this.” He rummaged through the pile and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers fastened with a binder clip. On the top was a letter with the Boys’ and Girls’ Center logo on it. It was from the center’s coordinator, Lainie saw, thanking J.J. for his efforts. “Our board of directors has reviewed your proposal to rebuild the Salem facility and we’d accept your offer to act as general contractor on the project, with a target completion date of August 1 and an operating budget of $250,000, thanks to your fund-raising efforts.”

  It was dated the previous week.

  Lainie stared at the sheet. “J.J.’s going to build the center?” she asked faintly.

  “Appears that way. We’re going to do a site review while he’s home at Christmas. He’s got a bunch of construction companies lined up to donate materials. A couple of his sponsors are throwing in some money, too.”

  He’d intended to do it from the beginning, she realized, and even with what had happened between them, he hadn’t stopped. He wouldn’t forget about us, Kisha had said. She’d know it, she’d been right.

  Because she’d believed.

  Lainie realized she’d been an idiot. She’d been an idiot and she had to fix it.

  She snatched up her purse. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Hey,” George protested, “where are you going?”

  “The airport.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  There was nothing quite as beautiful as early morning in the Alps, J.J. thought as he slowly skied through his inspection run for the downhill at Val d’Isère. He’d skied in New Zealand, Chile, Japan, Canada and the United States. Gorgeous places, all of them, but nothing like the corniced Alpine peaks.

  The wind kicked up, dry and cutting as a knife. It was cold and getting colder, with clouds scudding in. Never a good thing for a race—the light from overcast had a way of flattening out the look of ruts and rises, making the course harder to see.

  He cruised down a steep section and off a knoll, then brought himself to a stop. Scanning the slope, he found the exact line that he wanted to take down the next transit. Step by step, he worked his way back up the mountain until he was once again poised at the top of the jump. This time, he crouched down in his tuck and looked for the landing spot he’d chosen.

  It was a matter of figuring the right takeoff angle, finding the landmark to focus on. Downslope, he spotted a tree with a dead branch, right in the direction he needed to be facing. Committing it to memory, he let himself come off the knoll to try the landing.

  In his practice runs, he’d aim for that tree. When it came time for the race, he’d have it committed to muscle memory. By then, he’d no longer be thinking, he’d be operating on instinct.

  Too bad life didn’t have inspection runs. He could have used one with Lainie. Not to say that he wasn’t still ticked at her, but there were things he could have done better, too. It had taken over a month for him to really admit that. There were things he could do better in his life all the way around.

  Unfortunately, if you screwed up in a race, you could always say “next year.” With Lainie, it didn’t look like he had that option, he thought as he skied over the finish line.

  With Lainie, finished was finished.

  Lainie stepped out of the Jetway and into the color and noise of the Lyon airport. Sleep on the flight had been impossible. Now, she was simultaneously exhausted and wound tight with nerves. When she’d left, it had all seemed simple—find J.J. and make things right.

  Now, in the harsh light of morning, she wasn’t so sure. It had been over a month since she’d seen him last, over a month in which they’d exchanged not a word. He’d been on their side of the ocean for races in Colorado, but he’d never called, never even e-mailed her.

  Maybe it had all been easy for him. Maybe he’d gone on with his life without a hitch. Maybe, a sneaky voice said in her head, he’d even been relieved. Certainly that would fit with the J.J. she’d known. And she’d made it so clear that she was done, how could she blame him for believing her?

  The answer was, she couldn’t. Shaking her head, Lainie threw her satchel over her shoulder and headed toward the passport check line. She couldn’t blame him. On the other hand, she could blame herself if she never even tried. She had to say something, if nothing else, to clear the air. Maybe that meant they would just be friends who could run into each other and be cordial at mutual events. She’d smile, she’d be friendly, ask how he was doing.

  And try to pretend seeing him didn’t feel like swallowing ground glass.

  She blew out a breath of impatience. This wasn’t her, this helpless, maudlin thinking. So what if there was only a chance? She’d make it work, the same way taking a chance at the museum had worked.

  Anyway, she was only thinking this way because she was tired and jet lagged. What she needed to do was get out of the strange suspended reality of the airport and on her way. Once she got doing things instead of just sitting around waiting, she’d feel better. There was a car waiting for her at the rental desk; she’d have to get it and then deal with the adventure of driving to Val d’Isère.

  Assuming she could figure out where the hell it was.

  The fallow time between the practice runs and the actual race was always the hardest time for J.J. He was dialed into the course, he wanted to be out on it, not eating and sitting around, trying to find a worthwhile, or at least interesting, way to make the two-hour window pass by.

