Silver Linings

by Debbie Macomber

  Christmas was fast approaching and Katie knew it would be a happy one for Coco and Hudson. The two were so much in love it was almost painful to be in the same room with them. They were so darn cute together, and happiness radiated off them like sunlight, warming those around them. Katie had never seen her friend this happy, and it did her own heart good to know that finding love was possible.

  Perhaps not for her, though. Katie had yet to hear from James, and frankly she doubted that she would. Enough time had passed since her talk with Emily that Katie was convinced he was incapable of letting go of the past. She hadn’t heard from Emily, either, not that she’d expected she would.

  Dusk approached around four in the afternoon this time of year in the Pacific Northwest, and Katie took pains to leave her car beneath a streetlight in the office parking complex. She often stayed late and the lot could get deserted.

  That wasn’t the case, though, when she left work on the Friday a week before Christmas. Several cars were scattered about the lot. The sky had been overcast, and with temperatures dropping below freezing there had been talk of snow flurries that night. Katie suspected every kid in Seattle hoped that was the case.

  Bundled up with her coat buttoned all the way to the top, a knitted scarf wrapped around her neck and a hat covering her head, she left the building. With her shoulders hunched and her head down, she strained against the wind and walked toward the parking lot.

  The first time she noticed she wasn’t alone was when she spied a man standing close to her vehicle. Immediately alarm filled her and she looked up, her car keys in her hand in a position to do damage, should someone choose to attack her. Katie wouldn’t be an easy victim.

  As she drew closer she realized the man standing next to her car was no stranger.

  It was James.

  Dumbstruck, Katie froze and straightened. No more than a few feet separated them as she waited. For a long time all they did was stare at each other.

  “You’re working late,” he said, breaking the silence.

  “I often do.”

  He stood with his hands buried deep in his coat and wore a watchman’s cap. He didn’t look overly pleased to see her. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  They decided on a place to meet, a diner about a mile away, but when they got there it was crowded with the dinner rush, and the wait would be as long as forty minutes.

  “It’s the time of year,” Katie said.

  James looked across the street to a bowling alley. “Want to try there?” he asked.

  “Might as well,” she said, laughing. A bowling alley?

  They raced across the street with the light. James’s hand cupped her elbow in case she lost her footing. He’d always been a gentleman, polite and considerate. It was one of the many reasons she’d fallen in love with him.

  The restaurant in the bowling alley was busy, but they were able to get a seat right away. They left their coats and hats on the rack by the front door. Katie rubbed the cold from her hands as they found an open booth.

  As she slid inside, Katie noticed the café charged a minimum for anyone sitting in a booth. James seemed to notice the sign the same time she did.

  “Guess we’ll need to order more than coffee,” she mentioned, as she reached for the plastic-coated menu.

  “We can leave if you’d rather.”

  “It’s fine.”

  He, too, reached for the menu.

  “I don’t mind paying for my own meal,” she told him.

  The look James shot her cut straight through her.

  “It was just a suggestion.” Katie read over the specials of the day and discovered, for a bowling alley, the menu was impressive. Although she had to wonder how good the cordon bleu would be.

  The harried waitress came for their order, set aside the coffeepot, and then grabbed the pencil tucked behind her ear and the pad from her apron pocket.

  “I’ll have the black bean soup,” Katie said, although she wondered if she’d be able to swallow a single spoonful.

  “Make that two,” James said, and tucked the menu back behind the napkin dispenser.

  Once the waitress left, silence lay between Katie and James. She waited, looking down at her hands. She took a sip from her water.

  James spoke first. “Emily broke off the engagement.”

  “I know. She told me.”

  He frowned. “I suppose she insisted that I was in love with you and if we got married that she would be my second-best.”

  Katie shrugged. “Something like that.”

  “It’s not true, you know.”

  She didn’t agree or disagree. “You wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yes.”

  If that was the case, he seemed to struggle with what he intended to say. After several awkward moments, she gestured to him. “Well?”

  “I don’t love you,” he said once more, and it seemed he needed to convince himself more than her.

  “Any longer,” she added.

  His frown darkened as if he didn’t understand.

  Katie clarified it for him. “At one time you did love me, James; you can’t deny that any more than I can deny loving you,” she explained.

  “Okay, you’re right.” His jaw clenched. “I did care about you at one time, but not anymore, and the sooner you understand that, the better.”

  “It sounds like you’re looking to convince yourself more than me, James.” If what he said was true then it didn’t make sense he would seek her out, ask her to coffee to reiterate a fact he’d already made crystal clear on more than one occasion.

  Their soup arrived and Katie reached for her spoon, holding on to it in a tight grip. If he hadn’t come to clear the air between them then there had to be another explanation. “Do you blame me for the broken engagement?”

  He glared across the table at her. “I blame you for everything.”

  Katie probably shouldn’t have smiled, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “Do you find that funny?” he demanded, glaring at her all the more intently.

  “No. The truth is, it’s rather sad.” She meant it, even though she could see how upset it made him.

