by Lisa Plumley
But this time, with Reid, things were going to be different. They had to be different. Because Karina had to help him. She had to prove to him—to herself—that she could succeed. She had to prove that if difficulties arose in a relationship, she could solve them. Maybe then she’d have the courage to risk being with Reid, heart and soul. Maybe then she’d believe she could love someone and not wind up abandoned in the end.
Maybe then their Christmas fling could be something more.
For all those reasons—for her heart and soul—Karina stood her ground. No matter how hurt she felt—and she felt very hurt by Reid’s snarky digs at her career expertise—she wasn’t backing down. “But now is when you do need me!” she insisted. “I know about Edgware, Reid, and I know you probably feel responsible—”
His gaze sharpened. “What do you know about Edgware?”
“Well, just that the, um, B&B sale fell through.” Too late, Karina realized that, in her haste to reassure Reid, she’d backed herself into a corner. The bad news had just come from Edgware. Only the people directly involved—like the Sullivans, Stephanie, and (unfortunately) Karina—could have known about it. With no other choice—and with Reid on the verge of walking away—she decided to go for broke. There was no point hiding the truth now. She hauled in a deep breath. “But you’re not responsible for what happened! I know, because I was the secret Edgware evaluator. I was the one filing reports. So that means—”
Reid’s horrified expression finally registered. He looked as though she’d kicked him. Desperately, Karina kept talking.
“—that means I’m the perfect person to help you now!” she insisted, pleading with him to understand. “I know all the rules. I know how things are supposed to work at the company—”
“‘The company’?” He shook his head. “You work for Edgware?”
He was taking the news pretty well, Karina realized. He seemed very calm. Almost eerily so, in fact. Newly worried, she nodded. “Yes. But only on a standin basis! I was doing a favor for my sister. She’s the one who was supposed to come here.”
“And tell Edgware our concept isn’t worth franchising?”
“No! I mean, yes, Stephanie was assigned to do the B&B evaluation. But she hadn’t made up her mind about The Christmas House yet. Her report probably would have been great! You know, other than mentioning those few incidents, of course. Those would have to have been included, for accuracy’s sake.” She was rambling now, getting off track. Hastily, Karina regrouped. “But my nephew got sick at the last minute, and Stephanie couldn’t come. So I came here in her place.” She broke off, tardily realizing that disclosing all this could still get Stephanie into trouble with Edgware. “And I did my best to do a fair evaluation,” she finished lamely. “At least until today.”
“Right. Until today, when you let the hammer fall on this place,” Reid said, misunderstanding her. “It was your evaluation that cost us the sale. It was your evaluation that crushed my grandparents’ hopes and dreams.” He shook his head, not meeting her gaze as he fisted his glove, staring across the snowy yard. “I should have known. I should have seen it! You were always so interested in everything that went on here.”
“I was! I am! I love it here at The Christmas House!”
“You were always behind the scenes, rolling up your sleeves and pitching in without even needing to be asked. I thought you did all that because you liked us.” Liked me, his tightly held jaw said. “Because you wanted to be a part of things. Because you recognized the magic in The Christmas House—the same magic I grew up with—and wanted to belong to it. I thought you wanted to belong to the same fucking magic you made me feel, all over again. Why else would you make me feel that?”
Suddenly, his gaze did swerve to hers—with new vehemence.
Karina quailed beneath his anger. “I’m sorry, Reid! I—”
“I’m sorry too. Because there wasn’t any truth to any of it, was there? You didn’t care about this place. You didn’t care about helping or belonging. You didn’t care about me. You were just a spy, sneaking around, hoping to derail the sale.”
“No. I was never hoping to derail anything!” Karina promised. She wanted to apologize again. She wanted to explain herself further. But what mattered now was helping Reid feel better. So, with effort, she focused on finding him a solution. “Maybe I could rewrite some of the reports,” she offered in a newly positive tone. “Maybe I could upload the checklists I haven’t turned in yet. Maybe I could write additional explanatory notes!” She moved closer to Reid, belatedly realizing that, as long as he was here, there was still hope. Clinging to that hope, she said, “You know, I did try to help you. I downplayed the gift-wrap incident in my daily report. And I deemphasized the power outage too. That could have happened to anyone! So really, I wasn’t a spy. I was a…helper.”