  It was activity, movement that kept him focused. It was activity that kept him from thinking about Lainie.

  He’
d done his best to make her reconsider. He’d done his best to convince her to take him seriously, to give them a chance. She’d said she loved him, but what was love if not faith? What they’d had together was worth checking out. Who knew what it might have turned into? You didn’t close the door on that, you put time and effort into it, didn’t you?

  Then again he’d had plenty of women tell him that very thing over the years. Mostly, he’d gotten involved with women of like mind, women who’d pretty much wanted what he wanted—a fun companion, a warm body at night, someone who quickened the pulse when they appeared. Sometimes—all right, more often than not—he’d let things go on a bit longer than they should have so that the woman got a chance to get tired first and be the face-saving initiator of the breakup.

  There were times even then that he’d had to be the one to end it, usually with the regret of hurting someone. On one or two occasions, though, he hadn’t really been a hundred percent sure it was the right thing to do. No, the relationships hadn’t felt right, there had been problems that wouldn’t go away. And yet, enough about them had worked that he’d wondered whether that woman was The One. Had he just been running away? Shouldn’t he have stuck around and tried to work it out?

  But relationships weren’t supposed to be that hard, were they? If you had to work and slave to make a relationship go, didn’t it follow that maybe it was the wrong relationship, the almost-but-not-quite right one?

  Then again, Lainie had taken work, but being with her had felt good. Not walking away when they’d had things to discuss between them had felt like the right thing to do. Despite their conflicts, it had never felt any way but right, at least not until everything had blown up at the end.

  He moved his head to ward off the thought as he pulled his plate toward him. There wasn’t any point in focusing on a problem when there weren’t any answers, and there weren’t any answers here.

  He wasn’t sure there were any answers anywhere.

  Compared to driving in Boston, getting out of Lyon was a breeze. The neat young woman at the rental car agency had given Lainie a map and detailed directions to Val d’Isère.

  “How long to drive there?” Lainie asked.

  The agent frowned. “Oh, perhaps two hours. Only…”

  Now it was Lainie’s turn to frown. “Only what?”

  “It is snowing later today, you see. Perhaps fifteen or twenty centimeters. More in the mountains. You must arrive quickly, before they close the roads. There are chains in the boot.”

  Snow in the mountains. Snow for J.J.’s race. Did that mean they’d cancel it? Did that mean it was dangerous?

  The highway was open, dotted with nimble, compact models of cars she’d never seen before. Ahead, the Alps knifed upward, all sharp crags and sudden escarpments, dizzyingly steep and looking close enough that she could reach out to touch them. Compared to them, the smooth, regular mountains of New Hampshire were like her frumpiest aunt alongside a legendary Hollywood beauty, with a face all angles and drama. Lainie kept stealing glances as she drove. Clouds obscured the tips, clouds that would be fog up at the top.

  Where J.J. was.

  Where she was going.

  J.J. was still at the bottom of the mountain when the first skiers started coming down. Given that he was bib number twenty-eight, there was no reason to hurry. With the two-minute start intervals, he wouldn’t be going for nearly an hour, and there were only so many places to hang out at the top of the mountain. No sense in standing around the swirl of tension that was the start house for any longer than was necessary.

  Motion caught his eye and he watched Kurt Madsen rocket around the final turn onto the terminal slope and speed over the finish line. Fast, he thought. Really fast. When the time flashed up, he saw just how fast it was.

  Kurt grinned as he pushed his goggles up and skied to the edge of the crowd on the apron. He leaned over to kiss a blonde woman wearing a white sweater and a scarf printed in scarlet and green bands. Madsen’s wife, at the bottom for every race. Rain or shine, good season or bad, Suzanne Madsen was always there for him. Rain or shine, good season or bad, Madsen ended every race with her.

  The way it could have been with Lainie.

  The thought ambushed him. Madsen’s happy domesticity had never seemed like something to envy before. After all, a wife meant you were tied down. A wife meant the end of partying, and even if the wife didn’t, the kids that inevitably followed sure did. Not that J.J. hadn’t always expected to have a family.

  Some day.

  What would it be like to come down the mountain, knowing every time that someone would be there waiting for you? Someone who didn’t care how many points you’d made for the team. Someone who didn’t want to heckle you about the fact that you’d hooked a gate and been disqualified. Someone who cared only for you.

  Suddenly it didn’t seem stifling. Suddenly it seemed immensely appealing, companionable, comfortable. The way lying in bed with Lainie after making love felt comfortable. For him, affairs had always been about the fire and heat. What would it be like, though, to have the fire and heat and also the quiet comfort?