  James leaned against the edge of the table, clenching hold of his own spoon, which was pointed toward the ceiling. “I loved you, heart and soul. I would have died for you.”

  “I know, and I loved you that way, too.”

  “But it’s over,” he insisted.

  “So you keep telling me.” Katie forced herself to take a bite of the soup. Under ordinary circumstances she would have enjoyed it, but these were far from ordinary circumstances.

  James watched her and then followed suit. He kept his gaze lowered. “Emily said you’re dating someone.”

  “His name is Christian.” So James had already known that Emily had talked to her. Christian and she hadn’t gone out much lately. It must have been a couple weeks since she’d seen him or talked to him.

  “Do you love him, too?” His question was gruff.

  “No. The one I love is you.”

  “Sure you do.” Then, to her surprise, he slid out of the booth, slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the table, and walked out of the bowling alley.

  Katie watched him go, defeat weighing down her heart. She wasn’t sure why James had sought her out or what he’d expected would happen. He’d been angry and he blamed her, as he said, “for everything.” It was a sad commentary on his life, and heartbreaking for her as well. Perhaps all he’d wanted was to prove to himself that he no longer loved her.

  The waitress stopped by the table. “Everything all right with the soup?” she asked.

  “It’s fine. I don’t think either one of us was hungry.”

  “I’ll get you the bill.”

  “Here.” Katie retrieved the twenty and handed her that. “Keep the change.”

  “But the tab comes to less than twelve bucks.”

  “Merry Christmas,” Katie said, as she scooted out of the boot
h.

  She collected her coat at the front door and stepped outside to find snow flurries raining down from the night sky.

  Her car was parked on the other side of the street and she waited to cross at the light. As she approached her vehicle she saw that James’s car, which had been parked next to hers, was still there. When she approached, he opened the door and climbed out, closing it behind him.

  They stared at each other and once more Katie waited for him to take the lead. When she couldn’t stand the silence any longer, she said, “I would have thought you’d be gone by now.”

  “I should be,” he muttered.

  “I’m not stopping you.”

  “You are.”

  Traffic sped past and someone in the distance leaned on a horn. The loud, discordant sound cut through the night.

  “How am I stopping you?” she asked, and realized he wasn’t talking about tonight.

  James walked back and forth, creating a path in the fresh coating of snow. “I thought if I saw you…if we talked, I’d be able to purge you from my mind.” He slammed his fist against his chest. “And my heart.”

  “Did it work?”

  “No,” he said, and closed his eyes as though fighting himself. He tilted his head back and stared up at the sky.

  “James,” she whispered, unsure what was happening.

  “No one has hurt me more than you…I should hate you, but God help me, I can’t…I can’t make myself do it.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry,” she said. Deep down, Katie knew he could never really hate her.

  “I’m so in love with you I can’t think anymore.” He shook his head. “I can’t trust you.”

  “You can trust me,” she assured him softly. “I may have made a mistake when we were eighteen, but I was doing the best I could, and everything I did, I did for love. I have never loved anyone else but you, James.”

  Katie watched as the indecision played across his face. He wanted to believe her, wanted to give her his heart, but still he hesitated. For what seemed like an eternity, James stood frozen.

  “You’ll never understand what it was like for me to have you just break it off with me back then, without a single word of explanation. How could you have done that? I still don’t understand why you didn’t just come to me and tell me what was going on.”

  “I don’t know, James,” she said. “I thought I was doing a brave thing. A selfless thing.”

  Staring into the falling snow, she said, “I was a kid, James. Trust me, to say I learned a lot from what happened would be the understatement of the year. I would never hide something from someone I loved again.”

  “You made a decision that affected both of us,” James said.

  “Yes. But I’m twenty-eight now, not eighteen. And people are capable of learning and growing.”

  After several moments she felt a hand on her shoulder. Katie turned to find James, his face looked blurred through the tears that clouded her eyes.

  “I can’t do it,” he said, his voice raw. “I can’t let you go.”

  With that he hauled her into his embrace, half lifting her off the ground, hugging her until she feared he was about to steal the very breath from her lungs.

  Katie looked down on him, her hands cupping his face. Tears streamed down her cheeks, before she slowly lowered her mouth to his. They kissed urgently as if to make up for the last ten years in a single exchange.

  “I’ve always loved you,” she choked out.

  James wouldn’t let her talk. Instead he kissed her again and again, holding her against him and whirling around in the snow like they were kids on a playground. When he lifted his head, Katie threw hers back and gazed up at the sky, laughing and weeping both at the same time.

  I’ll admit I went overboard when it came to decorating the inn for Christmas this season. Not until January, when I had to take everything down and place it in storage, did I acknowledge that this excess of Christmas cheer was a blatant attempt to lift my own spirits. Now, with the decorations down, the inn looked stark and bleak to me.

  My guests came and went with rapid regularity. A few special ones returned. Mary Smith, who had stayed at the inn a few months after I purchased the bed-and-breakfast, had come with her husband. She’d originally visited while she was battling breast cancer, and had reconnected during her visit with a Seattle attorney she’d once loved. Mary’s cancer was in remission and she and her husband seemed blissfully happy. Perhaps the healing power found at my inn was stronger than I realized.