“You,” Reid said simply, “were a liar.”
“But…” Feebly, Karina gestured, pointing out the aid she’d already tried to give him. “But can’t you see? My reports could have been even worse! If I’d included every little thing that happened, my reports would have been even more damning.”
Reid appeared unimpressed. “So you lied to your boss, too. You lied to everyone. Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Well, I can see where it would make you feel less special,” Karina joked. Her attempt at wit fell predictably flat. Still desperate to find a resolution, she reverted to practicality again. “All I’m saying is, even though the B&B has some problems, none of them are insurmountable. Maybe next year, or two years from now, Edgware will reconsider.”
“My grandparents needed this sale now.” Reid swallowed hard. “They already spent the money they would have received. Foolishly, I know. But they counted on Edgware. They trusted them.” His gaze was fierce and unrelenting. “They trusted a faceless corporation the same way I trusted its spy. Not that I would expect you to understand trust.”
“Me? Why not?” Karina blinked, hurt that he kept calling her a spy—that he kept digging at her. “I understand trust!” She gave a helpless, shaky laugh. “I’m still me, after all.”
“Right. You’re still you.” Reid’s expression was unforgiving. “And who is that, exactly? Who are you, Karina? Because I sure as hell don’t know anymore…if I ever did.”
“Yes, you do! You know me.” Struck by his harsh tone, Karina took a step back. “After all we’ve been to each other—”
“We’ve been nothing to each other,” Reid said coldly. “Nothing.” The fact that he’d purposely interrupted her—again—to deliver that cutting statement said volumes about his desolate mood. “What we had was a meaningless holiday affair. Now it’s over and done with, just the way it should be.”
“Over? We’re not over.” Drawing in another deep breath, Karina reminded herself that people said cruel things when they were upset. Her training and experience proved it. “You’re just saying that because of the evaluation. But you know me. You do!” She gave another shaky laugh. She timidly smiled. “You’re just upset right now. I understand. Later, we’ll—”
“There won’t be any ‘later.’”
“Of course there will be.” Karina tried to chuckle, but her throat felt as dry as dust. Mustering cheerfulness was impossible. “I care about you. You care about me. It’s not even Christmas Eve yet,” she pointed out in a last-ditch attempt to make him listen to reason, “so technically our holiday affair can’t be over with. It’s simply not time to call it quits.”
“You’re right. It’s past time.” Reid examined his bloodied palms, then his bruised hand. When he lifted his gaze to hers, it really was as though he’d never known her. It was as though he’d never talked with her, laughed with her…kissed her and declared his love for her amid his snowman-print flannel sheets in The Christmas House’s attic room. “It’s going to be hard enough to finish out Christmas this year. For my guests’ sake—to keep as much holiday cheer going as we can, given all that’s happened—I’d appreciate it if
you’d leave the B&B.”
Karina felt her jaw drop. “Leave? Now?”
Reid glowered at the sugar maple tree. “Now.”
“But I—” I was looking forward to sharing Christmas with you. With our children. With Vanessa and everyone else. “I don’t want to leave. What will I tell everyone?”
A shrug. “You could make up a lie. You’re good at that.”
“I’m not good at that! I’m not!” Karina felt tears well in her eyes. Angrily, she dashed them away. “Reid, I never lied about how I felt about you! I never lied about that.”
Invulnerable to her pleading, Reid gazed at her. Beneath the “nookie beard” she’d teased him about only days ago, his face appeared even harder—even more unmoved—than before. “Maybe not,” he said, “since you never told me how you felt.”
Oh yeah. She hadn’t. Until you say you love me back, he’d told her with a smile, this beard of mine is sticking around.
He’d never shave that beard now, Karina realized. Except maybe as a gesture of hopelessness—as proof that he’d given up on her for good. Because even if she told Reid the truth—even if she told him she did love him back, right then and there—she doubted he would believe her.