  What would it be like to have Lainie?

  He shook his head and willed the thought away. Not a question to ask anymore.

  Why not?

  He had a race to run, he reminded himself, a race he needed to win. This wasn’t the time to think about Lainie. Eventually he’d stop missing her so damned much. He had to. It wasn’t possible to go on feeling so carved up over maybes and might-have-beens. So they’d had something good going. The operative word was had. Sometimes things didn’t work out no matter how much you wanted them to.

  And he needed to forget just how much that had been.

  It wasn’t a highway, Lainie was convinced, it was a trail for mountain goats, the shaggy kind that spent their days hopping from precipice to precipice. At times the road had threaded down the center of one or another U-shaped valley, steep mountains to either side but smooth driving. And then, without warning, she’d head up through one of these narrow passes that made her glad she had chains, however squirrelly the car felt on the road. She squinted into the thickening snow, threading her way slowly through it. And cursing Murphy and his stupid law.

  Of course it had to be snowing now, of all times. Of course she’d had to sit, crouched down on the side of the road, putting on the chains with frozen fingers under the sharp eyes of the French highway patrol. Then the snow had only been falling in flurries. Now it was coming down as though it meant it.

  All she wanted to do was get to the race. It wasn’t that much to ask, was it?

  The French policeman had told her the journey to Val d’Isère was easy enough—drive the highway and watch the signs. Of course, the highway was a bit more of a challenge than she’d bargained for, and she was scared to death that she was going to drive right by the resort. He’d assured her she couldn’t miss it, though, and she trusted him.

  She just needed to get there and find J.J. Nothing else mattered. Once she’d accomplished that goal, she’d figure out what came next. And if that meant driving down the mountain and flying home, at least she’d know she’d tried.

  The time outside the start house during a race was usually J.J.’s time to chill. This time around, he was impatient, eager to get on the course. When he started the race, he wouldn’t be consciously thinking about Lainie because he’d be in the zone, flying along, the trees, snow fences, cameras, fans, officials all turning into a blur with the only reality the way his skis were running, floating free over the piste.

  The clouds hung down over the highest peaks of the mountain, turned to mist just a bit higher up. Snow fell around him. Down in the valley, he could just glimpse the village of Val d’Isère, looking like something out of a fairy tale. Lainie would have loved seeing it, he thought.

  Stop it.

  Instead he turned to look at the course, the red and blue flags of the gates marching their way down the slope. It had taken him a while to learn to
win on this mountain. It had taken him a while to learn to win at downhill. He’d eaten snow more times than he’d have liked. He’d placed in the lower echelons for longer than was prudent for his career.

  But he’d never been the kind of guy to take no for an answer. When he wanted something, he went back at it again and again, for as long as it took to make it happen. Some called it stubbornness; he liked to think of it as determination.

  J.J. shook his head. It was like Manny told him, you aimed at a goal, you visualized what you wanted, and you made it happen.

  He blinked.

  You made it happen. So why hadn’t he and Lainie made it happen? Why was he standing on the side of this mountain, missing her just as much as he ever had, more than five weeks after he’d last seen her? No other woman had ever gotten in his head like that before. No other woman had refused to fade away. No other woman had made him a better person. So why the hell was it that the one time he found a keeper, she was the woman who couldn’t believe in him? Sure, he could tell himself he was giving up and he should try again, but there was a point where if you didn’t accept that enough was enough, you were an idiot.

  J.J. turned to the start house. “Hurry the hell up, Hermann,” he said in German. “I want to get on the course.”

  Lainie hurried over the grounds of the resort to the crowd of people who swirled around the apron of the course. She could hear the cheering and the cowbells as a racer flashed over the finish line. She’d ditched the little rental Peugeot in what might have been a parking spot or might have been a ditch, it was hard to be sure. It didn’t matter.

  What mattered was finding J.J.

  Of course, what happened after that, she hadn’t a clue. All her thought, all her effort had been bent on just getting here. Now that she was, she hadn’t any idea what came next.

  She hurried toward the sound of cheering. A loudspeaker crackled and spit out a burst of French. Ahead she could see the final slope of the downhill course and the apron at the bottom, ringed by a crowd of people ten or twelve deep. She didn’t know where J.J. was staying or how to find the athletes. Unless she found J.J. or Kurt Madsen, it wasn’t likely anyone on the ski team would be able to help; somehow, she had a pretty good idea that every race a couple of women showed up claiming to be J. J. Cooper’s girlfriend.