  If only that had been the case for Coco and Katie when they were here back in September for their ten-year class reunion. Coco and Katie. It saddened me to remember that the inn had failed them both.

  In an effort to brighten the bleak days that followed Christmas, I decorated the inn for Valentine’s Day, although it was early yet, still January. I felt like a hypocrite, hanging hearts from the ceiling over the dining room table.

  There had been no further word since the news reports of the ISIS kidnapping. I had no way of knowing if it was in fact Mark, as Peggy had worried. But if Mark was alive I felt certain I would have gotten some form of communication by now…and I hadn’t. The hard part was that there might never be closure for me with Mark.

  When I had first learned Paul’s helicopter had been shot down, I clung to the hope that my husband had somehow survived. It took a year for his remains to be located and identified. I steadfastly refused to believe my husband was dead and when I was forced to accept the truth, it was like losing him all over again. The grief and pain had been debilitating. I wouldn’t do that with Mark. It was too painful to live my life in limbo. As far as I was concerned, I had to move forward as if he were gone from me forever. For the sake of my sanity, I accepted that Mark was out of my life.

  As I stood on a chair with a shiny red heart dangling from a thread, I glanced out the window and heard a car pull into the driveway. I recognized the two women who got out and walked toward the inn.

  Coco and Katie, my high-school-reunion girls. The very ones I’d just been thinking about.

  I jumped down off the chair, and Rover and I were at the front door and had it open before they reached the top step.

  “Remember us?” Coco asked, smiling broadly.

  “Of course I do,” I said, inviting them inside. I hugged them both.

  “We were in town and decided to stop by and tell you our news.”

  “Come in. Tell me.” I led the way to the living room. “The coffee’s on if you’d like a cup.”

  Katie glanced at her wrist. “Sorry, but we’re due at a friend’s house in fifteen minutes.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked eagerly. They both looked wonderful. Happy.

  We sat together, the three of us, in my living room.

  “You first,” Katie said, gesturing to her friend.

  Coco thrust out her arm and wiggled her ring finger, displaying a diamond engagement ring. My eyes went from the ring to Coco. She must have read the question in me, because she rushed to add, “It’s from Hudson. You gotta love this guy. He knows what he wants and so do I.” Her face shone with joy. “He couldn’t decide if he should give it to me January eighteenth on Stephen Hawking’s birthday or January twenty-second on Sir Francis Bacon’s birthday, and Carl Sagan’s somewhere in there, too. So he chose January twentieth.”

  “Tell her what he did,” Katie urged. “This is so romantic.”

  Coco’s smile covered her entire face. “He insisted on showing me this scientific experiment he’d first tried as a kid using household items. He had baking soda and vinegar and a bunch of other stuff out on my shelf. We were in my kitchen and then his experiment bubbled over and there was a huge mess. I laughed and told him he wasn’t allowed to use the kitchen any longer to teach me about science. When he finished, I dutifully applauded and then he frowned and said something had gone wrong because there appeared to be an object in the bottom of the glass. I looked and sure enough there was, and it was a diamond ri
ng.”

  “Hudson isn’t the most romantic guy in the world, but he outdid himself with this proposal.” Katie smiled at her friend as she spoke.

  “Then Hudson proposed. He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him,” Coco said, her eyes dreamy with the memory, “and then I got down on both knees next to him and said yes.”

  “Through her tears,” Katie added.

  “Okay, I’ll admit I was crying, but Hudson was so sweet and so sincere and so wonderful.”

  “That’s marvelous,” I said, genuinely pleased for her. “Congratulations.”

  “He wanted to put the ring in my latte because we meet up every morning at Starbucks, but he changed his mind, which is probably a good thing. Knowing me, I would have probably swallowed it and Hudson would end up doing the Heimlich maneuver.” Coco turned to her friend. “Okay, Ms. Know It All, your turn.”

  Katie turned toward me. “My story with James isn’t as dramatic or romantic as Coco’s.”

  “It is, too,” Coco insisted. “It’s every bit as romantic and wonderful.”

  “Wonderful for sure,” Katie concurred.

  I held up my hand. “I thought you told me he was engaged to someone else.”

  “Was, past tense,” Coco supplied. “Oh sorry, Katie, this is your story.”

  “I won’t go into the broken-engagement part although it does play a key role in the story. Really all I have to tell you is that James and I have gotten back together and our relationship is better than ever.”

  “You should see the two of them,” Coco said, and then grew thoughtful. “They both realize, I think, how close they came to living completely separate lives. If any two people need each other, it’s Katie and James. They’re perfect together, two halves that make up a whole.”

  “What about you and Hudson?”

  “Talk about yin and yang,” Coco said, and laughed. “We’re two people who are exact opposites but we agree on everything that matters. Well, other than the names of our children. I am not going to saddle a son with the name Francis or Albert. Besides I think Hudson Junior is a perfectly fine name.”