The irony was, if she hadn’t pushed so hard to help him a few minutes ago, she might not have overstepped that line. She might not have accidentally blurted out her knowledge of the Edgware cancellation. She might not have started the ball rolling toward this awful, inevitable-feeling conclusion.
Now, not only had she failed to help Reid, but she’d also managed to make things irrevocably worse between them.
He didn’t want her love. He didn’t want her help.
He didn’t want her explanations. He didn’t want her.
“But I did feel it!” Karina cried, remembering the joyfulness she’d experienced in Reid’s arms. “I did! I was just afraid to tell you, for—for so many reasons.” Many of them to do with life-altering moments like this one. The thought gave her the courage to rally one final argument. “If what we had was so ‘meaningless,’” she demanded, “then why are you still here?”
For an instant, she thought she’d gotten through to him. Reid blinked. He gazed at her. His expression eased into the one she recognized so well—the one that looked as though everything he wanted could be found in her eyes…in her heart.
But then Reid shook his head, and her hopes were dashed.
“I have no idea. Be out of the B&B by nightfall.”
He turned away, his shoulders wide and bleak against the snowy, sparkly, almost Christmastime world that Kismet was such a part of. Then he paused, seemed to reconsider, and delivered a fluent helping of multilingual swearing.
“I’ll make sure you have a room someplace in Kismet,” Reid said in a grudging, suspiciously hoarse voice. “I wouldn’t want Olivia, Josh, and Michael winding up on the street.”
He does care. A little. Not much. But more than zero.
Feeling her heart expand, Karina held her breath. Don’t bother, she wanted to say, all proud and strong. I’ll find someplace to stay myself. But she didn’t have many options.
With her mind awhirl and her pride scattered, she nodded.
“Maybe Lagniappe at the Lakeshore,” Reid mused, giving her one last over-the-shoulder glance. “You’d fit right in there.”
Karina frowned. “But you said the people at Lagniappe at the Lakeshore are a bunch of cheating liars who’d as soon sabotage The Christmas House as they’d sing ‘Silent Night.’”
A heartbeat passed. “Exactly,” Reid said.
And then he was gone.
Chapter Twenty
…From the desk of Betty Sullivan
DECEMBER 24TH
LOCATION: KISMET (AKA “THE MERRIEST TOWN IN MICHIGAN”)
SCHEDULED EVENT: ANNUAL “KISMET CHRISTMAS PARADE AND HOLIDAY LIGHTS SHOW”—10:00 A.M. TO MIDNIGHT WHO CARES ANYMORE?
With a steadiness and certainty born of long experience, Reid laid out all his supplies. He arranged a towel, a bar of shaving soap, a sleek-handled brush, and his favorite razor on the vanity, which stood tucked under the eaves in the bathroom of his attic room at the B&B. Soon, he was ready to get started. No excuses. Karina didn’t love him. That was that.
So his “good-luck” beard was history, starting…now.
Except one of the maids had arranged holiday garland around the mirror, he noticed sourly. That had to go first. There was no way he could concentrate on getting rid of his erstwhile “nookie beard” while all that Christmassy stuff was hanging around, distracting him with its stupid jolliness. This was a delicate job. It demanded the utmost focus and deliberation.
He didn’t want to wind up spending Christmas all bandaged up like The Invisible Man in that old movie, did he? Hell, no. He’d scare his own children and everyone else’s, besides.
Except Karina’s kids. As much as he wanted to, he wouldn’t get to see Josh, Michael, or Olivia. But that didn’t mean—
Swearing, Reid tore down the garland. With relish, he stuffed the jolly-looking evergreens in the trash can. In triumph, he put his hands on his hips and glared at the trash.
The garland poked out again, springing back to life like the sappy, unforgivable hopefulness that had plagued Reid ever since he’d turned his back on Karina in the yard yesterday.
It had taken everything he had not to turn around again. Not to promise her a room at a hotel downtown and a permanent place in his heart…in his life. But just when he’d felt on the verge of caving in completely, he’d glimpsed his grandfather’s battered Flexible Flyer sled, with its steel runners and iconic red and tan body, propped there on the front porch, and he’d remembered. He’d remembered all those Christmases growing up at The Christmas House—all those Christmases his grandparents had given him, and his parents, and Vanessa, and all the rest of his cousins. He’d remembered…and he’d kept walking, damn it.
Because Reid owed his loyalties to the people who were counting on him. He owed everything to the people who loved him—especially to the people who weren’t afraid to say so. He didn’t owe anything to a woman who’d lied to him from the moment they’d met—a woman who hadn’t quit lying, all the way to the end.
I did feel it! I did! I was just afraid to tell you….
Karina’s words still echoed in his head. They tempted him to abandon everything he knew. They tempted him to put what he wanted before what he’d promised. They tempted him to lay down his loyalties and (literally) sleep with the enemy.
But Reid couldn’t do that. Not now.
He couldn’t do that any more than he could keep this pathetically optimistic “nookie beard” on his face any longer. The plain truth was, he’d given up hope yesterday. Now his beard made a mockery of everything he’d once succumbed to, including Christmas cheer…and the unending hope that Karina would love him back.
Determinedly, Reid met his own gaze in the mirror.
Damn. He looked like hell.
Swearing, he turned his head for a better look. A fresh angle didn’t help. The events of the past twenty-four hours had taken their toll on him. Out of the corner of his eye, Reid glimpsed the garland, slowly unwinding itself from the trash can and trying to spill onto the floor. Undoubtedly, the damn stuff would wend its way back up the mirror if given the least bit of leeway. With new prejudice, Reid crammed it down. With his foot.
Okay. Shaving. Trying not to stare at the dark hollows under his eyes, Reid turned on the water. He splashed his face. The maneuver wasn’t strictly necessary. He’d gotten out of the shower only moments ago. But it felt like a fitting prelude.
Wholly of its own accord, his gaze fell to the towel he’d arranged. A row of printed Santas gaped up at him, their idiotic grins making a joke of his misery. He couldn’t tackle the job of shaving his beard in this environment. It was way too ebullient. Frowning, Reid stomped across the floor in his thermal T-shirt and flannel PJs. He slam-dunked the Santa towel in the trash.
But that didn�
��t feel right, either. Bothered but still determined, Reid picked up the soap anyway. With efficient movements, he worked up a lather, then brushed it on his face. Half his face. Because as he did so, he happened to glimpse the reflection of his sleigh bed—and its holiday-print bedding—in the bathroom mirror.
Grinning snowmen? They smirked up at him, reminding him of better days, better times…better versions of himself, before he’d been drop-kicked back to reality by Karina’s confession.
A part of him wished she’d kept her freaking honesty to herself. She’d already lied to him. She’d gotten away with it, too. Why not let him believe what he wanted? That maybe she did care about him, that maybe Christmas really could be a time for miracles, that maybe he could be a hero for his family?
Scoffing at the thought, Reid dropped his shaving brush.
Four minutes later, he was on the move, an impressive bundle of holiday bedding, towels, garland, candles, wreaths, and other assorted tchotchkes in his arms. If The Christmas House had had an incinerator, then that fiery hell would have been his preferred destination for all this red and green junk. As it was, Reid decided to settle for the upstairs closet that served as a housekeeping station for this part of the B&B.
Halfway there, he ran into Vanessa. His cousin glanced at his suspiciously merry bundle, lifted her gaze to his face, then frowned in commiseration. “Still missing Karina, huh?”
What did she know? Nothing. Yesterday, Vanessa had had the gall to suggest he’d made a mistake in asking Karina to leave.
Angrily, Reid shouldered past her. Or at least he tried to.
Easily blocking him, Vanessa plucked out one of the Santa towels. She wiped off his half beardful of shaving soap, then shook her head. “Admit it, cuz. You’re no good without her. We could all see it. Karina brought out something special in you.”
“Yeah. Disillusionment.” Reid sighed, then noticed his cousin’s hat and coat. “Are you up here for a reason?”
“Yes. To make sure you’re still going to the annual Kismet Christmas parade. It starts in an hour.”